Mike Goldman

Simon chats to Mike Goldman, Australian Entertainment Royalty.

Show Notes

Mike Goldman is Australian entertainment royalty. Most well known from his time presenting Big Brother and being the voice over for Amart Sports, he’s now the owner and CEO of www.EverythingLive.com, an innovative platform bringing Facebook Live video to the masses. He’s incredibly entertaining and his ideas and thoughts about the media industry in Australia are insightful.

You can contact Mike Goldman here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-goldman-4a265b18/

Transcript

Simon Dell: I am lucky enough to be joined this week by my very first famous celebrity guest, the legend that is Mike Goldman. For people who don’t know him, which is very few people who don’t know you, a TV host, voiceover artist, thousand hours of live national and international programs for people like the BBC, Channel 7, 9, 10 Australia, voice of many great TV shows and big brands. So welcome to the show, Mike Goldman.

Mike Goldman: What a fabulous introduction. Thank you very much.

Simon Dell: The pressure is on here.

Mike Goldman: It absolutely is. I can see you’ve done your research on Wikipedia and LinkedIn. Because if you went to Wikipedia, it says: “Mike Goldman regularly competes in triathlons and is a weightlifter.” And I added that just to see if it would stick, and I’ve actually had people introduce me and ask me about my triathlons and weightlifting. It’s so cool.

Simon Dell: You never then fancied actually living that after you’ve put that on there, about doing a triathlon? You’ve never done a triathlon, I take it?

Mike Goldman: I was a surf lifesaver when I was a kid, and I did the Iron Man and all that kind of stuff. But I don’t think I’ve… No. I’ve never completed a full triathlon. Why would I want to put my body through that kind of pain unless it was going to be something you win at the end? I mean, sure, people say they do it because – they know they did it, but you know you did it because your body fucking hurts. Like, why? I mean, just go to the gym once or twice a week and be fit. Do you have to? I don’t get it.

Simon Dell: That’s ridiculous. Me neither. First question I ask everybody is: What was your first job? And, I mean very first job that you got paid money for.

Mike Goldman: The first job was when I was about 13 or 14. Actually, no. That wasn’t. I was going to say Sizzler, but it was before that.

Simon Dell: You worked at Sizzler?

Mike Goldman: I did work at Sizzler.

Simon Dell: We’ll come to that in a minute.

Mike Goldman: Before that, when I was about eight or nine, my dad was a voice-over artist. He still is, and they thought they’d try out using a couple of kids in commercials. And I started getting a bit of a following, and I’m making all this money for being a voice-over artist. And the first commercial I did was for Commodore 64 computers. And it was here at a studio in Sydney called David and John. That’s the first time I made money. And it actually went towards getting my teeth fixed, which taught me the value of money real quick.

Simon Dell: I can imagine because that can’t have been a pleasant experience, doing all that work for that money and then having your teeth fixed.

Mike Goldman: Yeah, especially because my friend knocked my teeth out with a big stick. And I’m like, “Dad, my friend knocked my tooth out.” He goes, “Oh well, you got the money to pay for it.” I’m like, “I’m 12. Are you serious?” “Yep.”

Simon Dell: You didn’t get a free Commodore 64 out of it, did you?

Mike Goldman: No, nothing. I’ve got new teeth. That’s about it.

Simon Dell: Wow. Some kids were getting new computers and Commodore 64s, and you were getting new teeth.

Mike Goldman: I wish I had a Commodore 64. Actually, my brother got one because our parents broke up. And you know, our parents are trying to outdo each other with presents. And I ended up staying with Dad. Clearly, I got a lot of stuff, and my brother stayed with my mom. We had him so worked out with getting anything we wanted. And he had a Commodore 64, and he used to have a cassette deck to play a video game. We used to wait for 25 minutes for Transformers The Game to load, and all it was was a little truck that went along the bottom of the screen, and then turned into a man, and then into a truck.

Simon Dell: I remember those, yeah. And it used to make the sound when it loaded the game up, didn’t it? It was like a whistling sound. 

Mike Goldman: Actually, it made the audio like the Transformers sound. That was what excited us more than anything. And then we get in trouble with mom for playing it for more than an hour. And nowadays, kids are getting in trouble for watching other kids playing video games because their parents want their kids to actually play the video games. They’re too lazy to even play them.

Simon Dell: Was it Twitch? Do you watch Twitch at all?

Mike Goldman: I was actually watching a Twitch last night. It’s in Apple TV now. You can download it in Google Play and iTunes. For those people, that don’t know, it’s this app where kids play video games and other kids watch them. And if they’re rich kids and they’re the son of an Arab or a billionaire Bitcoin tycoon, then they could just download money, download thousands of dollars while these kids are playing games.

And there’s some really funny videos on YouTube of these kids. They’re playing their game, and they’re in their own little world drinking their Slurpee and playing World of Warcraft or whatever, and then all of a sudden they look at their screen and someone’s just donated them $500. And they just scream like maniacs. It’s hilarious. I think there’s a couple of fake ones on there though, because watching last night, I got into a bit of a YouTube / Twitch hole. I was watching this guy who got donated $100. It was like a 30-40 year old dude. You totally shouldn’t be playing in that world. And he’s got $100. He’s like, “Wow, that’s awesome.” And he got $500, and he’s like, “What? That can’t be right.” And then he got $10,000, and then he got $100,000, and then he got $500,000. And the person said, “I work for Google. I’m one of the founders. Go and buy yourself a nice place.” And this guy went nuts. I don’t know if it’s true.

Simon Dell: What do you watch people playing?

Mike Goldman: I don’t personally sit there and watch constantly. I think it’s fucking boring as batshit. I was watching a guy last night. He’s playing World of Warcraft, Call of Duty. I used to love Call of Duty.

Simon Dell: I was a big Call of Duty fan, yeah.

Mike Goldman: And it was cool. You put your headphones on. I had a group of friends that I’d play with a couple times a week, and we called ourselves ‘The Unit’. We’d all talk to each other on our headphones and microphones while we’re going into it. But I was shit, and they deleted me from the group because I was so bad and I always keep killing our own players.

Simon Dell: It’s interesting you say that about the gaming. There was an article the other day that I shared on LinkedIn about some of the bigger brands and some of the big agencies and now looking to start spending their advertising dollars in those kind of games, in that kind of Twitch environment.

Because Google and Facebook is so… Yeah. They think that that’s them shifting the dollars from Google and Facebook into this gaming platform.

Mike Goldman: I saw it last night and I went, “What the fuck?” It had a Geico logo whenever you use the scope on Call of Duty. They must’ve figured out that the amount of times kids use the scope, and use that that clicker that amount of times, probably a billion times a day people use the scope. “Okay, we’re going to put the Geico logo.” Because you know people are really looking very carefully when they look through the scope and they’re going to see that Geico logo.

And then after about 30 seconds, it changed to a Ford logo. And after 30 seconds, it changed to another logo. That was the place in the game where… I don’t know if it’s either a deal with Twitch and whoever owns Call of Duty, but I thought it was very clever. It’s exactly what you said; the money is moving.

Simon Dell: I can’t imagine the Call of Duty company. I can’t of imagine they would allow that without them getting some sort of cut even if it was Twitch created.

Mike Goldman: It’s all about eyeballs, isn’t it?

Simon Dell: Absolutely.

Mike Goldman: I talked with a guy from APN a couple days ago, the billboard people, and he said they are just laughing. All the money is coming from TV at the moment and it’s going to billboards because it’s there. It’s in the street. People are going to see it. It’s guaranteed eyeballs. Whereas TV are going, “Oh, you know, we’ve got big-footed lesbian farmers from Ipswich. We’re number one in viewing.” And it’s like, they’re just losing in a big way. That’s why so many people who worked in TV for years like myself are starting our own shows and building our own following.

Because unlike a TV station, you would go, “Okay, we got a show on this Friday. We need to promote it with all these wacky trailers five months out and say how amazing it’s going to be.” Then the day after, we’ll look and see how we went. But with me and you making shows, we build this huge encyclopaedia of programs with different people we interview. And then you promote it and then you build your following.

Simon Dell: Yeah. I know you’ve got, and certainly your father as well, a long history in radio. Do you think radio suffers the same issues as TV does these days?

Mike Goldman: Well, radio has done very well to transform itself over the years. I remember when I worked at Triple M in Brisbane back in the 90s. I set up the first radio station, first commercial radio station website in Australia. Because the ABC had it the day after the internet was invented because they’re all nerds. And my site, I went a step further. We broadcast my show on the internet even though it didn’t sound that good.

And then when we figured out we can put photos up, we thought, “Okay, well, everyone’s going to do this soon. Let’s be ahead of them and let’s broadcast our show in the nude.” We did Nude Night on the Net and we promoted a week leading into it, we have a new photo every 10 minutes of us sitting there. And then that went so well we did Nude Night on the Net 2 which was from the opening of a strip club, and Nude Night on the Net 3, which was the opening of Santa Fe Gold, a hell fire night.

Anyway, I was shifting off your point there, radio has just reminded me…

Simon Dell: You just wanted to talk about you getting nude. That’s what it was.

Mike Goldman: Exactly. I thought that was what this show was about. So, radio has moved with the times. I don’t think they’re getting it completely right with their podcasts, but definitely with their promoting at the entertainment, and the news, and everything like that, they’re sort of morphing into the radio / TV show on the web, which is what the TV networks should be doing. They are doing it with their digital platforms. I think they need to do it even more.

Simon Dell: I try not to get into any arguments in Twitter these days. That’s a rabbit hole that you go down and can’t get back out of. But obviously, a lot of people after the budget the other day were criticising the government taking a lot of money away from ABC. And I can’t help thinking that some of these commercial channels, and the ABC, and SBS, and things like that are reaching the end of a certain life span. Not necessarily reaching the end of their life, but reaching the end of a lifespan, a part of their life.

Mike Goldman: But think about why the ABC was invented was because there were these commercial networks that were trying to make money, and they had ulterior motives, and they still do for things that they want to push and brands that they want to protect. And so, the ABC was set up to be a voice of the people. It would criticise the government both left and right. You don’t need the ABC anymore. It’s done. It’s finished, and all it is is a bunch of people who used to work at Seven, Nine, and Ten who landed a job because ABC are thinking they might know everything and they might save us.

It’s bullshit. ABC should be canceled, and everything that’s on the ABC should just be put on the web. We could save billions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer’s money. Sure, people are going to lose their jobs, but it’s going to create jobs at the same time because it won’t be run by a bunch of people who think they know everything. And the people who are actually talented who work there can go out and do it for themselves.

People are becoming their own brand, and becoming their own agency, and becoming their own TV network.

Simon Dell: Especially with Netflix as well. You read stuff about the Australian government going to force Netflix to have a certain amount of Australian content. And you just go, “I just don’t understand how that works, as if Netflix give a fuck, really.”

Mike Goldman: I understand because, I mean, the same thing happening in Indonesia recently – or it was actually a couple of years ago when Netflix started in Indonesia. Indonesian government said, “You need to give us some of the money or do an arrangement with us because we have 230 million people here, and apparently, you’re making $60 million a month out of us.” And so, Netflix said, “We’re Netflix. Piss off. What are you going to do about it?”

What they didn’t realise was the Indonesian government own 96% of the telco networks in Indonesia. They flipped the switch. No more Netflix. Netflix are banging on the door, “Hey, Indonesia. We’re sorry. Please!” And they didn’t speak to them for months, and there was no Netflix. And all these people wanted their money back. And then all of a sudden, I think a meeting was called – because this is what I was told. This is hearsay. Could be fake news, but I’m just repeating something that someone told me that’s from Indonesia. They said they had a meeting with Netflix.

Netflix said, “Yeah, what do you want?” And they said, “Just don’t be arrogant. We’ll put you back on.” And so, I don’t know what deals have been done. In Australia, they’re making money out of Australian people, fair enough. And if they want a bad taste in the mouth of Australians that are watching and thinking, “I’m giving billions of dollars coming from Australia every year and they’re not doing anything to support our local industry.” Eventually, that’s going to come around and bite them on the ass. 

But it’s nice they’re getting onto it early. Someone told me the other day that Netflix are losing a lot of money.

Simon Dell: I’m not actually sure where they are in terms of cash flow. I mean, I know they’re spending billions of dollars on content now globally, but I can’t imagine there… Well, I don’t know.

Mike Goldman: Have you watched the shows on Amazon?

Simon Dell: No. I haven’t yet.

Mike Goldman: They’re good, and the quality is so much better. It’s like they’re really spending the bucks. Some of the shows on there, like The Man in the High Castle, it’s about as if Germany won World War II and the Japanese and the Germans have taken over America. It’s so good. And not saying that that would be a good thing if it happened, but it’s such a mindfuck.

And there’s another show called The Amazing Mrs. Maisel which is one of the first women stand-up comedians from the 40s or 50s who got up on stage and said it like it was, and the backlash from her saying things, and doing things that she did. And there’s a new one with Jeff Daniels called The Looming Tower, which is all about the George Bush era, not 9/11. It’s done so well. Highly recommend watching that one for sure.

Simon Dell: I think the big challenge for me is time now. How do you sit down and watch all of these things? So, you’ve come from a background… Let’s call it broadcasting royalty. Was that always where you were going at the time, or were you tempted to stay working for Sizzler all those years ago?

Mike Goldman: I had a great time at Sizzler. That was fun, especially when they changed managers and I was 15. And he said, “How old are you? We need someone behind the bar.” I said, “18.” And it was like one for me, two for you. Two for me, three for you.

Simon Dell: There’s a brand that just failed to keep up with everything else that was going on. I was reading that Godfreys are in trouble as well.

Mike Goldman: Nando’s, Red Rooster…

Simon Dell: Oh, yeah. Red Rooster and one of the other ones.

Mike Goldman: But you know why? Because people can just push a button and get anything from a restaurant. A couple of nights ago, I was looking through the Deliveroo menu, and there was a vegetarian vegan place that I’ve never heard of. It turns out it was someone running it from the kitchen, and Deliveroo is going to the kitchen. They’re only delivering to houses. You can’t eat at their place like a restaurant.

Simon Dell: Well, that to me was the next step. I think it’s what they call dark kitchens. It’s either people that are running it from either their own homes, but I think what’s more likely is people using commercial kitchens that don’t have the traditional restaurant attached to it. And potentially, in that commercial kitchen, they’re generating four or five different menus. So, maybe an Indian, and a Chinese, and whatever. But, you couldn’t actually eat at the restaurant.

Back to that original question. Was that broadcasting space something you were always destined to be in?

Mike Goldman: It’s funny. I only recently did a course with a guy called Dr. John Demartini. He looks at your whole life and you figure out what direction you are heading in, and how you got to this place where you are, and trying to figure out if it aligns with your highest value, to figure out if that’s what – you truly the person you are and what you want to do. And it made me question everything like you’re saying, “Did I think I was always going to do this?” 

But then I went down and I looked at everything piece-by-piece. If anything, it just gave me a laser focus as to who I am, and what I’m doing, and where I’m going. Definitely in the right track. So yeah, 100%. And my mom was a weather girl on Channel 7 and Channel 10. She worked at entertainment. My dad still has a radio show that he’s been doing since he was 16 at different stations across Australia. 

He hosted the first colour TV show in Australia which was Countdown before Molly Meldrum, just them growing up around that. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I was always someone who wanted to get up, and entertain, and get the crowd’s attention, to make people happy and make people laugh. There’s so much crap going on in the world, and so much anxiety, and so much shit. I just want people to see the good things about life and have a good time.

Simon Dell: Did you ride off the back of your mum and dad’s careers? Did they make you stand up on your own? Did they give you a hand up or introduce you to people, those kind of things?

Mike Goldman: My dad bought me my first disco gear. I was doing mobile discos from 13. I had to pay him 70% of everything I made.

Simon Dell: That’s a terrible deal.

Mike Goldman: Big commission, but he had to drive me there, help me set it all up. He had to wait in the car.

Simon Dell: Sit outside waiting in the car for hours.

Mike Goldman: Yeah. Well, he was actually at the TAB up the road. And yeah, he helped me do my first voiceover demo. He got me my first job in radio which was in Taree in the country. And I was about 16. I was an office boy at 2SM in Sydney before that. The old saying was you got to go to the country, you got to learn everything, got to learn how to do the news, the breakfast show, the night show. And it was good training ground.

Simon Dell: The question I was going to ask you now, because I said to a friend of mine about an hour ago that I was talking to you. And he said to me I had to ask you about a band called Polish.

Mike Goldman: Oh shit. When I got fired from Triple M in Brisbane, it was because the other guy who was on air was a bit of a fuckup. They put him on my show about a year earlier. It just all turned to shit. They said, “You seem pretty focused on this new band that you have. Maybe you should pursue that a little bit more.” 

I was playing my band on the radio, and any acts that came in. I was asking if my band could support them. I got to play at Festival Hall with Bad Religion, and tour The Angels, and the Hoodoo Gurus, and had the best fun. So yeah.

Simon Dell: What do you play?

Mike Goldman: Guitar and sang. I didn’t really do that anymore. The band kind of fell apart after a few years, and I ended up working on a few TV shows, and the voiceover stuff really took off for me. I just got a bit fed up with paying for all the recordings, and then you’d go and do an original gig, and you’d make $12.50 off the door, and everyone want a cut from it.

Simon Dell: Are there some recordings of the band out there somewhere?

Mike Goldman: Yeah. If you go on YouTube, there’s lots of tracks. We recorded with Jeff Lovejoy, who’s a producer for bands like Regurgitator, and Powderfinger, and Greg Macainsh who wrote all the songs for Skyhooks. And the other reason why we got him to produce our album is because he was dating my mother at the time.

Mom had a thing for bass players. I don’t know why.

Simon Dell: Yeah, bass players are normally the last people to get any kind of groupies.

Mike Goldman: I introduced her to Gene Simmons once and I didn’t see her for three days. Seriously.

Simon Dell: I’m sure your mom would really appreciate that you telling this stuff.

Mike Goldman: She doesn’t care. She was single. She wanted to have fun. It was her birthday and I took her to the concert backstage because Gene gave me some tickets and said, “Come down.” I invited all the girls from Santa Fe Gold, the strip club where I just done Nude Night on the Net 2 at. And all of a sudden, he’s walked past all these strippers and straight up to my mom. And he’s like, “Hey Mike, who’s this beautiful girl?” 

“Oh, that’s my mom. I’ll get a drink. You guys chat.” You go to the drink bar, and turn around, and they were gone. And a few years later, I worked with Gene Simmons when he came out for a tour. And he did these appearances at the Hard Rock Cafe in Sydney and Brisbane. And when we got to the Sydney appearance, I said, “Hey Gene, do you remember young lady Erica that I introduced you to all those years ago? My mom? I didn’t see her for a couple days after the Brisbane concert.”

And he’s like, “Yeah. I meet lots of girls.” And I stopped the interview in front of about 600 people. “I’m serious. I really wanted to confront you about this and find out what happened, because my mom went missing for three days. We found her, but I introduced you to her. You took her away from me.” And he stepped back and I thought, “Oh shit, this is going pear-shaped.” And he just put his arms open wide, and he said, “Son!” And he hugs me.

Simon Dell: Well, at least your mother had fun for three days. Sounds like Gene Simmons did as well.

Mike Goldman: Oh, she did. I said, “I didn’t want to know anything about it.”

Simon Dell: I was going to say, that could’ve ended up completely different. He had a reality TV show, didn’t he?

Mike Goldman: Yeah. I think it’s Simmons Family Values or Gene’s Family Values, something like that?

Simon Dell: Yeah, that could’ve ended…

Mike Goldman: I was talking to him backstage about reality shows, and his show, and School of Rock as well. I think he had something to do with that show. And he said, “Do you know any people who run reality TV shows in Australia?” I’m like, “Yeah. I worked on pretty much every single one of them.” And he said, “You know anyone at X Factor?”

And I’m like, “Yeah, I know Jonathon Summerhays who’s the executive producer who runs Fremantle Productions now. He goes, “Can you get him on the phone?” And I rang him up and I’m like, “Hey, Johno. Goldman.” He goes, “Goldman, what do you want? I’m in the middle of auditions.” I go, “Oh, Gene Simmons is here. He wants to talk to you.” And he goes, “Mate, I don’t want to hear your latest character voice. Can you call me later?” And I go, “Don’t hang up. I’ve seriously got him here. I’m going to put him on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”

And I just put him on and Gene’s like, “Hey, Jonathon Summerhayes, X Factor. I want to come and talk to you.” And so, Johno flew to the Gold Coast and they had a meeting the next day. I don’t know what came of it, though.

Simon Dell: I could imagine Gene Simmons as a judge on X Factor. That would’ve been interesting.

Mike Goldman: Yeah, it’d be cool. He’s a marketing genius. Even when he started Kiss, he was paying girls to come to the shows and scream and carry on like they’re the biggest thing ever. So, he’d get the record company guys to come down, the A&R guys, to sign them. And there’d be these screaming girls, and they think, “How can we not sign these guys? Look at them, and their face paint, and their tights, and the crazy outfits. And these chicks love them.” That’s how they got signed.

Simon Dell: Just to take a slightly different tack. I was reading an interview that you did. It must’ve been fairly recently because it was considered – You were on Nostalgia Week on TV tonight or something like that.

Mike Goldman: Nostalgia Week, holy shit. You feel old when they put you on Nostalgia Week.

Simon Dell: I can imagine.

Mike Goldman: He rang me up to ask me to do that, and I told him to piss off. And he goes, “Alright. It goes out to every TV producer and marketing people in the country, and it’s a good opportunity for you.” And Gretel Killeen said no, so you’ve got a good opportunity. And I’m like, “Whatever. Alright, I’ll do it.” So I did it. It got a lot of people talking, which is pretty funny.

Simon Dell: There’s two things that jumped out straight for me is, first of all, the picture that they used for you on the opening, which is the very Shane Warne-esque haircut at that point. That’s not the best haircut I’ve seen of you.

Mike Goldman: No. I don’t do the blond tips anymore. Dude, I would just come from a 90s rock band and thrust into reality TV in the early 2000s.

Simon Dell: Yeah, it’s not good. But the other thing that jumped out was that you kind of got your break on Big Brother by accident, wasn’t it? Someone else hadn’t turned up or something? Was that the case?

Mike Goldman: Oh, yeah, the crowd warm-up guy hadn’t turned up, and I was only the voice over guy for Big Brother. And so, I said, “Look, I can do crowd warm-up. I’ve been doing it for years on lots of shows.”

Simon Dell: How true was that bullshit?

Mike Goldman: That’s 100% bullshit. I filled in once doing crowd warm-up for a guy who did Gladiators when that was being done back in the 90s. And I mean, I’ve MC’d events. How hard could it be? And they said, “That was great. We’re not going to use the other guy now.” At the entertainment industry, don’t miss a gig or don’t go away on holidays. That guy would have been spewing. Because from that, they said, “This guy’s really good. Let’s put him on the light show that we want to do streaming from the house. We need someone that can talk, and he can obviously talk at the drop of a hat.”

And so, they decided to put me on hosting Big Brother – Up Late for a few years and we were getting huge numbers. Like, if you judge it by the numbers, shows like The Project is getting now, we’re getting double. It was massive. At a Friday night, we’d sometimes get 700,000-800,000 viewers when they’re having a party in the house.

Simon Dell: Just back to that moment when you were sat there and they said to me, “Can you do the warm-up?” Did you have any preparation time? “Can you do it?” “Yes.” “Now you’re on.” Was there any chance for you to get yourself ready?

Mike Goldman: No. It was pretty down to the wire, it was the day before. And they say, “This is going to be about an hour that you need to fill. The audience is going to be about 2,000 people. You just need to be able to come up with some games for them. Do some stand-up. Just do your normal 45-minute stand-up routine. And I’m like, “Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that’s fine. I can sort that out.”

Simon Dell: Did you write that overnight?

Mike Goldman: Pretty much. I had some gags and stuff that I did. Most of them were dad jokes, and I played a few games with the audience. I had a bit of a routine that I worked out where I talk to the crowd. Because I just figured these people were here to watch a show that was going to be filmed. And you just got to make them realize that they’re a part of the show, and just sort of get them up on stage, and doing stuff. It went really well, and something that came quite naturally to me.

And years later, I was hosting Friday Night Live, Big Brother – Up Late, and all these other shows. I had to train another guy by the name of Dave Eastgate to do it. He now does all the big shows that I used to do, which is fun.

Simon Dell: You’re the only person to have that every Big Brother, to be involved in every Big Brother. Was that right as well?

Mike Goldman: Yeah.

Simon Dell: I was going to say, this is a bit of a challenging question. It depends how you see it. The people that were on Big Brother, the actual contestants… Obviously, a lot of them came through and a lot of them had their five minutes in the sun, and all those kind of things. But some of them also had some longevity, people like Fitzy. Fitzy’s still out there, and he was first discovered on Big Brother, wasn’t he?

Mike Goldman: Yes. He did a media training course after his AFL career turned to shit. But he just went on the reality TV show to see what would happen, and Australia loved him. He got a gig on radio and clawed his way to the top, and things have been brilliant for him. He’s by far the most successful Big Brother housemate that we’ve ever had. He’s gone on to host his own TV shows as well, which I had a proud moment when I saw him hosting The Recruit on Foxtel by himself.

Simon Dell: Yes. The ones that have made it, the ones that took that step from that five minutes of fame, what do you think it was that they did? What was different about them that produced that longevity for them?

Mike Goldman: Well first and foremost, they’re likeable. People saw something in them that they wanted to be around, they wanted to have in their life, and they wanted to follow them whether it was Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever we had when he was on the show. And he was just a character. I mean, I got a Paul Hogan kind of vibe off him, the ‘Ocker’ Ozzie bloke. It’s like Reggie when she won all these years ago, when she was more excited about winning a $200 PlayStation than $250,000.

And she’s just a funny little character, and I think that’s what made her likeable. But the difference is, Reggie didn’t have the marketing sense that Fitzy had where he went out and looked for how he could extend his career and keep things moving. Whereas Reggie, she’s just someone who – it wasn’t her highest value to be going out doing a radio show. She wanted to start a family and go and do other stuff. So it depends. And if people work at it and they’ve already started with the following from being on a reality show, they can do quite well out of it.

But there’s a lot of people who go on these kind of shows. They might get 100,000 followers or something like that on social media, and then they’ll get a whole heap of free shit for about six months after. And then it all ends, and they think, “What can I do with this?” And I’ve seen a lot of people who have got all those followers, they go, “Okay, I’ve got to turn this into a marketable brand and try and make money out of it.” You’ll see them get some face cream and take a photo of themselves sitting on the couch with some face cream next to them, like it’s a person. They have no fucking idea.

What’s stupid is all these ad agencies who employ all these other kids to buy all the advertising. They think that, “Oh, that person’s got followers. Just buy an ad on there. Give him the face cream.” It just doesn’t work. But I think now, people are becoming more and more selective about who they use as influencers.

And if someone’s got 10,000 followers and they can speak on stage, they can push a product properly, they can do something funny, they can shoot, and edit, and make something themselves, and they are more valuable to someone who’s just a tool that was on a reality TV show that everyone thought was a dick, and they follow him to see how much they fuck up.

Simon Dell: If you were giving advice to people today and they did have those 10,000-20,000 followers, what would your tips be for them to take it beyond just, “Hi. I’ve got lots of people on the Instagram.” What are some of the other things that they should be thinking about? 

Mike Goldman: Well, I’ve recently worked for Facebook and Instagram at the Commonwealth Games. They sponsored the Comm Games, first sponsoring of a sporting event that they’ve ever done anywhere in the world. And I interviewed all the athletes. They set up a stage and everything like that with an events company called Friends Electric. Basically, what I got from meeting a lot of people from Facebook, and Instagram, and also a lot of athletes who have got a huge amount of followers, it’s all about putting the regular content up.

And if people are liking your stuff, and they’re engaged, then they’re not going to forget about you because humans are creatures of habit. And when they got the habit of watching a TV show every day, and they love that show, and they love you, and they’re following you, then all of a sudden you go away on a six-month holiday, they forget who you are.

Simon Dell: That cycle of fame is almost even shorter now than it’s ever been.

Mike Goldman: Yeah. You’ve just got to constantly be working it and constantly coming up with new stuff. I think the number one thing is definitely for me and also – if those kind of people want to continue building their followers, and milking them, is collaboration. So, you got to team up and work with other people who have followers, and other people who have worked in the same areas you have, or even work with other people who have been on different shows.

And that’s really where YouTube is based, with community, and getting all the followers together. There’s a young girl I know by the name of Megan Batoon in LA. She was a dancer. I knew her a few years ago. She only had about 5,000 or 6,000 followers on YouTube. Then she started doing some videos with these guys who had 1 million followers in Vegas. And then overnight, she got like 200,000-300,000 followers. And all of a sudden, that’s a business. She can travel around the world hosting dance events.

Simon Dell: I found the same thing as well, with the podcast, you go, there are certain people that are really, really interesting, and there are certain people that have a big network. And obviously, what you try to do with the podcast is you try to interview people that have both that are interesting and have a big network. Because one of the early boosts for the podcast was interviewing a guy called Justin Dry who runs an organisation called Vinomofo.

Mike Goldman: I’ve interviewed him. I worked with him a few weeks ago at an event I was hosting.

Simon Dell: Lovely guy, got a great story to tell, all those kind of things. And the Vinomofo brand is a really, really interesting brand as well, and how they move from country to country was quite an interesting story. When we put that podcast out, all the individual Twitter accounts for the Vinomofo countries tweeted that he’d been on this podcast, and if people wanted to listen to it, they should do.

That was the coverage that… There was no way I was going to get that on my own quickly. I want to talk about your current project. It’s called everythinglive.com. Do you want to give us an overview about what that is and how it’s working?

Mike Goldman: Sure. Everythinglive.com is a business I started after I hosted a Facebook live event for Facebook and Red Bull in San Francisco a few years ago. It was basically an event where they gave all these camera men and athletes a Facebook live person to follow them around, so they could film them taking their best photo in San Francisco. We had an award’s night that night. It had everyone from Robbie Madison, who’s the motorbike rider that was in Triple-X – road across the water. He jumped the Champs-Élysées over in Vegas. Had a whole heap of other stunt motorbike riders, stunt BMX riders, skateboarders, windsurfers. 

And that was my first experience in seeing Facebook Live work and seeing how they could open up the floodgates to someone who has a million followers, and Facebook pushing the button, and saying, “Okay. A million followers can see everything that we’re doing today because you’re working with us.” As you know, everyone’s built up this following on Facebook with their like pages, and you got to pay to reach all your fans and your followers.

They said to me then, and it’s still the case now, that if you do a Facebook live, you’re going to reach more of your fans, more of your followers, and potentially more people who don’t even follow you or know who you are by doing something live, because it’s a space that Facebook are really going to work their way into over the next couple of years.

So, I put together the first Tonight Show ever on Facebook live and I shot it on the Gold Coast with my buddy Matt Hollywood. He’s a magician. He’s got a theatre there. So we thought, you know, let’s just start doing some shows. And we had all sorts of celebrities coming on the show doing all sorts of crazy stuff. And then I was working with a lot of Brands like Twinings when they had the tea box design competition with Nicole Kidman, and Carrie Bickmore, and a whole heap of other celebrities. We broadcast the announcement of who was the winner, and who was going to have their design on the box of tea for the next year, and all these millions of dollars go to charity from sales.

Aussie Farmers Direct, they got me driving around in a tractor doing a Facebook live in the city, picking up people and giving them free tractor rides. 

Simon Dell: Do you have to learn to drive a tractor?

Mike Goldman: The funny thing is, this tractor, I didn’t actually learn to drive. They said, “You just need a standard license.” And I’m thinking, “These tires are wider than the actual freaking lane.” You’re up really high, and I’m just trying to talk to the camera while driving a freaking tractor. You’re not supposed to talk on your phone and drive a car, let alone drive a tractor and do a Facebook live. 

Simon Dell: That strikes me as extremely dangerous.

Mike Goldman: Anyway, from doing that, I thought my podcast that I started back when I was on Big Brother has evolved into a show that I shoot and release every Sunday. It’s called On The Mike as a Facebook live as well. That’s sort of been a bit of a promotion for my business, everythinglive.com, where it’s basically – we show up with three or four cameras, and we’ll turn at any event or any function. It can be a wedding, it could be a birthday party, it could be a funeral. We’ve done all of them. It could be launch of a product.

Simon Dell: We’re going to have to interrupt that. You did a funeral?

Mike Goldman: Yeah, we’ve done about six. Basically, what it is, when people can’t make it from overseas but they want to hear the eulogy, they want to make comments, they want to say things… It’s actually quite moving.

Simon Dell: You’re not bringing the Big Brother live kind of feel to a funeral where we’re playing games and things like that?

Mike Goldman: Hahaha. “Hello, ladies! This crowd is dead tonight. Oh, I’m facing the wrong way.” No, it’s not like that at all. And that’s not something that I host. I don’t host all of the Everything Live events that we do. We did a school formal the other night. We did a school awards night a couple of weeks ago. And what’s great about it is we give them a copy of the event in HD. We did a launch of a putt putt golf course the other night. And so, we shot all these celebrities playing these different holes. 

And then we give them the Facebook live in HD, and they can it up into little snackable 10-second, 30-second bits for their Instagram and their Facebook that they just pump out for the next six months.

Simon Dell: You’re essentially taking an event and taking it to a live broadcast, I guess really?

Mike Goldman: Totally. Something I can’t stand is when we go with a film crew to shoot all these planned bits of content for a brand or a product to use for the next six months, they fuck around so much, they’ve got to go on at lunch, they’ve got to have a cup of tea. But if you say, “Right, this is an event here. There’s going to be celebrities here at this time. There’s going to be some things that are going to be spontaneous. We’re just going to go and shoot them. It’s all going to be live. But here’s the points that we need to hit every five minutes. Let’s shoot it, bang, done now.”

It’s so much fun and spontaneous stuff, and more real stuff comes with it. Because there’s so much pus out there on the internet that’s produced, and so well-organised, and it just doesn’t look good. It just looks like a shitty commercial.

Simon Dell: I guess it must appear really authentic as well, because it is authentic. It’s raw.

Mike Goldman: Things fuck up as well, and that’s great. They go, “Oh no. This person just caught the golf ball in their head. This is why you shouldn’t swing your putter that hard at Holy moly.” And so, that’s the reason why they’re saving money as well. They spend $5,000 or $10,000 doing a Facebook live with five cameras, and a couple of hosts, and graphics, and titles, and everything like that. They’ve got an hour or two hours’ worth of content that they can cut up and they can keep using. They’re essentially saving themselves money. 

Simon Dell: What would you take to one of those? Four cameras or…

Mike Goldman: It depends. We got different versions of the Facebook live that we do. We can do it with one camera and one host. But the quality of what we use is not like shooting on an iPhone. We broadcast it to the cloud, and it builds up into – it could essentially go up to 4K, which is more than what TV networks can do. Definitely more than the crappy compressed stuff that Fox still pump out. It’s like this beautiful high-quality stream that you get from the event or whatever it is you want us to cover.

Or you can have the awards night that they wanted the other night at the school. They wanted five cameras. I don’t know why, but we can do five cameras. It’s going to cost you a bit more, but they wanted to cover it from every angle. They wanted some back stage stuff. They wanted people walk in from out the front, and one of three cameras shoot in the actual auditorium as well. And they wanted graphics, and titles, and they wanted a show caller. 

So, someone can go “go camera four, go camera one, go camera two.” And audio comms, talking to all the producers and telling them what we’re going to shoot and where we’re going to now.

Simon Dell: So, you’ve got a whole live production.

Mike Goldman: We’re essentially a mini broadcast company where you’d pay to cover the football, basketball, whatever, you’d have a massive OB van out. You see them outside with a big logo on the side, and you know, they have all the hosts, and the big chords, and cameras. We just miniaturise that and done it for probably 1/100th of the price.

Simon Dell: That’s a fantastic idea. What are people paying for those? If you don’t mind.

Mike Goldman: You can pay anything from a few thousand to $20,000 or $30,000 depending on how many cameramen, what hosts you want to use. You might want to use a primetime TV host who’s on TV right now who might charge $20,000 for an appearance to host something like that or more. Or you might just want someone who’s an influencer who might just want $1,000 or something like that to show up and host something for an hour.

But you got to be careful that you use an influencer that’s had live TV experience, otherwise it can actually make your brand look a hell of a lot worse.

Simon Dell: Are you doing that on your own, or do you have business partners that you’re working with on that?

Mike Goldman: I work with a couple of guys. Michael Zadro, he owns a production company called M45 which is set up. They’ve got offices in Singapore, Indonesia, throughout Asia, and they’ve actually got a few TV shows. I think it’s the number one TV show in Indonesia. It’s like a prank show which everyone watches over there, and they do a lot of corporate videos. Actually, I got a meeting in ten minutes. I’m going to be late. It’s alright, they can talk without me. It’s about producing IMAX content. So, we’re going for the miniature end and the massive end of the market.

But those guys, I work with them producing, and voicing, and hosting different corporate videos. We’re doing some tourism videos for Tourism Indonesia. And so, they’re my crew. They’ve got the edit suites and everything like that that we use there. We’re based in Roseberry in Sydney. I’ve got people who work in Brisbane for me. The other day, they were doing a conference on oncology, I think it was. I’m glad I didn’t have to fly up and do that one. That would’ve been boring. The thing is, it’s not going to be for everyone. That’s what’s great about this.

You can turn your conference on shoelaces into a TV show and it can be beamed around the world, and all of a sudden, you’ve got 10 million people who love shoelaces and want to watch it.

Simon Dell: Given that you’re supposed to be in a meeting in ten minutes, I will ask you the final three questions.

Mike Goldman: No, that’s fine. I can be a bit late. It’s all good.

Simon Dell: I have the same final three questions I ask everybody anyway. The first of the three questions: What are some of the brands that you… In fact, it’s going to be a two-part question because there was another question I wanted to ask you. What are some of the brands that you really like? Things that you buy frequently? Stuff that you see, whether it be TV adverts, or billboards? Clearly not Macs, because before we started this, we’ve had a long conversation about Macs.

Mike Goldman: The new Mac is a piece of shit. I’ll just get the old one. If anyone wants to buy the brand new, top of the range Mac with the 2TB hard drive, just go to Mike at On The Mike dot com and make me an offer. Thank you.

Simon Dell: I just want to see how the little touch thing on the touch bar… I don’t understand it.

Mike Goldman: It’s just the gimmick. I bump the escape key with my pinky because I’m a one-finger typer. I keep losing everything. I mean, Apple’s lost its way since Steve Jobs has gone, 100%. It’s not the company it used to be. But the brands I love… I mean, I love sports gear. I work for the Sydney Kings basketball team. I’m the courtside MC there.

Simon Dell: Were you a big basketball fan before you started working with them?

Mike Goldman: Yeah, absolutely. And my dad back in the 90s was courtside MC at the Sydney Kings as well. So yeah, massive basketball fan. And now, we have Andrew Bogut coming straight from the NBA deciding to knock back NBA contracts, to come and own a share of the Sydney Kings and make the NBL this incredible new entity in Australia. It’s just the biggest news ever.

I mean this guy, he played for 15 years in the NBA. He was the number one NBA draft pick, and he’s won NBA titles. Just to have him playing in Sydney every week is just mind-blowing. I cannot believe he’s going to be there. And they’re talking about, for the first game versus Melbourne, who won the NBL last year or this year’s competition – because we go over Christmas, New Year – they’re saying that we’re going to break the record for Qudos Bank Arena, which is about 21,000 people. I reckon that could potentially happen. Because people will go even if they’re not Sydney Kings fans. They just want to see him play.

Simon Dell: They’ll be bigger crowds to some of the smaller NRL games would get, wouldn’t they?

Mike Goldman: Yeah. I mean, I went to an NRL game the other way, Manly. It was like 1,500 people, 2,000 people there. It’s pathetic. You get more people to a kid’s event. But NRL’s run by a bunch of monkeys who have no idea what they’re doing. It’s been proven time and time again. And I say that, and I used to be the mascot for the Manly Sea Eagles when I was a kid.

But I’m digressing again. Your question was brands that I like. I go to Rebel Sport once a week and always be buying some sort of gym gear, or a basketball, or a mouth guard. I love the way the store is set up. Their branding is so sexy. They’ve got the video screens in there, and they’ve got athletes talking about different products, and it’s a whole experience when you go in there.

I think they’re definitely a store that is changing with the times and with everything that they’re doing online, interviewing athletes, and everything that I see pop up on their feed, it’s absolutely brilliant. I might be a little biased because I’m the voice of Rebel Sport.

Simon Dell: I was going to say you have been working with them for a while.

Mike Goldman: Well, I was working with…

Simon Dell: Was that a paid endorsement?

Mike Goldman: 100%. So, I was voice of Amart Sports for a long time, and then Rebel and Amart combined. I recorded my voice doing the Rebel voiceover. Because the Amart one was like, “20% off all footwear! Get it!” I was screaming, carrying on, but Rebel’s more, “This week at Rebel Sport, get in for 50% off all sportswear.” And they’re like, “Yeah, man. That’s cool.” I didn’t even realise that was you. Let’s try that out for a while. And I had a few months left on my contract anyway. So basically, getting it for free.

And I hosted a few events for them as well. I always go out of my way to interview athletes whenever I can, and put in a sneaky plug for Rebel. So, it’s a good relationship that we have. But other brands that I love other than that… Let me think.

Simon Dell: Clothing?

Mike Goldman: I like Scotch & Soda. It’s a Dutch clothing company. I just did a deal with them. This is another disclosure, they’re going to dress me for my show. And I’ve always loved their stuff but I actually reached out to them and said, “Hey. Can I get some clothes to wear on my show? Because I don’t want to pay for them.”

And they were like, “Yeah, no worries. That’ll be cool.” But I’ve always loved their stuff.

Simon Dell: I have as well. It’s not cheap, which is the… I always feel that when you go and buy something with Scotch & Soda, you’ve got to have a reason to buy. You need to be going somewhere or that kind of thing. 

Mike Goldman: I really like Gucci. Not that I wear a lot of it because it’s so bloody expensive, and it’s pretty out there, but there’s these brands that bring out this full on-the-edge stuff that’s just like, “What the hell is that? You can’t wear that.” And then you think all of a sudden it blends in with fashion that everyone’s wearing at the time. I love that, when fashion designers, especially at the high end, where they’re risking a lot because their companies are worth a lot of money.

And they go and make these outfits like you saw at the Met Ball the other day. It’s just so out there and crazy. Like Jared Leto’s outfit. He looked like he was running some weird cult. And so many other people looked like they were dressed out of a Game of Thrones episode. But yeah, I do like Gucci.

I’ve got this fake Gucci tracksuit that a friend bought me from China. The actual Gucci tracksuit is worth about $4,500 in the shop. And I wear it all the time. I love it. I mean, it’s really cool. So, I actually bought one for my friend Sam and my other mate Henry. He’s actually got a real one because he’s got way too much money.

Simon Dell: I was going to say if that at $4,500 attracts you, I don’t know whether I’d ever wear it for fear of damaging it in any way.

Mike Goldman: Yeah, exactly, but he gets a lot of wear out of it. So, it’s actually a uniform for the Mongol Rally which we’re competing in a couple of months. We’re driving a 1L car from London to Mongolia.

Simon Dell: Wow. A 1L car?

Mike Goldman: Yes, sir, like a Toyota Yaris.

Simon Dell: That’s going to be fun.

Mike Goldman: Yeah.

Simon Dell: What made you want to do that?

Mike Goldman: Well, the Charlie Teo Foundation is an organisation that I’m an ambassador of. And I’ve had a few people that I know have been affected by brain cancer. And my dad’s had cancer for about seven years as well, and another mate died last year. That was a mutual friends of my other couple of friends, who we’re going to go in the Mongol Rally with. And so, we’ve raised about 10,000 bucks so far. I’m hoping to raise a lot more. But if you want to get involved, we’ve got this thing called the Glove Box Challenge.

So, if you make a donation of $50 or more, we will put a photo of your face on the side of the car, and you can put a challenge in the Glove Box Challenge. And so far, people have put in challenges like “wear a nappy for a day”, “cook and eat some road kill”, “go into a hospital”, which it could be a hospital in Russia, and pretend you’re a doctor and help someone. “Go into a bar and asked for a man’s underpants, and you’re not allowed to tell him why.”

Simon Dell: Some of these things, they sound like they’re going to get you either killed or arrested.

Mike Goldman: Exactly. But hopefully, it just raises a lot of money and awareness for the Charlie Teo Foundation.

Simon Dell: If people want to find out about that, where’s the best place for them to go?

Mike Goldman: Just facebook.com/mongolrallymen.

Simon Dell: I’ll put it all up in the show notes as well for people to click on or follow that through.

Mike Goldman: Awesome. Do you write all those show notes or does someone do that for you?

Simon Dell: I do the show notes by myself at the moment.

Mike Goldman: Because you know I’ve just signed up to another podcast site for my show, and they do all the show notes for you which is good, because I’m really lazy.

Simon Dell: You have to tell me about that because I’m as lazy as you.

Mike Goldman: Definitely, and you can write it in the show notes because I can’t remember the name of them.

Simon Dell: Okay, cool. I’ve had actually a couple of the episodes transcribed as well. I’ve had a few people say they actually prefer reading them than they do listening to them. So, that was something… I know, people are…

Mike Goldman: They probably hate the sound of your voice. It does great on me, actually, now that you mention it.

Simon Dell: Oh dear. I thought I was doing so well. 25 episodes in, and now I find this out. So, the second half of that final third question was: Of all the stuff that you’ve done in the past, what’s the one thing that you look back on and go, “Shit, that was cool.” or “I really enjoyed that.” or “I would do that again for free tomorrow.”

Mike Goldman: The first thing that popped into my mind was probably the fundraiser that I did with Olivia Newton-John back in 2009, I think it was. It was called the Great Walk. What was it called? The Great Walk to Beijing or something like that. They had Phyllis Diller, Cliff Richard, Mike Goldman, all these massive celebrities. And basically, we had to – well, you can walk the whole distance to the Great Wall, it’ll take you 10 years. But we went over there to raise funds and awareness for the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness Center.

And if we raised more than a million bucks or a couple of million, the government was going to match it. They’re going to help us build it. But we ended up raising something ridiculous like $20 million, and the government chipped in another $40 million. There’s this massive freaking building in Melbourne now that’s been doing amazing things for the last five or six years. So, that was something that was incredible and just… Standing on the Great Wall of China, and Olivia Newton-John singing Xanadu before we go this big walk, that’s pretty cool. 

Simon Dell: Are you sitting there thinking, “What have I just taken?”

Mike Goldman: It’s bizarre. And everyone got sick as well on the trip. That was probably a bad part of it, because the food was just so bad. And I was the only one that wasn’t sick. Because Cliff Richard was supposed to do an interview on Sunrise, like doing a link up. And they said, “Well, who can do it?” “Mike Goldman.” “He’s the only one.” “Okay.” So yeah

“Where’s Phyllis Diller? Olivia doesn’t want to do it?” “No. She’s done the last three.” “Okay.” So, I’m standing there. I’m all excited to be doing an interview with Kochie, and then all of a sudden, my guts just gone boom. And I’m like, “Oh, no. I’m going to explode any second.” And they crossed to me and I’m like – I looked like I was really nervous to be doing an interview, whereas before I was just excited. You know, when something goes wrong with your stomach, or you’re about to get the runs, your brain power just concentrates on blocking it in.

But all of a sudden, my brain power had to go to – I’m on national television with a million people watching, and I have to think about what I’m going to say, and I shit myself. 

Simon Dell: Please tell me that’s on YouTube somewhere.

Mike Goldman: PooTube, yeah. But it’s not, thank god. I was embarrassed about that for a long time, years later.

Simon Dell: If it’s not, we have to find that. We have to find that footage because that would be… 

Mike Goldman: Surely, it’s been deleted. And then after, I did… Because I was answering questions really quick and I’m like, “Yeah. Thanks, no worries. How’s the trip going?” “Really good.” “How much money have you raised?” “We raised $5 million.” “You seem like you’re in a hurry.” “Yeah, the bus is leaving. Gotta go. See you.” Okay, there he goes, man in a hurry.

And then I’m going back to my room and I’ve got this really awkward walk happening, because I’m hoping my underpants don’t lose everything. And Annalise Braakensiek, the world’s most downloaded woman, who’s just about to leave, she came running around the corner and hugged me, and goes, “Mikey!” And then she looked at me and went, “Oh, okay. I’ll see you downstairs.” She knew something stank.

And I told her a few years later. I said, “You don’t remember that time in China when you hugged me and I smelt like a garbage dump? Yeah, I had a turd in my pants.”

Simon Dell: This podcast is taking quite a turn.

Mike Goldman: Quite a turd. Hey, it’s the end of the show. If anyone’s made it this far, congratulations. It’s only going to get worse.

Simon Dell: Penultimate question: What’s next for you? What have you got on the horizon, aside from driving to far-out places in Russia and things like that. What else have you got lined up this year?

Mike Goldman: The Sanctuary Cove International Film Festival have been running for about five years is back this year and we’re going to turn it into, or part of it is going to be the world’s first Facebook Live Film Festival. So, we’re going to put some of the winners who agreed to being played on Facebook Live at the start of the outdoor Tropfest Style Film Festival on Facebook Live for the world to see. That’s going to be pretty cool up at Sanctuary Cove.

We do that every year. Go to sanctuaryfilmfestival.com. Also, the Sydney Kings, sydneykings.com. I mean, the greatest basketball team in the world. Now, Andrew Bogut’s there, going to be back working with them. And I’ve got a few shows, onthemike.com, which is my little chat show. I’ve got a few interviews lined up with people like Charlie Teo, a few celebrities in LA which I’m interviewing in mid-June, and then New York, and then I go do the Mongol Rally, which we’ll be filming a lot of that as well. I’ve just been contacted about turning that into a documentary with some people at a shooting, which is going to be fun, yeah.

So, there’s plenty on the go, my friend.

Simon Dell: The On The Mike staff, do you have your own producers working with you on that? Or is that something that you’re trying to organize yourself? Who finds you the guests?

Mike Goldman: I just contact all the PR publicity agents. There’s a great newsletter called Social Diary which all the PR agencies are on. That’s my little secret weapon that I use to look for all the people, celebrities that are in town, or the different PR agents that are looking for interviews. And it’s definitely something that… It’s great for PR agencies to be involved in as well, if they looking for staff, or if they’re looking to collaborate with other PR agencies to push products or talent that they’re managing.

Simon Dell: Or as you said earlier, the influencers. If they’re looking to find someone to work with on a partnership and that kind of thing.

Mike Goldman: Totally. Socialdiary.com is a good one.

Simon Dell: Okay, cool.

Mike Goldman: Definitely. But I produce it all myself. I have a cameraman / editor who comes in. He will record it with three cameras, and the audio, you’ll split it for the podcast. I send that to a couple of young 22 year old kids on the Gold Coast who put the logos in there. They make their little snackable Instagram bits that go on my Instagram, that’s sort of shovel people across to the show. 

Simon Dell: Who are you using on the Gold Coast that do that?

Mike Goldman: Two guys, Sam and Josh. They call themselves the Verve network. And they also manage a couple other people like The Buttsman who’s this bearded guy in Newcastle. He’s got 250,000 subscribers on YouTube and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. He’s just recently started doing stand-up shows because they’ve got a touring company as well. Two kids turning 20, 23 years old, and they’re doing brilliant stuff. And they’ve got another guy called Wanless who’s this Reg Reagan bogan football character that they’re doing stuff with. Soon, they’re doing another show with a girl called Hilda Cameltoeavich which is a Russian-Greek personal trainer. She’s very angry. 

Simon Dell: She sounds angry from her name. I’d be angry with a name like that.

Mike Goldman: She’s only really just started her Instagram a month ago, but she’s going gangbusters. If you want to have a look at it, it’s @cameltoeavich on Instagram. Pretty funny.

Simon Dell: I might put that in the show notes too. Final question: If people want to come and talk to you, if they want to come and listen to you… You’ve given us a lot of URLs, but where do you spend most of your time?

Mike Goldman: Mikegoldmanlive is my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, whatever you use. Not Snapchat. I got rid of Snapchat. It was just too many things. But yeah, just @mikegoldmanlive on Instagram. And my Insta Stories is something that… For the last year, and since Insta Stories is a thing, I’ve been doing the most weirdest, random, bizarre shit.

Simon Dell: I can testify to that, yes.

Mike Goldman: Have you seen any of it?

Simon Dell: I pick them up every now and again.

Mike Goldman: Yesterday for example, I’m sitting here in my little study where I am now. I live in an apartment, a ground-floor apartment. I let the back door open a little bit. Pigeons wanted in, and it’s walked past my door. It’s looked at me and then it just kept walking. I’m like, “That’s really weird.” So, I went out there and I’m like, “Hey, what are you doing?” And then it walked into my bedroom, jumped on my bed, and I’m like, “Get out.” 

And I’m trying to chase this pigeon out, and then just standing in, “Let me bend down and pick it up.” So I’m like, this must be tame or something like that. And so, I filmed this on Instagram, and I put it out into the backyard and let it go. I thought it’d fly away. It didn’t fly away. And so, I was hanging out with this pigeon and I was just talking to it for half an hour. It was the most weirdest chat show I’ve ever known. That’s gone now.

Simon Dell: Did it have a lot to say for itself?

Mike Goldman: It did. It talked, by the way, by the end of it. I gave it a voice because I do a lot of animation and voiceover stuff. I thought it was good practice for me. And then last night, I was at Holey Moley at the launch of another putt putt golf course. We’re filming some stuff there, and then at the Met Ball, I was posting all the photos of that and talking about it. So, if you want to see me doing some random shit… And recently working with Dr. John Demartini, who I did his course on the weekend. Now, I’m doing the work with him, which is really cool.

I’m flying down to Melbourne on Tuesday next week to host one of his information nights and a dinner, but he’s someone that’s amazing. It’s definitely worth checking out.

Simon Dell: Fantastic. Mate, it’s been… We should’ve mentioned right from the start about the… Because we worked together briefly on The Great Australian Barbecue, didn’t we?

Mike Goldman: Oh yeah, we didn’t the barbecue show. What happened to that? What Channel 7s Problem? Why didn’t they keep doing it?

Simon Dell: You know that the following year, they actually did a whole show about… In the Masterchef – My Kitchen Rules style around a barbecue competition. The bastard stole it.

Mike Goldman: Yeah, they do that. The TV networks do that and they steal off each other as well. It’s pathetic.

Simon Dell: Yeah. And I kind of… The point when I saw it go on TV, I was like, “The bastards!” Classic shake-it, angry man, shaking fist at TV type thing. But then I kind of went, “You know what? Good on them” because I probably wasn’t… I don’t think anyone in that group was in that space to go, “We need to turn this into a 26-part TV competition.” It’s a shame because I think it’s a good idea. Obviously, barbecues as part of the Australian culture, huge part. Anyway, mate, thank you very much for your time today. I better let you go to the meeting that you’re now 13 minutes late for. I apologise profusely to you all.

Mike Goldman: Yeah. I’ll call them now. Hopefully, I can get out of it.

Simon Dell: I’m sure they won’t mind.

Mike Goldman: Maybe I can Skype in.

Simon Dell: Just tell them you were on a really important podcast, and I’m sure they’ll understand.

Mike Goldman: I was. I can’t wait to hear it and listen to myself again.

Simon Dell: Mate, thank you very much for your time. It has been absolutely fantastic. I really appreciate you coming on.

Mike Goldman: Any time, buddy. See you soon.