62: Down to Business pt.2: Down Under

Grant Thomas
Jul 17, 2024
3 min read

Updated: May 22

Grant takes the opportunity to share some "weird stories from Australia." He introduces us to an underground, deadly underwater cave system in the middle of a cow field known as "The Shaft" in Australia. Next, he covers the disappearance of Harold Holt. The Australian Prime Minister (and spear fisher) who was abducted by aliens, eaten by a shark, or something way more normal and boring. Finally, we learn about what happens when you try to take on mother nature. Specifically, when you launch "The Great Emu War". Along the way you’ll hear why Grant keeps getting recognized by former students, how Maia’s boomer side emerges in the snack-basket aisle, and what happens when two podcasters debate the morality of road-trip bathroom breaks. Buckle up; it’s a long, strange ride beneath (and sometimes above) the Southern Hemisphere. Plus, stick around for a lightning round on potato loyalties, hot-pot lullabies, and morbidly funny “famous last words”—proof that history pairs perfectly with late-night chaos. This week's episode has a little fun down under!

Key takeaways to listen for

[00:00:00] Catch-Up
[00:02:10] Piano-Bar Flashbacks: Maia’s freshman “One Week” rap and the gay date everyone misread
[00:05:40] Hot-Pot Celebrity Moment: Grant meets a past student mid-noodle slurp, ego inflates accordingly
[00:08:55] Basket-Gate 2024: The downtown grocery-store design flaw that turns Maia into a full-blown boomer
[00:11:48] Hush-Little-Egg: Hard-boiling eggs at the table plus the universal law of Hot-Pot Mess™
[00:15:25] F•M•K Carb Edition: French fries vs. mashed potatoes vs. hash browns gets surprisingly philosophical
[00:22:40] Cave of No Return: The tragic 1973 “Shaft” dive, nitrogen narcosis, and lessons in underwater hubris
[00:43:05] Prime Minister Overboard: Harold Holt’s beach-day disappearance and the submarine conspiracy theory
[00:59:30] Birds vs. Bullets: How Australia literally declared war on emus…and lost
[01:11:15] Quote Roulette: Random famous last words and why Grant sees himself dying in a meme

Photos Referenced:

*The Rock Pile at the bottom of the entrance to the shaft - courtesy of Liz Rogers*

Map of the Shaft - courtesy of Peter Southwood	Entering the Shaft - courtesy of Leon Rademeyer
Looking up at the entrance to the Shaft - courtesy of Liz Rogers	Visual of how big the Shaft becomes - courtesy of Liz Rogers

Quotes:

"The air that we breathe is actually like 70-something percent nitrogen, right? It's not pure oxygen. And so when you're breathing in more oxygen than that, you can actually get some sort of, like, essentially poisoning, right? Because your body doesn't actually know what to do with all of that, because it does know how to process normal air." - Maia Warner
"Parliament is the Australian version of Congress. But then here's what's really interesting, the people that they appoint to run their departments, their ministries. Yeah, those ministers are members of Congress." - Grant Thomas

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