My name's Ryan Shelton, I'm a co -host on The Imperfects, the Jewish grandson of Austrian and English immigrants, and I grew up on and I'm now currently living on Wurundjeri country.
I'd like to recognise the traditional peoples of this continent whose land was stolen nearly 250 years ago.
In particular, we at The Imperfects would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation as the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was recorded, and we extend our respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The rich storytelling history of the world's oldest living culture is what we proudly pay homage to when we share stories on the imperfects.
I am. I'm very excited to be back.
I mean I know we've had we've had like summer school, we had the Christmas episode, we've had lots of things playing over summer but this is This is like the first time that the three of us sat around the table this year.
And God, I missed you beautiful boys.
How lovely. Yeah, you're both looking really, really good.
Yeah, you too. Wonderful.
Just, sorry, stressed me out a bit.
What's happened to… I love your excitement and it's good to be back before the official.
Now it's just a bit stress because I do have an agenda this year.
Here's AI. You can tell.
His language is different.
It's like a bit stunted.
And you can tell it's a new year.
It's a new me. I sit before you with a journal.
And in that journal, I have actually planned today's introductory episode.
And so we need to stick to the agenda.
So we've gone a little bit...
We're a bit over time here.
So if you don't mind, I might just open it up and we'll in perfect episode one intro.
First number one. This is fun, isn't it?
Number one. Two minutes for hellos.
Okay. Yeah, that's a lot of - Yep.
Hello, so hello everybody.
Welcome back. We've just, I hope you enjoyed summer school.
I didn't start the stopwatch.
Sorry. He just lost the page too.
Start the stopwatch.
Good. We're on. Great.
Two minutes now for hellos.
Do you do How Are You's in hallows as well?
Yep, that would be definitely cool.
How are you, right?
I'm good. I'm very excited to be back.
You've just got an eye on the clock here.
I don't want to go too long.
I'll do, I'll do. I'm very good.
Will you engage in the conversation at all?
Or are you just more like - I'll try, I'll try.
I'll try. I'll try.
Try your best, please.
Do you guys have a good holiday?
That seems like you're playing a character.
It's like you've come in with the character of Podcaster.
Organised podcast. Organised podcaster, Okay, is this the new you for 2025?
That's what I'm hoping for.
It's my aim. Organised Hugh.
Yeah, it is my aim.
Okay. Never been that person before, but.
He's fun. Very fun.
Very fun. We've got about a minute to go with this.
Yeah, I had a good holiday.
If you asked that before, I didn't answer it, but it was good.
Thank you Josh. And just, I don't know if this is part of the schedule, Hugh.
But if we're scoring each other at the moment, you're very low at the moment.
On what? You've got a low score.
You're not fun, I don't like the schedule.
I think I prefer disorganise you at this point.
Well that's not good for me, because this whole episode is very organised.
Okay that's enough of hellos.
Well I should say that the main item on the agenda, that we will get to soon, is announcement number two.
This is announcement two, and our three big announcements, which we've been, we've been hooking it like crazy on the Insta's.
Oh boy. Network TV.
Shit. That's never before saying stuff on social media.
So yeah, we hooked.
Consider them sufficiently tazed you.
So we will be doing that today.
That is the main part of today's episode.
So, and that's what I'm gonna do.
We can't wait to get to that.
But there are other things we do need to do.
Just I'm just going through my agenda here and I do wanna.
I can see that. and for me trying 2025, I'm trying to be organized, I'm trying to be more prepared.
So let's just, let's just go through my agenda.
That's okay. I want a party.
Next five minutes Nougatore chat.
What's Nougatore? What is Nougatore?
Like nougab -based. No, no, no.
Nougatore is like a word.
It's like worthless or not of great value, but it's just sort of like - Five minutes.
Yeah. That's a bit too much.
What's been happening for you guys?
Okay, so this is Nougatourie?
Kind of like Oh nothing much, right?
Nothing of any worth?
Yeah, nothing of any worth.
Pretty worthless. No, actually I went to New Zealand.
Okay, that's good. Yeah, but is that too useful?
That's quite, no, that's not bad.
That's quite interesting.
No it's like to be honest, it is quite Nougatourie, but I'm happy for you.
Is New Zealand good?
It was great. I loved it.
I had a really good time.
So we went down the beach and I was playing with the kids.
There's an episode of Blue where they spy on the builder the builder is actually Mick Malloy and there were builders next door and we went, why don't we play that game?
They got very excited.
And so I said, let's hide in the long grass and then we'll creep up on them.
And then if they see us, we're going to run and hide in that bush.
And we played that game for like 20 minutes, may and then three keys.
The bushes about sized this table and the four of us are in there.
And then Benji said, okay, let's go inside and have some rest time.
And I went great idea.
And as that, I said, you guys go first.
And as they were walking in, um, a bird started sweeping me and I thought, girl, it's very weird.
And then I moved away from the, the bush and it kept sweeping the bush.
I went, oh, it's sweeping something in the bush.
And then another bird joined in and then this giant tiger snake came out from in the bush.
Yeah. And it was right next to the house.
It was the most sickening feeling people from Queensland, New South Wales are like, man, There's just snakes there everywhere.
But you don't expect them in Victoria as much.
Or they're around. Yeah, they're around.
A bit like the Hemsworth's in Byron Bay.
Like you don't see them that much, but you know they're there.
You know they're there.
Yeah. You don't know which bush they're in, but they're in one of them.
Not necessarily bushes, but yeah.
See the bush over there?
It's probably Hemsworth in there.
His heart is too dangerous to go too close, but probably.
They're there. Yeah.
Anyway, I yelled out to the neighbour.
He was a lovely man called Chris and he had his dog, Chloe there.
So I yelled out and said, Chris, don't let Chloe come over here.
And Chloe heard was a lovely Labrador, Brown Labrador, heard her name, and just ran straight over to me and ran right, right over the top of the tide.
This is almost not Nougatore.
But anyway, this is so far from Nougatore.
Anyway, ran over the - Thank you.
It ran over - What a stitch up.
He was gone. Okay. Five minutes in Nougatore chat.
I say something boring is like, okay, we'll take this.
If you're setting me up for Nougatore, don't you present a Tiger snake Hemsworth story.
Anyway, Chloe runs straight over the top of the tiger snake, it reared up to try and bite her.
Just missed her luckily.
Went into some longer grass where we'd been hiding.
And Chris and I were like either side of it.
I was going, you go there.
I've got it here. Don't let it out.
Someone calls a snake catcher.
Keep an eye on it. We were just staring at this grass for like five minutes and then he said, I feel like it's not there anymore.
And we threw like a broom at the long grass and it was not there.
And we're looking around and going, Oh God, where's it gone?
Well, the snake catcher out and the snake catcher came out and he incidentally was a man with two teeth.
And Benji said, just like the snake he's trying to catch.
Were they in the same position?
The teeth? Yeah, yep, exact same.
Two fangs. Yeah, that's it.
Really? That was it.
Yeah, it's amazing.
That is amazing. amazing.
And you are so far from Nougatore ring.
You're getting dangerously interesting here.
Anyway, the man, the, the, the target.
The snake catcher said, anyway, I can't get him.
He's gone under the house.
It's about the holidays with the tiger snake, Andrea.
Anyways, that's the end of Nougatore chat.
That's our five minutes.
Josh did you, did you have something you wanted to bring?
It's hard to up that.
Well, no. You need to down it cause it needs to be Nougatore.
Honestly, the whole time I've been thinking about nooga rather than Yeah, not to think about Nougatore.
Yeah, and that I've seen a lot of Toblerone ads recently.
Hmm, now we're talking Nougatry.
Can you please get us back on track?
I do have something I do want to talk about, which is going to be, I mean, I really can't wait to share this with you.
I really cannot wait.
Is this the announcement?
No. We're getting very close to the announcement.
But this is a good segue because I think it'll play a big part of it.
So, I'll start this by saying, I never used to believe in ghosts, But there's something going on in the front room of our house.
I've said this before on the podcast, so I won't go into too much detail.
But another time you've been swooped.
Yes. Yes, that's very true.
Yeah. So one night I just felt a hand on my chest and I thought it was like well and it was like three in the morning or something and I thought this is very weird.
I thought Penny was pushing me for some reason and then I turned the light and there's no one there.
I went oh that's very weird.
I've had a very strange dream there.
It happened again the next night but it was very forceful and I couldn't get up.
and I... Like holding you down.
Yes. And I really turned a light again on what is going on, really panicked.
A few nights after that I felt like someone was watching me and I looked up and it looked like Tony Armstrong.
But it just kept...
These weird things kept happening.
The one that I have spoken about before, which is terrifying is that I felt like someone was watching me and I jumped out of bed and turned the light on and was looking everywhere, got a real fright.
I was like, there's someone here.
And then Elsie called out from her room.
She was quite upset.
And I went and got her.
And I said, you can come and sleep next to me.
I lie down, turn off the light, and she was sitting up.
And I said, Elsie what are you doing?
And she said, who's that over there?
And that's the one that really just, okay, there's something going on here.
It's not just your eyes, it's both of your eyes.
Yes, and so anyway, but there's no such thing as ghost.
I don't know what's going on.
I have had, it never happens in any other room in the house.
I stay in lots of hotels, never in hotels.
It's never happened in my life except for in this room.
We told Maria Roberto about this.
Well, I told Maria Roberto about this when she came on the podcast.
Um, wonderful psychologist friend of ours.
Um, and she said, you need to call this man.
And she handed me a card of a shamanic healer called Garant.
That's right. I remember she, and she was very insistent that you go and say this person penny and the kids were away last week.
And the first night, I was in the room and I went to sleep and it happened again.
I had a, I turned around and I thought I saw something hanging on the curtain just looking at me and it was terrifying.
And what did you see?
What was it? Well, I turned a light on, there was nothing there, but I just, I sit up in shock and horror and such, like my heart rate is through the roof.
And I thought I, I am, I am beyond convinced there's something going in this room and I, I believe this, I believe myself and I'm calling Grant.
Yeah. And so at this point, you're now a ghost believer.
I, yes, I was. Well, you've seen ghost a number of times.
I don't understand what the reluctance is.
Yeah, you think you do.
Like you're so clear and then you turn the light on there's nothing there.
It's bizarre. Yeah, but then there's probably an element of ghosts that we don't understand.
I don't get it. It was there.
It's not. To happen to be real.
It's bullshit. Like if they're real, come on out.
Don't say that. Don't, please don't.
No, don't say that.
Don't provoke it. Sure.
Sorry. I'm probably a non believer.
Why? Well, I've never seen one.
Serious question. You never never experienced a ghost -like experience.
And if I did, I would put it down to something else.
Do you believe in Antarctica?
Yes, I do. Have you been there?
I know someone who has.
Really? Well, you know, you know someone over here that has been to ghostland.
It looks like you just got got.
You just got got. So, I spoke to Grant last week and he was just the most lovely person.
I explained the situation, what I've been experiencing and he said, yeah, I'm going to need to.
This is so funny. I thought I went to mum and dad's house on the morning and potential over the weekend and he lives, he's from there.
And so I thought I'll just go and see him.
That's all while I'm there.
It's perfect. I'll go and he's dropping.
Yeah. And he said, no, no, no.
I need to come to your house.
Yeah, because it's always in that spot.
Yeah. Yeah. And he said, I need to, I need to speak to it.
I need to tell it. I need to give it a word.
I need to tell it to move on.
And I said, what, like what if it's not.
And he goes, Oh, it's there.
and I will, I see it, I'll walk in, I'll just see it straight away, it'll be in the room, I'll see it, I'll hear it and I'll be a few hours.
It could get a bit heated.
It probably won't want to leave.
It's protecting someone and it's, it doesn't like you obviously.
I will come there, I'll speak to it, I'll tell it to go, I'll put it back through a portal, then I'll close the portal.
Yep, that's what I'd do.
Yep, that. It definitely makes sense.
And open the portal, get the ghost, throw it back through the portal.
critical, make sure you close the portal and lock it, lock the portal and hide the keys on.
I don't know where it is.
Well, he's going to go.
He said that he'll take out three hours to go around to all the rooms.
I think that's quite a good rate.
Out of interest. 280.
280 to get rid of a ghost.
Yeah, that's a bargain.
That's very good. I get my sleep back, basically.
Yeah, that's excellent.
20 bucks for petrol also.
Well, you come with the morning potential, that's fair enough.
Yeah. By the way, he is so busy.
He was at a house the other day, six housemates living in this house and it was haunting all six of them.
They had to go all six rooms.
Okay. Yeah, so, not surprisingly, he's a very busy man because he's very good at what he does.
But we are very close to locking in a time for him to come and kick the ghost out, which I am very excited about.
Yeah, I bet. Do you know what happened though?
I was, this is, this is a few days ago and I'm in the house by myself, having the phone call him and I really enjoyed it.
I really, I started asking ridiculous questions cause I didn't want to hang up, um, such as what should I wear when you come over?
Those kinds of things.
You asked him what you should wear.
I didn't, it was like a formal procedure where I wear a suit or like, is this a formal thing?
He said I can watch the whole thing.
Anyway, I started to get, I was thinking, hang on a minute, if the ghost is here and it's here in this conversation, it's not going to be happy with this.
Oh, true. So, I actually asked him, and I'm going to play you a grab from the phone call, and I have granted permission to play this.
He has granted permission?
He has granted permission, absolutely.
Would they be listening to this phone call?
Have they ever seen me talk right now?
Not so much the listening but the way I work is, because I have permission to understand what's going on for you, we're already working, so they would not, I'm coming.
That night by far the worst night.
I've ever had with the ghost.
What did the ghost do?
I was honestly up every half an hour with like things just like I felt like I was getting swooped a lot again.
So the ghost did get the sense that Garant is on the way.
Yeah, and it's not happy.
What a cliffhanger.
Anyway, I felt that people are going, okay, no more ghosts, can we just have the announcement?
Well, I think we should do the announcement.
Okay, great. For those who have been following along on the journey so far...
Who committed all this white?
We announced a few weeks ago, whenever it was, a month ago or so that we have three big announcements to kick off the year.
The first announcement we've already announced, and that was the book called My Imperfect Life, which is now...
You can buy it at the website, TheImperfects .com .au, a journal.
So that's announced.
And there are two more.
Two more big announcements.
And the second one is happening right now.
Josh, what is the second big announcement?
Well, if you like The Imperfects, which I assume you do, if you're listening to us right now, we're going to release what we're calling A Little More Imperfects, which is a brand new show and a community on Patreon.
And what's Patreon Josh?
Gosh. Patreon is a place where you can go and support people who are doing things online that you like.
But an online place.
This is not like a house that you go to.
Sorry. It's a website.
It's a website, yeah.
Patreon .com. And it's a way that you can give a bit of money to support creators on the internet who are doing things that you like.
And we are so lucky that we've been able to grow this show, thanks to you guys listening and thanks to advertisers that have been advertising on the show.
We've been able to grow business to now have employees.
You hear their names, George, and Bella, and Bridge, and Jam and all these people that work on the show at the end of the episodes.
But we want to... I mean, it sounds like I'm speaking now going to a business world that I don't understand, but I think we need to diversify to be able to support and grow more and do more exciting things.
There's so much more that we want to do.
And we need a different form of revenue to be able to do that.
Yeah, exactly. To be super honest, it's like, it's how can we not be so reliant on the ads, which are great, and we, we are so appreciative and grateful of them, but, uh, this will, yeah, I guess, give us a little bit of a little bit more of an opportunity to try new things and to grow this podcast.
Yeah. But we've got so many ideas and, uh, yeah, this might be a way that we can achieve those things.
And when we started the show, it was very much the three of, uh, well, it was you guys and then me sort of chatting.
There's a lot of time for us to talk and catch up.
We've been so lucky in the growth of the show that now we have so many opportunities to get incredible people on that it's kind of jam packed with other people's incredible stories.
And we love interviewing people and talking to them and getting their stories out into the world.
But there's not that much time for the three of us to catch up anymore.
And so. And to share our imperfections and yeah that have been continuously occurring and on our life journey, but yeah.
Yeah, so the Patreon will be a place where that will happen on a show that we're calling A Little More Imperfects.
Uh, I think it's really important for us to say as well, we won't be taking, there's nothing that you currently get that will be taken away and put behind a paid wall, everything you get have gotten in the past will be there.
Uh, it's, we're not taking for free.
That's never going to change.
This is added content.
That's going to be on top of what we've always done for nightly episodes with the three of us.
A little more in perfects.
Yeah. It's so, so exciting.
So, how much, how much is a little bit of money?
And we, we thought eight dollars fifty?
Yep. The fifty's really important.
Eight dollars fifty a month.
Well yeah we'll, that will, at this stage at least, that's going to get you like, two extra episodes per month.
And then... Early access to some things that we...
Well, early access to like tickets for, you know, when we do live shows and events.
Um, and then also like a discount on our merch on our like vulnerability has cards on our mind perfect life book on our journal, things like that and then, and this is just the beginning of what what that $8 50 will get you.
Um, but I'm sure there'll be many other things.
But I think being part of a small community, that are like -minded community who are into the same thing.
Uh, yeah, I think that to me is what's most enticing being part of the community.
So yes, this is a little more in perfect and extra show every fortnight.
It'll just be the three of us.
And I mean hearing about your ghost story, actually, that is the perfect thing.
Well, we are not a ghost podcast, ghost story podcast, as everyone will know.
And but I do want to follow that story through.
I do want to give an update on what happens when OK, great.
So that that's the kind of stuff we would play on Patreon.
It's just the three of us.
So for any of the people, the people who don't skip through the starts of episodes where it's just the three of us chatting.
It's for you. It's for you.
For those of you who skip through and like get us to the guest, maybe not for you.
So it'd be patreon .com slash the imperfects.
You'd go to that. And then you can sign up to our patreon to become a member.
And once you're a member, you can grab the RSS feed.
You can link it. So it'll pop up in your Apple podcast or Spotify podcast or whatever you use as just an extra episode every fortnight.
and it's as simple as that.
Yeah we're doing a bit of community and we feel like this is a really nice way to be able to put more into the show, do more shows, do more things, by creating a little bit of revenue for the podcast.
But we do have a clip from our first episode on Patreon that we are going to play for you now.
And this first episode before we play it is, this first episode is there now.
So you can go, if you sign up, you can go and listen or watch this whole episode.
And God would be we'd be so appreciative to see you there.
But yeah, here's a here's a little taster of that first step I Think just I just have another analogy about what this show is.
Yeah, it's kinda like your dad on summer holidays Like you're done on summer holidays, he's not as serious, oh, yeah He's a bit more fun, but he can be serious if he needs to be it.
But generally Yeah, but generally he's there for a good time.
That's true He's got his James Patterson book out.
He's had a few frangelicals.
You know what, f*** it.
I want to say something silly.
Yeah. That's what this is.
But he will put his hair up if he needs to.
No, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Serious conversation.
That's what the show is.
Yeah. It's a little bit serious when it needs to be, but also a little bit of fun.
Like one huge decision we've made to make this a little bit different from the main show is, uh, we're not wearing any headphones.
Talk about, talk about fun.
You know what bridge George, they said, Hey, you guys want headphones?
I was like, fuck it.
It's what I'm talking about.
This is like dad, why come just putting on shorts?
Yeah, it just doesn't matter.
I don't remember slack today where my shorts, well, I just walking around with no top on You know, in the apartment.
Wow! I mean, I know the pool's like 10 minutes away, but already top off.
That's a perfect analogy!
But also, this is, I mean, we always encourage our show and the Imperfects to be a community of sorts, but this is a very intense community in terms of the fact that we want your feedback and we want to hear from you.
One way you can do that is within the Patreon, you can comment and you can make suggestions and will ask us questions, but any suggestions or questions you might have will go into the suggestion box.
Oh, I do have something.
Oh. I mean, it would be a suggestion or a question to myself.
The question would be, hey Hugh, what are you doing tomorrow?
That'd be my question.
Okay, that's pretty dope.
But also don't feel like you need to put something in the box every time I say something.
You can just talk cause you're on the show.
Tomorrow, I've booked myself in to get to get the ball rolling on an ADHD assessment.
Oh, wow. Yeah, tomorrow afternoon.
That's happening tomorrow.
So, we had Janelle on the show.
Janelle Booker. Yeah.
To talk about ADHD.
That was last year.
Last year. And I was thinking about friends of mine.
I was thinking about Jam.
Cause you spoke so, so beautifully about Jams experience.
That's my partner. Yeah, and your experience being her partner.
So, I was really thinking about you guys throughout that.
And then later that afternoon, I was on Instagram and someone had written a comment on a post we did.
I think it was in regards to the Back His Delight story and someone had said, he was so ADHD.
It's ridiculous. And I was a bit taken aback that comment, and then I showed Penny the comment.
And she said, yeah, I thought that for ages.
Really? What do you mean to the phrases that she has?
Well, I just like you lose everything.
You're always like for everything.
You're so disorganized and just gave a few examples of why potentially and I thought not once again, I was speaking or something.
Oh my gosh, this is me.
Yeah. So is this, is this, you're saying that this might be like a little Patreon journey you might go on?
I think so. Yeah. Mm -hmm.
Yeah. It feels Just to me like a big thing to do in chat of a huge audience.
Patrons the right size.
Potentially a bit small.
That's just a ten of you.
I mean, just with that, is it easy just to invite them in and just have a chat with them?
Like you'll be going through too much effort here recording it, releasing it, it's like just come in.
There's only ten of us!
So that is obviously a long big bite, big taste of the first of the episodes.
And also kind of weird to play a taste of that episode within an episode, which feels very similar.
But yes. God how cool.
No headphones hey? Great theme song.
Great theme song. And that shows you that it's a little bit more fun, isn't it?
We're just chilling out hanging.
But also, we've got ideas for other podcasts and other things that we want to try.
This may be a good place that we can try new ideas and just try new show ideas or segment ideas.
I'm sure if we had the Patreon years ago, we probably would have tried a vulnerability house on that first before it became an actual thing.
So, yeah, a bit of a lab, as well.
Testing lab. Yeah, and on that, we are going to have another little mic that points at the direction of the rest of the team.
So, you might hear a little bit from the rest of the team.
Yeah, you were very - you were very specific that you wanted it to be a little mic.
Hang on, they're going to be on the show, as well.
Let's just get a small microphone at a distance, so you can just pick up what they're saying.
It's written in the contract, actually.
Yes, no exactly, no, it's gonna be fun to be able to, like when we actually say, hey George, hey Bridge, hey Bell, what's this, then you can actually hear them speaking properly, but not now, only in the Patreon.
You've got to pay for that.
So, guys, we officially got to every item on the agenda.
Pat ourselves on the back for that.
I think we even ticked off convey excitement for the new season, which was probably implicit in the episode.
How good a way. Are we going to tease any guests or anything or are we just saying new season?
Well, I mean, I think next week we're kicking off with a biggie.
Biggie to kick off the year.
The one and only Mick Fanning next week as our first big, main, non -summer school episode of the year.
Very exciting. I went into that episode thinking, when we recorded it, I thought like, OK, well, he's going to tell us about punching a shark.
I'm not a surfing fan.
I don't know who he is outside of that, but that's what I thought his story would be.
but his story is so much bigger and deeper than that.
It's quite an amazing story.
He's amazing. I'm sorry there's no Mick Fanning chat in the - Yeah, I was just looking, I put another business.
Yeah, it's other business.
Yeah, just to convey some excitement, which I know, as you mentioned, was implicit in the episode.
However, very excited.
This is our seventh year doing this.
and there's nowhere else I'd rather be.
I love it so much. We are very happy to be back.
So we love you guys, so thanks for tuning in.
I'm closing the journal.
I might never open it ever again.
Well, it was fun. It was fun.
I can't wait for next week with Mick Fanning.
The Imperfects is hosted and produced by Hugh van Carlenberg, Ryan Shelton, and Josh van Carlenberg.
Our executive producer is Bridget North -East, assistant producer at Bella North -East.
This episode is edited by George Martin with music from Nomono.
The Imperfects is not a licence mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature but if you're struggling please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
