July 10, 2023 • 22 mins
Meet Darren, a 39-year old from Melbourne who works in the public sector. Seems pretty regular right? Well, he spends a lot of his time doing comedy magic, but that's not what makes him interesting... what he is concealing is pretty WILD.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, it's art simone, and aren't you lucky to be
graced with me in your ear holes? And your luck
doesn't stop there, no, because I have been working so
hard to find you everyday regular jobs that have an
interesting side to them, and then bring you the stories
of their weird jobs and sometimes scandalous hobbies. Let's meet
our regular Joe Roll the type.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hello. My name is Darren and I'm thirty nine years old.
I'm from Melbourne, Victoria. I've been working in the public
sector for many years and in my spare time I
like to hang out in comedy venues performing a little
bit of comedy magic, but mainly doing sound and lighting them.
But I am concealing something that's pretty wild.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Wild. Well, Hollo, Darren, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I am great?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Here you are in front of me. You've got your
nice cap on, you got her a glasses. I'm trying
to see if it's giving me any clues here today.
We've got a T shirt with a mountain yep oh ashemo, oh,
I don't know her. There is a chilly day today.
So you've got a nice little jacket and what is
it around your neck? What's that?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
It's a crocodile.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
You've got a crock around your neck?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Is that a clues that a clueman run that down?
Kroc neck? I've got a shit neck, but that's close enough.
But all right, So you know I'm from Melbourne. I
did you say comedy magic?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Please explain.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
So I don't call myself a magician because I don't
like magicians.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
So I wanted to be a magician when I grew up,
when I was a little kid. So yeah, that rude, no,
But okay, So what makes the comedy magician? Do you
just do bad tricks?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah? Pretty much. So my stage name is so you
know how You've got like the amazing Mumford and you
know all of these people. So I'm Melbourne's most mediocre magician.
So my stage name is the kind of okay Darren,
it's a bit of fun. And you said lighting and sound, Yeah,
That's what I'm doing at the moment. Buttons, yeah, and
(02:05):
slide some things.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, I'm not very good at that, but I just
know I like lots of fall back, fold back, fall back.
The tech always yells at me because I call it
the wrong one. Which one is it? Tell me the
fold back?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Fall back, back, fold back. I call it fall back,
fall back. Yes, I'm an idiot, that's okay. So what
I'm going to do is ask you three questions, and
from the answer to those three questions, I have to
determine what it is you were concealing from me today. Okay,
are you ready? Right?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Okay. Question number one, what is the worst injury you've
ever had?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Oh, that's tough, because I've had a lot, had a
lot just prone to slipping, Like, yeah, yeah, if you
ask my fiance, I'm very accident prone.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I had a workplace injury and I had to have
surgery on my right hand. Oh, that's probably the worst
injury I've had.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
What workplace can you not tell me? Oh? This is
to be okay, workplace injury on the hand, we're talking
about prone to accidents. I am such a klutz that
I remember when I was a kid, I was like, Oh,
I'm going to pretend to slip on a banana pee
like all the people in the cartoons do. And I
was like doing it in front of the family, Like
isn't this silly? And then I slept and smashed my face.
(03:21):
So I get you, okay. I also broke my foot
a few weeks ago by just walking down some stairs.
Oh at three pm in the afternoon. So bad in
flat shoes.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I don't I understand. I've got a pinch nerve in
my shoulder at the moment. And who's mentioning it? Oh?
My muscles. It's really annoying. But I used to do
stunt work. I used to like fall down stairs, get
hit by cars, jump out of buildings.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I mean, it's a pretty good crier to be. And
if you're prone to accident, yea true, you're like, I've
fallen so many times in my life that I may
as well get paid for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I never got injured doing that, but this pinch nerve.
I got that by doing the very dangerous thing of
going to bed.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
A lot of people die beds, yep, So I think
it's a big killer in the world.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So why has this not been raised before?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I know, I know. Look, we'll start a campaign after this.
But okay, question number two, if you could invite anyone
to dinner, dead or alive, who would it be.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
That's an easy one for me. David Attenborough David.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Ashenborough, Okay, well he could be dead soon, so that's
a good question. Question. You're safe with the director, okay.
And number three, if I had a tattoo gun and
I was forcing you to get a tattoo right now,
where would you get it and what would it be of?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I would get a hummingbird on my ribs under my
left arm.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Oh, it's all very specific, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I've thought about this one.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Ribs left. Okay, let's look at the picture you've painted
for me here today, Darren magic lighting, crocodile on the neck, ruises,
damaged hand, hummingbird on your left ribs and David Attenbrough Yeah, wow, Wow,
(05:09):
that's It's a whole load of shit, isn't it. Yeah,
that's okay, No, okay, So I'm getting animals, right, I'm
getting animals because you know David Abrah, you know, or
David and just like speaks really calmly. You know, maybe
maybe you're really into calm things. Maybe you're like maybe
you make candles. That's in the maybe right, you know,
(05:35):
because that would make sense, you know, because with a hand,
the workplace accident could have been oh no, yeah, because
the workplace accident could have been putting your hand in
molten like candle wax. No, I think that's all pointing
to it. It makes sense. I think it really makes sense.
And medium open magicians they work with fire, so maybe
you just gotten some experience in the flame world. So, Darren,
(05:57):
are you a candle maker?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I am not? Oh No, I am a wildlife presenter,
which means that I take snakes, spiders, sharks, sea stars, octopus,
a whole range of different animals into kindergartens and schools
to teach kids about conservation.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
I always go in the right direction that I doubted myself.
So Darren isn't a candle maker, he is a wildlife presenter.
Do you think he knows range of stacy? Do you
think this is my moment to be on totally wild?
(06:45):
All right? So we're here with Darren, who is not
a candle maker. Do you like candles?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I do like candle It's good to know.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
All right, we can be friends. But you're actually a
wildlife presenter. Please explain what is that entail? What do
you do well?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I work with children and animals. They say that you
shouldn't work with children or animals, but they don't say
that you shouldn't work with children.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Do you think they cancel each other out.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
That yeah, it does. Actually it cancels each other out
and then makes it ten times worse.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Okay, so you're into self harm, it seems, and torture alright.
I'm just noting that down we all have our kinks.
So where do you get these animals from? What places
do you go? Who are these people? Tell me?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So where do I get the animals? Yeah, there's a
company that I work for down in Talkie and all
of the animals live there.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
That's down my way. I live in July.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Oh cool, So just around the corner you've got crocodiles
and snakes and lizards.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Ah, so what animals do you? I know you've said it,
but Tom again, what animals?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So snakes, lizards, crocodiles, marsup mules, arthropods.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Are you trying to start an arc? Is that? Is that?
What happening? Are you are peering for judgment?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Day? I could be? I mean, have you seen the
weather later?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So how did you get into this?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I started working with wildlife when I was seventeen years old,
so that was twenty two years ago. I started out
as a suekeeper at a very small wildlife park in
northern New South Wales, which is where I grew up. Yeah,
and then I was kind of volunteering as a snake
catcher as well.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
You volunteered that, he my boy break then.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, I am. Well, there was only two of us
that knew how to handle venomous snakes in a sixty
kilometer radius, so we were very busy.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
How do you find out if they are venomous? You
just let them bite you and you go out.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
It's not advised to do that, but if you want
to be technical about it, you look at the scales
on the next to their eye.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
That's how you can tell. That's how you can get
a frond of them. Put eyeshadow on.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Oh, they'd be concealing something.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
So you volunteered to catch snakes? Yeah, and like what
like relocate relegate them because in the horror movies of
snakes in like on a plane. Yeah, well that too,
but there's you know, like they're in roofs and they're
on drain pipes, they're in toilets and there.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
That's pretty much what I do. And I volunteered because
if I say there's a charge, that people say, why
would I charge? You made a shovels free.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Okay, no, that's you definitely put a different spin on it,
because I was like, oh, no, okay, you're going you're
going to save a stake. Yeah, and then how do
you make the jump over to what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Now, because at the same time I was doing all
that in my spare time, I was performing musical theater. Oh, yes,
cats because you like animals. No, because they have integrity cats.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And then the sort of job for a wildlife presenter,
and I went, what is that job?
Speaker 1 (09:49):
They just advertised that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah they did what Yeah, I know, right. So I
had a look at the job and I was like,
theater and animals, Yeah, it's kind of the perfect mix.
So I applied and I got a job.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
They probably looked in and said, oh, actually, this one
does have experience around animals, so tick. Whereas other people
brock up being like, Hello, here is a snake. It's
long and it feels funny. Everyone want to touch the snake.
Come and touch the snake. Okay, maybe not that. Okay,
you would have to do a lot of research for
all this too, because you're also teaching conservation. Do you
(10:22):
sometimes just make things up about the animals? Oh?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
All the time?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
This is a platypus. It's got, it's got. It's a
flame thrower in there as well. Be careful, don't touch it.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I always tell them that I'm joking afterwards.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
What do the animals do when they're not in schools?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
When they're not in schools? Do they live their best life? Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And you just go get in the car, love, We're
going to go see some.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Children, exactly, and you get paid for it. They get
they get their favorite food doing so, and you.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Have multiples because you know, sometimes animals are having a
bad day.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Do You sometimes walk in and you know, Sandra, and
the snake is like, absolutely not, I'm not doing that today,
and you go, all right, we're going with Sam. Yeah,
and you go with Sam.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah absolutely. Because animals need a weekend as well.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
They do.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Do they just like people all over the kids?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Oh yeah, that's happened because they pooh once a week
and so that's kind of how I say, Oh, they
only do.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
You're so lucky to be shut on today exactly. And
you can keep that, You could actually keep that. I
feel like everything could go wrong, especially when there's children
and animals. Oh yeah, in the same space. I want
some stories. Give me some stories. There's got to be
some good ones.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
There's a few. One that comes to mind is, so
we've got these little vans that we pack all the
animals in, and the animals are two of us. Pretty much. Yeah, yeah,
pretty much. I've never thought of it that way.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, I was a rock star. Yeah. So we packed
them in and the crocodile's got his own box that's
all padded and everything, and he got out or she
I should say, her name was Gucci. That's why she
bit me. Shouldn't have called her that?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Oh no, she's Gucci. Now become a Gucci after that?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
No, no, but I was petrified to work with her.
So once they've gotten you, once they know that they
can get you, so then they are an absolute turd
for a long time.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
How did you tell them, you say, Gucci, No more
of this.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I had it just routine. You got to get into
a routine with them, and there is a bit of
training involved. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Anyway, So Guccie got out.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh, Guccie got out while in the back of the
van while I was on the Westgate Bridge. So I
looked in the rear vision mirror and saw a crocodile
sitting on top of the box that it was meant
to be concealed in with mouth wide open, just roaring
at me. So I had to merge across five lanes
of traffic to get off the exit and then find
(12:48):
a safe place to park to climb in the back
and catch her.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
We didn't have like the west Gate Bridge. There's Westgate Park,
which is a notorious cruising and like be for people
to hook up at. So they would have seen you
pulling up and then getting into the back of a
van thinking something completely different is happening, but it's you
wrestling a crocodile. It would have been moving and jumping.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yah.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Oh, the same noises. If only they knew, If.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Only they knew that, only they knew that I was
wrestling the crocodile, not wrestling.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Oh, I love that visual. So we've had escaped animals.
There has to be more.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
My boss was doing a nighttime presentation for an award ceremony,
so he had a crocodile there and it was Jack.
It was his crocodile's name, Big Jack.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Awful name.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah. So Jack was about six foot so he was
a handful about twenty three kilos big crocodile, but Jack
was in his box. I was in my civilian car
rather than the company van, and I got pulled over
for an RBT and the cops just said, what's what's
with the box.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
In the box? And I said, it's so nosy, I
don't know, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, And I said I was a crocodile. And I went, oh,
don't be a smart ass. What's in the what's in
the box? I said, a crocodile and they said, all
right out. So I pulled me out of the car.
I had to get the box out and they said
we'll open it up, and I said, I'm not opening it.
You can open it if you want, and so they did,
and they jumped back a mile. They were petrified.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
What about the kids, surely there's some stories with kids
and animals.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
There's some pretty strange things that children say when you
bring animals out. I remember this one time I put
a blue tongue lizard on the ground of the kindergarten
and the tongue was poking in and out, and I said,
you know, have a look at her. She's sensing her environment.
That's how she senses. And this little boy just yelled out, ah,
she's licking carpet, which was funny, but the amount of
(14:52):
laughter that came from the teachers did not comprehend with.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Just got positive reinforcement. It's like, I don't know what
I said, but that's funny.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Teachers came up to me afterwards said sorry that we
laughed so much. But he's got two mums.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
That shouldn't be as funny as it is. Okay, so
you're talking about injuries before. Where have things gone wrong
with the animals?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Thankfully, nothing in front of anyone. It's all been behind
the scenes, I know, right, but I've been bitten by
too many crocodiles. Oh no, my favorite animal, and obviously
i'm their favorite meal.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
You really are into torture because it just sounds it
doesn't sound very nice.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Makes sense? Why I want my first tattoo to be
on the ribs too, doesn't it? Yeah, that's most painful.
I think you've you've made me notice something. Yeah, you've
made me notice.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
For all of us. That's good.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
It's therapy.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Are like, No, that's okay, because the world can't hurt
you with the crocodile's barting on you. You know, nothing
can feel worse than that at the moment. So true,
it really helps, you said to yourself. Yeah, but at
the very start you said your worst injury was something
that happened to your hand at work. Was that a crocodile?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
So yeah, this crocodile had broken the filter in her
pond and so the water was disgusting. So I had
to catch her to get her out. And when I
went to catch her, I rushed it a bit, and
I shouldn't have because I didn't make sure that I
could see her properly. And I just went in and
(16:27):
she grabbed my hand and then didn't pull me into
the pond. But I just went with her into the
pond because as soon as you pull back, that's when
they death roll. So I just went with her and
then luckily my foot hit her back and she spun
around to bite my foot, and that's when I got
(16:48):
my hand out.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And you said they'd bite you. Is that fool like?
Is that just like a pinch or are they fool
trumping in there?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
No, it's a chumping hole. The closing pressure on the
jaws of a crocodile about the same as the closing
pressure of the brakes of a seven four seven. So
once they're shut, they're shut the way that they have
to go with it.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Then otherwise your arm's gonna be ripped off, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I would have lost my hand for sure if I'd
pull back. But the way that their teeth line up
as well, it makes perforation like the interlock. The interlock. Yeah,
it does that so that when they chomp down on
a piece of flesh, they just do a headshake and
it perforates the flesh like a perforated page. So I
just realized, sufficient.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
That's so good, isn't it. It is, I'm amazing just
sticking your hands in there.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I don't advise putting in in a crocodile's mouth. I've
done it four times. I do not recommend. Wait, you
keep going back for more and glutton for funnies, but do.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
You just keep going back to the same hospital And
they're like, oh, Taren.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, can you not? Yeah? So when I when I
got my fingers sliced open by a goanna, I was
at the same hospital and they went, oh, oh, you're
that crocodile guy. And then next door to me was
a guy who I could because you know, they just
put the sheet thing up and I could hear that
he had a nail through his hand, and he heard
(18:07):
that I had a goanna bite, and so we both
kind of went open the things said can I see
your injury?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And he's like show me yours and we're like whaw
and he's like a people are weird? Yeah, I love it.
I love it. I'm not going to yuck your yum.
I don't know. It's just just compare more injuries. Are
they trophies to you? No? Are you proud? No? Do
we put them on a like on the wall being
like with a picture of being like survive?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
No? Hell no. It's always a reminder of how bad
I am at my job. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I mean it's one way to be punished, isn't it. Yeah,
some people just lose shifts. Now you lose a limb.
So if you are a wildlife presenter, can you present
some wildlife to me?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I can? I have brought a couple of things.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Oh no, Darren has a bag. I can't see what's
in it. Aaron nervous. This is like a second level
of concealing. Oh okay, okay, I can handle this.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You can handle this yeah, this one. This one is
a spiny leaf stick insect. This one's a boy. I
love boys can fly and the girls though they can't.
They're too heavy because they've got a really did you
bring me a girl? A really big bottom? You can
have a holder feeling?
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Will I break it? Oh? What if it flies towards me? Oh?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Be fun?
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Okay, so there is there is a stick on my hand. Hello,
have you named this? This is tiny Tim? Okay? And
what did tiny Tim like to do? Pretend this is
a dating show and this is my my date.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Tiny Tim loves strolls along the sticks.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
He loves a.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Good eating of sugar gum. It's his favorite. Yeah. So
they only eat eucalyptus leaves. And when they when they
hatch out of their egg, which I think I might have. No,
that's a poo. That's a pooh. That's a pool.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
That's a lucky day for you. So many poos? No
eggs are they always an egg?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
That's a leg there and it looks like a seed
a seed. Yeah, so they're using mimicry even from the
egg looks like a seed. So that ants take it,
take it underground, and that's the perfect temperature to incubate.
The females don't even need the males because they are
pathenogenic as well, so they can just clone themselves. Exist
genetic diversity, because otherwise if if if you get one clone,
(20:34):
like just one animal, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Tiny Tina one No could tiny tim getting dragon become
tiny Tina?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
You sure can?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
You can have him back.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Now, I've got a venomous animal for you. It's a scorpion.
Oh no, from the Flinders Rangers. And it's that could
called a Flinders Ranger scorpion.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I don't want to touch it though, Oh really, Oh
no I can. Oh no no no no no no
no no no no no no no. I guess she's
pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I did bring a special torch with me to show
you something cool.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You want to flash the scorpion?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Okay, so the exoskeleton does something really weird with under
UV light. They glow in the dark.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Oh wow, yeah, oh wow. We've just shone a UV
light on the scorpion and it is neon. It is glowing.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Why is that that second got of raves?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah? Absolutely, they love a good rave.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Do do do do do do do do do Do
Do Do Do Do Scorpion Rave. So Darren isn't a candlemaker, No,
(22:09):
he is a wildlife presenter. Well, I'll tell you what.
All I know is I want to go party with
some scorpions in Berlin. Hit the UV lights. Do Do Do?
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Do?
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Do? Give Ben listening to an iHeart Australian production concealed
with artsimone. Want to check out some creepy crawlees check
us out on the socials.
Hello, it's art simone, and aren't you lucky to be
graced with me in your ear holes? And your luck
doesn't stop there, no, because I have been working so
hard to find you everyday regular jobs that have an
interesting side to them, and then bring you the stories
of their weird jobs and sometimes scandalous hobbies. Let's meet
our regular Joe Roll the type.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hello. My name is Darren and I'm thirty nine years old.
I'm from Melbourne, Victoria. I've been working in the public
sector for many years and in my spare time I
like to hang out in comedy venues performing a little
bit of comedy magic, but mainly doing sound and lighting them.
But I am concealing something that's pretty wild.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Wild. Well, Hollo, Darren, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I am great?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Here you are in front of me. You've got your
nice cap on, you got her a glasses. I'm trying
to see if it's giving me any clues here today.
We've got a T shirt with a mountain yep oh ashemo, oh,
I don't know her. There is a chilly day today.
So you've got a nice little jacket and what is
it around your neck? What's that?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
It's a crocodile.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
You've got a crock around your neck?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Is that a clues that a clueman run that down?
Kroc neck? I've got a shit neck, but that's close enough.
But all right, So you know I'm from Melbourne. I
did you say comedy magic?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Please explain.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
So I don't call myself a magician because I don't
like magicians.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
So I wanted to be a magician when I grew up,
when I was a little kid. So yeah, that rude, no,
But okay, So what makes the comedy magician? Do you
just do bad tricks?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah? Pretty much. So my stage name is so you
know how You've got like the amazing Mumford and you
know all of these people. So I'm Melbourne's most mediocre magician.
So my stage name is the kind of okay Darren,
it's a bit of fun. And you said lighting and sound, Yeah,
That's what I'm doing at the moment. Buttons, yeah, and
(02:05):
slide some things.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, I'm not very good at that, but I just
know I like lots of fall back, fold back, fall back.
The tech always yells at me because I call it
the wrong one. Which one is it? Tell me the
fold back?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Fall back, back, fold back. I call it fall back,
fall back. Yes, I'm an idiot, that's okay. So what
I'm going to do is ask you three questions, and
from the answer to those three questions, I have to
determine what it is you were concealing from me today. Okay,
are you ready? Right?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Okay. Question number one, what is the worst injury you've
ever had?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Oh, that's tough, because I've had a lot, had a
lot just prone to slipping, Like, yeah, yeah, if you
ask my fiance, I'm very accident prone.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I had a workplace injury and I had to have
surgery on my right hand. Oh, that's probably the worst
injury I've had.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
What workplace can you not tell me? Oh? This is
to be okay, workplace injury on the hand, we're talking
about prone to accidents. I am such a klutz that
I remember when I was a kid, I was like, Oh,
I'm going to pretend to slip on a banana pee
like all the people in the cartoons do. And I
was like doing it in front of the family, Like
isn't this silly? And then I slept and smashed my face.
(03:21):
So I get you, okay. I also broke my foot
a few weeks ago by just walking down some stairs.
Oh at three pm in the afternoon. So bad in
flat shoes.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I don't I understand. I've got a pinch nerve in
my shoulder at the moment. And who's mentioning it? Oh?
My muscles. It's really annoying. But I used to do
stunt work. I used to like fall down stairs, get
hit by cars, jump out of buildings.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I mean, it's a pretty good crier to be. And
if you're prone to accident, yea true, you're like, I've
fallen so many times in my life that I may
as well get paid for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I never got injured doing that, but this pinch nerve.
I got that by doing the very dangerous thing of
going to bed.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
A lot of people die beds, yep, So I think
it's a big killer in the world.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So why has this not been raised before?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I know, I know. Look, we'll start a campaign after this.
But okay, question number two, if you could invite anyone
to dinner, dead or alive, who would it be.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
That's an easy one for me. David Attenborough David.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Ashenborough, Okay, well he could be dead soon, so that's
a good question. Question. You're safe with the director, okay.
And number three, if I had a tattoo gun and
I was forcing you to get a tattoo right now,
where would you get it and what would it be of?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I would get a hummingbird on my ribs under my
left arm.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Oh, it's all very specific, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I've thought about this one.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Ribs left. Okay, let's look at the picture you've painted
for me here today, Darren magic lighting, crocodile on the neck, ruises,
damaged hand, hummingbird on your left ribs and David Attenbrough Yeah, wow, Wow,
(05:09):
that's It's a whole load of shit, isn't it. Yeah,
that's okay, No, okay, So I'm getting animals, right, I'm
getting animals because you know David Abrah, you know, or
David and just like speaks really calmly. You know, maybe
maybe you're really into calm things. Maybe you're like maybe
you make candles. That's in the maybe right, you know,
(05:35):
because that would make sense, you know, because with a hand,
the workplace accident could have been oh no, yeah, because
the workplace accident could have been putting your hand in
molten like candle wax. No, I think that's all pointing
to it. It makes sense. I think it really makes sense.
And medium open magicians they work with fire, so maybe
you just gotten some experience in the flame world. So, Darren,
(05:57):
are you a candle maker?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I am not? Oh No, I am a wildlife presenter,
which means that I take snakes, spiders, sharks, sea stars, octopus,
a whole range of different animals into kindergartens and schools
to teach kids about conservation.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
I always go in the right direction that I doubted myself.
So Darren isn't a candle maker, he is a wildlife presenter.
Do you think he knows range of stacy? Do you
think this is my moment to be on totally wild?
(06:45):
All right? So we're here with Darren, who is not
a candle maker. Do you like candles?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I do like candle It's good to know.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
All right, we can be friends. But you're actually a
wildlife presenter. Please explain what is that entail? What do
you do well?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I work with children and animals. They say that you
shouldn't work with children or animals, but they don't say
that you shouldn't work with children.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Do you think they cancel each other out.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
That yeah, it does. Actually it cancels each other out
and then makes it ten times worse.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Okay, so you're into self harm, it seems, and torture alright.
I'm just noting that down we all have our kinks.
So where do you get these animals from? What places
do you go? Who are these people? Tell me?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So where do I get the animals? Yeah, there's a
company that I work for down in Talkie and all
of the animals live there.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
That's down my way. I live in July.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Oh cool, So just around the corner you've got crocodiles
and snakes and lizards.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Ah, so what animals do you? I know you've said it,
but Tom again, what animals?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So snakes, lizards, crocodiles, marsup mules, arthropods.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Are you trying to start an arc? Is that? Is that?
What happening? Are you are peering for judgment?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Day? I could be? I mean, have you seen the
weather later?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So how did you get into this?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I started working with wildlife when I was seventeen years old,
so that was twenty two years ago. I started out
as a suekeeper at a very small wildlife park in
northern New South Wales, which is where I grew up. Yeah,
and then I was kind of volunteering as a snake
catcher as well.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
You volunteered that, he my boy break then.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, I am. Well, there was only two of us
that knew how to handle venomous snakes in a sixty
kilometer radius, so we were very busy.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
How do you find out if they are venomous? You
just let them bite you and you go out.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
It's not advised to do that, but if you want
to be technical about it, you look at the scales
on the next to their eye.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
That's how you can tell. That's how you can get
a frond of them. Put eyeshadow on.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Oh, they'd be concealing something.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
So you volunteered to catch snakes? Yeah, and like what
like relocate relegate them because in the horror movies of
snakes in like on a plane. Yeah, well that too,
but there's you know, like they're in roofs and they're
on drain pipes, they're in toilets and there.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
That's pretty much what I do. And I volunteered because
if I say there's a charge, that people say, why
would I charge? You made a shovels free.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Okay, no, that's you definitely put a different spin on it,
because I was like, oh, no, okay, you're going you're
going to save a stake. Yeah, and then how do
you make the jump over to what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Now, because at the same time I was doing all
that in my spare time, I was performing musical theater. Oh, yes,
cats because you like animals. No, because they have integrity cats.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And then the sort of job for a wildlife presenter,
and I went, what is that job?
Speaker 1 (09:49):
They just advertised that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah they did what Yeah, I know, right. So I
had a look at the job and I was like,
theater and animals, Yeah, it's kind of the perfect mix.
So I applied and I got a job.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
They probably looked in and said, oh, actually, this one
does have experience around animals, so tick. Whereas other people
brock up being like, Hello, here is a snake. It's
long and it feels funny. Everyone want to touch the snake.
Come and touch the snake. Okay, maybe not that. Okay,
you would have to do a lot of research for
all this too, because you're also teaching conservation. Do you
(10:22):
sometimes just make things up about the animals? Oh?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
All the time?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
This is a platypus. It's got, it's got. It's a
flame thrower in there as well. Be careful, don't touch it.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I always tell them that I'm joking afterwards.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
What do the animals do when they're not in schools?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
When they're not in schools? Do they live their best life? Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And you just go get in the car, love, We're
going to go see some.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Children, exactly, and you get paid for it. They get
they get their favorite food doing so, and you.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Have multiples because you know, sometimes animals are having a
bad day.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Do You sometimes walk in and you know, Sandra, and
the snake is like, absolutely not, I'm not doing that today,
and you go, all right, we're going with Sam. Yeah,
and you go with Sam.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah absolutely. Because animals need a weekend as well.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
They do.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Do they just like people all over the kids?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Oh yeah, that's happened because they pooh once a week
and so that's kind of how I say, Oh, they
only do.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
You're so lucky to be shut on today exactly. And
you can keep that, You could actually keep that. I
feel like everything could go wrong, especially when there's children
and animals. Oh yeah, in the same space. I want
some stories. Give me some stories. There's got to be
some good ones.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
There's a few. One that comes to mind is, so
we've got these little vans that we pack all the
animals in, and the animals are two of us. Pretty much. Yeah, yeah,
pretty much. I've never thought of it that way.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, I was a rock star. Yeah. So we packed
them in and the crocodile's got his own box that's
all padded and everything, and he got out or she
I should say, her name was Gucci. That's why she
bit me. Shouldn't have called her that?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Oh no, she's Gucci. Now become a Gucci after that?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
No, no, but I was petrified to work with her.
So once they've gotten you, once they know that they
can get you, so then they are an absolute turd
for a long time.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
How did you tell them, you say, Gucci, No more
of this.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I had it just routine. You got to get into
a routine with them, and there is a bit of
training involved. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Anyway, So Guccie got out.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh, Guccie got out while in the back of the
van while I was on the Westgate Bridge. So I
looked in the rear vision mirror and saw a crocodile
sitting on top of the box that it was meant
to be concealed in with mouth wide open, just roaring
at me. So I had to merge across five lanes
of traffic to get off the exit and then find
(12:48):
a safe place to park to climb in the back
and catch her.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
We didn't have like the west Gate Bridge. There's Westgate Park,
which is a notorious cruising and like be for people
to hook up at. So they would have seen you
pulling up and then getting into the back of a
van thinking something completely different is happening, but it's you
wrestling a crocodile. It would have been moving and jumping.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yah.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Oh, the same noises. If only they knew, If.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Only they knew that, only they knew that I was
wrestling the crocodile, not wrestling.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Oh, I love that visual. So we've had escaped animals.
There has to be more.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
My boss was doing a nighttime presentation for an award ceremony,
so he had a crocodile there and it was Jack.
It was his crocodile's name, Big Jack.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Awful name.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah. So Jack was about six foot so he was
a handful about twenty three kilos big crocodile, but Jack
was in his box. I was in my civilian car
rather than the company van, and I got pulled over
for an RBT and the cops just said, what's what's
with the box.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
In the box? And I said, it's so nosy, I
don't know, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, And I said I was a crocodile. And I went, oh,
don't be a smart ass. What's in the what's in
the box? I said, a crocodile and they said, all
right out. So I pulled me out of the car.
I had to get the box out and they said
we'll open it up, and I said, I'm not opening it.
You can open it if you want, and so they did,
and they jumped back a mile. They were petrified.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
What about the kids, surely there's some stories with kids
and animals.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
There's some pretty strange things that children say when you
bring animals out. I remember this one time I put
a blue tongue lizard on the ground of the kindergarten
and the tongue was poking in and out, and I said,
you know, have a look at her. She's sensing her environment.
That's how she senses. And this little boy just yelled out, ah,
she's licking carpet, which was funny, but the amount of
(14:52):
laughter that came from the teachers did not comprehend with.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Just got positive reinforcement. It's like, I don't know what
I said, but that's funny.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Teachers came up to me afterwards said sorry that we
laughed so much. But he's got two mums.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
That shouldn't be as funny as it is. Okay, so
you're talking about injuries before. Where have things gone wrong
with the animals?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Thankfully, nothing in front of anyone. It's all been behind
the scenes, I know, right, but I've been bitten by
too many crocodiles. Oh no, my favorite animal, and obviously
i'm their favorite meal.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
You really are into torture because it just sounds it
doesn't sound very nice.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Makes sense? Why I want my first tattoo to be
on the ribs too, doesn't it? Yeah, that's most painful.
I think you've you've made me notice something. Yeah, you've
made me notice.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
For all of us. That's good.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
It's therapy.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Are like, No, that's okay, because the world can't hurt
you with the crocodile's barting on you. You know, nothing
can feel worse than that at the moment. So true,
it really helps, you said to yourself. Yeah, but at
the very start you said your worst injury was something
that happened to your hand at work. Was that a crocodile?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
So yeah, this crocodile had broken the filter in her
pond and so the water was disgusting. So I had
to catch her to get her out. And when I
went to catch her, I rushed it a bit, and
I shouldn't have because I didn't make sure that I
could see her properly. And I just went in and
(16:27):
she grabbed my hand and then didn't pull me into
the pond. But I just went with her into the
pond because as soon as you pull back, that's when
they death roll. So I just went with her and
then luckily my foot hit her back and she spun
around to bite my foot, and that's when I got
(16:48):
my hand out.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And you said they'd bite you. Is that fool like?
Is that just like a pinch or are they fool
trumping in there?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
No, it's a chumping hole. The closing pressure on the
jaws of a crocodile about the same as the closing
pressure of the brakes of a seven four seven. So
once they're shut, they're shut the way that they have
to go with it.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Then otherwise your arm's gonna be ripped off, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I would have lost my hand for sure if I'd
pull back. But the way that their teeth line up
as well, it makes perforation like the interlock. The interlock. Yeah,
it does that so that when they chomp down on
a piece of flesh, they just do a headshake and
it perforates the flesh like a perforated page. So I
just realized, sufficient.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
That's so good, isn't it. It is, I'm amazing just
sticking your hands in there.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I don't advise putting in in a crocodile's mouth. I've
done it four times. I do not recommend. Wait, you
keep going back for more and glutton for funnies, but do.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
You just keep going back to the same hospital And
they're like, oh, Taren.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, can you not? Yeah? So when I when I
got my fingers sliced open by a goanna, I was
at the same hospital and they went, oh, oh, you're
that crocodile guy. And then next door to me was
a guy who I could because you know, they just
put the sheet thing up and I could hear that
he had a nail through his hand, and he heard
(18:07):
that I had a goanna bite, and so we both
kind of went open the things said can I see
your injury?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And he's like show me yours and we're like whaw
and he's like a people are weird? Yeah, I love it.
I love it. I'm not going to yuck your yum.
I don't know. It's just just compare more injuries. Are
they trophies to you? No? Are you proud? No? Do
we put them on a like on the wall being
like with a picture of being like survive?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
No? Hell no. It's always a reminder of how bad
I am at my job. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I mean it's one way to be punished, isn't it. Yeah,
some people just lose shifts. Now you lose a limb.
So if you are a wildlife presenter, can you present
some wildlife to me?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I can? I have brought a couple of things.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Oh no, Darren has a bag. I can't see what's
in it. Aaron nervous. This is like a second level
of concealing. Oh okay, okay, I can handle this.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You can handle this yeah, this one. This one is
a spiny leaf stick insect. This one's a boy. I
love boys can fly and the girls though they can't.
They're too heavy because they've got a really did you
bring me a girl? A really big bottom? You can
have a holder feeling?
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Will I break it? Oh? What if it flies towards me? Oh?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Be fun?
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Okay, so there is there is a stick on my hand. Hello,
have you named this? This is tiny Tim? Okay? And
what did tiny Tim like to do? Pretend this is
a dating show and this is my my date.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Tiny Tim loves strolls along the sticks.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
He loves a.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Good eating of sugar gum. It's his favorite. Yeah. So
they only eat eucalyptus leaves. And when they when they
hatch out of their egg, which I think I might have. No,
that's a poo. That's a pooh. That's a pool.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
That's a lucky day for you. So many poos? No
eggs are they always an egg?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
That's a leg there and it looks like a seed
a seed. Yeah, so they're using mimicry even from the
egg looks like a seed. So that ants take it,
take it underground, and that's the perfect temperature to incubate.
The females don't even need the males because they are
pathenogenic as well, so they can just clone themselves. Exist
genetic diversity, because otherwise if if if you get one clone,
(20:34):
like just one animal, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Tiny Tina one No could tiny tim getting dragon become
tiny Tina?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
You sure can?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
You can have him back.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Now, I've got a venomous animal for you. It's a scorpion.
Oh no, from the Flinders Rangers. And it's that could
called a Flinders Ranger scorpion.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I don't want to touch it though, Oh really, Oh
no I can. Oh no no no no no no
no no no no no no no. I guess she's
pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I did bring a special torch with me to show
you something cool.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You want to flash the scorpion?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Okay, so the exoskeleton does something really weird with under
UV light. They glow in the dark.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Oh wow, yeah, oh wow. We've just shone a UV
light on the scorpion and it is neon. It is glowing.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Why is that that second got of raves?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah? Absolutely, they love a good rave.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Do do do do do do do do do Do
Do Do Do Do Scorpion Rave. So Darren isn't a candlemaker, No,
(22:09):
he is a wildlife presenter. Well, I'll tell you what.
All I know is I want to go party with
some scorpions in Berlin. Hit the UV lights. Do Do Do?
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Do?
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Do? Give Ben listening to an iHeart Australian production concealed
with artsimone. Want to check out some creepy crawlees check
us out on the socials.
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