The ChrissieCastThe ChrissieCast: Best Of With Tim Ross, Clare Bowditch And Josh Reid Jones
We've got another Best Of ep coming in hot! This week we have Tim Ross talking about greatest achievements and an interaction between Ita Buttrose and his mate "Bulldog". Clare Bowditch also joins us and talks about losing her sister at such a young age. Finally, Chrissie's emotional encounter with her friend Josh Reid Jones about ghosting him and how she's getting better dealing with hard periods in her life.
Oh, High Christy Casters, it's me. I'm calling high Christy Casters. It's me Christy Swan. Welcome to this podcast and thank you for listening to it. I'm having a coffee and probably reading a book. I mean, look, holidays for me unless I physically remove myself from the perimeter of the compound. You know, they usually involve sorting buckets, and that is lean what I'm doing it. While I'm busy with that, why don't you enjoy a little selection of my favorite bits and bobs and conversations that have happened since I started the Christy Cast about a year ago. Welcome to the Chrizzy Cast, the great Tim Rosso Ross. Thank you very much, so good to see you. Looking for fabulous am I. I've had a year, Rosso. Do you want to talk about that now? No, we'll talk about that, okay over a coffee. Okay.
I'm sure everyone would rather hear about your year than what I've got to talk about.
I'm going to spin the wheel again, Rosso, Okay, good, I love a wheel and well, look at that, my best year has come up. I can't wait. I was hoping it would come up for you. What Tim ROSSA Ross is your best.
Year yet I've had I've had a few. It's hard to decide. Can I do too? Yes, it's such a curious thing, isn't it to think about whole years and and how they affect you and what happened. But also without sounding like a wanker, Yeah, so that going, well, that was the year that I did this, or you know, the years that you have children's really important, But that goes without.
Saying yeah, they don't count.
No.
There was a woman I can't remember her name. She was one of those she was on one of those shows that were big Wisteria Lane.
Oh god, I can see them all have blonde hair, and she's married to William H. Macy.
Everyone's mad, Oh god, what's her name? Anyway, she once I saw it and.
She got embroiled. She's in jail in that. Yes, yeah, she's in jail because she was paying people off to get her kids into the university. Yeah. What's her name? Felicity?
Yeah, yeah, Felicity who was in Desperate Housewife, Desperate House Hands on the butter. I saw this interview with her.
You want to pick a famous face. I loved the famous faces lived around on Sale of the Century. I'll take the home viewer. Please, I would never have taken the home Why would you?
Why you know there's someone from Charlie's Angels or Brett from.
Craigie Bird exactly. You take Farah face at Majors every time share a lad for the wind she was on their bit. God, it's just.
All coming back. I love a pick of the board. She once said, not share a lad. Felicity half Manton that she felt like that everyone should. When you talk about your greatest achievements, you should talk about your children m And she said, well not for me, it's my career. I thought that was pretty brave.
I do too, and I actually and I agree with it. I agree with it.
I think when she said it right, which was maybe twelve years ago, maybe fifteen years ago, I think it was controversial. I think today everyone would go, yeah, it makes sense.
I got in trouble per Sae for not loving your children enough. Well, this is the thing. I love them so much that it goes without saying, doesn't it. But yes, But I also feel like I love them in a way that no one else loves their children. But I know that everybody feels that way. But that's the secret. Source, and I don't talk about them much because every day millions of women give birth to a baby. It's like the most common thing that happens. So I don't think I can add anything to that. And I was in I don't like doing you know, like you know, I don't even know what you call them. But there's people with seons. Yeah, group massacre. No, I you know, you sit in front of a group of market research other women barbecue talk with a microphone. What is that called Q and A or something? Keynote speaking. I don't do it, but I was forced to anyway. I was answering a question about that vibe and Buttress was on there and she waited until I finished, and then in front of everybody, she said, well, can I just disagree with you? And you know, children are I don't know. She made me sound like witch. You know, she made me sound allah and it's hard like I was keeping them in a cage and putting a bone in there, you know what I mean. Yuck. Well, it's not what I meant. I don't want to say anything about Ida.
But everyone has their own journey with and she was probably not around for her kids as much as she would have liked to in a time that didn't understand that exactly. My mother was very fond of Ide her. She subscribed to her Item magazine. Yes, I was at an event once, right, and we went out.
Can I tell you this story? Yes, so used to love.
It when you talk about your mom, which was awesome, taking mom out of the situation for two seconds.
So we go to one of these.
Lunches we used to have back in the day, a whole bunch of Sydney radio people and you know, red meat men man lunch we used to call you y and so ben Ford there and we've had a lot to drink and.
Human Radio when it was like that.
Was not not as good as when it was like that. We came just after it was good, but it wasn't good.
But it wasn't Doug mulray level. It wasn't wasn't Ferrari level.
And so ben Fordham's sister is an artist and there's and there's an exhibition going on and it opens at five o'clock on a Friday afternoon, and we are and we all turn up like like it's like a hurricane of drunk people, you know, classic mid two thousands. I'm wearing thongs, some flat jeans, you know, like looking like Bloody from the Goodies. And somewhere along the line we pick up our Bulldog. He's not in the show business at all. He comes along. What a great nickname, and so we're like Joey John's the famous rugby league player, well known for like and everything.
Even he looked at us and went, oh, you guys are a bit over. You know, have you read a gallery a gallery opening?
And just.
So there I'm having a chat.
This sounds like I'm having a chat to Ida.
And I introduced Ida to Bulldog.
I sort of know either because I was at a Foxtale event once and told her that my mum really liked her. And she said to me, she said, will you tell your mum that I said hello, which is like the most beautiful thing you could say. And so I introduced I'm introducing Ida to Bulldog. They're chatting up a storm. Everything gets a little bit hazy there. You know, you meet a whole bunch of people in subsequent years, going I met you at that gallery thing, I fort him. Fast forward to two days later, I actually American and I ended up sending flowers to Ben's sisters apologized for being so drunk at our opening, But the one thing that I do remember was Michael Bulldog being out the front leaving getting into a limousine and her winding down the window and waving out see a later Bulldog.
Anyway, what are we talking about? She is a cracker, amazing, amazing, amazing, the luminous clear boat which is an award winning musician, author, and actress. But I like to refer to her as a gold standard seer, listener, encourager, and cupboard wiper. I'm just so thrilled that she is here because I love her. Welcome to the Chrissy cast Claire Boat, which well.
Gosh, it's a thrill to be here. Finally, what do you mean, cupboard wiper? Is that just a way of describing that I love you?
Yes, you came over to my house recently because I had made like for the express reason and it was clear. I'd made it very clear what you were coming over. Apart from that I needed to see you. I'd made pumpkin SCons from my grandmother's recipe and there was no there was one person that popped into my head that would enjoy them with me, and it was you. You came over and we ate the pumpkin SCons eventually, and then we talked and talked and talked, and the whole time you were cleaning what you were washing down the front of my cupboard.
It's quite It actually sounds quite rude when you say that, but as a Dutch woman, this is just so normal to me. My mother and I we always stood and talked and we did little bits and pieces. And you know, it was my fault there was pumpkin scon on the front of the cupboard because you showed me an incredible recipe. I never considered, really considered.
No, well it's a Queensland thing.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
I loved watching you clean my cupboards and I thought, ah, that's another reason I think that we love each other is you might be like me in that you can't think unless you're doing something. So I have learned that about myself, that I can't come up with anything unless I'm doing something else.
Yeah. I do really like to be a sort of I find my body likes to move and do. But this could also just be the fact that I am a mum of three and we run a small business and there's always been a lot to do. But if I really reflect back on childhood, I was always a bit of a busy person. I thought, what a wonderful world, let's get into it. There was always something to do.
Yes, what sort of child were you?
I was brought up the youngest of five. Oh gosh, I get emotional thinking about it enough, because you got a croak in my throat. Now, I was the youngest of five. We were all born eighteen months apart, and I was really lucky. I'm often asked, did you come from a creative family, and on a traditional judgment, perhaps no. My mom was a nurse, my dad worked in the law. But my parents were deeply loving and very creative people. And so I remember my childhood. It is actually a place of great fun. You know. Mum was a kind of woman who should give you a can of paint and say, go on, off, you go paint the wall. Oh we had lots of Brussels sprout fights or you know, and so on. But it was also really difficult. How Why was it difficult? Because my sister died rowie. Yeah, so she was two years older than me when she died. When I thought we'd just get into it when I was five and she was seven, and my parents very fortunately had very strong faith, so they stayed together, held the family together. But ROWI had been sick for a long time and we really missed her, and I think that made me and my siblings really close. But that's the truth of it. That was part of the waters that we grew up in.
When something catastrophic like that happens to a small child, how important is talking about it.
I don't know as a child that it was terrifically important to talk about it, But as an adult and someone who then became a parent myself, it's been really important because she's in the room with me and with us always, so to not talk about her, you know, in beloved company, or to pretend that she wasn't there is just not possible for me. Her photos were always all over the house. We always spoke of her, and we still do. You know, she was absolutely glorious and.
Who did she look like? Funny if I've seen your siblings and you're all and I've seen your parents and I'm obsessed with genetics.
Yeah, you know, when you're a kid and you have like Holly Hobby pillow cases or so on right. Yeah. So in my childhood mind, she always looked like Holli Hobby. You know, it's so funny. So she sort of if I look back at the photos, now, I see my mom, I see my dad, I see my brother, I see my sisters. But she really was her own unit, you know, And she was kind of born that way. She was super bright, super husky, super bossy and super kind. Yeah, but a really smart kid. And you know, I think think a lot of a lot of who we are as a child remains who we are as adults. I find that more and more as I sort of head into this. I'm almost fifty now, Swanny.
Are you gonna have fiftieth?
If you'll come, I will, but I've come.
I'll organize her here.
Okay, done, I'm good at that. Should we go back to Europe like you did last time?
Oh my god? What though?
I've heard you say this that we you know, every decade we feel like we're done. So at thirty we might feel like we're done. At forty we might feel like we're done and over at fifty we feel like we're done. And that the friendship that we have always reminds me to not fall to that story, like who is it who you said yes to big brother? Twenty one years ago? On a crazy whim, a.
Crazy whim, and it changed my life. I think, yeah, are you writing another book? Yeah?
And I've this this sometimes happens. I'm a little like I'm a little Lushian in some ways too. When I hit on like find your creative courage, transform your life using everyday creativity, it was just this sort of funny little title, sweet little title, I'll do something useful. It was three years ago that I pissed it to Audible off the back of doing an audiobook with them audiobook of that book that we mentioned. And my mom is one of the characters in the audiobook, meaning she does a swear swear warning and she shares her Apple Tarte recipe. But I thought it would be a small project that I know the content so well. I have this conversation with so many people about, Hey, have you considered maybe you are creatid? Why don't you try this outw this for a random creative adventure? Just you know. It took me down the most interesting and profoundly fascinating rabbit hole and connection with strangers and conversations and delight and really trying to find a good argument for what I believe is the most sustainable, renewable, underrated, squandered, ever available, affordable power that each of us have within us, which is this power of a new thought of creativity. That it overwhelmed. The book that I was going to write, I overwrote and I tell you where, So you asked, am I writing another book? Yeah, I've written a number of books since twenty nineteen's release. I am a little overwhelmed by which story to tell next, Which is the most useful, which is the most present. And this is a really classic conundrum, and I think the trick is to just get it out there, whatever it is.
But what are the stories that we are going to get from Claire.
The books that I wrote during this time, and it was really again just out of twenty twenty was about small acts of pleasure for all kinds of weather. And this was in a way I kind of make him do book that told stories, and it was about how we can so vibe difficult things sometimes by bringing in a sense of play. So it was in line with the work that I'm doing now with Audible. But a part of me then had to grieve my mother and grieve changes in life and grieve look just.
Learn to least to it.
Yeah, it's new ways to live well without, you know, these things that were so familiar in our lives and we've changed. So that became then a really big story to this story of how do we live well? And for me that was around many, many things. But there's another part that people just want me to tell the next part of the memoir. I only really wrote the first memoir up until the point of having my first daughter, Asher, and that's something I wanted to write too. So I think maybe we need to just put it like we all have our own sort of you know, trip wise or rabbit holes that we fall down, and I've fallen down one and I actually need a bloody good talking too. Actually. Yeah, And I think if I were going to draw me in a champion, think of yourself, think of our mates. Maybe Catherine Demonie, who's a wonderful encourager of writers. She has a work workshops called Gunners. You know, I'm going to write and so on.
But I just ordered the cards I've got has made these beautiful, you know, prompt cards.
So my problem is I've written far far, far too much, and I need someone well, I need to tell myself to just put something out there.
I can see I've a funnel. I can see a funnel, and there's all these ideas and that's it's blocked. The ideas are there?
What do you want to Oh, I put her on the spot.
I want to hear all of this.
So it's it's really frustrating when the very thing we know we should do, and I would advise another mate to do, which is just start with one yes sah. I've got to this sort of crossroads with myself over it. But really I think I wanted to end twenty twenty five back out in the world. I've had a good sabbatical with making.
You know that that's a year down the track. Yeah, at the end of already twenty five. That's good.
I was just checking cheeking. No, I didn't mean that. I meant twenty twenty four. Oh yeah, you got here's the truth. Oh, my excuses are probably gone now. So last ten years, you know, I've been raising guinea pigs and children and doing other projects. And my boys are six foot seven and they've just beenished year twelve. My daughter's twenty one, I think you'll hear more from me next year, is what I'm saying.
I think I will. And you've got to meet yourself where you are every single day, and you've got to accept that you don't know what that's going to be today. So you've got to be flexible.
Are you giving me in verse now, because I'm actually I'm listening because I was still wearing my mind. You got my attention. Let's talk about this theoretically. So I'm someone who you know has lots of ideas, but I am I not showing enough creative courage myself with these ideas, Like what would you advise?
No, You've got too many.
I'm just overwhelmed.
Yeah, there's a traffic jam a few years ago. I can't remember how long ago, but it was doing Lockdown. I made a friend, Josh Reid Jones. In that weird way that happened in Lockdown, you sort of fast tracked your connection. We became really, really close. But last year, in twenty twenty four, I was deep in the thick of it, sorting out my life, my work, my family, my finances. All of this was new to me. And in order to do so, I withdrew from everyone for over a year. I thought it was going to be a couple of months, and it turned out to be closer to eighteen. I just disappeared. Now, most people, understandably would have taken that as a sign, would have judged me for it. They may have moved on, They would have definitely taken it personally. But Josh didn't. Throughout that entire time, he kept checking in, no pressure, no expectations, just kindness, just a quiet, constant, active kindness. And I wondered, then, why did he never assume the worst? Why did he never feel slighted? Why did he never stop reaching out? Did he ever think maybe I should just give up on this? And if he did think that, then why didn't he follow through. We haven't spoken about any of this yet. We still haven't really seen each other. I've saved it for today because I've got so many questions. Welcome to the quizzy cust shreck Jones. Now, what did you think was going on with me?
It doesn't take a genius. I obviously knew what was happening all the way up to lead into everything, you know, And it's all the big stuff. It's like really big, big heavy things For a big hearted person who's got lots of people relying on them, you know, heavy as the crown or heavy as the head that words the crown. And you've got a lot of when you've got a lot on sometimes people just more people. There's just more to deal with, you know, so.
More people, no problems.
Problems. Yeah, if you feel like you have to do things, it can be like that.
And it was just the weight of the responsibility and it was all new and I feel like my life that I'm the sort of person. Do you turn down the radio when you're reversing? Oh yeah, yeah, I do too, because I have to shut out the noise or I can't concentrate. And that's sort of what I had to do. I was so full of like I didn't know what to do when you would contact me, because I was like, I'm not I'm not the same person I was, do you know what I mean? And I just thought, oh, you know, if I do catch up with him, it's going to be such a downer. And I don't even know where to start. I'm so overwhelmed. And so I did those that awful thing that I never do. I just would just never I just never responded did you think that I had ghosted you at any point? Ah?
No, I didn't think ghosting. I just thought, you know, you're in it, and probably if anything, that just means you know that it's more important to just you know, hear if you need it, and just do that with no expectation, because like, that's that's obviously what's happening. The first couple of times, it's like, oh, you're just busy. We're both a bit shit sometimes anyway, because we run around you look, we have everyone, you know, we do I think that most people do. Where you go, I'll get back to that and you go, fuck, it's spend three days off, you know, now, I'll do it. But then after a couple I was like, okay, you know, you're in the middle of it, and then you probably once a few big things happen, it's difficult to have to reiterate those things to more people all the time. And you've got professionals and stuff you've got to deal with. If you you know, finance, you've got to go sit with your account. It's not always then you've got to deal with someone else and you've got to do another thing. You don't always want to sit down and go through it all again with someone else, you know, And then after a little a few of those things happen, like I've got seven big things I've got to talk about, and I cannot be asked, And now I've got ten big things, and now it's too much, and now I can't catch you up because it's too much to do in one go.
And in hindsight, if I could have my time again, I wouldn't, by the way, and as horribillous anison, a half horribillous, But I think if I had my time again, I would have I would have spoken to you, because I didn't speak to anybody. So when I know what you mean, you don't want to say the same thing over and over. That's annoying. But I wasn't saying it to anybody, and I think that, in hindsight, made it harder. But I felt like I couldn't I couldn't even articulate how much I was having to learn. I couldn't even do it. And I think I said that to you on a few occasions. I can't even I don't even know where to start.
Yeah, yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot.
So what do you think because I do hear nobody ever got mad at me for it, for disappearing, which I'm really grateful for, because I don't like it when people get mad at me, particularly when I'm sad. Yep, but people do. A lot of people do. And you know, there's whole Reddit threads on how long is acceptable to not respond to a text message. I just don't think you're wired that way.
Yeah, I mean, you get frustrated. Everyone Everyone can get frustrated, and everyone can feel sad about stuff. And you know, I missed you, you know, like I miss you because I miss you.
But I also didn't want you to know as well, because it was something that it was embarrassing. It was just such a mess and I don't know you and your eyes looking at me. I just couldn't stand it.
It's hard to think when you've when you've developed so much competence, to then find yourself swimming in all this like lack of competence and just be like, I don't want to be perceived as this person. And it works so hard to be past step one that now that I'm back at it, this isn't something that I want someone to be that's known me from step thirty. Yes, know me at step one, but you know, I think good friends are here for all of it up the ups and the downs and starts and the finishes and all the things in between. And and but I also understand that how how vulnerable it feels if someone's with you in those moments and you're not one hundred percent sure what's going to happen, because been ages since anyone's been there, and you know, in that circumstance for you, you know, so I get it.
I've really missed you and I and also I just really want to thank you for that, because it was a fairly lonely time by my own doing, because I had these huge areas of my life that had changed fundamentally, and I'm so like, I take it so seriously making sure that everyone's okay and doesn't feel in the dark or I don't know, I just and I just didn't know what I was doing. I had so much to learn in all the big areas, and I just always knew that it was like I was on stage and everything was crazy, and then you were just off in the you know, side of stage, just you know, no comments, just watching. And that felt very nice because and Also, your timing was extraordinary, because a curveball would be thrown at me, or something wouldn't work out, or I hadn't quite made the right decision, and then you would pop up on my phone and I didn't. You know. The protocol is when somebody messages you, you message them back. You know, I know that, of course, but it was different with you. It was like you didn't you didn't expect it, and you were just there going remember who you who you are. You know, you're still that person even though everything you know it's crazy. It's a I mean, everything's great now, but my god, Josh.
Okay far out.
I think everyone's had those moments where like things are going so nasty, like if I lose, if I lose grip on this, I won't grip it again. And so I've just got to keep my head down and away from anything that might even yeah, tiny is cracking it.
It's like, you know, you've got greasy hands at the show and you're helium blue. It's gone, you just watch it. I can't ever get that back.
And everyone, everyone who loves you is is is glad to see you come out of the other side, you know, And but things will happen again. That will happen, and we'll be here again, and I won't.
I'm not going to isolate next time. I'm even getting I'm getting better at that now.
Even try it out. See what happens ab test, next crisis, I come back and go, you know what, Actually, I am going on my own again. The third time. I'm back on my head. This is the second time was rubbish. I'm out.
Gosh, haven't we had a lovely time. I'll see you back here next week for a few more highlights that you might not have heard.
