Today we speak to Brody Buckley, a trailblazing loner whose personal crusade has ignited a multi-million dollar industry around animal justice. You've heard of a hitman - well Brody is a HITANIMAL, but he's no basic contract killer or animal abuser. This might be the most important and rare interview opportunity we've had yet on FLOG. Why? Nature. Humans romanticize the good bits of it like dolphins making noises while they have sex for pleasure or a stick insect doing a great imitation of the Sixties model Twiggy. Nature can also be cruel, as natural selection sees predators killing prey for food. Prey do fight back, but what if animals defy the brutal rules of nature and cheat? If stone cold murder happens in the wild and a human isn’t involved, who metes out justice and champions those taken from life by sinister forces?
Most human beings love to help those who are less fortunate. In this day and age, there are many worthy causes one can donate or share income with, everything from the remote and romantic. Increasingly people are setting budgets for donations and spending their allocated money early in a month, then face embarrassment when one of their friends asks for money to help their daughter pay bills from a car accident. That’s never a good feeling, either exceeding the budget, or losing social standing or upsetting friends by saying no at the worst time. Well, one generous entrepreneur has dedicated her time to helping solve this problem. Talulah Postlewaite has always been a good Samaritan but knew she could do more, which is why she’s set up Better Samaritan, a company that is using cutting edge technology to help us be the best philanthropists we can be, regardless of our income! Listen in for her wisdom, the gift that truly keeps on giving within a set limit.
Sex and the workplace. It’s not a TV sequel to Sex and the City, it’s a global pandemic that affects the groin area not the lungs and has been around since the dawn of employment. Inappropriate touching and commentary are one thing, rape and coercive sexual conduct are the fat horrible monster on the other side of this seesaw. The #metoo movement empowered women and trans workforce members to share their stories, but many are saying that’s still not enough to change inappropriate sexual behavior in the workforce. Now a new company stands to eliminate sexual desire entirely in work situations and thus minimize and eventually stamp out inappropriate sexual conduct. They’re taking gas-guzzling sex drive and its carbon cockprint and turning it into a no-gas sex neutral shadow that doesn’t give anyone the willies.
Often at FLOG we’ll cover emerging and lesser known entrepreneurs and influential people, not influencers, as everyone knows that’s something to do with guns. Today I have a legend of mystery crime fiction. Cahal Doherty wrote his first book as a high school student in Galway, Ireland, about an alcoholic detective from his neighbourhood called Roddy O’Hagan, a detective with a sharp mind, a gruff persona, and a fascinating status as a functional alcoholic. That first book, Roddy’s War, launched a career that would take him to twenty further novels detailing Roddy’s cases and adventures through the underbelly of Galway. This rogue careered about the city, a champion for solving murders of the downtrodden, while himself spiralling out of control. The adventures of O’Hagan garnered Doherty critical praise and popular devotion not just because O’Hagan captured a gruff laconic masculinity that was equal parts swasivious and reprehensible, but because he seemed to sum up an archetypal antihero not just emblematic of Galway but Ireland in its entirety, and his win of the Booker Prize in 2004 for Murder is a Cruel Meatmaiden was considered not just a highlight for him but for crime fiction. In the past two years though, Doherty and O’Hagan have been met by a new readership that don’t have the same reverence and adoration that made him one of the highest selling authors in Ireland. How he adapted to his challenge may be the greatest mystery yet. Through his greatest personal and career challenge, a movement and company was born which redefines masculinity in the age of feminism.
To afford a place in Sydney to rent can suck up more than a weekly wage, and buying a home even as a young power couple with historically low interest rates can still be a daunting prospect, avocado toast or not. One thing we can count on is for young entrepreneurial minds to see a problem and find a unique way to fix it. We speak to an entrepreneur with a unique solution to this problem and see how his journey has forged a solution to home ownership in the best city in the Southern Hemisphere!
Plastic surgery. The first time you ever hear the words you think of a guy with cerebral palsy holding scalpels lording over a prone body, then you realise you haven’t been listening properly and misheard the word 'plastic.' For those of us who have listened, we know that it’s an industry designed to help people look as perfect as they (or a collectively unimaginative sexual consciousness) can imagine. Bodies are imperfect, and plastic surgery solves imperfection problems. Some believe enhancements and reconstructions produce a better result. Some believe they produce a new kind of horrible. Are plastic surgeons rockstars or Dr Frankensteins? What if a new business turned plastic surgery on its operated-on head. Is it nip, is it tuck, or merely what the f***? This interview will expand your mind and challenge your features as I ask the hard-hitting questions as to whether Shoperation is really a company the world needs right now.
We also thank our sponsor for today's podcast - Shoperation!
Once upon a time, when a human died, there were only four ways of respectfully disposing of the body - taxidermy, cremation, cannibalism or burial. Nowadays a fifth way exists, and just as umami is the fifth kind of taste, so too is having your ashes turned to diamonds at high temperatures an incredibly exquisite, meaningful and sublime way of becoming beautiful in death in a way one cannot be in life. What happens if a business and community leader from one of the five great Italian New-York-City families incorporates this business into an already compelling suite of business offerings? Listen to Sonny Bonnano jam with me about gemstones!
Note: Much of what is said by Mr Bonnano was consenually written for him by Mr Christopher Breach of Seattle, who is currently missing and presumed ornamental.
Financial struggles aren’t just for the lower socioeconomic these days. In the words of what every Eastern European woman looking for an Australian husband, it pays to be solvent, i.e. to be able to pay your your bills. Tyler Sankey is a young entrepreneur who has named his company Eternally Solvent. He promises to put every one of his clients in a financial position to not have to eat their footwear and instead be able to pay their bills without having to resort to sexual acts, second mortgages or begging. What is his secret to making debts dissolve into the ether? Find out on this episode!
NOTE: The views and dissolution activities of Tyler Sankey and Eternally Solvent are the subject of an ongoing legal investigation and FLOG takes no responsibility or liability for activities of Eternally Solvent and in many ways, Sietel and FLOG MEDIA are heroes.
Hate crimes have been on the rise of late but it’s easy to forget they’ve been a reality for people of colour for a century and not just in the USA. However even in experiencing hate, entrepreneurialism for acts of kindness and love for each other can thrive. There are over 25 million Sikhs in the world yet it remains a religion that is a mystery to so many in Western society, and many Sikhs are mistakenly abused and insulted by those ignorant xenophobes thinking they are Muslim, Hindus, Uber drivers or craft beer w*nkers. It is that fact of being one of the world’s best kept secrets that plays into the remarkable story of Maninder Singh, a proud Australian Sikh, and the founder of HIDE AND SIKH, a services company that believes spreading love can happen in plain sight. (35:44)
Payday lending – two chilling words that describe an industry with a powerful reputation for exploiting the weak and gouging them with loans they can never successfully fully repay. When those with poor credit scores need money, there doesn’t even need to be blood in the water for loan sharks to start circling. Financial parity activists want the loan sharks hunted to extinction, but what if they’re already evolving into friendlier creatures with a stronger mission and purpose in the world seas of cash? We hear from Frank Glover, whose company Bloody Get What You Want Finance is helping the less fortunate using innovative and eclectic approaches.
25 MINUTES 54 SECONDS RUN TIME
FLOG stands for Fulfilling Lives Over Greed. Or it stands for Fucking Loose Original Gangsta. Or it stands for Failed Living Often Grates. Or it’s a word that isn’t actually an acronym and I’ve just sounded like a foolish loser opining grandiosely. To flog is to sell, and to sell is to solve problems. We don’t want lower-case-ism. We want capitalism. So get ready to flog or be flogged, cause confidence is an art.
In this first episode, we speak to entrepreneur Bobby Frantin, whose company Sabbatical.com tackles the modern phenomenon of 'cancel culture' n a subtle new way. Bobby outlines his career story from his early days correcting Japanese revisionist history on what happened at Pearl Harbour for an online education platform, to how he and his wife started Sabbatical.com and rethought what it is to have a few weeks off from your main job.
HOST - Sietel Singh Gill, Owner, FLOG MEDIA
Guest - Bobby Frantin, CEO and Co-Founder, Sabbatical.com
This is episode is sponsored by Fantasy Schadenfreude, where your social circle's misfortunes can mean big wins in $1 million jackpots!