Vanilla Club Podcast

Due to the visual nature of this episode, we would recommend that you watch the accompanying video on our YouTube channel . Greg's work Before the Kowloon Walled City was demolished in 1993, Greg Girard was doing something very few, nigh on zero, local Hong Kongers were doing. Greg, camera in hand, was documenting a place which to many immediate residents and neighbours was utterly ordinary....

What does it take to build a work of art by yourself, on a macbook, in a Brooklyn rare oatmilks only coffee shop, with zero team, no water cooler, no corporate handbook, and no guarantee whatsoever it'll work? That's the question at the heart of this conversation with Sam Eng, the rad indie game developer behind Skate Story - one of the most visually and emotionally striking games to com...

Expat Prep on Substack In this episode, we are joined by our first repeat guest (we dig him that much) on Vanilla Club Podcast, Expat Prep, where we explore what it means to reorient your life when bedrock assumptions fail. Expat Prep is an anonymous Substack writer from unnamed Midwestern City (I think he stole this from the Simpsons by the way), who writes with a wide-ranging knowledge of financ...

We almost didn't publish this one. Spending even an hour inside the headspace of dogmatic, violence-approving ideologies isn't exactly our jam. But far-right extremism is a real, globally networked phenomenon - and ignoring it doesn't make it smaller. So we called Dr. Heidi Beirich. Dr. Heidi is a political scientist and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, a...

In this episode, we are joined by Kella Narki Merlain-Moffatt, to explore the role that language plays in shaping identity. As a multilingual, transnational kinda person, this is my kind of topic. Kella is the Associate Director of the Africana Center at Tufts (Go Jumbos!). Raised in a multilingual Ghanaian-Haitian household, Kella shares how early exposure to multiple cultures dynamically shaped...

Allan Wexler Michael Yarinsky @ Tangible Space In this episode of Vanilla Club Podcast, we are joined by visionary artist and teacher, Allan Wexler, to explore the groundbreaking Farm is Table project. With all the distress in the world at the moment, we couldn't think of a more welcome time to go "back to the country." In this case, with a small dose of wryness (we love it!) Allan...

This episode is a first for the show: a live, walking conversation recorded on-premises at Vanilla Club, on the lush Cassowary Coast in Tropical North Queensland, before picking up later in the urban jungle of Sydney. (Please give me some credit for my assimilation into Aussie culture--- if you watch the video you will see I am reppin' the "high-viz," screaming neon orange hat, and...

vanilla.club In this episode, we are joined by Alex Woo, director of the Netflix hit "In Your Dreams." As founder and CEO of Kuku Studios, Alex is a business-creative hybrid - something he is all too modest about, but something that is a key part of Alex's secret sauce. Alex is also a dear friend and classmate. We went to the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU together. I don't ha...

Cairns Native Bee In this breezy but immersive episode, Vanilla Club Podcast gets out of the studio and into the field, or the paddock, as they say Down Under. I sit down with Zac Peterson, founder of Cairns Native Bee/Hinterland Hives , and Anoob Davidraj, a fellow Vanilla Club team member, to unpack the remarkable world of bees. What begins as a conversation about starting our own apiary at Vani...

Nicola on LinkedIn Nicola's Documentary Pragmatic Practice Click here if you need help with gambling With two gambling scandals shaking both the NBA and Major League Baseball, the integrity of sport is under scrutiny. Last month, in the NBA, Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier were arrested after investigations uncovered a network of illegal betting and high-stakes poker schemes. And now in bas...

Priscilla Harvey - Living the Questions on Substack Get that Sweet Tea ready. So sweet you can stand a spoon up in it? Are you grinnin' like a possum eatin' a sweet tater'? Mmmm Hmmm. Vanilla Club is in North Queensland, Australia. Yet as strange as it sounds, despite two mountain ranges, the Great Plains, a massive ocean, a great barrier reef, some 1000's of km's of separ...

Jenna Lee on IG Jenna's website In this episode, we explore the intersections of art, identity, and cultural heritage with Larrakia Indigenous artist and designer Jenna (Mayilema) Lee, whose work navigates history, personal ancestry, and contemporary Australian life.  I may have mispronounced Jenna's mob affiliations (dear Americans: "mob" doesn't mean mafia as in "th...

In this episode, we welcome Bree Bullock, Managing Associate at Armstrong Legal in Brisbane QLD, to help us understand when poor taste and loose lips can potentially trip into tangible legal consequences. Bree, a criminal law expert with over a decade of experience, shares her insights sparked by a recent case involving a Cairns, Queensland Police Officer whose social media comments overseas raise...

Expat Prep on Substack GUS: If push came to shove, I was wondering how soon you might be able to take over the lab yourself. You, and an assistant. Gale thinks for a moment. GALE: Why would... Why would push come to shove? This was an exchange between the methodical, predatory Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) of Los Pollos Hermanos fame, and plucky Gale Boeticcher, played by David Costabile, who has...

Dr. Hasinika Gamage is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Facilitated Advancement of Australia's Bioactives (FAAB) in the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. In this episode, we begin exploring the meta theme of Gut Health, a crucially important subject of our time. Feeling good? Feeling down? Lend me your ears, 'cause I got news for ya: serotonin...

Seapunk Studios Join me your host, Jason S.C. Fung, with guests Jules Yim, and Sam Chua as we explore the future of education, entrepreneurship, and culture through a global + specifically Southeast Asian lens. This is a special "two-fer" episode, which brings together guests who overlap in their interests and experiences, who are totally unabashed about telling it like it is.  Seapunk P...

Wendy Mak on Instagram Veera Brave Girl In 2025, it's estimated that we see at least 4,000 ads, every single day. And the lines are becoming more and more blurred between what is "real" and what is AI generated. In an era where the use of AI has become commonplace, what is the correct balance between increasing productivity and maintaining consumer trust? Wendy Mak is the Chief Mark...

Gabrielle Feather - Holding Both on Substack This is one of the most intense interviews I’ve done. Surely. Please check out our new Substack , which is an audio and textual hub for all things Vanilla Club Podcast, where we interact and engage with complexity in order to better appreciate simplicity. This episode is a continuation of a run of episodes with Substackers whose writing we admire. Gabri...

Mike Jones - Resilient Tomorrow on Substack Anarcasper on Substack Vanilla Club on Substack With the introduction of our own Substack, we are introducing a short run of episodes with Substackers whose writing that we admire.  We came across Mike Jones' Substack 'Resilient Tomorrow' through his striking article - 'Convenience is the Cage' . In this article, Mike prompts us...

The Honest Sorcerer on Substack Show your support & buy him a coffee   Vanilla Club on Substack  Our planet’s approach to renewable energy is totally dependent on fossil fuels and finite resources. What happens once we’ve exhausted the accessible portion of fossil fuels? And what could we have learnt from the Indigenous cultures of Earth? With the introduction of our own Substack, we are intro...

What really goes on behind the curtains of the wild, wild, world of air travel? In this wide-ranging episode, we're joined by aviation expert Keith Tonkin - former military and commercial pilot, now Managing Director of Aviation Projects. He started his career in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), where he spent 15 years. He then spent 9 years flying internationally and domestically with...

Follow K9 on X: https://x.com/k9_reaper This was one of the most fun and engaging shows we have done on our lovely, fledgling, Vanilla Club Podcast.  K9 Reaper, a volunteer, civil protection officer, neighbourhood watchman, and citizen journalist, defies easy description. He is someone who has been labelled a racist (on X, with no shred of evidence), or at the least, not fully cognisant of his (wh...

At Vanilla Club, we are all about simplicity. But on Vanilla Club Podcast, we venture out, asking the basic questions of real world experts, taking a desire for simplicity and contrasting it with worlds of complexity. Today we delve into the great blue yonder, crank that Blue Danube tune on Space Odyssey 2001 and join us! Here we go. Simpletons in Space! In this week's thought provoking episo...

In this week's episode, we were joined by Forrest Rain Oliveros at the Vanilla Club Plantation in Coorumba, Queensland. Ground Zero for Simple Wellness! The conversation begins directly with the sheer physicality of ballet, and the required emotional discipline, and how it challenges conventional ideas of masculinity. Forrest opens up about navigating gender expectations and lingering stereot...

What does Australia, one of the driest inhabited continents on Earth, teach us about water challenges and solutions? A lot, as it turns out! At Vanilla Club, our motto is "Return to Simple." And there is nothing simpler than water. Episode 3 of Vanilla Club Podcast dives deep with Dr. Stuart Khan, a world-class water researcher, Head of School and Professor at the University of Sydney’s...