Mimi Kwa (00:03):
People say, “Life is a journey, not a destination,” but how do you know you are on the right path?
Jo Stanley (00:10):
If only we could see the signs when they appear.
Mimi Kwa (00:13):
Well, I’m Mimi Kwa.
Jo Stanley (00:14):
And I’m Jo Stanley.
Mimi Kwa (00:15):
And on A to Be, we speak to fascinating people about how they navigated their way to be here now, having profound impact on the world.
Jo Stanley (00:26):
We hope our conversations will help you reflect on everything you’ve been through to get here; the triumphs, challenges and bumps along the road.
Mimi Kwa (00:35):
And if you haven’t already, find your own map to what matters.
Kaz Cooke (00:41):
And this woman came up to me, she said, “Hi, I’m one of the reviewers for the Australian newspaper,” and I thought she was going to say… I don’t know what I thought she was going to say, but I didn’t think she was going to say, “You had a really ugly rash across your chest and neck while…” And thankfully, I laughed in her face because it was, I think, such a shock and it was so mean.
Jo Stanley (01:07):
Hello, it’s Jo here, and this is a very special episode because it’s part two of our deeply delightful conversation with the amazing Kaz Cooke. If you haven’t heard part one, I strongly recommend you go back and listen to it. Not surprisingly, she is one of the great storytellers and her tales of how she began her career in journalism are riveting and hilarious. So go back, listen to part one if you haven’t already heard it. Kaz, of course, is like every woman’s best friend with her brilliant books giving us the guide to our bodies for decades now. And in part two, we dive into menopause, which is the subject of her latest book, and we begin with our own A to Be of Kaz.
Mimi Kwa (01:56):
So my A to Be with Kaz is just that I’ve read Up the Duff, and so then you were part of my… I’ve got four children, and so I read it four times, and my husband had it foisted in his face four times and did not read it any of those times, but I did. And so, it helped me profoundly along with everybody else.
Kaz Cooke (02:14):
Yeah, I’m so glad. I’m so glad.
Mimi Kwa (02:15):
And I won’t take you through all of the minutiae of my pregnancy as some of your readers have done.
Jo Stanley (02:19):
I mean, she’s got four, so there’s a lot to go through.
Mimi Kwa (02:21):
There’s a lot to go through.
Jo Stanley (02:23):
Yes.
Mimi Kwa (02:24):
Very well. But Jo, you have a much more literal or, ” Literal,” as people say these days, A to Be with Kaz.
Jo Stanley (02:35):
I believe, because I still have a copy of Living With Crazy Buttocks, and I just moved house, Kaz and I’ve done the culling of books-
Kaz Cooke (02:44):
Oh yeah, me too.
Jo Stanley (02:45):
That you have to do when you downsize, which is deeply painful.
Kaz Cooke (02:47):
Yeah.
Jo Stanley (02:48):
And to hold a book in your hand and go, “I loved this, but do I need it? No, I can’t fit it on the shelf.” I did keep Living With Crazy Buttocks because, profoundly, I read it and went, ” Oh, I really think my writing is not shit.” That’s one of the things. I thought, the kind of writing that I… And probably I have… You were one of the first columnists to write funny, opinionated pieces. Opinion pieces and opinionated.
Kaz Cooke (03:17):
Yeah.
Jo Stanley (03:18):
But I remember reading it and thinking, “There is perhaps a path for me as a writer.” Because I always wanted to be a writer, and I didn’t know that there were different ways of writing, I guess. And probably have imitated a lot of what you did to begin with. I hope I’ve got my own voice now, but-
Kaz Cooke (03:32):
Oh, you have. But isn’t that fascinating? Because I learned that working in the secondhand bookshop. You saw it in what I was doing, weirdly before I wrote a recent book of mine called You’re Doing it Wrong: The History of Bad and Bonkers Advice to Women.
Jo Stanley (03:47):
Best book.
Kaz Cooke (03:48):
So heaps of research. But because I’ve got to be so careful when I write the medical books and there’s sad bits and difficult bits in the Up the Duff, I have to write about the possibility of miscarriage and stillbirth and those are not places to make jokes. So you have to have that sense of, you know, and you just develop that over time, I think. But I realized that I could just let myself off the leash with You’re Doing it Wrong, and be furious and make every joke that I wanted to, be incredibly rude about all the male philosophers. And I got this fantastic fellowship to the National Library of Australia, so I had 12 weeks there. One of the books I got out at my desk, there was Helen Gurley Brown, Sex and the Single Girl from the 1960s, and the message of it is how to find a man, how to treat a man on a date, what’s good about being single and living on your own? More time to iron your collars. But her voice, her voice is hilarious and her voice is… It was really so weird to be so inspired by the idea of just letting your personality through, even though I didn’t agree with hardly a single syllable of what she was writing. And it was really inspiring to me.
(05:17):
And I remember not being allowed to use my way of writing about politics and got into so much trouble. And then years later, I saw Annabel Crabb writing a sketch from the National Parliament and thought, “Oh, she’s broken through.” So I think I was skeptical of that idea, “If you can’t see it, you can’t be it.” And I’m always worried about the idea of heroines or inspiration because sometimes I think, I remember thinking Roseanne Barr was fantastic, and then she lost her mind. And so, you have to be careful not to put all your eggs in that basket, to use a terrible cliche that I would make sure I didn’t write in a book. I’d have another think about the phrase to use-
Jo Stanley (06:03):
Or you’d do a really funny cartoon with a whole lot of eggs in a basket.
Kaz Cooke (06:08):
Yes. And sometimes I do look at something and I think, “That’s a cartoon” or, “That’s a phrase.” And I know I’m not the best cartoonist in the world because I had to choose in the end, and I chose the writing, which was going to make me more of a living.
Jo Stanley (06:23):
But Hermione created your voice. She was the start of that really sort of-
Kaz Cooke (06:28):
Oh my God, I’m finding this so insightful. You’re absolutely right. I’m 60 years old, I’ve been drawing her for more than 40 years and you’re absolutely right. I did say things through that cartoon character I wouldn’t have said at work.
Jo Stanley (06:44):
Yeah, you honed your voice through her.
Kaz Cooke (06:45):
I’m a ventriloquist.
Mimi Kwa (06:50):
Well, I bet she’s your alter ego. I’m sure that’s been so many.
Kaz Cooke (06:51):
See, this is why to come and have this interview because it’s with smart women.
Jo Stanley (06:55):
Well, here’s another question for you, because I read When in Doubt, Make a Fool of Yourself, you were quoting-
Kaz Cooke (07:01):
Cynthia Heimel. Yeah.
Jo Stanley (07:02):
So tell us about Cynthia Heimel because that we talk about these little sliding door moments or just infinitesimal moments in our lives that shape who we are.
Kaz Cooke (07:12):
Okay, I went to the 7/11 in Flemington Road, busy Road in Melbourne seven 11 on the corner near where I was living. And in those days, you could buy books from 7/11. Oh, those days are gone. And I bought this book called Sex Tips for Girls by Cynthia Heimel, and I remember the look I got from the clerk, but just something about it, I think I must’ve turned it over and it said, “Columnist for the Village Voice,” and I went, “Oh, okay. This is for me,” because I started being a columnist by then. And so Cynthia Heimel wrote, and she was a huge influence on me, and she had her own voice. I hate these words because they’re often only used for women, but she was feisty, she was sassy. She wrote about relationships from a feminist point of view, but funny. Before her time in terms of, and I think that came from being in New York, like gay friendly, all of that kind of stuff.
(08:11):
I guess until then I’d kind of thought, “Well, I guess I’m gay friendly,” but I hadn’t openly written about it. So by the time I wrote a book called The Modern Girls Guide to Safe Sex, I knew who I wanted to be an ally to and how I wanted to write that stuff. So she was huge. And in fact, recently I wrote a column for just a one-off for the monthly magazine. And they said, “What is a sentence that you remember that changed your life?” And it was Cynthia Heimel saying, “When in doubt, make a fool of yourself” because you’ve got to be brave to use your own voice. I’m worried about AI coming in, and being used to write books because I think we need heart, and soul, and experience, and bravery and a burning desire, or at least someone wanting to have fun with writing something.
Mimi Kwa (09:02):
So when you interpret, “Make a fool of yourself,” do you interpret that as just be vulnerable and just be true? Because there’s different ways that you can actually read that word.
Kaz Cooke (09:13):
Another good question, gee, women are making me think, I reckon, when I first started writing a column, I had so many men saying, “Who’s writing that for you?” They would write in and say, “Does your husband write that?” My uncle told everyone that there was a man at The Age writing it and putting my name on, because if there’s one thing men like it’s giving away their kudos to someone for no reason. And I think, well, I know a lot of people, especially more senior men, thought it was trivial. And it became my column that I was writing called Keep Yourself Nice, which was, as far as I know, the first revival of an etiquette column. You see it everywhere now, but it was the first revival of an etiquette column in an Australian paper for many years. I mean, they were in New Idea and the Women’s Weekly, but not in-
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:10:04]
Kaz Cooke (10:03):
I mean they were in New Idea and the Women’s Weekly, but not in a newspaper and so, there was this, not discrimination, but I was looked down on for writing. It was trivial. It was silly and then, it became the most popular. And I remember the editor asking me into his office and going, “This column, everyone we do focus groups on loves it. Do you need any help? Do you need anyone to help you write the letters?” And I went, “Mike, I don’t write the letters.” And he went, “What?” And I said, “I don’t make up the letters. This is the…”
(10:31):
He didn’t even understand that readers want to… They want to relate to you and they want to… And to be fair to him, some of them, I think, got the idea that it was fun and were sort of writing in a fun way so he thought that was kind of my style. I was really rude to anyone who wrote in from North Balwyn and got an absolute spray just for fun and I think people got it. And I think that has gone on for my whole career. I’ve been to writing festivals. I’m hardly asked to a single one anymore. But I remember just before going out on stage to do a panel with a whole bunch of writers, a very… How should I describe her? She was a cow. She was…
Jo Stanley (11:13):
Okay, I got it. I got it.
Kaz Cooke (11:17):
She was a well-known literary writer and we were literally… We were in the wings with the momentum started and one foot forward and she said to me, “How does it feel to be here with real writers?”
Jo Stanley (11:32):
Oh, what? What?
Kaz Cooke (11:32):
And I thought, “Okay.”
Jo Stanley (11:33):
Oh, no.
Mimi Kwa (11:35):
Wow.
Kaz Cooke (11:35):
So because I write funny as well as…
Jo Stanley (11:39):
My heart just stopped then for a little second.
Kaz Cooke (11:40):
I know.
Jo Stanley (11:42):
I just can’t believe someone would way that.
Kaz Cooke (11:43):
So you do have to toughen up. And I remember my dear departed friend, John Clark, launched my first novel at the Adelaide Writers Festival. And so I was terrified, I was up there with him. He mercifully made it very short. We came down to everyone sort of milling around having champagne in a tent. And this woman came up to me, she said, “Hi, I’m one of the reviewers for the Australian newspaper.” And I thought she was going to say… I don’t know what I thought she was going to say, but I didn’t think she was going to say, “You had a really ugly rash across your chest and neck while…” And thankfully, I laughed in her face because it was, I think, such a shock and it was so mean. And I laughed and she said, “I just thought you’d want to know.” And I went, “Oh, really?”
(12:35):
And so there’s always going to be people who want to take you down a peg for whatever reason. I was 26, she would’ve been in her fifties. I think she was either just mean.
Jo Stanley (12:45):
Yeah, but that’s bullshit, right, because I’m in my fifties now and I would never ever want take someone down like that. So she’s just nasty.
Kaz Cooke (12:53):
Yeah, she’s nasty. But you also wouldn’t have… If you saw a young woman launching her book, you wouldn’t be looking to take her down a peg or two because she was a young…
Jo Stanley (13:03):
No, I’m just joyous about that. Right? I’d be stoked that I got invited to be honest.
Mimi Kwa (13:10):
It’s that champagne.
Jo Stanley (13:10):
You two know me so well.
Kaz Cooke (13:16):
Oh no, Jo. I was talking about myself. Sometimes you just fake it. Sometimes you have that hard armadillo carapace of… I mean, another interview I did… I mean I’m sort of telling you all of these things when I want to hear you laugh, but when I wrote-
Jo Stanley (13:35):
It’s working,
Kaz Cooke (13:36):
When I wrote The Modern Girls Guide to Safe Sex, which in 1987, ’88 was really important. The AIDS pandemic had begun. People were… There was syphilis, there was gonorrhea, and in fact, it’s making a return at the moment. But I remember being on 2GB radio in Sydney, which is sort of the slightly conservative talk backy sort of joint. And it was a guy who used to be a weather presenter and he was given a show. Anyway, first question. I’m on there to talk about the Modern Girls Guide to Safe Sex. First question, he looks at me dead in the eye and he goes, “How many of these diseases have you had?” And I thought, “Wow.”
(14:20):
So he thought I was a slut and that’s why I’d written a book called The Modern Girls Guide to Safe Sex. I mean, so you’re going to come across all sorts of different attitudes and a lot of them are very tenacious. They hang in for a long time, especially from these old blokes with radio shows.
Jo Stanley (14:41):
Oh, well I got lots to say about that.
Mimi Kwa (14:43):
We can go there. Moving right along.
Jo Stanley (14:48):
So Kaz, you talk about the bulshiness and I feel at times the reason I have felt like you are everybody’s best friend is because you say what we can’t say or are scared to say, but surely there’s a self-doubt in you always and does that ever leave you as you get older?
Kaz Cooke (15:06):
Yeah. The first part of the answer is yes. Also, I had a really hideous divorce after 24 years, just a few years ago, which blindsided me. And I had not anticipated that I would be knocked into a difficult mental health period, which I was for a couple of years. And I think it was menopause too. So if you have a propensity to OCD or eating disorders or, for me, anxiety or depression… So I got knocked into anxiety getting worse and I’m only just getting on top of that. I get incredibly anxious before any live event and I’m actually trying to work out whether medication is going to help me or I have to give that up. Because at this age it’s been going on for so long and I find it so debilitating during publicity things, but there’s something I really want to do, which is probably going to be a tour with Judith Lucy later in 2024.
(16:09):
We’re going to do a menopause roadshow maybe and so we’re going to talk about the book and she’s going to do her material about menopause. And I think that would be really fun. So I want to be able to, if not vanquish anxiety, be better at managing it because it has crept up on me and gotten worse.
Mimi Kwa (16:24):
I did see your little nod to her in your book as well. It was about somebody who had read her book.
Kaz Cooke (16:30):
Oh, yes. Someone had taken a quote of Jude’s and said, “As Judith Lucy says,” and I went, “Hang on a minute. I said that and she put it in a…” But she always says, “As my friend Kaz says,” but it was just a little bit of a joke. But yeah, we’ve been close since we worked together in commercial radio and it always makes me laugh when men in particular say, “So do you ever see Judith?” And I’m like, “We are besties.” We both have other close friends, but yeah, I think sometimes people don’t understand the bonds between women that can be.
Jo Stanley (17:05):
Interestingly, she also has sort of inverted commas. I say given up stand comedy, she’s still doing performance, but she made that decision due partly to the anxiety that she felt around live performance.
Kaz Cooke (17:18):
What she’s not going to do is lots of tiny, like a hundred people rooms 10 times.
Jo Stanley (17:25):
Yeah.
Kaz Cooke (17:26):
And that’s one thing I’ve said to her, just do it all at once in a much bigger venue and then you don’t have to feel nervous for-
Jo Stanley (17:32):
There’s more control to that too. I think because I don’t do stand up comedy any more either because of the anxiety.
Kaz Cooke (17:39):
Well, I never did it because I think it’s incredibly difficult. And I watched you on stage once and thought… Because that’s fake it too. You make it too, right? Or fake it even after you’ve made it.
Jo Stanley (17:49):
Yeah. But the anxiety… To your point, I think it does increase as you age and the conversation around menopause and what is real life, what is just life situation and what is actually brought on by your hormonal changes because of menopause is really hard. I think I have had way worse anxiety the older I get but is that because of menopause? I don’t know.
Kaz Cooke (18:13):
For some people it is and it certainly helped me to go on menopausal hormone therapy, which is sort of MHT, the new word for HRT. Same thing really.
Mimi Kwa (18:24):
I’m just going to interject there because I am going to take your advice from the book and take the book into my doctor, because my doctor actually, and this sort of theme comes up again and again throughout, it’s the menopause. My doctor, like the doctors of so many of your survey participants sort of tried to persuade me not to push for any sort of hormone therapy. So I just thought, “Wow, that’s so interesting that that’s the theme for so many women that you need to either find another doctor or take your book into show.”
Kaz Cooke (18:57):
That’s right. And there is in fact a whole page of questions to ask your doctor and another whole page of here’s where to get your info online. Please don’t just Google. So equip yourself. It is sometimes a cliche is a cliche because they’re really useful and true and knowledge is power is one of them. But if you are still getting the, “Hey, everyone goes through this.” I mean a lot of people don’t want to go on medication or can’t because of a history with certain conditions and that’s fine, but there are other things they can do that they’re often not offered. A lot of doctors, I think, don’t know enough and have been saying things like, “Just put up with it.”
Mimi Kwa (19:36):
The pivotal thing for me was that I looked in the index and I looked up blood tests because I had a blood test and my blood test came back inadvertent commas, normal. So then the doctor said, “Well, you don’t need any therapy because it’s normal.” But then I felt-
Kaz Cooke (19:52):
So how old were you when you had that test?
Mimi Kwa (19:54):
It was two months ago, so 49.
Kaz Cooke (19:57):
Outrageous.
Mimi Kwa (19:58):
Absolutely. I loved that I could find in your book that the blood test isn’t actually the be all…
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:20:04]
Mimi Kwa (20:03):
… Find in your book that the blood test isn’t actually the be all and end all of any kind of diagnosis of perimenopause because really-
Kaz Cooke (20:08):
No. If you are at the age where you can expect perimenopausal symptoms, a blood test probably won’t help. If you are before the age of 40, you are worried that you might have an early menopause and that’s going to affect fertility, and your bones, and your heart disease risk because it’s happening to you so early. That’s really important. And a blood test done once and then another one in 3 months can be very useful for women under 40. But if you are in your 40s, in your 50s, what doctors should be doing is going by the symptoms that you are having, the likelihood of them being linked to menopause and then treat you accordingly. So you’ve got to think of your hormones, not like a graph that goes along in a straight line and then goes off a cliff. It’s more like the ABC logo, up, down, around and then back to the start. And the same thing happening again.
(21:00):
You can have different hormone levels between four o’clock, five past four, next Thursday, next month because you might be releasing two eggs and then the next month you’ll release no eggs. So that makes a difference to the heaviness of your period and all sorts of things. Everyone has a different reaction to the hormones, everyone has different hormonal level behavior, and so many of those things and including people are being prescribed testosterone in little pellets, that is not a good idea. People are being prescribed progesterone cream, terrible idea, unless it’s a pharmaceutical product because otherwise … And you’re doing the dose that’s recommended, so much stuff is happening that is confusing and not helpful. And that’s why I wanted to corral it all in the book. I’m sure in 10 years, I will have had to have updated this 4 or 5 times.
Jo Stanley (21:54):
But in 10 years you’ll be writing the book, I’m Old and Still Hot.
Kaz Cooke (21:58):
Not going to be writing that book. I can absolutely tell you.
Jo Stanley (22:02):
I feel like you have followed me through all the stages of my life with every book that you’ve released and it always has felt a little bit autobiographical for you because it’s your stages I guess as well. Is there not somehow something around aging?
Kaz Cooke (22:21):
I just don’t want to write about it. Part of my menopausal, what is the freedom I want to chase? What are the priorities? I thought to myself, you kind of led by some of those women and all those lovely quotes in the book. When was I last really, really happy at work? And it was in the archives of the State Library of Victoria researching a vaudevillian dancer.
Jo Stanley (22:47):
I read this book, Ada.
Kaz Cooke (22:48):
And it became Ada, which was probably one of my least selling books. And I look back on it and maybe I shouldn’t have written it in her voice, but I was just sort of trying out what this fiction might be, but it was about real people, everyone in the book was real. I loved all the photos because there were photos of real people in the book that I researched. I had a ball. I loved it. I loved walking around my town, going onto Trove and imagining what buildings used to be there and what used to happen, what it was like for a woman in the late 1800s to have to make her own way.
(23:26):
And so I’ve decided I’m now going to … There’s a whole archive overseas somewhere and I’m going in February and I’m going to spend three weeks in the archive and research a new type of woman who got used, I can’t say what it is yet, but used a kind of performance to get out of poverty or under the thumb of a father or a husband. And I’m going to love it.
Mimi Kwa (23:56):
Oh joy..
Kaz Cooke (23:59):
People are going to bring me boxes. I’m going to open them and go look at that. That’s a silk fan from blah blah.
Mimi Kwa (24:06):
And you’ll just make discovery after discovery. It’s exciting.
Kaz Cooke (24:10):
And there are so many well cataloged collections now, so it’s not like you are falling over something in a box. There are wonderful catalogs, things have been preserved, conserved by fabulous archivists and librarians and all sorts of people. So even though I can’t get a grant to do that from those institutions because I don’t have a uni degree.
Jo Stanley (24:35):
Jesus.
Kaz Cooke (24:35):
I just really want to do it.
Jo Stanley (24:37):
Amazing.
Kaz Cooke (24:38):
Yeah. So yeah, I’m going to go on my own and I’m going to love it.
Jo Stanley (24:43):
So we talk about purpose. I mean this whole podcast is about people who are living their purpose. I mean, I’ve assumed your purpose is being the voice of women and writing books that arm us with information. But is that your purpose? Have I put words in your mouth?
Kaz Cooke (25:00):
I think it has been. I think I’m a bit burnt out and I think because it feels … Look, I am not a coal miner or someone in a war zone, so it feels icky to say it’s a difficult job or it’s a hard job. I feel incredibly lucky to have made a living as a writer, which is relatively rare in Australia because the market’s so much smaller than elsewhere. And my books by and large just only sell in Australia. Partly because my voice is pretty Australian and medical information is Australian. I’m really proud of the books that I’ve done and I will continue to update them so that purpose will continue.
Mimi Kwa (25:39):
That in itself will be very time-consuming because you’ve got so many [inaudible 00:25:43].
Kaz Cooke (25:43):
It really is now, and now that there’s the menopause as well. But I’ve hit 60, I don’t know if it’s the menopause hitting 60. My 25-year-old daughter is living with me because of the rental crisis and got another year of study to go. And she’s sort of at the start of working out what she wants to do and heading towards that.
Mimi Kwa (26:07):
You say that your life’s changed because you’ve recently gone through a divorce. So that’s a whole new journey.
Kaz Cooke (26:12):
So it took me a while to get back on my mental feet if that’s not mixing the metaphor. But when you’re really blindsided and you feel betrayed, whatever the circumstances are, and I have a daughter, so I don’t talk about what I think happened publicly. But whatever happens, if you feel a sense of betrayal and a sense of being blindsided and not seeing something coming, it really did for my confidence in, I couldn’t even choose a paint color for a while. It’s like, what would I know? I didn’t realize that was happening. So it is very surprising when you’re a feminist and you’ve got your own career, you can still be … And you don’t need a man to be yourself. You can still, if you assume that you’re going to grow old with someone, and you assume that your relationship is one thing, and then realize it’s not that at all.
(27:05):
And then I felt shame about that. I thought, “Oh, I’m supposed to be the strong feminist.” If I was writing a book about this, which I thought of for a while and then I thought, “oh God, no, don’t want to touch it.” Even though it would be great to talk about it.
(27:21):
Because Jude and I were talking about maybe doing a podcast, but I can’t face it and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to face it. I’m so much better now. But I felt a great deal of shame that I wasn’t going, which is crazy, after 24 years, you don’t go, “Oh, well, that’s done then.” And I’m moving on very quickly. So I’ve been to therapy and time itself has been useful and thinking about other relationships in my life and what you trade off in a relationship and the balance of that. And I think most people by my age have been through at least one thing in life that’s very humbling. Like an illness or disability or something in their family or they’ve lost a job that was important to them, so this was one of mine. And I feel really good coming out the other end of that. I feel really good about being single and happy about that. I’m not looking …
Mimi Kwa (28:19):
That’s good because that’s a sliding door moment in itself, what happened. That you can get benefit from it is wonderful.
Kaz Cooke (28:25):
And just having time to … Or facing things and thinking, okay, what do I want now? And I realized what I wanted was a sanctuary for me and my daughter if necessary. Not because of any physical danger, but just the feeling of, “Well, that whole thing that I thought was really solid.” And again, you realize why cliches are so useful, rug out from under you, shifting sand, all of those phrases. And so now I’ve bought a flat which had an extra bedroom so my daughter could come when she needed to and stay. And that makes me feel really happy. And it’s a small thing, but a big thing.
Mimi Kwa (29:05):
Yeah, it’s a massive thing.
Jo Stanley (29:06):
But at 60, I mean, I feel like you now with this new project that’s moving away from these really fact heavy, dense creations that you’ve gifted us all, you’re starting a whole new stage of your life.
Kaz Cooke (29:23):
Yeah. And there is still that bit of me going, “Oh, shouldn’t I choose the most commercial thing that I could possibly do.” But I’m also looking back, interesting you should say that you have living with crazy buttocks, which was one of my collections of columns. And the other two books are called Get a Grip and Get Another Grip. I was the only person who ever laughed about that. Get Another Grip makes me really laugh, just means you really failed to do that. And I was thinking I should go and look and see if any of them stand up and that maybe I can add some new stuff to it. And yeah, because I think actually, even though these books are big and …
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:30:04]
Kaz Cooke (30:03):
Yeah, because I think, actually, even though these books are big and thumping and researched and researched out the wazoo, I think my real talent is writing to about 800 words. I think I got in the groove of writing columns when I was young, and I think that’s actually what I’m best at, which was why the introductions to chapters are often pretty funny in my books, because it’s about that column length.
Mimi Kwa (30:28):
And the roundups, as well, are pretty funny, too, the summaries.
Kaz Cooke (30:32):
Thank you, darling.
Mimi Kwa (30:35):
And all funny in between.
Jo Stanley (30:36):
Well, I wish for you the same bolshiness that you started your career with at 18, because I reckon when you hit 50 and 60, your confidence sometimes is really shot. And I look back at who I was when I was 22, 23. I’m like, fuck me. That chick was nuts. The things that I did, the outrageous attitude I had, and I really want to embody that sometimes. I wish for you the same.
Kaz Cooke (30:57):
And I think it’s really happening. I looked back at some of those cartoons, because I was 18 or 19 when I started, and they’re in really tiny, thin little line. And then I look at the way I draw now and it’s really bold.
Jo Stanley (31:15):
I love that.
Kaz Cooke (31:16):
And so something has happened.
Mimi Kwa (31:20):
It’s the trajectory of your artistry.
Kaz Cooke (31:20):
The physicality of drawing, and Hermione has been with me as an avatar of me in a way, as you’ve identified. And I was really surprised when I looked back at those cartoons from the mid-80s, I reckon a good quarter of them were about sexual harassment. They were about Me Too way before Me Too, because it’s always been happening. And as a young woman, I could see it and feel it. And those cartoons really resonated with people. That’s fascinating too.
Mimi Kwa (31:54):
And I hate to use this term, but, of course, you were ahead of your time creating those images then. And so when you talk about repurposing or seeing where some of your work today can sit now, there’s huge opportunity for that if that’s what you want to do, of course, because the world’s in a different place.
Kaz Cooke (32:15):
I don’t think I was ahead of my time. I think I was lucky. I think that in journalism and a whole lot of other places, they opened the sash window a tiny bit and some of us tumbled through. If they’d had as many women cartoonists on the Age, the Bulletin, the City Morning Herald, all of those media things that were important then and much less so now, we would’ve had women’s voices, women’s understandings. And there were a couple, Jenny Coops and Victoria Roberts, and they had really different sensibilities. And it’s so much I think about opportunity. I think all of those issues have been with us for all time and women need to get hold of the microphone, which is why Broad Radio is so important, the real microphone and the metaphorical microphone. And cartoons are dead now.
Mimi Kwa (33:08):
I don’t know.
Kaz Cooke (33:09):
There are still some in newspapers, but it’s a little bit like being a wheat collector in the 1800s, that eventually a machine came in and did it. The newspapers are going. There’ll be another way to do it.
Jo Stanley (33:24):
But I follow a lot on Instagram who are incredible and very, very diverse.
Kaz Cooke (33:30):
I should have said newspaper cartooning is on the way out. People have to find a new way. And there’s brilliant zines. So that scene is, I follow Mel Stringer on Instagram, and I look at her stuff and go, “Oh my God, I would never have been bold enough.” And I even have that thing as an older woman of sometimes going, “Oh, that’s a little bit vulgar, Mel.” I love her. I do love her. And then I realized, that’s my problem, not hers. It’s actually really funny and important that she’s doing that.
Mimi Kwa (34:03):
We’ve talked about your purpose and how your purpose can change throughout life and one’s career, but what we love to land on with our A to Be discussions is what your Be is. So as Kaz Cooke. Not the Be in your bonnet, but is what is it for you?
Kaz Cooke (34:21):
Well’s a hive in there, Mimi? Well, it’s not original, I’m sure, but I thought about this and thought about my work over time, and there’s a lot of possibilities. There’s be bold. There’s be discerning. But I think, for me, truly at the base level of all of it, and it’s a foundation, it’s a scaffolding, everything is built on, be your own best friend. Because it means, what would you tell your friend, stay in that relationship or get out? Have a chore list for your family because you’re burning yourself out. Say no to some things. That thing that person said to you is horrible. Don’t listen to it. Be your own best friend. If you say those things to yourself, why is this person doing this to me? If you ask those.
(35:09):
And part of being your own best friend I think is asking those questions. Why is someone telling me to buy this moisture? Why is that celebrity banging on about menopause when all they’re doing is trying to sell me a desiccated green powder with absolutely no scientific evidence for that particular formula? Or their moisturizer or their whatever? Being your own best friend, you ask those questions. Should I knee-jerk, get medication? Should I knee-jerk, refuse medication? Think about what’s best for you. So that’s what I came up with at the end of thinking about it, is that be your own best friend really sets you up for not taking that crap about being a bad mother because you haven’t got your own fitness app.
Jo Stanley (35:57):
Yeah. Oh, and also I think be your own best friend means forgiveness of self and total self-compassion.
Kaz Cooke (36:03):
It’s exactly what you would say to a friend. It’s such a simple idea. If your best friend was going through what you are going through, what would you tell them? It’s an incredibly simple shortcut if you can really do it and then apply it to yourself.
Mimi Kwa (36:18):
That’s a beautiful B.
Kaz Cooke (36:20):
I mean, I’m still trying to be my own best friend.
Jo Stanley (36:23):
I think it’s a lifelong learning journey, exploration. I don’t know all the cliches.
Kaz Cooke (36:31):
When you’re in therapy and they say, “You’re going to have to sit with this,” and I’m like, “I really don’t want to sit with it. I’d like to go out and ignore it entirely, please.” But I would say to my best friend, do you like the therapist? Do you think this is a good idea? Well then, maybe try that. So yeah, I’m better at it than I used to be.
Mimi Kwa (36:53):
That’s beautiful. Thank you so much, Kaz Cooke. Be your own best friend. I love it.
Jo Stanley (36:57):
Yeah. Well, you have been our best friend for so long and it’s just been such a joy to hear so much of your storytelling and what’s brought you to now. We’re really grateful.
Kaz Cooke (37:08):
Good Lord. I reckon this is the best interview I’ve ever had. I just think you’re so insightful. Seriously.
Mimi Kwa (37:14):
You’re going to make us cry. I can speak for you as well.
Kaz Cooke (37:16):
The best questions. You’ve asked really deep emotional questions, but also really insightful, smart, clever questions. I never listened to when I’ve done an interview, but I’m listening back to this because I feel like in you making me think about a few things I’m learning some stuff about me, but also about how women do support each other and get each other. And this has just been such a lovely example of that. Thank you.
Jo Stanley (37:46):
Well, you have to come back.
Kaz Cooke (37:47):
All right then, yeah.
Jo Stanley (37:50):
Thank you for listening. We love you joining us for our A to Be chats.
Mimi Kwa (37:54):
Yes, we do. Please see our show notes for our acknowledgement of country and all the people who help us put this podcast together, as well as interesting links to our guests work and other references we’ve mentioned.
Jo Stanley (38:06):
We’re Jo.
Mimi Kwa (38:07):
And Mimi from A to Be. Rate, follow, and get in touch on our website.
Jo Stanley (38:12):
And let us know whose A to Be you’d like to find out about.
Mimi Kwa (38:16):
We can’t wait for you to hear our next conversation.
PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [00:38:30]