From Down Under to Down South

Send us Fan Mail

Tennessee tried to execute Christa Pike.

The lethal injection began. The drugs were administered. Then something went wrong.

Instead of leaving Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in a hearse, Pike left in an ambulance, alive.

But this episode isn’t only about what happened inside Tennessee’s execution chamber.

It’s about a state that had already failed to carry out another execution just five months earlier. It’s about what happens when the government claims the power to deliberately take a human life but cannot carry out that sentence as intended. And it’s about Colleen Slemmer, the 19 year old woman Pike was convicted of murdering, whose family had waited more than 30 years for the sentence to be carried out. The Death Penalty

I’ve been fascinated by capital punishment for most of my life, and I’m not opposed to the death penalty. But what happened at Riverbend raises questions that go well beyond whether you support it or oppose it.

What actually happened that night?

How could someone survive after the execution drugs were administered?

And what does Tennessee do now?

This is the extraordinary story of an execution that was supposed to be final.

And wasn’t.

Enjoying the podcast? Buy this Aussie a coffee!

From Down Under to Down South is an independent project, sharing an Australian's perspective on American life, culture and all the little things that make this country fascinating.

If you've enjoyed an episode, had a laugh or found yourself looking at America a little differently, you can help keep the podcast going by shouting me a coffee.

Every contribution helps me continue creating new episodes, videos and stories. It's completely optional, but genuinely appreciated.

Buy Me a Coffee – Support the Show

Thanks for being part of the journey!

Find me elsewhere

YouTube | Website | Facebook | X

Business enquiries: [email protected]

Thanks for listening. Hoo roo, maties! 

Support the show

Check out additional content on our YouTube page!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjipgN51kc8swHyKeSx2tzw

Send us Fan Mail

Nobody actually tells you when you’re getting old.

One day you’re driving along, find a radio station playing Supertramp and think, “Finally, some decent music.” Then you discover you’re listening to the golden oldies station.

Apparently, this is how they tell you.

In this episode, I’m coming to terms with the increasingly suspicious evidence that I may no longer be young. My daughters think Home and Away is ancient, Honey Boo Boo is somehow 21, children are collecting foam sticks of butter, and the music I grew up with is quietly being relocated to old people’s radio.

☕ Enjoying the podcast? Support From Down Under to Down South:
Buy Me a Coffee

But somewhere between the grey hairs, a spectacular haircut tantrum and the cardigan that is presumably already in the mail, I realized something else.

Getting older might actually be pretty good.

Because maybe the goal isn’t to stay young. Maybe it’s just to keep paying attention to the world as it changes around you.

Although I maintain that Supertramp is not an oldie.

From Down Under to Down South is an Australian look at life, culture and the wonderfully strange little things you notice living in America.

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FromDownUndertoDownSouth

🌏 Website https://fromdownundertodownsouth.com 

📘 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068568677919 

🐦 X https://x.com/aussiemika74 

📩 Business enquiries: [email protected] 

Thanks for listening. Hoo roo maties. 

Support the show

Check out additional content on our YouTube page!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjipgN51kc8swHyKeSx2tzw

Send us Fan Mail

This week in America, politics meets petrol prices, dance floors, hockey arenas and the never-ending logistics of family life.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been in the United States, picking up a Global Citizen Award and talking about everything from artificial intelligence to online safety and free speech. It got me thinking about the differences between Australia and America, and about my own encounters with Albanese back in Canberra.

Then we come back down to earth. Very quickly.

Dance has taken over our family calendar. Georgia is dancing five days a week, Brianna is back doing jazz, hip hop and ballet, I’m ballroom dancing three days a week, Nikki is working events at Bridgestone Arena to help pay for it all, and I seem to have become the unpaid transport department.

There’s also the extraordinary floor craft of a room full of seven year olds doing jazz, the Nashville Predators returning to Bridgestone, and the Tennessee Titans already trying to sell me next season while this season has barely started.

Politics, petrol and parents pretending they’re not tired.

Just another week in America, seen through Australian eyes.

Enjoying the podcast? Buy this Aussie a coffee!

From Down Under to Down South is an independent project, sharing an Australian's perspective on American life, culture and all the little things that make this country fascinating.

If you've enjoyed an episode, had a laugh or found yourself looking at America a little differently, you can help keep the podcast going by shouting me a coffee.

Every contribution helps me continue creating new episodes, videos and stories. It's completely optional, but genuinely appreciated.

Buy Me a Coffee – Support the Show

Thanks for being part of the journey!

Find me elsewhere

YouTube | Website | Facebook | X

Business enquiries: [email protected]

Thanks for listening. Hoo roo, maties!

Support the show

Check out additional content on our YouTube page!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjipgN51kc8swHyKeSx2tzw

Send us Fan Mail

Sometimes the smallest things are the ones we remember for years.

A butcher notices a child is missing. Someone sends a quick congratulations to a new American citizen. A family makes room for one more person at Thanksgiving. A supermarket worker remembers your name. A stranger tells you they like your shirt.

To the person doing it, the moment might be completely forgettable. To the person on the receiving end, maybe it isn't.

In this episode, I share some of the stories listeners and viewers have told me about small acts of kindness that stayed with them, along with my own experience of an innocent Starbucks pay it forward chain that became considerably more expensive than expected.

What started as another observation about life in America eventually became something much bigger.

Kindness isn't American. It isn't Australian. It's human.

And perhaps the nicest thought of all is that somewhere out there, you might be the person in somebody else's story and have absolutely no idea.

☕ Enjoying the podcast? Support From Down Under to Down South:
Buy Me a Coffee

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FromDownUndertoDownSouth

🌏 Website https://fromdownundertodownsouth.com 

📘 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068568677919 

🐦 X https://x.com/aussiemika74 

📩 Business enquiries: [email protected] 

Thanks for listening. Hoo roo maties.

Support the show

Check out additional content on our YouTube page!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjipgN51kc8swHyKeSx2tzw

Send us Fan Mail

Middle Tennessee became one of the hottest places on Earth, petrol climbed past four dollars a gallon, and driverless taxis began navigating Nashville traffic.

This week, Michael looks at life beneath a powerful heat dome, the rising cost of driving, Waymo’s arrival in Nashville and the confusing difference between American and Australian floor numbers. He also discovers supermarket bars and bingo nights in Florida, learns that the dance studio dads have formed a clique without him, checks in on the storage facility turtle and receives an unexpectedly generous offer involving the enormous tree outside his house.

Follow or subscribe to From Down Under to Down South for more observations about America through Australian eyes.

Enjoying the podcast? Buy this Aussie a coffee!

From Down Under to Down South is an independent project, sharing an Australian's perspective on American life, culture and all the little things that make this country fascinating.

If you've enjoyed an episode, had a laugh or found yourself looking at America a little differently, you can help keep the podcast going by shouting me a coffee.

Every contribution helps me continue creating new episodes, videos and stories. It's completely optional, but genuinely appreciated.

Buy Me a Coffee – Support the Show

Thanks for being part of the journey!

Find me elsewhere

YouTube | Website | Facebook | X

Business enquiries: [email protected]

Thanks for listening. Hoo roo, maties!

Support the show

Check out additional content on our YouTube page!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjipgN51kc8swHyKeSx2tzw

Send us Fan Mail

Australians have a habit of taking perfectly good words, chopping them in half and giving them a nickname. Afternoon becomes arvo. Service station becomes servo. And McDonald’s? That became Macca’s.

But this one went further than most.

More than half of Australians were calling McDonald’s “Macca’s,” and eventually one of the biggest brands in the world did something remarkable: it gave in. McDonald’s embraced the nickname, even temporarily changing the signs on some Australian restaurants to Macca’s.

In this episode, I look at how an American icon became part of Australian culture, why Australians nickname just about everything, my own childhood memories of McDonald’s in Australia, and why after eight years living in America, I still can’t quite bring myself to call it anything but Macca’s.

From Down Under to Down South is an Australian perspective on America, Australia and the funny little differences you only notice when you’ve lived in both.

☕ Enjoying the podcast? Support From Down Under to Down South:
Buy Me a Coffee

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FromDownUndertoDownSouth

🌏 Website https://fromdownundertodownsouth.com 

📘 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068568677919 

🐦 X https://x.com/aussiemika74 

📩 Business enquiries: [email protected] 

Thanks for listening. Hoo roo maties.

Support the show

Check out additional content on our YouTube page!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjipgN51kc8swHyKeSx2tzw

Send us Fan Mail

Apparently, even the baby goats can kill you.

This week, I’m trying to understand how a rabid baby goat managed to expose hundreds of people in North Carolina, why contaminated iceberg lettuce made nearly 13,000 people sick, and why the Farmers’ Almanac already has America talking about snow.

Closer to home, my ten-year-old daughter Georgia got braces this week. She handled it brilliantly. I handled it by staying several miles away from the orthodontist, because apparently my nervous system believes dental X-rays are a perfectly reasonable reason to shut down completely.

We’re talking rabid raccoons, killer lettuce, Tennessee’s traditional pre-snow raid on the bread and milk aisle, and the impressive number of medical facilities where I’ve somehow managed to end up on the floor.

Plus, This Week in America has unexpectedly gone international, with the podcast charting in Botswana and Poland.

Just another perfectly normal week in America.

☕ Enjoying the podcast? Support From Down Under to Down South:
Buy Me a Coffee

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FromDownUndertoDownSouth

🌏 Website https://fromdownundertodownsouth.com 

📘 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068568677919 

🐦 X https://x.com/aussiemika74 

📩 Business enquiries: [email protected] 

Thanks for listening. Hoo roo maties.

Support the show

Check out additional content on our YouTube page!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjipgN51kc8swHyKeSx2tzw

Send us Fan Mail

An Australian viewer recently told me my content had become a little too “fawning” toward America. They suggested I unleash my “inner Aussie,” get grittier and spend more time talking about politics, crime, healthcare and everything America gets wrong.

They also called me a “former Australian.”

Apparently I've been sacked and nobody told me.

But the comment got me thinking about why I deliberately don't make that kind of content.

America has problems. So does Australia. I've lived and worked in six countries now, and if that experience has taught me anything, it's that countries are much more than governments, headlines, crime statistics and borders on a map. They're people.

In this episode of From Down Under to Down South: This Week in America, I talk about becoming an American without becoming any less Australian, raising my children between two cultures, the things I've learned from living overseas, and why I've become far less interested in keeping score between Australia and America.

I also explore what constant outrage does to the people consuming it and the people creating it, why criticism is very different from contempt, and why I'd rather spend my time being curious about the ordinary things that make cultures different.

I don't ignore the dark. I know it's there.

I just don't go looking for it when there's already so much light worth noticing.

And if I have a choice about what I add to the world, I'd rather be the light.

Hoo roo maties.

☕ Enjoying the podcast? Support From Down Under to Down South:
Buy Me a Coffee

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FromDownUndertoDownSouth

🌏 Website https://fromdownundertodownsouth.com 

📘 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068568677919 

🐦 X https://x.com/aussiemika74 

📩 Business enquiries: [email protected] 

Support the show

Check out additional content on our YouTube page!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjipgN51kc8swHyKeSx2tzw

Send us Fan Mail

Apparently, I’m old now. Nobody bothered to tell me.

This week, a perfectly ordinary drive to get a haircut turned into an unexpected reminder that time has been quietly moving on without asking my permission. Supertramp is apparently “golden oldies,” my daughters think Home and Away is ancient, Honey Boo Boo is somehow 21, and Squishies are now an essential part of childhood.

Then a spectacular haircut tantrum at Sports Clips made me realize there might actually be a few advantages to getting older.

It’s a lighter This Week in America about music, kids, nostalgia, Australian television, American life and those strange little moments when you suddenly wonder: wait… when did I get old?

From Down Under to Down South — an Australian perspective on life in America.

☕ Enjoying the podcast? Support From Down Under to Down South:
Buy Me a Coffee

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FromDownUndertoDownSouth

🌏 Website https://fromdownundertodownsouth.com 

📘 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068568677919 

🐦 X https://x.com/aussiemika74 

📩 Business enquiries: [email protected] 

Thanks for listening. Hoo roo maties.

Support the show

Check out additional content on our YouTube page!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjipgN51kc8swHyKeSx2tzw

Send us Fan Mail

American families move around. Kids leave for college, take jobs in other states, get married and start families hundreds or even thousands of miles from where they grew up.

But since moving to America, I’ve noticed something that I don’t remember seeing nearly as often in Australia: sometimes Mum and Dad follow them.

I’ve watched retired parents sell their homes and move across the country to be near their children and grandchildren. I’ve even known parents who made the move before retirement.

After my own family recently found ourselves all sick at the same time, I started thinking differently about what having family nearby actually means.

It isn’t only about birthdays, school concerts, dance recitals or watching the grandkids grow up. It’s the ordinary days. The unexpected moments. And sometimes, simply being close enough to show up when somebody needs you.

In this episode, I look at the American families I’ve encountered who have chosen to follow their adult children, why America’s enormous distances can leave families scattered across the country, how my Australian background shaped the way I saw it, and why it’s become one part of American family life I’ve come to admire.

☕ If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support From Down Under to Down South, you can Buy Me a Coffee:
https://buymeacoffee.com/fromdownundertodownsouth

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FromDownUndertoDownSouth

🌏 Website https://fromdownundertodownsouth.com 

📘 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068568677919 

🐦 X https://x.com/aussiemika74 

📩 Business enquiries: [email protected] 

Thanks for listening. Hoo roo maties. 

Support the show

Check out additional content on our YouTube page!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjipgN51kc8swHyKeSx2tzw