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Speaker 1: Gooday, thanks for downloading the show. This is Better than Yesterday,

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Speaker 1: useful tools and conversations to help make your day today

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Speaker 1: better than yesterday. Every week in twenty thirteen. My name

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Speaker 1: is Josha Ginsburg, and thank you so much, so much

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Speaker 1: for being here, and thank you to the people who

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Speaker 1: have been buying So What Now What my new book,

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Speaker 1: which is out on the fifth of August. It's in

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Speaker 1: pre order right now. And if you buy it and

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Speaker 1: your screenshot the screen that says yeah, congratulations on the way,

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Speaker 1: email it Timmy Sandosha email at gmail dot com and

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Speaker 1: I will send you something to say thank you. I've

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Speaker 1: been working really hard on the live show. I'm hacking

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Speaker 1: a VR headset and an iPhone and I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: bring this character to life so i can project it

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Speaker 1: up on the screen. I'm trying to get cam in

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Speaker 1: involved on the live show. On the live show dates

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Speaker 1: look to be awards the end of October, but I'll

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Speaker 1: keep you posting around that. Speaking of live shows, every month,

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Speaker 1: I produce and star in a live storytelling show here

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Speaker 1: in Sydney called story Club, and I would like to

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Speaker 1: share a story that I told on stage for over

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Speaker 1: ten years. Story Club has been sharing some very interesting, heartfelt,

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Speaker 1: cringe worthy stories. And there's only two rules of story Club.

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Speaker 1: The story's got to be true, and the story's got

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Speaker 1: to be less than fifteen hundred words. And we get

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Speaker 1: people up on stage and they read out of a

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Speaker 1: big story book and they tell a true story. And

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Speaker 1: so what's wonderful is that, no matter who is up there,

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Speaker 1: no matter what kind of life they live, because it's

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Speaker 1: a true story, they describe moments that we all share.

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Speaker 1: And I truly truly love it because of that. And

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Speaker 1: next one is on the tenth of August. You've already

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Speaker 1: got Luke Heggey lined up, Jenfricker, Jeeves Woma, two more

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Speaker 1: storytellers to come, and you can get the tickets right

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Speaker 1: now in the show notes they're already selling, which is

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Speaker 1: Lovely story Club Live dot com for tickets. So on

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Speaker 1: the other side of the rack, I'm going to tell

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Speaker 1: you the story that I told on Sunday Night. Our

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Speaker 1: theme was everybody needs good neighbors. So in a moment,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to tell a true story from when I

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Speaker 1: was about fifteen or sixteen. It involves a motorbike, a party,

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Speaker 1: a daring escape, a triumphant return and sex twice. Stay

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Speaker 1: with me. My big brother has just moved out. I'm

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Speaker 1: fifteen years old and I'm now the oldest man in

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Speaker 1: the house. It's quite the promotion that the job mostly

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Speaker 1: involves absorbing the wrath of my mum's perimenopause and getting

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Speaker 1: blamed for shit that my little brothers do. I'm at

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Speaker 1: a time in my life where I'm instinctively programmed to

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Speaker 1: look for male mentors around me who are close to

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Speaker 1: my father's age, and lately this has been quite problematic.

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Speaker 1: In an era where jacked up no neck crypto mislogynists

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Speaker 1: on YouTube have largely taken over that role for the

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Speaker 1: young men of our country, I am much luckier. Chapel

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Speaker 1: Hill is a beautiful part of Brisbane, long before any

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Speaker 1: bypasses or tunnels, with only one road into town past

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Speaker 1: the four Ex Brewery. It's actually a long way from anywhere.

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Speaker 1: Houses nestle among mature Jacaranda trees. Every home still in

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Speaker 1: the original mission brown, so the hardware shop only had

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Speaker 1: one color of paint available to cover up all that asbestos.

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Speaker 1: The house next door has the same banal yet functional aesthetic,

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Speaker 1: like if socks and thongs had a front door, but

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Speaker 1: that house is a rental, quite uncommon at the time.

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Speaker 1: When the family of newly arrived Dutch immigrants moves out,

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Speaker 1: a new family arrives mum, dad and a son a

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Speaker 1: little older than my youngest brother. This family was different

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Speaker 1: because they didn't drive a Kingswood station wagon like my mum.

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Speaker 1: They had a nineteen seventy four Dodge Phoenix with a

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Speaker 1: four hundred and forty Kbkinch motor that sounded like a

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Speaker 1: seven forty seven taken off. Wasn't so much a car

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Speaker 1: as a horizontal fire has it with lap belts, and

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Speaker 1: that was the w car. The dad did not drive

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Speaker 1: at all. He rode a motorcycle, a gigantic, incredibly loud

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Speaker 1: Harley Davidson's soft Tail in his late thirties, with the

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Speaker 1: beard of a Viking and a mullet that said, he

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Speaker 1: takes his business as seriously as he takes his party.

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Speaker 1: He's a hulking human being with hands like house bricks

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Speaker 1: and faded forearm tattoos. In the late nineteen eighties, forearm

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Speaker 1: tattoos weren't yet a signal that you either owed a

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Speaker 1: hex's debt on an arts degree or just needed help

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Speaker 1: remembering the day your grandfather died. No, a forearm tattoo

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Speaker 1: means I've used my fists to solve problems before, and

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Speaker 1: I don't mind doing it again. Everything I know about

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Speaker 1: motorcycles I have learned from my mum. After working in

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Speaker 1: triage as an emergency doctor. She makes all four boys

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Speaker 1: promise never ride motorcycles as long as she is alive.

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Speaker 1: More recently, Mum had been working in community medicine in

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Speaker 1: a Nala. If you've watched Boys Swallows Universe, you will

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Speaker 1: recognize exactly the era where Mum worked there, and she's

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Speaker 1: told us plenty of difficult stories about families where motorcycles

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Speaker 1: were involved. On the first day, the big guy walks

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Speaker 1: across to our front yard and starts knocking on our

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Speaker 1: front door. I am shit scared and call that Mum.

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Speaker 1: The new neighbors at the door, some man of the house.

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Speaker 1: I am in a gruff but kind voice. He introduces

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Speaker 1: himself as Mick, speaking with empathy and understanding of the

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Speaker 1: favor he's about to request. He asks Mum if it's

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Speaker 1: okay to leave his toolbox in our garage because he

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Speaker 1: can't lock it up at their place. Just yet, they

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Speaker 1: don't have a key for the garage there. Mick is

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Speaker 1: a calm, friendly lumberjack of a man who operates tower

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Speaker 1: cranes on building sites. I hadn't yet learned the connection

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Speaker 1: between motorcycles and constructions. His wife is beautiful in a

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Speaker 1: skinny Stevie Nicks kind of way. She's blind in one eye.

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Speaker 1: I try not to get caught staring trying to work

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Speaker 1: out which eye is the blind one. Eventually I figure

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Speaker 1: it out. It's the eye that isn't the crazy one.

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Speaker 1: I'd seen that look before, but only in men, the

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Speaker 1: look that says I'm heaps of fun, incredibly charismatic, and

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Speaker 1: with no warning I will explode into violence, Unlike the

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Speaker 1: world changing reliability of a Japanese car. The thing about

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Speaker 1: Harley Davidson's or Old Dodgers is they need a lot

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Speaker 1: of work weekly tuning just to keep them on the

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Speaker 1: road working in construction. Mick is often home when I

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Speaker 1: get back from school. The enormous bonnet of the Dodge

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Speaker 1: at a forty five degree angle like a massive steel pergola.

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Speaker 1: Mick waist deep in engine well listening to the radio

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Speaker 1: butt crack shown to the neighborhood, doing magical things with

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Speaker 1: ratchet spanners. Sometimes, my younger brother and I sit in

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Speaker 1: his driveway talking to him. A brother's asking questions about

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Speaker 1: cars as Mick endlessly pokes and prods around under the hood.

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Speaker 1: Mick patiently answers all the questions. One afternoon, I'm there

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Speaker 1: alone and I ask, you work on your Harley nearly

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Speaker 1: every day. How do you know when it's right? How

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Speaker 1: do you know when you've got it tuned properly? Without hesitation?

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Speaker 1: He says, when you sit on it and you hit

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Speaker 1: the ignition. If you don't get a heart on, it's

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Speaker 1: not right. He wasn't being weird or sexual. He was

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Speaker 1: sharing baudy man to man talk, the way men communicate

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Speaker 1: because they're unable to actually speak about their feelings. No

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Speaker 1: adult man had ever spoken to me like that. Mick

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Speaker 1: always had mates around, and they also spoke to me

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Speaker 1: like no other men in my life did. At the time,

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Speaker 1: I was going to an all boys private school where

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Speaker 1: the men in power would scream at us like we

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Speaker 1: were naughty children, punishing us for not behaving like the

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Speaker 1: men that we should be. But these guys didn't speak

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Speaker 1: to me like that. They spoke to me like I

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Speaker 1: was a young version of them who deserved their respect,

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Speaker 1: a person that they would relish sharing the secrets of

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Speaker 1: the world with. They knew I played guitar, so they

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Speaker 1: dick out mixtapes of guitar heavy Aussie bikeeranthems with bands

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Speaker 1: I've never heard of, like Matt Taylor and Chaine. I

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Speaker 1: asked a lot of questions and occasionally there'd be a

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Speaker 1: glint of excitement in their eyes as they knew they

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Speaker 1: were about to share something which would change my life.

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Speaker 1: What does my FTW tattoo mean? It means fuck the world.

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Speaker 1: The system that you and I are in is not

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Speaker 1: everything it's cracked up to be. It's built for the

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Speaker 1: benefit of and policed by the people that run the system.

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Speaker 1: And if you or I aren't inside, the system will

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Speaker 1: always be on the outside. They lie to you, telling

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Speaker 1: you that if you work hard you can get on

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Speaker 1: the inside. But that's not true. And now you know this,

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Speaker 1: you can never unno it. Because the coolest guy I've

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Speaker 1: ever met. After a month or two, he mentions to

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Speaker 1: Mum his niece is coming from Victoria. Mom figures out

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Speaker 1: they're not really related. More. The daughter of a friend

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Speaker 1: of theirs coming alone to Queensland because something happened and

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Speaker 1: she needed to get far away. But what happened when

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Speaker 1: she arrived, I'll tell you after the braink I played

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Speaker 1: it pretty cool when I discovered that my neighbor's teenage

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Speaker 1: niece was moving in next door. I first meet her

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Speaker 1: the day she arrives, and my heart stops beating. She's

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Speaker 1: wearing a tight black doors shirt, black jeans that their

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Speaker 1: air brushed on, and hair that looks it's like she's

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Speaker 1: walked into a salon with a jone Jet album under

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Speaker 1: her arm, pointed at the cover and says, give me

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Speaker 1: that one. Her name is Terror. She spells it out

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Speaker 1: trr A. I am fifteen going on sixteen. She is nineteen.

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Speaker 1: Terror's name means Earth, and just like the Earth, she

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Speaker 1: is equal parts beauty and danger. And she is absolutely

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Speaker 1: not into me. But I am the only person close

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Speaker 1: to her age anywhere nearby, and she doesn't have a car,

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Speaker 1: So we hang out on Friday nights when my brothers

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Speaker 1: are at Dad's and mum's working. She comes over to

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Speaker 1: watch movies on VHS. Later, I say good night, watch

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Speaker 1: her walk across the garden bed into their side door.

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Speaker 1: They quickly go upstairs and have sex with her in

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Speaker 1: front of the TV by myself. In a time before

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Speaker 1: OnlyFans you had to make do with a deeply committed

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Speaker 1: imagination and the lingering floral scent of a supermarket deodorant.

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Speaker 1: Tara invites me and mum to mix upcoming fortieth birthday

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Speaker 1: the afternoon of the SHENDI guy helped them move furniture

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Speaker 1: out of harm's way and give him a hand getting

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Speaker 1: booze from the boot of the dodge. What's wrong with

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Speaker 1: these bottles of bourbon? They're the wrong color. The glint

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Speaker 1: returns to Mix's eye. Jim Beam green label. It's the

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Speaker 1: good stuff. When your Mum's not around, you come see me.

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Speaker 1: It's near sundown. When we hear the noise, the young

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Speaker 1: son screams. We hear them well before we see them.

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Speaker 1: Coming around the corner is a snaking chain of Harley

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Speaker 1: Davidson's riding side by side forty or fifty bikes. Bringing

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Speaker 1: the coffin is thunder that shakes the mission brown windows

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Speaker 1: of our straight faced suburb. Grown Ups like I've never

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Speaker 1: seen start piling into their house. Women that look like

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Speaker 1: they belong in a skid Roe video. A man with

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Speaker 1: missing tea. One bloke has an eye patch. I'm introduced

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Speaker 1: as the kid next door. It's lucky. I'm fifteen, mostly round,

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Speaker 1: and quite unthreatening because when I meet somebody called Nose,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't click. This is a nickname. Nice to meet you.

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Speaker 1: That's an interesting name. Where does it come from? Because

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Speaker 1: I've got into a fight with a bike once and

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Speaker 1: I bit his fucking nose off. There's an audible sucking

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Speaker 1: sound as my teenage testicles retract into my body. As

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Speaker 1: the night goes on and the smell of weed gets thicker,

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Speaker 1: Mum finds me and says we're going home no now,

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Speaker 1: so I follow her home. I brush my teeth, say

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Speaker 1: good night, go to my room until I'm sure she's asleep,

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Speaker 1: and then, somewhat high from these sneaky joints i'd been passed,

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Speaker 1: and a little boozy from the green gym beam I'd

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Speaker 1: sampled very carefully open my bedroom window, and for the

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Speaker 1: first and only time in my life, I sneak out.

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Speaker 1: Half an hour after I'd said goodbye, I walk back

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Speaker 1: into the kitchen. Mick and Terror look at me differently,

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Speaker 1: like I'd passed through the final stage of a maturation ritual.

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Speaker 1: They witnessed the separation. I had just completed the transition,

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Speaker 1: and now is the time we're I'm reincorporated into the

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Speaker 1: community as an adult. Roaring with laughter, Mick paus me

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Speaker 1: another bourbon. I won't tell your mum if you won't,

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Speaker 1: with a swagger unlike I'd ever known, I start working

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Speaker 1: hard at my flirting game with terror, in the same

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Speaker 1: way that a furiously barking dog chases a passing car,

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Speaker 1: with no idea what I would do if I actually

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Speaker 1: catch up with her. Still, I try being as playful

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Speaker 1: and as charming as I can. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: it's because she was bored or appreciated the attention, but

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Speaker 1: she plays along. At some point, well past midnight, we

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Speaker 1: end up on the balcony, just the two of us.

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Speaker 1: She's telling me she really liked me as a friend.

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Speaker 1: She's telling me this in a few different ways. Wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be the first tool. Last time someone struggled to give

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Speaker 1: me this message, obilvious, I went for it. I like

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Speaker 1: you more than a friend, though, like one would hold

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Speaker 1: an injured puppy. She takes my hands, She sighs, Then

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Speaker 1: she hugs me tight. My face is tickled by the

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Speaker 1: flicks of her jone jet haircut. She smells like cigarettes

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Speaker 1: and Southern comfort. As a fifteen year old floating on

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Speaker 1: a cloud of weed and bourbon. When the hot nineteen

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Speaker 1: year old with rock and roll hair is hugging you close,

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Speaker 1: there is absolutely no way you can hide the stiffy

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Speaker 1: which has now introduced itself into the situation. And considering

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Speaker 1: there it was no Harley Davidson between my legs, I'm

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Speaker 1: not the only person to notice this uninvited intruder. Terrigently

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Speaker 1: leans back, putting some distance between the denim. She looks

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Speaker 1: down at me with the same empathy this family's always

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Speaker 1: had towards me. Ah, you're very sweet, and you're fifteen,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to bed. She didn't shame me, she

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Speaker 1: didn't make me feel bad. She was very clearly pointed

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Speaker 1: out there. Whatever I was hoping was going to happen

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Speaker 1: was absolutely not going to happen. I watched you disappear

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Speaker 1: into the party, and I disappear into the night. I

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Speaker 1: go back through my bedroom window. Just before I fall asleep,

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Speaker 1: I quietly have sex with Terror by myself once again.

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Speaker 1: A few weeks later, there's an argument next door. The

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Speaker 1: cops show up. I don't know if it was a

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Speaker 1: crazy I or something else, but within a week or

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Speaker 1: two they've all moved out. I never got a chance

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Speaker 1: to thank me. As a man, you can't underestimate the

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Speaker 1: incredible impact you will have on the boys who are

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Speaker 1: in your orbit. If you can give a young man

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Speaker 1: around you one thing, give them that glint of excitement

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Speaker 1: in your eye, show them they're important, that the answer

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Speaker 1: to their question is exciting. My younger brother showed the

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Speaker 1: most curiosity about Mick was doing under the hood. Mick

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Speaker 1: patiently answering all his questions, teaching this curious ten year

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Speaker 1: old all about engines. That brother went on to become

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Speaker 1: a mechanic. That brother now works on the executive floor

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Speaker 1: at the Ford Motor Company in Detroit. It's where he lives.

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Speaker 1: No mentor is going to be perfect. And even though

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Speaker 1: Bourbon Weed and I eventually made bitter enemies, Mick absolutely

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Speaker 1: had a lasting impact on my life. I kept my

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Speaker 1: promise to Mum. But since she's died, I have owned

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Speaker 1: many motorbikes, but now I just own one. It's a

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Speaker 1: Harley Davidson. But Mick would fucking hate it. Trick does

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Speaker 1: not sound like his but it does throb with haptic

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Speaker 1: feedback like your phone gives you, just to let you

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Speaker 1: know it is on. And if you so much as

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Speaker 1: breathe on the throttle, you will teleport one hundred meters

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Speaker 1: in front of you before you've had the time to say.

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Speaker 1: Third party comprehensive endurance. And while I might be in

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Speaker 1: my fifties and my testosterone isn't what it used to be,

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Speaker 1: every now and again, when I'm sitting at the lights

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Speaker 1: and the bike throbs just right, well, I can tell

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Speaker 1: that my motorcycle is tuned to perfection. I hope you

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Speaker 1: can come to the next show. I think the theme

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Speaker 1: is going to be Fortune Knox, but once Jenfricka, Luke

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Speaker 1: Haggee Jeeves Verma already confirmed, would probably have two more

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Speaker 1: by the end of this week. Tickets at story clublive

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Speaker 1: dot com. You can also pre order the books. So

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Speaker 1: what Now What? In the show notes, Thanks for listening,

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Speaker 1: Do subscribe, follow whatever you can do, and if you

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Speaker 1: like this story and send it to someone see it

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Speaker 1: Wednesday