Proper True Yarn
- Episodes
- 542
- Released
- several times a week
- Latest episode
- Nov 12, 2026
About the podcast
Welcome to "Proper True Yarn," the podcast that takes you on a rollicking journey through the wildest, funniest, and most extraordinary stories from around the globe. Join your host, the one and only Knuckles from Country Trucker Caps, as he sits down with an eclectic array of captivating individuals, each armed with a remarkable tale to share. Buckle up for a whirlwind adventure as we dive headfirst into the rich tapestry of human experiences. With a mix of humor, heart, and sheer audacity, our guests regale us with their most unforgettable yarns. From heartwarming anecdotes that tug at your emotions to sidesplitting tales that leave you doubled over in laughter, "Proper True Yarn" promises an electrifying blend of storytelling unlike any other.Whether it's a daring escapade across far-flung lands, an encounter with the supernatural that defies explanation, or simply a slice of life that resonates with the universal human spirit, our podcast uncovers the gems that make our world a truly captivating place.So, grab your favorite pair of Country Trucker Caps and prepare to be enthralled. Tune in to "Proper True Yarn" as Knuckles and his spirited guests weave a tapestry of the extraordinary, reminding us all that life's most incredible moments are often just a story away. Remember, it's not just a tale – it's a proper true yarn!#propertrueyarn
Episodes 542
Five Blokes, $4,000 Each and a Rail Strike Built a Trucking Giant | Proper True Yarn Podcast
Part 1 with Mark Tobin, managing director of Followmont Transport and one of Knuckles' best mates. The two of them have built a charity together and travelled the world, and Mark reckons the proudest bit is …
Show notes
Part 1 with Mark Tobin, managing director of Followmont Transport and one of Knuckles' best mates. The two of them have built a charity together and travelled the world, and Mark reckons the proudest bit is that not one dollar has ever changed hands between them.
The business started over 40 years ago during a rail strike. Magazines and papers usually went north by rail, so five blokes put in $4,000 each overnight and two of them jumped in a truck to run the magazines from Brisbane to Cairns. It happened so fast they never even picked the name. They paid about $600 for a business name and Followmont is what they were sent. Two of the five got out early, and about 20 years ago Mark and another son of the founders bought in.
Today it's 1,100 people and he still knows the name of anyone who hits 20 years and takes them out for dinner. His dad taught him business is about people. Mark doesn't hold back on the state of the industry either: a driver shortage tipped to hit 75,000 by the Olympics, a media that only shows up when a truck hits a bridge, and Queensland roads so bad he wouldn't let his wife and kids drive to Rockhampton. Knuckles reckons every learner should do time riding beside a B double driver.
They also get into acquisitions. New South Wales was the big one, and Mark admits he went in too quick, tried to change too much and it took four or five years and millions to get right. Now it runs like Queensland, and Victoria is on the radar if the right deal comes up.
⚠️ Explicit content. Check out Followmont Transport and give the truckies some room on the road.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyBogged on Ballina Beach on His 19th, Towed Past the Flags for $150 | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 4)
Part 4 with Clancy Sinnamon (CC Donut). His 19th birthday fell on Easter weekend while he was at uni on the Gold Coast, so he and a few mates loaded swags and beers into his 2006 Subaru Outback and headed for …
Show notes
Part 4 with Clancy Sinnamon (CC Donut). His 19th birthday fell on Easter weekend while he was at uni on the Gold Coast, so he and a few mates loaded swags and beers into his 2006 Subaru Outback and headed for Yamba to camp. They ran out of daylight, found a stretch of beach near Ballina on Google Earth, and a mate drove them down a goat track straight onto the sand, no tyre pressures dropped. They bogged it twice, pushed it out once, then smelt the clutch go.
A group of blokes fishing up the beach in big Rangers wouldn't tow them, but said it was high tide so they'd be right. It pissed down rain, they slept in the car, and woke at 11am with the water lapping the wheels. The same fishermen were still there and still wouldn't help, but sent them 5km up the road to find a tractor. RACQ wouldn't go on the beach. Eventually they found a cane farm with 10 or 15 tractors in the yard, all "in for maintenance", but the son in law would do it for 150 bucks. The best part: getting towed past the lifesaver flags and kids building sandcastles. They were told a Pajero had washed into the ocean there the week before. A girl from college, Charlie, drove from the Gold Coast to rescue them and they all fell asleep in her car.
The Subi lived another 13 years until Clancy drowned it this year in the Balonne River near Dirranbandi, following a truck across on a filming job. The bow wave came over the windscreen and he had to be dragged out backwards. It's now in a car graveyard behind St George. Knuckles adds his own water crossing and Emu Park bogging yarns.
⚠️ Explicit content. Find CC Donut Comedy for more skits, including Stan Smith the scrap metal merchant.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyScientology Told Him He Was Unstable After He Bubbled In ACDC | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 3)
Part 3 with Clancy Sinnamon (CC Donut), back to his first overseas trip at 19. First arvo in New York, overwhelmed in Times Square, an old lady offers him and his then missus a free personality test. He reckons …
Show notes
Part 3 with Clancy Sinnamon (CC Donut), back to his first overseas trip at 19. First arvo in New York, overwhelmed in Times Square, an old lady offers him and his then missus a free personality test. He reckons it might teach him something about himself, follows her down a back alley and straight into a big Scientology building. They sit him at a little desk with a divider and a hundred multiple choice questions, so he does what he always did at school: ACDC all the way down the page and hands it in.
They pull him out to a back room, deeper into the building, where a bloke in a lab coat tells him his results show he's very unstable and unhappy. Clancy was having the time of his life, but took the path of least resistance, agreed he was very sad, and walked out with a Scientology book. The missus, who answered properly, came out stable and walked free. Next day the same lady tried to hand him a pamphlet in Times Square.
Same trip, he emptied his coins into a homeless man's cup in Washington, realised his squashed Disneyland souvenir coin went in too, and got caught reaching back into the cup. In France he learned to say "parlez vous français" thinking it meant "I don't speak French". In Dubai with the cricket he kept asking for ham and pineapple pizza.
Then the origin of CC Donut: his mum called him CC, and a mate at cricket started calling him "cinnamon donut". He talks about where the skits come from, including the viral 120 slump video shot at a mate's dad's concrete batching plant out of Mitchell, where Clancy jumped under a truck pouring straight water and had to be hosed down, and the livestock agent skits inspired by his brother that stirred a few people up.
⚠️ Explicit content. Follow CC Donut Comedy for Clancy's skits.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyHis Video of Bangladesh Beating Australia Ended Up in the Papers | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 2)
Part 2 with Clancy Sinnamon (CC Donut) and more from his years on the road with the Australian cricket team. In 2021, right in the middle of COVID, the squad flew a charter to the West Indies, Clancy in seat 1A …
Show notes
Part 2 with Clancy Sinnamon (CC Donut) and more from his years on the road with the Australian cricket team. In 2021, right in the middle of COVID, the squad flew a charter to the West Indies, Clancy in seat 1A for his first ever taste of business class, then on to Bangladesh. A month into tour they were locked in a five star hotel 24/7, looking out at real poverty on the street, playing a lot of table tennis. Pressure cooker.
Then Australia started losing to Bangladesh. Before the third game Justin Langer pulled Clancy aside and asked him to tell the team a joke. He went with a Norm Macdonald one about three midgets on a night out, which landed with the boys. Australia went out and lost anyway, and with it the series, the first time Bangladesh had ever beaten them in one.
With the Aussies looking like a sad sack, Clancy filmed the Bangladesh players celebrating, cut a two minute package back at the hotel, tacked on a clip of them singing their team song, and sent it to the boss in Australia. Next morning in the COVID test line he heard the team manager giving his colleague an absolute spray for posting it. Clancy kept his head down, the colleague copped it sweet, then copped another tune up from the coach at brekkie. By the time they hit hotel quarantine back home it was in the papers, with memes and face swaps to follow. It's all under the bridge now, and the highlight of those years was the night out in London after the World Test Championship final win over India.
⚠️ Explicit content. Follow CC Donut Comedy for Clancy's skits.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyLocked on a Thames Jetty, Then Grilled About London Prostitutes | Proper True Yarn Podcast
Part 1 with Clancy Sinnamon, better known online as CC Donut. Born in Miles and raised in Jackson, a town between Miles and Roma on the Warrego with no pub, no store and nothing at all. He reckons it once came …
Show notes
Part 1 with Clancy Sinnamon, better known online as CC Donut. Born in Miles and raised in Jackson, a town between Miles and Roma on the Warrego with no pub, no store and nothing at all. He reckons it once came in seventh poorest postcode in the country on a Channel 7 list. After boarding school he went to the Gold Coast to study film and television, and his first full time job was travelling with the Australian cricket team as their videographer.
He started the same day Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head and Aaron Finch debuted in Dubai, filmed them getting their baggy greens, and did four and a half years on the road before coming back for the Amazon doco The Test in England. Yes, the dressing room question comes up. His theory is the blokes with medium sized ones are the ones who get it out the most.
The big yarn: on a London tour, a few beers deep at the hotel in Chelsea Harbour, Clancy wandered down to a jetty on the Thames, walked through a gate and it slammed and locked behind him. Freezing wind off the river, his only options were swimming the Thames to a ladder 30 metres away or sleeping out there, so he rang team security, a little Italian bloke called Frank, who turned up with two big bald security blokes. First thing Frank did was photograph him and send it to the whole team. Then the ICC integrity man, a big Irish fella, pulled Clancy aside at the ground and told him a lot of prostitutes work that part of London, so was there anything he wanted to tell him. It was a stitch up, Nathan Lyon still messages him to stay off the jetties, and it was the moment the boys let him in.
⚠️ Explicit content. Follow CC Donut Comedy for Clancy's skits.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyKnuckles Pissed on His Own Bed, Then Slept in It | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 5)
Part 5 and Buster Kirby flips the show, taking the host chair to drag a few untold yarns out of Knuckles, with producer Zak there as the witness. Knuckles is the bloke who can go three or four days without a …
Show notes
Part 5 and Buster Kirby flips the show, taking the host chair to drag a few untold yarns out of Knuckles, with producer Zak there as the witness. Knuckles is the bloke who can go three or four days without a weakness. Turns out there is one: tequila. In Vegas at Ole Red, Blake Shelton's four level bar, someone drove a Clase Azul shot into him and he spewed all over Paul White, the former Broncos CEO, on their first meeting, with Tommy Busby from Busby Marou nearly jumping off the balcony. Security came over to ask if he wanted another drink. On the way out he tried to fight 14 Irish blokes.
Then the night Knuckles' son learned to crawl. He was FaceTiming his wife from a booth at a Rick Ross show while the boys yelled at him to hurry up. Zak went home early and woke to what sounded like a water feature in the room. Knuckles was standing at the foot of his own bed, pants down, pissing on it. "What are you doing?" "I'm fucking pissing in the bed." He finished, lay down in it and went straight to sleep with his feet in the wet patch.
One more for the road. After a big charity lunch in Brisbane, the crew were on the piss at Eagle Street Pier when a bloke parked his Merc out the front, left it running and walked across to the fig trees on what looked a lot like a drug deal. Knuckles jumped in and bounced it off the rev limiter. Old mate sprinted back and started throwing punches, the video looks like a stabbing, a water bottle hit one of the wives and someone kicked his back panel in.
⚠️ Explicit content. Spot one of Country Trucker Caps on a Vegas cabbie? That'll be Jamali, he listens.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyHis Uber Driver Pulled a .44 Magnum and Drove Him Into the Desert | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 4)
Part 4 with Buster Kirby, and the second Vegas yarn is the big one. The lady at the gun range looked him up and down and said "the big boy ain't making it on foot, darling". He walked anyway, in thongs, to …
Show notes
Part 4 with Buster Kirby, and the second Vegas yarn is the big one. The lady at the gun range looked him up and down and said "the big boy ain't making it on foot, darling". He walked anyway, in thongs, to Planet 13 on Sammy Davis Jr Drive, got knocked back for not having his passport, bought new walkers and a plastic yard glass of coconut rum, and lost six kilos on the trip.
Next morning, passports in hand, he and Angie jump in an Uber. Big Texan looking bloke, big hat, big Chevy. He asks why they're going to Planet 13, says that's where the tourists go and he'll take them where the locals go. Buster says no thanks. The driver opens the glove box and pulls out a .44 Magnum. Angie gets out. The doors lock, the Uber app goes off, and they head out into the Mojave with Buster dropping pins to his wife the whole way, confessing his regrets by text and telling her to go see the hookers without him.
It finishes at a strip mall: a laundromat, a 7 Eleven, and three blacked out shops with a steel door. Three bangs, a slot slides open, passport held up but never handed over, and inside it's a shiny chemist full of bud. They hand him a basket and a menu, he buys a marijuana cigar, pre rolls and gummies, and qualifies medically when they ask about depression or anxiety: "fucking both". On the way back the driver pulls over, splits a joint with him and admits that 10 minutes in, he decided not to kill him. Plus Fremont Street, a cop asking which part of Britain he's from, and the Heart Attack Grill scales.
⚠️ Explicit content. Buster Kirby is heading back to Vegas next year, catch him on tour before then.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyHe Watched His Cop Mate Get Shot on Body Cam, Then Fired an AR-15 | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 3)
Part 3 with Buster Kirby, and it's the first leg of his Vegas trip, the one his wife Angie literally had to drag him to the airport for. He's already rebooked: two and a half weeks next year, flying into …
Show notes
Part 3 with Buster Kirby, and it's the first leg of his Vegas trip, the one his wife Angie literally had to drag him to the airport for. He's already rebooked: two and a half weeks next year, flying into Dallas, then a week around Austin trying to get a spot on Kill Tony. The flight over was rough. Someone told him to wear compression stockings, so he cut the feet off them because they annoyed him, and landed with feet like basketballs. A panic attack sorted the rest. The upside: the first snow he ever saw was on the mountains flying into Las Vegas.
On Knuckles' advice he and Angie booked Battlefield Vegas, about a grand Australian to shoot everything a bloke from a 12 gauge and .22 background never gets near, AR-15 and .50 cal included. While they were waiting on the pager, his mate Keith, a cop in Oklahoma, rang and asked what he was shooting. Buster rattled off the list, said AR-15, and Keith told him to open his phone.
It was Keith's body cam from the night before. A welfare check off a 911 call, he pulls up the driveway, leans forward to tap the screen in his cruiser, and a bloke walks off the veranda and empties an AR-15 magazine through the windscreen. Hit in the arm, the chest and shrapnel in the neck, saved by his armour. He'd been given one day off. Buster sat in the corner feeling sick, told him to quit, then went in and shot the guns anyway, including a .50 cal that lifted the two blokes holding it off the ground. The armed guard in the corner? "He's itching to do his job."
⚠️ Explicit content. Catch Buster Kirby live, he's on tour now.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyHe Set Up a Fake Arrest and the Rookie Cop Bashed Him for Real | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 2)
Part 2 with Buster Kirby, and he's the first to say he doesn't condone drink driving. This is a yarn from his young days around Murwillumbah. His old man promised to buy him his first car, then just pulled his …
Show notes
Part 2 with Buster Kirby, and he's the first to say he doesn't condone drink driving. This is a yarn from his young days around Murwillumbah. His old man promised to buy him his first car, then just pulled his gear out of the family Sigma wagon and handed him the keys. Buster snapped the gear stick off driving it like a dickhead, Dad welded something on so it would go back in, and because the key was jammed in the ignition and the doors wouldn't lock, the only security was taking the gear stick with you to the party.
One night at 2am the local copper, drunk himself, offered to jump in and get Buster home. His mate, a straight laced cop from Sydney, sliced his hand on the wire hanging out of the Sigma's tyre, then sat on something in the passenger seat and pulled out the gear stick. "What does this do?" It changes gears, mate. Buster reckons it was the last time he ever drove after a drink.
Back then the coppers in town would just give you a lift home in the back of the wagon. So Buster booked one, a sergeant, for a 21st at the Condong Bowls Club. The sergeant said he had a probationary constable from Sydney with him and he'd put on a bit of a show dragging Buster to the car. Two days and a lot of beers later Buster forgot the plan, told him to get fucked, and the young bloke from Sydney snapped: baton, foot on the back of his head, cuffs, blood nose, his missus screaming and his mates ready to go. Turns out the rookie had been sent to the country to calm down. Buster is still good mates with the sergeant.
⚠️ Explicit content. Buster and the boys are also after sponsors for their sprint car, give him a shout.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyHe Called Wendell Sailor His Hero, Then Introduced Someone Else | Proper True Yarn Podcast
Buster Kirby is back on the pod, and the last time he and Knuckles recorded together was in New Zealand, followed by an after party at Rock 2000 in Auckland where a mate stripped off to reveal a tribal tramp …
Show notes
Buster Kirby is back on the pod, and the last time he and Knuckles recorded together was in New Zealand, followed by an after party at Rock 2000 in Auckland where a mate stripped off to reveal a tribal tramp stamp on an angle. These days Buster is 45, living in the hills behind Byron near Nimbin, and has made a pact to go 10 years hard on the comedy before building a big fence around the farm at Tyalgum and raising cows. He also married his third cousin. They checked with Aunty Ollie, the family oracle, who reckoned they were related "sort of, but not close enough".
Then come the wedding yarns. At Buster's own wedding in the Catholic church at Murwillumbah, the priest was his wife's uncle, Father Paul, who asked best man Pig to get rid of his chewing gum. Pig gobbed it straight into the priest's hand and said "thanks bud". Knuckles tops it with his farm wedding: one of the bridesmaids got so smashed she spewed, shat and pissed through the motorhome he'd organised for the night, then passed out with the door locked. He and his new wife spent their wedding night in winter on a bare bed with no linen, and a couple of weeks later he got a $180 cleaning bill.
Buster never gets asked to be a groomsman, he's always the MC, "because I'm the fat, loud guy". At his best mate Clancy Fallon's wedding up at Midginbil Hill behind Uki, Wendell Sailor turned up. Buster grabbed the mic, told 200 guests how nervous he was to be standing in front of his childhood hero, a bloke who could score from anywhere on the field, and asked everyone to put their hands together. Del stood up. Buster said "Ryan Hansen", a Q Cup second rower and goal kicker. Del sat straight down, ropeable, then copped a second one when Buster introduced Lote Tuqiri. He eyeballed Buster for an hour, then walked over with two glasses of champagne.
⚠️ Explicit content. Catch Buster Kirby on his comedy tour.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyTwo Rival Butchers, One Go Kart Race, Loser Pays the Charity | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 4)
Part 4 with Jack from Bellmere Butcher, wrapping up the series. First things first: the shop is at 65 Bellmere Road in the heart of Bellmere, near Caboolture. It's a back to front shopping centre, so Jack is …
Show notes
Part 4 with Jack from Bellmere Butcher, wrapping up the series. First things first: the shop is at 65 Bellmere Road in the heart of Bellmere, near Caboolture. It's a back to front shopping centre, so Jack is working on a giant sausage sign for the street so nobody drives past.
Jack's grown up around food, his parents ran Italian restaurants in town, and after 10 years inside the same four walls of less than 50 square metres, the new shop is how he keeps himself and his team interested. New creations are on hold until they've got the room to make them properly every day, not as a one off. Hot food is coming too, but no menu: whatever's in the hot box is what's available. No pies either, out of respect for the baker in the same centre.
The bigger plan is weekend smokers out the front with taste testers and advice, the same thing Jack does at home when 30 or 40 people turn up on a Sunday with the kegs on. His line is that it's not butchers against butchers, it's butchers against the big guys. To prove it, he and the butcher up the road have a golf buggy challenge running, and he's been called out to a go kart race on the other bloke's property. Loser donates to charity.
⚠️ Explicit content. Find Bellmere Butcher at 65 Bellmere Road, Bellmere, and keep an eye out for the new shop opening.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyThe Chooks That Grow Two Extra Legs Out Their Arse | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 3)
Part 3 with Jack from Bellmere Butcher. Knuckles asks why the self proclaimed sausage king has never entered the sausage awards. Jack actually signed up this year, membership and all, then the reminder email …
Show notes
Part 3 with Jack from Bellmere Butcher. Knuckles asks why the self proclaimed sausage king has never entered the sausage awards. Jack actually signed up this year, membership and all, then the reminder email landed and he saw what it takes: every sausage in every category, every ingredient listed, made, cryovaced and shipped by a deadline. With 12 staff jammed into a shop under 50 square metres, it's a job for next year. His figures don't lie and he's got nothing to prove. Knuckles just wants to know who cooks them, because one bad cook could wreck the best snag in the comp.
On beef, Jack has been loyal to Nolan's since he was a first year apprentice, the kind of supplier who'll sort him out on a Sunday when someone else has left him stranded. Reps are welcome to leave a price list, but he's not changing for a dollar a kilo. Knuckles backs it, saying the best eating beast he ever shot was a dirty old Jersey, not a pretty Angus heifer. The new shop gets a walk in butcher's vault with a block where Jack will cut your meat in front of you.
Then Knuckles asks how to pick a good chook, and Jack tells him what a bad one looks like. Cornish Cross birds, full white with blue eyes like a sci fi clone movie, six kilos in about four months, some so heavy they can't walk, and some growing two extra legs out their backside. Knuckles reckons breed the four legged ones and sell more drumsticks.
⚠️ Explicit content. Get into Bellmere Butcher, 65 Bellmere Road, Bellmere.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyHe Put Hot Chips in a Sausage and Pulled 3 Million Views | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 2)
Part 2 with Jack from Bellmere Butcher, and this one's all snags. Jack had Facebook for Marketplace and nothing else until Blake, a meat marketing bloke, talked him into a month of videos. The first few were …
Show notes
Part 2 with Jack from Bellmere Butcher, and this one's all snags. Jack had Facebook for Marketplace and nothing else until Blake, a meat marketing bloke, talked him into a month of videos. The first few were average. Then they filmed a sausage he'd dreamt up during COVID called the Counter Lunch: rump steak, hot chips and pepper gravy. Over 3 million views on the first proper video.
The comments went both ways and Jack couldn't care less, but Megan lost three days of sleep trying to reply to every one. Knuckles reckons the keyboard warriors are doing him a favour, every bad comment just pushes it further. What mattered was the door: every bugger walking in wanted rump steak, hot chips and pepper gravy sausages. Twelve months on, they've dropped a new flavour every single week, over 100 of them.
Jack explains what goes on behind it. Gravy made days ahead, $500 a week on hot chips with no margin in it, people driving six hours through the night and turning up to a window that only fits eight to 10 flavours. His plea: ring ahead and they'll make it for you. The new shop should take it to 20 or 30 flavours with its own kitchen and chefs.
His favourite? He eats that many he goes back to a plain snag, but right now he's on a jalapeño craze, especially the pork jalapeño ones made for Alpha Fest.
⚠️ Explicit content. Follow Bellmere Butcher for the weekly sausage drop, and if you're travelling, ring ahead.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyShe Bagged the Bellmere Butcher to His Face Without Knowing It | Proper True Yarn Podcast
Part 1 with Jack from Bellmere Butcher. Two weeks out from opening his new shop, Jack had his tradie mates (mostly cousins and family) knocking off with beers at 2.30 on a Friday, trying to come up with a yarn …
Show notes
Part 1 with Jack from Bellmere Butcher. Two weeks out from opening his new shop, Jack had his tradie mates (mostly cousins and family) knocking off with beers at 2.30 on a Friday, trying to come up with a yarn he could actually tell on this show. Then a little Kia pulls up in the middle of six blokes and a lady in her 80s gets out, looks at the sign and goes, "not the Bellmere Butcher", she was hoping for a Domino's.
The boys couldn't help themselves. His cousin the sparky asks if she shops there. Never, she's Woolworths and Aldi all the way and can't afford it. She reckons the new owner is spending big on that stone wall, the old guy was a legend, and she doesn't know how this new bloke makes a living. Jack, sitting there in full Bellmere Butcher uniform, agrees with every word. His mate in the Bellmere Butcher hat tells her he had to knock it off because the tight arse owner wouldn't give him one. She never clicked.
Then the real story: 10 years ago Jack was picking up cars along Bribie Island Road, kept driving past an apprentice wanted sign at the Ningi butcher and finally walked in. He did his trade there, met his partner Megan when she was the counter girl at Bellmere, managed the shop for years, then walked away when their daughter arrived eight weeks premature. A phone call to his old boss, now his best mate, and two weeks later he owned the place. Three years on, he's known as the sausage man.
⚠️ Explicit content. Get down to Bellmere Butcher at 65 Bellmere Road, Bellmere, and tell them the old girl sent you.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyA Nervous Piss With Ghost Chilli on His Hands | Proper True Yarn Podcast (Part 5)
Part five with Luke Geiger is the Mount Isa Rodeo yarn, and it might be the funniest five minutes of the series. The setup: Luke and the boys land one of their biggest gigs ever, playing the Isa Rodeo alongside …
Show notes
Part five with Luke Geiger is the Mount Isa Rodeo yarn, and it might be the funniest five minutes of the series. The setup: Luke and the boys land one of their biggest gigs ever, playing the Isa Rodeo alongside O'Shea, the Screaming Jets and Aussie rock royalty The Angels. After the Friday crowd thinned out on the Jets, the promoters flipped the Saturday order, so The Angels went on first and Luke's crew got the closing slot, sharing a green room with the Brewsters and Dave Gleeson, who spent the arvo singing cowboy songs with them out the back.
Earlier that day the barbecue boys on site had handed Luke, a self-confessed chilli man, a bottle of their hot wing challenge sauce, the Ghost of Chainsaw. He had a respectful amount on some roast meat, fiddled with the bottle, and thought nothing more of it. Ten minutes before showtime, packs on, ears in, guitar on his back, he ducks into the single portaloo for a nervous piss. What follows is the discovery that ghost chilli does not wash off your hands by itself, a door flung open with one leg in and one leg out, jeans at the ankles, a handful of portaloo soap, and a man scrubbing himself for Jesus and everyone to see while The Angels rip into Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again twenty metres away.
He made it on stage, still smouldering, and opened the set by thanking The Angels for opening for them, only to look across and find Gleeson and Rick Brewster standing side of stage listening. Gleeson stayed for the whole set and ended up jumping up to sing a Johnny Cash song with them, which Luke rates as one of the coolest things the band's ever done. The ep wraps with the world record stakes: one adjudication slip-up across 120 hours and the whole thing counts for nothing, which is roughly 30 four-hour gigs back to back, unpaid. Watch this space.
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Part four with Luke Geiger is the touring yarns, starting with a crash course in hospitality riders and the piss-takes buried in them: six mandarins, three peeled and three unpeeled, green M&Ms picked out of …
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Part four with Luke Geiger is the touring yarns, starting with a crash course in hospitality riders and the piss-takes buried in them: six mandarins, three peeled and three unpeeled, green M&Ms picked out of the bowl, and one bloke whose rider ends with a framed picture of Trace Adkins. Luke's had his own rider rinsed by another artist who shall remain nameless but absolutely knows who he is, and there's the all-time Mackay classic from his pub days with Big Sexy: play a packed Friday night at Malloy's, tell the barman to tab the drinks up, then go to collect the cash at the end and get told you owe us 300 bucks.
Then the main event, the night that became a song. Luke, Big Sexy and Luke's wife Carly rock up to the Honky Tonk of Texas in Silsbee, outside Beaumont, for a Tuesday night gig at what looks like an empty feed shed. By showtime you couldn't get a park. The second the locals clocked the accents, the shots started coming, Texan-sized 60 mil jobs, and they didn't stop. Luke got so poisoned he couldn't play his guitar, greeted his own wife in the hallway with pure amazement that she'd made it all the way to Texas, got carried from the car to the motel with his boots dragging, and took two days to come right.
The kicker came at the next venue, the famous Sengelmann Hall in Schulenburg, when he opened his gear and found a stack of love letters written on napkins, bar receipts and bits of cloth. Turns out blackout Luke had spent the night telling every woman at the bar he went to uni with Keith Urban and personally promising to deliver their letters. So Keith, if you're listening, there's mail waiting for you in Silsbee. The episode rounds out with the song the whole disaster earned, so stick around for the outro.
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Part three with Luke Geiger, and it's the big exclusive: Australia's wildest cowboy party is going after a Guinness World Record. Luke's whole thing is taking requests, not breaks. He plays six and seven hour …
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Part three with Luke Geiger, and it's the big exclusive: Australia's wildest cowboy party is going after a Guinness World Record. Luke's whole thing is taking requests, not breaks. He plays six and seven hour sets without stopping, and Knuckles has watched him do eight and a half hours straight at the Gympie Muster's Lights on the Hill bar with three trips to the dunny, after already playing all day at It's a Bloke Thing in Toowoomba and getting choppered between the two with James Johnston. The only reason the man stops is a flat battery.
So he looked up the longest continuous music marathon, found the mark sitting at around 105 hours, and decided he wants to be the bloke who beats it. The target: 120 hours. Five days. The plan, hatched years ago with Graeme Connors' sons at their Mackay venue and now revived for next year's Gympie Muster, is dead serious. He walks you through the actual Guinness rulebook: no repeating a song within four hours, 20 seconds max between songs, adjudicators watching around the clock, and five minutes of banked rest earned per hour played, all of it saved up to survive the 3am to 5am dead zone when the diehards have collapsed and the early risers aren't up yet.
Mates can jump up and accompany him, guitars, fiddles, spoons, tambourines, whatever you've got, as long as he never stops. The finish would be staged for the main stage with a countdown. The last problem to solve is his fingers, which already bleed after a big night, so there's talk of lighter gauge strings, a rack of backup guitars, and the silicon fingertips he can't stand for reasons best left to the episode. Watch this space, because if anyone's mad enough to sing for five days, it's this bloke.
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Part two with Luke Geiger opens with maybe the most innocent mistake ever made by a country footballer. Fresh out of Chinchilla and playing footy in Sydney, 18 year old Luke discovers the whole squad shaves …
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Part two with Luke Geiger opens with maybe the most innocent mistake ever made by a country footballer. Fresh out of Chinchilla and playing footy in Sydney, 18 year old Luke discovers the whole squad shaves, and the trainers won't rub you down before a game if you're hairy. After a leg waxing attempt back in Toowoomba ended at one leg, two girls and a lot of swearing, he spots a sign under his unit block: painless Brazilian waxing. He chews on it for a couple of days, wondering what's so special about this wax from Brazil, then walks in with all the confidence in the world and asks for the Brazilian on his chest. The beautician calls the hairdresser over just to hear him say it again. Once it's explained, Luke's out. They wax his chest with the regular stuff instead, it draws blood between the pecs, and as he puts it, painless my arse, but my arse did remain hairy.
The back half is the bush kid landing at Central Station with a bag of clothes and a swag, straight into the famous Souths player house next to the Juniors leagues club. Crazy Dave the minder in the front room you never saw, groceries lined up the hallway, grass past your knees, and a brand new mower big Ricky couldn't start because he'd been told to hold the primer button until fuel ran out of it. When Luke finally mows the yard, the apprentice in him horrified at the state of it, he starts hitting forks. Then spoons. Then he looks up and sees plates, cups and tomato sauce all over the roof. The boys' explanation: we had a roof party, better view up there. Fair play. The ultimate bachelor pad, and as Luke says, there's plenty of yarns from that house that can never come out.
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New guest series with one of the best blokes Knuckles knows, Queensland cowboy country singer Luke Geiger, and the pair front up fresh from trying to drink rum for Australia at the 16th It's a Bloke Thing …
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New guest series with one of the best blokes Knuckles knows, Queensland cowboy country singer Luke Geiger, and the pair front up fresh from trying to drink rum for Australia at the 16th It's a Bloke Thing prostate cancer luncheon, hosted by their good mate Jack Wagner at Wellcamp Airport. The lunch raised $39,000, and the cause is a beauty: a testing truck partnered with Heart of Australia that's already checked 541 blokes in rural Queensland, with 12 per cent sent for follow ups. That's near 60 blokes who'd never have been checked. If you see it out west, walk in.
Luke's job at the lunch was the grand entry, driving the auction Kenworth from one end of the airport to the other, then jumping out with guitar and mic. What the room didn't know is that he'd been out bush long enough to need a favour first, which is how he learnt the greatest airport secret in Australia: they confiscate hundreds of aerosols a day, so if you ever need a spray of deodorant at Wellcamp, they've got you covered. One donated can of Rexona later, he was fit to sit beside Knuckles and Ray Martin. Yes, that Ray Martin, and yes, he's coming on the pod.
The main event is Luke's teeth. Four implants and 18 crowns at the top clinic in Vietnam for about $10,000 all up, versus the $10,000 his Mackay dentist wanted for one implant. The catch: Luke refused to be put under for three and a half hours of drilling into his jawbone because he was convinced they'd knock him out and take his organs, ignored the dentist's warning that shade number one was too white, and learnt both lessons the hard way. There's also the small matter of Knuckles buying the South Sydney VIP box at auction purely as a thank you to Luke, a bloke he ribs relentlessly for supporting them.
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The final part with John Rayner is one big love letter to the bush, and it starts in Fred Brophy's boxing tent at the Birdsville races. After days patrolling the Simpson Desert, Johnny fronted up to the tent …
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The final part with John Rayner is one big love letter to the bush, and it starts in Fred Brophy's boxing tent at the Birdsville races. After days patrolling the Simpson Desert, Johnny fronted up to the tent chasing the family legacy, his grandfather was a tent fighter back in the day. Jessie got caught in the crush at the front, and when the RFDS bloke helping Fred asked if there was anything he could do, she dobbed Johnny straight in: he really wants to fight. Hand up, on the board, matched with the tent champion Afro Savage, who reckons he's never lost.
Then the kicker. Unbeknown to Johnny, his grandfather had picked that exact year to tow the car up from Goulburn to Birdsville, spotted his grandson's name on the board, and ended up in his corner as ring man, calling the shots while Johnny went three rounds with a bloke who could've flogged him into next week. Afro bought him a beer afterwards and had the hide to claim Johnny broke his nose. Last year the crew went back for the final Brophy tent at Birdsville, and the trip out was half the fun: hot artesian baths at Charlotte Plains, bathtub races and a rock carrying comp at Quilpie lost by two seconds on a technicality with a grand on the line, yabby races at Windorah where the cheap yabby costs $800, and a mate's charity fight with his young fella screaming go dad from the front row.
It all lands on the message both blokes finish the series with: get out and see your own country. Stay at the pubs, buy the meat pie, get your fuel local, put money into the small towns doing it tough after the floods, and if you're struggling in the city, maybe the answer is a little further west. As Johnny says, the bush is good to everyone.
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Part four with John Rayner is the ranger years, and it opens with how he got there: taking the pay cut from mining money to a National Parks traineeship, moving down to Barmah on the Murray with his now fiancee …
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Part four with John Rayner is the ranger years, and it opens with how he got there: taking the pay cut from mining money to a National Parks traineeship, moving down to Barmah on the Murray with his now fiancee Jessie after four months together, and walking into an Echuca bottle shop to tell the manager he'd work that night for free and be given a job by close. Advice to the young fellas, that's how it's done. The bottle shop yarns from houseboat party season are worth the listen on their own.
Then it's into the good stuff. Learning tree felling from the old forestry boys and dropping burning giants on fire jobs, cultural heritage lessons from the local mobs, ring trees and sacred country from the Murray to The Rock at Wagga, then landing the dream posting at Diamantina National Park, seven hours from Longreach, seven from Mount Isa, halfway pub and nothing else. Out there he watched floods to rival 1974 rip hundred year old trees out of the ground, met a bloke driving a camel wagon from north of Alice to Taree with chooks hanging off the side, had a plane club land uninvited and drink the social club's grog, and waged war on a dirty old cow that learnt to hold the floodgates open and let the whole herd into the only springs on earth where one tiny fish exists.
And the title moment: filming an inland taipan during bilby surveys, the world's deadliest snake, one bite and you're gone, and it wandered over, had a sniff of his boot and kept going, looking for mice. His boss called him an idiot. Johnny agrees. Knuckles also drops a proper true Middleton pub yarn of his own about how close his old man came to owning the loneliest pub in Queensland.
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Part three with John Rayner opens with the maddest scheme of the series. The same cousin from part two, now unlicensed and living back at mum and dad's, loses the plot when his mum vacuums a blonde wig out from …
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Part three with John Rayner opens with the maddest scheme of the series. The same cousin from part two, now unlicensed and living back at mum and dad's, loses the plot when his mum vacuums a blonde wig out from under his bed and wants to wear it to a 70s party. His explanation: that's me licence. When he drives with the wig on, the cops think he's a woman. Her reply, God bless her, is the best line of the episode: mate, you've got a beard.
From there it's back to the Cudgegong River, hundred pound handlines, loaves of bread and carp as long as a shovel handle, plus a riverbank yarn about that same cousin, a hidden magazine and the clay bank that you'll simply have to hear for yourself, because there's no writing that one down. Then the old quarry at Mudgee: a three storey jump into crystal clear water, rope swings, a track mowed through the Bathurst burr, and a generation that looked after the place until the next lot drove cars through the fences.
The back half turns into something both blokes clearly care about: kids these days aren't allowed to climb a tree, let alone live on a push bike, build bows out of willow, go yabbying or hit the old man's golf balls into the paddock. Johnny's take is that if you've got the skills, fishing, hunting, fixing cars, any of it, passing them on to the kids in your community is your job. That's how you learnt it, so get out there and teach it.
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Part two with John Rayner is about the cousin he idolised, the bloke he describes as Stifler: smooth as anything, great with women, would pump you up one on one and shit on you the second there was an audience …
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Part two with John Rayner is about the cousin he idolised, the bloke he describes as Stifler: smooth as anything, great with women, would pump you up one on one and shit on you the second there was an audience. The same bloke who once woke a sleeping Johnny up by putting a steak knife in his leg.
The yarns get wilder from there. The tin dropped in the car park on the way to the Mudgee food festival, a carton of rum throwdowns, and the night of hazing that ended with 15 year old Johnny passed out on the grass with a ring of fire lit around him and a blue heeler digging its toy out of his pants. That was the night he swore off drugs for good, and looking back, he reckons it was the moment that changed his life, even if it took him years longer to walk away from the bloke behind it.
Then Knuckles shares one he's maybe never told before, about his own idolised cousin, a Queensland swimmer and Australian judo talent who went off the rails, and what happened when that cousin turned up at his 21st after ten years. The ep lands on the advice both of them wish they'd had as young fellas: if you've got that person in your life, you don't have to burn bridges, just move away.
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Fresh out of the Proper True Yarn fight camp, John Rayner sits down with Knuckles ahead of the seven man royale at Podcast Royale 3.0, and he's not there to make friends. No gym, no weight set, no boxing …
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Fresh out of the Proper True Yarn fight camp, John Rayner sits down with Knuckles ahead of the seven man royale at Podcast Royale 3.0, and he's not there to make friends. No gym, no weight set, no boxing gloves. Johnny's training farm strong, throwing 44 gallon drums and tyres around and belting the bag in riggers, and reckons the city pricks on the card are in for a rude shock. There's respect for the legend Benny, but as Johnny says, no more sympathy votes. Whoever fights the best gets the win.
Then the yarns start. Growing up in Mudgee when it was still a small country town, the unspoken deal where the league boys did the fighting during union season and vice versa, and punching their way to a famous schoolboy rugby title against one of the biggest schools in the state. Later came the Woolpack in its days as the most violent pub in Australia, and the army application where he passed everything with flying colours until the psych test, where a contractor heard how many fights he'd been in, told him getting smacked as a kid was domestic abuse he should sue over, and marked him down as a psychopath.
From there it was industrial tiling in the mines and a proper welcome to manhood alongside wiry blokes with man strength, 18 hour shifts, poly welding out in the bush, then giving up two and a half grand a week for a $750 national parks traineeship he's never regretted. Twelve years on he's still a parks man, and part two digs into the national park yarns.
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The final chapter with Michael Crossland, and it opens with the scan that changed everything. Three years ago, busy again and skipping his checkups, Michael lay on a table while a trainee sonographer casually …
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The final chapter with Michael Crossland, and it opens with the scan that changed everything. Three years ago, busy again and skipping his checkups, Michael lay on a table while a trainee sonographer casually counted out loud: there's one there, another one, two more down there. He hadn't been told about any of them. Six more tumours in his throat, on top of the one from 2016, and a doctor once again telling him his tomorrows weren't guaranteed.
What he did next is the hardest part of this episode. He didn't tell his mum. He didn't tell his kids. His wife Mel played it cool while hurting more than anyone, and Michael kissed his babies goodbye at the airport having told them daddy was going away for some talks, knowing he might never hold them again. He told the surgeon he didn't care if he never spoke another word on stage, as long as he came home with nothing left in his throat. They took out all seven tumours plus a skin cancer they found on his shoulder mid surgery, and Michael walked out of that hospital completely cancer free.
The episode rounds out with news of the movie being made about his life, with producers attached and a Hollywood dream on the cards, Michael's answer on which actor should play him (his wife has a strong opinion involving a Hemsworth), and the most inspiring person he's ever shared a stage with. Not Branson, not the big names. His mum. If you've missed the earlier parts, go back to the start, because this series is something special.
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The full circle moments in this one are hard to believe. Ten days before the birth, Michael had reluctantly done a fundraiser for the Miracle Babies Foundation, a charity he’d never heard of. When he collapsed …
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The full circle moments in this one are hard to believe. Ten days before the birth, Michael had reluctantly done a fundraiser for the Miracle Babies Foundation, a charity he’d never heard of. When he collapsed on the floor of level three, the woman who picked him up was the foundation’s CEO, and she told him everything was going to be okay. Then the man who spent four years of his childhood at Ronald McDonald House found himself living there again 30 years later with his own sick little boy. When sepsis hit and doctors said making it to the end of the week would be a miracle, Michael begged: take my house, my money, my career, everything I own, but please don’t take my little boy.
Five days later, his boy smiled. A Channel 9 interview and one cheeky question later, Michael raised $50,000 for recliners and medical fridges for the NICU before his cab made it back to the hospital. His son has since travelled the world with him, a healthy baby girl arrived in 2021, and Michael now has two little humans running around with his heart in their bodies. As Knuckles says, they could sit there all day.
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Part four with Michael Crossland starts with the promise kept. Years after losing his mum’s money in the GFC, he bought her a beautiful little home and put a pink ribbon on the door, told her he’d rented it for …
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Part four with Michael Crossland starts with the promise kept. Years after losing his mum’s money in the GFC, he bought her a beautiful little home and put a pink ribbon on the door, told her he’d rented it for 12 months, then told her the truth: it was hers. No, he wasn’t rich. The bank lent him the money and he pays the mortgage every week.
Four weeks before he finally got his scans done, a surgeon speaking at the same health forum pulled him aside and said something didn’t look right about his throat. Four tumours. Your tomorrows aren’t guaranteed. And when his mum rang the second he walked out of that appointment, Michael got to use her exact words, 20 years later: the doctor told me everything’s going to be okay. He finally got the chance to carry the burden for her.
Then he postponed the surgery. If he was going to die, the book had to be finished so his wife and his mum were looked after. That book is now a bestseller in six countries with hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to charity. Surgeons removed three of the four tumours, but the fourth was wrapped around his vocal cord, the very thing that puts food on his family’s table. And just when you think that’s the story, he ends the episode with one line about finally walking in his mum’s shoes that sets up the biggest episode yet.
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Then came the part he calls one of the hardest of his story. When his parents separated, Michael invested his mum’s share of the settlement in a high risk portfolio to try and buy her a home. Six weeks later …
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Then came the part he calls one of the hardest of his story. When his parents separated, Michael invested his mum’s share of the settlement in a high risk portfolio to try and buy her a home. Six weeks later the global financial crisis hit and he lost everything she had, the money of the one person who’d sacrificed her whole life for his. What followed was rock bottom at a caravan park, bacterial meningitis, fluid on the brain and Bell’s palsy, learning to walk and talk again, and the darkest stretch of his life, with his wife refusing to leave his side.
Out of it came his why. Michael and his wife went to Haiti after the earthquake, rebuilt a school that now teaches 270 kids, and met an eight year old boy eating out of a bin who’d lost his whole family. Michael rebuilt his orphanage from the ground up, became a father figure to 44 kids, and that little boy has just graduated engineering with honours in the top 10 per cent of university students in the world. And as Knuckles says, we’re not even halfway through this story.
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Part two with Michael Crossland picks up where the trial drug left off. The doctors said he'd never go to school, never play sport, and if he reached his teenage years it'd be a miracle. His mum told him …
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Part two with Michael Crossland picks up where the trial drug left off. The doctors said he'd never go to school, never play sport, and if he reached his teenage years it'd be a miracle. His mum told him everything was going to be okay and sent him to school anyway.
School turned out harder than hospital. No hair, no eyelashes, bandages over the burns, a nebuliser at every recess, and not a single day he didn't cop it from the other kids. Then, laid up after his first heart attack at just 12 years old, a get well card arrived from his class. Buried in the nice messages were four words he can still see clearly today: hope you die, Steve. What that card taught him about whose words get to weigh you down, and what's really in your cup when life bumps you, became the foundation of everything he now shares on stage.
From a 22 student primary school to a 1200 student high school, from being told he'd never play sport again to making the under 16 Australian baseball team two years later, Michael ends up on a full ride scholarship in Texas at 17, telling American girls his cancer scar came off a crocodile's tail. Six months in, he slid into second base, woke up in hospital, and at 18 it was all over. And as he says, that's only the start of it.
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This week Knuckles sits down with Michael Crossland, one of Australia’s most in demand inspirational speakers, who made the trip up from Coffs Harbour to share the parts of his story he never tells on stage …
Show notes
This week Knuckles sits down with Michael Crossland, one of Australia’s most in demand inspirational speakers, who made the trip up from Coffs Harbour to share the parts of his story he never tells on stage. Fair warning, Knuckles was in tears two minutes in, and this is only part one.
Diagnosed at 11 months old with stage four neuroblastoma and sent home with a 96 per cent death rate, Michael’s life was shaped by his mum’s decision to see it as 4 per cent full instead of 96 per cent empty. Chemo started on his first birthday. Then came the 11 hour train rides between Sydney and Coffs Harbour, an 11 kilo tumour wrapped around his heart, and his mum carrying him into surgery because the doctors told her it might be the last time she held her little boy alive.
When the treatment stopped working, the family signed onto an experimental drug being trialled on 25 kids around the world. Within a day they were all in the burns unit, wrapped in bandages and laid in ice baths, burning from the outside in. Within 90 days, 24 of the 25 were gone. Michael was the only survivor, and he’ll tell you he’s one of the lucky ones, not because he lived, but because he wasn’t his mum.
Find Michael’s speaking work and his bestselling book Everything Will Be OK at michaelcrossland.com
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