Proper True Yarn

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.

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.

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.#propertrueyarn

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.#propertrueyarn

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.#propertrueyarn

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.#propertrueyarn

Drake has cycled more money through a betting account in one month than most towns are worth, and he still can't pick a winner.Zak's got Google out and we're going through the whole lot. A 37% strike rate. $770k on Canada. $1.5 million on Argentina to beat Spain, and Spain get up 1-0 in extra time. A million dollars on Argentina to beat France in 2022. Argentina win, and he still loses on a technicality. And then the one that started the whole curse conversation: a million on Conor McGregor against Max Holloway at UFC 329, and Conor's leg goes seconds into the comeback.The UFC and boxing list is brutal. Tyson. Usyk. Tommy Fury. Adesanya. He does win occasionally, Izzy in the rematch and Jon Jones by submission, but the man once posted a screenshot showing $124.5 million wagered in thirty days.Then we go looking for the biggest punts ever laid. Mattress Mack turning a $3 million bet into $75 million US when the Astros took the 2022 World Series, which is $117 million in real money. And a bloke in 1980 who walked into the Horseshoe with a suitcase holding $777,000, put the lot on one roll of the dice, and won.Baked beans or rib fillet. The choice is yours.#propertrueyarn

Three fights this episode, and one of them we genuinely cannot call.Fight 9: Tylen Wallace vs Josh Moss. Reef versus beef. Josh is off Love Island Australia and the No Hard Feelings podcast, all his photos are at the ocean, and right now he's training somewhere between Japan and Barcelona. Tylen's in a paddock. Tylen took last year's fight on a four week call-up straight off the farm, copped a hiding to the neck and just kept walking forward. Both of us are backing the bloke with the mongrel.Fight 10: Liam Moore vs Nathan "Curly" Marks. Liam off the Inspired Unemployed Impractical Jokers, who in last year's card didn't just win, he looked like an actual pro boxer, two pros sitting next to Knuckles were calling his setups before he threw them. Against Curly, who lives in his van, won the Oak milk challenge, and has fought half the trades in the country. Zak's got him because he trains at Undisputed under current world champions. Knuckles reckons he's never met a structured fighter yet. This one splits us.Fight 11: Jeremy Latimore vs Jarrod Wallace. Nelson's Knockout Bout. One Queenslander, one from New South Wales, both flattened by Nelson Asofa-Solomona, both with everything to prove, and the whole fight is really about who's second to Nelson. Knuckles was ringside for both and walked out with Latsy. It's like your parents breaking up, you can't pick a side, and we had to.#propertrueyarn