Comedian Elliot McLaren was sexually abused as a child for years. To escape the trauma, he robbed houses, joined street gangs and turned to alcohol. By the age of 12, he was a drug addict.
Soon he became homeless, lived in a mob house and became a stand over man - all the while he was hiding a secret he thought would destroy his life.
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The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective sy a side of life the average persons never exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome to another episode of Eye Catch Killers. I'm not really sure how to introduce today's guest. To say is a complex character is an understatement. He describes himself as a half caste, left handed, gay Scottish Maori. I'm also going to add to that description by saying he was also a nice addict. He was a drug dealer and a part time standover man. Sadly, he was also sexually abused as a young child, but he managed to break away from his life of crime. He also acknowledged his sexuality and then was betrayed by a man he loved that sent him back, spiraling into a life of crime with a burning anger and resentment. It was not until he started taking ownership in his actions when he was able to break away from the world and follow his true passion as a stand up comedian. As I said, he's a complex character and today is here to share his story. Today's guest is Elliott McLaren. Elliott McLaren, welcome to I Catch Killers.
Thanks for having me.
Kelder, Well, I'm excited about it because we had a good long chat and I got a sense of where you're coming from and different things. I got to say that, yea, you've had an interesting life.
Yeah, there's a lot of.
Descriptions of we could place on you, but very complex highs and lowers and everything in between.
Yeah.
Yeah. One thing that interests me was the fact that you break away from crime. Here on My Catchkill is a lot of people we get and we've had a lot of high profile bad guys and girls for that matter. It seems to be when they're caught that they get that time to reflect. But it seems that you just made a decision to turn your life around.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if it was. I think it was just because I was unhappy. I always knew at the start, when I first started being bad, I always knew that was the wrong thing to do, and I always hated it. But I always hated my reality anyway. So it wasn't until my reality started to change and I actually really enjoyed it that I was like, you know what, I don't want to lose, especially after coming out of the closet and that sort of thing, big weight lifted off my shoulders. But I'm lucky enough I'd never been convicted, so.
Well, I was going to ask you that you're even the world's best best bad guy, as in clever and getting away of it, because you haven't been convicted or caught. Yeah, and we'll put a disclaimer any crimes that you discussed today. The crimes are the friend of a friend apparently committed.
Thank you very much for saying that, because that's the only thing I was really nervous. I don't know if you've heard the doom song rep Snitches, but there's all that's been ringing in my head the whole time I've been coming on with Rep snitches.
Okay, well, we're not talking about Elliott today. He's here representing a friend of a friend of a friend.
I'm just waiting for an extradition. That's New Zealand.
You said, what why am I in SPA for the New Zealand?
Okay, I don't know if it's I don't know if it's the fact that I'm a good criminal. I think it's just it's a lot of luck, a lot of luck, because it's always that old thing when you're being a criminal, no matter what you're doing, whether it's drink driving and you're selling drugs, it's not if you get caught, it's win. It's always going to happen. It's inevitable.
Well, there's a there's a saying between cops and crooks that and I've heard it's played out in movies. You hear it has said a lot. The thing about being a crook. You do your crime, you make one mistake, you get caught. As cops, we can miss an opportunity, but we might get you next time. Yeah, And I always think, and I ask people, I'm asking you genuinely or your friend of a friend that was committing these crimes. What does it feel like knowing that at any time there can be a knock on the door and your life as you know it can be taken away, as in, you can be put in the put in custody.
That's one thing that people don't realize. That's it's hell. I hated it. I hated it, especially like when things start getting bigger and you've got bigger and bigger piles of drugs that you've got to move. You're doing bigger things, you feel sicker, you feel really sick. Getting away with it you feel great. It's just like great, sort of like, oh awesome, I got away with it. Stress release. But you don't feel good, you know, like you never feel good when I'm getting in a car. I'd get in a car and I drive for eight hours or nine hours, and I'd have ten ounces of cocaine in the car and I'd have, you know, whatever, could be a glock, it could be ic, it could be three hours of the MDMA, all of this all in one car load, and I'm traveling for eight hours. You shit yourself. I got pulled overy and got a speeding ticke at once. But I couldn't believe the house I was in search and that wasn't searched at all. It was just lucky. I think it was just lucky. I had a Maldi cop but she pulled me over and I was like, oh, cutisses and she's like, oh, hey, Roy, how's it going. She's like going a bit fast here. I said, oh, how much? And she goes seventeen k's over the speed limit, so it's not like a couple of kilometers. And I was like, oh, sorry about that, and she just gave me. Secondly we go. I was like, thank god, But.
Yeah, you're living day to day. And when you were using drugs too, when you were involved in dealing drugs but using drugs, you'd have the high from using drugs and then you'd have the paranoid that must kick in.
It must fish, especially of ice. Yeah, if you're using ice, you're paranoid. As it is, you're always paranoid. But I used to have these fuck I used to go nuts and I would stand in my There was sometimes I'd stand in my apartment and I looked through the peephole for four hours plus, completely atrified, like your whole body atrifies because you've just been and I'd just be looking through a peepole like this for about two or three hours, just looking at everything that moved.
When you come away from that, do you look back and go, that's weird.
It's so weird. I think it's hilarious. I don't know if it's the comedian to me, but I just think it's so cooked. It's so cooked. I say, what are you doing? Man? I can't believe what I was up to. Some of the things I look back on, I was like, Wow, that's cooked. Behavior.
Well, the other thing that came across was the fact that, and I'm glad you said that that you have some let's say, guilt for the crimes that you've committed and the damage that you cause. You're not going through life going yeah it was great. I got through it. You can reflect on it and say, well, there's people that you've hurt or people that you've impacted on their lives. Still it talk us through those feelings.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean that's always in the back of my mind. That's kind of what I do. Why I do what I do every day? Now, you know, like all the things I do that I don't necessarily want to do specially. It could be right down to like just staying fit and healthy, all of those sort of things. I do that so that I stay clean, so that I don't hurt people given because I feel, you know, like spishally, it's not so much that this obviously the victims, I feel horrible, but it's really my family. I've lost relationships over I lost a relationship over it, hurt a lot of friends, and I affected people's lives, you know, like some people were never going to be the same again. So I always think about that, and I just now I suppose I live. You live this life of like sort of obligation, if you know what I mean, not like in a religious way, but like obligation the sense where it's like I'm obligated to do I've done really bad things. I've got to make sure that I stay I stay good because otherwise and it's all for nothing.
Well you must, you must have to hang on to that, because I know, yeah, we're speaking to other people that had addictions or lifestyles and all that. Quite often you're one fil you're away or one set back away from falling back into the old habits, So you've got to consciously make sure you don't. Is that what you're saying here?
Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, yeah, you never. You're never far away from relapse. It's only a couple of steps away. Like I just had a bad armond croissant and I feel like relapsing. So morning, I just.
Check with the producer or allowed to record a relapse life that might take it to a new ground. You're looking fit, like I must admit I saw you as a walking into the studio. I think you look looking fit. What are you doing to stay fit?
Just I swim? I swim heap seeh and I got really into swimming only last year. Recently it was I took my dad. My dad's got really bad dementia, and he came over with my mum. Last year, I took them to Icebergs. Wasted money if you're ever going to go. But I went to Icebergs. They wanted to Gard's a touristy thing, and so me and dad went swimming. And this guy is like he can't read a book, smoked me in the pool. I couldn't believe it. He's sixty seven and he whipped me in the pool.
He's made.
The skills are just yeah, yeah, he could just keep going. So I don't know if it's because he doesn't remember that he was tired from the last lap and he just does another one like a golf Maybe he's just forgotten he's done a lap and he goes, oh, I haven't even done a lap yet. Yeah, he smoked me. So I got into it last year. I think the first time I tried it, I did two hundred meters and I just died on a pack of dat smoker. And then after about a month I was doing like seventeen minute kilometers.
Right, Okay, that's kicking, kicking a long yeah, in the pools.
In the pools, yeah, I do just because you've got laps. You got it like a measure distance. You can tumble and go back and you know how many times you've done it, so.
Yeah, it just a lapse and you're not scared of sharks.
A little element of the guys have all of that.
I look at those people, whether it's down at Bondi or any of the boachers, and they go out and swim on dusk and get out there and swim headland to headland. And the only thing I'd be hearing is the theme music from George.
When I first came here, I lived in Manly and they do Shally Beach and back every morning and I'm like, what are you just doing? It's I am yeah.
Each that are only fact gives them the kick that they need. So this is me being perceptive. But by your accent, you didn't grow up here?
No, by my accent. If if you're wondering on one of the bouncers here, yeah, I've only been here for about two years.
You have made a reference to the fact there is now that I reflect there is a lot of Kiwi bounces. Yeah.
He's actually done it on stage a couple of days ago. I got up and says, hell, everybody, I can't double weeks in on one of the bouncers, and everybody just lost it.
Yeah yeah, yeah, definitely. So where'd you grow up? In? A place called Pickton? Not our Pickton, not.
Your Pickton similar, but our Pickton's at the top of the South Island in the Marlborough Sounds. If you people might have heard the Molber because it's called all the savon Blanc and stuff like that. But we're in the Marlborough Sounds, which is like it's a big sort of mouth that is at the top of the South Island but really beautiful. But similar to picked In in the sense where it's a rural town, a lot of drug use, sort of crying, a lot of yeah, a lot of bad example.
Because it is that rural town and people are getting a bit bored and different things.
I think, Yeah, opportunities are low, and it's not like just opportunities. Isn't making money and stuff like that. They're already always lower than the city, but it's opportunities of expression. I think.
Okay, So your childhood, how would you describe it? Brothers, sisters? Oh, you've got a twin.
Have you got a twin? Yeah, I got a twin.
I got older or younger.
He's older way fifteen minutes yeah, fifteen minutes older than me. Yeah, so I got a twin. I got two older sisters. I don't know. I had a mixed up bringing. I suppose everything about me is max with like ying and Yang do everything.
But you try and work out how I was going to introduce you.
How do you think I feel I'm trying to get on stage and you're trying to do ten minutes of jokes, and you go, how do I nail everything about me? But yeah, I look, I had a really good one and I had a really bad one at the same time. You know. So, like I grew up in rural New Zealand, it's stunning, beautiful place to grow up. Lots of really cool adventures you can go on. You go fishing and hunting. You could walk from my school from my high school to my house and you could catch your first you could get some muscles off the rocks, and you can pull a passion through it off the vine and you can eat all of that on the way. It's pretty cool, pretty cool. But then at the same time, obviously like getting section abuse, that's that sucked, and I didn't really realize how much that affected my life. It's a shame that it happened, but it's a shame that happened so early on as my first two years at primary school. So and it went from the age of probably about five to seven, about two years that I didn't realize how much that affected my life and my behavior until probably about twenty years later, when I was about twenty five, and when I started going to Traumac Countling, I was like Oh my god, all the things that I've done, you can sort of you can see a correlation and pattern and behavior and stuff like that. But yes, it was a mixed I mean a two oldest, two older siblings, a twin brother. He's my best mate growing up. Absolutely loved him the bits love my two older sisters. But I always fought. I fought with everybody. A real scrapper, and I think it was because of that. My mum said, I went to school when I was five. I was a really sweet kid, real happy.
Let's just unpack that, because, yeah, it takes courage to talk about I've got an understanding of how much and you touched on it, how much that can impact on the pathway of your life. So you're only five years old?
Yeah? Five. I think it might have still been four when it first started, just because I was born a little bit. I was born in March. I would have started primary school at four years old.
Right, So did you tell anyone or did you have an understanding of what was going on?
Nah? I had no. Look, I didn't tell anybody, not until years later. But I didn't have an understanding of what was going on at all. And this is probably the hardest thing for I think a survivor to admit, well, some of them anyway, some of them is completely the opposite relationship and it's all forced. But like for me, it was a lot of grooming and it felt like a good time.
Yeah, that's the insidious nature of the crime, isn't it, Because it is that grooming and it's confusing a kid. The kid is looking whatever adult tells you is the right thing to do it at that age, and so you're feeling good about it, and then I would imagine you look back in years down the track or just confusion.
Yeah, it is. It's really confusing at the start. You think it's just games. You're just playing games, you're just being silly. Especially when you're four or five years old. You've got no idea what's going on. You don't even know what sex is, so you don't know what you're doing is a sexual act. Don't even know what a sexual act is. You don't even know how to spell the way to act you're four years old. So yeah, so it's really confusing. And then you build a relationship with him and it sort of becomes like obligatory to show up and to be a part of it, and then I remember when it all got broken up, I sort of just stuffed it away into the back of my mind for years. And it wasn't until I started puberty and I started looking at porn and stuff like that, and then that's when it all sort of came flooding back.
You realized what was going on?
What was going on?
Yeah, how how frequent was it?
It was at least once or twice a week?
And what just taking an opportunity.
Yeah, normally it would be it would be a set up time. It would be like meet me here at this time. Because it was such a small school and it was there was no concrete in the school. It was all just paddocks. It was surrounded by farms. Were just meeting the toilets and and you know, there was no one else around. So he'd be like, meet me in the toilets today at this time.
And did like anyone noticed anything about you?
Like, I kept my mouth shut because so terrified.
And what had the perpetrator put that into your head that this is our little secret? Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you get caught, you've done something wrong, you're in trouble, you know. So I felt if not equally responsible, more responsible because I'm like, I'm doing this, you know, like so they make you feel responsible for the whole thing, and there was something going wrong. I went to schools like a happy little kid, really happy little kid, and then came home literally almost an overnight shift of just a real angry, violent kid.
Well the confusion, like your senses will be telling you something that's not quite right here, but then when you look at it, well, I'm to blame because I'm complicit in it. And that's how they manipulate, manipulate children. It's yeah, but it plays a price. I want to talk about when you discovered your sexuality and came out, do you think this played the part being a victim? Or did that just confuse your sexuality?
God, I'd love to answ. I'd love the answer to that question. You know how many years I spent there thinking like, I'm not gay, I just got molested and and and when I first when I was a teenager, I used to have I used to sleep with heaps of like heaps a woman, but quite a few women. I see with quite a few women. Trying to make myself straight. If I just do this enough times, it'll break through the wall and then I'll just go back to normal, you know what I mean, I've just got a muscle through this and I'll be straight. And I'd love to know the answer to that. But I remember talking to a therapist about it and she goes, you know, how many boys are molested? I think one in five the New Zealand and molested every year. Shocking statistics. And it's probably not not any bitty here either. It's getting worse. And how many of those guys end up being straight, having wives and having kids, so it obviously didn't affect their sexuality.
Yeah, well, I know. Well I spoke to Russell Manson we're talking about, who sadly asked away. He was a victim of sexual childhood abuse and he carried with him a lot of a lot of guilt in the he said, some of the by the very nature of the act, it was pleasurable. Yeah, because you have a reaction because it felt he felt something and he was thinking, does that mean I'm homosexual? So he went through with some confused thoughts about his sexuality because he had been the victim.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do, you really do like you? That was probably the biggest thing I had with me was yeah, don't be wrong. That caused a lot of damage to the sexual abuse, but growing up in a really homophobic environment that stacked at double It was twofold because not only have I done this, but also it's wrong because it was a guy. So now I feel even worse about the whole thing.
Okay, yeah, I can see how it's all packing down on you. And so have you had any contact with him? So he's still alive or no?
And it was an interesting It was an interesting scenario where the original perpetrator was an older boy at my school. And then obviously I found out later on, after he'd sort of groomed me and gotten me roped into this situation, that it was all been conducted by an adult, so he was almost recruiting people for the unbeknownst to him, he didn't know what he was doing either. But the guy who he's gone, he's dead, he's died. And then I've never spoken to that other kid about it before. I've wanted to fuck. There were someons in my lives I wanted I wanted to kill this can I can imagine, wanted to murder him. And then it wasn't soil. I got the adulthood and I realized that, fuck, he was only a couple of years older than me.
He was probably a victim and manipulated.
To absolutely Yeah, yeah he was. Yeah, without its doubt, you know, because he used to think of all the stuff they could do.
It discussed me like the perpetrators, and that's why, you know, I have a lot of understanding for people that commit crimes and that, but the impact that childhood's sexual abuse has on the victims' lives throughout their life is just unbelievable.
It's unreal, and.
And it's done for their own the perpetrators, for their own sexual gratification. Yeah, Like, it's just unforgivable.
Yeah, it's unforgivable. I think the thing I found the most shocking with all of it is it's there's just it's the same way they like, the same way you and I would talk about somebody that we find attractive, whether it be a lady for you or a feller for me. It's the same there. But it's about a ten year old, yeah, you know, a five year old.
It's and there is no excuse for it, because there's no mitigating circumstances that they're just they're just for their own personal pleasure, destroying people's lives.
Yeah, and I don't know why it happens for me. I sit back and I go, you know, you look at all the you look at the world, and you go like, why is this a regular occurrence in our in our world? And it doesn't matter what country you go to, what society and what religion is in that country, it doesn't matter. It exists, exists everywhere. Yeah, it's rife. It's getting worse. So it's getting so much worse. It's out of control. Especially another can you look at statistics in America and stuff like that, and the amount of child trafficking is going on. And that's in a first world country. You go to somebody like Bolivia, or you go to some we're like Afghanistan or Pakistan or something like that. It's a Russia. It's crazy.
Yeah, I know, it's something that we've all got to speak up about. And I think they get away of it a lot. And I know this doing Predatory series, but also in the Cops, they get away with it a lot because people don't want to talk about it because it's too confronting. In a country a country town if you did go and blow it all up. I don't know the perpetrator, but he's probably respected or known in the country town. Everyone puts a lid on it because it's too confronting, and I think that's what we're The step we've got to all take is Okay, we're going to have to talk about it, and it's going to be an uncomfortable conversation, but let's get out there and talk about it. And if it destroys lives, as in the perpetrator and his family gets pulled apart, well we've got to start somewhere.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the amount of the amount of victim blaming in the amount of I think just denial in the sense where the amount of kids. So I know, well people I know who've gone to the appearance. Only people've gone to the like you know, my stepdad's blesting me, And I go to the mom and be like, you know, your boyfriend's blesting me, and she'd be like, no, he's not, or don't say that about him.
Happens so much, happens so much, and it's disgraceful. I think there's got to be and I'm not one to let's fix a problem by increasing legislation or bringing in new laws. But I think there's got to be something a very specific offense where it's brought to someone's attention about child sexual abuse and that person doesn't act on it because they're complicit. They're complicit in the offense if they know it's happening, whether it's your partner that's sexually solving the kid or whatever. If you know about it, you've got some complicity in the in the offense, and there should be specific charges for it.
I think so too. I don't know how to combat that that issue in society. I don't think anybody really knows how to combat that issue in society because they're so vast, and it's like where do you start. Some people just go just fucking shoot them all. Yeah, but it's like there's not going to stop the problem. All that's going to push it underground even more.
So we've got to make it harder for them to commit the offenses. I think, make it make it harder. So that's when and whenever it blows up, you look at the person and go, oh, yeah, I thought he was a bit strange. He seemed to spend a lot of time with kids or was the sand Yeah, yeah, that that type of thing. Invariably, it's your instinct that's telling you something's wrong, and we've got to start acting on those instincts. Not not take law into your own hands, but if you've got concerns about something, raise it and encourage kids to talk about it, because let's you your example, if the parents, if it's just again, fool proof in the world, so these type of things can't happen if they spoke to you. Now, if anyone's touching you and you feel uncomfortable about it, you can come and tell us there's no shame in it. Blah blah blah. As a kid, maybe just maybe you might have come forward, Yeah, told your parents.
You know, and if that works for one kid, then it's worth doing. Yeah. You know, whatever it works, well, you've got to spridge in it wide. When you're sort of trying to trying to deal with this issue, you can't just trying to find one solution, you know, use every tool in your toolbox, if you know what I mean. I always felt like I was going to be like I was going to bring shame to to myself and to my mum. And I thought that I was going to get in trouble, and I don't think I also thought that, like, I just didn't want to bring that whole miss and to my lives because I knew it would break my mother's heart and I knew it would make my dad go nuts, and I didn't want to create that environment. So you just sort of bottle it up. You just become a lightning rod really where you just absorb it.
And well, the amount of people that are in prison that have been victims of child sexual abuse is just frightening. And I always thought when sex offenders, child sex offenders went into prison, yeah, they'll call rock spiders and hated and got that if the other prisoners could. It was pointed out to me by people who spent a lot of the time in there. You know why we hate them so much, not just the nature of their act, because so many of us in here have been victims, victims and that sort of very telling, isn't it. Yeah, Okay, it stopped. How did it stop? First of all?
So, yeah, we moved house, we moved school and everything like that, but the damage was done. By the time I'd move to that next school, I was even I was just an angry kid.
So you were this kid that no one could control and lashing out.
I'd lash out and I hate being that. I hate to think about it because it's so embarrassing now and I think about it, But fun I used to do we old should I'd throw access at my siblings. I'd fucking chase them. I'm all a sixty years old and I'm chasing my older sister of a knife, fucking stabbing holes in the door like the seed of Chucky. It was, Yeah, it was grim.
The way you're holding the knife. I was getting scared there. I just moved.
I've been aching for t shit.
Okay, okay, I asked this well, and you probably can't answer it, but it's just thinking out aloud. If if that was addressed and recognize what happened to you at that age, and it was unpacked by professionals that know how to dissect what you've been through and all the emotions and the anger that you're holding on, do you think it could have made a difference through the whole pathway of your life.
Yeah, definitely. I don't think I would have done drugs so eagerly, if you know what I mean. I would have made a huge impact in my life. For I wouldn't have gone to escape reality through drug and alcohol, drugs and alcohol at eleven or twelve years old and then found such a solace in that escape from reality, and then because of that solace and that freedom of angst, I wouldn't have then developed such a strong connection to doing it. That was how my addiction formed. That was my escape. So yeah, I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have. And then going down that path, you know, starting to take drugs, that's where all the rest of it led.
Okay, So I think you told me you were about twelve when you start dabbling in alcohol and drugs. Yeah, talk us through that. How did that play out?
Well? I tried alcohol before, but my parents don't drink. My parents actually very strict, God bless him. My dad was as a great guy. I love my dad the bits, but he was really absent and real angry when we were kids. And then my mom, she's the best. She's such an amazing woman, real harsh but very fair. And they don't drink, smoke, swear or gamble, and they don't even let your swear in their house. My mom hates it. Real strict school teacher. So I went. I remember hanging out at the skate park when I was about eleven or twelve and few my mates and stuff. They were giving me heaps of shit because we didn't smoked weed yet. We were twelve years old. Now, I can't believe you're twelve and you haven't got the stone yet. What's wrong with you? You're a loser. So that was like in my head, I'm like, I've got to do this. They can't be a loser. And we were hanging out, was a few of my mates. We set up a little tent in the backyard, and we went around to another boys, Nanda's house. She had the best liquor cabinet ever. Real good she was. I think she had liver cancer, it was so good. We mixed all the little drops of alcohol together because she had such a big looking cap, and we just pulled you make your own, make your own little clocktown. We just filled up a big bottle of a turn radioactive green. It was this weird green color. I think it must have been from the chartreuse or something putting in there. And we all went back to this little tent and we're having swigs and we ended up getting pursed and I fell over and we will play fighting or something like that, and I fell over. And I remember fell over in the house and I looked under cabinet or a bed. I looked under a bed and I saw this little tobaccos and I thought, cool, I'm going to be I'm going to be the slickest guy out. I'm gonna have a cigarette and a drink. I'm going to look so cool. And opened the tobacco tin up and it's fucking packed of weed, absolutely filled of weed. And I was like, oh my god, this is this is perfect. This is the I actually thought in my head. The universe has provided at last. Yeah, thank you, thank you God. This is exactly what I needed in my life. This is what was stopping me from being cool. But I was at twelve, so I had no idea how to smoke weed. I didn't know what to do, how to roll a joint. Called this rough and tumble boy. He was from up North, he'd moved down there. It was real good mates of mine. Great dude, absolutely loved him. He's get in so much trouble. Pulled him up and I was like, oh, bro, do you had to roll a joint, and he goes, yeah, bro, yeah, yeah, I come around and he say. He gets on his little pushbike and he bikes over to the house and we roll a joint. And then he's either had spots and I was like, no, never, and so he got too hot. He got two button knives, stuck them in the old coil element he used to get, stucked them in the old coy element on the stovetop. Hit them really hot, press a little bit of weed in between the two of them. It's like got Jamaican jeffil Priez. He pressed it and you're breathing all the smoke.
Right, Okay, we're not advising this to listeners, but yeah, I get what gets you.
It's like New Zealand's national way of smoking weed. If you google spots, it'll pop up in Wikipedia. It'll go commonly found in New Zealand.
Right, so the Wikipedia, well there you go. I knew they were recognized for a lot of things.
But lamb Rugby spots pavlover to take that bullshit.
You can't steal the pavlov.
Leamington's crowded housela crowded house.
Yeah, far Lap, maybe maybe, maybe okay, only a little island. But hey, what's with the Scottish background as well? Who mother father side? What?
There's both, yes, so both my dad. My dad's a first generation immigrant. His parents are Cockneys. All their bloodline came from to Scotland, but they were his parents are Cockneys. They fell from Wisdam and they sailed over. I think my grandfather was in the Merchant Navy. I don't know a lot about my dad's family. He's got about twelve siblings. He doesn't talk about them all. You are really traumatic childhood, so he doesn't say much. I meet his mum with it, but I never met his dad. So he's got Scottish. But then my mum, her mum's Maldy and Scottish.
So just to explain that you've now lived in Australia for a bit and you understand our relationship with our first Nations people, and then what happens over in New Zealand. There's a different way, isn't it That they look at the Maori culture and the population I have got. I don't know how to describe it, and I've been over there quite a few times and looking at it, but there's a reck there's the Maori speaking TV. There's a lot of respect given to it, even your football teams with the Harker and everything else. That starts off. What's difference do you see between the way the relationship we have in Australia with our First Nations people in the relationship in New Zealand with the Maori people.
It's world's apart. And I always felt bad when they first got here because we wins a lot in New Zealand there, and to be fair, we've got every right to for a lot of it. But the big difference because I used to win me like, you know, we don't have enough rights, and then I get here and they don't have any They don't have anything. They've got nothing, and it's you know, I did a joke on stage, I go, you know therese there were six hundred Indigenous languages in Australia. They've got ever six hundred ways to say sorry, and the white people don't have won, you know. But it's a different it's such a different environment there because of the way it started. You know, first and foremost New Zealand Maldi's are the only indigenous people in the world. And it never be conquered, so we never got conquered. They never stole like they stole our land years later. But we signed a treaty Scientificity or White Tonguy, which is the Treaty of White Tonguey, and one of my ancestors signed that I've got them here on my arm, my great great great great grandfather. He's Scientificity or White Tonguy and the Declaration of New Zealand. So because of that treaty, we shared sovereignty of the land, so we split everything. It didn't work out in that way. We didn't have a written language, and they stuffed us on the paperwork. They did two different documents, one in Maldi and one in English, and then lost the Maldi one and kept the English one. And then yet we found the Malti one years later and found out that they had changed a bunch of stuff and they had lied and they jipped us on the paperwork. But that's why that that's why we have such a good relationship, because we've actually got a binding contract saying no, no, we've got that, this is our and we every year we've got White Tonguey Day where we go to the White Tonguy tribunal and we go, hey, look they're trying to encroach on our side or whatever whatever.
So yeah, I look, I found it fascinating. I was over in New Zealand. We've person I have seen an Indigenous lady that was doing a keynote at the Big Maori Conference and talking about the way that First Nations people are treated over here, and sitting in the audience with all this Maori audience. They were outraged when this person pointed out that our First Nations people were treated as flora and fauna up.
Until nineteen six.
Yeah, yeah, eighty six or.
Eighty nine, something like that.
Yeah, yeah, a little bit, a little bit earlier. But when that was said, I'm sitting there with the Maori population and they were outraged. And then they said and what do you do? And I said, I'm a policeman and they were.
Still are outraged.
But I went out with a group of Maori's that night and we're talking about what was going on. It was around the time when there was a bait on whether we say sorry, whether the government says sorry for the way First Nations people were treated. And they said, see that's the difference with you guys. If they came up to us and said sorry, we'd say, well, we'll consider whether we're going to forgive you. But that's the power that they had. So the relationship is even though we're so close together. But you've explained it in part because they never were defeated by.
They never were conquered. The way that the English managed to do it. The way that the Crown managed to do it was they just slowly started taking more and more and more and just stealing land off people, and they started all these these funny acts where they were they were allowed to take the land because it benefited the greater population of New Zealand, but then they would lease the land back to white people, but they put them on twenty five year rotating leases that were never that could were always renewed. So you'd had families that were on stolen land and they were leasing it off the crown for hundreds of years and it's all stolen land. So like little things like that. But they only really started to I think a lot of the damage was done was the last century. It wasn't the one before that. It was a pretty good neck, but then last century that's when they spanned all ted ol Maldian schools. You weren't allowed to speak the native language. And school you weren't allowed to and you know, Malory's couldn't get jobs, you couldn't get rental. Even today, they still struggle to get rentals if you've got a Malory last name. And that's why a lot of almost all my cousins don't have Maldy names, because our grandmother said, don't get one.
Because you get discriminated against.
Yeah, you get discriminated against. Yeah. It was really bad. And she when she first went to school, she grew up on a park which is like tribal lands, and when she went to school, she couldn't speak English because nobody really spoke English at home. And so when she got the school, they used to give you the cane if you spoke Maldy. So they just cane this poor girl until she learned English. They just hit you every time you opened your mouth. You learnt real quick. But it was horrible, and there was all these sort of all these stories of well lot like you know, people getting their jaws broken, kids being bashed, getting put in the hospital for speaking Maldy. And then a huge amount of boys they all got taken out around the forties and fifties. They all got taken away from their families from like as young as eight or nine years old and put in boys homes, which is kind of like you were guys, similar to what you guys had here the rabbit proofense sort of situation. So and solar generation. Yeah, so there's a bit of that going on in New Zealand. See a lot of Pacific Islanders and Mildi's were taking off their families and I mean that's the whole reason why the Black Powers in New Zealand. You know, the Black Power in New Zealand is the second biggest gang in New Zealand. It's huge. Oh yeah, it's a massive gang. It's a massive organization in New Zealand now. But that all started in a new town in Wellington, because they would go where's the police are going around and harassing all the all the Indigenous people that would walk around and be the witnesses and that your cameras and stuff like that, and they'd make sure that the police brutality wasn't happening because they could witness it. So they started as a movement as an organization and then developed into it into a Deadly Gang.
So you're talking about the Black Power Gang.
Yeah.
No, they've got a heavy, heavy reputation, very heavy.
Yeah.
But look, I suppose my observation of it is that New Zealand and you've just corrected me on quite a few things because I didn't realize that all the shit had gone down on New Guys as well from Maori point of view. But my sense of it, they were more culturally aware and accepting of the Mari culture in New Zealand than what I see with Australia and now Indigenous South First Nations hugely.
Yeah, it's such a massive contrast. How different you get on a train in Auckland. You're going to hear the next stop in Maldi and then in English, so there's a huge difference, you know. And they have like we've got two or three radio stations. They've got at least two TV channels, so it's you know, we've got our own political party, so things are that. And it's designated indigenous seats in New Zealand. So like when you go to your electorate, I'm I'm Teitye Tokoto now, but that's instead of voting for like a member of parliament, in Erskineville or what. I vote for an Indigenous member of Parliament for my area, so they'd be like Auckland, there'll be Northland, could be Wellington. So yeah, so instead of me voting for the labor MP who's for Uskuneville or whatever, you'll vote for the indigenous MP who's for that whole area. Okay, And it's always at least x amount of seats, I think seven or ten seats dedicated to indigenous people. So no matter who gets into politics, he's.
Always at least you've got you've got a voice set. Yeah, okay, well progress further than we have here. Yeah, okay, we talk about discrimination. You're left handed, how it's affected your life.
It's been it's you know, that's been my spiral into drugs. That was the reason why, you know, somebody should have stopped it. It was witchcraft. And then now I've gone down the devil's path because I never used my right hand. And they were right all those years ago, they were right about saying that it's.
An embarrassment the burden you've had to carry your whole life.
My whole life. Yeah, it's with some being gay where I come from left handed, I love throwing that one, especially in that joke, because yeah, I love diversity and I love being proud of her am, but also like you can start throwing all sorts of random shit in there. So it's just to sort of make that whole thing. Cell they say that I'm.
Not well, it shows how discrimination, how ridiculous it is where we don't like you you use your left hand.
Yeah, okay, but the discrimination. I struggled with it a lot when I was younger, and that was another thing that made me a really angry kid. I always wanted to be Maldy, and I love being Mardy, and I am Mildy. Don't get me wrong. I am I am Maldy, and I love it. I love the culture, I love all about it. But I'm not brown. I look like I'm fucking Connor McGregor, and I'm trying to tell me one indigenous. And I've got a brown twin brother. That was the worst part, you know. I'd grow up with this fellow next to me all the time, and he was brown all year round. I can get brown in the summer, but it's just a really good tan.
But You've brought up an interesting point there, and I've heard people say that before First Nations, people light skin and they're in the same family, same parents, and it's just how you come out. I can understand what you're saying. Hey, I'm Mary brother, I'm with you, and they're looking at you going, no, you look like Conor McGregor.
Yeah, you're a white fellow. Yeah, and then like you're too brown for the white fellaws. And then you're too white for the brown fellaws. So what do you do? You don't fit in anyway. You're raised in an indigenous community or heavily indigenous community the couple Harker. As a kid, I embraced it all and I would have gone a lot further with that, but I had my own cousins calling me a white fellow, Like, we're cousin, what are you talking about?
So you were going to add a little bit more to complicate your life and decide you were going to be gay as well?
Yay as well. Yeah, that's a lifestyle choice. I want everybody to know that.
How long did you suppress that for? When did you realize that your interest is in the boys not the girls? And what was it like growing up in that environment? Because the environment you described sounds like a tough environment that's not for the faint hearted. I don't expect that it would be something that was embraced.
No, no way, no way. It was hell. It sucked. I think I would have noticed probably around teen, or you know, around the same age that boys noticed girls. I noticed Legalis and Lord of the Rings, and I fell in love. I was like, who's this beautiful, tall, skinny park yard white fella. He's so gorgeous. It was longlone here. Loved them the bits and then and then after that I sort of noticed, but there was just sort of an urge. It wasn't any like sort of formed thought of I'm attracted to you and I'm attracted to me, and it was just kind of like, Wow, that guy's fucking beautiful.
And so that that's from the sort of age of teen. Yeah, you're starting to starting to say that. Were you trying to suppress that? Were you, like you're probably you're only getting to the stage where you're starting to realize, you know, which which path that your life's going to take. Did you try to suppress that to please your mates, to please your family?
Yeah? Oh yeah, of course, yeah, without a doubt. And I don't want to bring any shame to anybody. That's such a shameful thing. I didn't want to bring shame to my family and shame to myself and shamed and my friends.
And isn't it sad we sit here talking about bringing shame because of because of your sexuality.
Sexuality, and then all the shameful acts identity years later because of all that. It's it's the irony is it's almost like a Greek epic.
So when did it come out? When did it or when did you come out? Not all? I was about twenty one, Oh right, you fought against it thres.
Go for years. For almost all my teenage years, I was sleeping with girls, and then later on I was about sixteen or seventeen, that's when I started falling around of guys. I knew I was gay, probably by the age of about fourteen, but tried to suppress it a lot. Yeah, tried to, like a high level lot. You know, I'm sleeping with girls, I'm trying to have it. I think I tried to have a girlfriend at one point, all the way up until about eighteen or nineteen.
Big big secret to suppress.
Yeah, it's really tough, real tough. But then when you've got you know, you've got two different elements going on there where I remember there was a fellow he's in his forties, he's come out of the closet. Good on him, Like wow, it's so brave, it's so brave. His fellow's brother and his cousins they bashed him with the storm drain great and cracked a scallope and put him in a coma for six months. He's got permanent brain damage.
Now seriously, because and this is someone within your community. Yeah, so what that would have played on your mind?
Definitely, Yeah, definitely. And it wasn't just the fact that if you come out you're going to get bashed. It's not necessar alreally the scariest part, especially if you've had a couple of hidings, you're like, okay, yep, it's more the fact that you're what you're done is is a deaf sentence. Being gay is a death sentence because because it's so wrong, that's really what that sees. It doesn't really mean. It's not like a fear of getting a hiding. It's it's it's the shame and the guilt of like, oh god, I'm so wrong, that it's worth killing for. And nobody batter than Eylid.
How old were you when that happens.
So I would have been eleven or something.
Okay, so you're old enough to sort of comprehend it. Jesez that morning sign for that.
And you hear all sorts of comments too, growing up and environments like that, you know, you hear comments like they have a dead son and then a gay one. You know, gay people deserve to get aids and die and all all these sort of comments, and they're disgusting. They make me sick, and yeah, it was the worst thing you could be where it come.
From when those type of comments, And I can just imagine, and they're the type of comments that you're here. I think we're becoming more informed now, but back then, it's not. It's not ancient history, recent times. But did you to mask what you were hiding? Did you join in on those comments? Of course you were bluddy gay's.
A gay homophobe? Yeah, I was a gay home of gay homophobe.
And did you ever compensate you? Yeah?
I was At one stage in my life. I was probably one of the worst people at school. But I think that just that came from my own hatred of of being gay. I felt like I was cursed. I felt like that this man had molested me, had made me like some sort of sick, deviant pervert, and for now I, from now on, I was cursed. It was like some sort of fable or some sort of like epic. It was like it was like the tale of my life. I've been cursed. This as like this burden. I've been cursed. If I used to curse the gods, I used to curse creation because I was like, how dare you do this to me?
You' And that's that hate that you've got them just loathing, self loathing.
South loathing. I absolutely hated myself. I had no self esteem, no self worth, and and I was really angry at the world.
So did that all that that culmination, have been sexually abused, suppressing your sexuality and all this sayinger building up and your drugs you're finding an escape from it. And then the life of crime is the world's best criminal that's never been caught or your friend of a.
I never had the world's best detective Batman, I'm looking for me.
Like you didn't come across my patch. The type of crimes that you're doing, like through the teenagers. What sort of crimes are we talking about?
Dumb shirt country bunkin sort of crimes. It was anything I think. I think I would have been ten when I burgled the house, living in the fist on a bogled house when I was ten. And you don't realize it now til you get older, but you're like put you in through the manhole and you're the one. You're going through the little window to get in there. Because if you get caught when you're ten, like you're getting taken home to your parents. That's all that's happening. And never already been caught. I don't know how many times they can't get caught again. So they sent me in there. Funny story though, like you know, I went in there and I had no comment except of the value of anything. So like I went into this house and I'm ten years old, and I mean another guy going in there. I mean another kid who going to this into this house. I remember sneaking around and we thought it was empty, and then what this is a just as cushion to the wind. But like the guy whose house we were robbing, he was in my class, he's actually a made of mine. And he bragged about he was going away all weekend. I'm going to wait for the weekend. I'm going to kay Koda or something like that, and I was like, fuck you, you get to get away for the weekend. We sort of talked about it and I mentioned it to my said, oh, he's going await for the weekend or a lucky fellow and they're like what, Like yeah, they're like all week in. I was that year and they're like, sweet, sweet, this house is going to be empty. Empty house. Yeah, empty house, straight away. Empty house. That Friday night we were around there. I thought maybe it was a Saturday afternoon, and I thought the house was empty, and then I realized it was somebody sleeping in one of the rooms. There's nothing scarier than thinking there's an empty house and you're mid burgle and you're sneaking through the house a cat. You think you're an ocean's twelve, and then all of a sudden you can hear snoring in the next room. You're like, oh God, what do I do? I just went white. But when I came out, it's the funniest part of those stories. When I came out they were like, what did you steal? What did you steal? What did you steal? I'm a ten year old. I'm like, oh my god, I got the best haul ever. And I opened up this little bag and I've got a fucking super soaker at a w W figurine.
I was gonna say, you've come out with a Teddy Bear or something. Yeah.
I still I stole toys. Yeah, I still kids shit. I got a fucking really big super socer, I got some wrestling figurines. I still he I stole kid shit because like what I wanted, Like, I don't know what the I think the only things I stole that went kids toys were worthless things because I'd only really seen theft and cartoons. So I stole a literal candlestick as well.
Did you did you have a comprehension that that time what you're doing was bad or will you be surrounded by all the kids that are.
I knew it was bad. I got a strict mum. I knew it was bad. I knew I was stealing. I knew stealing was wrong. Yeah, yeah, so I knew I was stealing. I knew stealing was wrong. It was at a little bit more fun. In your kid brain, you can sort of like you're in a house and it's empty, feel like you've got free rein. It's almost like a mad dash shopping spas exciting.
It's exciting as a kid that age, breaking into breaking into a house. I get that, Okay, So where did it progress?
I think after that it was like a lot of the stuff we would do was just be dumb. It was just dumb stuff. It was. It was never like apart from fighting and the rest of it, there was and burglary, there was nothing else that was really that crazy. It was just silly stuff. Up until about fourteen, we would play this game. You have to about fourteen or fifteen, we would play this game where we would stand on the edge of the state highway and as the freight trucks went through our town, we'd pick little group grape fruit off these trees and we'd throw them at the windshields of the truck. They're trying try and crack the windshields so the truck driver would pull over and chase us. I fucking loved it. It was the best thing ever. And they'd always call the cops. I'd radio the cops. The cops had come down and chase you too, and you'd had this cat and mouse game of all these kids. Here's probably about ten of us throwing throwing lemons and grapefruits at trucks, and then the cops would come out and we'd all run from it and try and hide in the bushes.
And you have no comprehension at that age of the consequences. I went through a stage at yeah, early teenage years that the success of a day was how many people chase you. Yeah, like, it's what sort of stupid stuff? Then you do no understanding of the consequences and you do stupid stuff, and it's a great day if you've been chased from pillar of the post.
Yeah, yeah, and you've got away with it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I used to love, I used to love the whole thing of the cops are coming. Then you jump a fence, and you jump a fence, and you jump a fence, and you know, you'd see where you ended up. You had no idea where you're going. You're just jumping fences. You don't know if you're going to make it. And there be times when I could feel the footsteps of the of the cops. They're so close you could feel the thud of the boots behind you when you were running and you're just trying to get to that fence so you could jump it. Yeah, absolutely loved it. But then looking back as an adult, you're like, I just threw it. I just cracked the windshield of a freight truck, you know, like a road train.
Could have brought death on Yeah.
Easily, Yeah, easily. Yeah.
Did you have anyone that could see you were off track? What was your twin brother like?
Wasn't Probably as reckless as me. I don't think he never fought as much as me. I thought way more than he did. Normally he'd be lippy and I'd get in the fight because of it.
He'd start it, you'd finish.
Yeah, there's a couple of times he started he started this fight. One there was one fight at school. He started with this other Malti kid and had a wicked temper when since he was little, he had such a bad temper anyone my brother was riling up. He used to love riling people up. He thought it was the best. And then I wouldn't normally have to step and fucking rolled this little kid up. He's had a year younger than us, and this kid spits it and he goes nuts and he goes to he couldn't get my brother, and so he goes to choke one of my mates, and I was like, fucking get off of man, and pulled him off hi, and he goes to choke me. So I grabbed this poor kid and I pulled his head down. I just copped him with a knee right and I was probably about fourteen. I need him in the face as hard as I could, burst all his lips open, knocked his front teeth out, broke his fucking nose. And that was the first time I was like, wow, I can really hurt somebody. Yeah I can. I can really hit something. But yeah, that's because my brother was just being lippy in this poor.
Kid, you're backing him up. So all right, let's take you to the seventeen and eighteen. Where was your life heading and what were you doing at that point in time.
I was pretty I was pretty lost because by about fourteen, I'd started doing acid, I'd started doing pills. I'd started doing this, and here was a feller in the community. He was selling pills that were like he's selling the mass for ten dollars each. We'd sell them for thirty. We had this big lolli jar of pills. Had no idea what was in the pills. We thought they were party pills because back in the day in New Zealand they used to be able to get legal highs, which are like weaker and fetter means. There was a compound going around called bzy peete and BZP was about forty times this potent and myth and feed mean. And there's this weird steampunk chemist and he started making these compounds and selling them legally on the open market and thinking it was going to it was gonna reduce like drug harm, and it didn't because like even though it's like say, it's twenty times he's potent in men.
So it wasn't on the on the restricted, No.
He was people were selling it out of shops. He had party pill shops, had parti shops, and people were selling legal highs out of it. He's thinking it's going to reduce drug harm. But if it's twenty times he's potent in myth, people just take twenty of them, do men? Right?
Okay?
So they were just overdosing on dance floors. Our people were dehydrating, they were collapsing and getting paranoid and schizophrenic sort of symptoms and people just going off the deep end. So he stopped doing it, and he was like, this isn't increasing, this isn't reducing drug harm. I'm going to stop it. This isn't not the r right. He was actually legit, legit guy. Yes, it wasn't a drug dealer. It wasn't a drug pusha. He wanted to try and create an environment where we could people could take drugs, enjoy it and safely. Yeah. Yeah, that's a lovely thing. But humans always going to take it to the nth degree. And this failure he brought instead of everybody was getting rid of the stock as it was getting made illegal, Like it's going to be made illegal, I'm not making anymore. He contacts the go and goes, I'll buy everything you've got form the cheap and which is a stupid thing to do if you think about it. But what this guy did, he just used it to cut his myth, because it's just a derivative a myth, So he just used it as a cutting agent because he brought it really cheap, so he buys all of this as a cutting agent. He starts pressing all these pills pure myth. And then one of these beezy b pills and we were taking them. I had no idea what was so you thought it was a BPZ. I thought it was party pill. Yeah, I thought it was a party pill. I thought it was a big kids for taking. I was like, yeah, this is what people say. They buy it from the shop. I didn't know it was an actual, like a really addictive drug.
So when did you know that you were addicted?
Probably about a year later. I remember about a year later, we're taking them every weekend. I remember about a year later, we were going to a party and I'm fifteen at this point, and all I had was a bottle of whiskey and weed, and I was like, this is a shit night, and sort of started throwing a bit of a tansy and everyone's like what's wrong. I was like, this is gonna be shit. I don't even need drugs. And that was really really dawned on me. And somebody said to me there like fuck man, Like, yeah, you've got a bottle of whiskey and a bag of weed and you're winging like it's not good enough for you, and like you're fifteen, like and I was like, wow, that's it didn't stop me. That's when I really sort of started to notice and my tolerance was so high. I'd gone from taking one or two of these pills and being like completely out of my mind. Now I'm taking ten of them a night.
Right, Okay, So how did your fund your your drugs?
Well, if you've been selling drugs, then I always worked. I've always worked. I have always worked. There's been times in my life where I've been especially when I've been in recovery, and I've been a bit down and out, i haven't had a job, but I've pretty much always waked my whole life since the age of twelve. So I would work, and I'm in my first job. I used to make twenty three dollars a week. That was when I was twelve, and that would get me enough money for a bottle of vodka and a packet of cigarettes. And that was me every weekend from the age of twelve.
When I say, I'm surprised that you weren't pulled up with all this, like you didn't get in trouble with the cops, like you never you never went to court.
No, never went to court, never went to court. And I don't know if it's because and like I did it, I've done a lot worse. I've done some really serious crimes.
Can I help you here? Say your friend of a friend did a lot worse?
A lot is thinking that. I mean, I've already been kicked out home by sixteen, so I had nowhere to live. I was homeless. I fucked up so many times. My mom's a good lady, but she's really strict. And she just said, look, if you're doing drugs, you gotta leave. You want to act like an adult. You can't do drugs in my house. You want to act like an adult, then you can live like one. And she just packed my bag. She never swore at me ever, tough love. She never swore at me. And so I was sixteen and she packed my bag and she just threw it out of the fence and said fuck off. And that's when I was I was like, oh, well, I stuff up here.
You you're, yeah, an intelligent blake. You've got the emotional intelligence. You look at life, you stand up comedy, and you understand things at that point in time with your mum sixteen, throwing your bag over the fence and telling you the fuck off. Did you reflect on what the vibe become?
Oh, yeah, a lot. I think that that was one thing that really created a spiral in my life was I was always very aware of what was going on. I'm very aware of my behavior, but I couldn't stop. So then you feel really bad because you're like, I know, bitter of but I'm not because if you know body, you should do better. But knowing that you're doing something wrong, but you can't stop yourself.
Because you need that fix, And does that play into that self wathing? Well, yeah, I'm a shithead. I'm going to be more of a shithead.
Yeah, I'm a piece of shit. Yeah, And that's what you just keep telling yourself. I'm a piece of shit because you're behaving like a piece of shit. You know you are? You are?
You know It's so destructive, isn't it?
Yeah?
Is there anything that do you think at that age and we're talking the sixteen seventy when you kicked out at home, anything that anyone could have done the grab hold of you and go what what are you doing? But make you look at yourself in the mirror.
Probably not. Maybe my twin brother. I remember my twin brother had. It didn't last, but I remember he had a word to me when about sixteen, and he goes or fifteen, and he goes, if you don't rain it in, Mom's going to kick you out, you're gonna have nowhere to go. You're gonna be a bum, going to be homeless, like and he had, and I rained it in for a couple of months. It didn't last long, but I just remember that did have an effect on me, was my brother saying something to me. And it still does to this day. If my brother tells me, like what you're doing is bad, I'll normally listen pretty quickly, just because I don't want to let him down. I love him so much. Yeah, nothing really, I think, you know, looking back, I think what would have made a massive difference to my life was coming out of the closet earlier.
Okay, through that period teenage years, early twenty was just chaos, drugs, just.
Drugs, alcohol fighting. I'd moved to christ move the shit, started working in the meat industry and there was there was this place that I worked at this and this is where I really got introduced to like proper crims. There was a prison shift seven to three thirty from they coming on the bus from Papodo Maximum Security. They come in and these are the guys in the last six months of these sentence doing reintegration to society. So they come in. They'd work at the at this portrio was at maybe about ten of them, and then they'd leave at three things and go back to prison at night, and all the money get saved into a bank account and they got released and have it great, great initiative, really good initiative. But the problem with it is there was so much drug smuggling going involved. There was so much crime going involved because I had all these people leaving the prison coming coming out, and we were just putting drugs in their locker. They were taking it back with them. There was all sorts of Remember there was this poor little Indian guy, this Fiji and Indian fellow. He was there, he was in the he was in the skuy and he got released and kept his job there and he'd all this protection money from prison and he didn't want to smuggle drugs. He said, no, I want to want to be good. I don't want to make a mistake. You know, I don't want to go back to prison, and they're like two fucking bad. Gel saw this money and he's like no, no, no, please, can we work it out? So anyway I saw in the paper was his mum's house had been firebond and he disappeared.
Right, Okay, so heavy dudes, heavy dude, Yeah, playing for Keep.
Yeah Yeah, but like I probably arguably probably the most it'd been my in my opinion, probably the scariest gang in New Zealand, probably the most powerful, the most well connected. Yeah, I would say it was these guys running the Crew, big motorcycle club in New Zealand. A lot of money, a lot of connections, a lot of overseas connections. So yeah, that was when I sort of got introduced to that when I was.
So, is that a life that you were attracted to us?
Yeah, from a young age. I was really attracted to the gang life from a really young age, just from even when being a kid. I remember a gang called the Tribesmen. They're do an annual run national run every year that always stopped at his house. And I'm seeing the patches as a kid, and yeah I do Jacob ad on stage two. Actually I go I don't know if I just saw a lot of bikers and cops and thought it was the villa people, but I always wanted to join a gang.
As your confusion with your sexual.
Sexuality, I'm like, this is a lot of guys and either that's kind of like my weekend at can sellers.
Now, Okay, so it wasn't about riding the bikes.
You had other thoughts. Maybe, I'm like, maybe I was just confused. Maybe I didn't want to join the gang life. I just like the art, the color coordinated outfits.
Yeah, okay, well, look we're gonna we're going to take a break now. And you just I was hoping i'd get you out of this dark patch at this point in time, but you're still in the drugs. You've got fantasies about joining the gangs and everything else. You did turn your life around, but we'll talk about that. But then, just when you thought you had your life heading in the right direction, something happened and you spiral out of control again. Yeah, worse, worse than ever, took it to a new new limit. So I told you this guy's life was complex and complicated, and we'll find out more about his life when we get back to our part two. Thanks no worries, Cheers the NAT