Resetting Your Idea of Success, with Brandon Jack

Brandon Jack set the bar high. As the son of legendary league figure Garry Jack and brother of Sydney Swans captain Keiren Jack, when Brandon himself began playing for the Swans, it was a position that was loaded with expectation and a pressure that didn't always pay off. 

After his career in sport ended, he was forced to forge a new identity, purpose, measure of success - and was left with a few stories to tell. 

Check out Brandon's new book Pissants.

Check out Osher's new book So What, Now What? Already got it? Leave your review here

For tickets to Story Club and more, head here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Very hard when you're there to realize that there's something
else out there because you're scared, you're terrified of moving
on because it's what you know. I'd just say it's
okay to when it's okay to have failed. I think
one of the major steps is always accepting that shit,
you might have failed at something, but that's not the
end of it, that's not the end of view. And

(00:21):
then the other one is like, it's okay to take
the leap and flounder for a bit and to go
through a chaotic period where life isn't super stable because
I reckon you find something on the other side of it.
That's my experience for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Kat, thanks for listening to the show. This is Better
than Yesterday. Useful tools and useful conversations to help make
your day to day better than yesterday every single week
since twenty thirteen. My name is Josha Ginsburg. I'm so
grateful that you're here as a part of the show,
and thank you for those who click on the link
in the show notes to leave a book review for
the brand new book So What Now What? That is

(01:05):
an enormous way that you can help me out. If
you've got the new book and you want to help
us out here at the show, just click on that link.
It gives people the social proof of like, I'm not
the first person to think this is okay. I can
buy this too. It would be enormously I'll put the
link in the show notes. I'll be really great. Also,
if you want to check out the live show that
we're doing on the seventh of September, we're doing story

(01:27):
Club once again. We do it every month. Greteley Jackson,
John Glover, Nigel Marsh, Sashi Pereira, Kevin Han and myself.
We are bringing true stories based around the theme Pants
on Fire. I've read some of the stories and it
is going to be enormous. Tickets are on sale, there's
a few left, so get on Amongst that, it's part

(01:49):
of the Sydney Fringe Comedy and yeah, I'd love you
to be there. Come check it out. So I got
a question about success, how do you measure success? And
for a seemingly similar but actually quite very different question,
how do you measure failure? Are these measures based on

(02:09):
expectations that others have set for you, maybe expectations whore inherited,
or are they ones that you've set for yourself, Do
they help you, can they perhaps lead you somewhere that
you might not want to be? And what happens when
win or lose the thing you were so bent on
succeeding in goes away. We're going to cover all of

(02:30):
that as so much more today with my guest, former
professional football player now journalist and author, Brandon Jack. To
say that Brandon was raised in a sporting household, it
would be a bit of another statement. He's the son
of rugby league legend Gary Jack, the younger brother of
the Sydney Swans captain Kiiran Jack. They were playing around

(02:51):
the same time, so it's not much of a surprise
that Brandon ended up playing in the Sydney Swims himself.
There he discovers interesting new relationships to his teammates, to
the pressure to succeed, and to alcohol. His career lasted
a total of twenty eight games, which is the average

(03:13):
career length of somebody in the AFL, and when his
career was over, he was left with no lack of
things to think about and reflect on. It was a
bit of a rocky road, but he wrote about it
in his memoir twenty eight. But he's got a new
book out. Now it's an even bigger step than that
because he's got his debut novel. He's written his debut novel.
It's called Pissants, and it is a story that shines

(03:36):
a light on footy club culture, on masculinity, and what
happens when your dreams don't turn out as you had hope.
This is a great conversation. We talk about that very
particular male culture that can exist in sport, the factors
that contribute to it. We talk about expectation, identity, reinvention, validation.
What lessons did he get from being a part of

(03:58):
the big game, and what would he say to somebody
who needs to find a new path in their own life.
It's a great conversation. We're going to get to it
right after this break. All right, let's get to the
chat Brandon Jack. His new book is called piss Ants.

(04:20):
It is extraordinary. I think my favorite part about it
is the team and the whole book. The name of
the team has redacted. Enjoyed this conversation with Brandon Jack.
Look the analogies between sport and life. I mean, that's
why we have it, really, isn't it. Regardless, Thanks for

(04:41):
coming in brown. Tell you I'm good, mate, I am,
I'm good. You know. I think there's a little bit
of footy talk that we've started before.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
This is the already started.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Shit, were already, We're already already away. How O were
you when you realize that your dad kind of had
a different job and it was unlike other dads.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
I think I always I think like my earliest memories
are of dad's jerseys hanging up at home, and I
the first thing I had in my family home when
you walked in was like Dad's Australian jersey framed and
then the New South Wales was one and the Bowmain
Tigers one. Like that's all I knew. I think I
was a little bit older when I realized that was different.

(05:19):
That was pretty special for a period, I think I
thought everyone's dad played for Australia. I think I thought
like that, you know, your dad didn't, you know, win
the Golden Boot one year. There was a wild revelation that.
But I also knew that, you know, we'd go to
the shops a lot growing up and guys would stop
Dad always guys, and you could see the look in
their eyes and they just want to chat. To him

(05:40):
about Bawmain Tigers in the eighties, and I saw the
impact he had on people and that people kind of
idolized his success. So it was always there. And it's
an odd thing of thinking it's normal while also being
like it's pretty special.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
It's a takes a mindset. I mean, certainly getting ready
to interview you. Of course I know who he is.
I mean, can rewatch some of that stuff. Yeah, well,
you'd be playing a game with three men on the field.
With the current way the game's played there, everyone who
gets sent off for everything. It was so fucking violent. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
I never saw Dad play live.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
I think he finished.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
He came back and played one year in Australia after
I was born. Because I was born, he went and
coached over in England for a bit. So I have
no memories of him playing, but I've seen footage and
like even the way he used to run at people,
he had no care for his own health and well being,
and his body would have copped it. He was quite
a slender guy as well, he would have copped it.

(06:36):
And I always remember people stopping him and just telling me, like,
your dad was a hard bastard, Like that's all people
used to say to me, and yeah, the different era,
and it is kind of like, I think, I don't
know if he's suffered any effects of that prolonged I mean,
there's obviously a fear that a lot of those guys
that generation have about the ongoing effects of concussion or whatever.
But I think Dad's been pretty lucky. But yeah, I

(07:00):
just remember being told your dad's a hard bastard a
lot growing up.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
That could be a blessing a curse. As a school kid.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yeah, it just instilled in me from a young age
that if you're successful at sport, then you know, you
can get the ad espression in Australia, you can get
the admiration of people. And it's a we were just
talking before, I think before we started that it's something
that gives us a lot of analogies for life, but
it gives us people love bonding over sport. It's so interwoven.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
It's just so I think sport is just so important
in Australia when we're living in such a fracturedly a
culturally fractured society, you absolutely have to have something that
two strangers can talk about. It's so important.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, and it's so funny. So now in the writing
world that I exist in, I thought I might get
away from For a long time, I really wanted to
get away from sports because I did. It's all I
knew growing up and had a career that, you know,
I kind of wanted to push away from. But even
in this writing world, or you meet some big intellects,
they just fucking love sport, like they just want to
talk about footy, and you realize that you can intellectualize

(08:00):
a lot of things in life, but sport. You can
do it with sport as well. But to be honest,
sometimes people just want a team to go for, want
colors to wear, and then they don't care about the
beliefs or anything of the other person next to them.
For a lot of the time, it's just we're both
going for this team who we hope scores more points
than that other team, and it's a nice escape from

(08:21):
everything else for a couple of hours every.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Week, all sports a story. Here's a bunch of guys
who may or may not be from this particular geographic area,
wearing this particular color clothing. Here's a bunch of other
guys wearing a different color clothing that may or may
not be from another geographic area, but half of the
MCG think it's really important that those guys get that
ball through there more than those dudes, and we will

(08:42):
share ourselves horse to make.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
It happen, honestly, being like the MCG when it's packed,
I played through a couple of times in front of
decent crowds, but going to like Grand Finals and stuff
there when it's one hundred thousand people, nothing else gives
you that, like my heart starts racing and you feel
something in the crowd cheers, the kind of collective consciousness
or understanding of what's going on in the game, and

(09:06):
it's not scripted, and nothing else. I don't think anything
else gives us that level of entertainment.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
We'd like to think that we're, you know, really smart.
We're not. We're hard to gatherers, and we're in and
out group.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Want to be a ball kicked between sticks because it
makes us feel something.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
It's in and outgroup, all right, it's in a group,
in our group, and if our outgroup, if our in
group losers, then us and the other people that are
wearing our tribal colors gets us sit on the train
and go Yeah, that referee, then what do we have.
We're together, you know, the stranger and I we belong
to each other similarly on the other side. That's what
That's what it is, and that's what you know. We're

(09:44):
asking these athletes, people like yourself, can you please go
out their own risk, your ability to throw your children
in the air when you're an older man so I
can see an amazing mark or a great tackle. Please.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah. And coming from a player's point of view, I think,
having been in that that's in my early twenties, it's
like you will willingly do that. You won't think about
anything else in the future because you just like you
get a sense of purpose and fulfillment from doing that
at that point in time. And it's exciting. It's just
it's exciting to be in the middle of a stadium

(10:15):
with forty fifty thousand people watching, like you're probably not
going to think about life twenty years down the track.
It's like, I'm here now and I'm a god. Some
people might feel like that. I mean, I didn because
I was pretty shit, But some people feel like that's
the height.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
You were less shit than the people that didn't make
the team. Come on, man, like the new book, Pisance
is about the people that didn't make it. Really, It's
about the guys that we all want to be, you know,
full forward for whoever, we all want to be the
halfback for whoever center for. I'm just trying to always
just keep naming sports attack for whoever we want to make.
You know, and there's schoolboy, and then I you're pretty good,

(10:53):
and then there's club on the side. At what point
in your playing career did you start to notice that
I'm progressing faster than people I started with.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
I think even though I came from a pretty you know,
notorious sporting family, I always felt out to work really
hard and I wasn't like the superstar kid growing up
at all. I think because of my last name, people
would watch me a bit more and give me more attention.
I'd say. I was probably sixteen or seventeen when I

(11:25):
switched from rugby league. So dad played rugby league. It's
all we did growing up, grew up in Sydney. At fifteen,
I switched to Ozzie Rules because my older brother Kieran
was playing for the Swans was doing quite well there,
so I said, well, shit, if Kieran can do it,
I think I can do it too, And then it
was really bad at Ossie Rules for a couple of years.
Then got put in the Swans Academy when I was
quite young, Swans Academy which surrounded me with the most

(11:49):
talented kids in Sydney and that really.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Far kids from all over the country people. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, it fast tracked my development and then you know,
by the time I was eighteen was when it was
very much like, all right, your chance to get drafted.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
To the Swans.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
And even still wasn't one of the better players in
the New South Wales team, for example, it was probably
one of the bottom players. But I think because of
who I was, my name, they saw potential there. So
I'm very aware of that.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Get nobody's doing this for favors, mate, Yeah, I would
challenge you on that, all right. I used to because
I know I used to think honestly, I thought they
gave me the Australian Idol job as a favor because
I did not have the self worth. It was only
years later that I realized, oh no, hang on, they
could have chosen anyone to do, but they weren't for
the person that made the most business sense.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah. Well, the business sense was I think they saw
the potential I had. I think I had that promise
of potential and a work ethic that they saw in
Kieran that they saw in me as well.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
So that's what an academy. Yeah, well I've met some
of those kids. There was a sauna place I used
to go to in Kujie and I've sat in the
Sworna with some guys like seventeen eighteen all living in
a sharehouse in Maroona that was owned by the club.
What's it like when you're surrounded why people who are
all focused on the same thing that you are. What
does it give you?

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Well, this is very much where this book Pissants kind
of draws on. It is it's interesting being an eighteen
year old. So let's talk say you're a professional level now.
So you're eighteen. You've been drafted by the Swans or
by football club. At the Swans because it was in
Sydney and a lot of guys came from interstate. You'd
go into a housing program where there'd be three guys
living at a house. You didn't really know each other,

(13:26):
and your common threat is footy. Well, what do you
think happens when you put a bunch of eighteen year
olds in house together with a bit of money and
a bit of you know, puff their chests out of it.
Because of footy players, we had parties. We didn't really
think about much else outside of footy and didn't really
didn't really focus on personal development in a way. It
was like, you train, you go out for dinner with

(13:48):
the boys, you play on Saturday, and then well, let's
go out to a nightclub Saturday night because you're young
and you can. And from that you get very interesting friendships,
ways of bonding that are kind of connected to connected
to one the game you play, you spot in the team,
and alcohol as well. That was a big thing for

(14:09):
me when I was playing footy.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
How do you feel?

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, it's so eighteen to twenty three. I was at
the Swans doing that and you how do you feel?
No one, no one was asking fucking how do you feel?
But our way of almost doing that was to drink
a lot together and to and I come with this
now from everynewed perspective of being, like, well, that was

(14:34):
kind of all we knew. How that was our way
of bonding. And you look at it from the outside
and say, that's really toxic and it's wrong. Yeah, in
a lot of ways it is, but that's all we
knew how to do, and if you took that away
from us, then it was like we fucking wouldn't talk
and it'd be more lonely. So pistance became a kind
of study of that in a way of well, let's

(14:55):
look at how eighteen to twenty three old blokes bond
and make people who wouldn't normally spend time with a
group like that. So if you don't really like footy,
or you don't really like those guys, or you see
them at the pub, you might walk away from them.
I'm like, well, let's give you three hundred pages of
a book where you have to sit with them and
you actually kind of learn a bit about why they're

(15:17):
doing the things they're doing. And it's yeah, it's a
lot of people have taken that from it. Some people
fucking hate it, which is good. I want people to
kind of hate what I write sometimes because it means.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's what do they hate about it.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Some people just read it as this is a bunch
of bad blokes doing bad things and it's immature, which
is like, that's fine. If that's what you get from it.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Then I hate to break it to them, but people
who have that critique might have just never spent time
around a bunch of unsupervised, unparented eighteen years away from home. Yeah,
these guys exist. Everyone's searching for a father figure everywhere,
you know.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, And that's another thing I think somebody said to
me after reading the book that they were like, I
was looking for a father figure for these guys in
the book. And there's one coach who has a few
chapters and he's probably the worst father figure you can get.
He's a coke addict who's just always searching for cocaine.
It's all he's doing the whole book. And he's the
assistant coach of this team. So anyone who's looking for guidance,

(16:17):
there's nothing really there outside of this team ethos. It's
like we care about each other. We're driven to succeed.
All his marketing phrases and footy clubs have which doesn't
really steer them in the right direction with much.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
I always think about you're dedicating your entire life to it.
As you said, you played league for when you were
a kid, and you switch when you were fifteen so easily.
Probably eighteen years of your life from when you first
got past the ball you could catch and you have
the coordination to catch a ball easily, eighteen years of
your life been dedicated to getting really good at this thing,
and then it's gone. How do you know? How do

(16:56):
you look at yourself? What happens to your self identity?

Speaker 1 (16:58):
It's a I don't think as many the professions, like
I think modeling, modeling might be the only comparable one
where you kind of are used by date is on you,
and then everything you've kind of spent your life doing
is then gone, and not even gone, but it's it's
you can't really go back and do that thing again.
Like once I was out of the system, I was like, okay,

(17:20):
I'm out of the system. I'm not going to go
back and plays rules again. It's tough because your whole
identity becomes tired up in it. You know, when your
whole identity is about being the best player you can
be on that field, and then that's taken away from you.
I felt this huge sense of I felt like I

(17:42):
was falling for like three or four years. I really
I came out and I started going to a UNI
full time, started playing a bit of music as well,
and doing a few other things. But I didn't have
any sense of what the fuck I was actually doing.
I was just falling. And then you know, that's when
alcohol and dry become something that you gravitate towards, not

(18:03):
because you just want to feel good, and those become
things that make you feel they just give you an
instant burst. You're just so sad you need something, and
it's a lot easier to gravitate towards those things than
to pull yourself up and be like, oh shit, I've
got to face some kind of things here that are
quite difficult, you know. I've got to go maybe see

(18:25):
a therapist, and I've got to put some things in
place in my life that give me a reason to
get out of bed. And that took me three or
four years to get to. And I'm my fingers kind
of on the pulse with myself and I do a
lot of self reflection, but it's still it took me
three or four years of feeling shit and depressed to
then start making those and I'm still making them now.

(18:47):
I've been out of the system for eight years and
I'm still see a therapist once a month on antidepressants.
I started taking those a couple of years ago, but
it was just a long journey to realize, you know,
there's some things I need to do to help me
confront or to deal with this sense of a sense
of failure that you feel from a career that's over
so young.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, it's just such a huge risk that we ask,
you know, men and women to take for our entertainment,
not only putting your body on the line. Your career
could be over like that. You know, you could blow
an emptl and then miss your training window and then
never get back to the squad and that's it gone.

(19:28):
It's interesting the idea that alcohol is used as a
part of it when you're younger to help the guys.
You know, I get the boys getting it getting again
and like it's bonding and as a thing that's always
around that can put some distance between you and there
is comfort of I'm sitting with someone from Uriepta from
South Australia. I don't know anything about them, but we
both wear the same T shirt when we go to training. Ah,

(19:48):
let's have a beer. Now we've got something in common.
And if we start to use I mean, like, you know,
let me be really clear. I'm fifteen and a half
years sober, so I know exactly how alcohol can be
a problem when you're using it to get to you
over the line in a social situation. But if you
never develop the skill because of that, then you just

(20:09):
need more of it.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
That's what it is. It's low as your inhibitions. If
you're an anxious person and you're with people you don't know,
it's like and I still feel this today. So I've
gone back and forth in my life about having problems
with alcohol. Sometimes I know I'm using it to self medicate.
There are times when I know, in a social situation,

(20:31):
I'll have to stop myself from drinking because I know
i'm doing it because I am not developing that skill.
Like you said, if you're always feeling uncomfortable, then you drink,
you never learn how to. I can actually be okay
with the discomfort of not knowing these people. And that's
my other fact that you know, fifteen and a half
years sob. But that's incredible.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
That was good to die. Yeah, okay, you know, still
well done the choice as well. Look the choices and
the things that you mentioned lower and inhibition. But yeah,
the choices that became really good ideas when I was
drinking sot to be pretty fucking bad choice, yes, and
I was. My dopamine system got so just regulated I
was unable to not do it anymore. And that's the

(21:11):
thing that well, I don't understand about addiction. It's not
a choice. I'm not choosing to drink. I just can't not.
The best way to not drink is to not start.
And that's I.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Think I got to, you know, probably thirty so last
year before I realized like, ah shit, I've used this
as a crux for a lot of my life, and
it would have been quite easy to go through the
rest of my life without realizing that as well.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
So it's.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
It's definitely in the fabric of those environments.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
If you're good at the game and going to work
means let's say it's e MCD, for example, at a minimum,
there's fifty five thousand people screaming your name. That's a
thing that you remember and it becomes like, oh no,
this is what it is to be me. Fifty five
thousand people scream my name, And what do you do

(21:59):
when that high gone? How do you get that back?
It's a high yeah, man. That's why I'm going to
get running back out there next week. I'm going to
you know, train real hard and I'm going to figure
that out, and I'm going to work on their set
play because i want to hear that sound again.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
That would have been my dad's career. Dad played two
hundred and forty four games and played for Australia and like,
did everything you can do in rugby league. And then
I think about when I grew up. I at times
I resented Dad for how kind of how outward he
was with his career success and how he would have

(22:33):
his jerseys on display, and I remember for a long
time kind of being like, well, I was pissed off
at Dad because I felt like he set me up
to feel like a failure because I'd never achieved what
he did. And I was like, I wish you weren't
or were showing your success. But then you know, again,
the older I've got, the more I'm like, well, Dad
was just fucking proud of his career. And I know

(22:56):
after Dad finished footy player in the eighties, he then
coached for a bit, he became a real agent. My
memory of my dad is being a real estate agent
in Blacktown, so not being Gary Jack at the center
of you grand final. It was him selling houses in
Blacktown and coming home and talking about commission. He was
scared about losing. I feel for him to have experienced

(23:16):
what he did and then to go the rest of
his life kind of chasing that high. And Dad, oddly,
that wasn't a drinker, Dad, That was I never outside
of having a drink with dinner. Maybe I never went
to the parbor, didn't things like that, But he did,
like talking about his career, and I'm like, yeah, sure,

(23:37):
you know that was That was him just trying to
feel some joy.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Still, I think it's also your job as a sun
to go you know, there's also that, but in New
York case, because you did go to pursue that. It's
in many ways it's It's been documented the challenge of
you know, a sign or a daughter of a successful
person trying to do their thing. It comes with extra scrutiny.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, it does. And to be honest, the most scrutiny
I always felt was for myself though it was stigmas real, Yeah,
it was never I could care less if there was
an article being like only half as good as his
dad or is like I think I'm proud of them.
I'm like, I'm they're my family, Like I'm proud of them.
But it was always internally. I think I had this

(24:20):
expectation where it wasn't just sex. Someone wrote that no,
but if maybe, I don't know if they did. The
stigma came from internally, because I always felt that I
was never just proud of playing professionally. Yeah, I was like,
I was like Dad played two hundred and forty games,
Kieran played two hundred and fifty games, like unless I

(24:41):
played two hundred games, Like, I viewed my career as
a failure. And I'm still reconciling that, Like, it's still
very hard. I played twenty eight professional games, which is
thereabouts the average career length through an AFL player. But
I still very much struggle to not kind of not

(25:02):
self deprecate about that and not to be like, well,
I was pretty sure I did it before. I'm like,
I'm a shit player. Like it's just it's a really
easy way to cope with that. Yeah. Yeah, so that
but that was always internal.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
The I mean, it's no comparison at all, but I
I recently would I did the Dancing with the Stars show.
I saw that, yeah, right, And one of the Chris Brown,
asked me, oh, do you worry about what they say
to you. I'm like, you don't understand. Whatever they say
to me is nothing compared to what I've got in

(25:36):
my head. So I don't care. You literally don't care.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah. I think there's a there's a level you can
kind of get to, even even now with this, with
this book that's come out. It's quite funny. I have
a friend, my best friend. I've told him to go
on good Reads every now and then and find me
like the worst reviews of the book you can find.
And I'm like, just find me the most abhorrent thing
people are saying. And some of the ones he sends
me are like fucking classic. We got one of them

(26:03):
blown up and put on a billboard actually in Paddington
last week. Just it was like essentially it said this
is not literature. In a round about it said this
is not literature. But it was a paragraph long and
I saw it and was like, that's awesome. You put
it on a billboard. We put it on a billboard. Yeah,
why did you do that? Well, the whole the campaign
was pissants, It's not for everyone, and then nice yeah

(26:25):
marketing brain and then that quote, and then we had
a photo of Aaron Gox, who's a comedian. Goxy looks
like the classic suburban footy player him reading the book,
and then the quote next to it from the person
who hated the book, and it just kind of looked
quite funny. And it was blown up in Paddington outside
of retail store. So I feel for the I feel
for the women in that store who had to stare

(26:46):
out at Goxy's thighs all day. It was a fucking
massive postern. It was like eleven meters by three meters.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
How did you get your publisher to pay for a billbook?

Speaker 1 (26:55):
A lot of marketing is me reinvesting my advance with
this book. I I I want to be a writer.
I want to be an author for like long term,
and I'm not financially motivated. I'm motivated about people knowing
my books out there and reading it. And book marketing
is slender, you know this comme on book marketing is slender.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
It is.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
I took my advance and was like, how can I
use this to create more buzz interest in the book?
And I'm happy doing that because that's it's a part
of me is literary wank, like I just love writing
and want people to read the writing.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
But part of me is if you're going to do
that at least or at least a beanie, but not
roll at the back of your head.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
But then the other part of me is like, no,
the book world is a business, and you need to
have people know your book exists. You need to go
into bookstores and talk to the bookstore owners and sign
books and do all those things because that then allows
you to write more books in the future. So there's
a split in my brain which which knows that there's both.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
With sport in Australia, it's often the lens through which
we view either healthy or unhealthy masculinity. There's been a
lot of many examples of fairly unhealthy displays of masculinity,
and over time, certain clubs, certain codes have come around
and started to put a fair bit more effort into
Like your experience that you're telling me very different to

(28:29):
the one that I had. The conversation that I had
with those kids that were in the academy in that
sauna m two or three years ago. The kind of
lifestyle they were telling me about did not at all
echo what you just said.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, I've kind of two responses here to that. One is, yeah,
I think it has changed a bit.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
I think.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
My era was a decade ago, and I think that
there's been some learnings from that, and when I'm writing
piss Hands about this stuff, I'm kind of about that generation.
It was probably ten years ago. Is the nickname culture.
The tall poppy syndrome that exists in the book was
what I knew about how to bond with bokes, Like
That's how I knew to do it, and I wanted

(29:14):
to write it in a way that was also humorous
because to me it was funny and you want you
want people to kind of read it and be like,
ah shit, I get why this might draw people in,
Like it's I would never normally do this, but it's
kind of funny, and I want to be part of
this group now in culture out culture. Like you said,
The second thought I have on that is, if those
guys you're talking to are seventeen eighteen, they're fresh. They're

(29:37):
very fresh. It takes a couple of years to become
disgruntled piss ants on the outside and I think what
I provide to people is I know guys.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Who still play.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
I know footy culture so well that anytime I see
like a really kind of you know, washed perspective of it,
or like a really nice looking view of it, and
I'm like, I'm probably too cynical. Sometimes I'm like, there's
other shit going on there.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
So no systems perfect, but that with the people at
least paying attention to what's going on, and they, let's
be honest, it's probably because of the financial risk and
development risk and parents not wanting their kid to get
involved in that kind of.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Scene, and the way that I think the social media
aspect and media in general is heightened now. I mean,
the backlash that players get for stepping out of line
is it's a financial risk. And that's my view of
footy clubs as well. Like I was talking about publishing world,
it's their businesses at the end of the day, and
they have values and standards that they're set at clubs,

(30:45):
but I always view that there's a financial reason beneath those.
One of the things I least like about the sporting
world is performative gestures and when I can kind of
tell that they're taking a stance just because it benefits
them financially. But and then I on an existential crisis
about like, well maybe they need to do that in
order to eventually believe it or make change. I don't know,

(31:06):
I'm probably too cynical about sports. Sometimes that's all right,
that's okay.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
It leaves you to be open to be surprised and
delighted writing this book. I've when I was a long
time ago, I was a roadie. Why we're hearing aids
now one of the reasons, and the shitty covers bands
and we ended up playing it, like you know, football
clubs in Queensland, outskirts of Brisbane, northern New South Wales,

(31:32):
that sort of thing. And it really seemed to me
like there was this culture of dudes who manufactured a
way to keep that peaked in high school feeling forever right,
never go too high. I'm never going to go to
those grades. No, here's why, because this, that and the other.
But never, you know, always be kind of like the
big fella, you know, the big dude around.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
It's like even you're saying that, guys, I've played local
what you with come to mind? So you're right, you're
full You're right, local footy is its own beasts. And
I have this, I have this switch in my head
which I become a different person when I go back
to that local footy tape, and I just I think
that's why it became so easy to write Pissants and

(32:18):
all the ways, because I can just I talk different
as well. I kind of I go from being someone
who might explain things just being someone who will swear
a lot more or who will just call someone a
fuck wit like far more easily, and that becomes just
how we talk in that group and the group chats

(32:40):
we're in, it's the same thing. It's like I feel
like I regress, not regress, I just become a different
version of myself because that's what is accepted or what
makes me be accepted in that group. And it's taken
time to know when to not do that, to stand
up for something, but a lot of the time I
can feel myself falling back into that group, because, like

(33:04):
you said, you just want to be a part of something,
and it's always nicer to feel like you're a part
of something. So whenever I whenever I discuss footy club
culture and stuff now and writing piss ants about that.
I want people to understand why someone might be drawn
into that who otherwise you're like, oh, I thought they

(33:25):
wouldn't be like that. It's alluring.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, you don't want to be you don want to
be on the outer I mean any any like more
women listen to this show than men. Yeah, but I
would encourage them to ask the man in your life
about last time he felt so uncomfortable about something that's
shot up in a group chat, and they'll probably say
it was within the last three hours. Yeah, and that
is as twenty twenty five as it gets. It's and

(33:50):
this is now, and we all know, and I know,
and I sit in some of these groups like that,
I've known you for twenty five years and I don't
know what to do now.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
You know, there's some olders, there's some I have. I
just like mute them, or I'll leave the group if
it's if it's something that's too far, like I know
when to fucking leave that. But some of them are
just like the ones I'm in were it's I was
added to a group chat last week with a bunch
of guys I played with at the Swans who so
we're all like early mid thirties. Now we played together

(34:22):
in our early twenties. They added me to this group
and they're just doing voice memo impressions of our old
coaches from like ten years ago. And it's the same
jokes we were doing then. And I'd be lying if
I didn't say I was pissing myself while I was
pissing myself listening to these And when one of them,
I could hear one of the guys as a kid.

(34:42):
Now the kid's like two years old and crying in
the back and he's doing an impression of our old coach,
and I was like, oh man, I was so torn
because I loved it, but I was also like, fuck,
it's been ten years guys.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
But look, I'm here for that because as a group
chat with a theme. There's a mate of mine. He's
a stand up and he is involved in a group chat.
It's this legendary stand up comic group chat and it's
international and I'm talking people with Netflix specials' on this
group chat. It consists solely of audio recordings of farts.

(35:15):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Well, okay, there's a there's a thread here because this
group I was added to ten years ago, it was
that same thing.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
I think there's a some kind.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Of screenshots men and it's got this name. You're like,
holy fuck, I watched that guy's show and that's it.
That's it's three seconds long. It's genius.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Is that like the foundation of like mayor WhatsApp groups.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Those men and women in it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that
is a part of masculinity. Parts are funny and sometimes
as a man, I want to find a way that
I can just laugh at a fart with another human.
All right.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
When I got added to WhatsApp a messenger group, but
they were literally impersonating our coach from ten years ago,
I was like, oh my god, that's fucking hilarious.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Mate, Start doing that voice. But start you know, commentating
on news in the day, try and try and start
to steer it like the dealers. We only speak in
these words, but you know, start to steer it in
social commentary and see what happens.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah, I might try that. There's like six or seven
monologues that we have that just come up again and
again and again, and it's like I would not have
talked to these guys outside of this for ten years.
And that's that's kind of footy friendships post playing together.
A lot of the time, it's like because you were

(36:33):
teammates and you were really good mates, but you then
don't need to There's probably three or four guys I
keep in touch with that I played with, but outside that,
if I saw any of my old teammates that I was,
you know, played with a fair beer, you'd stop and
have a chat and get a coffee or something or
get a beer. Like it's very easy to slip back
into those friendships.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
When it comes to the kind of culture that you
write about in the book, you said it was something
based upon You said it was based on something like
more kind of ten years ago. But is there ways
that you can kind of see little bits of that
popping up in the game that we see.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, for sure, I am at its core. This book,
Pissanz focuses on a group of five players a it's
a professional grade football club. That's just the redacted football
club because I couldn't be fucked thinking of a name
for it. It's just a black bar football club. And
it's the five guys who are eighteen to twenty three,

(37:32):
is that at their range, who don't ever play in
the senior team. They never play in that team you
watch on TV, and the book follows their journey and
relationships with each other, and they're bonding rituals and the
anti secut up to during the week to kill time
to give themselves a sense of purpose because they're not
feeling it from their career. That's a kind of analytical

(37:54):
version of it. At every footy club there is that group,
whether or not they do the things that this specific
group of piss Hans does, maybe in some way, but
there's always a group of five or six disgruntled players
who are not playing and who are not filled with

(38:15):
potential coming through and the promises that they will one
day to deliver. They're in like no man's land. And
that's probably common to a lot of workplaces, right that
the people who aren't who never kind of became the star,
but who've been there long enough where there's no value
assigned to them. And it's a I can look at
any footy club list and probably give you an idea

(38:35):
of who those players might be because and you can
tell by their body language too. Sometimes I'll watch and
a player will get subbed off in the AFL. They'll
get subbed off at three quarter time, and you see
their body language when they go to the bench in there,
and you know if they've had like eight touches, they're
not a regular on the team. They're shitty because if
they got twelve, maybe thirteen touches, they could fight for

(38:58):
a spot next week. But eight touches is like, sorry,
you're not getting a game next week. And you can
just tell that that person is sitting there going Monday morning,
I've got to go in get told I didn't do
my job, have to wait around all week to get dropped.
That puts you in a really negative headspace and.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Still being expected to a high five the guy who's right,
it's going to take your spot next week.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah. Well, finally, if my my my best mates at
the footy club became the guys who I'd swap spots
with every week. There was about four of us who
I lived with, one of them Dean Towers, and one
of us had come home from their meeting and be
like the other one'd be like, oh, how'd you go.
He'd be like, you'll be in this week, mate, don't worry,
you'll be in the team this week. And we're just
chop and change, and oddly our my best mates became

(39:42):
the guys who I probably had every reason to hate
because we were competing for the same spot, but we
kind of took Soulos in, like we're in this together.
They were the only ones who understood what it was like.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
I. Even though he was a doctor, he had no
idea about the industry I worked in, and I lived
on the other side of the country, sometimes the other
side of the world. I'd still call my dad every
own again. He say, how are you going? So I'm
dealing with this, and you know, he'd have a few words,
and it was always something kind of interesting. Did you
you know, did your brother who'd been in through the system,
you know, would be able to reach out to him

(40:27):
and get some guidance in this time in your life.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
It's tough because Kieran was the captain for my entire
time at the Swans. Kieran was the captain and I
was kind of after my first three years. I was
never really in contention. And I feel for him having
to be involved in all those match committee meetings where

(40:50):
they're talking about guys who could be selected, and he
would have seen my name magnet. He would have seen
it kind of getting pushed further and further to the side.
He would call me in.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
So there's a whiteboard somewhere and people are shifting names around, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
And mine would have gradually moved further and further away
from where you want to be on the whiteboard. Footy
whiteboards are fascinating. You could sit and analyze those for
hours and hours and hours. But mine was moving the
wrong way. And Kieran would call me and be the
older brother that he needed to be, and I think
it would have been extra hard from him almost feeling

(41:23):
like he was involved in those discussions where I was
getting pushed away.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
I know that he cared deeply about me in my career,
but he also had his own career as well, and
that would have been bloody hard for him to do both.
And I admire the fact that he could do both
the way he did, but it would not have been
easy for him, but he did. He sometimes he would
call and just like, let me cry on the phone
if I got dropped. For probably the breaking point in

(41:54):
my professional career was twenty fifteen. I'd played like seven
or eight on nine games in a row, which was
the most I'd ever played in a row, and then
we played a final in Fremantle against Freemantle Ever in
Perth and I played house, played shit ouse and I
got dropped. That week before our next final. Kieran called

(42:17):
me straight after and his ball my eyes out, because
I knew that that was kind of it for me,
like I'd done everything I possibly could and I still
wasn't good enough. And I remember he said that. Kieran
would always told me that I think he knew I
was not really a footy player at heart. I think
he knew I was going to go become a writer

(42:38):
or do something else one day, and he always subtly
reminded me of that. And so, you know, I think
that what you're going to do outside of this world
is probably going to be your thing more than inside
this world. I remember him suddenly saying that to me
a few times, and at the time I probably hated
hearing that because I was like, no, I just want
to play footy. But now, yeah, I think I think
he understood who I was.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Someone's listening and they find themselves, whether their work life
or home life or whatever, They're like, oh, yeah, I'm
the pissent I'm here. What would you say to them?
What rather than be stuck there and not know what's
going to happen. What's some things that you do with
the hindsight now that you might offer.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
It's almost like a there's a there's a chance you
experienced some kind of Stockholm syndrome where you just want
to stay because you're scared of leaving. But obviously where
you are is putting you in a really negative space,
and it's making you detest your job and feel really
negative about your life and go towards these outlets which

(43:44):
are not conducive of a healthy lifestyle. Very hard when
you're there to realize that there's something else out there
because you're scared, you're terrified of moving on because it's
what you know. I'd just say it's okay to when
it's okay to have failed. I think one of the
major steps is always accepting that shit, you might have

(44:05):
failed at something, but that's not the end of it,
that's not the ind of you. Not everyone has to succeed.
And then the other one is like it's okay to
take the leap and flounder for a bit and to
go through a chaotic period where life isn't super stable
because I reckon you find something on the other side
of it, and I've that's my experience for sure. I

(44:27):
floundered for a long time. Was a university student doing
copywriting gigs for like fifty bucks, like a couple chrenty
bucks a week at one point, and I was living
off that and some youth allowance I was getting from
the government because I wasn't good with my money from footy.
Then eventually I kind of, you know, things lifted, reconciled

(44:49):
my feelings with my past of footy and could you
start writing things I have?

Speaker 2 (44:53):
So what happens when you take the time, yeah, to
face the disgruntlement or resentment or something, to take the
time to be an acceptance of this is where I am.
And then how does that change when you're going to
apply for a job or possibilities that you see for yourself?

Speaker 1 (45:14):
For me, for me, so for me, it was accepting
that my career had not gone how I thought, accepting
that my football career had ended with twenty eight games.
And I think I said earlier that took me two
three years to get through that. And my coping mechanism
initially was to get as far away from foot as
I had to just say I'm not a former football player.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Look at me. I felt hat and the guitar genuinely.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Anyway, maybe that's a story for a whole nother pod,
but yeah, I got as far away from it as
I could, and then life wasn't enjoyable doing that, though,
because you have this thing in the back of your
head that's still letting it control you, because it's driving
you away. For me, it was genuinely. When I started,
I saw a few different therapists, and I think it's

(46:02):
a big thing. If you see a therapist then know
that the first one you see might not be the
right one you have couldn't go anymore. You have to
find a connection with one. Otherwise I went in and
would lie to the one I audition process. Yeah, but
eventually I went in and found one who I felt
something from that. And it's been a gradual process of
a couple of years of realizing why I might feel

(46:22):
like a failure and being able to just accept that
that's there, not trying to fight it away. So coming
to terms with that was a big deal. And then
when I go into a job interviews now, or go
into interviews or things like that, now I have a
sense of I don't. I know who I am enough,
and I know that you know, I know where I've

(46:46):
ended up as a result where I've been as well,
and that's you can't change that. I can't go back
and change that career. I can't go back and rewrite anything.
And there's no predestined path that you should be on.
And I think for so much of my life I
felt a predestined path, and when I would sway from
that at all, that's not feel like a failure. And
I'd feel like, shit, you didn't play trundred games. You're

(47:07):
on the wrong path. Correct it, corrected, and the anxiety
would come and you'd try and fight it, which makes
it so much worse. So it's been a big practice
of letting go of the idea that you should be somewhere.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
So now it's not like your first book was non fiction,
but to go out and now now I'm going to
write a novel, I'm going to write fiction. Now that's
a that's an entirely different tangent. Tell me about how
are you with the path? Now are you how do
you approach this, you know, adventure that you're on.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
It's yeah, I never wrote fiction growing up I was.
I liked writing in school. I had teachers who would
encourage bit to write, but I was a woeful fiction writer.
I think my teachers would laugh at my fiction writing.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
But I was back in the day when I laugh
at dumb kids did anymore? Apparently it's bad for them
because I'm a shitty sense of self. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is while we have a nation of scribs. That's
why everyone's getting a prize. It fucking passed the parcel.
Fuck these.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
The journey now is, I think specifically with writing, it's
interesting because I don't think about what to write next
now as well. I trust that while I would love
to be somebody who could write like a Trent Dalton
esque kind of novel, I could sit there and labor
away at trying to do that, but I would get
so shitty at myself that I can't write that way

(48:30):
and I can't create that book, which would then could
make me feel like a failure. I can't do that.
But instead, I've learned as a writer it's whatever instinct comes,
and story comes follow that, and you don't know where
that's going to come from. As a writer, you don't know,
it just comes. Sometimes and I've gotten better at following
that when it comes. So I think that's a good

(48:51):
analogy for kind of how a treat life at the
moment where I don't know what the next thing is
necessarily going to be, but I am open to the
idea coming in and then trusting. I got instinct around that,
and with piss Hands, that was the thing. Like I
tried to write a couple of books before that which
were just really bad. So after twenty eight, which was

(49:12):
my memoir, came out, I tried to write some manuscripts.
They were shocking. My publisher almost laughed at me for them,
which was again quite funny. But then one day piss
Ants came and I was like, that's the thing we're
going to do now. They say, it's finding your voice.
I don't know if that's my voice, but it's it's
you know.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
But there's really it's not it's you know, it's not
the fifty five thousand people at the MCG. Yeah. But
when and I've had this experience is when you send
someone the idea and they go fuck, yeah, like, oh
there it is. You stay a little straighter, you know. Yeah,
it's that's the feeling like Okay, there's something here. This
is where we go, and it's listening to those things

(49:50):
and being sure to not ignore the science for them.
That is can often illuminate the path. It's when we
can get Oh no, I know you're just saying that
to be nice to me. As we can we're just ignored.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Yeah, data, there's a there's a big sense of validation
you can get from writing, and I'm also wary of
I know when I'm writing to get validation. I did
this a lot when I started doing some freelance journalism
stuff and writing short stories. I'd write stuff really quick
and send it away to get a pat on the
back from somebody, to get an editor be like, yeah,

(50:21):
we'll publish that now. I don't do that now. I
wait until it's something I really believe in. Yeah. I
am not going to rush the next book or anything,
because I don't want to ever write from a place
of wanting approval just for the sake of approval. I
like that I write. I sit in my room and
I write, and I laugh at it and I'm like, huh. Then,

(50:42):
regardless of what happens, at least I've enjoyed doing it.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
How would you like to see parents go about their
kids in sport.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Again, this is one that I'm always asked if I
do have kids, would I want them to play sport?
And fuck yeah, I would like if they if they
want to play sport. Sport is a great way for
kids to be in a team environment and to learn
how to learn resilience, to learn how to cooperate in
a team, to learn that you win and you lose,
like sport teaches us lessons that nothing else can at

(51:13):
such a young age. The thing I felt like I
missed in my family was I don't think I was
ever asked in that critical age of you know, your
teenage years, if I wanted to keep playing. I don't
think I was ever and I was at times. I
think it was pretty obvious I didn't. Like I'm pretty
sure it was obvious that I didn't want to play.

(51:35):
But I think Mum and dad of that era would
just like just see it through, just see it through,
And not that they pushed us by like setting up
cones in the backyard and be like go on train.
They just kept taking us to training, and I, as
a result, was like, well, Mum and Dad are spending
their time on me. I should pay them back by

(51:55):
doing it. I just think that I don't know. You've got,
like I said, you've got young kid get a sense
of if they're actually enjoying it or not, and asked
and be like, do you want to keep doing this?

Speaker 2 (52:07):
But it's immensely, immensely beneficial. The part about the sport,
the lessons of sport I've seen. I missed out on
them when I was a kik be cause I don't
really play much, but I've seen them in Georgia immensely.
They're learning how to win, but learning how to lose.
When you look at your career and you look at

(52:28):
the twenty eight games that you play, what do you
think is the most valuable lesson you've learned about? This
isn't going the way I want it to. So this is.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
Because at times I've handled feedback and failure really badly.
There's been times I've handled it really poorly. But I
do think I am good at losing, and like I
can handle losing quite well and getting knocked back. So
for example, with the writing stuff, it's held me in
good stead. So when I sent my pub previous manuscripts

(53:02):
and Literallyane Jane Palferman, who's my publisher, who was a
formidable force in Australian publishing.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
She's feared by a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
I sent her this manuscript and she read it was
like seventy eighty thousand words and she read it and
her email almost said like, you know, you can get
writing lessons like like a nice like a nice ish way,
because it was a crime book. And she was like,
if you want to write this kind of book, Brendan,
you can go and get writing lessons for it, which

(53:31):
was a big fat no to the manuscript that I
just spent like six months of my life devoted to,
like every day. I think some people might be so
crushed by that they just don't write again. But for me,
it was like, well, all right, that's not it's what's
the next thing I can do. I'm not going to stop.
That's what I've taken from sport and I was. I

(53:52):
was at various points in my career like that. As
a player. I was like, well I'll just train harder.
So that's always been in me. I can handle loss
and rejection without it being the end of the world.
It's like, well, it's stuff's in my control.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
What can I do next, and reminding yourself of those
things that you can control, it gives us that sense
of it can arrest that free ful feeling.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's something I've gotten better at,
as well as to even trying to sell a book.
Now it's like you want everyone to read it, but
I can't control how many people see the book or
I can't control that, and I just have to come
back to saying, well, I wrote the book I wanted
to write. I controlled that part of it, and now

(54:35):
you let it out in the world and you do
some marketing for it. But if people see it, they
see it. If they don't, it's not a reflection of
you or the writing. You know's that's really what I
am reminding myself of at the moment.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
I needed to hear that today because I put it
on out two weeks ago and I still don't know
how it's coming. You don't know in book world.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
I know it's crazy, but thank you, welcome, thanks for
writing book, and thanks for opening the window to a
part of Australia that is so instinct, so intuitive, so
intuitively Australian.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Yeah, it's guarded for reasons that I read the book,
but it kind of helps us understand a little better.
Like when you go to work and you're like, how
the fuck are you a grown man here saying that here? Like,
what world did you come from? This world where it's
been fine the whole time? I don't know, but I
did my two hour induction video about how to speak

(55:30):
to people in meetings. I should be fine. I can't
call you big guys. I can't call him big guys
in a company he's got big guys.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Big guys.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
Laughed at it.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Come on, he laughed at it.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Yeah, he's thinking it's funny. It's a thing that I
think it might help more people understand that you can't
take a while to turn a cruise ship man.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
Yeah, maybe that's what the whole fucking book is. It's like,
this cruise ship has been going the same way it's
been going for a long time, and we're not just
going to go hard ninety degrees other way.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Those induction videos into suburban football clubs, life will be
better for them. That was Brandon Jack. The new book
is called Pissants. It's out right now. His other book,
twenty eight you can also get. That's his memoir. It's

(56:21):
a Repper read, thank you so much for listening to
the show, and thanks for getting around. So what now?
What the new book that I've written. If you own it,
please write a review for it. If you don't own it,
you can buy it and then write a review for it.
The links to both those things are in the show notes.
Thanks for being a part of it. I'll be back
here on Monday.