The Unmade Podcast - 123: Marriage Proposals (with Amanda Knox and Christopher Robinson)

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

Tim and Brady are joined by guests Amanda and Chris to discuss all sorts of stuff, including marriage proposals, growing tomatoes, and some conspiracy theories. Join the discussion of this episode on our subreddit - tell us YOUR proposal story - https://redd.it/10ys1k6 USEFUL LINKS Younglings Podcast website - https://www.younglings.fm Younglings on Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/younglings/id1667790354 Labyrinths Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/labyrinths/id1494368441 And some sermons from Tim - https://malvernuc.com/sermons-online Amanda Knox and Christopher Robinson's website - https://www.knoxrobinson.com Amanda Knox documentary on Netflix - https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80081155 Amanda's book chronicling her story - https://amzn.to/3JTx5Lw Chris proposes to Amanda amidst a missile attack - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wmexJ-mb54 A Jumbotron Proposal Failure - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRt4fr_2LfY The Bermuda Triangle - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_Triangle Support Unmade on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/unmadeFM Catch the podcast on YouTube where we often include accompanying videos and pictures - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkIRMZDOKKKs-d14YPmLMxg

Hey there, before we start, let me tell you today's special guests, Chris and Amanda, have started co-hosting a podcast with myself and my wife called Younglings. It's about being new parents because they're new parents and we're new parents. We will talk about it later, but make sure you make a note to subscribe. You can go to younglings.fm or search for younglings on your podcast player of choice. I think it will be good for parents, future parents, even people who aren't parents. I don't know. Have a listen.

See what you reckon. Brady fakes these technical issues to give his brain time to catch up to what we're saying. Well, welcome to the Unmade Podcast. Tim, we have special guests, some new friends of mine from Seattle. Yes. We have Amanda Knox and Christopher Robinson, who I would like to introduce you to. I love it when we have guests.

Fantastic. These are friends of yours? They were their new friends of mine. We'll get to that shortly. Right. One of these names may have been familiar to you and familiar to listeners. Yes, it is the Christopher Robinson from Seattle who writes poetry. He's an author.

He's an absolute style icon. I'm sure you guys are going to have to have a chat about glasses at some time. Chris, what should I call you? What's your primary occupation? Well, I sometimes think of myself as a futurist. I did read this. What does that mean? It just means he takes mushrooms and thinks about the future a lot. Okay.

It means that I'm perhaps more than your average citizen, concerned about the impacts of artificial intelligence and coming technologies that will shape our lives in the next few decades. Chris, I always think futurists are always too preoccupied with the long term. I would like to see a short term futurist, like people that can predict what's going to happen like in 15 minutes from now. You know what I mean? You just walk down the road and it's like, ah, careful. There's a step coming up in 15 minutes that you don't want to trip over. Now, of course, I was being a little bit facetious because I imagine some people listening, particularly if they are of my vintage, will know the name of our other guest, Amanda Knox.

And it is the same Amanda Knox you might remember from, well, 2007. I feel silly explaining this when Amanda's on the other end of the cold, but here we go. Amanda spent almost four years in an Italian prison after she was wrongly convicted of murdering her housemate and a fellow exchange student in Italy. It was a huge legal process, but it also became a massive media circus, this news event. And it was, gosh, you couldn't open newspapers or turn on TVs without seeing Amanda and seeing her name. And it became this horrible ordeal for everyone involved, I'm sure. But she was finally and correctly, unequivocally exonerated by Italy's highest court.

unequivocally exonerated by Italy's highest court. She's now become somewhat of an activist in the exoneree community and sticks up for people who've been wrongly convicted. She's a journalist of her own now, a podcaster, a bit of a media all-rounder, and happy to have her on the show as well. Was that an okay explanation? Yeah, that was great, and I'm so glad that you're finally bringing the ex-con perspective to your podcast. Yeah.

It's so important. We like to have all voices represented. Now, I don't know if this is rude or even refreshing for you, Amanda, but I'd never heard of you before. That's great. That's great. Brady directed me to the Netflix documentary, uh, which made me feel rather silly. I don't know what I was doing in 2007 that, that, that somehow I, I was totally and utterly ignorant of this international story. And, um, however, the segue is that I do remember what

I was doing in 2007. And that is, we were caring for our first child who had just been born. And so we were in baby boot camp. And frankly, not much else mattered with all due respect. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that I like to say is like, I was completely ignorant about criminal justice issues and wrongful convictions. And honestly, I didn't follow true crime at all. And I would have been in your same boat had it not happened to me. Except I wouldn't have had a baby. I was just 20 years old. Amanda, I wasn't going to ask you anything about exonerees and true crime and stuff like that. But because Tim brought it up, I've got one question I want to ask you because it's podcast related. Sure, sure. I quite enjoy crime podcasts and true crime podcasts, right? I find

them really interesting and, you know, hearing all the details and stuff. Is that okay? Like, because like, these are all serious crimes and I'm using them as entertainment and don't really think that deeply about the fact I'm just being entertained by crime. You obviously have a very different perspective of. Yeah, that's an ethical question that actually in our other podcast, Lapins, we're going to be doing. We have an upcoming series that's devoted to that entire question of like what what's up with true crime, like true crime content and true crime entertainment? And where did it come from? And is it ethical? And now that it's now that it's such a big thing and it's accepted as such a big money making product, should we be thinking more deeply and sophisticatedly about whether or not that's OK and how to make it OK? whether or not that's okay and how to make it okay. The answer to your question is it kind of depends on a lot of factors. It depends on the podcast or it depends on the content. It depends on how that content has treated and approached the people who it's about. We have to remember that true crime content always, always, always has to do with the worst experiences of people's lives.

And sometimes those worst experiences of people's lives come to define them in the public imagination. And I imagine that you guys would not love for the worst experience of your lives to come to define your life in total in the public imagination. So that that question to answer it in a really long winded way is that it's an open question about whether or not that's OK and how it can be OK. And when does that content creation and consumption fall short of ethical means? Not the even more long-winded wind. Remember to tune in and subscribe to Labyrinths because our upcoming miniseries, which is called Blood Money, is going to be talking all about the history and ethics of true crime and talking to people across the spectrum, from true crime creators to fans to people who host the true crime festivals. You stole my joke, Chris. You stole my exact joke.

I was even going to use the more long-winded line. I predicted that and preempted you. But the plug would have been so much more sincere coming from me. Oh, it's true. Having no involvement with Labyrinth. But anyway, there will be a link to Labyrinth in the notes for this podcast. Let's get on with our podcast. Sweet.

Here we go. Now, what we do is we pitch an idea for a podcast. And I've had an idea for a podcast. Let's get on with our podcast. Sweet. Here we go. Now, what we do is we pitch an idea for a podcast and I've had an idea for a podcast and I want to share it with you all. This podcast would be called, I think it would be called a decent proposal. And the idea is it's all about marriage proposals. So, guests can come on the show and talk about how they became engaged. You can talk about classic engagements from history, from popular culture, all sorts of great stuff. I think everyone who knows someone who's married always asks, how did you guys get engaged? Tell me the story of your proposal. There's almost always a story. Have you guys got stories?

Oh God, do we have stories stories but also i think you're right that that would be a very successful podcast because you see on youtube all the proposals that people do all the time and those like go viral like crazy so yes the jumbotron at the sports well i was just gonna say that the jumbotron is is veryethical. Speaking of unethical actions, I'm very anti-jumbotron proposal. Really? Oh, yeah. You're putting someone in the predicament of having to answer that tremendous life question in front of a mass audience unawares, you know? Yeah.

I feel like if you've been dating for 10 years and the answer is kind of obvious, maybe that's okay. been dating for 10 years and the answer is kind of obvious maybe that's okay but if it's like putting your girlfriend on the spot and she has to be like but then you get those classic we wouldn't get those classic no videos where they get where they get refused on the jumbotron it's like oh oh my god do you see that coming someone's had the courage to do that because I was about to say it, like the consent fact. There's been multiple, multiple of those. Oh, man. Like that's a great blooper reel. Are you a connoisseur of proposal videos?

It sounds like you've gone down a YouTube rabbit hole. I tend to get served a lot of them on Instagram for some reason. So, yeah. That's funny. This is such a good idea. Literally last Thursday night, I was out at a restaurant with two really good friends and we went around the table and told the stories of how we had proposed. And we've known each other for 12 or 13 years.

And I'm sure as they were telling them, I was like, oh, yes, that's right. But that made me go, tell it again. Like, tell me again how you did that. That was great. So I wanted to hear them all for a second time. Fantastic conversation. And we were so energised by it and so enthused by our marriages and reminded about love. And everyone was feeling, not just laughing and enjoying, but sort of, you know, empathetic, like connected to the story.

Like, that's marvellous. That's wonderful. It was really beautiful. You obviously had a more successful proposal than me. Is anyone here willing to share their proposals? This was with two friends who were girls who said no on Jumbotrons and I was just like that's beautiful guys. Heroes. I mean you can find our proposal on YouTube because Chris really went whole hog on it. Have you seen our proposal video Brady? I have not but I think I've seen allusions to it. Was it like

sci-fi themed or something? Yeah. Oh, I like it already. I'm a little hesitant to tell the story because I don't want to make you feel bad. Let's start on a high and work our way down. You know, it was a very humble proposal in the sense that we did it in grandma's backyard. We were living with Amanda's grandmother, her Oma, at the time. And I had been thinking for a while, you know, how and where am I going to do this proposal? We spend almost 24

hours a day together. So I had very little time away from Amanda to even plan this. And at the time, she was working on this video series for Vice and Facebook called The Scarlet Letter Reports, where she would interview other women who'd gone through the public shaming ringer and produce these videos about it. shaming ringer, and produce these videos about it. And so she was off on the other side of the country for a few days recording one of these episodes. And I had this little window and I was like, okay, I've got three days to plan and execute this. Well, I think execute because planning you had been doing for a year. I had been secretly planning for a year here and there. Yes.

Waiting for the right girl to come along to execute your perfect plan. Yeah. It's like, if only I could meet someone. You know, it's funny. I did not have a plan prior to Amanda. We'd been together, I don't know, a year and a half or two years or something. But I had this vision of a crazy sci-fi proposal

and I knew she would be totally into it. And I had started building props. I started writing a script. I had this whole, it was like an episode of Doctor Who, right? And this whole thing kind of laid out. But to actually get my props in place and figure out and rehearse and, you know, figure out my timing. You know, I've got to trigger the music, all this stuff. Right. I had I had two days to get that in the craft room me hemming this wizard cloak,

Chris gets out his phone. He's like, hey, I really want to show my mom what you're working on with this wizard cloak. So he starts the video and I'm showing him like, okay, well, here's how I'm hemming it. And all of a sudden out of nowhere, this like high pitched whistling sound like comes in and it's very loud what is that and it sounds like a missile has been like is whistling through the air. And the first thought that I had was, oh, my God, North Korea

is bombing us. So there's that. And then and all of a sudden I hear this big crashing sound. I'm not dead. And Chris goes, oh, my God, oh, my God. kind of extravagant guy, as you may have gotten a hint. So I just didn't know if he was just playing. Like maybe we're having a fun activity in the evening. A scavenger hunt. A scavenger hunt. Who knows what's going on? So I'm like, what's going on? And he's like, I don't know. I don't know. Weering crater in the backyard. Just like, so it's, again, this is like evening, so it's in November. It's dark. It's like 6 p.m. or so.

Yeah, it's like, it's twilight-ish time, so it's dark-ish. And this smoking crater is glowing. It's got this like eerie, iridescent glow coming from it. And I'm just like, oh, my God, what is going on? He's like, oh, my God. Are you thinking this is definitely Chris or are you starting to waver and think, is this for real? Well, I didn't think that it was a real meteorite, but I had no idea why this was happening.

And you can see from the video, like my face is just like, what? And I'm also a terrible actor. So I'm like, I have no idea what's happening. What the? What is happening right now? So we descend into the backyard and I approach this smoldering meteorite that's glowing. And inside is this like slab of crystal. And there are glowing letters inscribed into this slab of crystal. And he's like, oh, my God, what? That's so crazy. What is that? And so I reach in and I pull it out and it's a fragment of the Encyclopedia Galactica. That's what it says. It's it's like an entry of the Encyclopedia Galactica. That's a fragment that somehow Yeah, picture you know how like the Rosetta Stone is

like a, you know, partially carved off little piece of old text. Like it's a piece of like flat crystal, kind of blue green crystal. It's labradorite that has been engraved with an Encyclopedia entry from the Encyclopedia

Galactica. That's like partially broken off. And it's like a it's a shard of this like, you know. It's cold. What does it say? So I start reading this fragment and it's describing this incredible life together that these two people have. And it's almost like a Wikipedia entry of this like beautiful love and romance experience that these people have over the course of their lives and it happens to be about us and i'm

reading this aloud and chris is like oh my gosh wow that's that must be from the future which means that like i've been thinking about this but does that mean that I propose to you now? And I'm like, are you proposing to me right now? How can you propose at a time like this? So he's like, yes. And he's like, will you marry me? And I'm like, yeah, duh. Did he get down on one knee? did he did he did and um and it was right weirdly like somehow the et music was so perfectly weirdly timed because as soon as he

did like and i said yes the music swelled and and uh then there's a lot of kissing there's a little bit too much kissing and then and then it's the end of the video. More kissing than in E.T., but presumably. So the back story is, you know, about a year prior, I had started experimenting with these slabs of labradorite crystal and whether they would take engraving or not. And I had written this, you know, future Wikipedia article about the Knox-Robinson coalescence, the sort of the union of the two of us and what we did in our lives. Right. And then I excerpted that on this fragmentary shard of this encyclopedia thing and had it engraved and etched in all the lines with a sort of UV ink that would glow under black light. Um, and then I had to build a fake meteorite out of chicken wire and insulation foam, you know, great stuff, the insulation foam.

And then I had to carve and sculpt that with a Dremel and paint it to look like a – it was very lightweight, but it looked like a chunk of, you know, iron alloy from the outer reaches. Help me here with the size. Like when Amanda was telling the story, I'm picturing something that's about three or four meters wide. Yeah, I would say the meteorite was about the size of like a child's car seat. Oh, okay. Three and a half feet, something like that, right? It wasn't a dinosaur killer.

No. No, I was picturing something that a car could fit inside, and then you walked into it to pick up this. Yeah. Okay. That would have been epic. In fact, a little bit the shape of an infant car seat. It kind of had a little indented sort of crater in it,

and nestled in that indentation was this data crystal and so simultaneously that is you are really blurring the lines between romantic and nerdy i don't know quite know which side you're following i have to watch the video before i decide yes was this for her or was this for you really i mean well see that's the beauty of it is for both of us yeah Yeah, exactly. Amanda's there like saying, yes, yes, I love you. And Chris is like, no, look at the meteorite. Look at what I made.

I got my brother to help me rehearse this and to do the setup. So I had to dig a hole in Oma's backyard, which I don't know if I asked her about that, but I dug a pit and then I had to bury a tube that ran, you know, 15 feet away where I hid the fog machine so that the fog machine could pump fog into the tube, come underneath the bottom of the hole where the meteorite is. And then I had to hide some big powerful UV black lights in the trees pointed down at the meteorite so that the UV paint would glow and illuminate this thing. Where do you keep that encyclopedia fragment? Is that on the mantelpiece at home? Actually, yeah. I still have the meteorite, which serves as the sort of sitting spot for this little data fragment thing. And we also built. Yeah, I built a special little stand for it, too, that the meteorite crystal could live in afterwards.

One coda to this real quick is that I did actually use music from the E.T. score, like some final song, and I had timed it and queued it up. from the ET score or like some final song and I had timed it and queued it up. So like, as after that missile crash sound, which I had played on all the speakers in the house really loud, then we're like, what the, you know, wow, what's happening. Right. We creep out to the backyard. As soon as Amanda, like peeks her head out of the backyard is that's when the music started up. It was perfect timing, the swelling crescendo, right? Perfect. And that music was playing like in real life as this was happening. But when we put it on YouTube later, YouTube detects the music and thinks that I've added John Williams, whatever, you know, score from ET.

So now Lucasfilm or Disney or whatever has monetized that video and they're they're raking in the the money for any time you watch that that's that's the game man that's the game you should have had something composed specifically i know i know well tim there's no way i'm following that one. You have to follow that one. Well, I will. I just love the idea that nine months later another baby car seat shaped thing crashed into the backyard except this time there was a baby in it. And I'm just like, wow, we have a baby. This is amazing. Look, mine is much less nerdish and far more pathetic in a way.

I had a vision and then there was the reality. I think there is a sincerity in it though, that I'm still reasonably proud of. My wife, now wife, and I broke up several times when we were dating and largely it was due to my insecurity and inability to commit and, you know, self-indulged adolescent wondering about, you know, whether this was the right time and the right person and all that sort of stuff which in retrospect i think back on and think my goodness i i came so close to missing out on the best thing that's ever happened to me you know what i mean like what a fool but we broke up a few times and uh when when we got back together, like we had actually in one sense had a big summit conversation about, no, this is really, really the end.

You know what I mean? And we said we won't contact each other for several months now. This is the end. We're turning off the tap. That's the sort of, you know, line we used. And that was like the end of two months of sort of heartbreak conversation. But it was over and there was something liberating about having made the decision, you know what I mean, not to sort of just meander along, but to end it. But then three days later, coincidentally, we bumped

into each other, like totally unexpectedly. And we just got chatting. And I suddenly on the spur of the moment just said, look, can I talk to you outside for a minute? And she said, okay. So we went outside, we sat down and I said to her, look, I just want to apologize for what a pathetic boyfriend I've been for the last year. And I'm just really sorry about that. And I've just, you know, you're a wonderful person. I've learned a lot from you and I just want to apologize. But if you'd like to get married, let's get married.

I really love you and I really think we should be together and so let's get back together and get married. That's beautiful. That is so beautiful. Actually, that's not pathetic at all. That shows an incredible amount of maturity and courage and impulsiveness. I always thought that would be the best way to do it long before I came up with this nerd idea. My thought was always in this abstract sense that the best time to propose to someone

would be right after a big fight or even better after you'd broken up because if they say yes, then you know, they mean it, you know, it's, it's not saying yes in the height of the, of early romantic ecstasy or something, right. It's, it's after saying I'm a pathetic loser and I'm sorry. That's right. I added loser in there, didn't I? That's right I added loser in there, didn't I? No, you got it So it was a bit pathetic And I look back and I feel pathetic

About the way I behaved But it was like a moment of clarity It was a moment of, my goodness me Of course, of course This is ridiculous What did she say when you said that? She was very wise. She was much more mature than me.

And she said. Imagine my shock. I need to go. She said, oh, I've been building this massive crater in the backyard of your grandma's. No, she said, I need to go away and think about this. And so she did. And she called me the next day, which I thought was rather anticlimactic, to be honest. She said, I need to go away and think about this. And so she did. And she called me the next day, which I thought was rather anticlimactic, to be honest.

But she went away. In retrospect now, 20 years later, she says, in that moment, I knew, yes, we're getting married. But, you know, she was more wise. And so she went away. And the next day she called me and she said, I've decided, yes, let's be together. How about next Tuesday? And she said, I've decided, yes, let's be together. How about next Tuesday? And I went, oh, sorry, I'm just sort of, you know, seeing a movie that night and then I'm going to go to a concert.

Dentist man, yeah. Yeah, I just need to spend some alone time and, you know, kind of catch up with Brady. See, now that's kind of romantic too. Now I'm even more set up for a fall with mine. Oh, yeah, Big expectations on you. Because we've done both the big spectacular one and the sort of no props, sincere one.

The one from the heart. Yeah. I've got neither. I have got the fight though because we were, I mean, I think we were at a point where we knew we wanted to get married and Kylie was waiting for the proposal. I think she knew it was coming. And we went to this incredible balloon festival in Switzerland, in the Swiss Alps.

And we even went on a hot air balloon flight. It was the most amazing thing. And I thought she thought it was coming then. But I don't like being predictable and I don't like people to know it's coming. So, I didn't propose then. And then we came to Christmas and we were going back to her family's house for Christmas. And she really loves her family a lot. So what I wanted to do was drive to her family's house, park in the driveway at the front of the house, propose, and then within a minute walk into the house.

We're all still exciting and walk into the house with it all still exciting and walk into the house with a flush of happiness. We've just gotten engaged and everyone will be really happy and it is a really exciting moment. Guess what just happened a second ago and we've just come to see you and hearts would still be beating and the happiness. So this was how it was in my head. You're verging close to Jumbotron territory.

Yes, yes. Family version. How many cameras had you set up, Brady? Like, slow motion. But I also knew she would want me to have asked her father's permission. So, I phoned him up, I think that morning, and said, this is what I plan to do. Would it be a, you know, do I have your blessing to ask to marry her? And he was very happy he said yes

yes of course and then proceeded to want to talk to me for ages about the directions i was taking to that house because that's all english men like to talk about but he gave me the blessing but i said but but but her mum is like a is you know a bit of a blabbermouth so i didn't i said to him you mustn't tell the mum or anyone else in the family because I want it to be a surprise and, you know, and he said, no problems. But I wasn't entirely sure he would do that. So, I didn't want to park in the driveway right outside the house because I was worried that Kylie's mum would come out and like ruin it by being all happy. So, when we got to the house, I parked a couple of houses down from their house Pulled over and Carly's like, what are you doing?

Why aren't you parking in the driveway? There's a space in the driveway And I said, I want to park here We've got all the stuff in the back, we've got to carry it to the house And I'm like, I want to park here, can you just let me park here? And we ended up having this domestic dispute in the car About where I was parking the car And I said, look, I'm parking here, alright?

I'm not parking And she said, what's going on? This is stupid, you'd never park here And I said, look, I'm parking here, all right? I'm not parking. And she's, what's going on? This is stupid. You never park here. I said, look, just let me say something, all right? And then I put out a ring and said, look, I want to get married. I've got you this ring and stuff. And she's like, she just looked at it and she said, you're proposing to me in the car.

I was like, yeah, I guess I am. You were on a hot air balloon earlier, you idiot. It was romantic in my head, but it was very unromantic when it happened. And you're like, but you didn't see it coming. Yeah, exactly. So I achieved what I wanted to achieve. And she was happy and cried and was happy, and we went inside, and it was nice.

But I've never, ever heard the end of it. Like, whenever this famous conversation about proposals comes up I just like sink into my seat I know what's coming I could totally hear her voice being like you're proposing to me in the car what is wrong with you oh my god this is such a great idea for a podcast that I'm a little bit surprised that it doesn't exist yet, which a little bit does. And I'm just wondering, like, have you guys ever after making the, you know, making up a podcast gone out to find out if the podcast actually exists? Some have subsequently been made. We have made some of our ideas.

Yeah, this one is good. I kind of feel like this should be a podcast. Yeah, this is a great- Let me throw a few other things out there about it. You could talk about classic proposals from movies, and I went through a few of my favorites. Pride and Prejudice, Coming to America on the Subway with Eddie Murphy, Love Actually where Colin Firth goes to Aurelia and proposes in the restaurant. That is sweet.

That gets me every time. It's not my favourite, but Pretty Woman's a pretty classic one in the limo when he pulls up at the limo and climbs up the side of the fire escape and that. So, you've got all of that to work with. You've got traditions around proposals. February 29, the day that women are allowed to propose. Oh, wait, really? That's a tradition in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and Finland as well.

That's our wedding anniversary. Oh, right. Well, that is the day that women are supposedly allowed to propose. Huh, interesting. Obviously, they propose at other times. Whenever they want. 5% of American proposals are now made by women, apparently. Huh.

So, you've got all sorts of other stuff to talk about could you also talk about like prom put like asking someone to the prom if you wanted to invite like a younger crowd into the conversation spin off podcast yeah well yeah because i remember specifically some insane insanely imaginative ways that people have asked people to prom and then there are some obscenely lame ways that people have asked people to prom. You did it in the car. You did it in the car. Look, to be fair to Brady, not all of his marriage proposals have been that underwhelming. So he's lucky he got a yes for that one.

So he's lucky he got a yes for that one. All right, then. So it's time for our guests to propose their own podcast. Amanda, shall you go first? What idea for a podcast are you going to put before us today? I would like to propose the How to Grow podcast, which invites guests to discuss how to grow something, whether that be mushrooms or your bank account or yourself after you've undergone some incredible experience and you've gone through a lot of personal growth. I think that the concept of growth is something that is always evergreen and people want to know more about.

And it also gives the people the opportunity to talk about some really creative ways of reaching your goals, whether it be, again, growing mushrooms or getting over yourself. So I think it's broad enough, but also focused enough. This is a good idea. I like the idea of combining a whole range of different growth things because a personal growth, I mean, you know, it's a whole industry, isn't it, about personal growth and some's trivial and some's really, really helpful. But I like the idea that then the next week's episode's about growing tomatoes and then the week after, like combining them all together is the trick here. That's fantastic.

Going to the gym and getting jacked. Yeah, growing your muscles. Yeah. And a lot of times all of these concepts are also intertwined because if you're like, I remember there was a period of Chris's life when he was growing tomatoes. And he was also in that period of time of his life going through a lot of personal growth because he had gotten out of a really important relationship to him. And he almost was like growing these tomatoes as like a latch or a last ditch effort to like

feel alive. And so like, it's interesting the way that we have relationships with growth that cross those kinds of boundaries and how we attempt to manifest things about ourselves through through growing other things and it could be the same thing of like oh i want to get in shape i want to grow my muscles but that's also because i'm trying to grow my self-confidence. So I like the idea of how that starts a conversation that's more than just a how-to conversation. I can imagine over months and months and years of this podcast, you'd start to see those strange themes developing, connections you may never have thought existed. Oh, there is a real connection between growing tomatoes and trying to get Twitter followers. existed. Oh, there is a real connection between growing tomatoes and, yeah, trying to get Twitter followers. Things like that. Yeah. There is an old saying I've heard that a woman who changes

her hair is about to change her life. And the slow opposite of that is, you know, someone who's about to grow something in the midst of their life, grow their hair or, you know, grow their garden is embarking on a new or is is psychologically compensating for the steel, the metal they need to grow another part of their life or face the growth of something else. Let me tell you about those tomatoes though, because- Oh yeah. That's all I want to hear about, to be honest.

Yeah, right? So I'm not a natural green thumb. I don't have a long history with gardening or anything like that. But I was dating this girl. We were madly in love for a time. And she got me into starting a garden one year. I had a small balcony in my apartment and I got a few pots out there and I grew a variety of things. I grew some kale and some arugula and some peppers. But the pride and joy was the tomato plants. And I had three or four tomato plants.

I had a cherry tomato. I had a nice big heirloom tomato plant, another variety, I forget. And I had been laboring on these things since the early spring from seedlings, right? Doing quite well for a first timer on these. But as we got into the early summer, the relationship dissolved. And it had been a little while coming, but I had to go travel for,

I was working on my next novel. I went to Detroit for a little while to do a research trip. And she kind of broke up with me while I was gone. It had been like very close to the splitting point before then, but she ended up sort of moving all her things out of my apartment while I was gone. And I came back and I was just crushed and devastated. And my roommate had been sort of, you know, I had been checking in with him while I was gone on the tomato plants. Hey, did you water them today? Oh, you got to make sure there could be aphids. You got to check, you know, I had become invested in these plants for months and months, right? And so I come home, the girl has left. I'm crushed. I'm feeling just really, really is the lowest I've felt in a long time. But at least I have these tomato plants that I've been nurturing

and they're just, they're getting big now, right? They're not quite ripe, but some of these heirloom tomatoes are the size of your fist. You know, they're nice and plump looking. And I'm like, that is an excellent looking tomato. Now I'm on the third story of this apartment building. And on the outside of my balcony is a sheer drop down to the parking garage below. And it's quite a drop for a tomato, not one you'd want to make. And, you know, as I'm depressed now and I can barely get out of bed and it's like a Shakespearean play where the weather mimics the psychological state of the characters. So like a dark storm front rolls in and suddenly we're getting 30

mile an hour winds, 40 mile an hour winds over this one weekend in Seattle. This is in, you know, this is three weeks, four weeks, maybe before prime harvesting season. This is in July, right? And it's very unusual to get a weather like that in Seattle at that time. And so I'm so worried about these tomatoes. I'm struggling myself to like get out of bed in the mornings. I'm just so low. I'm barely getting out to water the plants, you know. But this windstorm rips through and all of a sudden I have purpose.

And I'm getting out there in my underwear in the middle of the rainstorm. The wind is thrashing my plants about. I'm getting all these extra ties and I'm lashing them to the, you know, edges of the of the balcony to try and stabilize the plants. Extra bamboo skewers, you know, trying anything I can to keep these plants secure. I do my best, but the wind thrashes them in the night and rips a good three quarters of the tomatoes off the plant. They drop three stories down to the cement below. And I'm just. They looked like big, strong hands. I know.

And I'm just crushed. And I was just crushed and I was so crushed. But that rainstorm, that windstorm got me out of bed at a time when I could not get out of bed to try and save those plants, which I had planted with this girl and I had started growing. They sort of symbolized the relationship for me in this way. And so I was in a way I was also holding on to the relationship. You had to let go of the tomatoes. Yeah. on to the relationship. You had to let go of the tomatoes.

Yeah. And what I did was I salvaged those fallen tomatoes and I cut them up and I made fried green tomatoes. Some of them were still unripe enough that they survived the fall without too much bruising because they hadn't ripened. You went down and retrieved the tomatoes. I retrieved the tomatoes and I ate them. This is getting close. This is like a true crime podcast now.

I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable about this. I don't know if that's the end I wanted. I kind of wanted you to never see them again. I don't know. I'm sure there's meaning to the fact you ate them. It was a metaphor that they were crushed and so his heart was crushed. And also he consumed them in a way that he wasn't anticipating, like he was anticipating that they would ripen and become fruition.

So just like that relationship came to be part of him, he had to consume and bring that relationship into himself and accept it for what it was and not what he hoped it would be. So I don't know. I like it as a metaphor. You guys are imbuing a lot of meaning into the fact the wind just blew the tomatoes off the balcony. I like the idea of you down there in the wind.

Did you have a moment when you sort of shook your fist at the wind, at the sky? Like, you know what I mean? That sort of moment. Come on, you tempest. What are you doing? You'll not get me yet. Come at me. It's your idea. I just think this is a typical guy situation that it doesn't matter the context of what's happened to the food, what meaning it has, where it is.

If it falls on the floor, you can still eat it. Tim, is there anything you're good at growing? I'm not sure. My hair grows quickly. My stomach seems to grow quickly. I love all these things that you have no control over. Although, you know what? Question for the group.

I've always thought this would be a very interesting superpower. What if you could control your hair growth at will, in and out? Oh, wow. Right? Imagine what you could do with that. I mean, you would just be able to alter your appearance. Would it save 50 bucks a month on a hairdresser? That's about all. That is a pointless superpower. Well, and this is a different podcast, but it's the Pointless Superpowers podcast,

which we can get to that later. I love that. I would love that podcast. That's like the superpower where you can turn invisible when no one else is around. Exactly. Right, right. But, you know, you could grow it out 30 feet if you wanted to.

There's things you can do with that. Save yourself from a falling building. You could do that, or you could enter those, like, beard-growing competitions and always win and make a lot of, I don't know if they win actual money, but have you seen those, like? Sell the hair to people that make wigs? Yes, actually. Although your hair is kind of, your beard hair is not known for its wig quality, is it? No, it's kind of coarse.

You're talking about all hair, aren't you? Not just your beard. Oh, yeah. You actually could also do, yeah, all of your body hair you would be able to grow. So that's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. You know what?

You could be the cure for alopecia for a lot of people. Yeah. See? Medical miracle, right? Look, I'm still saying that's a lame superpower. But what made you think of that uh well because i was specifically trying to come up with a superpower that wouldn't be very useful but that the game then becomes how could i make this useful like if you were blessed of all the superpowers you could have with this strange sort of innocuous not very cool ability there's

gotta how do you rob a bank with it how do you become a villain how do you become a hero if that's your power chris did you once have a bad breakup with a girl who was a hairdresser like yeah what about what about you amanda what can you grow uh what can i grow um or have you got a touching story about some lavender and an ex-boyfriend? No, I'm really bad at growing plants. I'm actually astonishingly bad at it. Am I good at growing anything? Well, I mean, you could talk about post-traumatic growth. Yeah, yeah.

I feel like that's the one thing that I have a lot of both experience in and I just learned a lot about over the years. And now I, I mean, I help people. This is not like a, I'm not professional or a counselor or anything, but I very frequently am contacted by people who want some kind of insight about how they can in the present moment survive a crisis of whatever kind it may be. But also the main reason why they reach out to me is they're like, wow, you're such a great example of post-traumatic growth. Like you don't let this horrible experience that you went through consume you and continue to victimize you after the fact and so i've had a i've given a lot of thought to how to do that when and how i feel like i succeed or fail at doing that because it's it's an ongoing post-traumatic growth is not just a thing you do or it did it's a thing

you constantly do and what i can convey to people to put them on their own like to start them on their own journey of post-traumatic growth and i think one of the biggest things that if we're using like metaphors um the biggest like fertilizer that you want to begin with is like never thinking that it's too late to have post-traumatic growth. I think a lot of people feel a lot of shame for how they have already reacted to a traumatic situation. And they sort of almost feel like they have to dig into their dig into their shame as opposed to think of that. Think of that shame and how they have been upset with themselves for responding to a crisis situation as also part of that crisis. And instead like saying, OK, that's all like that's all fertilizer from which you can grow. So like plant plant your feet on the fact that like you can go up.

There's nowhere but up to go unless you're a tuber, unless you're a tuber. And then you just kind of fester in the internet But even that could be a thing like sometimes, you know Like there's a thing where you break up with somebody and you need to listen to sad songs for a while And I think also a lot of people think that post-traumatic growth only looks like being positive and optimistic about the world and that's not necessarily the case because Sometimes you're an ugly potato. Well, sometimes you need to accept how you are and what you feel and you need to feel your feelings.

I think that's the other thing is it's like if you want to grow, you can't, you know, deny the feelings that are there. And those feelings are not comfortable. It's not comfortable to be angry and it's not comfortable to be sad. But you have to like look at them and be aware of them if you ever hope to move past them. It's serious stuff and stuff that's very hard to make a joke about. I've noticed you two quipsters are rather quiet. Rather quiet. It is important stuff. And getting inside, getting inside it is important and getting help to move.

In some ways, it's the most important thing because an event in someone's life can put a lid on their growth at that point. And you know what I mean? And they miss out on a lot of wholeness and health and recovery. Grief is another aspect of that. You just got to walk the journey and huge amounts of growth through periods of suffering and through illness, something like a trauma, but all sorts of events like that. I think this podcast could explore opening that up a little bit, you know what I mean?

And going, okay, so what are the steps? There's lots of psychological understanding about these things now and how does growth come through those things? understanding about these things now and how does growth come through those things? Let's move on to an idea from Chris. Chris. All right. What do you got? I have to have an idea now, huh? Well, are we not going to do that? Now you start thinking of it. You went to the Tim Hines school of preparation for the Unmade Podcast, obviously.

Can I just say, after Amanda's phenomenal idea, there's a lot of pressure. Can I just say after Amanda's phenomenal idea, there's a lot of pressure. Well, I kind of want to go into the conspiracy territory because we watched this documentary the other day called The Phenomenon 2020 documentary about UFOs and aliens. And I am a I'm a devoted skeptic of basically all things. Amanda and I even have a tattoo that we both share, which is the symbol from electrical engineering for the resistor, which restricts the flow of current through a circuit. And for us, that is a symbol that represents intellectual skepticism, that whatever information comes our way, I don't want to act as a conduit to pass that on without applying my filter and making sure that, hey, do I really believe this? Is this true? I don't want to be a purveyor or

another link in the chain of disinformation, which is a very serious problem for society and democracy these days, right? So I tend to apply that scientific skepticism filter to things. But I think I maybe believe that UFOs and aliens have visited Earth now after watching this documentary. I know, right? And it sounds crazy, but there's a lot of compelling evidence. I don't necessarily want to spend time talking about aliens necessarily. But one thing we know for sure is that our governments, the powerful governments of the world, have lied to us countless times. And they have no compunctions about doing so. Like the drug war even is a great example here in the U.S. So there are very real examples.

I mean, look at Nixon. Look at Watergate. Look at, you know, what things that happened in Vietnam here, right? There are plenty of examples and they're open questions still, like what happened with the assassination of John Kennedy, right? I do not think it's unreasonable that there was a conspiracy to kill the president that involved more people than Lee Harvey Oswald as a lone gunman. So I want to know what conspiracy theories out there do you either actually believe in or do you kind of want to believe in even if they're probably not true? And that might actually be the more fun one. That's sort of like when I'm feeling sort of whimsical, I sort of wish the Loch Ness Monster existed.

Oh, I would love that to be real. Especially if it was like friendly, you know, like the friendly Loch Ness Monster. Like that big green cuddly one. Yeah, the one that like kids can ride on its back, you know. I do love the notion of the conspiracy theory i hope is true yeah like and having quite skeptical people on i do like yeah like and not saying that it is true just being like wouldn't it be fun if this was true also i think you can look again to the historical parts of this because

like there was the conspiracy theory that the earth wasn't the center of the universe after all and we revolved or the Earth revolved around the sun. And that was considered. You're calling Galileo a conspiracy theorist? I am. I am. I mean, he's called a heretic, but what's the difference? So, like, I think that's an interesting. Well, it's a conspiracy. There has to be multiple people who are suppressing the truth in some way.

I think that the church. Well, that was the Catholic church. That was the inquisition, yes. It's interesting. There is a difference, though, between people. Someone who has an insight that goes beyond what we've known before and shares it, that's a little bit different to thinking, I have a wild theory and I have no proof, but I think it might be true or I would like it to be true. The one for me is the moon landing, but I still,

of course I believe the moon landing happened. You want the moon landing to have been a hoax? Is that what you're saying? I just think. He's winding me up. I am winding up Brady up a little bit, but I do think it does seem ridiculous. I mean, I still find every time I get on a plane, I go, I'm not really sure. Could we really be flying?

Flight's not really. Do we really fly? Are we sure planes? Like in my office here, I look out at planes arriving into the airport not far away. And every time I see a plane, I go, oh, yes, no, we can do it. It is. That's just incredible. That's just amazing.

Come on, Tim. You think the moon landing didn't happen? Of course, I think it did happen. I think it seems like the kind of thing that it seems amazing that we could. I'm of the generation that it feels like doing things like in the 80s, we had really basic computer games, which means in the 70s, they weren't really computer games. So the idea that we went to the moon in the 60s just feels ridiculous.

It feels like another century. But that's entirely, of course, what do they call it, chronological snobbery and my naivety about science. But it doesn't intuitively feel like something we could do and have done all the way back then, you know, because people say things like, oh, there's more technology in your, you know, desktop calculator than there was in the spaceship that went to the moon.

I'm like, that's ridiculous. Then how did we go to the moon? That's just ridiculous. How come my calculator can't fly to the moon? It definitely is the kind of thing that a government would lie to you about. Just because they're in the midst of this political thing in the world where everyone was competing with each other to show off their their technology and be like oh this is my muscle here's that you know so like it would it would seem that there were incentive structures to achieve this thing but also if you didn't

achieve it to fake it if you did so there is that you know what i once wrote? I forgot about this. I wrote a short story a while ago about a truck driver who once delivered a big semi-trailer truckload of volcanic ash to a soundstage in Arizona in 1968, late 1968. 1968, and realized he had to go onto the secure military base, saw other truck drivers there who were delivering, you know, lighting equipment and all this stuff, and then came to realize that he had inadvertently participated in faking the moon landing, and then subsequently was visited by some government agents who helped provide money for his son's, you know, crazy medical ailment that he had money for his son's crazy medical ailment that he had and told him to keep quiet. And so he's now convinced that 10 years later, it's 1979, and it's the 10-year anniversary of the moon landing. He's now got a 10-year-old boy who survived because of this crazy medical intervention. And he's a firm believer that the moon landing has been faked, but his son now wants to be an astronaut. And his son also loves Tang and just drinks Tang whenever he can get it.

But this truck driver, Clint, is just furious that doesn't want Tang in the house and hates that his son is idolizing these astronauts. It's all fake. story about his emotional crisis dealing with his son's love of space travel and his own conviction that he inadvertently participated in faking the very thing that his son is obsessed with i think one that still still i actually found myself wikipedia and going down a wikipedia hole of this this the other day is the bermuda triangle that really got that really got me as a kid. Is it real? No. It's also massive. I always imagined it was this tiny, like, area the size of a football field and you just had to avoid it because you flew over it.

But it's like this massive area of ocean, like, covers like half the land. Just like quicksand, it's one of those things that, as a kid, you thought you'd have to avoid more than you actually do. And you realize how i've flown through the buda triangle multiple times like yeah yeah i remember reading something about how the if if it were real the the real life interpretation is there's something about ocean currents or wind patterns in that particular region that make it more likely for there to be surprisingly unexpected, you know, waves or something that might be a sort of nautical danger to boats and more or to planes.

I don't know. I like it. I like the Bermuda Triangle and the Loch Ness Monster. I'm totally on board for the Loch Ness Monster being found. That would be awesome. Drain the lock. That's what I say. Drain the lock. Let's find out. Drain the lock. I'm i say drain the lock let's find out drain the lock i'm gonna i'm gonna run for scottish parliament on the premise of drain the lock let's find out before we finish there are two podcasts that must be mentioned we've already mentioned labyrinths if you have not heard of this yet or listen to it this is and you and you like the sound of amanda and chris cut their jib and you want to hear more from them and all sorts of explorations they go on interviews it's an excellent podcast to listen to there will be links all in the notes and in all

the usual places it's quite easy to find if you search for it on you know podcast apps and stuff like that but the one i want you to search for more importantly at the moment, because we've just started it, is Younglings. Chris and Amanda have a little girl. Kylie and I have a little boy. And we're having all sorts of adventures on opposite sides of the planet as we explore this new world. So we've decided to have occasional conversations about it.

We've recorded a few that we're going to be putting on. And if you guys like it, we might record some more. Tim, did you have a listen? I did, yeah. Did you leave us a good review? No. Not yet. No.

Look, I enjoyed it. Look, it was an interesting perspective because I'm out of that baby boot camp time, right? My girls are teenagers now, and it is a different zone of life but it did feel like a boot camp and I was having flashbacks listening to you guys. But it's such an incredible time of life and one of the great things about our phone devices, even though I find them frustrating in many ways, is the way that photos pop back.

And the photos from that era, the early childhood era, caused me to pause all the time because it's a marvellous time of life of no sleep, total exhaustion, and then absolute joy and wonder. In some ways, it is kind of the best time of your life in a way. There's so many new discoveries. You're doing something meaningful, but it demands so much of you. There's so many new discoveries. You're doing something meaningful, but it demands so much of you. It's so repetitive, and yet it's also probably the most important thing you ever do if you do it. And it's a wonderful area of life. And hearing you guys talk about it in a realistic and unpretentious –

it is a time, I think, where you get real. There's no time for pretension in this. I also think all that stuff gets forgotten too. Like all the parents I speak to, like they don't tell me all this stuff that I'm experiencing. So I feel like maybe we're saying a little bit of it now and documenting it in real time. Yeah, well, also just for us to remember it because, again,

I think like Tim said, it's such a blur. Like you're so consumed by it that it becomes a blur. And I've often thought like I've listened back to our conversations and been like, oh, yeah, that was awesome. And now like I'm thinking, oh, yeah, I want to bring up the fact that like now I'm thinking about how Eureka a week ago did not know how to jump with two feet. And like now that she's just doing it nonstop and she just learned to wipe her own nose. And it's like, that's a real cognitive leap that just happened there. And it wasn't happening last week. That's going to be a game changer, nose wiping.

I can't wait till the nose wiping comes on board. It's epic. Like the fact that like we just give her a handkerchief and she does it on her own, like not well yet, but she does it on her own is like game changer. It's amazing. Baby nostrils are so hard to... Nothing fits in them. You have to like suck it out weirdly.

Anyway, to hear more of such things Younglings.fm There'll also be a link in the notes along with the Labyrinth stuff Go and check us out Younglings The way we're doing it so far normally is Kylie and Amanda The wives have a chat for Well the mothers have a chat for

What am I? 15 minutes or so Yeah 15-20 minutes And then Chris and I as the fathers have a chat for, what am I, 15 minutes or so? Yeah, 15, 20 minutes. And then Chris and I as the fathers have a chat. We don't know what the others are talking about and then all four of us get together for a group chat. And that's been quite fun, quite a fun format so far. So we're playing around with that. We might mix things up a bit, get a few guests on,

maybe change the order of things. But go and have a listen and see what you think. Subscribe and press all those buttons and do all the things that you're supposed to do that make podcasts successful, please. Thank you. So we can make more of them. Can I ask you guys a question? Does it go through your mind at all while you're recording this that my child or children

will one day listen back to this? This will exist out there on the internet and in 10, 15, 20 years, they day listen back to this. This will exist out there on the internet. And in 10, 15, 20 years, they'll listen back. Does that go through your mind? Does that change what you say at all? It doesn't change it for me, but I do think about that. And I really, I mean, I wish that I had that for my parents, honestly, to see what it was like for them to be thinking. Like, I think that's the more interesting thing that Eureka or, you know, all of our kids growing up are going to find out

is like, it's not so much the content necessarily. It's more like, how were our parents experiencing this time of our life? And I think also genuine curiosity about hearing about themselves because we're all narcissistic that way and enjoy that. I mean, I have the opposite instinct here, which is that she's probably never going to listen to this.

Just because, I mean, I haven't made the time to go and consume everything my own parents have produced in their lives. They're not, my dad did a bit of journalism and he's written articles and things. I certainly haven't read every article he's done. He took a bunch of photographs. He's a photographer for a while. I haven't looked at all his photographs. And by comparison, I have produced a lot more artistic material of various kinds, whether it's poems or stories or novels or short films or, short films or the podcasts. Like I make stuff. I'm a maker. And I've been putting out various kinds of content for a long time. And it would take Eureka ages to consume it all. And it's not as good as Mark Twain, you know, or, right? There's plenty

of other stuff that I'd rather have her read than my middling, you know, prose. read what her other students' friends said to her in their yearbooks. I just wanted to know and I couldn't get my hands on enough. And maybe it's just because I didn't have a ton of material to work with. Everything felt special. I also think it would be different when you die. Like if you died tomorrow, I think that stuff would suddenly become very precious. Yes. What do you think about that, Tim? I think that's right.

I think you go through phases where suddenly you become consumed with interest. And it's probably got to do with your own growth, a moment of growth. And to understand yourself, you need to understand your parents a bit. And so you go looking at your parents and understanding them and finding out about them, I guess, especially after they die, but hopefully before, because it might provide a clue to why they did what they did and why I am the way I am, and that helps me grow and reconcile things and move forward. Yeah.

Yeah, I disagree with you, Chris. I think your stuff will become precious to her. You think so? There's a lot of it. Not at the time you want. Yeah. It might be too late for your liking or indulgence, but I think, you know, reading poems written by her father

will be very special to her one day. If only you'd saved a tomato. Well. If only there'd been one. They're all gone. Amanda and Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show. I hope you enjoyed it. Yeah, this has been fun.

I hope you enjoyed the Unmade podcast. Labyrinths and Younglings are the two other podcasts I hope people might go and have a look at. Tim, you don't have any other podcasts just at the moment, so sorry I can't plug anything for you, but is there anything you want to promote? Well, a bunch of my sermons are now, like, podcasted up from Melbourne Uniting Church. Oh, okay. That's one thing I'd love the girls. We'll link bunch of my sermons are now podcasted up from Malvern Uniting Church. Oh, okay.

That's one thing I'd love the girls... We'll link to Tim's sermons. It's not quite the same thing. It is something that I would love the kids to go and explore, but they probably won't. Alright, well I'll link to some of Tim's sermons in the notes as well after all this gratuitous promotion of our podcast. It's the least I can say. And if the proposal podcast ever gets us spun up into a real thing or if the growth one, you know, I'm all in. Yeah. This is good.

This is so good when we have people on. I like them, particularly these people, Brady. Yeah, we have these fresh ideas. Normally this podcast is just Tim and I talking about KFC for 90 minutes. That's right. fresh ideas. Normally this podcast is just Tim and I talking about KFC for 90 minutes. Just eating KFC and talking about it. We do love KFC. You know, they changed. Did you tell me this, that they changed the name from Kentucky Fried

Chicken to KFC? Yeah. Wait, it's not even Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore? No, because they're not legally allowed to call it chicken. That's not true. That's not true. That's not true. That's a conspiracy theory. My goodness me.

It might be a conspiracy theory. It's like me bringing up the moon and making Brady angry. You're going to bring up KFC and make me angry.