Damage Reports : People of the Lie

Most people think a "deal" is about the product. They’re wrong.

In this report, I audit a transaction where the actual cost was 40 cents, the price was 30 dollars, and the secret ingredient was a "Hand on Heart" confession about a cheating wife.

I didn't lie about being miserable. I just used my misery as a high-resolution distraction while I skinned mark alive.

What happens when the laugh you crave cuts someone else open? In Conventional Damage, the line between humour and harm collapses under the spotlight of one man’s story : a joke told at a national “safe space” convention that detonated far beyond a punchline. Through memory, conflict, and uncomfortable honesty, he unpacks the anatomy of that night: the thrill of the hit, the backlash, and the cold data of who was hurt.

This isn’t a story of cancellation: this is an autopsy of intent. Why do we chase being clever when we know the room is bleeding? What does it cost to be the sharpest person on stage? Told with dry wit and painful clarity, Damage Reports drills into the hidden economies of humour, guilt, and human connection. If you’ve ever laughed at the wrong thing, this one’s for you.

Title: One Refusal and a Fish Bin

Subtitle: My Inventory: Finally.

Description:

"If he’d sold me the beer, none of this would have happened."

That was the lie I told myself in the North Queensland heat, standing in the wreckage of my car while my infant son screamed from inside a plastic fish bin wedged in the footwell.

In Season 1, this would have been a "Twisted Tale" about the chaos of addiction. In Season 3, it is a forensic audit of a predator.

This episode isn't about the crash. It’s about the Mechanism of the Lie: how a man can witness the near-death of his child and, in the same breath, find a way to blame the barman who refused him service.

I’m playing the tape back to look at the "Ego-Save." I’m looking at why I chose to treat a human life like disposable tackle, and why I used "The Prick" at the bottle shop as an alibi for my own undisciplined behavior.

This is the inventory of a man who realized that the most dangerous thing in the wreckage wasn't the folded chassis—it was the story he was already telling to stay "innocent."

The Inventory. Finally.

Title: My Inventory: Finally.

Subtitle: The Autopsy of the Auditor.

Description:

For two seasons, I gave you performance. I curated my wreckage into "Twisted Tales" and "Damage Reports," using my history of addiction, violence, and loss as a credential to buy your trust. I admitted my flaws just loudly enough to ensure no one could actually touch them.

I was a Person of the Lie, and this podcast was the paint job.

Season 3 is the audit.

In this season, I am going back to the old tapes. I will play the polished fables I told you in Season 1, and then I will perform the autopsy. I’m stripping away the "magic" and the "outlaw" flexes to look at the clinical, functional reality of the choices I made. No more poetic fluff. No more using my size as an alibi or my trauma as a shield.

This isn't an "inspirational" journey. It’s a dismantling.

If you are looking for a redemption arc or a "badass" narrator to validate your own excuses, look elsewhere. This is a forensic accounting of self-deception.

The Inventory. Finally.

She stripped, climbed into bed, lights on, and took him in—no games.
He mistook it for love.
Her ex on the couch, thin wall, first orgasm.
Father’s wedding speech about marital chains.
Mother’s boyfriend, years later: “I fucked her to do you a solid—show you what she really was.”
Betrayal wasn’t accident. It was the family lesson plan.
Doing You a Solid: the quiet curriculum that turns intimacy into contempt.

From the man who beat her unconscious came a card: “I love you.”
He studied it like a bomb and asked, “What the fuck does that mean?”
Ever since, love, praise, kindness—all trip the same silent alarm: threat detected, eject.
Relationships end before they can hurt.
Even his coach’s pride lands wrong.
The body learned early: affection is prelude to violence.
The fault is permanent. Damage reported.

Everyone knew the boss groomed and discarded women.
When he started on my wife, I went nuclear: told HR my new desk gave me views of his dick in the toilets—then told him, in front of them, it wasn’t visible anyway.
He crushed my career.
I called it victory.
Reality: white-anting. The quiet, corrosive sabotage a terrified man inflicts—first on his rival, then, inevitably, on himself.

Men complain about sex like it’s weather.
I served one the antidote he couldn’t swallow: a vivid script of his wife humiliating him with another man while he watched.
He was disgusted. He was hard.
Because the resentment isn’t about her—it’s the poison we pass between us.
Small boys in men’s bodies, forever holding the needle.
Damage Reports names the toxin most men pretend isn’t the

You’re a safe man.”
Those words became his license.
He weaponised trust: lingering touches, calculated betrayal, public humiliation—all while playing the steady saviour in the rooms.
Now another newcomer calls him the only sponsor who makes him feel safe.
The cycle turns again.
Damage Reports exposes the quiet predators who hide behind the word we trust most.
No redemption. Just the wreckage.

In recovery rooms, money looks like control—so you trade something else. Childhood trauma becomes currency: a pause after “step-dad,” eyes down on “night-time,” voice catching on “alone.” Once is vulnerability. Twice is instability. Not confession—calibration. Stand still by the coffee urn, reflective; people come, wanting to see themselves in your wound. She does. Calls him brave, writes the story in her eyes: wounded man, quiet strength, the one she can fix by being enough. He nods, lets her believe this is the first time—not the fifteenth.
Coffee, then her place. She thinks it’s spontaneous; he’s running a checklist—exits, mirrors, timing—waiting for her comforting touch to shift from pity to permission. “You’re safe with me,” delivered warm, measured, perfect. No feeling required. Reusable recovery phrases slide over everything: “opposite of addiction is connection,” “hurt people hurt people.” When it ends, gentle exit with scheduled tears: “It’s my damage, not yours.” No villains—just tragic misfit pieces. Truth: it wasn’t collision or healing. It was a sequence. Login. Session. Logout. Trauma as lock-pick, disclosure as leverage. Not broken—effective. A reusable tool, sharpened, no emotional fingerprints. He didn’t feel guilty. He felt nothing. Damage reported.