Contact Mic Podcast

Being a thirteen-year old Indian neoclassical dancer involves a lot of sacrifice. It takes your mornings, your evenings, your weekends. It takes you away from your family. It takes focus, pain, concentration. But it gives, too. It gives strength, precision, a way for young women to process sexuality and passion. It gives community. And it gives something sacred: a place where men cannot enter. A place away from abuse. Contact Mic returns with an episode about being frozen by fear and learning to move again.

Imagine you're driving along a freeway at 200 kilometres an hour in heavy rain. You can't see a thing. Now, imagine that you have what feels like two toilet paper rolls strapped to your eyes. Also, you're in a helicopter, flying just above treetops, in the dark. Welcome to the Australian Army. Contact Mic returns with an episode about the freedom of flight, the restriction of rules and the power of duty.

In 1981, San Francisco was the centre of the gay universe. By 1985, that universe looked almost post-apocalyptic. In a city shattered by AIDS, dreams of growing old surrounded by your favourite dancers, performers and porn stars gave way to dreams of simply growing old. Will Peterson watched his generation die. But he also watched them fight, watched them love, watched them band together and organise. Contact Mic returns with an episode about what happens to Disneyland when the fairytale turns dark, and the stories we tell to survive.

Your parents think you've joined a cult. People are trying to punch you on the street. Joining the Hare Krishnas isn't all chanting and cheap lunches. When you start swapping boozy jams for sober mantras, you start to learn how you tick. But stripping things back doesn't always make the path any clearer.  Contact Mic returns with an episode about searching for simplicity and finding complexity.

We're always told that we can't control when we'll die. But what if we could? When her grandmother passed away, Ellen expected the grief, the mourning, the emptiness. She didn't expect the police. She didn't expect the media. She didn't expect INTERPOL.  Contact Mic returns with an episode about breaking the rules, about deciding how to live your life, and how to end it.

Becoming a parent is always filled with a mix of excitement and terror. But when you're trying to figure out how to be a mother to children who aren't yours, there isn't much of a handbook to follow. Sometimes it's excruciating. Sometimes it's joyous. Sometimes, it feels like you just can't compete with blood. Contact Mic returns with an episode about the ties that bind us, and the ones we have to weave ourselves.

There are a lot of things that our bodies do that are mostly outside our control. Blinking. Breathing. Our hearts beating. For Jess Thom, there's also saying 'biscuit.' Or 'hedgehog.' Or thumping her chest, hard, over and over. Or uttering flights of ridiculous, wonderful, surreal fantasy, that feel like itching powder in her blood until they get out. Contact Mic returns with an episode about the right words, the wrong words and the words that just won't go unsaid.

High school is a time when you figure out a lot of stuff about yourself. Your style, your sexuality, your passions - being a teenager is a perpetual state of flux. This month, we spoke to three young trans people about being Batman to your friends and Bruce Wayne to your family, about the spaces between binaries and about coming out again and again and again. Contact Mic returns with an episode about definition, discovery and daring.

We all have fights that we choose, but there are some who are born fighting. Fighting to be heard, fighting to be seen, fighting for the right to exist in public space where the odds are all stacked against you. Contact Mic returns with an episode about history, culture, privilege and pride.

We all have fights that we choose, but there are some who are born fighting. Fighting to be heard, fighting to be seen, fighting for the right to exist in public space where the odds are all stacked against you. Contact Mic returns with an episode about history, culture, privilege and pride.

Five women unpack their understanding of sex around a laptop playing My Little Pony porn. A city comes together in joy and celebration as the world crashes down. And a father walks a daughter through a story of their shared name.   Contact Mic returns with an episode about finding your body, finding your people and finding yourself.

Ten years ago, Mark Crees was standing in a paddock, pacing in circles, looking for something he'd lost. Not a trinket or toy - Mark had lost the biggest thing he'd ever known - his God. And in that state of profound emptiness, he had to figure out how to fill a life that had previously been stuffed to the brim with religion. Contact Mic returns with an episode about love and truth, faith and connection, and learning to truly live in the present.

At 5 am, on August 8th, 2014, Chris was airborne above a Berlin street, about to hit the ground hard. When he woke from a coma a week later, it was with a memory full of holes, a past full of denial and a future full of uncertainty. Contact Mic returns with an episode about anxiety, alcohol, artistry and acceptance. 

The phone rings, and a man you hardly know asks you to drive across the country, jump on a boat and sail off into the unknown with nothing but a grumpy goose for company. What do you do? You say yes, of course. Contact Mic returns with an episode about big skies, big seas and big hearts.

Home is the place where you feel safe and certain. But for this month's interviewee, two hurricanes called Katrina - one a storm, one a lover - mean that home is a fragile and constantly shifting thing. Contact Mic returns with a story about the soul of a city, about loving against odds, and about finding your place in a stormy world.

When twenty-five years of supernatural experiences culminate with you standing on a football field at midnight, convinced that there is a dead woman buried under your feet, what do you do? Contact Mic returns with an episode about smelling the dead, dreaming the truth and deciding to let it all go. A podcast about people by Sarah Walker, Fleur Kilpatrick, and Kieran Ruffles.

Death is never an easy thing. But how do you grieve when your every move is being captured by thousands of cameras? Contact Mic kicks off with an episode about privacy, publicity and last goodbyes.   A podcast about people by Sarah Walker, Fleur Kilpatrick, and Kieran Ruffles.