Tim Medvetz

speaker

173 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2025 last heard Apr 2025

Tim Medvetz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

No recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

We're Out of Time · How Tim Medvetz Turned Pain Into Purpose | The Heroes Project · 22 Apr 2025 podcast

Well, then I, you know, got my driver's license and then, you know, continued getting arrested, but for more fighting, things like that, not drugs. Well, you were drinking, and if you're drinking and doing drugs, you're fighting. Correct. Anyway, 18. You were winning. I was losing. Yeah, I guess I was winning. Yes, you were. Because I never crashed my car. Nobody got hurt.

I ended up going to jail. I didn't get arrested for drugs again. Um, 18 moved into New York city, got a job bouncing at the nightclubs, you know, and then, you know, when you're a bouncer in nightclubs, you know, the whole drinking and drugging doesn't really work. You know, you gotta be on top of your game and New York city, you're fighting every single night, throwing people out of the clubs.

So and then 21 years old, moved to Brazil, started training with the Gracie brothers. I wanted to be a big cage fighter. And that kept me down in Rio for two years of my life. And then my life went on to travel in the world. And then when I was 28, I came out to California, packed up the motorcycle, put the old lady on the back.

Drove out here, pulled into LA, didn't know anybody, had it figured we had enough money to last us about six months. And then we would go back to New York. And then six months turned into, I've been out here for like 25 years now. How bad did the drug thing get? It didn't. It was bad when I was, you know, from basically 13 to 15. 15 is when it really like peaked. Right.

And then after that, it never became a problem. It was, you know, get get high, drink on a Saturday night, back in the gym Monday morning, back to work. You know, that was kind of how it's been, you know, for my entire adult life. So tell me about the accident. So fast forward, I'm living out in Los Angeles and I'm in the Helsinki Motorcycle Club. Best times of my life. Life is great.

I'm building motorcycles. I'm in Los Angeles. I heard you're building them for celebrities. Oh, man. You did so many. So many. Did you ever build one for Johnny Depp?

No, actually. Never built one for Johnny. Nicholas Cage? Nicholas Cage, absolutely. Well, that's only because Nicholas Cage. Nicholas Cage will get a dollar in his pocket and it flies right out of the pocket. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That guy's never seen anything that he didn't want to buy. Yeah.

Yeah. I remember that one. I remember when he actually walked in my shop, which is like, I thought he was the coolest guy. He pulled up in a Lambo. It was like, it was, it was like repossessed the next day. Yeah. It was like, it was like a weird, like orange, yellow or some shit. And he got out and he had purple snake leather pants on and a purple snake leather jacket with his glasses on.

He came walking into my shop and it was just like, uh, Like everything, the music just stopped and everybody just turned and look. And he actually pulled it off too. He was actually, he didn't look like a tool. He's a star. Yeah. I mean, he's a legit. And he's a super nice guy. Super nice guy. So, and I believe he was at that time he was dating, um, Roseanne... Barr? Arquette, yeah.

And Roseanne Barr? No, Arquette. Roseanne Arquette, one of the Arquette sisters he was dating. And he bought her, had a Buell Blast. Buells were like a single 500-cylinder. It's a little bike that was made by Harley. Bought one of those for her, and then I built them an FXR. Yeah, so anyway, that just started my whole like career in the motorcycle world. My entrance to LA, I came out here.

I wasn't coming out here to get famous. I wasn't even planning on staying. And so I just got into the motorcycle world and it just, you know, I was doing great. Making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. I'm jeans and t-shirts. I'm in LA. I got a hot chick. I'm living up off the Sunset Strip. Like life was good. Joined the motorcycle club. Things are great.

I'm traveling all over the world with the club. Like everything is great. And then, bam, pickup truck pulls out in front of me, doing about 100 miles an hour, racing through the streets. Bam, lights out. Wow. Yeah. Ended up in Northridge Trauma Center, and it was on September 10, 2001. And everybody knows where they were on 9-11. So it was a question, where were you at 9-11?

Well, for me, 9-11 wasn't that pivotal of a day. For me, it was 9-10. Because at 7.30 at night, crashed my bike. I remember laying on the side of the road. My foot was next to my ear. You know, bleeding out of my head, coming down my eyes. Like, just couldn't feel anything from my waist down. Braced me to the hospital. We're probably going to lose, you're probably going to lose your leg.

We don't know what else is going on. Blah, blah, blah. And I remember I had like 12 of my brothers came to the emergency room. And they're all like my size. And the doc's saying, I don't know if we can save your foot. I don't know if we can save your foot. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? What? I'm like in shock, obviously, right? I'm bleeding everywhere.

He's like, I don't think I can save your foot. Amputation. I'm going to have to amputate your foot. And I just turned to him and I says, I wake up tomorrow morning. I better have a foot or I'm going to kill you. And then, you know, he's got like 12 Hells Angels around in the same room. Well, yeah, doc, you know, try and save the foot, you know.

and then the doc was like okay okay and then boom lights out mask goes on surgery room and then I open my eyes and I remember open my eyes and I'm looking around me okay I'm alive check first thing I do is I remember the last thing I remember is him telling me to cut off my foot I look down I see my toes in a cast I'm like okay great check got my foot I'm alive and then a hospital check and then I start like noticing there's all these doctors and nurses in my room and

I'm like, what the, what are they doing? And I'm, I'm up, but I got a tube down my throat machines breathing for me. So I can't speak. And I'm up and I'm like, Hey, I'm over here. Help, help. I'm over here, but they can't hear me. And they're all staring up at the ceiling. I'm like, what the are they watching? What are they doing? I need some attention over here.

And as I like roll my eyes up, I look up and on the television, everybody's glued to the TV and it's like nine 30 in the morning. The twin towers are coming down. Right. And this is terrible to say, but my first reaction was like, turn that shit off. I got my own problems here. Come on, I'm over here.

Not realizing, obviously, the extent of, you know, how many people died, lost their lives, and everything didn't happen. I was just more concerned, like, oh, you know, this is all about me right now, right? Mm-hmm. So as it should have been. Yeah.

And boom, next thing you know, four months in a wheelchair, three different hospitals, six months total in a wheelchair, never going to ride a motorcycle again, never ride a horse again, never going to do this, do that. You know, I'm at that point when I got to that wreck, I was 275 pounds, six foot five hills, angel bouncing, building motorcycles, hot chick, girlfriend, collection of Harley.

Showing 21–40 of 173 · page 2 of 9