Factually! with Adam Conover - Podcasting from Prison with Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods, the forces behind the hit podcast Ear Hustle, join Adam this week to explain what it's like producing audio from inside San Quentin, shed light on misconceptions and myths about prison life, and how incarceration truly affects a human being. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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and look, we've talked about this on the podcast before, but it really bears mentioning again. It's a huge enough fact that we frankly should be talking about it all the time. And every day that we forget about it is a small sin that we're committing. I'm exaggerating slightly, but not really. Here's what I want to talk about. America incarcerates more people than any other country on earth. Nearly 2.2 million people are in prison in this country. That's about the populations of Wyoming, Montana, and Vermont combined. Like when we study the Egyptians, right? We know that the pharaohs built these massive structures just to hold their remains. And we say, wow, that is massive and super weird, right? Well, ask yourself, what will the archaeologists of the future say about our society? I think they'll note the massive structures that we built to keep enormous portions of our society under lock and key. The pyramids got nothing on mass incarceration, okay? But by design, mass incarceration is invisible in a way.

Incarcerated people are cut off from us, isolated. We don't often think about them because we've got no access to them, right? They're all concentrated in places far from where we live, in little boxes that we can't see. But despite that, the people we incarcerate are still no less people than you and I are. And look, I'm sure there's folks listening to this podcast who have been incarcerated before. And this is not going to come as a surprise to you, but let me just talk to all the folks listening who have never been incarcerated. It might sound obvious, but I don't know that it is. We don't often think of it this way, but let's just underline it. Every person we incarcerate, every person in prison is a human being. Whether or not they committed a crime, they're a human being with an actual human life,

just like yours, right? Like, take a second, think about your own life, and think about how everything that happens to you is so important, right? It's so real to you. Your life is its own little universe, a pocket reality that's equal parts wonderful, painful, boring, exciting, confusing, and fragile, and it's full of so much detail. And those details matter to you so much. They create the fabric and experience of your life. Well, just remember, there are more than 2 million people, every single bit, as human as you, with lives as rich and detailed and important to them as your life is to you. And they're locked up in tiny little boxes all over the country. That is their experience of

their life, moment to moment, day to day. It's very hard for us to imagine, right? Again, for those of us who've never been incarcerated. It's hard to imagine, but it's real. And we need to wonder when we're thinking about our criminal justice system, when we're thinking about mass incarceration and how we want it to be and if we want it to be different than the way that it is, we need to think about how does incarceration affect the lives of the folks inside? What is that life like? Well, if you're curious about what that life is like, I know I always have been. Well, do I have the podcast for you, all right? There's a podcast out there called Ear Hustle, and it is revelatory. It's produced in San Quentin State Prison by the folks inside the prison, and it shares directly their

stories, their human stories, and their human feelings with us, with everyone. They have episodes that focus on what it's like to deal with a cellmate, what it's like to maintain relationships with your family or significant other on the outside, and what the experience of getting old behind bars is like. It's incredibly powerful. It's incredibly humanizing. It's funny. It's heart-rending. It's an exceptional podcast. You really have to listen. But don't stop listening to this podcast right now because on the show today, we have two of the forces behind Ear Hustle. I'm very excited to have on the show, Nigel Poore, who's a visual artist and Erlon Woods, who was formerly incarcerated

at San Quentin State Prison. And they are together the hosts and co-creators of Ear Hustle. Please welcome Nigel and Erlon. Nigel and Erlon, thank you so much for being on the show. Appreciate being here. Yeah, nice to be invited. I was such a big fan of Ear Hustle. The first time I heard it, I've for years have read a lot about prison and I feel like I've seen films and documentaries and it's an interest of mine. But Ear Hustle, the first time I heard it, was so immediate and transported me, you know, and I realized it was, oh, this is, it is so, it was the first time I had ever heard the experience in, you know, the words of the folks experiencing it. And I really hope folks check it out.

But I'm so curious how you came to make it. And I want to hear that story. How did you two meet? It was one day she walked across the yard no. It's a long story we'll try to tell it we'll try to tell it. I'll let you go. Okay I'll start and you're going to jump in I know that. So I started volunteering at the prison in 2011 through the prison university project teaching history of photography class. And through that, I met a lot of really interesting men. And I realized that it would be great to do some kind of collaborative project inside of the prison about life inside.

And originally, the idea was to do a film about life inside prison, but that just got way too cumbersome. And so the idea of doing audio came to us. And after, sorry, I skipped an important part. After I finished teaching, I started volunteering down in the media lab. San Quentin actually has a pretty well kitted out media lab where people do videos and record audio. And that's where the San Quentin News is. And Erlon was working down there. And that's how I met. I think it was about 2012. About 2012, yeah. you heard about what we were doing and they came in and trained us. And Erlon and I worked on that together for maybe three years. Correct.

And I started to get a little bit tired of doing the radio part. I wanted to do something that was more from the perspective of an artist, more long form storytelling. Erlon was really interested in could we have more music in it? And so we just started talking and plotting things out. And together we decided, what the hell? Let's do a podcast, man. That's exactly what I remember.

And where were we going to play the podcast? Our whole mission was to play the podcast on the closed circuit television channel. Inside the prison. Inside the prison. And that was like the immediate goal and the long-term goal was to play it over all the California prison stations. Yeah. And, of course, there were some drawbacks. I mean, Erlon, what did you think a podcast was?

I didn't know what a podcast was, actually. When she kept saying podcast, you know, I didn't know. And so she got permission to bring in Snap Judgment, one of their podcasts. And then when I heard it, I was like, oh, this shit easy. I didn't, you know, and that's a, excuse me, that's a person that didn't know about the editing process. Yeah, yeah. And interviews, like you can't just talk.

Yeah. So we, I mean, I listened to a lot of podcasts, but I didn't really know how to put one together. So together we learned how to do it. So that's the... And I'm still learning. Yeah, we're both still learning. It's hard, right, Adam?

Yeah, I mean, well, you guys do a proper edited podcast with intros and you have little written bits and you've got interviews and music and wonderful things. This we just hit record and I talk to folks for a little bit. I do a little intro at the beginning. You're doing a proper... I mean, the first time I heard it, it felt very professional to me. So wait a minute, hold on, hold on.

So what you're saying is it is true that you just turn the mic on sometime and go. Yeah, you could do this kind of podcast if you wanted to. It could be as easy as what you're doing right now. All the time. Yeah, I mean, I think none of us knew how hard it was going to be,

and it's probably great we didn't know or it might have been intimidating. But one of the things that I really love about your hustle is that Erlon and I and the other guys that got involved, Antoine Williams, who was the sound designer, we had to learn together how to do it. And that forged a really tight bond and made none of us really the leaders because we all had to count on each other to learn how to do this. And we've gotten better. We still have a lot to learn. And, you know, the group has gotten bigger. Our crew's gotten bigger, but can I just say you love it? Well, I can just say, you know, I love the editors. I love them all. The hard work of the editors.

Well, let me, let me ask, I want a little more context here, because you said, you know, San Quentin had a media lab, and that's not something we normally think of a prison as having. I mean, a lot of people's images of prison, they just saw Shawshank Redemption, and they're picturing, you know, something like that. But I also know prison education programs have declined like hugely throughout the country. And those sort of programs are not something that's prioritized through a lot of our prison system. So is San Quentin unique in that way that it had a facility like that? I think it is unique in that way. I've been to a lot of the prisons in California and none of them really have a media lab. They probably just have a coach that put on videos, but this one had a full scale. Actually, what attracted me to San Quentin is that they had a film school, San Quentin Film School. And I was in another prison and we were on like a 10 month lockdown and I was watching the Discovery Channel and it came on and I'm like, what the hell? I need to get to that prison.

I love how you say you wanted to get there. It's like you're going to transfer. I was going to do it. I'm just going to transfer to this prison. I'm going to get a promotion or something, you know? But you did.

But definitely. It took years. Yeah. It took years. I should give a little background to that. The Discovery Channel came in, I don't remember what year,

I think it was 2007? 2007, yeah. And they did a film program in there. I think it was like an eight-week program. And part of them being able to do that was that they said they would leave all their equipment behind, their cameras, their computers and stuff. And I believe that was the beginning of the Media Lab being more fully equipment out.

Right, because I think they were filming on VHS prior to that. Oh, God. They were recording on VHS. It brought them into the digital world, you know. So it was that was cool. And also San Quentin, because it's in it's near San Francisco in a pretty liberal part of the state there and it's near cities, right? So there's a ton of volunteers that go in, which also makes it different. And that's the key. Yeah, I got in as a volunteer. I think there's something like 3000 volunteers that go that go in and out of San Quentin every year. So there's a lot.

And, you know, there's good educational programs. But the Media Lab really thrives there. And we were, I mean, I think we were really fortunate, obviously, to have that space to work in. Right. And to follow up on what Adam was saying, it's like, you know, you have a lot of prisons that don't offer a lot of stuff. You know, a lot of individuals would like to do things, but they just don't have opportunities. Yeah. And I would say that San Quentin is one of them places that's in the middle of a gang of different cities.

Yep. And people don't mind going. You know, some prisons are somewhere in the boondocks. You would never see it in your life if you just rode down the street, you know. And a lot of people don't like to travel three, four hours just to get there, then three, four hours to get back. No, it's unrealistic. So, yeah, I think San Quentin. And I always say that, you know, the volunteers to me are on the front lines of public safety because they come in just wanting to help.

Yeah. And so the prison management, were they supportive of this project? I mean, you must. I know you have the, I forget the man's name and title. Lieutenant Sam Robinson. Lieutenant Sam Robinson, public information officer. And he speaks on every episode and says, I approve this message, essentially. But yeah, I mean, institutionally, they support the show. Oh, yeah. Definitely, definitely. I think that Ear Hustle brings a positive spin

to it. Yeah. I think it's a two-way street, but there's no way we could do it without the support of the administration. And Sam, Lieutenant Robinson, really championed. Championed? He's our number one supporter. He made it happen. I mean, that's what he do.

He's in that position for a reason. He's a reasonable dude. His whole thing is he want to make the place a better place than when he got there. You know, and he want to give everybody there the opportunity to better themselves in some way. Yeah, yeah. And basically he'll give you all the tools you need and it's on you. And if you mess up? If you mess up, you out.

So what does the prison and what do you think the folks inside get out of it? I mean, I know what I get out of it as a listener, right? That I feel, oh my gosh, here's this direct connection to this world that is, you know, by design cut off from me that I normally have no access to. This is a part of, a big part of American life that suddenly I get to sort of, you know, be present in through my ears and realize, yeah, this is a real place, real people. That's an incredibly powerful experience for me, which is why I love the podcast so much. But what does it do for the folks inside that, you know, is valuable for them and for the prison? Well, I think a few things. I would start off with saying that, one, I think most people just want to be heard. I think most individuals want to send some type of word back to their family, let them know, hey, I'm okay. And, you know, I'm doing something positive. You know, I'm a part of something. That's what I think initially. Oh, yeah. I mean, I hear from so many men inside about how even if they're not on the show, their families listen to it, their kids listen to it, and they get feedback from them, and they feel closer.

Their family feels like they have a better understanding of what's happening. For the men inside, it's a powerful experience to sit down and have an in-depth conversation with someone, know that people are listening to you and they care, and that your story is going to go out into the world. And I don't know if everyone has a concept of how many people listen to it. We try to explain it so they know how many people are going to be hearing this story. But it is really about having the experience of being considered and listened to. And as Erlon said, everybody kind of blossoms under that when they know that somebody cares. Definitely. And I think like one of the one thing that was a challenge

and I used to always try to accomplish is getting people that's been locked up over 35, 40 years to get on the mic. And, you know, traditionally, a lot of them don't based on they don't talk to the media. And we became the media pretty much. So that used to be the challenge that I used to always try to break down. It's still a wall. It's still a wall. And I think one of my caps used to be, look, Brad, you can go on and continue to be a statistic here or you can get your word out. Yeah, what you'd rather be?

Being a statistic't so boring. I think you would be in a better position than almost anybody else on the planet to be able to try to break down that wall in an empathetic and caring way because you're, I mean, you know, you're there, you know what it's like. It's a very sort of extreme mental place to be in to have been in there for 40 years. And, you know, not a lot of, you're in a position to bridge that divide maybe. Oh, I mean, that's where we can do stuff that most people can't because we're actually in there. I mean, Erlan's not there anymore. Yeah.

Ooh. Yeah, I want to ask about that. But, I mean, that's the difference. You know, journalists are visiting. I mean, no disrespect to journalists. You know, journalists are visiting. I mean, no disrespect to journalists. They do amazing work. But, you know, I'm there all the time. I'm not comparing myself to the guys who live there.

But I'm there all the time, and everyone we talk to actually lives there. Except now we're doing reentry stories, so it's a little bit different. Yeah, so Erlon, your sentence was commuted as a result of the podcast, correct? Well, it was definitely one of the factors. You know, it was definitely in the governor's office, and they really appreciated it. And also the rehabilitative work that I was doing on myself, taking the groups, doing the restorative justice circles, and just, you know, changing my life, changing, you know, the way I live my life. So it was a lot that went into that commutation application.

But to be commuted was almost like getting a Heisman Trophy or something. Yeah, it was like it was unheard of for a minute. It was like it was unheard of for a minute. And then, you know, Jerry Brown, the honorable governor, Jerry Brown, he was rolling them out. Yeah. I'm glad I got in when I got in. Thank God. I can't even begin to imagine what that must feel like.

It must have been so so revelatory. It was. I'll say this, man. It was it, it was basically going to the liquor store, had your last dollar in your hand, you bought a little ticket and didn't know you won. So tell me about the challenges of producing in prison. I mean, it must have been beyond just getting people to open up. I mean, hey, I just roll in here and we turn on the microphone and I could do it any time of the day. It's, I assume, not like that in San Quentin, even if it is nice enough to have a media lab. There's things that were, I was going to say at one point, that one thing that was amazing

at San Quentin is Erlon and I worked 50 hours a week. I mean, we could be in the media lab Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. say to 8 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 2 to 8. And we used a lot of that time. But there were things that make it so difficult. So there's no internet. There's no phone calls. It's very hard to print anything. Like sometimes it would take me an hour to figure out how to get something printed. There could be lockdowns and I wouldn't be able to go in for days, sometimes for weeks. You know, sometimes for weeks.

You know, you forget something. There's very little you can bring in the prison. But like if you have something approved and you forget it in your car, you know, it takes you an hour sometimes to get in and out of the prison to go get something. You know, like you think of how many times you get on the Internet and do an email during the day. That is completely off the table. Yeah. And then at the same time, you know, you're dealing with a population and you're dealing with an administration who, you know, one, like say the administration has the safety and security of the institution in play. And then the individuals, the prisoners inside the institution, you have to make sure that you're not violating anything with them. You know what I'm saying? Going beyond certain boundaries, you know?

So you always want the prisoners to respect what you're doing. And that's why they participate. Right. Yeah. So there's that. And also like when I left, it wasn't like I could just call Erlon. He couldn't call me. I mean, that part was difficult.

So like you think like you work all day and all of a sudden you've like, oh, I got to tell my, you know, I got to tell my producing partner this. Well, you can't do that. And I don't know how to say how much longer it took us to produce an episode inside, but substantially longer than it would take on the outside. And I just want to reiterate how hard it is to print something in the print. You just take that for granted on the outside. You're going to push print. But getting scripts for us to read could be a challenge.

Well, my next question I want to ask is about the conflict between, you know, like you said, the institution and what you're trying to do, but we have to take a really quick break. We'll be right back with more Erlon Woods and Nigel Poor. I don't know anything Okay, we're back. So I really want to ask, you know, Ear Hustle is such an honest show. I can tell that that's one of your prime values

is getting these stories honestly and representing this experience honestly. Was there ever a conflict, or is there ever a conflict between, you know, the story that you want to tell and maybe how San Quentin wants to represent itself where your interests are not quite as aligned in that way? Is that something you ever have to navigate? No. I would say I've had to navigate it in other ways.

Okay. I would say as far as creative content and creative, you know, editorial and all that? No. No, not with the administration. Really? No. No. I mean, Sam is who we deal, Lieutenant Robinson is who we deal with.

And his thing is really the safety and security of the institution. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't stories we know we can't tell. Right? I mean, so I wouldn't say we're we can't we know we can't tell right i mean so i wouldn't say we're censored but we are thoughtful about like for me it's more important that we get these stories out um we're not like we always say we're not journalists we're not muckrakers our stories about everyday life inside prison and so there's some things we know we have to stay away from you know like i i mean the the common things are you know know, we stay away from, because, you know, the media can deal with this, but we stay away from how drugs are brought into a prison, how knives are made and, you know, stuff like that, that they can see in a movie or something, you know.

Because actually it has no place in the stories for us, you know. One thing I've had to talk to with guys is we don't do stories about people's crimes. We don't do stories about wrongful convictions and we don't do stories that glamorize experience. So if somebody comes to us and they have an agenda for why they want their story done, I mean, we wouldn't do it. And people know that now. And we have like dealt with like one or two crimes I think misguided loyalty was the one that we really just touched on based on what happened in that case but yeah we don't do that. Unless it makes sense with the story. And listeners will know

we often don't identify what people's crimes are and there was pressure for us to do that but we held really strong with that that that's not the point the big no-no that's the big no-no unless it's part of a story and we have to go there um but we you know in one thing um adam that we're trying to work on is last season and this season is to tell stories that are also more complicated where people in them, I'm going to call them characters, even though they're human beings,

that they are very complicated. And we don't want to tell stories where everyone at the end is like, oh my God, that person's so amazing. Like we want to tell realistic stories about the struggles inside. And I think this season we will have some of those that are going to be more difficult for listeners. And I think mainly like this season will be more women. Yes. And more women on the good side. Yes. More women.

But I'm curious though, you know, the prison system, mass incarceration is such a, I've talked in my work so much about, you know, how massive it is and how, you know, how unjust it is in so many cases. And, you know, this is going to be, in my view, I talked about in the intro to the show, how, you know, American society is remembered 100 years from now, in a lot of ways as being like, this is like a weird thing that we've got this system, right? And I know that's not, hey, you're not talking about policy or anything like that in your work. But I wonder if that's an idea you ever engage with as you're doing it. Does that make sense? Well, it all depends.

Like if policy is part of a story or when I say part of a story, like just a little part of a story. And we'll pretty much explain what the guy is going through instead of explaining the policy itself most likely. Yeah, we don't really touch on policy. But I would say that I think we are very interested in changing people's minds. There's no doubt about that. And I think about your hustle, changing minds in the way my mind can be changed. And that's through understanding individual experience. If someone just reads policy to me in numbers and my mind just shuts down because I can't comprehend it. But when I

understand a person's individual struggle and I understand that that represents a larger struggle, I'm in. And I think that Ear Hustle is doing that. And I can base that on the response that we get from all kinds of listeners about what Ear Hustle means to them. And we get responses from people who have been victims of crimes, you know, we get responses from people who have been victims of crimes, survivors of crimes, people who have been in prison, people who have worked in prison, lawyers, university teachers, self-described conservatives that had throw-away-the-key attitudes. So I don't know how that changes policy,

but it certainly contributes to an important discussion and the important experience of people changing people's minds. So I feel really proud that we've been able to do that and be part of an important conversation. And I leave the policy to the people who have the expertise there because there are I mean, there's people that they were born for that. I wasn't born for that. And I believe in using the attributes and – how do I say talents? The attributes that you have to do good work and know what your limitations are and know what your strengths are. And I think our strengths are in telling first-person narratives. Yeah. Well, and once you – when you're thinking about a policy issue, often you're thinking about it totally changes once you meet the people who it affects. You know, I've experienced that with, you know, I do work with homelessness in LA and, you know, people have so many attitudes about homeless folks, about what should be done. And if they just went and talked to the folks who are on the street,

you know, for one day, they would get a different impression of, oh, wait, all the approaches I had were maybe wrong because I'm realizing this is what it's actually like. And the same is true for prison. I can't imagine that the show isn't changing minds because once you actually engage with the folks who are actually subjected to the system, you're naturally going to have a different opinion about it. You're going to feel, oh, this is not just. And I want to give actually, while you were talking, I thought of a very concrete example of this, the three strikes law. So we did a story about the effects of three strikes law. We hardly talked about, I mean, we described what it was, but we hardly talked about it. And the story was

around this guy, Curtis Roberts, who was serving, what, 25 years to life for stealing $40. And like, you know, we researched his crimes and he had three nonviolent crimes. And so we talked about him and we did talk about Erlon was also a three striker. But without hitting anyone over the head, we talked about how unjust that policy is. And how unjust it still is. Yeah, it still is. I mean, that's something Erlon's really. of my that's one of my passions out here now you know uh trying to repeal california three strikes law because i don't think it has a place in our society yeah i

think most people would agree and yeah i think that rather than hitting people with oh tens of thousands you know this statistic and that statistic, once they hear that story, it's going to change how they feel about it. Yeah. Definitely, definitely. Especially when they start listening to, he got what for what? Yeah. He got 250 years? He got 700 years?

He got a thousand? Yeah. How? How does that happen? And I think that's one of our stories that really has gotten the most feedback. Continues to. It continues to shock people when they hear that story. Yeah.

I want to hear about the feedback that you've gotten. Like what, what's been the most surprising response that you've had, especially for you, Erlon, it must've been a shock. I'm sure in many ways to come out, but also to maybe engage with folks who are,

who are really listening to the show for the first time. So I think, you know, when I was incarcerated, you know, you really don't have a depth of how far reaching it is. I think Nigel said that earlier. So when I started to understand it was when I was still inside and I was getting like letters from a whole class of students, like high school students, junior high school students, college students. And the crazy part is some of the high school students were speaking to me. I was like, damn, what they learning in high school now? I can't even comprehend this.

Their vocabulary. Like, you know, I was like, damn. I was like, man, maybe I was ditching too much. But no, it's a trip how they were utilizing ear hustle and doing their studies on it. Yeah, their curriculum. I just talked to a class yesterday in the University of Minnesota. I did a talk with them, just clowning with them and answering questions. But it's a trip how people are open to it. You know, how like, I think we turned them on to a different world.

And how I, like I said, how I started really, really understanding how impactful it was, was receiving all those letters. When I was, I was receiving a gang of letters inside. I know, you went from like getting almost no letters. Yeah. Like, like a letter from a family member, you know, every now and again to, Oh man, I got problems.

I can't answer. And I started answering them in the beginning until they just kept coming, kept coming. And just, I was like, I cannot, I do not have time to answer all these letters. But you want to, I mean, that's the thing is. But those were good problems. Yeah. Those are, yeah. Those are good problems. But we get like so many emails,

so many postcards from listeners. It's really heartening. And in my other life, I'm a professor. And so I love hearing that universities and high schools

are using Ear Hustle as part of their curriculum. And that's an area, I mean, I would personally love to go into more to build curriculums to be used

at different, different educational places. Yeah, because they're in syllabus. They're in everything. It's a trip. It's a trip. Yeah, it must have been a trip. I mean, I think about, you know, in the work that I do, like sometimes it's still shocking when I go do a live comedy show and I meet people who are like, oh, I like what you do. And I'm like, oh, yeah, there's real people on the other end of the podcast

or on the other end of the TV. And I can only imagine it's even more intense when you're leaving prison and having that experience. Man, it definitely is. I think, what happened when we first got out? When I first got out, it was funny. The day he got out. The day I got out, we was at Target. And some dude.

You were wearing an Air Hustle t-shirt. I was wearing an Air Hustle t-shirt. And he said something. And we was talking. And I'm like. I love that podcast. And I was like, oh, well, I'm Erlon Woods. He was like, yeah, you're in jail.

No, I got out today, bro. No, but definitely, I do see a lot of different people out here. And being out here, I get a lot of requests to do a lot of things, you know, a lot of things that ain't even in my wheelhouse. You know what I'm saying? And I'm like, ooh, yeah, they'll pull at you. Well, I think one of the things when people do a project, they often are obsessed with who is it going to touch and how many people are going to hear it, see it, experience it. And when we started Ear Hustle, you know, our goals were modest in some ways, was to have it played inside the prison. Our big goal was to have it played inside all the prisons in California.

And then we were lucky enough to win a contest with Radiotopia, PRX's Radiotopia. And that's how we got distributed outside of the prison. But we didn't start thinking we were going to have this huge audience. We started it because it was an interesting creative project for us to work on. So I love that we started for what I would think are all the right reasons. And then the reach that it's had and the way it affects people is just a beautiful it's that extra beautiful icing on the cake and i think i think we still have the same focus uh where uh the prison population is our audience and everybody else

is ear hustling you know yeah interesting way to put it yeah has Has working on the show Made either of you Think any differently about Prison as an institution I mean it must be kind of conflicting Because on the one hand it's obviously A place that one wouldn't Have good feelings about and a system

One wouldn't have good feelings about but it's also where You created this show And met each other. And, you know, this is maybe the, you know, because you were in, you know, a prison that was different than others that gave you access to these facilities. I mean, how do you find yourself thinking about what prison means to us as Americans or what it is, right? Or what does it do, if anything, as a result of making the show? Well, Erlon and I probably will have different responses.

So I want to hear Erlon go. Erlon, you go first. Well, so I look at it like this. As far as prisons, I can say that I believe our show is changing prisons because I'm starting to see more podcasts pop up in prisons, you know, and, and, and that's awesome. And I definitely take my hat off because anytime individuals can get their, their, their stories out or their words out, that's powerful. You know, um, I think

prisons have a long way to go, you know, and I think it don't even start with the prisons. It starts with legislature for creating these laws that got people in prison forever. You know, I think a lot of it has to do with Congress. A lot of it has to do with the Senate. A lot of it has to do with the people that write these bills. And and that's that's technically how you change it. But the prisons itself, to me, are basically housing a gang of people that should be in society. And until the legislature's them change, they act, it's going to still be full. Yeah, I mean, I think that, I mean, not to be honest, I think prisons need to exist.

There's a reason. They don't need to exist the way they are now. That's the issue is how can they really become the rehabilitation place? Why is that R in there, right? There needs to be rehabilitation. There needs to be more programming. Education is a huge key. There needs to be rehabilitation.

There needs to be more programming. Education is a huge key. Nobody, whether you're in prison or not, shouldn't be in a state of hibernation. I mean, a lot happens in prison, and I hate when people think that you go to prison and your life goes on hold. It doesn't. You're still living a life. You're still experiencing life. So how can you, you know, it's really kind of insult. You know, people still have families, people work, they educate themselves, they deal with health issues, all of those things.

But how can prisons be more about rehabilitation and have more education programs and allow people the opportunity to stretch their minds and be challenged. And I think that's what rehabilitation should be about. And, of course, addressing ridiculous sentencing structure. And to top that, like, even like, say, for instance, if I've been incarcerated under the three strikes law for 24 years, right? And I haven't done too much wrong in prison. I've been doing all the great work. But I receive a write up for, let's say, something that wasn't really nothing. It was probably delay of lockup or, you know, having to come having a disagreement with officer or whatever. My parole can be denied three years. So based on this little write up that has nothing to do, like it's not a nexus to my crime.

It has nothing to do with whether or not I'll recidivate. But based on this little write up, I might be spending an extra three years and taxpayers will be paying an extra $80,000 a year for this one little write up. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So it's a trip. You know, I think it's a lot that needs to be changed in the system. It's definitely a lot. And I hope that overwhelming. Yeah. And I hope that we're you know putting attention on that type of stuff yeah

I mean you put that really clearly that lives don't end when people go into prison or from you know

the perspective of folks on the outside those people don't actually just disappear right their lives are still lived lives still go on yeah

and the conditions of their lives influence what happens next when they get out or even if they don't. And your show really shows, it gives us that image of like, oh yeah, this is a life, just like my life is a life. Like, just like my life is a little universe unto myself that, you know, has been stretching on before me, you know, behind me and stretches out in front of me. It's the same thing for every single one of those hundreds of thousands of people who are locked up right now. No, definitely. And it's definitely a story behind everybody's, you know, that's in there. It's just like you say you work with the homeless. It's a story behind everybody that's out there homeless. It's a story how it got to that point. Yeah. I mean, we also are, since Erlon's been out, touching on the very difficult issue of reentry and, you know, what happens to people when they got out of prison.

And that will shift, too, if what happens in prison can also shift so people don't come out in desperate situations. Do you ever feel, I know we're running out of time, but I want to make sure I ask this. Erlon, now that you're out, I mean, the work that you're doing is amazing. Ear Hustle is so valuable for all the reasons you're talking about. Do you ever feel like, wow, I just want to work on something that isn't about prison? Do you have something else? Is there any other goals for you in the future, like stuff you want to work on? You know, the funny part about that is that people that have served a significant amount of time in prison end up becoming experts on prisons. So individuals end up getting hired in the field somewhere, whether it's nonprofit, whether it's even working for the county.

You know, I know people that work for Alameda County Probation. I know, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know, we have Governor Gavin Newsom or the Secretary Ralph Diaz for the Department of Corrections that call formerly incarcerated individuals in to sit at the table and have conversations on how can we change things. So I think, you know, you can't really take your mind off the prisons because you have a whole different mindset,

and it's a gang of people that are still locked up in prison that you want to see out, that I feel deserve to be out. So, no, I'm not like, oh, man, let this prison stuff in. You know, nowadays it's more of, you know, actually dealing with the conversations of prison is somewhat my livelihood now, pretty much. It's what I do. But it's interesting that you asked that. When Erlon got out, I really wondered, is he going to want to do this anymore?

Is he just going to be like, I've had it, man. I need a completely different life. And we talked about it a lot. And I think it's actually an important question. Is this what he wants to do? But we aren't going anywhere. No, we're chilling. We're cool.

You know, we're cool. I just need a vacation every now and again. Yeah, yeah. Of course. That's it. Well, what's next for Ear Hustle then? You said you're doing more episodes. You want to do women as well.

Anything else new on the horizon? Well, yeah, season five starts soon. March 4th. March 4th. Yes. Check it out when it's out. Yeah. Definitely.

And like I say, the mission is to add more women in, go into the women facilities and talk to them and get their stories because, you know, us starting in San Quentin is a men's prison. So, yeah, we just want to be, you know, had opportunity to let the women speak. Yeah. We're trying to figure out how to get into other prisons to do stories there, to travel more together. And we hope at some point to start visiting some prisons outside of the country. Yeah, they got some stories. Yeah, there's one in the UK. I think it's 112 prisons that play Air Hustle inside.

Wow. Which is crazy. Yeah, we just talked to some people in Russia that have gotten out of prison. So probably more collaborations and keep pushing it. And you can't take marijuana to Russia because they will disappear you. They will disappear you.

I think that's just not even taking it out of California. That's like even in Russia, I would disappear you. But I'd love to see you two tackle prisons around the world. What are they like? How are they different? Yeah. I hope we can do that. As long as there's stories to tell, we're going to.

We're definitely going to be there. We have no end in sight, I don't think. We talked about that the other day. Definitely. We're not going anywhere. Well, I really thank you for being on the show. And please keep doing it. And I hope everyone listening checks out Ear Hustle.

Thank you. Definitely appreciate it, man. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to talk to you. It was great. Well, folks, thank you so much for Nigel and Erlon for coming on the show. Hope you take a listen to Ear Hustle. And I want to thank you for listening to this podcast. I want to thank our producer, Dana Wickens, our engineer, Brett Morris,

our researcher, Sam Roudman, Andrew WK for our theme song. Hey, you can follow me anywhere you want at Adam Conover. Sign up for my mailing list at adamconover.net and check out my new tour dates. And yeah, thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time on Factually. that was a hate gun podcast