Julian Dorey Podcast - 😮 #90 - The Real Life, R-Rated Forrest Gump | Charlie Cifarelli

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

(***TIMESTAMPS in description below) Charlie Cifarelli is a former addict, corrections officer, and businessman who describes his life as, “The R-Rated Version of Forrest Gump.” Following stints that included: running up against the infamous Seven-Five Police Precinct in NYC as an addict, working on death row as a guard, and building and selling a company –– in 2012, Charlie famously tracked down and adopted the New York Pitbull, Star, after the video of the NYPD shooting her in the face went viral around the world.  ***TIMESTAMPS*** 0:00 - Intro; Charlie’s father’s criminal past; That time his parents picked up a hippie on the way to Woodstock; Stories of his father’s anger issues; NY & Cadillacs; The Vietnam vet who turned on Charlie; That time Charlie was thrown out of his house at age 8 28:27 - Trying to survive as a child; One time when Charlie’s father stuck up for him; How CHarlie got addicted to painkillers; Charlie’s history with the 75th Precinct of the NYPD (As made famous by the Netflix Documentary “The Seven-Five”); Charlie’s car chase story; The criminal who turned on him 55:36 - The power of addiction over the body, mind, and spirit; Living off of salad dressing; Charlie’s breaking point on the subway; The man Charlie met in the train station who changed his life; A run-in at a restaurant 1:17:06 - Charlie remembers his father picking him up from the train station to take him to the monastery to get clean; “We’re human beings –– not human doings”; Charlie tries to talk his way out of staying at monastery; Charlie remembers getting clean and what happened at rehab afterwards 1:41:49 - Charlie moves to Nebraska with his new wife and becomes a prison guard on death row; Charlie explains what prisons really are; The problem with the death penalty; Charlie recalls his last conversation with child-killer, John Joubert; That time Charlie testified on behalf of death row inmates; Charlie talks about recidivism and the problem with criminal records in the criminal justice system 2:10:15 - Charlie tells the story behind building his trash business in Nebraska and selling it; The fly in Charlie’s house and the chase for happiness 2:25:05 - Charlie talks about when he first saw the video of Star the dog’s shooting at the hands of the NYPD; The movement Charlie started online to track down the dog; How Charlie found and adopted the dog 2:50:02 - The legacy Star created through her life; Charlie tells the story about how Star died in 2021; Charlie found the childhood he never had in the dog who never should’ve lived; Charlie talks about reconnecting with the infamous former head of the Seven-FIve, Mike Dowd, years later; What John Gotti hitman John Alite said to Charlie recently; Why we need to show the same love to other humans that we seem to show to dogs today ~ YouTube EPISODES & CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0A-v_DL-h76F75xik8h03Q  ~ PRIVADO VPN FOR $4.99/Month: ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It started to rain, and I was scared, because I knew my old life was leaving and my new life was starting. And he had Aaron Neville playing. And if anybody knows Aaron Neville, he could sing from the heart. And he was singing songs that just made me feel. And I think back at that time, two men that could never get along. God was between us in that car. It was really heavy.

What's cooking everybody? I do want to say to start today, to everyone who's been sharing the links to the different videos, whether it be the episodes or even some of the clips and shorts on YouTube and as well on Apple and Spotify, thank you. That is like the best thing you can do, sharing around the show with other people, getting people to try it out and convert to viewers and listeners and i really really appreciate it i am not good at pushing that at all as you can probably tell because i never talk about it but yeah it's an enormous enormous help especially for any of those algorithms because they see that people are being sent the link and coming in there to view the content or listen to the content and that's a very very good sign and it's reflective in in numbers when that happens so i don't really know anything about like sharing on reddit or how people get things going on twitter that's that's

not really my world but if any of you have ideas there i'm all ears because i definitely need to do a better job of trying to promote the the show show in those kind of outlets where links are quite literally shared to social media and people then come in and give it a look. So once again, thank you to everyone who's been doing that. If you are on YouTube right now, please subscribe to the channel, like this video. And if you have a second, we'd love to see you drop a comment down in the comment section below as well. To everyone who is listening on apple and spotify thank you for checking out the show there if you haven't already be sure to follow on either one of those platforms and leave a five-star review if you have a second and i look forward

to seeing you guys again for future episodes now i am joined in the bunker today by mr charlie cifarelli charlie does not really need an intro his story is wild i'm still figuring out what i'm going to title this video right now but i'm not sure if i ended up putting this or not but he is basically as he said the r-rated version of forrest gump he has lived a wild life and it's inspirational it takes all kinds of turns kind of to the last places you would expect it to go. And he shares his story in such a beautiful way. And so I really, really appreciated it. I was so locked in to what he was saying.

I was just a pure passenger in this episode and really, really enjoyed listening to this guy tell a story. And I think you guys will too. That said, you know what it is. I'm Julian Dory. And this is Trendify. Let's go. This is one of the great questions in our culture. Where is the news?

You're giving opinions and calling them facts. You feel me? Everyone understands this. But few seem to do it. If you don't like the status quo, start asking questions. You're a very, very expressive guy. I like that a lot. I hadn't talked to you ever before, and I felt like 20 minutes in, I'd talk to you my whole life.

But obviously what got us connected was one story. But there's multiple, I mean, your whole life's a story. Let's face it, it's pretty wild what went on. But can you talk to people a little bit about growing up in New York and your home life and how before you went to Nebraska, like what kind of precipitated that? Yeah, well, you know, my story is my story, and it doesn't make sense even to me. I was born 9 pounds 8. No, I won't even go there.

Like, damn, the details. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of details. But my start in life was one that was not a great one. I mean, my father had done a lot of time in prison. I wouldn't know about this. I just knew this man appeared as my father one day. And in 1956, he was arrested and put on the front page of the New York Daily News. For what? Him and infamous Joseph Imbriglia, the gentleman from the French Connection, they stuck up a cabaret in Queens, New York, and the police came in, and they weren't willing to stop their robbery, and got into a tussle with the police, fist fight, and the gun was put up to the officer's stomach,

and the trigger was pulled, and it didn't go off. Luckily, otherwise I wouldn't be born, and my father went to the infamous danimora prison oh he went to danimora went to danimora they used to call that siberia right i think they did and uh up north in new york and uh it would make global news a few years ago when the guys almost out of the shawshank redemption type stuff yeah sawed their way out of it that was that was where you and i were talking right before the podcast. That's where Lucky Luciano was in prison, I believe.

Yes. So I didn't know this about my father. So he appears, obviously, unborn. But he's just out of prison in 1964. He meets my mother. And I'm born in a clinic in Harlem. And from there, we go to Astoria, Queens. Were you an only child? For a lot of years, I was.

Oh, so later they had one. Later I had a brother. So my picture starts to get clear. In 1968, I'm a very awake kid. I remember stuff. I ask questions. So 68 is where I start to realize, hey, I'm alive. I can remember back then, we got me a dog named Ringo.

We named him Ringo after the Beatles. After Ringo Starr. After Ringo Starr. And my world started. My father had a cool 1964 Impala, a convertible. It would allow exhaust. And my life is already gonna to start with a tragedy. I got a friend named Kenny, and we live in Astoria, Queens. And we run up and down the halls, and we run outside.

And we go to his apartment, and I was told never to eat or drink anything outside my own household. But he drank juice that was in his refrigerator, and the juice was laced with methadone. His uncle was living with his mother. He was newly in recovery, and he was an early methadone recipient, and he was able to self-administer his methadone. And Kenny drank it. So there was that thin, narrow road that I could have took the right path or the wrong path. I took the right path or the wrong path. I took the right path.

He wound up falling asleep and died. So it was the first recorded death of a child from methadone. How old were you? I was, it was probably 1969. You were like five? I was four years old. Damn. So that was my first introduction to life. And I started to think back then.

Yeah. If you could wind up dying in your own apartment building, it's a dangerous world. Yeah. That's heavy. For someone four or five years old. That's heavy. I didn't even know what death was. I experienced it in that his mother wound up dying six months later.

My mother said from a broken heart. Yeah, it's a real thing. So that was my idyllic childhood. Took a pause there. But it was my father and mother were happy. And I noticed that they were happy before they were. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network,

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Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. ...wound up having any money. They really made the most of their lives. In 1969, we jumped in the convertible with my dog Ringo, and we went up to Bethel, New York. Little did I know we'd be heading

towards the biggest concert in the world. Oh, Woodstock. Woodstock. No shit. And we picked up our first hippie along the road. And I'm talking about a hippie in 1969. I can remember. He had a backpack. He had frying pans attached to him.

Water bottle. Frying pans? Frying pans. Literal frying pans. Oh, because he needed to cook. He cooked on the road. And he had this suede jacket with fringes, like Daniel Boone. And my father stopped the call.

My mother was petrified. Who's this guy we're putting in the call? My mother says, we need directions. We need answers to questions. Because they didn't get tickets, and they were just going up. And my mother put the hippie between me and Ringo. And the hippie was on one side, Ringo was in between. And, you know, I remember my father asking the guy, where are you from? Between me and Ringo. And the hippie was on one side, Ringo was in between.

And, you know, I remember my father asking the guy, where are you from? He said, everywhere. That was the first inclination that I said to myself, this guy's from everywhere? And he didn't smell very good. He was like, everywhere, man. Everywhere. And he had a tan, and he was sunburned at the same time, and he didn't smell good. And he just had lingo that you don't use today things were groovy far out boss man i mean it was just like i still remember today and it was at 53 54 years ago wow so we didn't get to go to woodstock the traffic jam um i was gonna

say i didn't see i mean i look at the video i didn't see a lot of four-year-olds at Woodstock, man. No, no. At one moment, the sun would be out. Next thing, it would be raining. So we wound up, you know, bumper to bumper traffic. And we got out of there. And that was about the end of my parents' really good happiness together. What do you mean the end?

Things would get serious. My father would be a different guy i mean at that time in 1969 um he got a job with the union he seemed to be okay i do remember that because we moved from um queens to long island i remember guys from the union came over and helped them quick question just for like a clarification because you said he got out of prison right before you were born like 63 64 yeah so was he was that just like a one-time kind of crime thing or was he more like organized crime and then left it and went towards like a union job you know no because his his nose was always around guys i mean my father was involved in a union. He was involved

with a concrete company right in Canarsie, Brooklyn, on the outskirts of East New York. The Canarsie kid. He's in between Rosedale Carding, the Brooklyn Casket Company,

and then there's Parkway Block right there. And my father's always telling me when I'm a little kid, you know, I'm seeing these characters. You know, as a young kid,

I knew these guys as characters. Everybody's dressed in work clothes. And these guys look like they're workers, but they're in silk suits. They all got Cadillacs. And Cadillacs back then were a big deal. Yeah.

When did that stop being a thing? I would say once plastic became important. I think 1976 was your last Cadillac. They did have a comeback with the Escalade. There was like a good decade stretched out. Well, and I was there to be the first guy with the new body style to get one. You know, I held out. I heard Janis Joplin with Mercedes-Benz, and I always thought Mercedes-Benz. That was my deal. When I got some money, that was the first thing I went out and got.

Mercedes, they don't die, man. They've been around like 100 years? Yeah. 110 years? Look, I'm a fan. It's a great car. It's a great car. It's a great car. Yeah. And like, they last a long time, too. Well, the older ones really lasted. And then the ones I got when I made some money was the ones starting in probably 2002, 2003.

Them check engine lights are coming on. The brakes are not lasting a long time. You know, and then if you get the amg models i mean once you wipe out those rotors you got to put new rotors i don't think they're as good as they used to be you do have to have all kinds of upkeep with that car you do not necessarily like it's all going to break down but you constantly have to be bringing that in at least a couple times a year just to get everything checked not that you don't do that with other cars it's just with the mercedes like if you don't you could have i became a car guy later in life you know and i know certain cars you know maserati you need a mechanic in the trunk with you at all time don't go anywhere without your

mechanic bmw in the old days different lights would come on as your service and i'd run through them and then a certain light comes on idiot stop the car now it just stopped i mean you know you know and then uh you know bentley is real simple man you pull knobs you do different things oh you had a bentley yeah i had a bentley gt that's that's a little that's that's way above my all these cars are above my pay grade but that's way above you know we try to get outside ourselves any way we can you know a cheaper way would be with sugar. But, you know, they're just different levels of trying to evade each other, you know. But I've been there.

I've never heard someone say it like that. We try to get outside ourselves in different ways. We did. Cars was yours. Cars was mine. What do you mean outside yourself? You know, doing nothing and feeling is not easy. Oh, wow. You know? It's obvious feeling is not easy. Oh, wow.

You know? It's obvious, but it's deep. You know, that's why Instagram's popular. Because we're always looking out to look in and to feel one's feelings. It's tough stuff, man. You know, I don't know about anybody else, but I wasn't born with a ton of emotional muscle. You know? And that was not something I developed.

Really? In my belly, I didn't develop that. You don't think you have like... Now, today, I can hang in there. Early on, I couldn't. Interesting. You know? And we'll get into the Nebraska part, you know?

But, you know, I was one time a guy. I was a big weightlifter. I was 235, 240 pounds. I was scared to answer the phone. You know, in New York, you screen all your calls. You know, back in the old days, you'd go to the answering machine, you're listening, is it safe to pick up? Oh, and you could pick it up while it's...

Yeah, I mean, you know, here I am, you know, who's calling? You know, and I never leave my last name. It was only my first name. I got out to Nebraska, and guys would tell me, Charlie, wait a minute. If you just leave your first name or you leave an anonymous, it has no validity. State your name, man. Who are you?

Why wouldn't you do that? Because it was the house I grew up in. Don't leave your name. Don't say anything. You know, veil of secrecy. Suffer inside. You know, growing up in my household, when I started to suffer about 1970,

you know, everything was inside. You don't tell anybody. You don't tell the neighbors. You don't tell your family. You don't tell anything. Yeah, we got sidetracked. You were bringing up how it started to go bad with your mom and dad, I think. Yeah.

So in 1969, after the Woodstock trial, we didn't get out there. And my father started making some money, and we moved out to Long Island. Where on Long Island? We started with Westbury, just moved out to Long Island. We're on Long Island. We started with Westbury, just on the outskirts of old Westbury. Okay. I vaguely know where that is. Epic, suburbia, Long Island. It was a great time to grow up in Long Island. In that time, you had Hempstead Turnpike. You had all the muscle cars were available back then. I'll give you some nostalgia. I mean, everybody had a Chevy, a Dodge.

They were a big deal. And I got to see this in real time. Motion at a ball in Long Island. I got to see all these cars before they were restored in their original state. And I saw the guys laying rubber. I saw the kids coming back from Vietnam. I remember the kids leaving in my neighborhood for Vietnam

and coming back 70, 71, and they would be different. They'd have the 1,000-yard stare. The 1,000-yard stare. What I mean by that is you didn't know what they were looking at. They were just looking straight ahead. There was a different deal with them. Took away their naivety. It took away their innocence. They came back from Vietnam. Sure.

And I was a kid that was always paying attention. That's one thing I've been doing my whole life, is paying attention. And I remember one guy came back, and I got a book that's going to be coming out 14th and 2nd. You know, he came back from Nam, and I'd hang out with him every day over his house. And, you know, I might have at this time been six or seven. Pull that mic in just a little. You can get aggressive with it. Yeah, there you go. Six or seven.

And, you know, I had the Schwinn Stingray, and I did deal with the neighborhood kids. But I was always attracted to older people. I wanted knowledge. In my household, I wasn't allowed to play with matchboxes very long. My father was a serious dude. He was built like Conor McGregor, and he was a fighter. Conor McGregor? Conor. Oh, man. I called him Conor. Sorry. Don't beat me up. Sorry. So I hung out with this guy that came back from Vietnam,

and one day, he pulled out a rifle and chambered it around. And he looked at me. He says, I could do this right now. I could do this right now. Like at you? Yeah. He turned on me. He turned on me.

Was he having like a PTSD hallucination? Listen, I don't know why I didn't tell anybody. But this guy had a high-powered rifle. And he had a scope on it. and he just looked through the scope. And I was not old enough to realize, oh, I knew this was wrong, but I didn't say nothing. And then one day, he turned the rifle on me, and he said, I could do this right now. Oh, so he had taken it out before. He had taken it out before.

And would he just play with it? He played with it. He'd show it to me. He'd play with it. And it was like a deer hunting rifle, you know? Oh. You know, back then I don't remember anybody having AR-15s or... No. It just wasn't... You know, you'd have a handgun.

You'd have a rifle. You'd have an M1A1 carbine. You just didn't have the stuff you had today. And back then it would have been a big deal to have, I think, the AR-15 didn't get into civilians' hands until the late 70s. So, or even 1980. So this happened. So I had a series of odd stuff happen. So I vacated his house, never to go back.

Did you say you were inside or, like, on the stoop? No, inside. It was inside. Yeah. So you just chill with a Vietnam vet in his house? Yeah i hear the stories god different time it was a different time and i get these now back then you know i don't want to you know bore anybody but there was different uh there was graffiti was still big and in 1970 72 in long island you would see on the bridges bomb hanoi you don't see that stuff today that would be a the bridges, bomb Hanoi. You don't see that stuff today. That would be a common tagline, bomb Hanoi.

And that was the time. And these guys would grow their hair out long. And, you know, some of them had the whereabouts to get the cars. Not everybody had the muscle cars, but they'd have them. And that was my start in suburbia Long Island. But you never told anyone about that i never turned the gun you didn't tell your parents about that you know i didn't tell anybody that at that until recently i wrote a book why you know i don't know i don't know it's just that and you'll hear my story i've

always been about around i've really been around a lot of craziness my whole life and um you know i just i just didn't say anything. I suppressed it. And then did your parents get divorced? No, they should have, but they didn't. They had an ability to endure tremendous punishment with each other. Verbally or? Oh, verbally. Look, the first time my father had a stunt, I've never, and I worked in prison. I used to check if I was in the caseworker. My father had this deal that if my mother upset him.

I just got a message from friend of the show, Eight Sleep Chief of Staff, Alex Horowitz, hot off the press, and I'd like to read it to you right now. As the number one salesman internationally in the history of Eight Sleep's entire existence as a company, Julian Dory has become far and away our most valued and trusted partner ever. As such, it is now decreed that all of his viewers slash listeners will henceforth receive $150 off their Eight Sleep Pod Pro cover or Eight Sleep Pod Pro mattress by using the code TRENDIFIER at checkout. That's T-R-E-N-D-I-F-I-E-R. It's also the link in my description. Eight Sleep is honored to have and continue our friendship with the number one podcast in the history of the world.

Without you, there would be no Eight Sleep. So thank you for all that you do. Sincerely, Alexander Richard Horowitz, Chief of Staff, Eight Sleep. Now, in fairness to Horowitz, about an hour before recording this, I told him I needed a statement to read to everybody. He didn't get back to me, so I had to write it for him. That said, I think this is exactly what he would have said. I'm sure he would stand behind every single word. And most importantly, as you heard, instead of $100 off, you all will now be getting $150 off.

So use that link in my description along with the code TRENDIFIER at checkout. That's T-R-E-N-D-I-F-I-E-R, and you'll get a way better sleep than you've ever had in your life today. And trust me, once you get an 8 Sleep, you're never going to go back to whatever the old mattress was. I use the cover, the 8 Sleep Pod Pro cover, so you can keep your regular mattress, but you get the full benefits of the 8 Sleep on top of it. Check it out. You'll love it. And it's $150 off. He did the fling the table over while we're eating dinner. Or he bust the house up. He break the whole house up from soup to nuts. And it was something that I still can remember this day. If he got upset or something didn't

go right, he bust the house up. And that was his way of abuse. He'd throw brooms through windows. He'd rip money up. I mean, this guy had a hair-trigger temper. And I want to talk about this deal. It's a big part of my chapter two in the book. 1973, he decided to put a pool in the backyard. And he put a big above-ground pool. I was going to say above-ground. And it was a lot of work for him to put a pool in the backyard. And he put a big above-ground pool. I was going to say above-ground. And it was a lot of work for him to put this pool up. He took down a big oak tree. He took down a garage.

And he said it was for me. It wasn't for me. It was for him and his buddies. And my mother put a stop to that. She didn't want these guys at the house. The union guys or the other guys? They were union guys. But these guys were just... The no-show union guys or the other guys they were union guys but these guys were the no-show union guys in a no-show these were the guys that my father his crew so he got mad that

he couldn't use the pool with his buddies and then he put the pressure on me to use the pool and let me tell you i don't like the pool i don't want to go in the pool. You know, in 1973, dogs were still tethered to a cinder block. My dog, Ringo, during the day, so he didn't run off. He had a long chain. He was tethered to the cinder block in the backyard. You didn't have a fence? We didn't have a fence yet. We'd have one after this.

And my father came home from work, and he said to me, have you been in the pool? I said, no. He goes, you ever been in the pool? I said, no. He said, why? I i said it's too cold he went around with this like hatchet back in the 70s you edged your lawn with this handle that had a blade at the edge of it about six to eight inches wide and he hatcheted the outside from the outside into the pool, like harpooning a whale, the liner. And all this water busted out.

And it blew out the backyard. It went in the basement of my house, blew the window out, flooded the basement out. It was 15,000 gallons of water coming out. It was the biggest above-ground pool you could put up at the time. And this is the type of volatility he had so again this happened i didn't talk to anybody about it the neighborhood knew he was nuts but what do you do yeah it's i mean that's the kind of temper that i mean you never want to see hot tempers all the time on parents but that's the kind of temper where it's it's quite literally an abusive temper because even if he's not hitting you or hitting your mom

i mean these are to be a kid and see that i mean that's that's that's savage shit right there you know you're harpooning a pool yeah i can't even imagine that much water coming and i'm surprised you didn't get crushed by it but I don't know how he didn't. I don't know how he didn't. I don't know how he survived. I don't know how the dog survived. Oh, the dog was outside? The dog in the cinder block, thank goodness, went with the water. It was like a tsunami.

What he did was, to get a visual of this, is he went around and he was harpooning the pool. Yeah. And then he'd go around a few feet and kept on hitting it at first the water came out as a trickle yeah eventually the water ripped a liner and it went from the ground and where that metal bottom of the pool is it ripped it right open and the water came out it was and the dog cinder block went and the dog was floating with it down the middle of the driveway and he lived the dog lived the dog lived wow so julian this stuff is inside me you know and then i go to a school um that you know 1970s kids were trying to figure their way it was an odd time you know and um played a lot of handball which was a big deal deal back then. I had a pair of Pro Keds when they originally came out.

I picked those over the Converse All-Star. And we lived our life. And my father had this crazy, crazy hairpin trigger. My mother one time got out of the car while it was moving. And like a cartoon cartoon she stood up she was able to catch her speed and stand up because he was in a parking lot he spun the car around with me in it and he clipped her with the car the bumper on her calf jesus christ and sent her flying so that is that that is physical abuse yeah so it turned out absolutely so turn to that

so you know as things would happen we went we wound up uh eventually moving from westbury and i was already thrown out of the house at eight years old 1973 i was thrown out i was given my denim jacket and told to get out by your dad by my mother actually because she knew yes she threw me out and um why um you know that we'll never know the answer to that. She says, get out. It was about 8 o'clock at night. I walked to Roosevelt Field from Westbury, which is a nice multi-mile walk. And I made it to Westbury.

And the crazy part is, back then, nobody said anything. Here's this little kid. You were 8 years old at night walking in a denim jacket. In a denim jacket. Did you sleep at the park? Well, not yet, because I wind up staying out until the mall closed. Roosevelt Field closed about 10. It was a years old. At night, walking in a denim jacket. In a denim jacket. Did you sleep at the park? Well, not yet because I wind up staying out until the mall closed. Russell Field closed about 10. It was a Friday night.

And when I get back to the house about 1 o'clock in the morning, the Nassau County police are there. And they changed the story. They said I ran away. So it was my first police interaction. They said you ran away. They said I ran away. So you were trying to go back to basically get permission to come back inside and they had already done a cover story they already did a cover story and they really did and they sounded convincing and um the police already were telling me you know hey

you know something could have happened to you could have got abducted i said could have got abducted nobody even said a word to me and you didn't say anything to the police i didn't say anything see this this is why then like that kind of and there's other events obviously you're telling a bunch of stories here but when i hear you say like i internalize all this stuff imagine i mean i'm talking to everyone else not you because you did it but like imagine being eight years old and being gaslit like that yeah and told like oh no you ran away i didn't kick you out and you just walked around in the dark by yourself probably scared nowhere to be tried to come back home it's the only place you know i was thirsty i was hungry yeah no food that's like it's terrible

unreal and i do understand today you know a lot of times there's a victim shaming and we really need to stop that in this country where people, why are you coming out with this now? I mean, here I am, 57 years old. I just wrote this book. I'm coming out with this stuff now. You wind up second-guessing yourself, and you play these scenarios, and you could actually wonder, did this really happen?

But a guy like me is a factual guy, man. Newspapers.com.com court records you know police records you know i'm a guy that wants to know the facts and we'll get into why i want to know the facts but this happened and then we wind up moving to a nice home in uh merrick long island and merrick long island for the listeners that don't know we're watchers it's a town of about 17 000 on long island and it's got town of about 17,000 on Long Island, and it's got some notables. And I grew up with people that made the big time,

Mario Puzo from The Godfathers. Oh, yeah. Michael Kors, Debbie Gibson, Ben and Jerry, my friend that I delivered newspapers with, Stephen Shore of Long Island that started Stephen Barry's. Merrick had a lot of notables. Notable Louis Kasman, the so-called adopted son of John Gotti. I'm with his brother, Scott, great friend of mine, unfortunately passed away.

So I wound up growing up in Merrick, and it's a whole new life. And how old were you when you moved there again? We moved there in 76. In January 76, I was 11, going to be 12 years old. So that's where you went to high school and everything. I finished up grade school there in fifth grade and went to junior high and high school. Now, when did you leave your house? Right after high school? Yeah, I was out at about 17, 18 years old. I was out.

When you finished high school, it were four. Well, I finished high school, and then I had a weird thing. I wound up getting a job bouncing at a very famous club in- What club? Malibu, in Long Island. What club? Malibu. Oh, it's called Malibu. It's called Malibu. And I wind up working there in my senior year. Now, the drinking age is 18. And I'm a big guy. I'm lifting weights.

And I get a job at Malibu. But before we get there, I'm being thrown out of my house on a regular basis. I mean, I'm thrown out at 12 years old now for two weeks at a clip. Again? Yeah, 12, I'm thrown out. What happened there? For two weeks? For two weeks.

Where'd you go? I lived in the elementary school playground. I found thrown out. What happened there? For two weeks? For two weeks. Where'd you go? I lived in the elementary school playground. I found the tunnels. You know, they had the playground tunnels where I could sleep at night. Because most people are living. I'm trying to survive, okay? Yeah. I mean, listen.

I'm not even thinking about, you know, what do I want to do with my life? I'm thinking about how am I going to get a night's sleep? And I'm sleeping in the tunnels because they serve for protection against the elements. And if somebody comes in one end, I could run out the other. And the supermarket where they get the bread deliveries is a quarter mile away where I could grab bread in the morning to survive. So two weeks. Did you have money?

I had no money. How'd you get bread? I just would steal it when they leave it out in the morning. No shit. Yeah, one of my amends for one of my sins out there. I used to steal a loaf of bread. I mean, you were trying to survive. I was trying to survive, man.

I think that's okay. Yeah, I just... I think they'd forgive you for that. Pretty painful stuff, man. Pretty painful. And so you then get kicked out, like, kind of on a regular? I start... Like, I'm a disposable piece of trash, you know?

Self-esteem was in the toilet. Oh. So, you know, that happens. And, you know, I'm a punching bag. And here's the thing about people. Don't ever determine somebody's size by how much anger, how much hatred they could have them. My father never weighed more than 175 pounds. And he had more violence in him than I could ever imagine. There was a party one time across the street from our house. And I can't believe this. It was one time he stuck up for me. It was 1977, and I threw some fireworks. And these guys were coming out of the party in a Corvette.

And they were big guys. They were college age guys. And they cursed me out. My father came out of the house and he ran up that Corvette's nose. You know, they were long back then. And he jumped in the T-tops, threw the keys out, and punched the driver in between the nose and his eyes. His forehead, the guy's head swelled up like there was no tomorrow, Dorian. I couldn't believe how bad it was. Then he gets out of the Corvette, and everybody in the party starts coming out. And he's dropping guys left and right. I mean, this is like, you know, remember the old Bruce Lee movies?

Yes. Where you don't think this could happen? Kato? I mean, he is dropping guys. And when you drop a guy or two, then it makes the other guy scared to come into the fight yeah so they eventually get him they eventually get him and the police come and um the police are just like taken back about how this guy fought all these people they're on the sidelines and this is my father this is my primary care giver and um this is the guy i'm going to get

messages from on how to grow up and what to think yeah that's another thing i mean he's sticking up for you there at least but still like to see that because you're 13 14 years old just beating the shit out of people i won't see this type of anger until i wind up working for the department of corrections i won't see this level of tenacity and anger and and this is not your typical inmate. I mean, most inmates are just doing their time, they wanna go home. This is your special, special inmate. He had a hair trigger.

He had a hair trigger. So I wind up, you know, lifting weights and eventually he stops hitting me. I get out of the house, 17 or 18. Do you still, are your parents alive today? No, my father has passed away in 18, and my mother is... My mother is... She's held his abuse in secrecy. She's still alive.

She's still alive, and she is his yes person. And I'll get into that, too. It's interesting. When he finally dies in 18, and his death is an unusual death. She didn't want no funeral, and she didn't even let them put it in the newspaper. It was an unusual death? Matt and he went to the hospital for heat exhaustion. And next thing you know, he's dead. And they had an autopsy done on him. The hospital said it was not necessary. And they found fentanyl in his bloodstream. Come on. Yeah. And how did that happen? It was probably the most kindest thing I could do. That once I got involved,

my brother told me what happened I said well it's simple you get a list of the drugs that the hospital admits giving it to him you get the drugs that he was administered the blood test when he came in the hospital obviously there's no fentanyl there and his autopsy he had a private autopsy done and there was fentanyl and they had deadly amounts of fentanyl so somewhere in the hospital the hospital gave him fentanyl the hospital gave him i haven't even heard i know that it is supposed to be made as a drug that is used in hospitals for like severe things but i've never i haven't heard of like a fentanyl od coming from the hospital so did they pursue this legally yeah they did and it's being pursued legally right now as i

speak oh no we got we got a cloud of secrets i got a brother who's younger than me he's got a different last name yeah it's crazy he he left the house as a young man had a different he had a different last name did you have a relationship with your father when he died i didn't you know what's sad i didn't get to talk to him for about five or six months before he died. And they didn't put him on the phone with me as he was in the hospital. So I never got to say anything to him. And I really needed to talk to him because I had a lot to tell him because I had wrote this book. And before it came out, I wanted to tell him, listen, you didn't do the best job you could. But I didn't accept your apology in 1999

when you wanted to make amends for what you did to me. Oh, he did try to do that. He did, and Julian, there's a lot of heavy stuff, man. You know, I went to a monastery, and I came out of that monastery, and I went there, and I had an epiphany that I have to live this life that I have now in a position of love. When was this? This was in 2018. You went to a monastery in 2018?

I returned to a monastery, and to speed up or go back to the story, how I got there was this. In the Malibu days, Dorian, weightlifting, I had back problems. Back problems led to use of painkillers. I wound up having a friend who was a doctor. And he wrote a lot of pain pills. This is when you're 18 19 this is a little older to be exact age 22 by 22 i needed i needed some i needed some uh back surgery probably already at that point i had lifted my weights a lot i've done a bunch of stuff

and i got hooked on some pain pills and the pain pills led me to addiction and uh the addiction took me to a neighborhood only that i knew what drugs were sold that i needed was east new york specifically pain pills or were you looking for other stuff well i graduated to sniffing heroin at that point damn and uh i'm gonna find some real dangerous guys okay i'm 235 pounds. I look like a cop and I'm in East New York looking for dope. And, uh, I'm going to be going up against the dirtiest police force of America. The seven, five. Oh shit. You were in the seven, five. I was in a seven, five. Can you tell people who the seven, five boys who don't know out there and haven't seen that amazing documentary? Well, here's what the seven, five happen uh mike dowd was the police

officer i was a bad guy he was the head of the whole thing he was the head of this rogue police department now and we need to say this there are good guys good women in the seven five though that are law enforcement officers but this certain faction of the seven five yes they were a rogue branch of this department and i believe that it's literally called i think the seven five yes they were a rogue branch of this department and i believe that it's literally called i think the seven five that documentary is still on netflix i'm pretty sure check it out but yes obviously there was there was a rogue faction within it it just happened to be like a big one and they did some crazy shit and for the listeners i have the forest gum story in the rated r i've been everywhere if you like that that's either that or there's uh there's a story in the rated R. I've been everywhere. If you like that, that's either that or there's a story

in Ken Burns' The Civil War, the two brothers that went everywhere. Elijah Hunt. They went to every battle. They went everywhere. Well, I've been to every battle. So I'm in the 7-5

looking for drugs. You're 22, 23, 24. 22. Because I'm looking to do this stuff outside of Long Island so nobody knows. And I know my father's got a concrete company that borders this place.

I know the drugs are here. Your father owned the company? He was a partner in the company. A partner. Partner. But everybody else is the mafia in the company. Got it. So I come across these rogue cops.

And these guys are no good. And I also get involved with the guys that are dealing the drugs because I'm buying drugs to use them. And I'm in between the good guys that are bad, the bad guys, and I come across guys that are in the 7-5 documentary like Big Walter.

This guy's one of the biggest men you'll ever see. That when he gets out of a van, it gets higher. Okay, that's how much... You ever see that? When a guy gets out of a van, it gets higher. Okay? That's how much... Yeah. You ever see that? When a guy gets out of a vehicle, it lifts up? Yes.

And I had a way of copping my drugs. I'd buy them, not keep them on me. I'd put them in a newspaper and fold the newspaper up. So, you know, they looked like I was working. And I, back then, would have the newspaper in hand, and I would have... I was a professional drug user. I'd have a bottle of V8 juice, but which, inside that V8 juice, was methadone.

So if they do bust me, I could drink the methadone and not get sick. If I knew I was gonna get arrested, there was no chance of talking my way out of it, I could drink the methadone and go into jail and not get sick. And be high. And be high. So I had interactions with the 75 and i got to buy

drugs every day eventually i'm going to come to a point where i can't buy them anymore did they really give a though about you know just another addict on the street i i only asked that because me they did they did because i bought enough drugs to bring back to long island to have them and i had cash on me and i would be another guy that they could rob right what was the full thing i haven't watched that documentary in like five years maybe something like that but what was the full racket they would they would basically run around and extort everyone and straight up rob from people? They'd rob the drug dealers.

They'd rob people that had money on them. If you had cash on you, you'd get it taken from you. Now, Dorian, this is the crazy part about this. I did a documentary. I did an interview, a podcast with Mike Dowd. You did? I would come back together. Mike Dowd would save my life in September of 2021.

He saved your life? Yeah, I'm going to tell tell you why you have a physical life and an emotional life but mike dowd and i'll speed up here so we keep this thing going otherwise we can have a series here take your time so in 2000 And in going back, so I'm in the 75, that group of guys is bad news. But I'm going to get arrested one day. It's going to change my life. In 1990s, early 1990s, a drug cartel, Pappy Mason, Fat Cat Nichols, they're selling drugs in Jamaica. And they're big time. And they would assassinate a New York City police officer from the 103rd Precinct, Eddie Burns.

That's a big no-no. And they would change the policing in New York City forever. And this would change my life. What would happen would be the police would form the Tactical Narcotics Task Force. And these police officers were the real deal. Because those guys were drug dealers who did it, so it was a drug-related...

So this was a drug-related. So we're dealing now with not regular NYPD, regular guys. So when I went back to East New York this one day to cop my drugs, I look in my side-view mirror and I see an army of police officers coming. Okay. When you say an army, like how many?

I'm talking about dozens. Okay. Not three or four. I'm talking two dozen. I'm talking about a tremendous amount of police officers are coming towards my way. And they got many multiple unmarked vehicles. Listen, I'm a street guy. I know the cops.

I got one choice. I got a bunch of drugs on me. I put my vehicle. I got a 442 at the time. A 442? I got an Oldsmobile 442. I don't even know what the fuck that is. That's a car that had a little bit more guts in it.

And I decide that I got to take off., number one, I need to get high. And number two, if they catch me with these drugs, I'm going to be in trouble. But they're right there. I want to take off. They're behind me. Oh, because you're in the car. I'm in the car. I have the car, and I'm going to put it in the corner of the screen so people can see that.

Yeah. It's a nice old school throwback. So at this point, I take off, Julian, and I'm hitting high speeds. What kind of speed? I'm hitting 100 miles an hour. In New York? In New York. Now, Brooklyn is a little bit, this part of Brooklyn is a little desolate.

I mean, these are some burnt out buildings. It's dangerous. It's a dangerous area. So I hit some speeds up to 100 miles an hour. Pothole city. Pothole city. So what I'm doing at the same time, I'm steering with my legs, my knees. I'm ripping open heroin bags and I'm sniffing.

And I'm unloading out the window. So finally, I come to a point where I hit Linden Boulevard and I hit traffic. I can't go no more. And they're all right behind you. They're all behind me, buddy. This is the ugliest scene I'm going to see in my life. There are more guns pointed on me. They got me nine ways of Sunday, windshield, side window, and I'm done. Now, I don't know the NYPD to have revolvers. Well, maybe then in that time frame they did. The sergeant that's going to take charge of this has a silver revolver.

It's a big one. And he's got it at my side view mirror. And I'm scared to open my window. I'm scared to do anything. They open the door and they throw me on the ground. Now, they asked me, you got any family on the job? And I did at the time, Julian. I had a cousin, girl cousin, that really moved up in the ranks.

She was at least a lieutenant back then. I kept my mouth shut. And they could not believe that I was a Long Island kid in that neighborhood. And I got an awakening, man. I'm going to get clean at this point, I believe. I believe I'm going to get clean now. point, I believe. Okay? I believe I'm going to get clean now. Did they charge you with all this stuff? I was going to say, is this a car chase?

So here's what they did, Julian. They bring me back to the 75, and they put me in a cell by myself, away from everybody else. And the sergeant comes back to the back cell. He says, I don't like your attitude. He says, you're going to either leave here with cuffs and go to Central Booking, or you're going to leave in a body bag.

I said, are you threatening me? I said, are you threatening me? I had no fear, brother. I had no fear. But the drugs were still in me. The drugs were talking. Eventually, they decide, for whatever reason, and Mike Dowd knows probably why, they take me to the 90th

precinct. They put me in the vehicle and they move me into a 90th precinct, which is in Williamsburg. And at that point, hours turn into days and days turn into too long to have me arraigned. By the time they bring me to court, the charges cannot go because you have 72 hours to arrange somebody. Is that true? I didn't know that. That's a true story. Wow.

So I guess when they really want you, they get you arraigned. They appear to purposely have not brought me to court. I never get a record from this. Wow. But Julian, my life is never going to be the same That was Mike Dowd No, it wasn't Mike Dowd that did it

But talking to him now when I'm on podcasts Well, he was in charge of it, right Yeah, somebody must have said something Something happened for me There was an angel that I didn't get charged Because I'm going to need this I'm going to need to have a clean record to go into law enforcement Because I have to become a prison official down the road down the road this guy that's all messed

up on drugs so i get out of the 90th precinct how by the way how because you were in there for more than 72 hours wherever it was yeah did you start to have serious withdrawals within a day or two man you start to get some withdrawals that's not not fun, man. People have no idea. And I'm in a cell with a lot of guys. When they moved you. Once they moved you. I'm in a cell with a lot of guys. But something changes. You know, I'm pulled out of the cell.

I'm given a McDonald's hamburger. The lieutenant talks to me. He says to me, what happened to you, son? How do you wind up in a situation like this? Because I'm a clean-cut looking guy, Dorian. I'm a clean-cut looking guy. Even as an addict at this point. Even as an addict.

I got some weight on me. I got some size on me. And he feels for me. He says, I'm calling your mother. I'm going to let her know what happened to you. I go, my mother? I'm 22 years old. He goes, no. Somebody needs to her know what happened to you. I go, my mother, I'm 22 years old. He goes, no.

Somebody needs to know about what happened here. And I never get a reign to get the charges. So what occurs was I go back to Long Island. TNT took my car. I no longer have a vehicle. Who took your car? Tactical Narcotics Task Force. They seized it as a drug seizure. I no longer have a vehicle. Who took your car? Tactical Narcotics Task Force. They seized it as a drug seizure. Now, I would have got it eventually because the charges didn't go,

but I wind up going to Long Island. And at this point, I'm going to get evicted from my apartment. I'm not paying the rent anymore. And I stay in my apartment. And the girlfriend I had at the time has had enough. She says, look, you're bad news, buddy. She goes, you're real bad news. She goes, I know what you're up to. She goes, you're taking my father's undercover police car at night, and you're using that. Oh, so you were just traveling out to the 75 to do drugs, and then you'd come back and live a double life. I live a double and here's here's a girl that had a father that was a new york city cop and i'd wear his bulletproof vest to make sure i was safe i was i was a crazy guy looking to survive i have i wanted to live and i want i

wanted to live and i wanted to do drugs at the same time and people understand what this means if you're an addict that's all that's in your mind. You're a terminator. You're going to get those drugs one way or another. I did everything I could to get drugs. So now she decides to leave my life. I got this pit bull. I didn't talk about this, but I got a pit bull now. And this is not Ringo. This is not Ringo. But in the seven five, I would wind up one day seeing a dog that a guy wanted to use as a dog fighter. And I would adopt a dog from this guy. I'd give this guy 70 bucks and I would adopt this dog from him. Or I'd take this dog. I'd get this dog. And I had some stories in East New York. I got the dog. I would meet a guy that's infamous in East New York named Anthony T. Santiago.

He was shot five times in the chest and stomach. He would have a colostomy bag. His guys would rob blocks, whole blocks at the same time with pillowcases. With pillowcases? Yeah, so they could put all the drugs and jewels and everything. Oh, duh, right. He would come across me one day when Block was being robbed, and he would tell me as I was going to get down

get up. He said we thought you were a cop man. What are you doing in this neighborhood? I said listen I go by the name Chase. That's my nickname. How do you pick Chase?

I got named Chase by the streets. The street guys named me Chase. You know they just gave me the nickname Chase and it stuck man. I guess they took Charlie Charles they gave me the nickname Chase. Okay it stuck, man. I guess they took Charlie Charles. They gave me the nickname Chase.

Okay. So now I'm dealing with Anthony T. Santiago. His whole family owns a string of bodegas. But this guy is a one-man crime wave. And he's got this colostomy bag. And it's gross because he don't change it often, man. Because he's on drugs to himself. But he's a big guy.

And he looks like Tuco from The Good, Bad, and the Ugly. Remember Tuco? I was thinking the other Tuco from Breaking Bad. No, this is the Tuco from The Good, Bad, and the Ugly. I saw The Good, Bad, and the Ugly for a class once, but I don't remember it that well. This is Tuco, man, and he's big. He's a big guy.

And he likes me. And he goes, what do you do here? I said, well, I do a lot of things. I do drugs. I got a sort of delivery route. I do drugs. I got a soda delivery route. I wanted to do it in this Jamaican natural. They needed somebody to deliver soda in the worst areas of New York. And I found them on a penny saver ad.

And I had an old van. I delivered that soda to the ghetto. And I was in places that you wouldn't want to be found dead in. And it was a sweet soda. That was a soda addiction I had to the sweet soda. So I met this Anthony T. Santiago, and we got friendly. But eventually, his drug addiction and his craziness

had him pull a gun on me. And he pulled a gun on me and put it in my stomach while I was driving one day. And he says, Chase, I'm sorry, man. It's come down to this. For what? He wanted my money. So here I am, man, with Anthony T. Santiago,

Cain, my dog, which was friendly, that knew him as a friend, and Anthony put this little gun in my gut, .25 caliber, little bastard, and he pointed it up, and he knew if he had six inches away or a foot, I might have tried to fight him, but I couldn't do nothing. So he took my money money and he robbed me. And I saw, I was double-crossed by who I thought was a friend. And that relationship came to an end. And I would go and take his stuff one day.

I'd go and take his stuff.. What's the story there? You know I was so wronged. I was so wronged by this guy. I was so angry There's always been a part of me That I don't Want people pushing my boundaries. I got boundaries with others. He crossed the line with me I went to his I would think I went to his apartment With a gun and I was ready to deal with him. He was not home, luckily. How long after?

Oh, this was pretty, two weeks. And girlfriend, wife, whoever answered the phone, I went in. I went to his bedroom. I took his stuff, and I basically left him my calling card. So that was the end of that East New York for that part of the area. I couldn't go back there no more. I had just burnt that bridge. And are you still addicted at this point, would you say?

Well, let me bring you back up to speed. That happened. That was just one of the stories in the crazy East New York along with getting the dog, Kane. That's his name. He looked like a lion. So I had the positive of getting Cain, the negative of Santiago, the negative of the 7-5.

But the good thing was... Kind of the positive of the 7-5, though, too. Yes, yes. And then the tactical narcotics task force, which I'll never forget those guys, okay? And I really need to stress that even in the worst neighborhoods, there are people that do their job, okay? Sure, sure.

There are always people. There are always the Serpicos. There's always the Berettas. And they will do their job. And Beretta from the old TV show from the 70s. So now, bring us back. I get out of the 90th precinct. I go to the central booking.

I get released with no charges. Okay? I have no vehicle. It's been impounded. I go back to my apartment. My girlfriend's there. She winds up leaving me. I have my dog, Kane.

And after a few days, there's no food left. And we start walking around on our feet and pause. We start going to Burger King, getting free hamburgers from the manager. So you weren't working in Malibu anymore? No, all that stuff was gone. That was all done. That was all done.

Basically, what I was doing for money was this sort of delivery route. Once I got too whacked out, I didn't do that either. Just to keep the timeline in my head, I'm just trying to keep it straight, the Santiago thing, that wasn't after getting arrested that was before that was before i just brought us back that was one of the stories i might have missed that i'm sorry if i did yeah that was that was in the craziness and east new york brooklyn's a big place. So I actually moved out of that and went further west to Brownsville, which is even a worse neighborhood. So how I lived through this, I will never know, okay?

And if anybody watches just the trailer of the 7-5, there was police units that wouldn't go down certain blocks without a tactical unit. It was a dangerous place. So I survived this. I get out. I'm in this apartment in Long Island. And I eventually run out of food. I'm in my apartment, but I'm not on drugs. I'm not on drugs. But here's something that people don't realize.

Drug addiction is mental, physical, and spiritual. So you could be off the drugs and still be mentally addicted and still hurting you don't feel great when you get off drugs there's a time but that's also like are you talking you were still feeling that way long after the withdrawals quote-unquote had passed yes because i was i was using i was drinking that methadone. I was sniffing the heroin. And you don't feel good three, four days. Maybe your physical detox is over, physically, but not really. It can be over that fast, too. No, it really isn't. It's weeks.

Listen, I went weeks without sleeping. They say you can't go without sleep. I went 17 days kicking like Bruce Lee on a couch. But this thing comes to a head. And thank goodness it does. And this is the scene that goes on. I get down to a salad dressing in my house. That's all I got, a salad dressing.

I'm too weak to walk. I open up the salad dressing and take a squeeze in my mouth. My dog's looking down at me. I give the dog a squeeze, me a squeeze, dog a squeeze. We're down to salad dressing and take a squeeze in my mouth my dog's looking down at me i give the dog a squeeze me a squeeze dog a squeeze we're down to salad dressing and i'm gonna die in my apartment i haven't drank and i haven't drank water i haven't eaten and i'm just dying you didn't have running water because the bills weren't paid the the bills were not paid and back then there was no they shut the heat off. I mean, this thing was getting ugly. Okay. This thing was getting ugly when the electricity went out,

then the water went out for whatever reason. You know, I had nothing. I had nothing. We got down to, I would go to bed when it got dark and wake up when it got light. I didn't need a alarm clock no more. So I had nothing. And I think the landlord may have turned off the water. But we got down to nothing. And lo and behold, my father shows up. He knew where I lived. My mother had sent him over. Oh, because the cop called your mom?

No, no. Remember, yes, she knew that part. But she knew I had a dog. And she knew my ex-girlfriend must have told her that she left. She was worried about the dog. So she sends my father over to my house. And this is the day that my life is going to change forever. And he bangs on the front door.

And I think it's the cops. But it's him. I open the door. He goes, your mother sent me here. How's the dog? I said, my dog's right here. Look at you. Now, I went from 235 pounds to about 167 pounds.

Jesus. I was a dead man. I was gray. That's the picture of addiction. And my dog was skinny. And my father starts fighting with me. And I realize it's going to be a moment before he hits me. And I'm not up to fighting this guy. So I'm living on Atlantic Avenue in Freeport at the time.

And it's a four-lane highway, two going east, two going west. I run across four lanes to get away from him. But my dog follows me and gets hit by a car. So I hear the screeching, thud, boom. I turn around and my dog got hit by a car and it's laid out. And what's worse is the dog gets up, gets hit by another car. So what occurred was two men that could never get along. My father took his Cadillac and blocked traffic and pulled up to the dog.

He says, get the dog in the car. And we both get the dog in the car and run the dog to the emergency vet. And the dog's life gets saved. Really? He lived. Listen. The guy hit by two cars he lived listen dog they did some surgery the ribs healed dog lived and a dog would go on to live a long life okay holy shit now we're at the hospital my mother mother makes a statement. She says, look, you don't got money for this dog. You can kill yourself.

You're not taking the dog down with you. So, you know, they got some. So the dog winds up going from living like I'm living, like a bum, addicted. The dog goes from one extreme to the other. The dog started in the East New York worst neighborhood, then wound up in my world, whatever. All I could provide was love. No, very little food. Now the dog is living in America like a champ, okay?

The dog is living now in its own bedroom on a bed, and the dog lives its life. So now I'm free to destroy the rest of my life now. What do I do? I go back to my apartment. I realize I'm never coming back to this apartment. There's nothing of value. I say to myself, I got to get out of here.

So what does an addict do? I'm clean. I have no drugs in my system now. It may be a month, but I'm still mentally addicted. I say, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go ride the trains. I'm going to go ride the trains. I'm going to go ride the subway. That was my thinking.

Just to ride. Just to ride. And my footwear that night was, I had like these sandals, like these flip-flops that you get from a hospital or a pedicure. I had these dollar flip-flops. I don't know why I was wearing them, but that's what I was wearing. And I wind up riding the subway and I'm getting thoughts that I want to use drugs. I'm getting this chanting and I'm riding the J train, which is a bad train at nighttime. This is a death sentence for a guy from the suburbs, okay? And the train's telling me, the voice in my head's telling me,

get off the train, get off the train, get off the train. The good side of me is saying to me, no, no. So I do get off the train, because remember, Long Island Railroad goes to Jamaica, Queens, and then from Jamaica it goes to the East New York. So I got to correct myself. I'm not on the J train yet. I'm on the Long Island Railroad going to the Jamaica train station. So I get off the train station there, and I'm waiting for the J train.

And I'm having this battle of good and bad in me because now I'm off the drugs, but I want the drugs. I look at this peaceful-looking character on the platform, and he looks at me. And I look at him, and he looks at me. And I said to myself, that's a peaceful-looking guy. And he comes over, and he introduces himself. He says, hi, my name's Michael.

I said, my name is Charlie. I said, you ride the trains? He says, only when I'm coming and going from work. And this guy's going to give me the story of my life that I need to hear in two minutes. He says, I was one time a homeless addict. I was living in the Bronx. I was living in a refrigerator box for shelter. I was addicted to every drug. He goes, I was living in a refrigerator box for shelter. I was addicted to every drug. He goes, I was saved.

I said to him, you usually tell this to strangers? He says, no, but you look like you need some help. He says, from 20 feet away, it looks like you've got tombstones in your eyes. I said to him, yeah, man, but I've tried to get clean. I've tried to go to detox. I haven't been to rehab. It doesn't work. You know, and he says, because you haven't found a higher power.

You're still trying to do what you will. You cannot use will against a drug addiction. It'll fail every time. He said, this is bigger than you. He says, I went to a place called Graymoor. It's a sanctuary. It's a monastery in upstate New York. I said, they save guys like me? He goes, they save everything from guys like you to jailbirds to guys that want a spiritual reprieve. Well, they take me. I just told you, sir, they'll take you. How do I know when to go? He goes, they're always open.

So I take the information. How far away was that? It was about a 90-mile ride upstate New York. So I get that information, and I file it in my mind. He goes, you want to write it down? I go, I got a memory like an elephant. I get that information and I file it in my mind. He goes, you want to write it down? I go, I got a memory like an elephant. And just like that, train door's open.

He gets on the train, looks back at me, and he basically says, I got to give it away to keep it. I got to give it away to keep it. So I internalize it and I move on. And now I get on the J train. Because even after that intervention... You're still on drugs. I know I want drugs more. So I get on the J train and I still have the same thing that was going on at Long Island Railroad.

The good, the bad, the good, the bad, the good, the bad. Because right now I'm at the breaking point. I'm more of drugs. I could really get clean for good if I get treatment, but I'm not willing to do that. So the voice comes on telling me to get off the train, but I don't get off in time because the train runs past East New York

and is now on Brownsville, which is a worse neighborhood, okay? And these buildings were all burnt out in the 80s. I mean, they're all burnt out. What do you mean burnt out? Arsons. I mean, they're all burnt out. What do you mean burnt out? Arson. There's no, they're skeleton buildings. All that's there is drug dealers in these neighborhoods that I'm frequent.

So I am a transactional scorekeeping guy at this point. I'm a spiritual guy. I only believe what I can see. But I got this force pushing me to get off the damn train. It's like I got no control of my body. I get off the train. I start walking aimlessly through these neighborhoods. All you got to do is put up a finger. Someone's got drugs. Yes. And I'm drawn to this one building that this guy's behind it and a 50 gallon drum. They're burning a fire and they're doing drugs. They're shooting drugs up.

And this voice tells me, ask them if you could join them. Ask them if you could join them. And I can't believe where this is coming. This is going to be my death sentence. These guys, A, don't know me. B, if they offer me drugs and I share drugs with them, I mean, I can get HIV, I can overdose. God knows what could happen. And I keep on thinking about the conversation I had with the guy in the train

station. His name was Michael. And I keep on replaying the conversation in my head. I said, man, I need help here. I need help because as I'm doing that, I'm still walking towards the guys. And I start to chant, God help me, God help me, God help me. And I scream, God help me, God help me. These guys turn around, they look at me. They can't believe that I'm encroaching them, and I'm like a maniac. At this point, the forward motion stops. I'm no longer going forward.

I'm no longer going to ask to join them. I've got strength like there's no tomorrow. I've never been a runner, even though I was on track. I've never been a runner. Don't like to run. I don't like to run. Matter of fact, I avoid watching somebody on TV running gets me tired. I mean, it's just not my deal.

I mean, you got to be a runner. I'm not a runner. So I would prove that I'm a runner. I'm, it's just not my deal. I mean, you got to be a runner. I'm not a runner. So I would prove that I'm a runner. I'm a sprinter, not a runner. So they start, yeah, they don't know. They're like in shock. And I turn around and I start running and scream on the top of my lungs. God help me.

God help me. You're still screaming. I'm still screaming. I run and run and run. And I Google map. I ran and I ran and I ran. There you go. I just like to run. And I got all the ways to a fire station.

And the fire station garage door was open. And there was a fireman. And he was working on a fire truck. And I came in panting, needing water. He goes, are you okay? I go, no. He goes, where's the problem? I said, I'm the problem.

I said, you wouldn't understand. Nobody needs assistance. Everything that's a problem is right here in front of you. Can I get some water? Sure, the sink, they had a big slop sink. I drank water. I washed my face. He said, what's going on? I go,

you won't believe what happened to me. I said, I've been hijacked. I had this out-of-body experience. This poor guy, you know, it's like, oh, we got another crazy one. But he knew there was some sanity into what I was telling him. I told him about the train station. I told him what happened. I said, I gotta

get to Graymoor. He said to me, you know, the FDNY is hiring. As just a conversation or just something to give a young man like me, because I was a young man. Wow. I said, sir, I wouldn't be any help to the department. I said, I'm dying. I need some help. I got to get to this train station in Jamaica.

I got to call my father. This is the only way I can get some help. I got to get to this gray moor. And the guy was compassionate. It was the first real deep compassion that I connected with a human being. He knew I was a mess after I talked to him for a while. Gave me a T-shirt. I got some footwear. I had no footwear. At that point, I blew out the slippers, whatever the hell they were,

the cheap pedicure sandals. And I got to the Jamaica train station. And I got there by like five in the morning. And I called my father at six. I panhandled $2. And one thing about New Yorkers, I need to say this. New Yorkers, if you challenge them, they'll fight you at every light. New Yorkers, if you want to get in a fight, you can fight 20 times before it's six o'clock in the morning. But when you really do need help and you don't got game in your eyes. I mean, I asked a New Yorker for some change. He gave me two bucks right off the bat. No questions. So I bought a soda and I bought a buttered bagel. And back then you could do both.

And I still had change left over. And I wanted to call my father at six o'clock. And remember, he hadn't heard from me in a little while since we had to blow out with the dog. I said, Dad, and at six o'clock. And remember, he hadn't heard from me in a little while since we had to blow out with the dog. I said, Dad, and at six o'clock in the morning, the guy answers the phone, you know, yeah, what's up? Hello? I said, I need help. I said, I need you to drive me to this place called Graymoor in upstate New York. He goes, I got to work today. It's Friday. I said to him, everything in my life happens on a Friday. You know, I get thrown work today. It's Friday. I said to him, everything in my life happens on a Friday. You know, I get thrown out of the house on a Friday. I go up to Graymoor on a Friday.

Friday is like this. It's still to this day on Saturday mornings, I feel like I'm born again. Every Saturday morning, I feel like I got a new lease on life. And that just is natural. Whether it's your religion, whether it's the Sabbath, Saturday is my day to be reborn. He says to me, I've heard about the place. He goes, that's for guys at the end of their rope. I said, that's perfect. Oh, your dad knew it? Oh, yeah, this place has been around a long time.

I said, perfect. That's where I'm at. He goes, son, you'll be around men, some dangerous. I go, I'm a dangerous man, Dad. Said that to your dad. Yeah, I said, I I'm a dangerous man, dad. Said that to your dad. Yeah. I said, I become a dangerous man. He says, look, I don't know what you're doing in Jamaica. I don't know what's going on, but I'm going to give you my word. Don't leave the front of that train station.

Don't get in any trouble. So he says he's going to come at six. So I have a new lease on life. Or at seven, I guess. I know I'm sorry I must have missed out he was supposed to be there at six he don't get there till seven he gets there late she called him at like five that I know I called him at six he said he'd be at there at six which is 12 hours later remember he's got to go that night oh gotcha gotcha thank you for the clarification I drive people nuts I know the story so I call call him at 6. There's a lot of details. I'm trying to keep it all straight.

I call him at 6. He can't get there until 6 because, remember, he's got to go to work. He didn't get to work yet. I'm calling him at home. And back then, it wasn't cell phones. So I wind up at the Jamaica train station with this new lease on life. I'm like Forrest Gump, a happy-go-lucky guy. I'm in a new mindset.

But I'm hungry. I'm like Forrest Gump, a happy-go-lucky guy. I'm in a new mindset. But I'm hungry. I'm really hungry. And I made the wrong move. I grew up up some more change. I buy another soda. And I wind up going to this fake Chinese, not Chinese place, but chicken place. Maybe I would have had more compassion at the Chinese place. I went to this chicken place that was like diagonally across the street from the Jamaica

train station. So here's what I'm thinking. Here's my thought process. I'm going to get a meal and I'm going to play the same routine I do with the Burger King. I'm going to order the meal and not have any money and just play the sob story and need some help and see how that goes. Oh. But I had a little bit of change in my pocket.

So, I go and order the two-piece meal. They have variation. And I put the change on the counter when it's delivered. And this guy starts cursing at me. And this place didn't have a really nice Long Island vibe. I should have known I was not in the right spot.

So, this guy leans over the counter and he grabs me by the shirt, by my neck. And he wants to start choking me. Okay? Can you imagine this? Yeah. He's leaning over. Now I'm 167 pounds, soaking wet.

But I have tendons that are the strength of a 240-pound man. He doesn't realize. I'm artificially 167. I'm not 167 in my strength, okay? I may be weaker, but I'm not. This guy, a light switch went on, and I got aggression like there was no aggression. I grabbed him and pulled him right around that counter. And I grabbed him, and I was bringing him to the back

because I was going to dunk him in the hot grease. You know, the grease. Oh, Jesus. I had that in mind. I said, okay, this is over. There'll be no gray more. This is going to end right here. This guy had no right to put his hands on me.

Well, unfortunately, the cook, then he went into an Akito-type guy. He took a mop handle. Now mop handles aren't generally that strong, but in the 80s and the 90s, they might've been built different. This thing had diameter to it. And this mop handle did not break. And he's giving me these slugs and banging me with this mop handle on my back. And he's changing direction and he's using his left hand on it. And I am fighting two guys. But I'm focusing on the guy that put his hands on me. And I got him towards a deep fryer now. And I'm trying to get him in. And, you know, drugs have a way of distorting your mind. Even if you're off them for a while, your mind is not clear.

I would have been burnt too by putting them in a deep fryer. So luckily, it doesn't happen. Luckily, the cook is strong enough. And they both work their way away from the deep fryer. By this time, the police come in. The NYPD showed up. Now, if this was the days of closed circuit TV and this was on video, this would be a movie. Three Stooges, 2022 style.

So, the police show up and the sergeant leads the charge and separates us all. The cook starts to talk and the serge sergeant says, you been drinking? He goes, yeah. Your testimony's worthless. Shut up. Just like that. Now it's me and the counter guy. He asked the counter guy,

what happened? He assaulted me. Why did he assault you? Well, he didn't pay. He thefted services and I... Did you put your hands on him? Yeah, I did. I don't think this is deaf to services. What happened? He asked me, what's your story? I said, well, my story is real simple. I said, I'm in recovery mode. I'm going to Graymoor.

I said, I'm waiting for my father. And all this stuff occurred. He said, did he put his hands on you? I said, yes, he did. And I defended myself. So he says, go outside, you. So I go outside. So I guess he tells the guy, the cook, that it wasn't depth of service, that he could arrest me, never to put his hands on nobody.

The sergeant gets my meal, and he brings it out, and I get a free lunch out of this deal. It was the hardest free lunch I ever had. And this sympathetic, I must have been a sympathetic character. I don't know what I was, what I looked like. But I know at that body weight, I was the picture of addiction. And he had me give him the rundown.

I told him exactly what happened. And he gave me his time. He said, I'm going to tell you this right now. He goes, you're going to sit in front of the train station and wait for your father don't leave the station you've got food now you got beverage wait for your father so what happened so my father did come and pick me up he got there about 20 to 7 now you know we talked about this earlier all this stuff happened and i haven't mentioned to my father what had happened with the jamaica train station i mean who can you tell this to so who would believe it who would believe this story so were you marked up um probably who

knows who knows he might have not known the difference though he might not know the difference anyway so i've been through the ringer so he gets there so now what's interesting is he we start to head upstate to new york as we get out of the city we don't talk i'll never forget this ride i'll never be my father this length of time again and it wasn't his choice of music that he was playing. Now, back then, you had cassette tapes, not DVDs. And he had cassette in. At first, he had Hootie and the Blowfish. And then from there, it started to rain, and I was scared because I knew my old life was leaving

and my new life was starting. And he had Aaron Neville playing. And if anybody knows Aaron Neville, he could sing from the heart. And he was singing songs that just made me feel. And I think back at that time, two men that could never get along.

God was between us in that car. It was really heavy. Take your time. Take your time. It was really heavy, man. I mean, that wasn't his choice of music, Aaron Neville. I mean, my father liked Frank Sinatra and Pavarotti.

Louis Armstrong. I mean, there father liked Frank Sinatra and Pavarotti. Louis Armstrong, I mean, there was no coincidence. He might have been late because he looked for this music. I don't know. But I needed to hear Aaron Neville that day. I needed to hear that songs. And years later, I'd find out when I worked for the Department of Corrections that sometimes his music's played when people are detoxing drugs. So

we get, you know, why was I going to a monastery on a rainy night in the fall? And we hit this gray moor, and this place is pretty big and intense when you're coming off of drugs. It's a big cross at the base of the hill. And they got motivational slogans.

They got writings when you get there that let you know that you're at a place of worship. I mean, you know where you're at. I don't care what faith you are. They don't care what faith you are. Long as you're not God god you'll find a god there how's that one i like that that's a good one yeah how many people were there like how many i guess that's like monks who are in there or tons and tons of brown uh suited monks and how many lots i don't know lots more than the police department that was chasing wow now how

many other people like you coming a couple? Just a couple hundred people, probably. Really? This is big. This is big. So my father gets to the top of the hill. He said, son, you don't have to do this. And he starts to get a little emotional. I said, I do, man.

I'm done. I said, I got a disease. I knew enough that I had a disease. I said, if I don't get well, I'm going to die from this, man. I knew that I could not outthink addiction. I couldn't outscam it. I couldn't outthink it. I couldn't outrun it. Addiction is so powerful. It's encompassing. I mean, people will be listening and say, well, why when the guy had no food, why don't you just go to a supermarket and shoplift? Because my mindset was done. I couldn't think clearly.

I couldn't do. I wanted to roll up on that couch and just continue to kick like Bruce Lee kicked, but kick internally. I was done. You cannot put your faculties. Remember, addiction is spiritual, first thing to go. Then mental goes. You can can't think clearly and then the last thing that goes and then you die is your physical part i like how you say spiritually on that that's the second or third time you said that and and you don't go straight to like you do say mental but you don't go straight to emotional because spiritual is heavier to me in this context it's like your soul the the light what what did you say about the vietnam vets they had the thousand yard stare was that a thousand yard stare it's like the light leaves

the light leaves that's what makes us who we are you go to facebook and you put a picture in 3d from flat it goes into 3d we as human beings not human doings we have electricity to us you can see we're human beings not human doings wow and you can see when somebody is spiritually charged now my father and me two guys that could never get along there was definitely looking back god sat between us on that ride up that hill. He was a street guy. I was a street guy. He was fighting to make more money.

I was fighting to save my life. He never did a drug. I did drugs. He put drugs probably in streets. I used drugs. We had two opposite guys. He had classic Clinton, Dannemora prison tattoos. It would take years later till somebody would identify those tattoos from the period. He was a guy that in his whole life only spoke several hundred, hundred words. I never remember him talking much.

He never said much on the phone. He never prattled. I prattle. I'm dramatic. I'm a talker. What do you mean? I've never heard that one. Prattle?

Prattle is just like useless energy talking, just talking to talking. His talking was trying to say the least amount of words. He was smooth. He'd do more with a hello than I would do with a dictionary. He'd tell you hello in a respectful manner and be done. You know what? I want to stop you for one second just on that. This is an interesting little psychological thing.

Like you've talked about throughout your story, especially like as a kid the things that would happen to you you were an internalizer with a lot of it like you wouldn't go out and tell someone when you ran away for two weeks or when when you got kicked out i'm sorry for two weeks you wouldn't you wouldn't go through these experiences or you wouldn't talk about your dad taking the hatchet to the pool yeah but as a person like on a day-to-day level, it seems pretty clear that you were always, you would talk to people. You would, as you just said, like you would just prattle, right? Yes. Yeah. That's interesting.

But I learned to talk without giving away anything. Yes. You'd get no information from me. You think you'd, people would say, I'm an open book. But open to what? Exactly. They got a lot of noise. They didn't get anything personal.

So now I'm in this monastery. And again, I'm going to find an awakening here. Now, this is addiction in its prime role. Addiction is cunning, baffling, and powerful. It's the only disease that tells you you don't have a disease. And for those that don't believe it's a disease, the American Medical Association has it in their book. It is a disease.

It is cunning, baffling, and powerful. So what happened is I check in. They delouse me. Delouse you? Yeah, it's a Friday night. I should be going to the movies on a date, and they're spraying chemical on me. Oh, like you're going into prison.

Yes, they deloused me. It's humiliating. And this is where my addiction took me, man. And I got deloused, given pajamas, given a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I had to spend three days on a cot to make sure I didn't have any lice or flu. And then I got into the main place, and it was a day of prayer and reflection. But here's what happened.

Two weeks in, I probably put 10, 12 pounds on whatever I did. prayer and reflection. But here's what happened. Two weeks in, I probably put 10, 12 pounds on whatever I did. I was feeling my old self again. And the addiction tapped me on the shoulder. And it explained this to me. It talks to you. And people that suffer know what I'm talking about.

It's you having a conversation with yourself. I think it's the people, regular people do this. They have a conversation with themselves. I think it's the people, regular people do this. They have a conversation with themselves. They go out to Cheesecake Factory, and they believe they're going to have one slice of bread. They tell themselves, yeah, I'll have one slice. Next thing, they have the bread basket, another one,

and they're into it too deep. And have that conversation, go with yourself, not the way you wanted it to. So now I'm having a conversation with myself. Charlie, this is a nice place. It'll be here if you need it in the future. You've been through a lot. You needed some rest.

You got it. You make some apologies. You go see if you could deliver the soda again. And you get your life back. Can you, is this, because this isn't like a rehab center. You can get up and leave. You can. You can. You can.

So this is a conversation I have with myself. Now, this is the good part. So I run a body intake guy who's Jimmy, who's like a classic type of guy, looks almost like a Clarence with red hair and it's a wonderful life. He's basically an earth angel. That's his job.

He's a volunteer. And he says to me, you want to leave, huh, Charlie? Yeah. Well, I'll have to let you talk to the brothers. They're going to want to know why you want to leave. So if we're doing something wrong, we could do it better, maybe. So he sat me down in front of the brothers, Father Owen and Father Bernie. They're running the place. Now, Father Bernie these I'm misunderstood this part because these are months. They're monks. Oh, yeah But they're still called father. Well one was father Owen father Bernie because they're Franciscan monks their fathers. They are priests Yeah, cuz you're saying you're thinking story and I was my head went to Catholic But then it sounded when we were talking off the episode sounded like the old school like monk silent thing yeah i wasn't really sure well in

my opinion i don't i'm a catholic but i hope i don't offend anybody i'm a spiritualist now um these guys these guys keep the catholic church together this is the backbone so i'm told i gotta wait to speak to father bernie Bernie and Father Owen. And this is not going well. Father Bernie looks like a triathlete. Okay, let me get this straight here. He's a guy with broad shoulders. He's lean with neck muscles. Rumor has he's a martial artist.

You don't want to get sideways with this guy. Father Owen, he's got white hair, black rimmed glasses from the 60s. Like the ones that you see, like a warden running the prison with the old school black rimmed glasses, Buddy Holly maybe. Okay. So I'm told to sit on the bench. I realize these guys got their own tricks. So I'm having a conversation with myself. And the self says, look, these guys are going to put up a fight

why you can't leave. You're going to tell them why you can. So I'm rehearsing this. They tell you this, you tell them that. They tell you this, you tell them that. They say that you need to be here for your own good. You had an awakening. You don't like the spiritual part of the program here.

You don't like anything. So here is, I got all this strength. This is why we need friends. This is why we as human beings need to express ourselves to people we can trust. Because our thinking, a lot of times, is not clear. And a good friend will tell you when your thinking is not clear. This is my own thinking. When they opened up the door, Father Bernie opened up that door,

there was more light in that room than I've ever seen in my life. I felt like I needed sunglasses. Something was going on in that room. There was an energy in that room. I felt some moving between me and Michael on that Jamaica train station. I felt some moving between me and Michael on that Jamaica train station. I felt some moving between me and my father riding up. Man does not live by bread alone. Listen, if that was the case, you could give us three square meals a day and give us a beverage and we'd be fine.

We're not. We live on the next dimension. So, Father Bernie, Father Owen, the light coming from Father Owen and his white hair, and he said this to me, Charles, do you have something to tell us?

And all that chanting in my head was gone. Like that? Like that. I didn't have any guts. It was gone. Where was all that? Where was my defense attorney? Where was my devil, the defense attorney have any guts. It was gone. Where was all that? Where was my defense attorney? Where's my devil, the defense attorney for me? It was gone. It was me speaking.

Mortal me. Meek me. Humiliated me. Father? Oh, oh, oh, oh. Owen. Yes, Charles. Uh, I couldn't talk. He said, well, Jimmy told us you want to leave here. I said, yes, Father. I'm homesick.

Well, that can't be right. Your father called us. You're homeless. You have no home. He says, do you have any money? I said, no. He said, this is your home right now. We're here to provide a home for you.

And we're here for you to have an awakening and find God because you're not doing well. And you can't even provide for yourself anymore. And you're in the prime of your life. See, for a lot of people, addiction does not have levels. Oh, I hit bottom. No, no, no, no.

Let's get this clear. Bottom is when you flatline, okay? And even for addicts that flatline, there's Narcan. It gets them back up, and they'll go back at it. Addiction dies untreated when you're buried

or you're incinerated. Nothing less. Untreated addiction will kill you. There's no way out. And it will make it messy. And unlike dying from cancer or heart disease, it's a lonely death. It's a death that leaves people that are unaddicted with no answers to the questions. And they're baffled. He had it all. He couldn't get past himself if he only picked himself up by the bootstraps.

See, you've been hijacked. You've been hijacked, okay? Fred Flintstone in the 1960s had a cartoon, okay? And there was one when, we love Fred Flintstone, he was a funny guy, but when he said the word bet, he couldn't say bet, bet, bet, bet, bet, bet, because his mind got hijacked. Same thing with addiction. You're in a passenger seat of a car that's being driven by the addiction.

You're seat belted in. You cannot hit the brakes. You cannot hit the steering wheel. You're there. Same thing trying to feed yourself. You're in a dream and you can't get to the destination. That's addiction. In real life, you never get to the destination that's addiction in real life when you can't get

you never get to the destination you could never get where you're going when you're addicted but the even when you get quote unquote you heal yourself of it right you get yourself to a place where that peace is always there right but you you have a good life again. You get past it, right? Yes. Like I said, it's still there. So in your car analogy, that got my attention because my friend Ashton Larold was in here last year and he said something that really stuck with me and then it stuck with a lot of people

because we put that clip out there and it really resonated. He was talking about different things that are in the same kind of family right like addiction and you talk about like anxiety depression post-traumatic stress all that and he talked about how the way that he got past his own serious personal demons and was able to to move forward as a young man too like as growing up basically some of the things that happened to him is he learned to

accept the fact that those things, they were still in the car with him, but he's driving. Correct. They're not driving. Correct. So you needed to get yourself to a place where you were driving. Well, I'm going to give it a little bit different of an analogy. I needed to replace the driver with a higher power. That would be the most accurate way. Because remember, my will still does not have the best for me. My will, even if we stop the drug addiction, what's next?

Is the next thing overeating? Is the next thing gambling? I needed a higher power. I'm going to get one at this Graymoor. They're going to put me in a job working the cemetery. And after enough time working the cemetery, I'm going to have the awakening one day that I look at the headstones. And I say to myself, I'll never see 90 years old. I'll never see 70.

I won't even see this guy here that died at 63 if I don't have an awakening. So it's in that place that I had an awakening. So I had the awakening. And I'm never going to go back to drugs again now how long were you there i wound up staying there for almost two months and from there they sent me to a long island rehab in the old pilgrim state psychiatric center and i'll tell you what so they did send you to like an official rehab they said because i needed to first have the awakening so i would be able to get the rehab now pilgrim state psychiatric center they have a

rehab center there that they built and it's worth looking at this on youtube the pilgrim state psychiatric center is one of the most scariest places it's in the middle of long island and brentwood and the place looks like it was built in the 20s and it housed about 14 000 15 000 people in the height of world war ii and as years would go on they would get the pharmaceuticals and let a lot of these people out but they would do lobotomies on this is a crazy place but i get my help there at this place called ck post and i get treated and it's a rehab it's not a mental hospital no it's not i went to the rehab they they closed most of the rehab most of the mental health down. They created a rehab. Got it.

And they saved my life. Because there's mental hospitals from back in the day. Holy shit. They got me in. I'd never get out. That was horrible. But the news is that happens here is that I got well. Little by little, I got well. And I became the person that should have been. So I go to rehab and I do everything they tell me to do, including taking a low-paying job at JCPenney's in a children's department, putting dresses and things on little hangers. This job, while I was in the rehab, they put me then eventually in a halfway house.

And I did everything they told me to do, except one thing. If you're looking to search the web privately and not have all these websites track you when you leave, check out my friends over at Privato VPN. I love Privato because I get all the convenience of regular internet speed while getting the beauty of internet privacy as well. And by the way, I can use it on my computer and on my phone at the same damn time. What's not to love? So if you go to the link in my description, you will see the Trendify landing page with Privato. Click that, go there, and you'll see a plan for $4.99 a month.

Check that out. It's fantastic. It's the same one I use. I promise you'll love it. I didn't take a suggestion and for every suggestion you take in early recovery there's a price to pay so they told me no relationships so i got a relationship before the year was up and you made her i met her at a meeting and i made it met her at a meeting and she was a school teacher and she was just a regular alcoholic. I mean, I was like, you know, different levels. I mean, I was at a level. I'm a drug addict, alcoholic, crazy man. I mean, I'm a freaking maniac. So she was just a regular alcoholic, had some trouble with alcohol, still had a place to live, still had a master's degree.

I mean, she didn't take this thing where I took it. So I met her and I went against the suggestions of the rehab and I left the rehab. And next thing I know, I'm living with her. But before I get there, I don't want to bore you guys, but I'm still in the halfway house. And, you know, for addicts, they want things to happen quickly you know they don't have you know for an addict date one is a date you know day two is a u-haul so so um you know i go on a date with her within the first week i go on another date and i think it was only a time constraint because she had to work and I had halfway house duties. And there's roses there.

And she goes, oh, this is so kind of you. They weren't for me. We're driving down a highway, doing about 35 miles an hour, a four-lane road. It's in Long Island. And she sees the guys that sent her the roses. And I could see that her face was drawn. I said, what's going on? She goes, oh, that's my ex going into the travel agency.

But she thought that you sent the roses. She realized I didn't send them. Oh, God. She realized it. I mean, I didn't say nothing. She realized it. She wound up throwing them out. So she figured out it was the ass.

It was the ass. Yeah, she figured it out. And I act like it was no big deal to her, but it was a big deal. So I told her to stop the car, which she wouldn't. I opened up the blazer door. There's days of blazers. Two-door Chevy blazer.

It's going way back. And I jump out of the car to get this guy and she got one shot at the brake i might might have jumped out at 27 25 28 however fast she was going when i hit the pavement i was bouncing around like a red doll you wanted to go beat the shit out of the guy i was gonna go for sending the roses yeah i was gonna i may want to make it clear so i um come to a stop after these cars didn't hit me and the wind is knocked out of me i can't get right up i'm hurting and i got prior back injuries and i wait a few minutes people said said, get an ambulance. And like the Terminator, I got up, and I ran into the travel agency. And this guy looked like Sammy Hagar, okay?

And I grabbed him by the shoulder. I said, you, get up. The travel agency said, we're going to call the police. I said, don't worry about it. I'm the police. This guy was a stocky guy. And I got all my weight back at this time. I bring him outside.

I said, you send roses? He knew exactly what he did. He knew more about me than I thought. He knew more about me than I knew about him. He made it clear. I made it clear, but he made it clear. He got a new relationship to grow what he's with right now.

He's getting engaged, and there'll be never another peep out of him. Well, what came out of that was the girl was a schoolteacher. The detectives came to school looking for me. But it all got squashed, like most things do in life for me, when it's meant to happen.

Yeah, you've had a lot of that. You know, when it's meant to happen, it happens. Somehow, you know, I guess he didn't stay on it. I guess the travel agency called the police. Whatever happened, happened. And she and her family were originally from Nebraska. She had Nebraska roots. And I wound up going out to Nebraska with her.

And she says, look, you're not going to have a long life living in New York. You're a wild man. So we wound up, although it didn't last, we wound up getting married. And then went to Nebraska. Yeah, we wound up getting married and then moving to Nebraska, like right away. Okay, now you and I, this is one thing we did talk a lot about when we talked, when we first met, and you've alluded to it already, but you ended up becoming a prison guard, but not just at any part of any prison. You were on death row. And I don't know, is that only one prison down there that's designated to have a death row or were there multiple? Nebraska does have a lot of prisons and they have one area for death row or were there multiple um nebraska does have a lot of prisons and um they uh they

have one area for death row but like do they have multiple different prisons where they have that or is it just one main prison no we keep all the death row inmates uh together in one area no no i mean like across all the prisons in nebraska are there multiple different prisons that have a death row no they send all their death row inmates to the same person one yes okay so that's where you were yes now how did like what was the thought process there I'm going to become a corrections officer work on death row or did it just kind of they sent you there because you decided to become a correction well here's how this happens um I went up in Nebraska through the marriage and and I think I'm going to go to Nebraska and do farming, or I'm going to do something, get an education, get a Series 6, Series 7 test.

You left New York to go get a Series 6 or Series 7? It doesn't make no sense, but all of a sudden now I want to use my brain, okay? Now, for the listeners, Nebraska is a very modern state. I mean, it feeds the world. It's where Warren Buffett's from. All the insurance companies are all behind Nebraska. So it's not the South laid back. It's not the East.

It's not the West, not the North, not the South. It's neutral. It's a very neutral state. Okay? But you have people that are quick-witted, and they're tracking. They're not opinionated. They keep their opinions to themselves. So I wind up coming up with a few ideas of what I want to do for a living.

My father-in-law says, look, I think you should take the test and see if you can get in with the Department of Corrections. I think it's a good, steady job for you. Because remember... I don't even share this earlier, I did take the police test when I was a young guy at 18 years old in New York. I took the police test and I started to go through the hiring process, but my father,

he pretty much nixed that for me. You know, he just told me to cops, you know, there's some good ones, but there are a lot of dirty ones. He said, I don't think it's gonna work for you. And you know what? He was probably right. At that point in my life, it wouldn't have been a good fit. So I become a correctional officer. And when you become a correctional officer, you don't get the best details. And this is what I needed. This is what I needed.

I needed standard operating procedure. I need a routine. And the training academy gave that to me. And I was a guy that would have a colorful career in corrections. I remember the training specialist said to me, you are the type of guy that will learn everything you need to know about life in the penitentiary. And most people, they mistake these words. They say somebody went to jail. Jail is one day to 365 days. Prison, penitentiary is a year and a day on. I still mistake. I know that. I've always known that. But still, sometimes I'll say jail by accident instead of prison or prison instead of jail. Yeah. And you have to be correct on that one, because the penitentiary is a community within a community. So think about this. It has everything that our community has. It has a place to make money, such as the soap factory, the plate factory, the furniture factory. It has a house of worship. It has a school. It has a court system where you have internal police, correctional officers. You just have a wall separating you from society. It's a society

within a society. I've never heard someone describe it that way. That is exactly as I can be. It's built exactly like society is out here, except you have no cars and you have no bar, except for the people that make their own hooch. You have a kitchen. No women. No women. And you have a store. You have a commissary or a store.

So we are the internal police of the prison. Correctional officers. We're really not guards. I mean, guards, correctional officers take offense to that. They're really the unsung heroes of law enforcement. You have lifeguards, you have crossing guards, and then you have lifeguards you have crossing guards and then you have correctional officers but it's not a bad but correctional officers don't get their their just do i think because you only ever hear the negative stories of them and i think i think

there's also i don't know there's a psychological thing there because you're you're guarding other human beings who can't leave you know there's just something that I think all of, well, I shouldn't say all of us, but many people, it's just a weird foreign thing that no one ever wants to experience, and the concept is just so bizarre. It is very bizarre because you're watching people live. You're being paid to watch. Towers watch. There's no place in a prison that you can't see somebody.

So if you've been listening to this interview this far, you've heard my old life. This is a new me. There's a guy that came out with no drugs. Did they know about your drug history? No, they didn't. I sat in front of the hiring commission, and they said, you know, you've had a few spats with the police, but nothing was criminal. I didn't get a permanent record. And I explained it away.

And I had Nebraska officials. I said, have you ever been to New York? They said, no, we haven't, sir. The New York police, they believe in broken window policy, which they didn't at the time, where they bring you in for everything. And they said, well, we wouldn't think they'd have enough time. Well, they do. So, you know, I became an actor in this life. You know, I'm really not a fighter. I'm not a guy that would be a good shoplifter. I'm too clumsy. But I became an actor. I'm the kind of guy that will convince you everything's okay when it's not, when I'm dying inside. Or convince you to feed me and my dog.

So I get the job, and a lot of things start to happen. I'm good at my job. I make the biggest drug bust in the penitentiary's history, crack cocaine. So at the beginning, it wasn't death row. You were working. No, I'll get there. I mean, not long. I mean, I wind up getting assigned

to the visiting room, okay? And I oversee all the death row visits, all of them. And I'm going to tell you something. I hear a lot of people, and they make a lot of comments about death row. Until you've worked death row, your opinion on New York Post,

your opinion on Facebook means nothing to somebody that's been there. Number one, we have a justice system in this country. And we believe in justice with mercy. We don't believe in eye for an eye here. That's not our justice system. Because if it was, there'd be a lot of people blind. Okay?

Number two, justice is supposed to be for lot of people blind okay number two justice is supposed to be for the victim okay the victim comes first the victim after we execute an inmate i've never seen a victim feel better and if you don't believe me just go and google timothy mcveigh other families that have had their loved ones murdered or executed. There is no good feeling in that either, okay? Because it's final. Life in prison is way harder than dying.

Life in prison is a lot harder than dying. So that's what I want to say on that. Two, we've made mistakes. DNA has set a lot of people free. Yeah. This bothers me so much. DNA has set a lot of people free. We'll go back to Mario Cuomo, the governor of New York many years ago.

He would rather let ten murderers go than one innocent person go. Okay? I personally have seen guys get off death row. Now, I'm not here to be a judge. I don't know if they were innocent, but I've seen it. Three, we go back to the victim. I want you to follow our mission statement and to redeem yourself in some way. You may never get back to the street, and I'm okay with that, if you don't belong on the street, but you must do something. And you must either develop yourself as a person.

The person that murders somebody at 25 is not who the same guy is at 50 and older. If you judged me when I was using drugs and whacked out driving a car at 100 miles an hour, I'm not the same guy anymore. Now, do I believe in justice? Absolutely. When I got clean and sober and lived my life today, we need to have a lawful society.

Because we need to be at peace, so that I could find my own pursuit of happiness. You see, crime robs people of their pursuit of happiness. And you got no right taking somebody's pursuit of happiness away from them. Now, getting on to the death row part, if you think as time ticks down for these guys that it's not part on correctional staff, you never hear about this. The death team that executes inmates, I know some of them personally that are already dead through health problems, alcoholism, overweight.

One death row inmate in particular, he was a child killer, John Joubert, J-O-U-B-E-R-T. He was executed, I believe, in July of 1997. I conducted his visits and it was down to the wire for him. And nobody liked this guy and he didn't talk to staff. But I will tell you, staff don't do nothing out of their way.

They just, you're just another body doing time. We go through the mechanics of it. He was going to be put in an electric chair and he would be executed. Oh, they still had the electric chair? They still had the electric chair at this time. And, you know, if you want to know more about that, YouTube has Nebraska Electric Chair.

They test it out before we execute you with it by putting electrodes in five gallons of water. They still have it? They got rid of it, but they still had it at that time. If it boiled water, we knew it was working. So I'm at his last visit this is it after this he'll go up to the hospital because we watch you for the 24 hours

so that you can't kill yourself he at the end of his life in the last visits started talking to me as his time was dwindling down he had a reporter from New York writing about him. And I felt the heaviness of this.

So he was at the end of his visit, and he had a styrofoam cup of coffee in his hands, and I had to take it from him. He was going up to the hospital. This is one of the few inmates that wanted to know the details. He wanted to know how this all worked, that he would be shaved, that his left leg would be shaved, his head would be shaved. He'd get this many jolts. He'd get an autopsy and be at the mortuary at the same night, and his family would visit him. He knew all the grisly details of this death. And he spoke.

So I took the cup from him. He was trembling. And he was waiting for me to say something. And the correctional staff was waiting for me to give him the nod to take him. And I said, it was nice knowing you. And I was not happy with that.

That was not nice knowing him. That was not what I wanted to say to him. I said, no, John, that's not what I want to tell you. I want to tell you that if you have a belief in God, you better search for him now and find him now. You can't do this alone. It's the only way. And with that, he was taken away.

And he'd be the last person to be electrocuted in Nebraska's chair. And that was the end of that. And I would go on to move up in the Department of Corrections. I would wind up becoming a caseworker. I'd be able to work with these guys so that they get paroled. Caseworker within the prison? Within the prison. And again, most people get out of the prison. We don't lock people away and throw the key away. I mean, yes, there's cases of that. There's always psychopaths. Yes. But generally, they're your neighbors. They're people that made

a mistake. They're people, a lot of times, that never committed any crime, but had a blowout with a family member and did an assault, something happened. So they get back out. We don't want them leaving with no tools. We don't want them leaving angrier. We want some type of rehabilitation. That is the goal.

That doesn't always happen, but that is the goal. How do you feel, though? I want to go back to the death row thing for a second because and and you were going for a while i didn't want to come in and interrupt but just so people are clear and following along you had started by saying before you were working on death row which started with you like watching the the visit visitations before that you at least worked in in the regular part of the prison well. So then you go to death row and then eventually obviously you get up to casework. But on death row, you're guarding bodies that are being prepared to no longer be.

You are simply guarding people to make sure they make it to the point where there can be a public record that they were killed on orders of the state or federal – well, in your case, the state based on crimes they did. So there's justice for the victim and all that. There isn't – there's no hope. There's no thought that obviously I'm going to get out of here. But like you also have a schedule of when to die. Yes. And so you're guarding – I don't know the word for it but corpses yes i mean i wasn't going to say that but yes that's exactly what it is but here's the thing

here's the thing when you're not addicted and these guys are no longer on drugs on death row trust me they're not on drugs first time in u.s history. history, a correctional officer testified on behalf of a death row inmate as a character witness. It was a crafty move. Who did that? Hochstein. He was a – him and Anderson, they were – he was a hitman, very smart inmate. Who testified? I did, right here.

Oh, you testified for him. I did. I had to do it. The court – I was subpoenaed. I watched these guys a lot, and they brought me in front of the Nebraska Supreme Court. So he was in front of the court to try to get the death sentence thrown out. To get the death sentence thrown out. And the court asked some questions, you know. Do these guys follow the rules? I mean, their goal was to say that they're not the same people. And they didn't have a case, not that any murder is okay. They had a case that was a financial, a murder, a mob hit, whatever it was.

They wound up getting off the death penalty. So in that case, it worked for them. Another case, a guy used a witness that was dead, and he retried the case that had originally put him in the death sentence. That guy wasn't alive to testify again they couldn't use his testimony a jeremy sheets he got off at the death penalty so there are guys trying to get off the death penalty there are guys that try to get away from it did you ever like did you you said a lot of these guys like wouldn't talk to you but some of them do some

of them what do they say well here's the thing i'm a guy that's been inquisitive my whole life i ask questions one of the things i always ask the death row inmates is you've had a lot of time to think in solitary confinement in this death penalty death row what could you tell me to do with my life that you guys would have did? You know, is that blurring the line? Maybe, but I'm certainly not giving them a cigarette. I'm not giving them a hacksaw, but I wanted their knowledge. And they all would tell me the same thing,

that they would have left their own will out of their life, trying to get even with somebody. Life would have, the law of cause and effect, karma. They would have not used their will. Things would have played out the way they were supposed to. In the case where a guy wound up robbing a jewelry store because he thought he needed money at that time, he just wished he didn't. He realized that he would have came into money anyways

without committing the crime. So these guys all told me the same thing, basically, that cool heads prevail, never operate out of anger, and don't do anything that's final, you know, in case, you know, you're angry or whatever. I mean, you see a lot of road rage that people have no idea where that road rage will go. They have no idea. Once you've worked in prison like I have, I'm not a saint, but you'll never see me with road rage. You'll never see me. I will never escalate a situation because I'm smart enough having worked in prison.

I worked in three maximum security prisons. You don't light a fuse in a hay house because, strike a match in a hay house because the whole place will go on fire The same thing is when I conduct myself out there I find a path of least resistance because you don't know where it'll go when I was young and dumb I might fight with somebody thinking that'll stay contained. I had no idea that Fried chicken place what could have happened looking back somebody might have had a gun and shot me. But I didn't think like that. Having worked in prison, I'm not designed to do any time. I don't like it.

I don't want part of it. And I think a lot of people, if they had a better idea what prison really was like, they would conduct themselves a lot different on the outside. I don't think anyone... There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans,

you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is calling. No one thinks that prison's in any way good, though. You get a lot of debates that they think that inmates haven't made.

You get people that say they get fed. Yeah, they get people that say they get really yeah they get people that say they they get better health insurance i guess at the i could see at the and i have heard at the lower end of the spectrum like there have been people who are like homeless or like yeah i get to go to jail like i have a roof over i understand that but i'm saying like the average person who's not homeless who's not like in the bottom of a ditch somewhere well here's my opinion about life after doing a few different things yeah here's my level about life after doing a few different things. Here's my level of importance. Everybody puts health first, right? I put freedom first.

There's a lot of healthy people that got life sentences that would take a terminal disease to have one day of freedom. Hear me on this one. For me, freedom first, then my health, then shelter from the elements. So there you have it. So freedom is the most important thing we're given. Okay? I can't tell you how many guys that were serving life sentences that got terminally ill would tell me, confide in me,

I wish I could take a bath one more time. I wish I could take a bath one more time. I wish my feet can feel grass one more time. I wish my feet can feel grass one more time. I wish my toes could feel a carpet. I took it all in. I am not the same guy before I went to prison. That prison did more for me. They gave me a paycheck. It did more for me than you could ever imagine. And I worked a lot of time. I worked 10 years. I left after 10 years. I should have done another 10, but I had enough after 10. I worked a lot of double time. I worked a ton of overtime regularly. What made you want to leave just sick of it?

A couple of things happened. Number one, in order to do time, you got to get institutionalized. Okay. You see inmates and you can't ever pitch them being've got to get institutionalized. You see inmates, and you can't ever picture them being free. They get institutionalized. They just kind of blend into the tapestry of life. They have no three dimensions, spiritual part. They're flat. And I noticed it with correctional officers. I see guys that would get hired.

They'd be young guys that just got out of the Army. They'd be full of life. And after a year or two, they'd be flat. There was no more personality. Then they were committing suicide. I know a guy that got off duty, went outside and he shot himself in the head. Another guy went home and shot himself on the couch. You see stuff in prison that you're not supposed to see. Your thrown feces are thrown on you. You're in a pressure cooker. You're in a hate factory. You're in places that the human soul is not supposed to be at. There's a place in Nebraska, they got the penitentiary, they got segregation, and they have a place designed for those that can't

live even in segregation. That's called a control unit. That's guys that continue to murder inside a prison. And these are places that the human being is not supposed to be. And working there, you get as sick as they get by being there. I mean, how can you be around that kind of hate and feel spiritual, happy, and joyous and free? You can't. So I got out after 10 years, and I started the trash business, which got me out of the prison. I bought an old house. I remodeled it. I started taking stuff to the landfill. I started hiring my fellow correctional staff,

and I started giving jobs to the inmates as they got out. Because the most important thing that happens in this country is we believe in second chances here. That's what America's about, is second chances. We all believe in second chances. Unfortunately for the inmate, let's say he went in there for stealing cars and he's got a felony conviction. He can't get a job now. So what does the inmate need? He's a citizen now. He's not an inmate no more. He's a citizen. He did his time. But that felony record stays with him. And who wants to take a chance? I did.

I thought they were the greatest workers because they didn't need the supervision that other people needed. They knew I was giving them a chance. And you know what? When I told them, I'm not your boss, the customer is. The customer is the one that gives me the money to pay you guys. I took a chance with them, and they policed themselves better and they supervised themselves. And on my LinkedIn profile, I have people that are at the top of the corrections food chain that are running prisons in America. And I have inmates, former inmates that are connected with them on LinkedIn because they're no longer inmates.

Because somebody gave them a chance and says, hey, look, I'm willing to give this guy a chance. And he worked for me. And for me, he's going to go get another job. And eventually, he's going to move on. I've taken guys that were meth addicts, that their thinking, not my thinking, they said, well, I don't want to get an apartment. I got a storage shelter, storage place. I pay $60 a month and I run an extension cord at nighttime to the gas station. And I could charge my phone and I could have my heat and my TV. We have to get rid of that thinking. That's addiction. That same person today works for

the Nebraska Department of Revenue. This is some of the stuff that's happened. So I worked three institutions. At the end of the whole deal, there's a nice article from the monastery, Spotlight on Charlie and Star. We'll get into that. A once homeless addict now had the keys to the entire prison system. So I left the Department of Corrections and worked on this trash business that grew and grew and grew. Real quickly, before you get to that, I just have a question for you.

The concept of coming out of prison and still having the record follow you around, it's a beautiful thing that you walked the talk with that and paid it forward afterwards and, you know, helped change these guys' lives for the better. That's amazing. There's not that many people out there with that experience though who are then opening up businesses like you and this is not how the world works people have a felony record they don't get hired and i'm curious to know what you think of that because on the one hand when i see something

like a serious sexual offender or something like that where they have to be in a registry i i get that because that's that's like a there's a serious mental problem there as well and you don't know if they're healed from that and and while some would say well records are slippery slope i feel like that's something society should know however for pretty much anyone else or most other things you are correct as far as like having the sexual sexual and and let me say this to you i mean my job in department of corrections was to count the narcotics in the hospital okay was to count what the narcotics they have a hospital prison has a hospital yeah i had gotten up far enough

in the food chain in the department of correction that was one of my jobs right i understand you know just the way a nurse gets pinched for having a prior drug offense you know in some ways i could see even me maybe there should have been something that said about that i mean luckily for me i was deep enough into recovery that wasn't an issue and that's what i'm saying so when you see these guys where they have to carry around a record that follows them everywhere they go on the one hand you kind of understand it but on the other hand that's why that's a big part of the reason why we have such a recidivism rate you better believe it because these guys get out of jail and there's just there's a target on them to just do something to go back because how what happens you you said

something like it yourself but just to make it plain and white and bring it forward again, like, the reason a lot of crime happens is out of situations that involve difficult pinches on money. Yeah, desperation. Exactly. Yes. So you're forcing these guys into desperation again. Yes. And they have to leave the prison with being a new set of skills. But the public doesn't realize a lot of the people locked up are locked up over drugs and alcohol. Yeah.

Then there are guys that did steal a bunch of cars, they hooked on cars, they stole cars. There are guys that use financial instruments and they found ways of hacking computer banks and this and that.

But if they've done their time, they can have a record, which they have, an internal record. But there has to be something. If it's not a violent crime, number one, why does every employer need to know this guy doesn't get another chance? And nobody wants to take a chance. It's just like this. In the 1970s, Doberman Pinschers were public enemy number one.

They were supposed to turn on you because their brain outgrew their skull. That was the thinking in the 70s, that if you got a doberman pincher, it was going to turn on you at some point. Then it went to Rottweilers, and now pit bulls have held that position since the 1990s on, since they were put on Sports Illustrated cover. And we can sensationalize pit bulls. And do they bite? Yes, they do. Do people gravitate towards those dogs for unhealthy reasons sometimes? Yes, they do.

But we demonize a whole breed and we euthanize dogs that did nothing wrong. We need a dangerous dog ordinance and we need those that use dogs in that position to never own a dog again. There is modern ways to handle things. We don't use a wide paintbrush because that is not what we do.

And I hired guys that would never get a job. And to see correctional officers and former inmates working together and for me to get out of the department of corrections and get hugs from these guys i gotta tell you something the least of my brothers gets the most of my attention if you were born with a lot of money i respect you i don't have any opinion about that. But you can still suffer in your own dimension. But there's a suffering that no food, no shelter brings upon.

And the rich suffer too. The rich suffer. They suffer isolation. Because where there's no money, you could hide behind bigger doors and die quietly. The poor are brought out to the streets where they have no money, and they get picked up for shoplifting, they get up for stealing, they get locked up for different things.

So prison gave me all that. But, you know, as I'm going to move forward here in this, I still was a broken man inside. There were still some things that had gone wrong with me that I never addressed. Yes, I was off drugs. Yes, I was honest. But I had switched one drug for another in a lot of ways.

I became a scorekeeping transactional guy and all I wanted to do was make money. In business. In business. And I built this trash business the same way I pursued drugs. And the things I pursued didn't give me the happiness I thought they would. You know, when I had nothing and I was walking, I said, one day, I'll get a Mercedes-Benz. That was a big deal to me.

You know, growing up, we all have our folklore, folk heroes. And, you know, John Gotti was a big one in the 80s, you know? He was a folk hero for you? Yeah, you know, because he was a local guy for you yeah you know because he was a local guy and you know he was beating a system and you know he dressed fancy and he had the black mercedes and he dressed well you know and i wanted the black mercedes i wanted the real mercedes i wanted the big one and i got that and i got all the cars i got a house of my dreams still married married? No, the marriage didn't. The marriage actually really didn't last long at all. I mean, once I went to work for prison,

we went our separate directions. We raised a kid together. We have a daughter together. And it just wasn't meant to be. And it just, it's just the way it is. I'm not ashamed to say this. I'm a better dog father than I am a father. I mean, if I can't do the job good,

I mean, here's where I'm at. I'm an addict. You know, the court gave her custody. It marginalized my visits. And you become a part-time father. And you know what? See, I have all of it and none of it i you know that type of mentality or there's a lot of control whoever get whoever gets the child it gets a lot of control now what

i will say is this i made my last child support payment in 2000 and um i think it was uh 2014 or whatever it was i made my last child support payment. I was never late once. I was never late one child support payment. That's recovery from addiction. I could never have done that. I could have never done that. And remember this.

You can't fight with your ex when you have a child involved. Your child has to mother. So for either side, you just have to disengage like we do in prison some days we win some days we lose we know where the inmate lives we'll show up later but we don't cause a riot in the prison okay if we have a problem we don't have a fist fight to try to get somebody cuffed in the middle of a situation because that could create a bigger problem so if you're not getting along with somebody disengage let time heal the wounds so easier said than done but i did do that and i had to do that for myself but i um

you were saying you became very transactional i became very transactional in business and um making money and having things isn't what i thought it was i really wasn't really wasn't uh it was a letdown when you came out of working in prison though and started went to open up a business the goal was to make money was it because maybe as a divorced guy now like something was missing in your life and you needed something to fill kind of like that old addict mentality i needed power i needed power and some guys got it in corrections i was gonna say you have a lot of power there they thought and that's what they thought when i when i turned in my notice they said to me you got a promising career here i didn't find the power there i didn't find the power at the end there's 500 people that work for the penitentiary.

I had the associate warden above me and the warden. So I had two people ahead of me. You know, in your time, I would have been director with a personality like mine. But I didn't find power in that. Because I didn't find being my brother's keeper to be a powerful position. I felt that there'd be an odd position to be that's how you looked at it though a lot of other people wouldn't have looked at it that way listen you've seen the stanford prison experiment you see what these guys in no time that everybody wants to be to listen i saw that it didn't work the other way for me i wound, when I was moving up, going, no, no, this is not where I want to be at.

I was smart enough to know. I did enough research on spiritual laws that I knew that that is not healthy. And I learned a lot. And I wound up with some teachers in my life. the book Jesus, the Lost Years, by a friend of mine who had a degree in comparative religions and the monastery. But I found that money would have been the thing that I was lacking. That was my last thing. You were thinking that was going to save you. I was thinking that, you know, I was thinking that as a young child missing meals, as a young child being cold out there, as a guy that had my car taken by the NYPD, that if I got money, that I've had cars and a big house and I had the gold watches and I had all the

good stuff, that I could be redeemed through that. So I got that. And for me, who's a thinker, I said, man, this is not really good. And so I sold my business. And I sold it because that was the next level of thing. I said, now, if I sell my business, this is me thinking. I got all this responsibility. How many years is that? I built the business in 99.

About eight years after I had the business, I sold the business. Got it. And trash businesses always sell for big money. And you don't go backwards selling them. So I sold it. And now my thinking was this. If I get rid of this business, I don't have the problem having the customers. I don't have employees.

I got money and freedom. That was it. So now I'm good. I tell you, I sold this business. I had a smile on my face. I was the happiest guy. I was saying hello to everybody. Anybody and anybody.

I thought, I literally felt like I hit the lottery. I was newly some life. About three months in, the pink cloud crashed on me. The pink cloud. Yeah, it's a pink cloud. I call it a pink cloud where you're happy. And that's a term used in recovery. I use it with my feeling. I felt happy. Joy is free. This is going good. I love this. A fly got in my house. I couldn't get this fly. I was incensed. A fly? A fly. I'm in Nebraska with more lax gun laws. I mean, I was ready to take a shotgun out to this fly.

I got to the point where this fly, listen, I bother no animal. I'm not a hunter. But this fly was coming at me. There's something about New York accents and guys, like, seeing a little thing like that and going, I'm going to shoot the fucking fly. This was a traditional, listen, Nebraska's got certain things. A Nebraska mouse that feeds off the corn out there is a bigger mouse. It's tough. It'll eat up wires in your trash trucks.

This was a horse fly, and this thing was biting. Listen, I wanted to take this thing out. And I had to catch myself. And I catch myself and say, this is not happy. I'm not in a happy zone right now. I'm drawing this negative energy in. And then people want you to do stuff for them. Charlie, you sold the trash business. We gave you our work. You sold the trash business. I need a roof on my, people needed stuff, but they didn't understand that when I had the trash business, I could help them. I had one shot of money and that was over with now. So I took three years off of working and I spent

three years with myself and I traveled around to try to find happiness. I literally tried to find happiness in America. Where'd you go? I don't fly. I don't like to fly. So I had to go every place I could drive. Why don't you like to fly? I just, I'm a control freak. I mean, I don't like to be, so I had to go every place I could drive. Why don't you like to fly? I just, I'm a control freak. I mean, I don't like to be in that tunnel in the air, you know, strapped in.

I don't like the whole thing about it. It's just not for me. Um, I don't fly. So I would drive places. And my significant other, beautiful Jen, she'd go to Colorado. I'd leave first driving and then she'd fly in. I'd pick her up at the airport. But I'd go to Colorado. I'd leave first driving, and then she'd fly in. I'd pick her up at the airport.

But I'd go to Colorado. I've been to South Dakota. I went up and down the eastern seaboard. I went and did stuff that I would have did as a normal kid. I went to Sagamore Hill to see Teddy Roosevelt's house. I went to the mountains of Colorado. I traveled all over places. I went to backyard places.

I went to places where the American pickers went. I traveled all over places. I went to backyard places. I went to places where the American pickers went. I went to historical places. I went all over America to see what it was I was missing. And that's what I do with my time. And what I found out is wherever I went, I took myself. So if I was in a good mood, I had a good time. If I was in a bad mood, I didn't have a good time. So eventually, this stuff stops. And in 2010, I realize one more time that I'm going to make another run at this money. I don't have enough money to make myself happy. The second run will be bigger.

You still didn't feel. You didn't have that after the travel. Because what would happen was, I go down to Miami. I see the big boats. I'd seen another level of money that I needed. I didn't have enough yet. There's always more. There's always more.

So the good news is this. I'm going to get well. So I go to, I buy trash trucks. I'm going to go round two. I get them ready. No competitors for three years. It's over. I'm going to go round two. I get them ready. No computers for three years It's over i'm going back into business. Well, the national company that bought me heard about this had to sit down with me and

they Talked me into coming to work for them as a chief operations officer nice salary They'd buy my trucks back off me that I just bought i I'd have five weeks a year off, health insurance, title. They'd pay for my big Mercedes, and I'd keep going. I ran up by Jen. She goes, bad idea, bad idea. You're taking low-hanging fruit. The Nebraska people love you.

Take another run at the trash. I didn't listen to her. I'd take a run at the trash. Okay? Wait, wait, wait. She said... Don't take the job. Don't take the job. I take a run at the trash. Okay? Wait, wait, wait. She said... Don't take the job. Don't take the job.

Go back into work. Work for yourself again. Build another business. And you went to work for them? I went to work for them. Okay, got it. And I should correct this. The company I went to work for was not national yet.

They were almost there. They would get there. We would go into the neighboring states. So I went to work as a chief operations officer, and it was a family that owned this business. And I was between the CEO and three sons. And they hired me strategically to be the voice of this, to get between the sons and the CEO. And their goal was to sell this to waste management, to sell this to waste connections. And they needed a guy, a spokesman, a guy with my type of brain to figure out how this is going to work. Who had done this. And here's what

happened. You know, I got common sense. I said, look, the best way to do this is we'll hire an outside consultant to tell even me what we could do to get this business ready for sale. And I did. I hired a guy from Omaha, Nebraska. Bright guy, law degree behind him. A guy that didn't say much but took a lot in. He spent months with me, this guy. He was a chief operations officer.

We drove around. We went months with me, this guy. I was the chief operations officer. We drove around. We went over stops. We met customers. We went over different deals. We had spread into other states at this point. And I was making good money, man. Everything was going right. But his company wanted to sell. So after about six months, I got so tight with this guy named Dave that he brought me to his home. And when I got in his house, he had a beautiful house in Omaha. He had a painting of three dogs on the wall. A painting. What an unbelievable frame. I looked at it.

I go, what is that? He goes, well, that's my family. He says, you think that's odd, right, Charlie? I said, a little bit. See see i didn't want to tell anybody about kane i suppressed all that he says i'm gonna tell you something i spent enough time with you you're not gonna live a long life he says he said that to you he said that to me i said how do you figure that dave he says you're not a piece you score-keeping transactional guy. You're stopping blood from flowing to all parts of your body. He's a smart guy.

His wife was a doctor. He says, you're going to have problems. He goes, this is the manifestation of all disease. Poor blood flow. Bad gut bacteria. I mean, the guy broke it down, man. Mitochondria. This guy knew some stuff.

And I said, okay. I mean, this is a guy that was man. Mitochondria. This guy knew some stuff. And I said, okay. I mean, this is a guy that was fasting before, you know, before we all learned how to fast and get healthier. So he said to me, I'm telling you this right now. If you don't find something, get out of bed in the morning to make yourself happy and to give yourself purpose in this life. You won't live to see gray hair. And this guy never spoke to me like that. His words were so strong that he moved me.

Nebraskans are generally not that direct. They will kind of let you knock yourself out. When you come for help, they'll help you. But they don't really opine. I don't even know the word opine until I was there. They're not opinionatedated people that's not the way they are that's why they're newscasters that's why i mean you couldn't let a new york guy be a national newscaster because you know exactly his opinion and everything can you imagine me being they do let it happen you see one expect we know exactly where this guy sits we'd lose half our we'd lose half our viewers okay this guy's opinionated on this we don't like his opinion we're done so he gave me purpose so now you leave the job not yet i'm gonna leave the job now so i go to my desk i i'm living a really nice life in nebraska got a nice home. I got the perfect girl who understands me, that's an Aquarius,

who gives me room, who's beyond pretty, inside first. And she lets me knock myself out like a Nebraskan. But she's a South New Jersey girl. She's from, born in North Philly, grew up in Jersey, and she lived in Nebraska. I met her. So I read the headlines every day in New York at my desk. The headlines were simple. Police shoot and kill homeless man's pit bull lunging at people. And I was paralyzed with pain. I never addressed the pain that I had with Cain. It just got you. It knocked me over. Now, did you see the video right away? I get to the video, so I go to the post of whoever had it.

I think the Daily News had it. I played a video, and I got knocked out with pain. Because what I'm seeing on that video is I'm seeing my life play out. I'm seeing this bullshit life that I created with myself, that nobody in Nebraska knew that I had a drug addiction, that nobody in Nebraska knew that I went without food, nobody knew that I had a pit bull, and nobody knew that I was a homeless addict like that guy in the street

that's about to get picked up like he's a piece of rubbish, like we throw garbage in the back of a truck, he's going to get thrown on the gurney because he's got no value, he don't smell good, he don't look good, and he's not driving a Mercedes. So I see all this, but I don't realize what I'm seeing is my life. Can you tell people who are listening out there what happened this particular story with the dog? Yeah, it's simple. It's a story about a guy, a homeless

guy from Poland who has a seizure on a New York City sidewalk. And his head's kind of hanging off the sidewalk. And he has a dog star next to him. It's his companion. And he got this dog, a star next to him. It's his companion. And he got this dog from the shelter. And the dog knows he has seizures and creates a circle around its master, Lek. And she's circling the key people away and barking. And unfortunately, a lady thinks she's going to be an animal trainer. She goes into the circle. And then the police go to help her.

And the dog turns around and the police shoot the dog in the head. then the police go to help her and the dog turns around the police shoot the dog in the head and headlines are simple police shoot and kill homeless man's dog dog is dead oh they said the dog is dead yeah headlines are the dog is dead cbs news reported it and um no i'm not gonna put the video in the corner of the screen because i don't want to get our episode tagged but people can look it up you can you can type into youtube uncut nypd officer shoots dog in new york i'm gonna play it on our end real quick though and you'll hear the audio if you're listening but this is it's like it's a wild scene to watch because you can't believe that this is caught on video because it seems so, so unnecessary what went down.

But you feel a certain type of way when you see it. The dog is standing around her owner on the street, goes towards the cop, and just shoots her in the face. And she's like convulsing around. And neither of the cops are helping her. And they both have their hands like on the gun. I don't know why. Really just. Crazy to watch.

So you see this. I see this. I see this. So here's the deal. I see all the blood outside the dog's head. Dog not moving anymore. I worked in corrections, man. I've seen guys that have been stabbed out.

I know what death looks like. Um. I don't believe the dog died. I'm like a child. The dog can't die. And it would take a filmmaker named David Hoffman, who would question me in 2020, and the luckiest dog that ever lived came back to life.

And why I don't know what happened there is I went into like a childlike, I was 8 years old, 10 years old mentally, emotionally at that time in this video. So I get the CEO of the company. He's a busy guy, man. I get the vice president of the company. I mean, they're used to me being a squared away guy that's coming at them with trash bids and we're going to do this, do that. I go, I need you guys to come to my office.

They did. I said, I just saw something on the news. I said, I need you to look and ask me your opinion if this dog is alive or dead. And the CEO was 60-some odd years old. He said, look, I've seen enough in my life. I can't watch it anymore, this Charlie. But the vice president of the company watched it with me.

And he put his hands on my shoulders, sitting behind my desk, standing behind my desk, he said, look, Charlie, I'm sorry. The dog died a very painful death. I go, no, it can't die. Charlie, you saw all the blood. It lost all the blood. It died. It spasmed out. It's dead. It's not moving anymore. And I was incapacitated. I called up Jen at home. I couldn't even talk. I said, Jen, this dog can't die. This dog's life or death met my spiritual life or death. You see, this guy Dave understood me. And I would have never lived a long life.

You know, I want to go back to 2012 when this happened, August 13th. I was the heaviest I ever been. Fat heavy, not weightlifting heavy. My blood pressure was up about 180, 190, over 110, 120. My blood was as thick as cream. My HDLs were low. I was an unhealthy guy. Okay. Today, after this dog's life, I'm back to my high school weight. Okay. Not that we're scientists, but my HDLs are feeling good. And I don't have inflammatory issues anymore. My health is really good.

And how did this all happen? Well, I got to have my childhood that I never got because of this dog. And that's me being selfish. I know a lot of people listening to this might say, oh, come on. No, man. We all, to the pursuit of happiness, that's told to me. I have the pursuit of happiness by being a U.S. citizen. And I was going to get this.

So that's what you were missing, though. You were missing. This makes a ton of sense. I didn't think of this earlier. But the happiness that you were looking for when you traveled around after you sold the business and then when you went back into it and took the offer afterwards that you couldn't find, the happiness was based on the fact that as a kid, you didn't ever have a chance to be a kid. I never got a chance to be a kid. I mean, I was with my father in the back seat of the car when he was talking to guys in the front seat over deals. I never got to be a kid, man.

And then my dog back in— That was the least of it front seat over deals. I never got to be a kid, man. And then my dog back in. That was the least of it, too. Yeah. I never got to be a kid. So I called Jen up. She didn't know what I was saying. I called Dave up. I go, Dave, I know what you mean, man.

I have to have a purpose. Dave, Dave, Dave. The consultant. Right, right, right. I said, Dave, I know what you mean. I found my purpose, man. I said, I'm going to rescue a dog. He says to me, Charlie, that's not what I mean.

He pulled it up on me. I said, I don't believe the dog died. I never believed anything. But I believed that God would help me when I called his name when I was headed to the back of that building to use drugs. Saved my life there. Saved my life in a lot of different times when I took the right path. Saved my life when I Saved my life in a lot of different times when I took the right path. Saved my life when I didn't drink the methadone as a kid.

So I believe the dog lived. But every report said the dog died. And there was a famous guy who was on Next America's Top Chef, Eddie Hong, who had a restaurant. And he watched the whole thing. And he tweeted photos of the dog that he believed died. So I wound up saying the dog was alive in my mind. I call up the city of New York and they answer the phone. I go to the administrative part that

handles the dogs, the New York City Animal Care and and control admin and i call up talking about recycling i get a lady named renee on the phone i said renee this is charlie cifarelli i'm calling from such and such a company i talked to you about recycling she was only too happy to tell me how she's got the green stream going just back in 2012 it was you know pretty cool now we all restream we know now we feel guilty if we put the the glass in the wrong compartment we do it we do it because we know we don't throw paper and trash we know what cardboard can be recycled okay in 2012 she was happy to tell me trash i gotta be honest about that so she told me the first thing i needed to know about the

recycling and i shifted gears and i said look i gotta ask you about the stork and I shifted gears, and I said, look, I've got to ask you about this dog, Star, that was shot. New York Daily News said she was shot, and she died. She says, well, what do you know? There's a lot of dogs, and she piped into the computer, typed in, and she said, no, actually, the dog is still alive. I said, why'd they say the dog died? She goes, let me read on the notes. She goes, it's at the vet now.

She goes, we sent it to the vet because it's in critical care it doesn't look good for the dog i said well why'd you say it died she said well the public is going to go crazy if the dog is still living and they'll be emailing and the story's pretty final right now the dog died but the dog is still alive how many days afterward is this this is this is this is uh within 24 hours oh this is right after this is right after so i call the fifth avenue vet i don't lie i say hey i just talked to renee from animal care and control and they put the person on the phone they said yeah the dog is alive still it's stable i make stable. I make a face. I go to the waves. I make a Facebook page.

And now... You made a Facebook page. Star of the New York Pit Bull. Yeah. Telling everyone that she was alive. Yeah, I'm just going crazy with this now. And now the police got to stick to their story. And they're still saying the dog died.

But then they're coming out that the dog didn't die. But it's going to. It's going to die. But it's too late. There are headlines that changed. You know, even after this happened two years, Nebraska man believes in miracles. Pit bull shot in head makes miraculous recovery. She was shot in the left eye, right?

Just under the eye. Got it. And the Daily News says dog makes miraculous recovery. Miraculous recovery. the daily news says dog makes miraculous recovery miraculous recovery um i offer and there's a cnn article some journalist writes an article because i offer help to lek i say look lek was the homeless yeah i say look i'll give you a job i'll give you a place to live i'll help you he declines my help he goes back to poland oh he just left he left how do you get back to Poland. Oh, he just left? He left. How did he get back to Poland?

They sent him. They basically sent him back. I mean, this story was bad press for the NYPD. They started a Twitter campaign of most memorable moments, and people were tweeting these photos of this shooting. It was an ugly situation. And I was leading the charge to become the lawful owner of this dog. And it was a long story.

Basically, Mob's son gets Dog out of Witness Protection Program because they renamed the dog, and they stuck her in Philadelphia in a sanctuary to let the story blow over. They sent the dog down to Philly. They sent us. The poor dog had to go to Philly. Listen, to my Philly friends, when you're a New York dog and you like New York sports,

you're not a Philly fan. I mean, listen. Okay, listen. Okay, so they sent the dog to Philly. And I would use all of my career in corrections to track this dog down. I would turn my office in Nebraska into a data center.

The dog lawyered up. It had a defense team. The dog lawy data center. The dog lawyered up. It had a defense team. The dog lawyered up. The dog lawyered up. The dog. There's an article. If you want to talk to the dog, talk to her attorneys. So the dog lawyered up.

Then she had the Mayor's Alliance take ownership of her, New York City Mayor's Alliance. But she's in Philly. But she's in Philly. But she's quietly in Philly. But they don't realize that I'm a heat-seeking missile, man. There's no stopping me. Are you running the Facebook page like Darren Allis? I'm running the Facebook page.

I think the UK think we're nuts over the pond with our guns, and I'll play up to them. We're completely nuts with the guns. We want to be just like you guys with no guns, okay? How's that? We want billy clubs in the police. We want water guns. How's that?

I need to get on the news. Get me on New England get on the news. Get me on the New England, across the pond, get me on some type of English radio station. So they get on the radio out there. Canine, Crusader, this and that. And they can't get over the accent. And this is just something that I learned in Nebraska.

When you leave where you're from, your native place, where you hail from, you hold on to the way you talk even more. Yeah. So I learned that from a Nebraska speech pathologist that I entrenched in my words. I mean, they say roof out there. I say roof. And they would say different things. I say different things.

And I'm saying how nuts we are with these guns. And they're buying into it. And they're loving it. Okay? And I'm thinking at this point that we shouldn't even have guns in the towers at the corrections. How's that? I mean, whatever it takes to get somebody to hear me. This dog came back from dead.

It's Lazarus. This dog is a miracle. And I fight for this dog. And eventually I say, look, if you don't show me a picture of this dog alive, I'm going to say she died. So they made the mistake. They gave me, the inmate, if they wanted to treat me like that, a picture of the dog. I see the photos have no license plates. I start narrowing down, figuring out this dog must likely be close to New York.

Which state is close to New York? Pennsylvania. Then they sent another photo out and it was a semi-trailer, tractor trailer in the background of where this dog is living. And it looks like a semi-complex and they white out the name on the semi, but I'm a trucking guy. I take the USDOT number. I put it in. It's a Safer Systems, Safer S-A-F-E-r systems and it tells me where this semi truck is it's in philadelphia it gives me a location i take the little yellow man from google and i stick it right where this guy tells me it should be now we're dealing with 2012 technology it's a old industrial complex. Where in Philly? This is in North Philly somewhere. Okay? And Dutton Road.

Okay? And I narrow the dog down to eventually finding out that it's at this sanctuary. And I call the place. And the director gets on the phone with me eventually. No, he calls me back, actually. And they realize I found the one-eyed dog. But the staff don't know it's the famous dog. The staff thinks it's Shiloh, her new name.

And I say, I know where the dog is. I'm coming. You can't. We don't own the dog. The city of New York owns the dog. Not anymore. I said, well, they said, if you do something stupid and tell your Facebook community, they'll have to move the dog. And I don't want to do that.

I said, I got to see the dog. They made arrangements for me to move the dog. And I didn't want to do that. I said, I got to see the dog. They made arrangements for me to see the dog. I signed some papers that I wouldn't tell where the dog is. I couldn't use my, back then, it wasn't an iPhone. It was with a little round ball. What was that? Blackberry. Blackberry.

I had to leave that. And they picked me up at the airport. I go to visit the dog. Now, mind you, I see somebody at the airport that knows I don't fly, a fellow correctional officer. Now, this is years later, 2012. I leave corrections back in 2001. I start my business in 99.

It's good enough, and by 2001, I leave it. So this guy who's working for TSA now, he says to me, Seth, what are you doing? I said, I'm going to- Wait, you only had the business till 2001. No, I, I started the business in 99. I leave corrections in Oh one. Oh, you started when you were, I didn't catch that earlier. You started when you were still in there. Yeah. I started in 99 and I left corrections by 2001. The business was up and rolling good enough. Wow. Okay. So this, so this correctional officer, he's a TSA guy, and he knows because we spend a lot of hours together.

Sif, that's my nickname, and Sifarelli's called Sif. Sif, you don't fly. Bobby, I don't. RIP Bobby Garcia. He's a TSA guy lost from COVID-19. So he says to me, what are you flying for? I said, I'm going to visit a dog. He says, you're going to visit a dog? He knew I was serious. He says, tell me the story. I go, I can't. I said, but this is such a big story that when it comes out, the whole world will know.

He goes, I guess I'll know then. I guess you'll know. So I visit the dog. So I get there. I can't take any photos. I can't take any pictures. I can't say I had the dog. They're going to take the pictures, and they do a good job. I visit the dog.

The thing is, the dog is only about 49, 50 pounds, a small dog. Pit bull. Pit bull. It's actually 100%. I had her DNA taken. It's 100% Staffordshire Terrier. She's still called a pit bull. So long story short, I visit the dog. It's a small dog,

smart dog. I visit the dog over two days. They put a nice article out in the East Village Times. Another article comes out. Star's number one fan visits dog. No disclosure is put in. Just says, you know, some nice things. I'm a trash businessman, has interest in this dog, and wanted to make sure it's okay. So I visit the dog. I get home to Nebraska. Jen says, how's your visit? I said, it was great. I said, Jen, this story has gone full circle. I go, I can go on with my life now. I said, the dog is going to get a nice home probably. And I'm going to go back to my life. She goes, oh no, you're not, mister. You're going to adopt that dog. I go, they're never going to give me the dog. They don't care for me. I'm just a noisemaker. She goes, I'm telling you, you can never live with yourself if you don't get the dog. I go, I'm going to get the dog?

So she said, we're going to work. I'm going to get the dog for you. I'm going to start writing emails to the sanctuary, to the city of New York, and I'm going to be your mouthpiece. You've gone far enough. And eventually I get interviewed, why I'm going to get the dog. And I said, look, I'm going to be on top of the dog until the dog is no longer here. I'm no longer here. And if something would happen to this dog,

I'll be back in the news with it. Because it made big news. This dog has made big news. Yeah, it did. It's written about in China. She's got her own Wikipedia, Star of the Dog. I've been on TV, radio,

everything you can imagine. So I tell a city that owns a dog, I said, look, if the dog ever bit somebody, it'd be a liability. If it bites me, I can't tell anybody. So at this point, I become the primary guy that is going to get to adopt this dog. So how long after the dog getting shot are we at now? Like, is this a couple months? It's December of 2012.

The dog was shot in August. So you got this a couple months uh it's december of 2012 the dog was shot in august so you got about five months after that you know and you were in line to be the guy who was gonna get the dog well you know it wasn't me doing it it was really jen i mean she's got a way with words she's smart she wrote the right emails so we we get the dog and there's a lot of stipulation with the dog i i have to get a minivan to go out to Philly from Nebraska to get the dog. You have to get a minivan. Yeah. They think that's the best thing for her to travel across the country.

I have to put up a fence. I put up an eight-foot fence in my yard, which creates all kinds of craziness. This eight-foot fence, there's a story in that. The eight-foot fence is something. And I have to sign my rights away that I can't tell anybody I have this dog, okay? Remember, I'm not a liar, okay? I wind up adopting this dog in April of 2013.

Many months, what is it, eight months after she was shot, I go to Philadelphia and rescue Shiloh. That's what the cake says. That's what the staff thinks. Her name is Shiloh. Oh, the staff still doesn't even know. The staff still thinks it's Shiloh. But she's really a star.

So I adopt this dog, and I go on to have a life with this dog. I bring her back to Nebraska. And one of the first things I start to do is realize I don't want to work life with this dog. I'd bring her back to Nebraska. And one of the first things I start to do is realize I don't want to work anymore with this trash. I get away from the trash business. I realized it wasn't what I needed to do. I needed to take some time for myself and hang out with the dog. And I reclaimed myself. I've become the best version of myself. And as luck would have it, as I said, Nebraska people are tracking. About fall of 2013, I'm walking the dog.

And one of my prior trash customers, Rob, sees me with the dog. He said, Charlie, I see you got a dog. Oh, yeah. What happened to her? Oh, I don't know, Rob. You have no idea what happened to her? Where'd you get her from? Oh, I adopted her back east. Oh see you got a dog. Oh, yeah. What happened to her? Oh, I don't know, Rob. You have no idea what happened to her? Where'd you get her from? Oh, I adopted her back east.

Oh, a New York dog. I said, well, there's other places besides New York. Easy, Charlie, easy. Nice looking dog. What's the dog's name? Star. Okay, Charlie, nice seeing you. Guy was tracking.

He was thinking. A few months go by. Meanwhile, with the dog. Because you had a whole Facebook group too. Yeah, I couldn't tell. But you couldn't tell them. I couldn't tell them. So you just let it kind of die down. I let it die down.

People were questioning it. People were wondering, where's the once vocal Charlie? There's no updates on Star. So as time would go on, we're getting closer to the end of 2013. Rob sees me again. I'm at an Ace Hardware store. And he says to me, hey, Charlie, I want to ask you a question. He says, your dog, when I left you, I wanted to ask you some more questions

he goes I spend a lot of time on YouTube my son's on YouTube he says you got a brown and white pit bull there's a famous video on many of them of a brown and white pit bull being shot her name is Star

looks just like your dog, Charlie. And they say the dog lived. I got to ask you, man, do you have the New York pit bull? Do you have Star? I said, yeah, Rob, I can't lie. She's my dog. He hugged me. He goes, that's unbelievable.

He goes, I don't know how you did it. I said, I don't even know how I did it. I go, does anybody know? I can't tell anybody. He goes, well, my son figured it out too. I said, I don't even know how he did it. I go, does anybody know? I can't tell anybody. He goes, well, my son figured it out too. I said, well, I can't tell anybody. Because you signed the thing. I signed my thing and I signed all my rights away.

But meanwhile, my neighbors in Nebraska think I'm nuts. I got a judge, retired judge across the street. I got professors. I live in a nice neighborhood. And nobody has a fence, but I got this eight-foot fence. And a one-eyed dog. And I got a one-eyed dog. So what happens is, you know, a month or two go by,

and I start saying to myself, you know what? She's got bullet fragments still coming out of her skin. I'm bringing it to the vet. The vets know that she's the real deal, because they got the medical records. I finally say, you know what? Heck with this. I'm going to write to the Gothamists.

They wrote the most about Star. It's an online publication. I'm going to let them know, and I'm going to let the PIX know. Or I'm going to let Gothamists know first, then I'll let PIX. Would you face legal recourse, I guess? I didn't care. You didn't care? I didn't care.

I said, you know what? At this point, I don't care. You know what care? I didn't care. I said, you know what? At this point, I don't care. You know what? I have a legal battle. I like to fight. You know? You know? The hell with it, you know?

I'll use the public. They'll get in the way of me and the dog. But if the dog died, I felt as though that she didn't have her day in the sun. I felt as though if she died on my watch, the public would flip out. That they never got...

I thought it wasn't fair for the dog or the public. Let the public decide. Yeah, she was a symbol. She was a symbol. It was their dog. I never took, I never said, this is my dog. I was her adopted father. Okay?

Meanwhile, I never really wanted a dog. I wanted a dog to go back to her original owner. But you know what? Him with his seizures and him with his addiction, it would have been like me and Kane. And he went back to Poland. He went back to original owner. But you know what? Him with his seizures and him with his addiction would have been like me and Kane. And he went back to Poland. He went back to Poland. So the New York Gotham has got a hold of me.

They can't believe it. And they write an article. Nebraska man adopts dog shop by NYPD. And this becomes global news, man. This becomes big. My phone, PIX, makes it one of their top stories of 2013 for the 2014 year.

Magazines, TV, they can't believe it. Front pages of newspapers, Nebraska can't believe it. My neighbors don't think I'm so nuts. And they accept her. Everybody accepts her. Matter of fact, nobody ever told me, hey, this is a pit bull. Nobody even questioned that. They just saw her as a loving dog.

So the dog wasn't a regular dog. I have a lot of dogs. How many do you have now? I have six dogs, all rescues. I get dogs that have no chance, that were on death row, that were going to be euthanized. I get them. And you take them. That's amazing.

I moved back to East. In 2018, I moved back East. Unlike It's a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart, I do leave Bedford Falls. I do leave Lincoln. I feel as though that I'm okay. I'm healed now. And I want to be where people talk more like me. You know, I love my Nebraska, but I'd rather be now where I can get a good cup of coffee and people understand me.

Not that they don't understand me there, but I'm here. So here's what happens. I start taking this dog because in Nebraska, I couldn't go, hey, I'm in recovery from drugs. I start taking this dog to rehabs. I'm invited because she's got her own Wikipedia. I'm invited to college campuses to teach journalism classes with her. I take her to hospitals. Teach journalism classes.

Teach journalism, the facts of how things are. Right. So these amazing things happen because of this dog. First of all, the dog has a vocabulary that is beyond, we're talking about words. I try to trick her. She can't be tricked. She knows in a conversation when to smile, when to get serious, when to frown.

I've had her as a spokesdog in front of the United States Humane Society. Jen starts the nonprofit group, The Star Project, saving those at risk. We save other dogs. Wow. I go taking her to Alzheimer's walk. We had a family member die. Jen's grandmother died of Alzheimer's. So I taught her taking her on walks and the public loves this.

Matter of fact, so much so that the news covers the dog more than the Alzheimer's event in one case. So I noticed that the dog symbolizes love between humans of every background, between judges kneeling down to hug star children, people suffering from cancer. I was yesterday on a former Gambino hitman, John the Light Show, talking about the dog. So it doesn't matter. The police love the dog. She's in this current, the Blue Magazine has an article about her. So I realized quickly on that there's no cornerstone to Star, that she has a legion of people that love her regardless.

So I'm doing all this, and Jen decides to write a book about Star, about the adventures of Star. See, Star looked different than other dogs. She's a pitbull. She was damaged from the bullet and had a face that was disfigured, but she didn't act different. But sometimes people go, oh my God, what happened to your dog? So Jen created this book, I'm a Star. It's on Amazon. It's on the website, I'm a star.com, whatever. It's there. But here's the part. She got to see this, and I got to see the miracle of this dog. She made me a real human being, okay?

I now have friends all over the world. See, I was a narrow-minded guy. I thought my friends started in California and ended in Maine. I didn't even see other states. I didn't think Alaska. I was never going to Alaska. I had to fly. So she's opened up my vision, okay?

So I know what suffering is today. And I cry when humans are hurt in other places. I cry when people are hurt in other countries. My compassion is not limited because when Star was shot and I needed people to rally, some of the poorest people followed Star on Facebook. And they had pictures in their little homes, maybe 300 to 500 square foot house,

but there was happiness at that dinner table. And I learned through this dog that my friends are all over the world and that I'm a human being now. And I don't just see friends in where I'm from. You know, growing up, I only seen friends in Long Island. I only knew people from Long Island. Jersey was a far away... I never went to Jersey.

So today, my friends are all over. So fast-forwarding, Star Wars Mortal, like the rest of us, in February of last year, 2019. 2021. Sorry, 2021. Yeah, in February of last year, 2019. 2021? Sorry, 2021. Yeah, you're taking us back, man. Yeah, I'm taking it back. Thank you for catching that.

February 19th of 2021. She had gotten cancer, and she was on the mend. She was doing okay. And she got in my arms right where Jen was present. I was going to give her a bath, and she died. She died. She took a couple of breaths, and she died in my arms right where Jen was present. I was going to give her a bath, and she died. She died. She took a couple of breaths, and she died in my arms. Julian, when she died, I felt like I died.

I felt like my lightning rod, my purpose was gone. She died. And I went into the worst depression I ever had. It was really bad. Because it was kind of, there's a lot to take in here from everything you said. And as I've said today, I'd like to just kind of let you rip with some of this because it's all free flow. And I really, really love that when people get in that zone but you know we talked about this being like the way the way that you were going to get your key to happiness was refining your childhood and you find your childhood in this dog and then this dog represented so much for so many other people and you highlight the point

that she connected you with so many people around the world yes so you associate the dog not just with your childness, and I'm reading this, so correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah. But not just with your childhood and with your happiness that you got from that, but also the happiness you brought so many other people through that message and through who she was. And so when she died, it's almost like your connection to the rest of the world. You're in to these other people and seeing that inspiration, it was gone with her. It was gone with her because I became a citizen of the world, brother.

I became a citizen of the world. You see the stuff that goes on today. My borders of compassion don't stop at the United States, okay? Okay? They don't stop at the United States, my friend. I got friends because of Star

that want me at their dinner table in Syria, in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine, Canada. You name the place. Her Facebook hits every continent,

every place somebody's reached out to me, and even more so. I've had people that understand. They don't even understand our fascination with companion animals reach out and say, I understand there's love there. There's something human about it. There is something human. It doesn't matter what the religion is.

See, people gloss over and say, well, this religion doesn't celebrate animals. No, no. I've had people, because you can see their Facebook, I gotta use the Bing translator sometimes to see what they're saying. This dog has connected me to people all over the world.

And from this dog, we would shave hair from her and send it to parents that children were fighting cancer. This dog has given humans hope that we're at their last leg with a disease. Wow. So she's done all this for me, and then she died. And this blissfulness of happiness, even today i have a hard time smiling i'm just starting to come out of my shell i was in a bad way i didn't know how to go forward um

and again if you got a few dollars it allows you to hire form of isolation i think sometimes when people say to me i can't wait till i retire i I say to them, just keep working. Working is good therapy. And I'm not here to tell anybody how to live their life, but there should be a balance. We got to be productive. The lymph nodes in the body need movement. They don't get movement sitting on the couch watching Netflix, okay?

We need to get up. We need to move. We need to do things. I get up every morning now. I make my bed. I got routine. So here's what happens now. Because of this dog, an old friend found me in 2018. He's a hero. He's a New York City sergeant, retired. This is a cop that was a good by the... He was a guy I grew up with, and he knew that I went off the rails, but he heard about Star.

He heard about the stuff in the media. We reconnected through Facebook. But he's also a guy that saw me at my worst when he was a sergeant. And his brother was a cop. And he went to, after 9-11, he went and cleaned up and helped locate body parts. And in 2018, I watched the 7-5 documentary. 2018, it's a big year for me. Remember, I go back up to the monastery to thank him after 25 years.

Oh, right. Oh, I didn't say that earlier. You did mention that, but you took Star. I took Star up to the monastery in 2018. They hear that I do these great things, and I bring Star up to the monastery and she goes and meets Father Bernie Father Owen had died in 2012

actually same year Star got shot so I go back to the monastery we eat dinner we pray I talk to the board of directors the board of directors is the vice president on Rolex I got a Rolex now

I mean we're all equals now it's all good man it's all good man this is It's all good, man. This is a country of redemption, okay? Spiritually and financially. And then what else happened in 2018? So in 2018, I get connected with the cop. I watched a 7-5 documentary somehow on Netflix.

And it brings all this stuff back to me. You were there. I was there. And I also, in 2018, am going to go call my father. I have to come back from the monastery. I can't be mad at my father. Let God handle my dad.

That's the same year he ended up dying. He died. I didn't get to say anything to him. I just wanted to tell him you know dad it didn't turn out the way we wanted it to turn out it wasn't not nearly perfect but you are my father man i love you we don't have to have a really close relationship but let's just see what the future holds if i never get that opportunity. But I write this book, 14th and 2nd. It's taken me four years to complete this book. It's finally done now.

It's coming out soon. But this cop tells me, Charlie, what do you think of that documentary? I said, man, it's powerful. I know the players personally. These guys stopped me. They shook me down. I'm lucky I survived them. They said, would you like to meet Mike Dowd? I go, man, it's powerful. I know the players personally. These guys stopped me. They shook me down. I'm lucky I survived them.

They said, would you like to meet Mike Dowd? I go, come on. He says, yeah, he's a friend of mine. He says, Charlie, you know me. I don't judge anybody. He goes, Mike's got out of prison. He did his 12 to 14 years. And he's a Long Island guy.

And you know what? My door is always open for somebody who wants to change, just like it was when you wanted to. I meet Mike Dowd. My ego meets Mike Dowd. I reach in my pocket. I always kept my 20-year medallion. When I got 20 years of drug-free and alcohol-free, it was a huge milestone for me because I became an old-timer. I look at Mike Dowd after spending the day with him. We went to a diner. I listened to him. I was guarded. I never thought the guy could help me.

I gave him the 20-year medallion. I says, hey, keep doing what you're doing. If things ever get tough, reach onto my medallion. And I left him and I said, man, I gave a guy my 20-year medallion. I said, man, to myself, that's a huge deal. But it wasn't me that gave it to him. It was a higher force. Something told me to give it to him, not that I gave it to him.

And you didn't think that much of it. You just kind of did it. I did it. And it was huge, man. It was a huge one. I hit 20 years because it made me an old-timer. So now, now, 2021 comes. I stay in contact a little bit with Mike Dowd, a little bit.

Not much, because I'm friends with the cop. His first name is Ted. Star dies February 19, 2021. I'm not reachable by nobody. Ted the cop calls me. Charlie, I'm worried about you. I said, man, I can't talk. I just couldn't talk to nobody. I'm getting flooded.

I mean, Star got more traffic on her Facebook than New York Post gets. And so finally, in September of 2021, Mike Dowd texted me. Hey, brother, I think you need to go to this mental health retreat. Or would you like to go to this mental health retreat. Or would you like to go to this mental health retreat for law enforcement officers in New Jersey? And I jumped on the opportunity. I went to a law enforcement mental health retreat. I heard cops talk about being at the end of their life, putting a gun in their mouth and wanting to pull the trigger.

And little did I know all these cops there would become close, close friends of mine. I heard cops, I heard police psychologists talking about having 800 critical incidences in your life when a normal person, a regular person only has two. I think about all the stuff I saw in corrections. I thought about inmates that had committed suicide, inmates that tried to escape,

and inmates that got their guts stabbed out on the day this guy tried to leave the prison. And I realized I was injured, man. I was really injured. And I would never hurt nobody, but I was hurting myself by staying quiet. So I got to go to that mental health retreat. And I got to go on a podcast, a suffering podcast. It was the first time I ever publicly said to New Jersey cops, hey, man, I'm a former addict. I said that at first. I said, no, that's not right.

I'm not a former addict. I'm not a former anything. I'm a recovering addict. And I started to unpack this stuff. And my life changed. And I got purpose again. Talked about it? I talked about it.

And then the police put Starz article in there, the blue magazine. And so much stuff has happened, podcast and talking. And I've reconnected with a lot of human beings. And I'm doing stuff again, and I'm a changed man. You know, I had a hitman, a Gambino hitman. Forgot he. Tell me yesterday, after the podcast.

He said, I like you right away. He says, I saw there was no, like, veneer on you. I got an authentic human being. I don't have toxic masculinity. I don't try to be anybody today. I don't care how I get somewhere. Just as long as I have transportation, I'm grateful for everything. I had a disease of ingratitude. I got gratitude. I cry when I'm supposed to cry. I get mad when I'm supposed to get mad. I have a full range of emotions. They're not blocked off. And I'm not scared of death anymore. And I'm not scared of living. Listen, if God is everything, he can't be nothing. So he's got to be everything. I can't be in prayer and fearful at the same time. So I realize this energy, star's energy, all our energy,

just gets someplace else. I'm in this this life living in the spirit of me in this physical body right now i'm trying to make a difference and i'm going to make a difference and i've forgiven everybody i've forgiven the guy that put a gun in my stomach that robbed me of everything in my dignity that day i don't think i've ever had any enemies. I've just had people that were hurt and I was in their way. We are all sharing this planet. We all have blood running through our veins from a heart and we all have a God that we know individually what we call that God. And what separates us is our ego. And I got to tell you something. When we get rescued out of any situation, we've got a lot of camaraderie.

And we all know it. We've all had situations where we've been stuck on a highway. We've been needing to get somewhere. And there's camaraderie. I don't know what's happened to that. It seems to have gone away. But I'm hoping that you giving me the opportunity to talk about the love of star and the camaraderie of human beings that this dog brought me together with can get people to leave this talk today that me and you've done and say, you know what? I'm going to forgive somebody that I'm holding a long-term grudge against. I'm going to put my hand out to somebody. I'm not going to judge somebody based on what their exterior looks at. Listen, pal, listen to anybody. It's easy to like

attractive people that smell good. Okay. That's simple. That have money or power, think they could do something for us. Okay. That's simple. You know, we, that's called limousine luxury. Okay, we need to like people because we never know who's going to help us and who our God is going to send in our direction. across heavy is first of all star was the symbol of an otherwise incredible life in a lot of other respects long before she was ever around so let's let's say that too this was a segment of your life that just brought to the surface a lot of other things maybe you didn't pay attention to in the past but you have used your experience with her and her story to connect with people. And I said this already, but let me take it another level. In today's society, we see a lot of people, like you mentioned, everyone's so upset at each other and doesn't treat each other the right way. And we all yell at each other.

We have different opinions and we hate each other for it. And you see a lot of people replace bliss and happiness with dogs and i love dogs i've been a dog guy my whole life it was the best day of my life when i got a dog when i was four years old incredible yes but i feel like we also there needs to be the balance of also loving humans and being good to other people thank you and you have done that through a dog thank you and that is something that has come across not just like not just in how you treat people but the the value you put in building relationships with so many other people and it's a wonderful thing that is the most important thing you said and i want to

tell you this here's what happens human beings that have been hurt especially people in rescue they say to me charlie i only only love my animals. Well, that's easy to do because animals are pure love, okay? But here's the reality. Star did not allow me to do that, okay? Star pushed me into human beings. Star was a humanist. She wanted me, and her story brought me in contact with humans. Look, as much as we love animals, animals don't pay property taxes. They don't pay mortgages. They don't rescue dogs out of sanctuaries or non-sanctuaries or get them to sanctuaries. I'm part of the human race, okay?

And I got to get along with my brothers and sisters or with every capacity you identify with, okay? That is where I got to be. Because this dog made me realize and bring me back to what I remember as a kid, including that hippie that came in our car. I'm a people person. I like people. And guess what? Dogs love—I have six dogs.

They love each other. They dogs. They love each other. They have a communication amongst each other. They have their own language. I kind of take them out of the psyche when I want to do things. Okay, we're going to do this. We're going to do that. I mean, what do I want to do? I don't want to do things that are just fun.

Hey, let's go through the drive-through at Whole Foods. They don't have one yet, you know? With six dogs. With six dogs, okay? But Julian, you said it. You said it. What I want you people to know is this. We can easily say there's a lot of evil in the world,

but I'd rather turn that around and say, okay, I agree with you, but there's so many pockets of goodness. Yes. Guess what? I'm not going to argue about this world being evil, but they're systemic, globally, goodness. And guess what? When my life force is attracted to goodness, I'm attracted by goodness. I go weeks and weeks and weeks on finding good people.

I find great people in the supermarket. I find people that want to backslap and have some humor with me. But when I used to get up with a chip on my shoulder in New York, I couldn't tell you. I could even get a Nebraska guy mad at me. So I really appreciate sitting down with you today. Yeah, thank you for being here. Yeah, this was an opportunity to really tell this story.

This was great. And I will second what you said earlier. It's a true Forrest Gump type story. A little bit was great. And I will second what you said earlier. It's a true Forrest Gump type story. A little bit of the R-rated version, like you said. But absolutely incredible. Yes. And I think people can be very, very inspired by your life, which is awesome to have in the studio and be able to give that a platform, too.

Yes. And, you know, I found out living all these years later, even my enemies have forgiven me. Beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful thing. Well, Charlie, thank you, brother. Thank you. Much appreciated. Thank you.

Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back. Peace. Peace.