Locked In with Ian Bick - How I Survived As a Skinhead Inside California’s Most Dangerous Prison | Chris Sharpe

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

Chris Sharpe, a former skinhead prison gang member, opens up about his journey from gang life in a California penitentiary to becoming a successful tattoo shop owner. Chris shares how he was recruited into the gang, what life was really like inside the prison system, and the pivotal moments that led him to leave it all behind. Now fully out of the gang lifestyle, Chris discusses his path to redemption and building a new life focused on art and entrepreneurship. This is a raw look into the realities of prison gang culture, transformation, and finding purpose after leaving a turbulent past. #PrisonGangLife #RedemptionStory #CaliforniaPrison #ExSkinhead #TattooShopOwner #LifeAfterPrison #GangReform #TrueCrime Thank you to our sponsors this week: Prize Picks: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/IANBICK and download the app today & use code IANBICK to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! Connect with Chris Sharpe: IG:https://www.instagram.com/chrissharpetattoos/profilecard/?igsh=cnVwNGU4end1aWNv Tattoo Shop IG: https://www.instagram.com/purehearttattootn/profilecard/?igsh=YXczZjl6em1rcDBy Website: https://www.tattooshopmurfreesboro.com/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: https://www.ianbick.com/shop Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 Welcome to Murphy's Boro, Tennessee 00:04:41 The Crucial Role of Father Figures 00:09:40 Betting on NFL Stars: Mahomes, Hill, and McCaffrey 00:14:31 From High School to Gang Activity 00:19:10 First Night in Prison: A Dangerous Discovery 00:23:48 Understanding Skinhead Morals 00:28:48 Consequences & Identity in Prison 00:34:01 Surviving Prison Attacks 00:38:44 Surviving and Thriving in Prison: A Personal Story 00:43:29 Tattoo Techniques and Aftercare Myths 00:48:01 Life on the Streets and Struggles with Crime 00:53:00 Encountering Police Brutality 00:57:13 Finding an Unlikely Mentor 01:01:50 Mentorship and Second Chances: Transforming Lives 01:06:39 From Hustling to Transformation: Finding Purpose in Counseling 01:11:58 Embracing Spiritual Enlightenment 01:15:48 Chris's Life Story: Turning Negatives Into Positives Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Close your eyes and imagine a room that feels soft, warm, and beautifully inviting. That's life with Serena and Lily. Every piece is designed in-house, crafted by expert hands and made to pair effortlessly with the things you love. Choose from over 150 fabrics and finishes to create a space that feels personal and lived in with complementary design experts to guide you. Let your home feel like a sanctuary at serena and Lily.com. Explore the possibilities at Serena and Lily.com. Chris, welcome to Lockton, man. We are at the, I'm going to butcher the name of the town.

What town are we in? Murphy'sboro. Murphy's Borough, but it's not called Murphesboro Correctional Facility, right? No. Isn't it Rutherford? Rutherford County. Yeah, correctional facility. Correct.

Thank you to William Cope for introducing us, making this happen. I interviewed the superintendent William Cope here back in April. He was sitting in that exact chair. Yeah. He was nervous. Don't tell the boss, though. And now it's a pleasure to have you, man. And I want to plug in your shop because you have your own tattoo shop right here.

Yeah, we have a pure heart tattoo here in Murfysboro, Tennessee, located on South Church Street. We've been here since 2021. Awesome, man. And you do a wide range of tattoos. Yeah, we have tattoos and piercing. Very family-friendly. We specialize in black and gray realism, traditional, all of the tattooing and piercing for the community. Awesome.

Is there like a shot minimum? or a small size. I know different shops have different rules. Yeah, we do have minimums there, but we really are versatile. We like to service the public in all of its phases, not just the elites and not just the bottoms, but everybody in between can find a spot at Pure Heart Tattoo.

Awesome. Now, when the superintendent texted me, he said, you got to interview this guy. Crazy story. And there's a redemption part to this, too. Did you grow up in Tennessee? No. We moved here in 2021 from San Diego.

I grew up in San Diego. I was born in 1982. My dad was in the Navy and my mom was a crack whore. And so my dad was from a different state, moved out there to be in the Navy, had me and my brother and then left. And we were raised of fatherlessless and poverty in San Diego. So it was just you and your brother? How old was they? He's 18 months younger than me. Were you guys close growing up? Super close. Best friends. We were born in El Cajon, which is a suburb of San Diego. San Diego and thank God we didn't stay there because that had been just another statistic.

But my mom stepped in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous when we were five and my brother was four or three and met a guy there who moved her, moved us to North County, San Diego, to Fallbro, California, which is, God bless, outside of the biggest Marine Corps base in the continental United States. So we went from inner city regular to being poor kids in a rich neighborhood, which gave us, you know, through sports, organized sports and church. And we were hanging out with drill surgeons and lieutenants. And our friends' dads were able to model something that we knew we lacked or didn't have,

but was always maybe attainable in a dream, right? Coming up fatherlessness, like in America today, it's such a rampant thing where most of our, like we talked about earlier, our traumas come from our childhood and trying to get past those things. But when we moved up to Fallbrook, I was able to join, football and organized sports really saved my life growing up with the direction that a young boy needs from a male from those coaches and those players that we bonded in locker rooms over together and we ended up playing the same sports teams for 10 years and all the way through high

school that was my identity you know I played sports and the whole life was revolved around trying to avoid home my mom was mentally ill and trying to find an identity inside of football we would go down to San Diego often, and that's where the drugs start trickling into my life. Start smoking weed when I was like 12 or 13 in junior high, but shortly after I got introduced to speed from my cousins down in San Diego, and we would live like the white suburban life up in Fallbrook, and then once a week or a month or whatever, my mom would take us back down to the hood to hang out with our cousins and our aunts and our uncles. So we had that pattern of brokenness for a really, really long time, but my junior year,

I tore my ACL and football was over. I mean, I never realized I was only 5-5, and I wasn't going anywhere anyways, but I had those ambitions, you know, when you're a kid, like you're going to be a pro something, and when I tore my ACL, it was all gone. Like, I was not playing football anymore. I had no reason to go to school,

so I dropped out. My mom told her, A, I'm going to get my GED, and I'm not going to go to school anymore. It's not for me. About six months later, I ended up in county jail. So I had been using drugs on and off all the way through high school, and once I had dropped out and started around

and hanging around those drug people, it was the band-aid to the pain, you know, that we talk about an addiction where it starts small, and you think that it's just going to be one thing and it leads into another. But yeah, I was 18 years old, man, Donovan State Banditentiary.

Wow. Now, had your dad been around? Do you think you wouldn't have went down that path? Like if you had that strict military kind of father? Yeah, you know, I've had a lot of time now that I'm 42 to really, with 10 years clean and sober, to really go back and unpack some of that stuff and 100%, 100%.

The male role model of a father figure inside of a young person's life is so crucial to the decision-making that they have in their preteen, adolescence 20 years old, that if I had had that connection with an older male, I believe 100% that I wouldn't have made those faulty choices in my 20s and 30s

that took me down that spiral of destruction, but it's all so to say. A lot of my buddies out there, they're live and still in live right now. They had dads, man, and they still made all them same choices. So I think that, you know, there's a time that comes in a man's life

where he has to own up for his own self and figure out what part of that is controllable and what part of it is just uncontrollable stuff that happens to people. Yeah, were you picked on or struggled, or had struggles in school because you were the poor kid in the rich neighborhood? Yeah, you know what?

I didn't even realize that until I was about 35 years old, and we were talking about our hometown and growing up with some family friends, and they told us that. Like, I didn't even realize that my mom was so loud and obnoxious. Like, I knew it offended me, and I was like, man, this lady is crazy. How come she could be like that in public, you know? But that the whole town had looked at us like that growing up. You know, I remember only getting the thing from the mall

when my friend's parents would buy it for us, or if we were out of football and they would go to NNNLberger. It's like, hey, Chris, do you want something? I'm like, well, if you can afford it, I want it, you know? And I didn't realize the classification that they could put on people, and their own neighborhoods looking down at you. But I did, I do remember the friends that had dads and the friends that didn't. And you could tell by their patterns, by their lifestyles,

and how much that you. just impacts people, you know, and then sitting in those prison cells, I did almost 10 years altogether, you look around and you're like, what do we all have in common? How did we all end up here? Like, there's good people. And most of it's fatherlessness and drug addiction. And either one of those combined, you know, we're supposed to be like a tribe, a community of people who pour her into other people. And when a woman through society or her own choices or whatever makes it to where maybe the dad was a bad guy or maybe he wasn't. But then those kids

have to raise up inside of their own thinking, whatever's inside of their own heads and they don't know how to look for help. They don't know how to be instructed in ways that are good. They just kind of, like I did, ran my own plays. For a long time, my philosophy was I was no man's son. And that's a bad

spot to be in, man. You know, making all your own choices. But since then we've matured a lot and have found a lot of good mentors. No, a lot of the people I interviewed that grow up the way you grew up don't even have friends parents uh to help support them why do you think even though you had that that wasn't enough to keep you on the right track um selfishness you know the ego I think that um the wickedness and evil and self ambition is born in the heart of everybody

and if it's not coached out right that it could be detrimental on every level and that was what mine was like I don't know how an 18 year old boy or a 20 year old man can repeatedly go in and out of county jail just in prisons justifying stuff having nothing no car not a house not anything to show for themselves but still feel in your own head that like

you know what I'm making the right moves today I just got it was a little bit of this a little bit of that but not having that accountability not having the right place to run the right perspective of life, you know, like the victim mentality. Like, I've been abused every way since I was sexually, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, everything abused.

So there's a lot to write off to that. Well, like, if my dad was here, you know, if this, and there comes a time in your life, do you have to take accountability that whatever has happened has happened, whatever is in the past is in the past, but that, you know, we can define ourselves by what we do, our habits, rituals, and routines, not by what's happened to us. And, you know, thankfully in my 30s,

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Prize picks, run your game. Now let's get back into today's episode. Do you ever think about what would have happened if you didn't have that sports injury? Like if you stuck with sports? Yeah, I do think about that, but I also know that I didn't have the right tools to succeed, period. My brother, who's a year and a half younger than me, says that when they asked you a class what you were going to be when you grew up, he, like knew we were going to be convicts, man. He just knew it. You know, and we were not bad kids.

We were like the rowdies, the ones you didn't want to mess with. But when we got later older and into drugs, that's when that whole like pendulum swings from like what is okay to what's not okay. You know what I think about is like I talk to so many people and I feel like bad because they're born into this life. Like you just said that you guys were meant to be convicts. That was already predetermined. and you set off on this path and there's no stopping that.

Like that was your destiny for that period of your life. Right. And it's just so crazy to think that that is how some destinies are. Yeah. As I look at America and wider and broader view, I would say personally, nothing like scientific or nothing, there's 30% of the elite that don't have anything idea what I'm talking about. And there's 30%, like, that's the reality, man.

And being at the poverty or lower line when your uncles model it, You know, your people around you model it. To be able to break through that and get spiritual enlightenment, you know, I think that's the big reason why the programs were invented, man, was because there is a higher way of thinking. And like Nip said, I knew self-destruction wasn't the only way, you know, and that was all that was modeled to us was self-indulgence and then self-destruction. And when you hear a lot about it's humility, man. And that's really what had happened to me was at the end of me. you know, I had humbled myself and got advice from some people that I idolized them and not in like famous ways. Like I'm like, man, you have a nice wife that loves you. You have kids that really love you.

You know, and these men opened up to me and showed me their playbook, man, like 1990s Dallas Cowboys, man. And I knew that the proof was in the pudding because I had studied them. You know, I had talked to people who had known them for a long time. And I would tell my friends in recovery now When I was going through 80s, my mom was in recovery, 90s, my mom was in recovery. It was a joke to me. You know, there was no statistical proof. All I saw was people relapsing over and over and over again. And I figured my whole life, like, that's a joke.

It's not going to work. Now here we are, fast forward, 2024, man. The stats are out, bro. It works, you know? And it took me all those years. I don't know why God let me not overdose or why God didn't let me die in my addiction. But I'm glad the tech has gone the way. way it has, that people have kept the numbers, and that there is no denying it. You know,

there is, there is a better way and that there is people out there that are ministering still. You know, if those people wouldn't have gotten me 10 or 12 years ago, if we talked about earlier, the people that are planning the seas before you even get to the rooms, you know, and if all of that wasn't going in the way that it was for me to meet me where I was ready to be humble. Now, do you end up graduating high school or you go right to prison before graduating? Yeah, no, I dropped out, got my GED in Maracosa College in San Diego, and was in prison. By the time my friends were graduating, it was within six months. It's so wild to think about that.

And I went through, like, when my friends were going to college, I was, you know, on trial in a federal indictment, you know, when you put that in perspective, how different it is. And so I think about that, too, on the way down here, what I wanted to talk about was, we have to go back in our heads. This is 2002. There's no social media. You have no idea what this type of prison looks like. now you're like, oh, I got an idea. The guy's got cell phones. It's going to be cool.

I can talk to my girls still. They give me an email. In 2002, it wasn't like that, dude. There's no further break, nothing. Dude, I was going from a little tiny high school kid with maybe a little bit of a drug problem to full-blown gang activity, you know, coming out of the 90s 2000 era. It was still wild back there, man. It was a whole other thing.

And, you know, when you were in Rome, you had to do as the Romans do. How did you end up in the Pentothenter? So it's silly, stupid stories, but I had stolen a swans ice cream truck, man. Swans? What's a swan? Swans. That was a brand? Yeah, they still do it today.

They deliver from the email to, from the internet to your house. It has $10,000 worth of filet mignon and fish and blow pops, everything you can imagine, inside of a store on a truck. We're walking to my friend's house. The guy won't give me a ride somewhere to score some dope. And so I tell this kid, I'm with him like, hey, man, jump with the truck. truck. I saw the guy walk the other way. And I jumped in. I started this truck up. It's like a F-3-50 stick shift. And I'm like 18 years old. I've never driven one before. So I start to lay in the gas and let the

clutch off and it's not going anywhere. And I'm like, oh God, and the kids look at me crazy. And I looked down and said, emergency airbreak. So I hit the air brake and we peel out of this thing. And I lived in fall break at the time. And I went to my friend's house and they're like, dude, they're already looking for you, bro. Get out of here. So I drove it down to Incinnitus and I lived in it for two weeks. Oh, you got away with it. Oh, you got away with it. I was trading it to the dough man. I remember training it for mushrooms.

And, yeah, one time, like two weeks later, I had slept in it. I'd take it into the bar and told Gross was my work truck. Like, yeah, I work for swans, no big deal, you know? Some kind of maniac. And then, like, someday I went down there to go check on it, and it was gone. And so then I went down to Carlsbad Drive and the Five Freeway. And this 2002 Toyota Avalon was just running at the gas station. So I jumped in and took off.

And so they got me the stupidest stories, man. I was, you know, a kid in a park in San Diego, a state park, and I'm honking at the state trooper and a stolen car with people all around me, like my friends and drugs and everything. And the guy pulls me out of the car. I go to prison that day, bro, with a state trooper, forgive him a false name, GTA. And then they got me for the swans truck that I had stolen.

Did they know about it? Not the time. I was on the run for probation. So they knew that was on the GTA. And so then they bundled all that together and sent me to prison for my first time when I was 18. What was that sentence? How much? Yeah, I think it was 16 months with half.

16 months. I was one of those guys that was like doing life on the installment plan. Like I thought it was too slick to get caught. But then again, I was never like the dope man or never the, you know, the man or whatever. I was just like the crawdad in the group that was just enough to get high the next day to get out of the next day. So between then and the last time I, I got out of prison was like 2015. I did 10 years.

Wow. Now, when you stole the truck, are you like a hustler where you're going to steal the product and sell it or you just wanted to place to sleep? Yeah, I was going to sell it for some dope. I mean, I wasn't, I never had ambition. Yeah, just like, here you go, man, give me a dobsack for it, you know?

Never was a criminal mastermind. I never had, I never really had ambition. You know, I never thought in my life that I would be in the position I am and the success that I have today in my business and my personal life, which I learned from somebody else, you know, but yeah, man, it was crazy. I don't know what I was thinking. Now, this is a California state penitentiary back in the early 2000. A whole different ballgame.

This is like where those crazy prison, you know, stories that we know come from. Yeah, yeah. So do they send you to a max or? Oh, man, I got the coolest first day prison story. So I remember walking up and it's like big, moldy, Everything is razor wire. I'm super scared. We sit us in these little cell with 23, 25 people in it all day long, all day long.

Then we go to the chow hall and we walk in and they have giant, this is 2002, giant metal trays with metal bowls on them and stuff. And I'm like, what? You can't have this here? Like, what are we doing, you know? Grown men everywhere and I'm sitting down, eat my chow. And then they take us back to the 150 minute men block. And they start calling off too.

by two like okay you guys sell up here you guys go for medical hold like three to five days make sure you got tb or you're not sick or whatever and i don't know if it's because my last name was ass or what but they're like all right sharp and you're over there like all by myself right i'm like shit so i go to this prison cell all by myself the lights aren't working we're in donovan overlooking mexico you know and i'm like okay god's hell merry prayer i've seen the table like okay man i'll do anything just get me out of here man whatever you got to do and so i go the bible and i grab it and i open it up this is the first night i'm in prison bro and a hundred razor blades fall out of it and i just start crying i'm like i'm gonna die here dude

like there's no way if i have this many knives what do they have out there you know scared scared just all night like just laying there next day um um big biggest white dude you ever seen like from gladiator comes knocking on the door do do do do do do it's like day time's up time wood i'm like what what do you do you know i go the door here's himself and i'm just scared bro every day i'm sitting in myself with nothing to do, just kind of waiting. And then, this is how he came gang-related, man. I went from a little kid that loved football. And I figured out later that was easily,

I was easily recruited, man, because I was that guy that wanted a male role model. I wanted somebody to say good job. I wanted to belong, you know? So they let us out for yard. And it's Donovan, level four yard for reception, and then you get classified and you go everywhere else. So it's literally just like that movie, bro.

Like, you go out, and it's all the gang member of black. all the gang member white dudes, all the gang member of Mexicans. And then there's one table with like the knacks and not affiliated Caucasians, right? The geriatrics. So I'm like, fuck, I'm going to stand with these dudes, you know? And I go over there.

I'm sitting there and I'm talking with them and I'm just hanging out, like trying to keep my back, you know, head on a swivel and stuff. And like four, five, six, the biggest white dude you ever see and come walking by all tatted up. And I'm like, man, those guys look really cool. And they came through and they made a joke to us

about not knowing something about white supremacy. And I was like, what do you mean? I know that, dude. And they're like, oh yeah, come here, you're with us now. That day, I went from just a regular white kid to an independent skinhead. Just like that. And the blink of an eye. Holy cow.

Yeah, there's a loophole back there. Like, if you're a black gang member, you have to actually be from a gang, like a blood gang or a crypt gang. If you're Serrano or Nataneo, you actually need to be from one of those neighborhoods. With the white gangs in California, you could just be independent. So you didn't have to be, like, jumped into a real street gang. It was basically just an extortion ring. And, you know, if you guys have been there before, too, that any kind of prison gang is the lowest form of manipulating human beings in the world, man. And I got sucked in, you know, I was ready to go, bro.

I wanted to be the best prison gang member that I could be, you know. And it gave me something, like I said, to belong to, to believe in, to think that, you know, it would have something in protection, too, man. I had an incident in the county jail before I got there that let me know very, very important. quickly that this was not a one-on-one kind of thing dude and that you I tell my friends like I wasn't dark enough to join the black gang didn't know Spanish couldn't get in the Mexican gangs and in that time in my life I had to do that you know and it was it was wild it was like next next level to like what I almost I almost look at myself as like a military man man like when they say everybody should go to military or prison or something like that's how

it was for me. It was very raw and very real with a lot of violence that happened really fast. But by the time I was 25, I realized this is all a lie, dude. These guys are, I came back and everybody at PCD up. Like, wait, what?

Like, oh, you guys? Like, what's going on here? Drugs. Over sleeping with each other's wives. Over debts. Over all these other things that, you know, I realized that what they were doing wasn't right. Being a career criminal, wasn't going to work, you know.

But yeah, I made a lot of regrets and a lot of bad decisions in there. One time, I'd gone back on a violation. It was like a five-month violation. And something came up there. Somebody had to do. And I was like, it's not going to be me, guys. I'm out of here 90 days now or 40, you know. And these are two other guys.

We're like, yeah, man, we'll take care of it or whatever. And at the wrong time, at the wrong place, I come walking around this turn in the track. and they're my two buddies getting their ass kicked, dude, just smashed out by this guy that they were supposed to. And so I jumped in, man, and I kind of helped them. Then the yard went down. And then before I know it, I'm pepper sprayed, beat to a bloody pulp in the shoe program for 18 months with an assault

and attempted murder charge, man, because they stabbed that dude. And I took five months to 23 months, 18 of them by myself, from being gang-related, from being there. Did you understand the morals of the skinheads when, you got when you joined essentially. Did you know what they were about? Yeah. Yes and no.

It's all watered down. It's all fed spoonful. It's all what you want to hear kind of stuff. The same kid who I grew up with a giant Bob Marley picture and a giant Tupac picture hanging in my bedrooms at all time. You know, it was never about, for me, it was never about hate for anybody else.

It was hate myself. And there's a before I became a believer. there's a Slayer song that I like to say, they'd say that just me and my world of enemies. No separation or segregation. And that's how I was at that age of my life. He didn't matter if you were white or if you were black or if you were mixing. I really just didn't like you.

I didn't like myself, you know. I've always been nice. I've always been able to smile and be pleasant, but without the self-worth. I mean, I've never thought that I was worth anything since I was a little kid. So, but no, like I mean, they would have meetings there for like odinist beliefs and they would have like the 88 precepts

and they would have you memorize David Lane quotes and stuff like this but kind of always thought that was like a joke you know like I could see the benefit of being organized inside of the institution but like when it got outside I never ever seen anybody in that do anything good or bad With the RAM Declaration of Deals, we're pledging our allegiance to the American people with great deals on the RAM 1,500. Back with the legendary Hemi V8 and the RAM heavy duty.

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They send, like, there's no leaving the Brotherhood. Yeah, no. You have to go out and do missions. Yeah, so it's just a big drug using, like I said, people manipulating. There's no real, it's not like the Hells Angels. It's not like the Aryan Brotherhood. Those are like, those are real gang gangs, man. This was a, it's a street gang.

accumulation of hundreds of events. It's still going on today. Like I'm sure of it. I'm sure nothing has changed. Maybe more, but it's very petty. It's not, it wasn't like, you know,

you hear these great rapper stories or, you know, I was part of this gang and we were moving all these drugs to these towns and we were doing this and doing that. I never once saw any of that with any of the people inside or outside where they had like made some kind of criminal dynasty

you know like fast and furious or something like that and not saying it's not happening maybe maybe today maybe it was then maybe i wasn't a part of it you know but um yeah it was pretty and i think that's why it was easy for me to get out of it when i saw that like well when i had a kid you know and um that the choices that these guys were making wasn't something that they would even stand by for themselves on a small scale so how are they going to stand by it on a large scale. Growing up, I always thought, like, the skinheads were, like, it, like, it was, um, the most dangerous.

It just sounds bad, like skinhead, you know, compared to like Aryan Brotherhood, which later on you'd find out are one of the most, you know, evil people in prison. Yeah. Were the skinheads, like, evil people or they just, can, can you tell us about, like, what it's like in prison as a skinhead? Yeah, man, it's pretty evil, bro. Like, one of my friends the other day talked about demons. And I said, yeah, man, I've seen demons.

And she's like, you've seen demons? I'm like, bro, you have not seen the tables that I've sat at. And there wasn't some kind of evil force going on there, man, because putting other people's lives at so low value, you know, the demon of addiction, you know, all these other things. But yeah, man, so it's a lot like a locker room at a high school football team. You know, you wake up in prison. You either are by yourself or with some guys from your name.

If you're from San Diego, then you could sit with the white guys from San Diego, or you could link up with the skinheads. And it's just like I would imagine a college football locker room, you know, and something like that where it's a lot of camaraderie, a lot of going fun, a lot of doing good. But when those guys, the H.A. or the Aryan Brotherhood wants something done, that's the first person they go get, man. They get one of them throwaways.

They call the shots. They send them down. Any paperwork that comes through the squad for any white everywhere, That group of locker room, that's who gets to get them. And so just enforcers, you know, and people who really like violence and don't care, you know, and it goes on a rotation. Like for me, when I first got there, I was really trying to build clout. Like, if I, you know, if I could take a mission, I would do it.

You know, it was something that if you're a child molester or rapist, you deserve it anyways, you know. But come to find out that a lot of those things are just drug debts or, like, like I said, someone slept with someone's wife and now you're stomping this guy's brains out because he's a child molester with no paperwork but you don't know and so those are the things that haunt you later on man or because maybe because they're in a racial relationship and you just killed this guy because or he's got the Jewish star tattooed on him these are the things that haunt you in your bed later on like wait why did we do that you know and um or when things get need taken back right so like there's the big homie that just came in from the H.A.

And they put him in the shoe right away. So now we got to bring him a bunch of stuff. Well, that's the skinheads that are doing that. Yeah, they are going to go get caught to go to the back to bring them a bunch of. So pawns. Ponds in a really, really big game. I'm sure those other guys are the ones doing that Fast and Furious stuff, man. And these other guys that are just stuck in poverty that, you know, most of them drug addicts.

90% of the skin hit thing is all really wrapped around drugs, you know. Back then was paperwork big in a state's kind of dentures? So huge, man. It was, you know, it was kind of something that we could hang our head on back then, you know, with the laws changing and the way society has gone with this, you know, making not things okay and okay things. Not that this whole PC thing has like gone out, from what I understand, out of control toward like the PCs have to PC up for the PCs and stuff, you know. but back then it was like an honor thing a right of passage to be able to yeah i did this time this yard you know for this time and people were like oh wow well you must be all right but yeah that was um it was uh it was crazy man back before surveillance cameras yeah i mean even now in a lot

of fed prisons there's no cameras in the dorms in the blind spots there's so many yeah and you would think in today's world you would have that yeah because they're taking away all your rights they might as well take away your right to privacy too to make them safer. It's almost like they enable that to a certain degree. Yeah, it's to have broken through and be on the other side and watch America manipulate the drugs to manipulate the prisons, to manipulate this for financial gain and for keeping those, like I said, the 30% apart from each other. You know, that's what they really try to do.

and it's very dangerous, man. I'm very blessed. Most of my friends are dead to overdose, drug addiction, or violence. Tell us about the relationship with, like, skinheads and prison guards and gang members in general in the prisons. Yeah, respected. Respected. The correctional officers that I came into contact with,

I mean, some of them were the ones bringing in the tattooing, the Taco Bell, and, you know, they were high school. friends of the guys that I was in prison with. And that's a cool thing too about not to glorify ganging up or clicking up or anything like that. But you get brought into something with these guys that are, you know, I was 20. They're 30, 40 years old. Their career are these guys. So I think that on one hand, they kind of respect you a lot, a little bit more.

You know, like, hey man, this feels serious about this. But then I also feel like, especially when you get to like the back and everything, like, or even now, today, right, I get pulled over. I'm an ex-gang member. They don't care if you're ex-gang member. They don't care if you're active. They don't care what it is. You get treated a whole other way because of the choices that we made, the history.

Did you have to get gang-related tattoos once you got into the skinheads? Yeah, no, I was always not going to do that. Like, I knew when I had gotten into it, it wasn't going to be it for everything. You know, I'm from San Diego, and Oceanside is my favorite beach. I could never picture myself with my shirt off walking down in Oceanside with a swastika or an iron cross or something. I knew that this was just when I was in Rome I had to do as the Romans did. And then when I got out too, I never really sought friendships with these guys. I wasn't like trying to look them up and hang out with them.

It was just something that I tried a couple times, like I said, like to go see if they were like, because if they were doing some Fast and Furious stuff, I was going to be involved in a bro. I was like, wait a minute. I could drive a car somewhere or do something, but whenever you go check them out, and they're just doing the same gutter junkie stuff that you're doing, then you're like, wait a minute, this isn't it. But, yeah.

Once you realize the violent aspect of the skinheads, did you feel some type of way about recruiting new people that were once in your shoes? Yeah, that actually happened, man. There was this kid. I think he's passed away since, so we've nameless, but we grew up together, man. My mom accidentally ran him over on a car,

like we were all biking one day and he ran him over and fast forward 15, 20 years later, I'm walking through prison and there he is in the sale. He's like, what's up, Conrad? I'm like, no, no, not you, bro. Like, no. He ended up pieced up like six months later, man, over some day or something, but they got him really good on the way out, you know? And yeah, there's this different side of savagery that you have to be able to maneuver through

to be able to come out on the okay side, and it's not for everybody. And that's something that, you know, those guys, they pray on that stuff, man. They're savages, and they look for stuff like that, that they can manipulate for their own benefit. But I think because of my street starts, man, because growing up without a dad

and having to really defend and protect ourselves, you know, that we were maybe a next level above, and then the rigorous physical stuff, right? like playing sports for 12 years made us super callous to not only the emotional feelings of emptiness from not being loved, but then the physical disciplines of like punishing yourself every day that kind of crafted my brain a little bit differently to be able to pursue and get through some of those long and hard times. When you first got recruited, were you sent on like send-off missions as any recruit like

other prison gangs are? Yeah, 100%. Absolutely. You're the first one to get picked when it comes up. And I got more stories than I'd care to share with anybody about those kind of things, about paperwork checks, about, you know, this guy didn't do this or did this, and now you're the one that's got to get them.

And you hear stories about like, well, I had to do it or I was going to get stabbed or I had to do it or this was going to happen. And nobody ever came out to be like that, man. I'm like, shh, let's go. Like socks full of batteries, of rocks over guys, you know, like crazy things. that, you know, I had to really give to God, man, and ask for his forgiveness for him to show grace on my life.

So I could process through the demons to try to haunt you for that stuff, man. And not proud of it, but I know it's still going on today, you know, the savagery, the low worth of life that's inside those places. So if anybody has anybody that's in one of them places right now, we need to pray for them, man. and we need to support them as much as they can because they may say everything's okay, but they're still walking on eggshells every day. Back then, what was the process to check paperwork? Because it's not like people,

it's not like in today's world you get your paperwork right away, or things are different, it's digital now. What was it back then? And what were you looking for in the paperwork? And how long would they get? Like, what's the whole process? Yeah, no, I wasn't never a shot caller. I wasn't really the one at the top of any of that.

I was more of an enforcer type. so I couldn't even answer that question well how did they check yours yeah you just came with it from court and you bring it in there yeah if you don't have your paperwork then you have a certain amount of days

before you have to I mean I don't even know how it works now you could make some documents up that look just like paperwork and turn it in and say hey he is a snitch man look at this yeah I had interviewed a white collar guy where he would change snitch's paperwork

and then those same guys were checking other people's paperwork Oh my God. That's how backwards this whole thing has gotten, man, where it's like you don't even know what's right or wrong or what's, even inside of like those, that moral, that thought philosophy, there's always like a governing force or a moral concept,

even in the depravity of it. And then when that is like graywash, then where does it stand, you know? And that's one of the, I mean, I'm glad that I had other reasons to get out and make wiser choices. But that was definitely one of them, dude, where like you don't know what's the truth, you don't know what's not.

But yeah, and you know, like I said, man, the, what's they called that when you, the imposter syndrome, when you start getting into success and you start walking out here, that's what flashes back in my head, man. So now back then, was it very political in the sense where you couldn't go after someone without talking to like the head of their gang? Yeah, 100%. Yep, that's exactly why you ganged up, man. You know, it was so political.

political like you know the whole eating after like not even just sitting next to like you can't eat after you can't you know be on the same playgrounds you can't use the same weight equipment as other gangs as a racist period really yeah so what would you do how would how do you even operate your guys are going first yeah you got you guys take you take turns um but yeah man it's it's it's it's it's really like the moves inside the california state prison system you know and I don't know, man. It was just a whole other way of life. It was like gladiars, man.

It was crazy. Did guards know not to put you in the same cell as other individuals back then? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So they all have different classifications if you're gang-related or not. But you weren't gang-related when you went in. No, and for a long time, no one knew that I was like, I wouldn't tell people, you know, like they would get 1488 across their chival. or swastika.

The next time they come back, like, oh, you're a skinhead, there you go, you know. But I think that as much as I was willing to jump at any time, I'm also been kind of smart and not getting myself into situations that were unavoidable, like Rex, right? Like following the guidelines, you know, making sure you stay on the right side of the thing and not this side of the thing.

but a very shrewd person I would call myself you know, try to be as wise even in my stupidity being wise as an enforcer do they pay you or do you have to have a hustle? No, your hustle, man, yeah. So you still have to hustle even though you're putting in work for the game.

Even though you're putting in work, yeah. So what was your hustle? I would keep point for tattooers, man. Oh, you're the guard? Yeah, that's it. And how much... Oh, you got that ink from doing keeping point. So were you getting paid and getting free ink?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, paid it isn't daily. Get your coffee, get your... get your smokes, you get whatever you need. Enjoy every day like it's the weekend at Treasure Island, with special rates of only $79 midweek. Could it get any better? It does.

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Hey man, they're walking. Oh, yeah. Back then you could smoke in there too. Oh, yeah. That's incredible. It was insane. And the tattoo guns back then, how were those made? Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine what they've gotten in there.

They're now probably the same ones we have in the pro shop. But yeah, it was a Walkman. You smashed the Walkman and pull out a little Jollett Rancher motor and everything else was homemade. We got our needles from Bick Liders. You break up in a Bick. has a spring in it and you put it over a fire and you pull it and then it's sharp two sides bend the other end put in the machine now we use guitar string yeah what about uh color dink did you guys have that or no only when the guards brought him in yeah one time i mean this guy

rest in peace i'm sure he's gone too but he was doing a tattoo and uh i was sitting outside and the seal's walking man and i'm like hey he's walking he's like oh it's cool i'm like no dude he's walking, he's like, no, it's cool. I'm like, bro, we're, that's it. We're all busted right now. And he came around and the guy pulled out a big old Taco Bell bag and had Taco Bell a bunch of colored in it. Holy cow. So this is, these stories must be where like the longest yard or the shot collar, they stem from that because it's real stuff. Yeah. And a lot of movies are fictitious, but I feel like the prison movies do a good job because it stems from someone. Yeah, it does. They're actually replicating something that actually happens similar times and where else.

Now, back to the tattooing, because this is a great segue because you're a tattoo artist. I've always been curious, how safe is it to get a tattoo in prison? Yeah. Like the effects, the infection, everything. I know some guys just, like, poor, like, rubbing alcohol or anything after the tattoo, or they don't even put anything on it.

Yeah. No, I think that it's pretty good, man. It really all variates. It's just like the tattoo shops in America today, right? Like, there's so many that you wouldn't even have to bad an eye. You would just know. Fantastic. And there's so many where you're like, I wouldn't go there with your arm, little

in my own arm because it's just filthy. And so, at least my OGs that have been tattooing in prison for 20 years, I got the stuff down to a science, as safe as you could possibly could, as sanitary as you possibly could. A lot of these guys would work the nurses, man. The nurses, or the COs in the nursing department, or the nurses, what they call them, porters? Yeah, and then, so you get the gloves, you get to everything, the nurse's porter or from the nurse herself or from the CEO that said then it's super duper

sanitary um i make jokes to the tattoo shop now you know they're like oh you got to use distilled water oh you got to use this you got like bro bro you don't have to you know that is better but we tattooed with tap water and black ink and never once got infected now are they changing the needle in prison because it's harder to get they are after every time yeah we i mean but this is from guys who are seasoned vets you know we were like the guys that I learned from like they weren't just regular and we never I never looked at the body as a huge as a bathroom stall and there's a 99% of prison tattooers are just like oh sure yeah oh yeah sure you know and um with that affiliation the clickup that I had

this guy's been doing this stuff for years so like I said I'd make it my hustle to keep point for them and then you know that was 21 hours straight same dude I was waiting for the guy okay cool that guy the guy did my chest and my back You know. All in prison. All in prison. You're never worried about getting, like, caught, and it doesn't get finished, or that guy gets popped, and you have to go to a different artist.

No, super well-thought-out methodical. Same thing, like, as crazy and as wild and sporadic I am. Like, I'll just do something the day that I never thought I was going to do yesterday. But I'm really thought out and methodical, too. And so, yeah, you worry about that, but I mean, I think I paid 30 bucks for my chestplate, and I kept playing for, like, four months outside this guy's thing. 30 bucks. Holy cow.

Now, what's the truth behind the aftercare? Because it's millions of dollars in business now because these companies are coming up with aftercare, but you see guys like JD, who you met, they didn't put aftercare on in prison. Is this a myth just to make money in today's world? There's benefits to it. My preferred aftercare is extra virgin olive oil.

Really? Yeah, got to put something in those oil in that olive that makes it just like feels so good, dude. And you do that and then lotion after when it starts peeling? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you kind of like Juergens or we use the cocoa butter cream. Fragrance free. Fragrance free.

Yeah. But it is funny. Like, I mean, that's a great point, you know. All these businesses that have made so much money off of marketing to something that's kind of vain. You know, it's kind of like it's cool. You can put any lotion on yourself and make your old tattoo sparkle, you know, like the Mad Rabbit or whatever. Now, is there a difference between the ink and prison versus street ink? That's the difference, man.

Yeah, that's a big difference. and then the people, the same thing. Like I talked about, the variety. Because we're not talking about, like, black and gray tattoos or traditional tattoos or Japanese tattoos. We're talking so much. Like, you'll hear the worst things you could ever imagine. Like, styrofoam, burning styrofoam, burning chest,

plastic chest pieces, you know? And a lot of it, like, just makes no sense. Like, why in the world would you put that in your body, dude? Like, that'll make no sense. But my OGs taught me it's, so you get a tuna can and you empty it out. And then you fill it full of baby oil. And you make a little wick, put it underneath the thing,

let it light, all the sooth that catches right here. You just take your file folder and knock all that sit off. And then some people will put like a soap or shampoo. Like, oh, I need two drops of shampoo, some toothpaste. And my OCHM, remember he told me, man, two paces for your mouth. He's a soap for your body. Like, don't put, no, shampoo's for your hair, man. He's like, just put the water in a little rock in there, man.

Now, do you have any of those tattoos that got that ink in you? Oh, yeah, always. And how do they look now? Fantastic. Did you have to redo any of those? None of them. Incredible. So that's like such a huge misconception.

Yeah, because 80% of the stigma is true. They're right. 80% of people treat people's bodies like the bathroom stall. You know, like I've never done a road before. Sure, sit down, you know, or the stencil qualities, right? But just like, you know, anywhere, anything, if you research and you find the good guys and you know what they're doing, then that's why, I mean, even inside of my eight years professional tattooing.

You get that the imposter syndrome, man. I'm like, wait a minute. My uncle did own a tattoo shop. My buddies did all tattoo. Like, I may not have been the one slinging the ink, but I know all this stuff

from way back in the day. So it helps me battle through to go back to those conversations with them, oh, geez, man, and I haven't spent all that time with them. So in today's world, like when you can do the shading, they switch the needle

to like multiple needles. Yeah. Then it's all single needle. All single. So is that more painful or is that harder, longer? What's a difference? Yeah. So it's actually similar to the way I tattoo right now.

I tattoo with a three-liner for most of my tattoos. Way less painful. Just doing the single one? Yeah. Oh, man. It's amazing the difference between a coil machine and a rotary, which technically those are like the first rotaries ever, and the trauma to the skin, the healing process, and the pain.

Those three things are game changers. But that's what people ask me. You ain't your tattoo from head to toe? Did it hurt? And I'm like, well, yeah, kind of. But everybody knew what the heck they were doing. And everybody liked me, man. And it's different when they really know what they're doing and they really like you.

Like, it's really therapeutic, man. You know, from a kid who came with the trauma I came from, I've always looked at tattoo as a form of therapy, you know, to be able to, one, train people up to do it. And then my client base, who I feel like we connect on way more than just a tattoo basis. Yeah, man, that's great. So you came out of that first bid in the penitentiary, a tatted-up gang member now. Yeah.

So what happens? You're on the streets, and how long were you free before you got jammed up again? Yeah, not very long. I ended up getting out. So we went to Fallbrook when I was seven. My mom married this dude, Brad, and they stayed married until I was 12. So he's my stepdad from seven to 12, but then he left. Brad was always a mechanic.

So I got out of prison the first time, and Brad was working at a mechanic shop in my town, which was a conal Lubintin-Tune, and they got more. bought out by Mineke. So I got my first job at 18. I had never worked on a car ever in my whole life. I was breaking off oil plugs and putting the wrong stuff and everything. And I worked at the same place until we came professional tattooer off of the same company. And so I would go work at Aconalube and then catch a case for DUI or possession or, you know,

it was that revolving door. And I feel so bad that I've got 10 years. I feel bad for the people still just caught in the trap, man. The shame, the guilt, the relapse. The shame, the guilt, the relapse. And that's where I was at, where I would run my place. I would do everything that I thought I needed to do. And being stuck with no knowledge, knowledge is power and money and ambition

and these other things, opportunities. That 30% that I'm talking about, they're still out there. I know we are. You feel like I put myself in this box where I could only, work at Home Depot. If I just got the job at Home Depot, that would be great. So I would find these jobs that really had no end, but I didn't really want to be invested in them anyways. And then something would happen and I would relapse or I would catch a new case.

And then I had my two kids, Christopher and Brennan, 2008 and 10. And I thought that was it. Like, okay, if I always wanted to be a good dad, I never had a dad. If I could have these kids, then I'll pull my head out of my butt. I'll get clean. and that didn't happen. So then, 2012,

my ex-wife divorced me, and I lost both my kids. I went to prison again, and lost my both my kids to my mom. And that's when, oh, this is a crazy story, bro. So I am on the run from parole in San Diego in 2012. This girl, I'm sleeping with like, bro,

you're going back to prison. You need to get out of here. I go to Arizona to go to, a halfway house out there. I'm going to get clean. Relocations, everything. As long as I'm not in San Diego, I'll be able to do it. And I go out there and I get off the bus

and there I am with all my problems. Dude, all the same issues. So I'm at this halfway house. It's literally all convicts. Everybody's using. Everybody's leaving the middle of the night. I'm like, oh, this isn't going to work. I do like two or three days.

I relapse. Then I meet this girl. And so now I leave the treatment center and I'm at this girl's house. I just may lose their mom. 800 miles from home. Nobody, nothing. I got a backpack and that's it.

And we go down to this bar. And I've told her, yeah, I don't drink whiskey, man. I'm kind of an angry person. I try to put it in the back pocket right now, but I don't drink whiskey. Somehow we started drinking whiskey. I try to fight the bartender. I skated there on a skateboard, right?

So she didn't know that I had skated there. So we're leaving and she's like, while we're walking down to her apartment and she's like, yeah, let's go this way. I'm like, hold on. I forgot my wallet. I'm going to grab my wallet real. quick and I didn't I went back on my skateboard and I go walking down the road and the police light me up dude we're in mesa Arizona and the police light me up and I'm like oh crap man what am I going to do

I'm on the run you know like so I come over I stand there I give my brother's name it's not checking out dude I'm drunk it's not checking out they just got a call on me from right down the street like this guy is not so I get up to go run and they let the dog go bro they let the dog go it mauled my whole side I flopped around like and I thought I was in San Diego man The whole time I'm telling him, I'm going to sue you. Like, you can't do that to people. I didn't do anything. Like, I've got eight bite marks in my arm.

I'm on the way by the hospital. I'm still talking to you. Like, you guys are wrong? I can't believe you did that to me. I got three years in Arizona State penituary, man, for assault on a police officer. Holy cow. Yeah, they strung my sentencing date out because I was a known gang member in San Diego. And they sentenced me on national cop died on duty date.

And the cop got out there and lied and said that my life was in danger. this gang member tried to kill me. I'd let the dog go and stuff. But that was the best thing that ever happened to me, man. So when the dog attacks you, is there any way to sue or repercussions, who pays for the medical, anything like that? Yeah, no. I mean,

the Wild West, bro. California, Arizona. You don't want to commit crimes in these places, man. These guys will do whatever they need to do to be able to get wherever they got to go. And they did, they got me. Total. I mean, I've been police brutalized more times you go to county jail and you do something wrong,

you're going to get brutalized by the police. Like it's just the way it goes. Which I have been done before. No big deal. Like you kick my ass, send me along my way, no big deal. But I thought for sure there was going to be some kind of repercussions for this, dude. Like there is no way that you can just, yeah, you can. Dude, they can.

And it's kind of like we heard when the guy was talking earlier about how money gets you out of problems. Well, if you ain't got no money, you got all the problems. Yeah. And that's how I was, man. So when you get to Arizona, when you first get into that penitentiary, do you have to make yourself known that you are a skinhead gang member? Yeah, so this is a great question, man. You're a good interviewer. So I woke up in Arizona State Penitentiary, solitary and fireman. I'm a known gang member. Hi, Max. You know, like, okay, cool, this is it, Chris. And I couldn't even pull my arm.

Like, I've been a fighter in my whole life. Like, you're not going to tell me what to do. And I had to have to come to Jesus moment, man. Like, I had known of a God when I was a kid that was my parents that was not right and it was all wrong. And I knew that there was something bigger than me out there working because I should be dead. Like why am I here with eight or miles with nothing, nobody? Like, and that's when I said, you know what? I can go to this prison and be this skinhead from this clique and San Diego and do the same thing all over again or I could try something new, man. And I remember praying and reading my Bible and stuff and I feel like I kind of had an Apostle Paul moment, man, where like I woke up, there was nobody in the middle of night and like,

I hear a voice from the sky. It's like, hey man. man, go this way or that way. You know? And so I started pursuing the things of God again. I went to the Mormon church. I went to the, all the service, any service they had down there, I don't get it, black, white, Mexican. I was like, man, there's got to be something better than this.

And in prison. In the county jail. Maricopa County Jail. Yeah. Maricopa's no joke, too, man. Like there's Sheriff Joe Pireo out there and they got the pink underwear and all that stuff, you know, sack lunch. That's all you get.

It's crazy times, man. But I just knew that there was a better. life out there for me, man. I knew that, you know, with enough hard work and enough dedication that I could probably be in my kid's life again. That was my only goal at a time, you know, like, just to get back to society, to be able to get some kind of menial job, to not have to ever come back to prison again. And so from there, I got sent to Florence East Unit, and it's a level three prison. And man, there's such a magical going on out there, bro. Like, total answer prayer so Sunday I go to church for the first time ever man it's a big army hut you know like

circle half dome thing and I walk in there's like 150 D's packed inside this place I'm like the heck in church you know in prison and stuff and so I go I uh I like it man I'm like man man these guys are on fire for God right here right so then I go to Bible study they have Bible study Tuesday Wednesday Thursday I go in 65 year old black man leading the thing and he's borderline gay but it doesn't, you can't really tell, but he's doing life in prison, right? So I'm like, all right, God, this is funny, you know? I'm supposed to be an ex-skinned guy who's going to get my whole life transformed by this gay black man, right?

And this guy's speaking truth, man, I could feel it resonate. I'm going back every day and I'm like, either this fool's lying or I don't know God because it doesn't add up. Like, this guy's talking of this stuff and I can't even barely understand it, but I want what he's got, man. So I got involved with that little tiny church inside of prison. I'm still getting high. I'm still working in the kitchen, still stealing.

You know, I'm still doing the things that that's who I was. That's what I did. And I went to this thing. It was called Quest for Authentic Manhood. Because I knew that I didn't know what a man was. That my definition of a man was wrong. And I had to redefine that for myself if I wanted to get to where I need to go. So I go to this class, a bunch of other dudes down there, and it's fantastic.

I've actually taken a couple of my friends through it now to help them give a broader understanding of what manhood looks like and at the very end it says okay you're not done yet you have to go find a mentor you know and I'm like this is not for guys in prison dude like who mentor like you know so I picked out this guy Pete we're in Arizona but he was also from San Diego he was a lifer and a murderer good looking Mexican guy I'm like this is my mentor man like this is the guy I want to be you know and I go back and I'm thinking on it I'm getting ready to go ask this dude and God tells me like no man Eric is your mentor. And but Eric is ugly, short, fat. He's got glasses on this shit. You know, like, I don't think so. God, I think Pete's a better option for a mentor for me, man, you know? And I remember going down to Eric's cell

and telling him, hey, man, what do you think about being my mentor, man? And he's like, yeah, what's that? I don't know what a mentor is, man. But we ended up doing Rick Warren's purpose-driven life. We only had one copy of the book. So we had to I think I read that in prison and solitaire. Everybody reads it, dude. Yes, I did read that, yeah. It's like a 40-day devotional or something. We did it every day, man.

We would meet up on Sundays or Saturdays and eat together and go over our journals. Like, oh, okay, so God said to you, okay, that's what that means. Boom, boom, boom. Now, since then, I've been able to acquire a lot of mentors in my life, but that was the first time where I was able to humble myself and say, you know what, I don't know this,

and I need to go get some advice and wisdom from another older man. And, man, we're still friends today. It worked out great. So you're able to live safely renouncing gang activity in that prison? Yeah, exactly, man. So it's totally different than California politics then? No, I'm sure I could have done the same thing that way. Really?

I'm sure of it. Yeah, it haunted me for a little bit when I was in prison, you know? But I feel like the good Lord has blessed me, man. Not saying I've never done nothing wrong. I've done lots of things wrong. but I have this, I don't know what you call, no women, children, or old people, you know, and I've lived my life to that,

and God could witness for that stuff, man. So I think that he watches in the secret what we do in the, what we're really doing. And somewhere inside my heart, he saw that I wanted to always do good, even though I wasn't, you know, and there is victimless crimes, you know, and stuff like that. And so having kind of, even though tiptold along the side of darkness, entire, you know, existence through there, yeah, having never told anybody, you know,

having never done those things to me that are cardinal sins, that's where I kind of hung my hat on that stuff, you know, we're like, hey, you know what, I used like that. I'm not like that anymore. You want to catch a fade? We can do it out back, you know? But then again, like it wasn't, it's not blood in, blood out kind of thing anyways, you know, it's not, like, if you're one of the brothers or something like that, you're, like, you're not getting out of that. You know, the cliques that I was involved with were super non-relevant. Yeah, it's interesting to think about because even the Aryan Brotherhood or anything, the people that join are good paperwork, not, you know, chomos, not snitches.

The fact that you can't leave voluntarily as a man, which is the same way you join, which in some cases you're forced, but either way, like you're good to join, you're cleared to join. It is kind of hypocritical that someone couldn't leave voluntarily. Yeah, it's beyond. I don't know. I'm glad that I was at one point in my young skinhead career. The H.A. guy was in the yard with us. And he's like, come on, man. Come on. You'd be great.

Like, yeah, no. Absolutely not, you know. I don't know if that had gone anywhere. Probably not. Like, I was so poor and so worthless that, like, they'd have checked me out. I've been like, yeah, no, we're good with you, you know? But yeah, those are the decisions. Those guys have to make, man, where they put that above their own family. So you get out in 2015, you never go back. How do you rebuild your life? And how do you end up here?

This is the story, man. This is where it really starts, right? So that was my experience. Now it comes my strength. I'm in that prison. I'm watching these Christian dudes do their thing. I'm like, man, that's the kind of life I want to have. And there was a program that's still active today.

If you guys check it out, it's called Alongside Ministries in Phoenix, Arizona. And that program is why I'm sitting here, man. They did everything for me that I could not do for myself. It was a program that was a state. established through, gosh, I'm having a brain for it. It's a huge one out there. Big, big, big prison ministry that really only helps convicts while they're incarcerated, but then they get out, prison fellowship. Great program. Still great to the state. Their fault is that when people get out, they come right back. There's a huge resistance rate because people

love the Lord and then they get out and fall in their face. Well, this guy, Collis Huntington, when we lived in Oregon, got the call of God down to Arizona, you know, 10 or 15 years before I joined this program because it was well, well established by the time I got there. Starts with the first guy. It's like, hey, man, you did prison fellowship. Now you go to this hotel, we're going to pay for you, and we're going to program you outside of the walls for like six months.

We'll see how you do. Took off like wildfire. So this guy goes across Phoenix to these regular places. Like people have never been in trouble before and recruits mentors for us. us and then he pairs us up it's amazing dude like i had a 72 year old tax accountant that was well wealthy beyond his years that had a son that was an addiction that he couldn't do nothing about so he thought that by helping me out maybe he'd get a little favor from the big man upstairs or

whatever you know and it radically changed my life that's what i do now i um i um mentor kids in the juvenile system it's huge i bring them under my wing and i'm someone that went to prison i'm not an accountant but I went to prison so I understand where they came from and they can come in see my studio see what I built from prison yeah it's so important keep it up man because without those guys so I'd done the quest for authentic manhood class I had started um like journaling you know getting into the things I'd fasted I fasted for three days man and that's when I figured out that I didn't need drugs anymore. Like, the big man spoke to me.

He's like, if you can't eat for three days, surely you can go without heroin or speed for three days. And that's when that yoke was broke off my back. But practicing the things of spirituality. Then I got to that program alongside ministry. So I was selling candy. I had a candy hustle in prison. And it was pretty lucrative, man.

I got out with like $1,000 on my books selling candy. and I got out, I got a dead-end job at, like, it was an assembly plant with, like, nuts and bolts and stuff, and re-learning how to live like a teenage man, you know, like, I need a gold chain, it's a new shoes, and the mentor was like, no, dog, you need a bus pass and get to work and save your money, you don't have your license yet, you know? But being able to see that they had been established

that the people, the convicts that they were working with, respected and trusted them and believed in them, I sold out for this place, man. I was like, whatever they tell me to do, I'm going to do it. And had a lot of humbling experiences through that, like waking up early to ride my bike in the Arizona sun, you know, in my 30s, to work a minimum wage job to ride the bus back, you know, like. But it's what a person has to do to change. And changing my thought process, you know, changing the way I thought about myself, changing the way that other people thought about me and that the way that I thought about other people.

And really through the practice of spirituality, and then the 12 steps I got out, got a sponsor. So I had a mentor there, and I got a sponsor and worked my 12 steps. And I was like nine months into this 12-month program. I'm like, all right, I'm good, guys. I'm ready to go back to Cali. Like, this place sucks. I'm done.

And the men's director, the guy who got me into the program, took me to lunch. And he sat across the tail from me just like this is. he's like Chris I thought about it I prayed about it he's like you should finish this program man you said you said you would and I looked at the man

and for the first time he didn't want to sleep with my wife he didn't want my dope he didn't want anything from me except for me to do good you know and I was like you know what I'm gonna stay man and I graduated that program three months later at a year

and I had a felony case in San Diego and a felony case in Riverside that were still hanging over my head and took that paper back home and they cleared both of them. Yeah, they just wiped them right off the side. But I still have relationships with those men who literally, and taught me everything, man. Like, we went through the Zig Zigler book, you know, and how to treat your finances,

how to treat your responsibilities, how to treat, you know, these other things that were plays that I didn't even have. I didn't even know those tools existed. And then through practicing them, I feel like Dr. Charles Stanley said that relationships are bridges, you know, and we're supposed to be building these bridges. with other people and well-worn bridges during good times, it's where we go during bad times. Because if it's not well-worn, then we don't go.

How many the phone gets, because we're not talking to those people on regular basis. So that's what I've tried to do with my life since then, is one have five friends that are smarter than me, that are pastors and leaders in the community, tattooers, business owners and entrepreneurs, that when I have these hard times in my life for these decisions that I just be on me I can bring to,

like the Bible says that war is wages with wise counsel. So from back then, almost now 10 years ago, I was at that, I was at that dead-end job, and the director's best friend was hiring, and I took the job with this guy, Roberto, and he's like my best friend now, man. He walked me through hustling as a believer, through loving your wife, through loving the community.

And, yeah, I got, I moved back to Fallbrook in 2016, and I took a job at a flower nursery because I had neck tats and nobody else would hire me. And then about a year and a half into that, I worked my way up to where, like, all the illegals and then me, and they wouldn't let me in the office or anywhere near the clients. And I just got into the top, and I figured that wasn't for me. So I remember the day where I was driving my tractor around this track, just nursery dirt everywhere, and this little outhouse. And I would, I'd gotten a college degree at the time by working on my cell phone. in the outhouses. And so I go to the house

and I look for jobs on Craigslist, back in the Craigs of the Days. And I'm looking at it says, a drug and alcohol counselor, Fallbrook. And I'm like, what? And I click on it. It says, drug and alcohol experience a must.

I'm like, I got that. So I emailed back. I got lots of experience with drugs and alcohol. I went for a job interview the next day at this super uppity private rehabilitation center in my house. In my hometown, I didn't even know

was there. And I walked in, and the cat counselor was in my growth group from my church. I just like, Chris, you're hired. Someone from like $12 an hour to like $16 an hour. And I worked there diligently for like a year,

year and a half. But that's when I got that tattoo book. I started doing tattoos again. And then it wasn't very long after I became, I thought my ambition was to be a drunk and alcohol counselor or maybe even a youth pastor or something, somewhere to give back to the kids. Because my heart is for fatherless, man. I really got

a big heart for addicts and for people who are in opposition to just success with everything stacked against them, you know. So I was a drug and alcohol counselor. I thought for sure this is going to be my lick. I guess it'll be great. And no, man, God gave me tattooing shortly after that. And I made the switch from being an employee to being a boss.

Wow. Now, as an ex-gang member, you're very open about talking about it. Yeah. Are you, like, are you afraid of what people might portray you as by openly talking about it without knowing your story? Just like, you know, every day on the street, obviously this understands and shines a light on how you became one and what really happened. But talking about it normally, like you meet someone, hey, or like a girlfriend or anything, you know, I'm an ex-skin head. Yeah.

What makes you comfortable to do that to give kind of courage to others to be able to say that? Yeah. I really don't care what you think, man. You know, I'm not smart enough to think like that. I think God very often that, like, I'm an entrepreneur now. of almost eight years and I'm glad I didn't understand all the challenges at the beginning because I probably never would have done it. You know, I'm definitely in the moment type person. I'm definitely trying to stay present all the time, you know, and then I find my worth in the

big man. I don't find my worth in what you or anybody else thinks about me. I do believe in living in men's, you know, and I practice that every day. Like, man, you're the best dad to your kids now. Well, I've got this over here. You're the best husband to your wife or a leader in your business or, you know, these things because we're living those amends out. To look one way is fine. And for people that judge me is fine. I did not understand

it, Ian. I'm from the coast, man. Everybody looks like this. I moved out here. People looking down their nose at me, bro, yelling at me in the parking lots and stuff. And I go back home to Cali and I tell my Marine homies, I'm like, dude, can you believe? He's like, oh, yeah, I get it. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like,

Like, well, think if you're trying to buy a house. How important are your real estate homies? Hey, bro, you get coffee? Did you find my house? Hey, do you get lunch? You found my house? But they're not buying a house. Hey, dude, stop calling me.

And these people that have made up in their mind, that they're never ever going to get a tattoo or that they never, ever would, they look at us like useless, man, or worthless. Like, if I walked from here down at the shell station, nine out of ten cars drive by, worthless, drug addict, what do you steal? You know?

And it's okay. You know, I've come to embrace it. I'm a tattoo. Whenever they look at me, they say, it's okay, I'm a professional. But for the average person, I know it's not like that, you know, and that's why me personally,

I really don't try to give people bad tattoos because I've just really started to understand this too, like the opportunities in a person's life, right? Like, I may not look at you because you got questionable tattoos or me, you look at me that way, but it doesn't mean that when they walk into the shell for a job application or the nursing school

or wherever that, People, if they have a not quality tattoo, they went from like a solid eight to a six. And the person said like that. You know, so yeah, I think that that will never really, I just got to embrace it, man. You got to know, like we heard earlier with our friends, the darker the background, the bright of the light, man.

You know, my brother, you know, he's a complete normie, dude. And he's the reason I'm out here is because he moved out here and I followed him and he's like, man, Chris will give him with a smile every time, man. Like the most dangerous person in the room, just light it up, smiling, you know, because as much as I used to hate myself and other people and things, I think I've really come into a spiritual enlightenment where I can really love myself, man,

and in turn, really show other people love. That's incredible. What do you want people to take away from your story? You know, maybe someone that was your age and facing those decisions going to prison or they have a loved one in prison that is going through what you're going through or anything. What do you want people to take away from this? Never ever give up.

I've had suicidal. line each since I was a little kid. I remember seven years old crying in bed and wishing I was dead. Like, why am I here? One more day for this. And if it wasn't for the praying people, and if it wasn't for the steadfastness inside of myself, you have to never give up. You can't. You can't. And you can't give up on other people. And you might be the only light that that person sees today. You know, whether it's at a gas station and a little interaction, or you've actually, he's giving you a place of influence in someone's life. Like, don't think that's nonchalant.

And then also I tell somebody this too that I like to tell my people is, just because somebody tells you something over and over again, doesn't make it less true. One time I wish my dad would have said, I love you, but, or good job. And the people with dads, I'm like, yeah, fuck that fool. You know, like, dude, wait a minute. You know, your mom, you know, people that do invest in.

Because if I had listened to all those years ago, I never would have took the path that I took. It wasn't like that. there wasn't youth passers or teachers doing that and then yeah never give up and you you have to have a right mind you got to get your mind right and then you got to get your grind right you know without taking care of the baggage all the stuff in the past you know I had a visualization one time when I was doing my meditations about like everywhere you go you're supposed to be able to have your hands free to help people man because this life is really about outserving each other and seeing

who can help each other the most but if you're supposed to be able to have your hands free to help people man because most. But if we don't do that stuff, we don't work our 12 steps, we don't get mentors, we don't have people pouring into us, then everywhere we go, the suitcase just freaking pops open and there comes all our shit again. We're supposed to be blessing with these hands, but really we're just all trying to carry our own shit around. We can take the time to go back and work them 12 steps, you know, to work a program, get with the right people, then you can really put that shit away, man. It goes, it's there. It'll always be me. Like, you can't say that I wasn't all that stuff, but that's not who I am today. It's not who to find.

me now my hands are free to go help other people that because the next person I might help my son you know we don't know the people that those thank God those people came into my life all those years ago you know I've been blessed with over 10 people that tattooed with us over there you know even more of impact around friends and families because those people decided to not be selfish and not be lazy and come and help me you know for no purpose or no intention they had no monetary gain. They had nothing to benefit. So, yeah, if you're in that situation, look for those people, man.

You're going to find them a church, man, probably, maybe some other places. And two, if, if, I believe in intercession big time, bro. Not just intercession prayer. You know, hey, big man, take care of this. Hey, no, like, do something about it, man. You know, if you've got a son or a daughter that's an addiction, go help somebody, man.

You know, if you've got a grandpa or a grandma that go help the old people, man. Like, this is where our community is losing the strength. is a division inside of like, oh, it's this against that or whatever. So that's what I would say is don't give up hope, man, and that if I could do it, anybody could do it, man, like no high school education, never an artist. I opened the business in two different states.

I tattoo all day every day, you know. So dedication, hard work, you know, knowledge is power, especially these days with YouTube and how affordable school is these days. You know, set your mind to your goals, set your mind to your dreams. Something we have written on our bathroom here is no dream is too big. Just the motivation and the will, the desire to get through. I love that. Chris, thank you so much, man, for trusting me to share your life story

and telling it in such great detail and, you know, sharing the negative moments and also how those negative moments turned into a positive for you. Thanks, sir. Thanks for having you, man.