Locked In with Ian Bick - McLovin's Prison Camp Bunkmate Shares All | Ryan Alvarado

Episode Date: November 12, 2023

Ian Bick's former prison bunkmate Ryan Alvarado is on the show to share his story of how he got himself in the crosshairs of the Federal Government & sentenced to federal prison, what is was like to go through a divorce in prison & crazy stories from his time at the federal prison camp with Ian AKA Mclovin. Big thanks to MAGIC MIND for sponsoring this episode. Check out https://www.magicmind.com/lockedin - and use code LOCKEDIN20 to get you up to 56% off your first subscription and 20% off one time purchases Follow Ian Bick on Instagram: @ian_bick & Snapchat: ianbick Connect with Ryan Alvarado: https://www.instagram.com/ryn_alvarado/?next=%2Facastfr%2F Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Connect with Ian Bick: https://www.ianbick.com Chapters: 00:00:00 - Prison Stories with Ryan Alvarado 00:03:59 - Growing Up in a Dysfunctional Family 00:08:16 - Sibling Dynamics and Pressure to be a Role Model 00:12:15 - Navigating Treacherous Waters in Gage Park 00:16:22 - The Real Deal 00:20:00 - Reentry into Society 00:23:52 - The Microwave Mentality and Impatience 00:27:57 - A Fork in the Road 00:31:51 - Difficulty of Communication in Prison 00:35:52 - Caught in a web of connections in the music industry 00:39:44 - The Flores brothers and collateral damage 00:43:22 - The Unfair Sentencing Decision 00:47:18 - The Pressure of Trying to Fix a Marriage 00:51:22 - Feeling out of control in prison 00:55:17 - Reflecting on Prison Visits 00:59:24 - Taking Care of Appearance in Prison 01:06:40 - Initial Impressions and Baking in Prison 01:10:16 - The Prison Kitchen Hustle 01:14:14 - Cooking at the Prison 01:18:17 - Gift from God Mentality in Cooking 01:22:11 - Facing Childhood Trauma in Prison 01:26:05 - Making the Most of Prison Life 01:29:53 - The Ticket and the Partnership 01:33:36 - The Con Man in Prison 01:37:17 - The Hazards of Contraband in Prison 01:40:49 - The Reality of the Prison System 01:44:27 - The Challenges of Supervised Release and Ankle Monitors 01:48:33 - Importance of Communication and Respect for Time 01:52:44 - Love and Connection in the Music Industry 01:56:29 - Words of Encouragement and Gratitude Produced by: https://www.instagram.com/shanedanahy https://www.shanedanahy.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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it's real dairy delivering high quality, complete protein, with all nine essential amino acids to help build muscle, give you energy, and keep you satisfied longer. So keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk. The guards walking down the hallway. I'm in the top bunk and I'm on my contraband smartphone on the top bunk facing the guard.

You're on the other side around the corner. He goes for you and he doesn't go for me. So when I turn around with the phone in my hand, I look up and you're on your phone still, like in shock, like stopped and you're like, what do I do? And I just was like, all right man, I'll be in the office in a second. I knew that if I like put too much emphasis on looking at you and like, oh, He's on his phone too. He would turn around and be like, you too, give me the phone. It was the luck of the draw, right?

It could have been me then. It could have been you. And I just was like, okay. On today's episode, we have my former prison bunkmate, Ryan Alvarado, to share his story of how pushing mixtapes led to working alongside the cartel, how he ended up getting wrapped up in a federal indictment, and sentenced over five years in prison. And of course, we get into all the prison stories we shared together

while at the federal prison camp in Oxford. Wisconsin. Magic Mind is a macha-based energy shot designed to crush procrastination, brain fog, and fatigue. I'd like to thank Magic Mind for sponsoring today's episode. Go to magicmind.com slash locked in and use code Locked In 20 for up to 56% off your first subscription and 20% off your one-time purchase. Sit back, relax, and get ready to lock in with Ryan Avaroff. Cash, welcome to Lockton, man. This has been a year in the making and technical years, if we talk about it. You were my prison bunkmate at Oxford Prison Camp, which we're going to get into.

So many people on the podcast are very curious about my prison experience. So this is going to be a great episode to dive into that. And to actually, I had Billy Johnson on the show, Facebook Billy. So I was just at his wedding over the weekend and the audience. That's awesome, by the way. Thank you. Yeah. But you guys still, you know, keeping in touch.

I keep close touch with all the Chicago guys, you know. Yeah. And the audience loved his episode because he was on the Facebook Billy episode. So gave some insight. But no one's going to get better insight into McLevin than my bump made himself. A.K.A. Pops. Prison Pops. Awesome.

So, Ryan, let's start at the beginning of your story, man. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? What's like early childhood like for you? I grew up. I was born in the West Side. of Chicago and was raised in the south side. So early childhood, I would say, you know, my mother was an immigrant. She came here to find a better life, save my uncle's life.

You know, you had our open heart surgery. So they came here for medical reasons and trying to, you know, carve out a better life for themselves. So I think it was, you know, there's a lot of pressure in that, you know, hiding and being under assumed names and all of that. And, you know, my father was relatively older than her and he was a U.S. citizen. So I don't know that there was a lot of love there, but, you know, out came three boys from that situation. And then I just think that, you know, things that start in turmoil like that and, you know, complicated, you know, tend to apply a lot of pressure in the family dynamic. So childhood was rough growing up watching my mom try to figure that landscape out and figure all of life out and three boys and older gentlemen like my dad.

He was 40 and she was 20. So as they grew, he became older and he was in different stages of his life as her. So there was always like, I think, adjustments going on for them. So childhood was not the best for me. But I don't think it has anything to do with my incarceration or anything later in life. But, you know, you make the best of it, right? You look back in retrospect as an individual and you say, hey, these are the cards that they were dealt. And this is, you know, what the bets were.

They went all in and they did as best as they could with the tools. and, you know, the knowledge that they had, and they winged most of it, and luckily we're still here, right? We're alive. Absolutely. How did you guys grow up financially? Were you guys poor? Did you have money? My dad was a habitual worker, you know, 80, 90 hours was in our lives, but wasn't because of work.

You know, he was a slip maintainer. He's a war veteran, so he was very disciplined up very early, back home very late. you know, weekend warrior when it came to the bars and his pool tables, so we didn't really see dad too much, but he did instill some hardworking ethics in all of us. Me and all my brothers, we all work, grind, hustle, that, you know, there's that unmatched fire under us to, like, work hard and provide and try to, you know, get to a better life. So my dad was a pretty stern man. You know, he's old school trying to raise young kids at a way older age.

So he's the type of man that would spit on the ground when you asked him if you could go somewhere. He says, when that dries up, you better be back home. You know, you don't know what he's doing at the time when you're a kid. But, you know, what it taught me was like to keep track of time, to be on time for things and not be late. So, you know, I remember running back to that spit when I was a kid and, like, checking on it. I mean, like, yo, is this shit dry yet? Should I be back home already? Or applying more spit?

So it looks like I got to get a little more time in, you know? But, you know, it was great growing up, you know. My father passed away right before I had to go away. So, and he also had Alzheimer's. So, you know, it kind of saved my ass from having to explain, like, my hero. you know, hey, you know, I let you down. I got to go do this time. They caught me doing this, that, and the other.

He really didn't understand with, you know, Alzheimer's and dementia going on, like, what was going on. However, the best attempt I made to, like, explain it to him or tell him that I was going away, it seemed like for a second he knew that I was telling him some detrimental news, but he just kind of, like, clicked right back into, like, you know, laughing or, you know, like changing the subject and, per se, in Alzheimer's world, right? So, yeah, it's a gift and a curse, right?

Because now and later in my life now, like, I miss my father and I miss his, like, elderly or, like, gentleman or fatherly advice that I was maybe too young to take in when I was younger because he was such an older man raising, like, young boys. The advice that he gave just didn't really continue. with me as a youth. So now, like, I go back and play those tapes in my memory, and it's like, damn, he had gems, you know. So. Yeah. Did you have a relationship with your siblings at all growing up? Like, were you guys close? Yeah, man. We were, they called us a three musketeers,

man. My, you know, I had my middle brother, Rudy, my, my youngest brother, Bobby. And we're all completely different. We all handled, you know, the effects of, you know, a dysfunctional family. differently, you know? And that's just kind of like every, every son is, you know, born with a different set of, like, of a tool belt, right? You know, some hunker down become hermit, some, you know, go out to the gang life, you know, some, you know, have, like, really high ambitions and unrealistic goals, you know, so that's like me and my two brothers, my other two brothers, you know, I just described that. So it's like completely different outcomes in every one of our lives, but we all still love each other. You know, we still have a relationship. We all

kind of band together when we need to. For my mom, my mom's still alive. As being the oldest sibling and then also having a dad that you looked up to yourself, was there a lot of pressure on you to be kind of like the role model? Well, yeah, because my dad wasn't really around. So I was kind of dad per se. And my youngest brother will say it, you know, you know, you're, you're were like my dad growing up you you're more of a dad to me than dad was um and not to take anything away from my dad my dad was just busy working trying to provide a route you know we never really needed anything you know we had we grew up okay financially i don't want to say we were rich or well off but you know you know we had jordan's and stuff and you know we we grew up okay you know um so

shout out to my dad for that. You know, he definitely set a bar as to like, you know, my kick game and what it is now. And for anyone that knows you, personally, clothing is super important. You were the guy that had, like, the boots sarad wrapter, the garbage bag under the bed in prison. You know, I had the best, the crispiest Air Force ones on the compound. And I still got a crispy pair on right now. Remember guys used to ask to borrow your shoes and then you or sell a pair and stuff? Yeah, yeah, for sure.

I mean, a pair of Air Force One goes for $2,300. That's a lot of commissary, you know? Definitely. So what's crazy, though, is I learned the value of a shoe that used to be a throwaway for me here. You know, I'd buy 10 boxes of Air Force One's. And as soon as they had a scuff or something spilled on the laces, you're throwing those shoes away. disposable shoes, right, for like a drug dealer, you know, and in there it was like, I got these Air Force ones. Nobody else has them. Toothbrush, soap, you're keeping them,

even after a visit where nothing's really going on. The shoes aren't touching outside. I'm coming back to the room, cleaning them, making sure that they're spotless, stuffing them, making sure that the leather does increase. So, you know, it taught me a little bit more about, like, taking care of things, you know, because in there, you don't have access to go and make as much money as you want to. You're relying upon your family and what your family can do for you and send to you. And, you know, I didn't really have that many people outside that sent me money. So I carved my own way out, you know, I was into everything in prison. Running the ticket, running bags in, whatever, you know, selling cell phones, you know,

We did it all. We had a store, you know, you know what it was like, you know. So I guess the biggest question, because there's so much content that we're going to dive into about prison itself. But the people want to know why you went to prison. How does someone that's, you know, so respected by his younger siblings looked up to, came from overall a decent family. Yeah. How do you get down a bad path? Did you go to college? Did you skip it? What were like the causes? Well, I skipped college. I knew college wasn't really for me. You know, I had a pretty high IQ in high school.

I knew both sides of the world, even though I wasn't in the street world, I was hip to what was going on around me. You know, I lived in a very, Gage Park is a very small imprint as far as the south side of Chicago, but you're talking about like landmines in a war. You know, you learn to navigate, like, treacherous waters quickly in Gage. part because there's tons of gangs and it's not that big of a radius, you know, you know, so you have to know your routes and go around this, avoid that around, you know, so I became very, you know, street smart and I kind of had this and like book smart in me. Like it just, I didn't really, I don't want to say excelled or, you know, school was kind of a bore for me. Four years

of high school, I felt like I learned nothing, you know, the class. I failed was my favorite class and that was journalism. So here we are talking and from a journalistic standpoint, you know, we're kind of journalist what we do, right? But my book kind of explains it, right? I'm writing a book. I've been writing a book forever, you know, and it's called, I used to love her and it's kind of like the trifecta for me. You know, I had some abuse and I talk about it openly because I I feel like men in mental health space or when you talk about being molested or anything like that, there's this huge connotation that you're not a man.

You know, I think it shows strength to be able to talk about your problems openly and tell people like, you know, this inconsistency in me, the bug in me to always want to, you know, excel or highly ambitious or overly ambitious or highly optimistic. right behavior which is what landed me to prison you know definitely comes rooted in like that you know feeling used and abused by an older woman as a child and not feeling good enough or always feeling like you have to overcompensate in whatever relationships you're in right and I think for me the trifecta was I fell in love with music first had turntable in my room since 1987. I went into becoming one of the biggest mixtape distributors in my city, like DJ drama level, except I didn't get DJ drama. I got a heads up from the building

I was in. So before the feds and everyone came in to raid my spot, you know, I cleared it all out and there was nothing there the next day. You know, they really have to, catch you in the act and they have to catch you with the stuff to even charge you. So it kind of died out, fizzled out. But because I was making so much money doing mixtapes, you know, the crosshairs of, like, music is the streets and the cartel life, the gang life. So I knew all of the heavy players because they all bought music from me. They saw me in the circles.

They saw me around R. Kelly. They saw me around, you know, all the who's who of Chicago in the music industry I was around and the party scene, in the music scene. So for me, that put me in the circles of, like, you know, the Flores brothers, the Cato's of, you know, the of the world in Chicago, which are, like, all urban legends, you know, not just in Chicago, like, the Florida brothers are, like, the biggest drug smugglers of our era, our time, probably of all time.

You know, when you talk about those guys in their sentences, it's billions. We're not talking millions. We're talking billions. You know, we're talking metric tons of cocaine. We're not talking, you know, a few kilos here and there. So, like, when you go into prison

with that kind of history, that kind of background, and your album is filled with pictures of these guys, and they're like, oh, shit, you knew this guy, you knew that guy. There's a different level of respect for you as to, like, who can blow smoke up your ass and tell you what they used to do outside of prison. It's kind of like, let's cut the bullshit, right? I know what the real deal is.

I've been in the real deal. I was in the real game. This is like Mickey Mouse shit. The shit you got caught for, the shit you were in, this is all Mickey Mouse shit. This is all make-believe. You can't tell me something that I lived or was around for several years of my life, you know? You know, that's why me and you hit it off because of your background,

the music industry. And then I mentioned names that you knew of, and you're like, oh, shit. Yeah. He's for real. You showed your pictures and we hit it off right then and there. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you were just like I'm a detrimental part of like the early starts of this locked in and you came to Chicago and we did like a, I think probably the first unofficial episode of this thing and we cooked together and all that. And we'll get into that later. But, you know, you were there when I first started to formulate a voice in my mind that I thought I wanted to write out. you were fast on the computer. I hired you to write the tickets and do the tickets,

but I was like, you started to write my book for me or helped me write my book. Like I left with those pages that you wrote for me on there, and that was like the foundation for me to continue writing with a pen, and then I found someone else that was fast on the typewriter at Sandstone when I got shipped out, and I just continued to build chapters, you know, of my book. And I always tell people when they ask, well, where's the book? Where's the book?

where's the book and I just for me my book was never really going to be complete until I came home and I created that comeback moment right and that like victory lap at the end like you know my book is kind of pretty much done my entire life to what we're talking about what we're going through right here but I feel like it's not complete until it has that happily ever after you know till you know I have the white house with the picket fence and the puppy again and the, you know, the beautiful wife and, you know, kids and, you know, I want all that back. I want all that plus some, you know, I'm adding some tax on that. And time and patience brings that because I remember when we were in prison, I was like,

movie deal, book deal, I'm gun ho. I'm the least patient person on the planet. I put that on the back burner focused on this and now I'm writing the book again, but it has a way different ending then what it would have had three to four years ago. Right. And the growth is there, whereas it wasn't before, you know? Yeah, I think people have to see that too. You know, you're like unfolding in front of everyone's eyes, right?

No. Like, I'm, you know, like, being like your prison pops, like, you know. Because he always called me pops or, you know, even when I talked to your dad, he kind of knew you called me pops. I was like, yeah, I'm pops in here. You're pops out there, you know? And, but, you know, I'm proud. You know, I'm proud to be sitting here talking with you, and I'm proud that we're not in greens or

being told what to do and, you know, this is what you eat, you know. I was so stubborn, though, too. Like, you always used to say to be, slow the fuck down. Yeah. Like, you're doing too much. And I got very lucky. And we're going to get into that, too, with how lucky I was at the camp. And you, unfortunately, got caught when it should have been me.

Right. But it just, I should have listened. I think that was always my downfall on everything in life. Like I should have listened to the advice people were giving me. Yeah. But I had to figure it out on my own, though, too, looking back on. We're all, like, our own worst enemies, right? Like, I had a, you know, a situation that I didn't know was going to unfold when I went into prison.

You know, I went in knowing that, you know, my life would be right there to pick up from when I got back. You know, I was promised that they were, you know, my wife would wait. my house would probably still be there some of my things would still be there and i could pick up and continue where we left off and that you hold on to that like when you're in prison there's this mechanism that kind of locks you in and makes you hold on to things as like memories your best memories or your fondest memories of what life used to be like before this terrible stage in life right so when you come out you're confused and you're easily manipulated and you don't really know Right? And all the people too like that are waiting for you. They're confused. They don't know how to sort shit out. It's like they thought you're away. You know, especially like my situation. I got out early. That was a shock for everybody. I had a few more years to do before anybody would see me in the light of day and being free. And COVID came and changed all that. So it put everything in a frenzy for everyone. My my emotions were on 10. I couldn't believe it. I went into the office. They're like, yeah, you're eligible. Get ready. You're going to be.

be leaving any day now. I was like, what? You know, how do you like unwire your mind when you've already talked to yourself into, you're just getting to that point where you're like a halfway of your time. It's like, it's about to be downhill. You've already talked yourself up to knowing that, oh, man, two years is a breeze, you know? How do you unwire that? How do you like, you know, they don't realize that like, however much they're helping you or helping themselves really because it's a population issue that got you the best. blessing, right? They're not helping you. They don't care, obviously, because if they knew what they were doing, they'd realize, like, yo, we're sending this guy out, like deer in headlights right now.

He was expecting to do a couple of years. Maybe we should have some sort of, like, a psychology program in place where it's like intense psychology for the next two or three months, unsuff all these feelings, get this guy rewired, get his mind back thinking to the world and not in here. No, boom, you're gone. Tomorrow. Go. and you're just back in the world from one day to the next when you were expecting to do a couple more years or three more years or five more years, you know? So, you know, that sends you into like, you know,

a dire situation, you know? And then I was on an ankle monitor. I come home to COVID. I remember you did the workout videos with that chat. You had the GPS one. It was massive. You know, they rocked me to sleep on that thing for 18 months. and, you know, I was on this hamster wheel where I didn't make any progress.

You're not going to progress with that thing on your leg. You're limited, just like you were limited in prison. You have to ask for permission to go anywhere, do anything. You know, you've got a time, you know, you're a half a man, what I call it, right? And people treat you that way, you know, from relationships to, you know, family, ex-wives, children, whoever, they just know, ah, he'll be there. He's got an ankle monitor. I'll go see him when I get around to it. Or they'll treat you in a way where they know you're not really free. You don't have time. They give you their leftover time, whatever

time they got. And, oh, you know, it's like small wonder, the robot, right? Put them back in the closet. Go sit there until I've decided to come back around. So, You know, you're shorted, you know, from in every sense of the word, from employment to everything. You know, you're just very limited on what you can get and you get frustrated, you know, like you were saying short, you know, a little bit ago, like we're impatient. Obviously, impatience is what got us into trouble. That's a big part of, you know, aside from insecurities and things that have happened to me as a child, you know, impatience, you know, wanting everything like right away, you know, right there.

you know, lickety split or like I say, man, that microwave mentality, you know, just nuke the food. The food's going to be hard in a few seconds if you don't eat it. But who cares? It's hot fast in a split second, right? Yeah. You know, that's that microwave mentality. So, you know, I, you know, I, I look back in retrospect, man, and it, you know, I cherish a lot of

those moments that we had, you know, whether it was just, you know, betting on the dumbest shit and everybody coming out to the yard, it felt like a movie, right? Like, you know, sneaking shit in, sneaking out, you know, all that shit was just like, you know, surreal. We talk about, and a lot of the guests that we have on, we see that one defining moment that kind of put them on track to going down a bad path. So in your case, you were successful in the Binkstape business. and for those people that don't know,

there was huge money to be made in mixtapes back then. Oh, yeah. I mean, I sold, I want to say, a good 500 to 750,000 units out of my trunk over the course of like two, three years. But then the Fed started cracking down on mixtapes. Well, you know, there was a lot going on, right? The physical space started to become the digital space in the early 2000s, right? You had Napster and all of that stuff.

lime wire. So as that came into play, rights became like, you know, the headlines, right? And so as the CD, the physicality of moving product was becoming extinct, like there was a point where you couldn't get $2 for a mixtape when you used to be able to get five and six for a CD, right? But the value of it started diminishing when Napster, the iPod, you know, Everybody wanted to, like, move with the times. You know, a car used to have a tape deck and a CD for a while until you stopped seeing the tape deck, right? And then the CD started to get paired with USBs until the CD was no longer available. And they hit it behind the screen somewhere if you wanted to play a movie or some DVD, right? Yeah, I used to have that CD player before I had the iPod mini. I never got the brick iPod. And remember, we used to carry around a phone and an iPod.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I was in the forefront of all of those things and music. For me, you know, I saw the evolution of, you know, the digital age come in and it took the physical product out of my hand. So I was kind of left in like where to pivot, what to do. You know, I wasn't Apple. I wasn't, you know, Spotify. I didn't have that, you know, that schooling or that like, you know, ability to.

to build something and code something out and say, well, you know, however, I will say, you know, I did start a website, you know, when I didn't know even what a website was, when social wasn't even around, and I started selling T-shirts. And that was my workaround to sell mixtapes online legitimately. I sold shirts for 10 and 15 bucks and gave the mix away. And the shirt basically was just a promo of the CD. Like if I made a dead president CD, you would have like a dead rapper on it. It was like dead presidents.

And I would sell the shirt and you'd get a mixtape for free. That was short-lived because when they came after me for rights, they're like, we know what you're up to. You're leaving the physical space and you're going to the digital space. We're going to shut you down all the way around. We're going to put you in jail for racketeering, mail, airmail, wire fraud. It was a RICO situation, right? Like I'm flying product to 14, 15 different states on planes and cargo.

It's getting there the same day. their Western Union money before the days of having to show proof to, you know. So I'm clocking, you know, dollars. So when that gets taken away from me, I'm like, the first thing I said to myself, because I was around so many drug deals, like, I might as well be selling dope. These guys are trying to put me under a jail for making a CD. So I think that was like that crosshair, that crossroads, that fork in the the road where, you know, you either go left or right, you know. And for me, it was very easy for me

to go left, you know, knowing the Flores brothers, knowing the Cato's of the world, and knowing all of the movers and the shakers in the drug business, it was like, oh, these guys got a product? Oh, they can't put this product on lime wire? All right, cool. All right, cocaine, come over here. Let me take you and go sell you over here, just like I used to take my CDs and go sell them the stores. So looking back on it now, was there another avenue you could have chose now that you're older and more mature? Of course. You know, like, you know, you make mistakes and you continue to make mistakes. You're never perfect, right?

But I think now in the space that I'm in and the mindset that I'm in is like I am learning to try to be patient with things like this, right? And, you know, same thing with, like, my Instagram got shut down. I tried to build it whatever best way I knew how. Again, fast, quick, and a hurry. You put a company on it. You don't know what they're doing. You let yourself be led by somebody else and you pay somebody and then you don't know what they're doing. They're just adding fake accounts and bots and, you know, they're telling you that they're getting your results and you don't know no better before you know it.

You really didn't build anything, right? There's no foundation there. So I think I'm in that space right now where I'm in that reboot, right? Where it's like I'm in the pocket. I'm calm. You see me a little different. I came in here. I'm not really too like, you know, aggressive or in a rush.

Like, you know, I came out here to see my son be on his podcast, you know. And I made that effort. You know, I got a lot going on back home. And it was almost like I was going to call you and say, man, can we reschedule that? I was like, no, man, this is something important to him. I don't want to disrespect your time. And, you know, I said, I'm going to just push my flight, make sure I'm there, you know, show up.

And I'm glad I did because, you know, I think this platform that you've created with Locked in allows you to, like, regurgitate, right? Everything that happened to you once again, one final time, right? You know, everybody's seen my videos. I've been on our profit talking my shit, did this, did that, did this, but, you know, there was no real videos where we really like dove in to what prison does to you mentally, right? My project that I'm working on back home with a few good friends of mine is some sessions, you know, some music sessions, which is my love still music. And talking with artists about like mental health and what that does to your creative

process you know so it's it's a it's a it's a platform similar to this but it's got a mixture of music to it and a musical component and the idea of birth from like me being in locked up and all of my senses being muted right and what that did to me creatively like i had to formulate new ways to express myself you know i didn't have enough minutes to express myself you know which then you know of course the cell phone came in. It's like, oh, no, I'm not doing this 300 minutes. I can't articulate, you know, a sentence in 300 minutes, you know? And then, you know, the bitch is on there every two minutes interrupting your train of thought.

And every time you think you got your breaking through, you're in a federal, you know, this is a federal call. You're being recorded. You know, it's just the way that they make it, it's very broken for you to communicate and try to keep any. type of communication on a normal level, on a human level, with your loved ones. Yeah. Yeah. Hold up. Stop the show. Breaking news. We need to talk about magic mine. Magic Mind sent me these shots right here to try, and I absolutely fell in love with them

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your productivity and creativity, but it would also help you save on costs by using my official promo code. For up to 56% off your first subscription and 20% off your one-time purchase, go to magicmind.com slash locked in and use code locked in 20. Magicmind.com slash locked in and use code locked in 20. Do me a favor of folks. Go try magic mind. You won't be disappointed. Man, these things are freaking good. You know, something I love about this podcast is that every episode, we bring our listeners and viewers down a different path because you ask anyone that's been to prison, they all have a different reason why they went to prison and a different prison story. So, you know, this episode is heavily focused on your prison aspect because it correlates to mine. We cross

pass and there's just some stuff that we've never talked about on the show. Sure, for sure. So, but real quick, before we get into that, what year were you sentenced to prison and what charges were you sentenced on? And did you take a plea deal? Did you go to trial? Would that look like? Well, I was in a, like a skewed situation, right?

I got set up by a guy that nobody knew got in trouble in California. He came back, got the whole group of us, like, all on. wiretap and you know for I guess he was working for like a year and a half so we were sitting down having conversations about million dollars millions and millions of dollars hundreds and hundreds of kilos you know I'm not gonna say I was at like twin then the Flores brothers level but being that I was in their crew and in their world you know it was very easy for me to like gain context and land connections and oh here's two 300 kilos go ahead do your thing you know we know who you are you know so

that life was pretty easy or you know if they ever co-signed for me or anything or they you know they ran a check on me or called you know they're oh yeah he's good people that's our boy you know like that was enough like to get you you know in the co-signing sense of like an auto finance that was enough to get you like a rose royce if those guys opened their mouth about you right no not to mention that, you know, I was part of the fabric of the music industry in Chicago. Everybody knew me. So anywhere I went, oh, cash, cash, cash, cash, cash. So it's pretty easy to know who's the guy in the room, right?

So people kind of gravitate to you. Hey, man, you know, we're in town. We want to sit down and talk with you. So connections came easy, right? So, you know, I, I, I, I, I, forgot what the question was. About what you were sentenced to with the charges and how much time? So, you know, I was in pretrial for a couple years, you know, intent to distribute, you know.

They really added up all my charges on conversations and wiretaps, ghost dope, you know, like they didn't catch me with the shit, but they had me talking about it. They had pictures of me with the people that they were looking for for a very long time. and this guy knew that by I was a pawn right I was in the middle like they didn't really want me they didn't even know who the fuck I was but the guys who I was dealing with they wanted so this guy like points the finger at me says that's his that's their main guy if you follow him if you help me set him up he's going to lead you to them so they you know they got they built everything you know and uh you know it puts you in a situation where it's like they got everything in front of you they've caught you they have you red-handed um and one thing that i will say is like i you know um i'm not ashamed of anything you know i'm i'm who i am and you know um none of my people that i dealt with or made money with in the city i ever turned in or turned my back onto them but

The cartel, on the other hand, you know, there's some, there's some characters, right? They treat you like a number. They're up in the air. They're not even really here. They're ghosts. They up and leave, and they can give two shits about what happened to you and what money you made to them. And they sometimes make decisions for you based on greed.

So they kind of left me in a situation where they could have said, hey, don't talk to this guy because he got caught with four, million dollars of our money. And they didn't want to tell me that because if I knew that, I probably would have decided for myself to step away from them, that they never want the cash cow to go away. So they omit certain information to keep you going and keep you at bay. And then, you know, you step into some shit and some landmines. And then when you look at it, you go and have a conversation like, why didn't you tell me? Now look at the shit we're in. So now, you know, what looks to people in the public eye as cooperation or talking or being an informant is a

conversation that you had with these people and they're like, well, look, none of us are going to trial, save your ass, do whatever you got to say, corroborate whatever they have on the photos, you know, we're cool, don't worry about it, this is our bad type shit, no bad blood, you know, some of these people on my case that, you know, well, then I still talk to them. They still reach out to me thinking that I'm going to jump back in the game, you know? It's like, no, bro, like, I am cool on that, you know. That's something that I'm not going to do again, you know. So did you have to have, like, a backdoor conversation saying you're going to sign a plea agreement?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there were several conversations like that, you know, and then, you know, there's all type of, like, collateral damage. Like, the guy who I had to go against, like, his brother's on the phone with me. He's like, that motherfucker's not allowed back to our town. We disowned them from our family. Do what you got to do. We don't care. You know, you're not going to get any retaliation from us.

We want to kill him. He told on his own family. So it's important to know, like, you know, until you're in the level of situations like the Flores brothers or I want to say two, three, 400 kilos and above, right? I'm not talking about like little pokey and you know that one half a kilo or key that they caught him with and he rolled over on you know his customers

and and Joe blow on the block that he sold the nine piece too like I'm not talking about shit like that we're talking about like heavy shit right there's so much behind the scenes there's so much like you know damage control that is done behind the scenes

and side and backdoor conversations. There's politics. Yeah, politics, you know. So did you have to, like, go to a trial and testify? No, I mean, that's the thing is, like, when you know you don't have to do that, you're like, all right, cool, I'll sign this the agreement. Because my people already told me, we're not going to trial. None of us are going to trial, so you might as well get the time off. So basically on paper, it shows that you're cooperating.

And then they use that paper as leverage saying, hey, look at this person agreed to what you're doing. Exactly. But someone did that against you, too. Right. No, I mean, we all got in... It's a domino effect. Yeah, we all got dragged through the mud by one particular individual that never saw a foot in jail. But, you know, there are repercussions for that in prison when someone looks at that paperwork. Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, and I'll say this again.

Because I was such a high player and a high level, you know, some people overlooked that stuff. You know what I'm saying? And they're like, oh, no, he's cool. We know, or they know, or they've made a call. made calls back home and oh yeah well it was like this it went like that but it didn't really go that way this is what really happened you know some people clarify some people add fuel to the fire you know and then that's where you know i think there's a very big difference with doing what you did signing a piece of paper against people that you weren't directly involved with right just in a vague setting and then there's going to trial going out of your way testifying against someone wearing a wire doing all that

So, you know, it's a big difference when you're in an indictment of 36, 38 people, and you only know two. That's when you realize the scope of things, and they're like, yo, I got rolled into this shit. How am I even in this? And then you tell them, I don't know any of these people, and they don't believe you. So they say, go sit down. And then they go through the process of picking every one of these motherfuckers brains. And what do you know about this guy? What does he do?

You know, what did he do? Did you tell you to kill anybody? You know, and that's how they build their shit. And they don't care. They want you to sign the paper so that the, and get the plea. So what do you get sentenced to? How many years? I had signed off on 84 months.

Which is, what is that? Seven years? Seven years. And then at my sentencing, which I had already agreed to the 84 months, my lawyer, which was at that point, a public defender because I had ran out of money with my first lawyer and had to switch to a public defender. defender, opens his mouth and he says, hey, the only guy that Alvarado knows in his case just got sentenced to 60 months yesterday. Why is he getting 84? He's got like equal involvement

here, wouldn't you say? And then the judge literally like played with 24 months of your life, like the balances, like they were juggling balls at a fucking circus, right? He looks at the at the prosecutor. He's like, well, if he doesn't have a problem with it, I don't have a problem with it. I really could just sentence you right now to this 84 months, which you signed off on. And get it to my desk by 12. As soon as he said that, I looked at the public defender and I said, where's the fucking paper? I want to get it to him in three minutes. I want it sitting at his desk before he gets back to his office and changes his mind.

you know so i caught blessings in this you know from day one you know so you ended up getting what the 60 i got the 60 like the other guy and where do you get sent to at that 60 oxford wisconsin which is a pretty you know it no one knows about it but it is one of the nicest federal prison camps aside from odysville i would say in the country it's club fed right like they have what the shuffle board that used to be a swimming pool they said they They say that that facility was built for a bunch of judges that went away for some corruption a really long time ago. So they kind of got to build the jail that they were going to go to. There was a pool there?

Yeah. They say that. We had a pool at that at our prison? Well, where they played shuffleboard supposedly was a swimming pool way back in a day. And then they canceled it. Cemented it out. I mean, what did it for me was seeing the volleyball court with sand. Oh, yeah.

We were on the beach in the summer, right? Literally having sand at a federal prison. that they put in and all the drivers drive at the camp drive it was crazy now you are married going into prison uh yeah i was what was your relationship with your wife when you got sentenced and going into it um well we were married for 12 years

you know you you you think you know somebody until the shit hits a fan right um I'm not the type of person to ever like talk bad about anybody right you know I was in a marriage she was young I was living life fast and spending money fast

and you make mistakes and you misconscrew things for what they're not you know you don't realize like the severity that's attached to that money that you're spending to build a life right

pay for cars pay for a house pay for construction of a house pay for businesses you know like you don't really realize the consequences to it until the consequences come knocking at your door. So, you know, it'd be foolish to say, oh, well, she knew what she was getting herself into. She did know who I was, you know, going into it.

And I was pretty clear about, yo, this is what I do, you know. So it's not like she was blindsided of who I am or what I was. But how do you ever really have experience to say, you know, that's a pretty. pretty rotten girl that you're married, right? If she's experienced and guys going to prison around her, right? You know, like, you just don't have that. It's like you're never really ready to have a child, right? You can say, well, let's prepare, let's do that, you know, like.

Yeah. But as a man, how do you act, because this is a very, you know, big issue in today's society, as a man, how do you ask someone to wait for you for that long? And I get the whole marriage thing and commitment, but if you make a mistake as an individual and you get sentenced to prison for that mistake, what was that feeling saying, hey, you know, I want you to do this because we hear this expression, they do the bid with you. Right. They're along the ride with you. So I feel like that's a lot of pressure. Yeah, not everybody's built for that, right?

You know, I've come back home to see a lot of people that their wives waited for them, right? So I was like, well, what's the difference, right? Was I not good enough? Was I not the ideal husband? You start to look within for flaws in yourself as to what you could have done wrong to not, like, fertilize that marriage so that it would last through anything, right? And that fucks with you, you know? You think you want redemption.

You want a shot to fix that shit. You want to try to fix it, right? or attempt to fix it or explore any possibility that there could be to reconcile or get your marriage back. That's what you sell yourself when you're inside. Praying in the pie bowl and, you know, sending emails and making phone calls that don't get answered or like not being able to, you know, like the mind fuck of trying to hold on to a relationship while you're behind the wall is insane. you know i consider myself somebody that's tried and trued and has a strong mind but you know that shit drove me to some pretty deep points from being in the shoe and wanting to like hang myself and commit suicide you know a really like crazy story is i'm in the shoe you know i was down

there for like 70 something days in a cell by myself because you can't be in with the guys from the mediums and then there's not that many people coming down if they're not getting in trouble so unfortunately for me i'm down in the end of the hall separated from everybody they're forgetting to bring my tray you know and there was mail that should have got to me down there right at towards the end of those 60 70 days that was stating you know when i was in the camp and you know the urgency of being on the phone was, you know, you're trying to salvage your marriage because you know something's coming, you know, something's up, there's turmoil, there's crying on the phone, you know, so people don't know that's why you're on the phone. They just think, oh, that niggis out of control.

You just, all these on the phone all the time, you know. But my phone really was to try to keep a connection back home and try to figure out what was going on and was it going to, you know, head the wrong way. So when I'm down there, there's letters that were dated. You know, I got on the bus and went to Sandstone, and there was mail waiting for me there. That, like, you know, when I got into population, I had a friend that I was on the bus with, that I would walk the track with that, you know, walked me every time I got, like, divorce papers or, like, that green legal mail that walk ashamed. He was like, man, let's just go.

Let's just go to the chapel and sit there. for a little while, let this, let this out, you know? Like, I meet mail there that I realized had I got that mail in solitary, probably could have been the breaking point, you know, for me to just, like, not be on the fence or think about doing it or, you know, talking myself out of it. But, you know, that's, to me, like, God's intervention, right? you know he knows how much you can bear he knows how much he built you right so he knows just how much

you're able to take and he intervenes when he feels like oh well no you don't need this letter right now you're already trying to hang yourself you know this letter right here uh reroute you know uh what is that uh postal when you go to the post office and forward your mail let's forward this to sandstone when you're in a better place you know you'll catch you'll catch you'll catch that uh post office and then you'll up to this letter later. You know, I think that's one of the hardest things, too, about prison being out of control. Like, you come and, like, if you're married, you're in a relationship and you see your wife or your woman walk off from that visit, you can't follow her.

No. You know, if you don't, if you follow the rules and you don't have a cell phone, you're stuck on the limit of when you can call, when you can email. You have no control. For sure. You lose that. That's what they take away from you. Yeah.

And it's tough when you're going through, like, a divorce. or if you find out some devastating news and then it's count time and you can't get on the phone or there's a bad guard and you had a FaceTime date and you can't get on the cell phone. It's shit like that that makes you feel so fucked up. Bonjour, compadre. It's the Priceline negotiator. How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget.

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the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay inside. Yeah. And the thing is, is that the set of problems that you have in prison, nobody really knows but you. And you assume or you feel that there should be a level of compassion for you you know but the truth of the matter is is that there's a whole another set of problems that people are going through outside with you being in like you're not there they sleep alone you know they got to handle financial shit on their own you can't earn you can't help you can't put into the pot you know so um they're just like you know it's it's a it's a

It's a total like conundrum of like just mind-boggling shit going on in both ends and nobody's watching or nobody's putting each other in each other's shoes. You're just, you're in your shoes. There's no way for you to even think of what it would be like to be on the outside and that person be in where you're at. And vice versa.

Now when I got to the camp, before we even really got to know each other and we'll get to that aspect. but I would see when you and your wife, your ex-wife, were at least good from the outside in your relationship, she would come and visit you pretty much every week. Oh, yeah. I mean, describe like that visiting process

because it was always a big ordeal. You had her come in the fancy convertible or the car driving in and you got ready, and it was always a big deal because she was an attractive woman too. Yeah, I mean, you know, I've come to that point in my life now where I realize, like, output is everything, right? you know um i love my life right now you know who i'm with um you know drop that gorgeous woman you know

and i come to a realization that what you put out is what you get so it doesn't surprise me that i'm have a second chance at life i have an amazingly gorgeous woman again you know i don't like to take away from you know everybody knows you know who my ex-wife was you know and And, you know, you saw the shrine in my room, right? Like, I had the perfect life up there, right? All the fancy cars, the jewelry, the wife, the dogs, the house, you know. And it was all great, you know, but it just didn't last. So, like, the past is the past.

And I just, I look at, like, not in comparison, but, like, I wouldn't trade the life that I have right now as whatever situation I'm in right now. I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world. You know, I love the girl that I'm with to death. And I think you attract what you put out. And I'm a really good guy. I give everything to the relationship, you know, with that I'm in. You're a lover boy? I'm not a lover boy, man.

You got to lay down the law sometimes. Nah, I really am, like, very submissive when it comes to relationships. That's a lover boy, Cash. I just, you know, I just, I go with the flow, you know, I don't force my hand. It's just, it is, it is what it is. But, you know, those visits at first were, you know, they were everything, right? And then those visits start to get further and further apart. The letters stop, you know, you see the change.

And it's hard to not see it when you're in there and you're in idle time and you got one foot in. and one foot out you're looking through the phone you're seeing people move on and you're seeing them just enjoying life and smile again and you're not around and you're wondering where that smile's coming from so it's tough it's tough so you know that wall started to get changed around really quick towards the end like i started to like pull certain things down from the wall that you know i stopped hanging on to things because I knew that I had to, like, wean myself off of things. You know, as hard as my divorce was for me while I was away, you know, it was a process for me to, like, get off of that.

Even when I got back home, you know, I was in, like, like a purgatory state where I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know what starting over meant. Like, what? I got zero, you know, like, how to, fuck did I get here, you know? Like, you know, and then I violated, you know, my COVID band. You know, I got sent back. And then I came back to negative. And if I thought starting at zero was hard, you're not witnessing the comeback from like negative, you know, coming back to negative and

worse than, is worse than zero. You know, you think you have a bad at zero until you come back and all your credit cards are shut down. You can't get a fuck. phone in your name because you the last one you didn't pay for recently you know you know it's just it it's like adding insult to injury right yeah when you violate like you know because you're getting everything set up and then it's just yeah like i had started to pay a credit person my credit was almost at 700 i come back the shit's back down to 500 and i'm like fuck you know uh so many things that people don't think about you know like that, you know, that, hey man, here's $5,000, get yourself on your feet, you take that money,

invest it and start things, and then that investment shot the shit. There's nobody that's going to come back to you and say, oh, well, let's redo. Here's another $5,000. Try again, you know, it's over with, like, you shot your shot, you blew your shot. So coming back after the, the violation, you know, it was hard. It was really, it was much harder than when I first came home. So anybody out there on the ankle monitor, stay your ass at home. Don't try to pull it off with baby oil in a bag. You know, it's just not worth it, man. It's just not worth it. So on the topic of prison, you know, before we find out about your baby oil story, walk us through like the day of a visit, like, because it's a sacred ritual in prison when you get a prison, a visit for

some guys. Me, I didn't give a shit. I just threw on my khakis and went out there. But for a guy like you, it was an all-day affair. So walk us through by the time you wake up on the day you know you're getting a visit. Man, you're up doing everything you could do to try to make yourself look like the man you thought you were before you walked through that threshold. And when I say that, it's like steam, hot towels on your face, open your pores, close your pores, find the best fragrance that you could possibly find in prison, which were just junk and oil, right? Pay the guy some macros to, like, the best guy that irons in the compound and make sure your shit's all ironed, you know?

You just said it a little bit ago. Like, you know, I'm about my physical appearance. I groom myself, you know, like, there's people sending packages in for food and ham and mashed potatoes and shit man i'm asking for cuticle oil uh nail clippers everything you need to do a manicure and i'm doing a manicure to myself in prison you know like so i went through great lengths to try to appear like the man that i used to be when i popped into that visiting room but what i didn't realize is is that the green suit is the green suit They can't see past that green suit.

They can't see all the muscles you've been working on, the routine, you know, everything you've been doing. They can see that you're physically in shape, but they can't really see past that cream suit. And to me, that was the thing that I could not erase. Because what you're trying to do in taking all of those steps, you know, it's funny, you ask about these visits, you know, and what was that like? it was a preparation of like putting your best foot forward because you know things are slipping away from you and you have no control over. And the only thing you really had control over is how well you looked and showed up and smelled when you walked into that visiting room. Yeah, you're doing push-ups. Oh, yeah.

Everybody's, you start working out. You were hit the track. Yeah, everybody's getting the last pump, doing the last workout, the shower right before. you jump into them greens and they don't know any of this you know and you know sometimes that oh you look great just isn't enough right because it's really just like they don't know what else to say when they see you in this suit that's got you that's like the shackle right the suit you know we're not behind the wall we're not behind a fence at a camp right so that shackle and that those slamming cells that's that green suit to them

for somebody that's from the outside looking in. Now, at the camp, we didn't get strip searched or anything at the visit, which differs from the low. And I think we even got away with wearing sneakers sometimes on the visit. Whereas at the low, you always had to wear boots. Oh, 100%. So that was one way to stand out,

and you would have six different pairs of sneakers. Oh, yeah. And what was the purpose of keeping them in garbage bags? Well, they weren't in, they were in, first of all, they were in hair nets from, from, the child hall. We used to have to wear hairnets when we worked at the kitchen. You became my

baker's apprentice. Which we'll get into. But some people do use garbage bags on it. But what's the... It's just, you know, there's dust under there. There's, you know, and you're trying to preserve the shoe. You don't want dust getting on them. You don't want dust building up on them. You know, some of the guys that were putting shit in garbage bags.

Like, you know, they were like clearly shoes that were brought from the outside. Like, some guys had Jordans and, you know, You know, me, I had LeBron's basketball shoes to play basketball. I had a shoe to run in, you know, a shoe to visit in, a shoe to lounge around in, you know, a boot. I had Timberlons. I had wheat tims in there where it's not the regular pro, but you can pass them off as the pros. You know, these guards, they live in the sticks, man.

They don't know shit about fashion. You put a pro Timberlin next to a real wheat Tim. Ah, same shit. They don't know the difference. But to you, you're like, I'm not wearing that bullshit, thick, plastic soul on that pro Timberlin. I want the real Tim. So you send out for it, bring it in. And, you know, you go under the radar.

But, you know, one shoe becomes two shoes, three shoes, four shoes. And now you got six shoes. So guess what? What was that guard's name that used to come in? And he knew the damn commissary list, like the Bible. And he'd be like, this ain't on commissary. That ain't never been on commissary. When that guy had to walk the compound, how many guys were,

They're like, hold these shoes. Put these under your bed. Throw these out. Put them in the, you know, throw them in the shower. Put them in the bucket. You know, so you create these problems for yourself inside by hoarding all this shit from the outside world to make you feel like you're outside. Yeah. And then when it, you know, when it's the day of reckoning, you're like, why do I got all this shit?

Why is all this shit in my locker? You know? No, let's talk about those day of reckonings. they would do like a raid on the building like once a quarter. Talk us through one of those raids. Well, sometimes we knew when the raids were coming, so we would prepare like a day or two days before. Sometimes they'd be false alarms because I guess like the construction workers

or the off-site workers knew that they would like wave them off of work so they knew something was coming because they couldn't be down off the compound if they were going to raid. They wanted everybody on the compound when they were going to raid so that they can just get your ass, right? So we would send everything down. I'm not going to give away shit, you know, because I know you caught shit, you know. And these, there's some of our guys and some people that are on their way in, you know, you know, we don't want to give away shit. And you know, I'm pretty sure there's some guards watching your shit. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it's like the whole like, you know, some of the stuff that we talk about, it, the game, the gigs up on that shit.

Like that put the phone under the washing machine with a magnet. Oh, yeah. If you did shit like that, if you're still doing stuff like that, that was rookie mistakes. Right. Like guys would like go into the little washing machine room, turn off the light. For sure. And then cover it. You know you're hiding a phone in there if that happens.

I mean, we got to the point where we just start throwing shit back in the woods. Shoot it out there. Just throw it in a bag out there. We'll go back and get it after they raid us, right? Yeah. But they would essentially raid the building. Yeah, pretty much. You know, you're shut down.

You know, something. They'll ask you to leave the room. And then they'll go through your whole wing and see what they find. And then it's the luck of the draw. They either find it or they don't. And if they find it, they're coming back to the gym, say, hey, Alvarado or Bick, I need to see you in your room. What the fuck is this?

Why do you have this? This ain't on commissary. How'd you get it? You know? And it's just the same as being out here in the street, right? Everybody. He's telling. He's telling.

He's telling on the whole game He's in there They're forcing them They're gonna put him in the shoe And he's gonna tell everybody You know But the fact of the matter is that You know

They just had to disrupt shit They knew it was going on You know, it's camp And something I learned about the camp Is that even the guys that are snitches Like that are like the counselors assistant stuff Are known stitches

They have shit too Like I would see guys snitch on people And they have a cell phone Or they're eating McDonald's Or they're doing this attention on them. They're just trying to shift the focus, you know? But it literally is like a free-for-all. So when you met me at the camp for the first time, I wasn't in your room. I was in Ravi's room, but what did you think of me? What was your first impression? Well, you were a pretty

obnoxious kid first off, right? Like you talked a fucking lot. You, you know, you asked a whole lot of questions, but at the end of the day, like, you're like a spunky-ass, like, green behind-the-ear kid that just, you know, didn't really commit a crime after, you know, everybody's looking in you to your case. They're like, what? You got in trouble for having a club. That's some bullshit, man. You know, so it's like, I think everybody empathized with you more than anything.

It's like, man, this kid ain't even supposed to be in here. He just probably pissed the wrong person off and they went after his ass. but my initial my initial thought of you was just like you know this kid's brilliant he's smart you know look at him he owned this club before he can even legally own a club had all these major acts coming through his club in a small-ass town like I could just imagine if he was in a big city like my like where what his potential would be and we hit it off and you know I ended up moving into your room and you were the prison big What was it like to be the prison baker?

Well, I'm half Mexican and half South American. So all the Mexicans were in my room in the mornings. I'm sure they woke you up plenty of times like, you're making empanadas today. You know, we would take all the sweet potato and leftover sweet potato, whipped that shit up with cinnamon and sugar inside and make like a breakfast pastry out of it, which is very similar to like a Mexican treat. So you got all these Mexicans on the compound like, man,

when are you gonna make those? again. So it's very like cool to be able to make somebody's day or their morning. You know, we always tried to make the best pastries we could. The cinnamon rolls was like, you know, we always tried to make the magic happen with that shit, right? And we were in prison making fresh scratch bakery items. Oh yeah, 100%. What were some items other than like the cinnamon rolls that you would make for the whole prison you were cooking for? Um, bread, garlic bread was like another hit. Like, if you knew how to make good garlic bread, that just kind of enhanced the shitty spaghetti that they would make

or the pasta attempts that they would make. So bread and making good bread, I think, was like key, right? Knowing how to make good bread, you could really change the pizza if you really, like, got the guard to let you, let the dough sit over some hours and come back to it. And, you know, time, you know, some people, didn't want to do all that and i i was somebody who was taught by like two people that had like the king arthur book i even bought the king arthur book to like take it to that level because it was like

if i'm going to do something i'm going to do it right right so i really became a baker like i really got a love for baking i love the the the result of baking i feel like it's very measured right and you know what the outcome is going to be as opposed to like flavoring some food and cooking some food, it might taste good, it might not taste good. You follow these baking recipes to the tea. You're going to have success. People are going to love you. They're going to like you.

You know, and I feel like that's what we wanted, right? We wanted everybody to be accepting of us. We wanted to get along with everybody because getting along with everybody just made your time go by quicker. Now, the average person knows that watches prison content that the kitchen is the best spot to work in. Right. Why was it the best spot?

How are you able to, like, turn it into a hustle? Well, you know, you get the protein. You know, you can get, you got access to chicken, you've got access to eggs, you've got access to everything that everybody wants in the compound, you know. And you know what it's like. We're hiding eggs on there and the red. We're sneaking. Every turn of us going back to our room for something was an opportunity to sneak something out for somebody, right? You had an ice cream business and you used to have me smuggle out the milk.

Oh, yeah. Remember you distract the guard that I went there? bags at one point and I would put it in under my belt and smuggle out a bunch of milk. How would you make prison ice cream? I think so many people are curious about that. That business got handed down to me by an OG. What was it, Ralphie's boy? What was his name? Danny or whatever? No, the big tough Puerto Rico.

Oh, Tito. I follow him on Facebook, yeah. Tito was on his way out and I wanted, I was fascinated by how he was doing it. You know, and I basically bought the business from him. I'm like, man, I'm going to shoot your family some money, teach me how to do this. So when you leave, I can sell this ice cream. I really want to do this. So I learned it, you know, and it's, you know, you're in a mop bucket, but, you know, you got big garbage bags lining the mop bucket.

So it's not, like, completely unsanitary. Like, ice cream is in another bag. You're using ice and layers of ice and salt for, like, the snow salt to, like, help it create a reaction and lock in for you. You know, you're using creamer, you're using milk, and you're using a little bit of creativity, right? Like you're taking your, your twicks and your snickers and you're combining it. You know, I think my best ice cream that I made was I snuck in tane so that helped me make like that sherbert, that orange sherbur and I would turn it to more of like of a creamy sherburt and added banana. So it was banana and orange and it was like a hit. Like everybody

loved that flavor. And, you know, you just start customizing things for people and they're like, throw extra sneakers in there. Throw extra this. I'm mine. Charge me an extra dollar, you know. And you, you know, you got this line out the bathroom and you're in there with a mop bucket, you know, scourging out the water and the salt water and pulling people's ice cream out of the mop bucket. And you got a dope line out the bathroom for everybody that paid because they're running late to either the Grammys or the Super Bowl. or the game that they bought their ice cream for.

And it provided a level of like, you know, like, you know, you, they want something from you and you providing a level of happiness and joy for these people, you know. So cooking for me really became my outlet, right? From baking to, you know, I did everything. I was the only one that could cook you, Benihana rice, you know, and make you feel like you, somebody's in there on the Habachi grill, you know, and we're in microwaves, right? Yeah. You made the best that you were known for two things on that compound. It was the BLT pizza.

Yeah. Which I got to know, or the audience has to know how you even came up with a BLT pizza and what that is. And you were also known for the Benihana rice. Right. And tell us about what a Benihana fried rice day was like, too. Well, Benny, you know, I wrote something while I was in prison because Benihana's was like the dope boy spot, right? You go there and you're usually bumping and you got your jewelry on. You're bumping into people there.

So Benny Hanas was like that feeling for me, that being back home feeling. So anytime I cook something, it was related to someplace. Like the BLT pizza came from California Pizza Kitchen. If you go to any California pizza kitchen, they're a large chain across the country. You order the BLT pizza. I'm pretty close. You know, in prison.

I mean, ours are, you know, little lower grade materials. You know, you don't have a real, you know. But I really started to like sneak those real crusts out from the kitchen. When you and I were in there, we really upped shit, right? Because it was two of us and we're like, man, what if we snuck pizza crust and not do it on the shells

and we could make BLT pizza on real crust so you know we found a way to like enhance shit out on the compound we use the real cheese that would melt the real cheese the better cheese because it was a blend they'd give us a bag of shitty cheese and a bag of good cheese and we were forced to blend that and it was never really a good result when you did that so we would try to sneak out the good cheese

and hot gardenera oil on the pizza too we had the best meals BLT pizza and the Benihana fried rice. When everyone knew you were cooking Benihana's, everyone knew, one, you weren't using the microwave because you had that shit unlocked for like three hours. Right. And two, everyone wanted a bowl. Exactly.

So, you know, it was very special when you got invited to one of those meals. I think I have us in my old, you know, Instagram that got hacked or shut down. I had us sitting in the room. It was me. you, Slim, and a couple other guys, and we all had a bowl of rice, and we looked happier than a faggot with a bag of dicks. Like, we're just off into somewhere else, right? We're, like, out, and we felt like we were out. And no matter where I went, even when I went to the low and I didn't work in the kitchen, I cooked for Bo Beckman, Mark Dreyer.

I mean, we're talking about American greed status. You know, they wrote four words from my cookbook that I never really got done. I called it the billion dollar forward because their restitution each was like $500 million plus and some change. So when you put their forward together, it's the billion dollar forward. And these guys were like Michelin Star Restaurant, you know, attendees, right? And you got these people that you know were wealthy, rich, that knew about the, the finer things in life from caviar on up that would moan when they would taste like your food and you're like, yo, I got something here like, Cash, this is fucking amazing,

you know, make me this or make me that. So I got to sit with Harvard, Yale graduates, you know, sitting there like picking my brain, like who is this kid, right? Or, you know, like Cash, how the fuck did you get involved in what the fuck you were doing? like you're so smart you can do so many things and it really gave me that confidence about where my mindset is at how the level of my IQ now I wasn't crazy to think that I didn't need college I knew that I had that shit built in me I just had that gift from God you can't claim that anywhere it's just something that's just in you you know um when I talk to people when I put a resume together

of my experience like there's no college that could have gave you the experience that i had whether that's through marketing building record labels for dope boys you know um getting singles deals getting uh grammy nominations emin nominations like there's no school that could teach you that i built that shit out the mud i didn't have like a high i didn't go to a private school or a like a college prep school or any type of like you know special high school i went to a shitty high school you know so i want to say like one through eight was good school i learned some basics but my high school was shit i didn't go to college so i call this a gift from god my intellect my my my my my smarts my my my business savvy my proes and you know i'm able to shock most people that have degrees and

I sit down and have a conversation. And I owe a lot of it to my father, man. My father was, you know, somebody that read a book every few to eight, you know, and had a large, expansive vocabulary. He taught me new words all the time. And, you know, he instilled that level of, like, confidence to talk. You know, talking is easy for me. As you see, this is.

Yeah. And I think you put that energy and passion in the way you cooked in prison, too. Oh, yeah. Because that was so important to you. 100%. How would you fry rice in prison? Because whenever I tell people I had fried rice out of a microwave, they don't believe me. Right. Well, first of all, we were dealing with dehydrated rice, you know, and coming that my mother was like, like a great cook and rice came in every meal. The basis for fried rice when you go to Benihana's is they have the rice, the steam rice already made, right? That's the base. You don't get that right. Like most people did.

didn't know how to blow up rice, just the regular rice or the cheesy rice. It was always either soupy or too dried out, you know, and what you have to realize is you've got to measure that, you've got to know measurements, right? Like when I used to make rice at home and my mom always told me it, it's one cup of rice, two cups of water. The spoon stands up in it, you're good. I just used that in the plastic Pyrex bowls that we had and I said, you know, I got to put enough water in here for the spoon to stand up. That's what my mom taught me. So, you, you know, you just apply those life things that you learned growing up. And, you know, I honestly, people knew when I was cooking that they were in for a treat

because I was cooking with love. I was cooking with conviction. I was cooking with creating a moment that we could transcend out beyond our situation and tap back into the feeling that we had sitting with our families eating. And I think I did a really good job. of that shit, you know, even when it came to, like, remixing the shit that they gave us in the slobos, like, what can we make with this shit cash?

Somebody will come and bring out, like, terrible pork, for instance, right? I made probably the best pork sandwich in prison that you probably don't remember it. I made really good buns for it that was almost like brioche. I did those onions with the lemon and the onions with the chicken every Thursday, man. So I would fry that. We would season that chicken. I see you licking your lip. Oh, man.

I had chicken. I always said, remember for my birthday every year, I said, Cash, can you make me the onions? Yeah. You would do a nice pickled onion. You would make it from scratch with the chicken that we'd get in the chow. We'd smuggle out. May.

Cheese, you know, and the chicken was repurposed and re-seasoned. We even, you know, put a little bit of that chicken skin in there, you know. And I just, those were. my turkey sandwiches after Thanksgiving. Me and my brothers were like the kings of making the day after turkey sandwiches. You know, we would throw down and anybody that was in our family knew like this isn't Thanksgiving dinner is cool. But the day after is the day you want to show up because the brothers are going to make

sandwiches and you really had that same feeling. It's like I was making Thanksgiving sandwiches off of that horrible chicken that we would get. And then it became like, you know. And that's what guys do in prison. They take lemons and turn it into lemonade. Right. Now, you were the prison baker, like we talked about. You ended up getting me a job in the bakery.

And because of that job, I got pretty much sexually touched. Yes. The audience wants to know someone else's perspective on it. Did it happen? Did it not happen? What's the story behind that? Well, you know, here's the proof in the pudding. right? I was brought in for questioning when that happened to you because you were kind of under my watch.

And, you know, I think that's really kind of what really solidified are like POP's relationship, right? Because I don't think that you remember being in that pressure or in that situation because it's somebody that was abusing their authority, right? And who do you tell? That's going to believe you. And if you talk too much, then this guard could just put some shit in your room, send you off to the show. shoe and nobody else would hear about it right so you'd come to the room and be like you know and i knew what the fuck was going on because this guard was as are you in here alone today or is bick in here you could take the day off just send bick i'm like no i'm not taking the day off because i already

knew what was going on this guy was perverted you know he definitely like children um and it made for a really difficult situation because I was forced to deal with my trauma. And that's probably something that I didn't express to you. But if you knew and then you think back about it and on a serious conversation, like I was always there for you. Like coming and showing up, cash, please check in on me because this motherfucker, I'm here by myself with him. So I would come in when I didn't need to come in just because I knew how uncomfortable the situation was. But it was also something that was tied to my childhood trauma and I didn't want you to go through that alone. So I was, you know, when somebody's co-signing for you, I'm here to say like, yo, this shit

happened. And it happened to the point where nobody thought something was going on with that guy or nothing happened with that guy. But long after I got shipped from there to the other prison, I got called into the lieutenant's office. And I'm like, you know, when you get called into the lieutenant's office, everybody thinks you're in there telling about something that's going on there. I get called into the lieutenant's office and we're like,

we need to ask you a set of questions about a certain incident. And I'm like, what the fuck? So I was brought in pretty much to testify or give a statement on this guard on whether or not these acquisitions were real or not. And it was fucking serious. Like, on this date and this thorough. the refrigerator do you remember this going on and this person touching this individual or hearing of this person touching this individual so i was like on the stand for you in a whole other state

thousands of miles away and i was like i told you i got you you know what i'm saying and i got you you know i said what i had to say you can tell say it's telling her something but nobody should have to go through some shit like that you're already in a fucked up situation in prison and now you've got this pedophile within the walls that's trying to take advantage of you because you fit a certain criteria you know you got a baby you still got a baby face you know you got a baby face you look young and that was his thing you know young kids and this is fucked up you know because it brought up a lot of anger in me and you didn't know like in the backgrounds of it I'm dealing with my own trauma trying to diminish or minimize the level of trauma and

that you could possibly be going through. And I know that that shit's, you know, it's different for a kid to go through it when they're little, you know. But you're a grown-ass adult or a young kid in your adult years. And it's like, man, how's this shit even happening right now? And you're in a position where you can't react. No. Like, we had to be very calculated.

Exactly. We talked it through. Or like, do we go report it? What do we do? We waited on it, you know, for a little bit. I mean, he even went to the point of the severity of, like, not even allowing you to quit your job. Like he was trying to force you to be at that job once you got the job. You wanted the job so bad until it came with fucking being groped on and hit on by some fucking pedophile guard.

And he was a weird dude. Oh, yeah. Very. He was strange. Stared at me at the chow hall. You know, let me get, I mean, we got the cream cheese from him. Right. Yeah.

No, I mean, he was really playing with those, those lines, right? of being a guard. And when you think about it, if we were in a low, we probably would have utilized that to cash in, right? And get like a cell phone. Get cell phones in. Do this. No worries.

You know, like it was going on at the other low with, with a homosexual guard that, you know, got caught bringing stuff in and had a relationship with, you know, all this shit goes on in prison, man. And we talked about it too if we could utilize it, but they're really, we were getting in everything we, could have gotten. I mean, we were, there were some weekends we were eating tacos. Remember that taco spread we had? Oh, yeah. We literally had like trays of taco meat, shells, everything from

the outside. And what were those sandwiches you put me on to? The Chicago Italian beef sandwich. Oh, the Italian beef. We used to get portillo's in there. We used to get a saviche, like, like fresh seafood from like some of the people that, you know, we were locked up with their families had seafood restaurants, a famous seafood restaurant in Chicago. Getting a bag in a prison. Shout out to Rick, La Costa. You know,

you used to get us that fresh seafood and it was like being at home. We had henny and tacos. Yeah, people were drinking. People were drinking. You know, we had vodka. We had whatever, whatever was your thing, it was in there, you know?

So it made it for a blur, really. Like, it didn't feel like prison. You know, were like, when is this going to be over? So I could just get back to my life. But you didn't really feel like you were in prison because you were doing everything. You were doing the most, right? Chicken, Kentucky Fried Chicken was flying through there every Saturday and Sunday.

We were McDonald's. We were tipping people out with cheeseburgers. Right. And on top of that, you ran the ticket. Yeah. You had a whole enterprise in prison. You were making money. I remember in our cell, we would always have someone in the room.

There was three, four bags of commissary under my bed, under your bed. under three, four other rooms, beds, because that's what people bet with is commissary items or stamps, like, you know. And you were making good money doing that. Oh, yeah. I mean, I didn't want to be a burden for my family, right? So when I got in there, I used, like, my people skills and my influence to game people over.

Like, I got the baker's job from the people that awarded me and gave me the ticket, like Jay and, what was that dude's name, his cellmate? Oh, Sean. Sean. Yeah, Taco. Yeah, Taco. All those guys I knew, Taco I knew, we knew, like, mutual people from the outside. So we hit it off.

Taco talked to them about getting me into the kitchen because, you know, I'm about to leave. You should take this level two position. And then he's leaving soon because he's getting transferred and you can get the number one. So I became the head baker right away. I knew how to, like, position myself in the landscape, any landscape. and then those guys made it easy for me. Well, we're giving the ticket to cash. You know, so then I got the ticket and then I'm strategic.

I'm like, yo, what am I going to do with all this food? I partnered up with Rick. I'm like, yo, run the ticket with me because you own the store. So now we own the store and the ticket. We got shit to pump all the way through the store and not only take people's money from their commissary for betting on shit and losing, but, you know, sell it to people at a 30% markup. It was a win-win situation for us until you moved into my room and started to try to crack my ticket.

But see, I remember playing your ticket and I've never gambled sports in my life. You never gambled on any of the things you were betting on. But I got so lucky. Remember I almost hit that seven pick with $200? Oh, yeah. I hit six of the seven the fucking sons. Fucked me at the end. It was off by like five points.

You know, that's what I thought you were going to end up being when you got out here is one of those guys that like sells you, picks, you know, the guys you see them at Vegas and they're cracking Vegas, you know, on the lines. You got to admit I was lucky, though, for my first time. But, you know, you used an approach that a lot of people didn't use. You were well off. You had a dad that was willing to do above and beyond for you and send you whatever the fuck you needed. I doubled down. You know, so you would double down and take everything you had and be like, I'm putting in 10 tickets. And it's just the law numbers, right? And I had my bets. Yeah. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, until you got enough money to, like, do all that.

You were pissed. And I was like, listen, you got to move the fuck out of my room. I know you're my son and shit, but the love is gone. You're really trying to, like, I'm taking this personal. You're trying to, like, crack your own cellmate. But it got to a point where I would move one bag of $400 worth of commissary to your side, and then you would move it back because I'd crack you the next day. Oh, yeah.

So it got crazy. Now, I would say the craziest thing about our experience was who our cellmen. was. We had a sal bait that was his name was Chuck. What the now I call it what the fuck Chuck. He had he had wives or a fake

fake girlfriends and he was running a scam from in prison. Oh yeah and he was scamming other inmates. He was like the Bernie made off of like you know schmoozing like overseas women that hardly spoke English like he cracked the woman for like

three four hundred thousand dollars what a lot of people don't know is like the feds got involved and she like she lost her entire fortune to this guy who was telling her that he was in a federal program that he was a high level agent and he couldn't see her and he can only talk to her in specific days and she fell for the whole thing bit the whole thing and she was sending him money like left and right sending money to people on the outside that he was like oh we want to make this investment in this project in this building like she was a rich heiress or some sort and like the shit that this guy was doing and it was like yo how the fuck does this guy do it and he was writing documents in prison and he was always on the phone yeah and he never

got popped right the phone he literally would walk out to the edge of the room with his phone in his pocket and his ear piece in and he'd look at the guard walking by and turn around and walk right back in the room and would never get caught. This guy had like a horseshoe up his ass. He's in his like 60s too. He's missing teeth. Yeah.

Big guy. Yeah, but you know, he was a player back in the day. His pictures said that he was a player. You know, he he was a well-traveled man. He used to be a gentleman. You know, he had a good language.

He had good verbiage and, you know, that's what a con man is. You know, he knew how to con people. And he started coning. inmates in the prison too. He was running a gambit on investing in real estate and there was tons of guys that were like in there and you know

they're coming into the room and they're like hey cash you got to step out bro this ain't got nothing to do with you and I'm like no you got to take this motherfucker outside the room because it does got something to do with me I think that's why you moved into my room because I was I wasn't really trying to have I'm not no tough guy but

I was also somebody that was had respect you know people respected me They didn't fear me. You know, that's two different things. You know, people just respected me. I came to everybody with respect. They knew I was a high-level player. I wasn't full of shit.

And I ran with them dudes, you know? So there was a level of respect for me. And I knew how to play that and not, like, mismanaged that or, like, take advantage of it. You know, people knew that I wasn't for the bullshit in my room. So they used to have to catch him walking outside. and I don't know if you noticed, but there was a time where he just never really stepped out of the room. And that was like his thing.

Well, I'll just stay in here. They're not going to come fuck with me if cash is sitting in here, you know. He would be paying off $10,000 investments that people made at the camp with like $50 a week in commissary. Yep. To pay back to the scam. Oh, it was probably the biggest, like, made off Ponzi scheme.

In prison history. Yeah. And I don't know what I end up. He's definitely legendary. I know they caught him. with a phone long after we left and I don't know I think somebody said he ended up in myelin or something.

A man had nine lives though and he was serving like a 20 year sentence too. Yeah. Now last question on the prison subject is the night you got caught with a phone when it should have been me. F my life. So the guard's walking down the hallway. I'm in the top bunk and I'm on my contraband smartphone

on the top bunk. Yeah. Facing the guard. You're on the other side around the corner. Yeah. He goes for you and he doesn't go for me. So when I turn around with the phone in my hand, I look up and you're on your phone still like in shock, like stopped and you're like, fuck, what do I do? And I just was like, all right, man, I'll be in the office in a second. Hurry up. Bring the phone with you. You know? And I was like, I knew that if I like put too much emphasis on looking at you and like,

oh shit, he's on his phone too. He would turn around and be like, you too, give me the phone. But it was literally like, you know, it was the luck of the draw, right? It could have been me then. It could have been you. And I just was like, fuck it. Because it was dark. But all he had to do was put his eyes up for a second. And he was like, hey, you.

And I thought he was talking to me because I was dead to rights right then. Yeah. But he went for you. Yeah. What happens when you get caught with a phone? Well, they charge you with a hazardous tool because you could do anything with that phone. You can orchestrate a hit on the outside, set up a deal.

So they call it a hazardous tool because it is a hazard to the outside community. So they charge you with a hundred series shot, which is you might as well have a knife, right? Because it's that level of severity of what you could conduct business-wise or orchestrate on the outside with that tool in your hand.

So they call it a hazardous tool shot. Yeah. Now the cool thing about a camp is that you were able to pack out your own stuff. Essentially, like at a lower, a medium you get caught. They're taking you right then and there. Right. I didn't get to pack my own stuff out.

That was my second's phone that I got caught with. The first one happened because somebody's baby mama on the outside got mad. So they called into the camp and said, there's a motherfucker with a cell phone inside of your prison, and I'm tired of this motherfucker calling me woo-wop-de-bam. So they came and did a sweep on everything. everybody and there was, the lookouts didn't know it was coming. Nobody knew it was coming.

And I don't think they caught like three or four phones just from that phone call, people on phones at night. You know, and that was my first one. And I was like, oh, that's a slap on the reason. Nothing happened. They took this. They took that. I got commissary.

What do I need commissary for? I got it. I can get another cell phone. I don't need emails. I don't need cell phones. What are they really taken from me? When those days really came into play was when you realized, that you were losing months and months and months and months of your good time.

You know, when you're like towards the end of your sentence, you're like, fuck, if I wouldn't have got caught with them two cell phones, I'd be home right now, you know, and you don't think about the long-term effects of that shit till later. You know, even when they take them from you, you're like, fuck them days, take them. You know, they're good days anyway. You know, what you're not realizing is that you're extending your sentence on your own terms. So, you know, you don't, you don't think about that shit because you're so ingrained in what's going on on the outside world, trying to salvage things back home and, you know, keeping communication with everything.

If you're a businessman, you're like, you're still got businesses outside. You're trying to run, you know, you're trying, it's not your business still because it's left in somebody else's name, obviously, but you're still trying to run that business as best as you can from inside, right? Yeah. So you're caught in that, you know, that catch, what do they call? Like catch 22. Catch 22. You know, like, damned if you do, damned if you don't. And I was more prone to damned if I do, I guess.

When you got to your next location, did you realize how much stuff you didn't get to take with you? Oh, there was nothing in my down. They took all my shoes. Oh, he's not going to, they're not going to let these go through. And it's fair gain, right? Because if they pack you out with all that stuff, some guards just going to take them and throw them in the garbage. You're not going to get them.

If they're not on commissary, you're not going to get any of the shit, right? So I knew, like, my locker, you know, the dirtiest shit that them guards did to me, though, was my shrine of a wall with all my pictures. Like, you know, they do you dirty. You're only supposed to have a certain amount of pictures. So somebody took the time to make sure there was no faces in any of my. pictures. It was just places and things.

Oh, wow. So when you are desperately waiting two, three months for your property to finally get there and they give you your stuff, you're like in desperation to get back to your pictures. And you get to your pictures and they send you the shit of all your two, three hundred pictures you had. Because you don't get to pick them. Right. So they just they do little like mind fucking things to you. And those are like the irritating things about the criminal justice system.

and the BOP in general. It's like these guards, they do their damnedest to keep your property. You know, you got your friends. They're working in the mail room. They tell you, yo, the box has been there for three, four months. But they're purposely, like, putting you at the back of the line when new boxes come in just because the warden wants to make sure that your ass came here with problems. And they're trying to like, what do they call that?

when they send you on the plane all around the diesel therapy they threw me they do that with your property they do that with your belongings they do that every step of the way you got the real FBOP experience exactly so you ended up getting out and you're on the ankle monitor you tried to escape or what exactly did you try to do with the baby oil well I mentioned that because that was like everybody's telling oh just put a bag put some baby oil and then just slip it off your ankle and just leave it at the crib, they'll never know you're gone. You know, I never did it per se, but my situation was a little bit different. I just got comfortable and they rocked me to sleep.

I had a staff there that I got comfortable with at the halfway house and they knew me and I was very, like, you know, charming and, you know, it was very respectful. I always said, what's up to everybody, you know, and was courteous to everybody. And they got to know me to the point where it was like, oh, Alvarado, this is a house check. Boom. they're just hanging up, they're not really doing their job until the day comes that those people get fired and then they put some people in there to really do their job. And then you don't know that person anymore. And that's what happened is like, I knew that with the people at the front desk,

I could get away with leaving an hour early on my pass, coming back an hour later. And that hours turned into two hours and two hours and three hours and three hours before you knew it. I wasn't even paying attention to passes because the people, at the front desk that are controlling your monitor and making your calls, they know you and they're like, El Dorado, it's just a house calling, and I see you tomorrow. Boom. They're not looking at the GPS or going to the GPS room, you know, and that just like the searches or the breathalizers in the camp, they're all automated. So it's just luck of the draw. It's when the computer says, okay, check this person's GPS and log it and make sure that they're there, you know.

And that never happened for me in 18 months. And I really knew the front desk people. So they just rocked me to sleep to the point where it was like, oh, man, this shit is sweet. I might as well not even have an ankle monitor on. And then the day of reckoning comes and you're like, we're going to check your location. You're not at home. And hold on. We'll call you back.

And then they call you. Then they're like, we need you to come in. you feel like you're right back at prison they're writing you shots 100 series shots escape because you're two three hours past your time of your of your of your past right so anything over like certain mileage or certain time is considered escape so i got hit with i don't know how many escape shots because they went back in the log and they're like oh dude you ain't been at home for the last month you know they didn't have enough ink and papers to write me the shots so that day turned into me signing those shots and then i was like two three days like man what the fuck's gonna happen they're

like yeah we need you to report to the halfway house i get to the halfway house and the marshals are there like hey you're you're going back we're revoking your covid early release and that's when shit got real and i mean i had already kind of was starting to start my life you know i was on on a a path I had made some investments I was in the early stages of trying to start this podcasting thing that you're doing now you know and man it just put a halt to everything you know then I go through you know the adverse effects of COVID still being around so I go to MCC and I'm in there for 30 40 days in a cell 23 and 1 so I'm back to the shoe status again to get back into the MCC to then be sent all the way back to Minnesota for a violation.

So I was at MCC for two, three months, a month and some change, 30-something days before I even got on a unit and out of like that quarantine unit that they put you in was a COVID unit where it's like 23 and 1 and they test you and make sure you're not bringing COVID in from the outside in. And that was daunting, you know. right back to like the worst points of my life when I've caught caught with the phones at the camp. I was like, man, this cannot be happening. I think that's my biggest fear, not that I'm doing anything wrong, but going back to prison.

Like you're walking on eggshells when you're on supervised release. And I get their point of, you know, we gave you trust and you took advantage of it with the leaving out of bounds. But it's not like you were going out there and doing something illegal. You were released into the world after years. lost and it's such as you get cabin fever with that with that ankle monitor right it's like it's a gray area you're like in there at home and you're seeing everybody like you're this close to freedom right you're looking out the window you step out to the front door every few minutes just you know you walk out to the curve then you walk out to the middle of the street then you go across the

street to talk to the neighbor and it just you know you start start to expand the boundaries of your supervisor lease on your own. And you don't even know you're doing it because naturally as a human, you want to be free. You want to roam. You know, it's not like, ah, you know, you're breaking the law again. You see you have problems, you know, with rules. Like, no, I'm a human. I'm not meant to be caged.

I'm not meant to be on an ankle monitor. This is shit's inhumane. And it's just kind of inevitable to, like, think that you're just going to put me on an ankle monitor, I'm just going to sit there for two years. You know, there's people that got released, early release in COVID, right? And they got six, seven years to do on an ankle monitor. It's crazy. How the fuck is that even, like, makes sense?

And then I heard there's people that they want to send back. Yeah, and like, how could you even, like, justify that that's a viable plan to, like, shrink prison crowding, right? oh let's just psychologically fuck these people up and send them home for seven years and they got to stay in the house like you know now i'm eating home cooked meals i have my family's there but i still can't really fully integrate back into life it's great i can't really start my life i'm just you know and that COVID release is nothing like being at a halfway house and, you know, going like your regular release. This was like a stringent thing.

Like you had a pass to go or religion pass. You had a pass to go to work if you had a job. You had a pass for everything. There's no grayer. There's no like, oh, I'll be home when I get. No. Everything. And then you have to put in the request for those passes, the week prior.

So you become very scheduled, very routine, very about your time, very about, you know, and you schedule these things with people to meet up with them and meet at restaurants and then people are late. Hour late, too late. Well, guess what? I can't see you now because my schedule is not like your schedule. I got permission to be here from one to three. You get here at 2.30. Well, guess what? I got to leave.

You know? And you become a lot more. respectful about people's time when you're on that type of restraint. You know, you're like, man, this is important. Like, I'm setting up time to meet you. I'm putting in a request to see you a pass, really, you know? It's like reverse visit, right? Yeah.

So what's life like for you now? And what do you think is your biggest lesson you've learned from everything and what message you want to get out to the people listening to your story? Um, man, communication when you're in there is probably like never going to be on the right level playing field, right? So I recommend just like letting go, man. You know, I think the biggest thing that we do to hurt ourselves is holding on, right? Because you create this bug in yourself. So when you're back out, you've got this huge bug on you that's like holding on to things.

the way things were. I never thought, like, you're married, you've got the perfect everything, you know. Like, lightning doesn't strike twice, right? But, I mean, I got a gorgeous woman, you know. Like, she's the apple of my eye. I, you know, everything to me revolves around her right now because I'm a foundational guy.

I got to build my house out from the foundation up, right? I don't start with the roof. And I think I'm very grateful, first and foremost, to have gotten blessed with a second opportunity at life. Now, have I made some mistakes along the way and shit been muddy? And, you know, that's why I say, you know, let go. Because if you don't, you make things much harder for yourself

to try to sort through your feelings and your emotions. and what's real and what's not real. So, you know, I'm blessed, man. I'm blessed, and it starts with home and the person that I'm with that I choose to spend my time with has been amazing and understanding in all of this, right? Because if they don't understand what you're going through, what you've been through, they just write you off.

You made a mistake. All right, cool, I'm on to the next person. but, you know, when they know that you've been dealt a shitty deck of cards and there's compassion there, there's empathy there, you know, I've been blessed, you know, to meet a compassionate person that's meeting me where I'm at, that's taking me for face value when I have had nothing, you know, just potential. And, you know, and I'm a very loving guy, man. So I think, Like, even though I'm here and, like, you know, and I'm out, like, I'm grateful for the things that I have in my life, right? The things that are going right.

There's things that's going to go wrong. My profession isn't all exactly where I want it, but it's a work in progress. You know, I curate events at a very prestigious place in Chicago, which is the Navy Pier. And, you know, I've been given the opportunity again through, like, my legendary status of mixtapes and who I am in the music industry. And a young kid, he reminds me of you, right? His name is Miguel. And he's just giving me an opportunity in a platform to, like, utilize my skill set of what I know in music and history of music and my connections and music and influence to, like, book bands.

And, you know, it's kind of what Bick used to do, right? You know, hire the right talent, right? I've got events going on, you know, all across the year. and that's going good for me. You know, I've met a band of brothers, too, that have taught me new levels of loyalty, new levels of respect, and shout out to those guys, you know. They're a completely different culture than me,

but they love me like a brother. I love them like a brother, and, you know, we got a lot of things going on, man. We've got a lot of huge connections in the music industry. we're starting businesses and you know there's a lot of opportunity there i'm very um optimistic about my future right now um but i think i've always led with a with a with a statement and a mission of love right like love is where it's at for me man and i you know i can't say it enough i you know i'm in love you know with life as as a free person i'm in love with my partner right now and that's where it

starts from me i think if you lead and you start with love like there's nothing that really can go wrong you know if you show somebody how much you love them truthfully there you know only good things can come from that right there's all these commandments and things in the bible and i think the first two just kind of like if you lead with love you know you love god above all else and treat your neighbor as you would want to be treated and love them the way you want to be loved i think all of the rules in any religion fall into place if you treat people if you love people you're treating them with respect you know so i think it we make it more complicated than it needs to be you know i think if we just lead with love you know the world would be a better place and it just

starts with one person. You just got to love love the right way. And, you know, don't worry about the whole big picture, but just lead your life with love, man. That shit's contagious. Well said, my friend. Ryan, thanks for so much for coming, you know, from Chicago to be on the show today. Man, thank you for having me, man. It's a pleasure to be on here. It's, and it's a proud moment to sit here with you and see your growth, your development, where you're heading. You know, I come in here. You're on the phone with multi- million dollar deals and books going on and stuff.

So, you know, I, man, I love it because, you know, it's a long way from sitting in a library, you know, hiding cell phones and being on the computer and talking about what we want to do in the future, you know, we're actually doing it now, you know. This is like fruition. Dude, it's great that you were able to come and see this, like what we have going on. Because when we were in a prison cell, whether it had bars or not, you know, four or five years ago, we never pictured this. Oh, no, for sure.

This is by wildest dreams, you know? So we're on to something and we're going to keep pushing. We're going to keep changing lives and we're on a mission, you know. And I think when you have your mission and your purpose and you're driven, no one can fucking take that away from you, you know. So we're going to keep pushing. Sure. I got a segment for you, man.

Oh, here we go. What do you got? I got an idea for you. What's the idea? A man, you know, you're locked in, But, you know, you can have a special segment where you talk about, like, very high-level things, and we call it unlocked, you know? Unlocked.

You know, I'm a marketing guy, you know? So, like, I love your name, your podcast, I love your success. And a lot of people don't, I'm giving you your flowers now early. You're going to be the Rogan and you can be up there with all them guys rubbing all the elbows. I got nothing but confidence in you. We're out of mission. No, man, you're in it, man. just keep your feet to the pavement, man,

and one foot in front of the other, and you're going to get there, man. Thank you, bro. Well, safe travels back, and good luck with everything. And, you know... Thanks for having me, man. Absolutely.