Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - America’s First Drug Cartel: The Criminal Empire That Changed History

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

Seth Ferranti's "Dope Men" Explores America's Original International Drug Cartel. They got in the dope trade before prohibition even ended, about the same time that America's War on Drugs started. The mob and the government have been fighting this battle on opposite sides for the last 100 years. Dope Men explores this history.Seths IG https://www.instagram.com/sethferranti/?hl=enSeths Channel https://www.youtube.com/@sethferrantistruecrime/videosFollow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxtruecrimeDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [e-mail] you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Like, I know that the mob became successful and really blew up during Prohibition. What I didn't realize was the mob really pushed the, hey, we don't deal with drugs. We don't deal with anybody that does deal with drugs. We are against drugs.

And then you started showing that that's, that's just Hollywood. El Chapo, you know, it was Pablo Escobar, you know, El Chapo. But they don't see like a guy like Lucky Luciano as the predecessor to all this. And really, he was. You know, he was like the first, you know, big harrow and kingpin. And nobody kind of used it as this in history because of all the Hollywood looted stuff. So, you know, like people think this is recent. You know, all this, you know, racism and the drug war and stuff like this.

it's not you know and it's even thing about you know like they say nixon was going after the blacks and the hippies i mean this doesn't it doesn't start in 1970s it goes all the way back to the 20s so why do we have some of these substances like you know alcohol nicotine caffeine even sugar i mean they're they're all basically you know like substances that you know can alter you in some way you know and it's it's just like oh well these ones are okay and we're going to regulate them and make money on them. But, you know, these ones are not okay, you know, because, you know, the Italians, the blacks, the Mexicans, you know, so the whole system is so racist, you know,

on its face, you know, like, oh, white people control these, though, it's all good. You could make the analogy that the drug war and law enforcement, you know, propped up, you know, these rich people so they can make money and kill all of us and pollute the world. So it's just, it's like, it's like the dark side of capitalism. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm here with Seth Ferranti.

He is the writer, director of a new documentary that just came out called Dope Man, and we're going to be doing an interview and talking about the doc. Check it out. I, you know, I almost, I was going to throw in there the, um, um, white boy rig. you know, but I didn't know if you wanted, you know, I mean.

Yeah, yeah, I don't care. I mean, that's my biggest credit, the white boy doc. I mean, it's still on Netflix right now. Right. Yeah, I saw, I saw it, I don't know, I probably saw it like a month or so ago. I was flipping through, you know, I'll flip through docs. When I'm doing stuff, I watch, you know, I'll watch documentaries and stuff. I flipped it through it and I saw it and I was like, hey.

So, but I also saw that you came out, so you came out with this, with, uh, with, dope man and what's the other doc doesn't you have another one that just came out because you had another one like to be or something right yeah we've been screening that so that's not going to be probably be out until September but we've been doing screening at events like we did

bicycle day we screened it at the big maps psychedelic conference endeavor and I just screened it in Grass Valley that's meek and a big psychedelic art gallery called the Chambers project okay because I I remember you

you sent me I think you sent me the link to the trailer maybe. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so really I got a bunch of things. You know, the domain is not actually out yet. It's in the aggregator's hand. So, you know, nowadays, it's even hard to get a relay state, you know, because the aggregator gets them. They just kind of put it in the line at Amazon and iTunes, you know, and then it will go on like what they call FIVA versus transactional video on demand. You know, where do you like rent it or buy it from Amazon and iTunes? And then that's about a 60 day window. And then 60 days after. comes out on that, then it'll be what they call

the A lot, you know, the advertising video on demand like you know, TB, Roku and stuff like that. You know, and the whole time, you know, we don't have a streaming deal yet, but, you know, a lot of times as an independent, you know, if you're not like in-house Netflix production or whatever,

you actually, you know, you have to put it out and they want to see how it goes and then if it goes good, then the streamers will come in and license it. Okay, I was going to say it, um, well, it's over an hour, right? And it wasn't, is it? Yeah, about 75 minutes, 75 minutes, sure. Okay. Because I just, you know, it starts off, like it starts off at the very, like I told you

beforehand that we, my wife and I watched it the other night. You sent, you know, you sent me the link, so I was able to watch it. But I noticed that, you know, initially I was watching it and I was like, well, I kind of know this. I kind of know this. But then I realized that as it, that it really just follows the from the very you know the beginnings of drugs all the way through because when I was initially when I was watching it I was thinking I wonder why he did this because I feel like I was I was thinking like I feel like I know some of this information but I never really saw I never really fall you know you followed the evolution of from every single point throughout whatever what hundreds of a couple hundred yeah like no it's it's basically like a hundred years so you know

when when prohibition was still going on in this country in the 20s you know the the mobsters that's that's basically how the mobsters came up you know because before prohibition the mobsters were just like street corner thugs you know extorting businesses in their neighborhoods and taking hits beating people up whatever so it's serious prohibition payment and they started sluggling alcohol that's where they started making real money like money they had never before that's when you know these big criminal organizations you know kind of came online because once you have the money you know then you can get the politician you know then you can get you know the more businesses and it just really expanded you know what they were doing it and made

you know almost into like these big corporation type structures so you know a lot of these guys were smart and it's it's funny too because i i think a lot of people know there were jewish gangsters there were Irish gangsters, there were Italian gangsters. But, you know, at first, they all kind of worked together. You know, and then it became, you know, as stuff went on and like when Lucky Luziano took over the Italian mafia, you know, informed the commission and all this, you know, famous historical stuff that we know, you know, he made it only Italian and the Jewish guys kind of went into finance and the Irish guys, you know, started going into government

and police. So, you know, I mean, I'm not. privy to the conversation, like, these guys like Arnold Roth being Jake, Jack Lake, Simon, you know, lucky Luciano had, but, you know, to me it seems, you know, that, like, they kind of planned all this, you know, they said, okay, Irish, you guys think the police politics, Jewish, you guys do the finance banks, we're going to keep the organized crime. And, you know, they kind of, they form these foundations and set in motion, like all this stuff that made the mom, you know, a powerhouse, you know, probably up until like the 80s.

you know that the mob was like super powerful so i'm just kind of trying to set the foundation and and kind of show you know how everything got to where it was you know and at the same time they were smart enough to know that prohibition wasn't going to last so they started looking you know what can we replace you know and that's how they kind of formed you know the first drug cartel well you know that that was like when it got to that point the documentary i you know it's like what happens is as i was watching i was like oh i didn't know that oh I didn't know that oh I didn't realize that like there's all these little things and you kind of start it starts tying in together and when you were talking about the mob like obviously like I know that the mob became successful and really blew up during prohibition like I think most people know that but then what I didn't realize was the the drug angle because you even mention it in the documentary you talk about how like they really the mob really push the hey we don't deal with drugs we don't deal with anybody that does deal with drugs, we're against drugs, and then you started showing that

that's, that's just Hollywood. Like, listen, this guy, you know, Lucky Luciano, this guy, you know, all these different mobsters all had drug arrests for drugs. Like, if you don't deal with drugs and you and you are, you know, pushing any type of drug activity out of the mob and you won't deal with it, then how come every single mobster had a drug, drug arrest? And then you start explaining and explaining it and so that was a part that I was like oh wow like I really had bought into the they don't want to deal with anybody that has to do with with drugs and they certainly wouldn't deal with that like I really had bought into that till I watched the documentary I was like wow and you know of course you show the arrest like hey here's the arrest here's the arrest here's the

here's the mug shopter for the arrest here's the you know so I was like oh wow he he looked into this like this is this looks really yeah I see it like they you know it was it was almost like a deflection for them because, you know, the guys at the top, it's not like they were handling fitness and stuff like that. They were just in envelopes of money. But, you know, they knew where the money was coming. They were passing the orders, you know, down the line. But it was really this kind of thing where, you know, like the head people, like the spokesman or whatever, you know, to the public, they would be like, we don't do this because they were trying to protect their money, you know, because obviously if you're making money and something illegal, I mean,

our government does it all the time. You know, our government's, talks about oh we don't do this we don't do this you know that's like the front but they're doing it all you know because you want to hide it if you got something lucrative and that society frowns on you know so that's how this whole like man of honor you know with the godfather you know kind of kind of showed you know and that's what i'm trying to show up on like it's a myth these guys you know were in dope from day one they were the first drug cartel and if you look at history you know people know that you can say okay like el chapo you know it was Pablo Escobar you know El Chapo but they don't see like a guy like Lucky

Luciano as the predecessor to all this and really he was you know he was like the first you know big harrow and kingpin and and nobody kind of views it as this in history because of all the Hollywood luria stuff so you know I just wanted to kind of you know that's what I do I like to expose stuff you know like with white boy we want to expose all the police corruption, you know, and help get white boy out. You know, so I'm just trying to expose stuff and kind of try to set the record straight. So I noticed, I didn't really notice this until the very end when I think you have it on the screen, where it says, it said like episode one.

Is this a series? I mean, I feel, um, wrap, you wrap it up. I feel, I'm going to do, well, I'm going to go more in because this, this, this, this, kind of, for the mafia, this kind of covers from like the 20s to the 40s. You know, a lot of the stuff at the end, I'm just like foreshadowing. You know, like, what's to come?

You know, I'm connecting it. But at the same time, you know, this is open-ended. You know, I can go, you know, because in like the 40s to kind of like the 60s, mid-60s, you know, they have like the fridge connection, you know, which everybody has probably heard of the church connection. Right. You know, the big mafia heroin connection, right?

and then, you know, from the 70s, that's when the pizza connection started. You know, like another, you know, that a lot of people have heard that. They've made movies, so, you know, I can kind of show the mafia story in dope. I'm going to show it in three episodes, this, you know, then the part two, which will kind of go to the 40s, you know, the 60s, and then, you know, the pizza connection, like the 70s, you know, to the 80s. And there's just like, I mean, there's just like all these mobsters, you know, you know, even, even, even. somebody like John Gotti, you know, they were, you know, they were getting money from it, you know, and everybody denies it. I'm going to kind of show that line.

But also at the same time, I'm leaving it open. So, you know, then episode four, then I can look at the Colombian cocaine cartels. You know, I can look, you know, at the African-American drug king pens. I can look at the Mexican king pens. Because it's just, this thing is like all going. It's been all-going for a hundred years. It's just, you know, the names have changed, the locations have changed, you know, the personalities or the ethnic groups have changed. But, I mean, it's the same thing.

And my biggest point in this whole thing is, you know, people talk about like the drug war, you know, like drug war, like, you know, Nixon started the drug war in 71 and then, you know, Reagan, you know, and Bush amped it up in the late 80s. But, you know, this goes back, man. This guy, Harry Anslinger, you know, who he was a failed prohibition agent. he formed the Bureau of Narcotics and he started chasing all these people you know they just had a big movie about Harry Aslinger you know chasing Billy Holiday you know the famous jazz singer

you know the drug addict like this dude Harry Anslinger he was like super racist against Italians super racist against African Americans and I'm just trying to show you know like people think this is recent you know all this you know racism and the drug war and stuff like this

it's not you know and it's even came out you know like they say Nixon was going after the blacks and the hippies. I mean, this doesn't, it doesn't start in 1970. It goes all the way back to the 20s. So I'm trying to show, you know, this parallel. You know, you got a hundred years of the good guys and a hundred years of the bad guys. And it's just, it's still going on today. So it's like, when is it going to stop? You know, this is a war that, you know, nobody's going to win. So, you know, I did 21 years in federal prison for the drug war. So, you know, I kind of see what it is. You know, I didn't have, I was sitting there I've done 21 years in federal prison for the

crimes that I committed as a first time nonviolent offender, so like cannabis and LSD. So, you know, I'm just trying to show, you know, let's get the right history out there. Let's show the real reasons because everything that this dude Harry Anslinger, you know, this dude like came up in, in Pennsylvania with like kind of Quaker values. You know, he worked at the big railroad, you know, in, you know, the early 20th century, you know, when they were the big corporation. So he got these corporate values. He got these, you know, kind of religious Quaker values.

And all the, and he got like these, you know, racist, you know, racist values and stuff like this. So all this stuff that happened, you know, it was kind of like this dude's mindset. And we're still, we haven't evolved. And all law enforcement hasn't evolved. The government hasn't evolved. Everybody is still like what this dude kind of said in motion. And this dude was, you know, he was ahead of the Bureau of the product, the predecessor to the GEA for like. like 50 years you know like this dude was still around like until like almost like the 60

you know i'm not sure the exact date when he died but this dude was around forever and you know people don't don't uh you know put this on him you know they put it on nixon they put on a ragan they put it on bush but this is the dude that formed the whole template template for the for the war on drug and it's been like this hundred year thing you know where where you know law enforcement is going after, you know, the so-called bad guys. And, you know, honestly, some of them are bad guys. But, you know, when you bring racism and stuff into that, you know, they're just targeting groups of people because of the color of their skin or, you know, where they're from.

I was just thinking, I interviewed a sheriff the other day. And he said that 80 to 85% of the people that are in his jail are there for drugs. And he was like, he's like in almost all of them, almost like 95% percent. percent of them are users. So it's basically 80 percent, you locked up 80 percent of users or small-time drug dealers. And some of those are selling drugs. A lot of those guys are selling drugs, but they're really just selling drugs to support their habit.

Like if the drug was available, the drugs were available, you know, and inexpensive, then, you know what I mean? You wouldn't, there's no, there would be no reason for those, those jails to be filled up. Or if you just had, you had free, you took, Jesus, if you took a percentage of that money and you turned it into, you know, like free rehabs, because it's a hell of a lot cheaper to run a rehab than it is a jail. Yeah, but that's just, you know, back, you know, back in the 20s, this guy, Harry Aslinger, you know, they kind of criminalized addiction, you know, but the thing, the problem I got it with, too, is because they picked and choose, you know, like, the white. do we have some of these substances like you know alcohol nicotine caffeine even sugar i mean they're they're all basically you know like substances that you know can alter you in some way you know and it's it's just like oh well these ones are okay and we're going to regulate them

and make money on them but you know these ones are not okay you know because you know the italians the blacks the Mexicans you know so it's the whole system is so racist you know on its face you know like oh white people control these one though it's all good you know and like I say I look at some I look at some I mean like obviously you know heroin cocaine methamphetamine you know drugs like that those are bad drugs you know I totally agree with that and people when they're addicted they do all types of crazy stuff you know to get those drugs you know commit crimes but you look of some stuff like cannabis, you know, like THC, to me, alcohol is way worth, you know, and you could even argue that, like, a caffeine or a nicotine, you know, is on the same

level, even sugar. I mean, because if you think about it, you got somebody smokes weed, yeah, they're just chilling out or whatever, you know, you got somebody just smoked a pack of cigarettes or just drink a bunch of coffee, you know, they're like all jittery, you know, drive her around jittery and stuff like that. So it's kind of like, that's, I've always questioned. of that you know and you know it has a lot to do you know I'm biased you know because of my case and stuff and I was punished a lot of time you know for marijuana and LSD but I'm like you know why

why were the legal these substances legal and these made legal and when it comes down to it it's all about money the same thing like like you said like law enforcement why are we locking up drug addict why have we criminalized addiction why are we not helping these people and why have we been doing it 100 years we've been doing it 100 years because it's been profitable you know It's allowed, you know, people of law enforcement, you know, to target different, you know, colors and communities. And just, just on its face, you know, I think it's morally wrong. So I'm trying to kind of show, you know, by telling the story of like these infamous and notorious gangsters, you know, I'm showing, I want to show all these underlying issues of, you know, why are we here where we are today? You know, why do we start this, you know, drug war again in the late 80s and lock up all people like me and just take.

decades of their lives, you know, for nonviolent offenses, you know, because we can all agree violent people should be in prison, you know, you know, people, you know, pedophiles, child molesters, you know, stuff like that, they should be in prison, you know, but just because you want to smoke a joint or, you know, or even if you want to shoot heroin, that's what you want to do, I mean, you know, that's your choice, you know, so, you know, I'm not saying I would do it or I would condone it but you know I just look at it man you know from my own sentence I had a lot of question and so this is kind of looking at the history you know but I'm just showing it from the frame of mind like through these infamous and notorious gangsters because I know

that's what people like they want you know see what these guys are about and what they did I've just taken a story a little deeper because I think a lot of the stuff that's been done has been glamorized or romanticized kind of showed the surface you know and even even like the government, I mean, why aren't these dudes, like, why is not Lucky Nusiano considered like a Harold kingpin? It's just, you know, it's crazy to me. You know, so I look at it. So, you know, I've just tried to expose it. Yeah, I'm trying to expose the truth, the real truth. So people can see, and it's just layers, you know what's all the shortness, but it's just layers and layers and layers and stuff. And then when you tie it all together, you can be like, okay, I can see it now.

So that's what, you know, that's what I'm trying to do. But you know, at the same thing, same time, you know, the viewer has to make their own decision. I'm just putting the information out there. You know, they can form their own opinion. They don't have to have my opinion. So, okay, so you don't know when this will be really available. It'll be six months or? No, no, it's going to be in the next month. Oh, in the next So when I give to the aggregator, it's going to be like on Amazon and iTunes. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, so I get to the aggregator. so they tell me like one to four weeks

you know because everything's like digital now so you know um you know i'm not like my studio and my name is not big enough where amazon's gonna give me like a set release thing they just like put me in the line with all the other stuff that has been submitted right you know through act through aggregators which an aggregator is basically like a digital distributor you know because everything is digital out everything is streaming you know the old model for films you know where you make a film you get a advance for a north american rights

rides you maybe go to theaters and then you you know they sell the rights i mean that that model is pretty much dead you know now every everything it's all kind of you know online stream you know on demand you know most people are watching stuff now like all their laptop so you know so um and and like i say i've been out of prison eight years so you know and i've been doing this film stuff you know or try to get into it so i'm learning as i go you know like my previous experience to this you know was white boy which I did with Sean Wreck in Transition Studios and I learned a lot on that

but you know it's still it's like just this whole film industry is like like it's like ever evolving like you know how do you get this to the people you know how are the people going to access this how are they going to know about it you know so it's like something

you know you kind of got learned as you go because it's changing so much you know like in the film industry they used to have they would have you know like distributors, sales agents, you know, studios, but now they got these, you know, businesses that now they're like studios, sales agents, and distributors. You know, so it's weird how stuff is going in as, you know, and like I say, I'm not Netflix, I'm just an independent, you know, outlaw films. That's my studio. So we're kind of doing this, you know, by, you know, grassroots. We're, you know,

word of mouth, you know, to kind of get this out here and let people see. But, you know, the one thing I can say, you know, I learned how to make a documentary from Sean Wreck on White Boy. Sean Wreck, before he did that, he had done 200 crime stopper shows for all the networks, and he had won nine Emmys, nine regional Emmys in Ohio, and he kind of mentored me all this. So, you know, he stressed like the high production value. Because I think you can see, you know, something on Netflix, you can really differentiate, differentiate in the production value between something on Netflix and something on YouTube, you know, so what I'm trying to do with Doatman and everything else I'm doing, I'm trying to keep my production value, you know,

as high as possible, you know, obviously within the budget that I have, but I want my stuff to look, you know, like Netflix, you know, as opposed to YouTube. And I'm not looking at YouTube. I know people to make a lot of money off YouTube. You know, I just want my stuff. I just want my stuff to look, you know, a lot nicer, you know, so I shoot with better cameras, you know, we shoot different angles, we light, you know, all the things, you know, that they do in Hollywood. Right. What, so you're basically, you're hoping, you're hoping that, you know, they do well, they get picked up by a larger streaming network, and then you end up producing more and more of this series,

right, a limited series. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and like I'm saying, this is just one of my things because, you know, I got the dope man, but I also got Nightlife is about to come out, which is a nice little film, real beautiful film about the problems in North St. Louis, you know, with drug addiction and violence. It's about a group of violence interrupters called Nightlife that walk around at night. And then I got my LSD series, which I got the first episode done, which we've been screening around. I also got a Canada series you know about the Emerald Triangle called Tangled Roots So I got a bunch of stuff

You know I'm kind of trying to brand outlaw films It's kind of you know It's like true crime But it's more like you know Counterculture drugs like that part Of what they would call true crime As opposed to just like you know murder mysteries And and whatnot

Right How do you I don't know if you want to get into this But I mean how do you like You didn't walk out of prison with several million dollars and a budget to do all this. Like how are you raising the money to go about producing these, you know, the various documentaries?

Yeah. So when I first started, you know, I first started working on White Boy, probably like two years after I was prison. So we're talking like moving like 2017. And, you know, I saw how Sean Wreck was kind of doing stuff, you know, but he had a big name. He won, I mean, so it kind of easier, you know, people wanted to give him money, you know, because he had a reputation.

So me, I had a reputation as a writer, you know, but I didn't have a reputation as a filmmaker. So at first, I was struggling. Like, nobody wanted to give me any money. I had all these ideas. Nobody would invest anything. You know, and this was probably like, you know, from 2017 until, you know, the end of the pandemic.

So, you know, we're talking like, you know, three, four years. Like, I'm basically, like, struggling, you know, funding little projects cheap by myself with, money I got for my books and journalism. But then, you know, something extremely fortunate happened. You know, for my career, white boy, it blew up on Netflix at the end of the pandemic. It was like top 10, not top 10 documentary, top 10 on the whole Netflix for like two weeks. You know, it had like, I don't know the exact number because Netflix doesn't give out numbers, but I heard people say, you know, like it had like 20 million views.

In like the first couple months, you know, it was, it was on Netflix. And once, and I wrote and produced that. So, you know, it wasn't my studio. I didn't direct it, but I learned I was mentored by the guy who studio was and the guy who directed. And he kind of took me under his wings and I worked with him hand on hand. And it was based, that whole thing was based on my writing. It was based on my work, all the stuff I wrote about White Boy Rick previously

for like Vice News and all these other places about the injustice of his case. so that kind of put a spotlight on me you know and that kind of brought some attention and even some of the people that I had talked to about money before you know they kind of came back to me you know because for me white boy was awesome because you know I mean it's nice

like when you can go like I can go like and sometimes I'll be in a restaurant or store or something and you know I can mention white boy or I can hear other people talking about it and you know people know that film they might not necessarily know Seth Baronte it's a writer-director but they know that film so then I can volunteer that information

oh I wrote and directed that or I wrote and produced that you know and then you know what I'm saying so then it's it's cool man when you especially as a creator a content creator when people like recognize your stuff and you have something that a lot of people

have seen so you know once I got to that level you know then it was kind of easy you know like people would actually listen to me they would actually check out i i kind of equate that to um like you know when the new england patriots win the super bowl everybody knows tom brady's a man but all those people on the team you know like in free agency and stuff they'd get the big contracts because they were part of that winning culture you know so people want you prove that you're part of something you know because our country i mean our country is

obsessed with winning everybody loves a winner you know everybody loves a winner you know everybody something that's popular you know you know there could be something that's just as good somewhere but you know nobody knows about it so nobody care so you know once i was a part of that winning production it just gave me you know a lot more of value and a lot more credit to people that want to invest in this type of stuff and um yeah that's how i did it you know i went back you know some of the guys came back to me you know they had friends and uh but i i'll i'll say true most of my investors are um they come they come from the cannabis world you know and uh i don't know the cannabis industry i don't know how odd it is right now because it seems like everybody's trying

to do it but you know like three four years ago it seemed like they're the candidates people you know had more money you know and luckily they threw some of it my way okay and i mean And once you get, so once you get, you know, somebody that, you know, puts up the money, and then they, of course, you know, they get their money back. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget.

After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. back in a percentage or whatever it is do they typically come back again and say hey what else are we do what else do you want to do yeah i've got i've got several of my investors they already told me you know when i pay them back you know that they want to invest more stuff you know they're just winning but but i see i'm i'm kind of at the uh basically like when white boy came out i got about three years of funding for my studio you know this is a third

year so i'm like at the end and it's took longer to get some of this stuff out and you You know, it's been a struggle. You know, I've learned as I, I've kind of learned as I went along. You know, I sometimes, you know, in life as an employer, you make, you know, bad decisions on who you hire. So, you know, I've kind of gone through that, you know, but I got a good crew right now. You know, I got five guys, you know, like editors and shooters that work for me. So, like I say, between now and Christmas, I got five, I got five projects. You know, first is dope men in the nightlife, and then which dope men is a kind of open-ended

limited series. You know, nightlife is a standalone doc. You know, the LSD is a series, a limited series. The Tangled Roots is a limited series. And I got this other standalone doc called Tortured Mind, which is about, you know, how prison, how people leave prison, like with PTSD. And now they're actually calling it post-incarceration syndrome. You know, they're calling it picks, you know, a form of PTSD. So I got this other film called The Tortured Vibe.

It kind of looks at that. And it looks like, like, why aren't these people, you know, being held? Like, you know, why, you know, you go into prison with an addiction or maybe some type of mental issues. And then, you know, they're throwing through the meat grinder, you know, witness violence or, you know, whatever victims of violence. And then these people come out and then they're stuck, man. their mental illness is exacerbated. Their addictions are like running rampant. And, you know, the prison system just throws them back out on the street.

I mean, you know, like, where do you call out? They give you, like, a bus ticket to $200. You know, like, it's crazy, you know? So, like, people are coming out. And, yeah, maybe they had some addiction with some mental issue before. But, you know, going through the prison, the PTSD, the post-incarceration syndrome, It just, you know, it amplifies it. And so in a tortured mind, I studied the case of this one guy who was a friend of mine named Ryan Leone.

And, I mean, he's dead now, bro. He's dead because he witnessed a lot of violence. You know, he couldn't control his addiction. You know, his mental illness got worse. And no one helped him, dude. They just threw him back out to the world. And, you know, he was a federal prison. He was in a state prison, you know.

and then he eventually he overdosed man he died so it kind of follows you know his story as the prime example of uh you know we need to change man we need to do something different so i think that's what a lot of my work you know i'm trying to entertain people and show people cool stuff and cool stories that i can get access to that a lot of other people can't but at the same time you know i want to show like you know you know everything i've done so far even like like my writing, Rick slows and stuff, like saying, you know, how can we make it better? What can we do? You know, you know, like the white boy, like, you know, why did white boy Rick have to do 32 years in prison for eight kilos of cocaine? You know what I'm saying? So I just like to look at these

different things because if not, you know, the mainstream media is just going to bury all this stuff under the rug because, you know, nobody cares unless you can present it to them, you know, in an entertaining way. And then, you know, you think, like when we deal with the white boy story, we eventually get him out because there was so much public outrage after watching a doc that, you know, people were basically demanding, like, why is this guy still in prison? You know, so I'm trying to do that with all my films, you know, and especially Dotland. Like, you know, why have we been fighting this 100-year war? Why has law enforcement, you know, basically, you know, been seizing stuff?

You know, because law enforcement is crazy because, you know, I'm based in Missouri in St. Charles County. and the police have this big monster truck, bro, that they, like, drive around when they do, like, rallies or parades or whatever. Why do the police have a monster truck? They seized it from a drug dealer? Or the money from forfeiture, they're using money. So, you know, it just doesn't make sense to me that law enforcement, you know,

they have an incentive to bust drug dealers. It's called forfeiture, you know, like you just said. So it's just like, why are we incentivizing law enforcement to go after drunk to it, it just doesn't make sense. And it's been going on so long. I'm just like, I'm sorry, I wrote a book called Generation Oxy, and in the end, at the end of the book, when the kid gets arrested, his name's Doug Dodd, he got arrested, he was sitting in the back of, he said, like, I forget, it was some kind of SUV, he goes, it was really

a nice SUV. He is, and he said, man, it's a nice SUV, and he goes, yeah, yeah, I pulled it off a drug dealer, you know, last month. He goes, I'll be driving your car next week. And he was just like, you know, he said, I was, you know, like, yeah, when you even look at like the DEA and stuff, there's been so many stories of like rogue DEA, so many stories of like women DEA going in, you know,

dating these drug dealers, you know, having sex with them, even getting pregnant to bust them. I mean, this is crazy, bro. this is like this was like high crap I think this is worse than some dude selling crack on the street but why is that okay why is that okay

and but selling crack on the street is not so well I you know I was gonna say I have another buddy that got busted in in Hawaii he got busted of course you know they take all your stuff and he went to jail so he went to jail and

he had like a like a $30,000 Rolex and he said you know they took my stuff he said well they already had i think an attorney on retainer so he and his brother get arrested they go to jail he said like the net like that day or the next day he got bonded out he said and the bond was outrageous you know it's like a million dollars he said well we had it you know so he said like his parents or somebody actually was already ready to put up the bond so he got bonded out he said when i went to go get my all my stuff he said my roll my Rolex wasn't there. So he's like, no, where's my Rolex? He said, I had the receipt, showed the Rolex.

So I start saying, hey, you guys owe me $30,000. So he starts arguing and bitching. They, I want to say it was that, I want to say it was DEA. They had to call three or four different people. And eventually, he said like two hours later, the DEA agent that one of the one of the agents that busted him walked in the front door and threw the Rolex on the counter and said, here bro i wasn't stealing your rolex uh we were just using it you know for some bling for for another bust he's like you just pulled it out of my property thinking i wasn't going to get bond he's because they were all telling him you're never getting out you're doing 20 years and that's what they believed and they believed you're getting 20 years we'll be selling this stuff so he just removed

it and drove home they had to call the guy at home he wasn't on a bus he was at home he had to get in his car and drive down there and give him his watch back so that's you know like there are so many stories like that and what happens to that cop nothing nothing nothing no it's it's it's like the same thing so look you know i like i'm a cannabis psychedelic dude so you know i i believe you know like when i 13 you know like like i believed in cannabis and and i thought cannabis was you know medical spiritual therapeutical and the same with like psychedelics you know i i thought you know that it was very spiritual it was like mind expanding made you see stuff the different way you know so but you know with the drug war in my 25-year sentence, you know, oh, I'm wrong, I'm a drug addict, I'm a

criminal, you know, I never consider myself a criminal, though. You know, I consider myself outlaw because I broke laws that I thought were wrong. And now, lo and behold, 30-something years later, cannabis is legal, you know, is on its way to, you know, federal legality, you know, eventually, but it is legal in a bunch of states. And now psychedelics are being looked at, again, for their therapeutic value. Because if you look at it, the same thing with this kind hundred year thing with law enforcement, you know, and drug dealers. So there's, there's another thing, too, which I touch on an endowment a little bit. All right. The pharmaceutical companies, they came online in the 20s, bro. You know, all the pharmaceutical, there was no pharmaceutical stuff.

Before, you know, people smoked weed or weed treated like 60 different symptoms for thousands a year, you know, and, you know, like the herbalist or whatever, you know, the, the, the, you know, the, you know, doctor or healer, whatever, that's what they would prescribe or even other psychedelics, you know, like, like, like peyote, mescal and stuff like that, right? So when these big, these big pharmaceutical companies came out of line as a direct result of, like, the industrials, you know, because a lot of people made a lot of money, like all the big names, Rockefellers, all those names. You know, they, like the industrial age, the robber bears, they made all this money. But then in the early 1900s, they got shot down because they were exploiting people.

You know, people were getting their arms chopped off and they weren't getting any type of compensation. You know, child labor, long hours. And they were just using these people as human chattel. And when that got exposed, you know, they already had all this money, but they had to look for something different to continue making their money because they couldn't make it. So they went in to pharmaceuticals and they went into plastics, right? So the way I see it, and I kind of made this illusion in Doberman, you know, law enforcement basically was going after the competitors to these new pharmaceutical and plastic industry. And now look, 100 years later, we got fentanyl everywhere, people dying from setanol every day, right?

our oceans are full of plastic. So, you know, you could make the analogy that the drug war and law enforcement, you know, propped up, you know, these rich people so they can make money and kill all of us and pollute the world. So it's just, it's like, it's like the dark side of capitalism, you know. And like I say, I'm American. I like capitalism. This is probably one of the only countries where you can have nothing and you can come up and make a lot of money. There's not any other countries like that besides there, here.

That's why everybody comes here, right? But at the same time, the last 100 years, we've had this dark side of capitalism that has just kind of been, you know, running everything, running law enforcement, running politics, you know, and I'm trying to show, I'm trying to show this whole story,

like how did we get there? Because a lot of people think, oh, the government said it or they're right. But, you know, look like we even look today. You know, I'm not a Biden fan. I'm not a Biden fan. He was the orchestrator, one of the or the strangers of the war of drugs. She's one of the reasons I did 21 years. So the first time

about violent tests. And now all this stuff is coming out about Biden, how he is allegedly made, I don't know, I heard 30 million, 50 million through peddling influences. But oh, it's okay because he's a politician. But, you know, if I want to make money selling, you know, substances that I think are spiritual and therapeutic, I got to go to prison for 25 years. So, you know, it's just, it's just all this different stuff where if you look at these stories from different perspective through different lenses and different people, you know, like the mafia and stuff like that. You know, that's a picture I'm trying to paint, you know, because the good guys, most of the time, the good guys are the good guys. And I'm not saying

lucky Louisiana was a good guy. You know, by any, you know, he was a mobster. He was a gangster. But, you know, it's like you said about those DE agents, right? Like, they got, they could do whatever they want and get away with it. But me or you or the regular citizen, we're going to to be punished for uh if they bust us with a five dollar crack rock they're we're getting punished or going to jail or a bag of marijuana or a joint they find a joint they're going to seize our car you know but but by then and all these other government people long for them people they can they can do whatever they want because oh they are on the side of right it's just you know it's ludicrous it's ridiculous i kind of been fighting this battle my whole life you know since

i was 13 and i first got into the counterculture so you know it's a same thing like Like the hippies, like the counterculture, what do they do? The hippies came out. You know, they didn't want war. You know, they wanted to change stuff in the 60s. And what happened? They got crushed by the government. Right.

So, you know, I don't know. Maybe we're in a different climate now, you know, you know, like I don't think I'm not sure like the government is going to come after me. I mean, I make cells. I don't do anything. You know, I like to smoke and join every now and take a hit of acid. But, you know, it's not like I'm a distributor or whatever. So, you know, I think. You know, things in that regard have kind of loosened up a bit.

But still, man, it's just, it's a vicious cut-through world, and it's all about money. So there's been, like, this hundred-year war on substances that they determine are not good for us because we have all these other substances that are good for us. And people have just been persecuted. They've had their lives taken. You know, they've had their lively, you know? Like, look at the cannabis farmers. You know, these cannabis farmers sacrifice all the, for 50 years.

years, sacrifice, you know, their life, their livelihood, went to prison, you know, had military, you know, helicopters flying over their landfill stuff. And none of this made them stop growing weed because, you know, that's what they believe in, because they were outlawed, you know. But now it went legal and now all these farmers are, you know, they can't compete. You know, because you can't, you know, if you're a little guy, if you're a mom and pop, you can't compete with a Walmart. It's impossible. So I, I, I, I, I just, just trying to show, you know, a lot of, you know, like I said, I love this country, but and I love capitalism, but I don't love, right now I feel like we're, the last hundred

years we've been in this age of dark capitalism. And hopefully, you know, in the future, you know, the next 50 or 100 years, that's how this last 100 years will be remembered. You know, and I hope we're about to break out of it, you know, I mean, you never know, but, you know, but they're trying, you know, to keep a hold and it seems like keep a lid on it. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now.

I get a free Tilly Dog. Chilly Dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. And stuff like that. But, you know, and like I say, you know, like when we were growing up, like a lot of this stuff, we knew about this stuff, but it was like conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory, because

anything that's true that the government doesn't like or the media, because they control the media. They control everything, bro. You know, and all... All the conspiracy theories that were out there when I was a kid are now coming true. Like now, like, that wasn't a conspiracy theory. That was true. It was true.

They're doing, you know, hearings in Congress on aliens or on UFOs. Like, come on, like, what do you have... Listen, in the 80s, when I was growing up, the idea that Congress would even consider having a hearing is ludicrous. They would never have done that. And now they're having these open hearings and showing films and you're

going, what is going on? They've got a whole department now focusing on this. Like this is insane. Yeah, because our government and you know the people that fund them, the elite corporations, you know, that fund

them, you know, that they wanted to keep a lid on everything. so they can control everything, you know, control information. So, you know, and like I say, we talk, we always talk about, like, the Nazis or, like, Thalids and all these other, you know, like, you know, dictators or bad people in history and, like, what they did. We've been doing the same thing here the whole time. You know, it's just been disguised and swept under the rug and, you know, people make movies,

you know, about this. We have a market campaign. We have a better marketing campaign The home of the free You know land of the brave You know we got a way better marketing campaign than Then the Soviets did And that's so a lot of that

Not all of it, but a lot of that It boils down to You know really Pushed the correct The U.S. Pushed the correct agenda That really does Play to the masses

You know so The idea it's great to say, hey, if you come join our crowd, we'll feed you, we'll give you bread and water and, you know, free medical, but in the end, you can't. And when you can't provide that, and you've got the, the Americans are saying, look, our system, the idea of capitalism is a little bit more brutal. It doesn't sound as good as communism. Like the concept of communism is wonderful. We're all going to work together. We're all going to live off of the fruits of everyone's labor, and it's all going to be fair. That's great. It doesn't work. Capitalism says, you know, really almost the opposite. If you work hard, bust your ass, you can make money. And if you don't, you'll fail. And that's a brutal concept. But the truth is, that's what works. And so when you say, hey, the peace and love and we're all going to work together, when you start seeing that fail and you realize that the harsher version is what works, and you've got a great marketing campaign winning, winning, winning.

winning it's all about winning money making tons of money working hard and winning and you see that over and over again you start to say hey this is the way to go and people flock to the united states and they work hard and they try and you know like you said but behind the scenes most of these or our governments are doing a lot of the same stuff yeah no totally and it's it's the same thing because remember the 80s when we're growing up they used to say 10% of the population had all the money you know so What do they say now? 1%. So I'm saying, yeah, it's like, you know, you got these people at the top.

Like they got so much more ridiculous. And you got the people at the bottom that have to live like two, three families in a house, you know, can barely afford one car working minimum wage jobs, you know, just to make it. So, you know. The middle class in this country has shrunk by half in the last 30 years. It's a dramatic shrinking. And that was what made America great. We had this massive middle class. we just don't it just doesn't really exist now you have the haves and the haves not yeah i just think

the whole that whole kind of uh you know 50s mentality you know like the the white picket fence you know go work for somebody else for for 20 years you know get married and have kids like that's what was push you know like like through religion and government and stuff like that i just i just think a lot of people now are kind of seen you know because they're ever since the 80s you You know, there's been more, you know, kids born out of weblock. You know, there's been more divorce. You know, that kind of old model has kind of, you know, gone away. But still, you know, that if I saw another statistic the other day that I thought was kind of crazy.

Like, it was talking about the age of politicians. You know, and they say right now, this is, we, 25% of our politicians are age 70 or older. Like, that is crazy, bro. Like, what are the, like, you know, like, you. look at something, you know, like Biden and some of these other people, like, what are you still doing? Why are you able to make the decisions? You know, it's your out of touch. Even if you said, hey, mentally, even if you said mentally they were able to, you know, they were mentally stable. You're still out of touch. Like that, that's the big thing about, about, you know, the Constitution

is that it grew, as the culture, as our culture, you know, our civilization and country, changes, the Constitution can change. And that's why it's one of the oldest, I think it is the oldest document government that's running. Even though we're a new country, it's the oldest government that's still in existence from the original, from the original constitution. Because it evolves and it grows. But the problem is the people that are putting these policies into effect and are, you know, you know well i guess you know passing new laws and and looking at the new laws you know they're out of a lot of them like you said at least 25 percent of them are out of touch like a 75 year old guy cannot relate with a 25 year old you know he he's not you're telling me you know just like you

said with the cannabis probably well one it probably never should have been illegal but two 25 years ago and here's the big thing is listen as a 50. years ago. You knew that the war on drugs wasn't working. You knew this is a failed policy. It's been failing for 50 years. And all you've done is bloat the police and the prison system and the court system. And you spent trillions, not even billions, probably trillions of dollars, put locking people up and throwing away the key when you could have been taking that same money and you could have been educating those people and treating addiction. you could have spent a third of the money they've spent

and given free education and free addiction counseling to get rid to limit those you know but like you say it's about control I think it's about control and I think it's about getting votes it sounds great to say I'm tough on crime that's a great concept and it is great it's just not working and all these politicians are basically funded by you know people you know corporations or people or organizations with, you know, they have a gender. Right.

You know, and they lobby, you know, that's, you know, apologize. And I'm not going to blame anybody. People, you know, you know, this is in country. People don't go where the money is at. But, you know, I mean, it's just been going on so long, you know, like my whole lifetime, I'm just like, you know, what can I do? You know, I already went to prison.

I, you know, behind the lines. And I think in prison, too, really makes you see anything because you know what they do in prison. They divide in copper. They pit the races against each other. You know, because there's like a thousand dudes in a prison and there's only like, 20 guard. So how else are you going to make control? You've got to keep the, a scarcity of resources, you know, so the people in prisons are fighting over the resources. That's how you

made control. And before I was a prison, I didn't see it like that in the world. But once you go to prison, you see how they do to there. You come back out here and you can be like, they do the same thing. It's just like on a much larger scale. They use the media, propaganda, and everything. So, you know, like, you know, back to dope, man, that's why, you know, I'm trying to show, like, you know, paint these, like, broad strokes, you know, with stuff that people like, you know, because people love mob stuff, right? So I'm kind of, you know, like I say, I'm telling the surface story, but I got these broad strokes underneath that I'm trying to get people so people can realize, you know, just like we did with White Boy, you know, White Boy, we never said, you know, and White Boy, you know, White Boy, that these people were prepped or this. we just showed what they did, you know, and showed what happened, you know, as juxtaposed, you know, what happened to Rick, you know, so we kind of try to show, you know, like, why does this stuff happen and then people can make their own decisions?

Right. I was going to say, through entertainment, I think you learn a lot. I, I, there was a movie called, um, enemy at the gate, and it was a, it was about the invasion of Stalingrad. And it was, it was shown through the eyes of a, famous sniper that was in the Battle of Stalingrad. And, you know, listen, it takes, it, it, it shows you the whole, that whole invasion, the whole battle, the whole, you know, siege of Stalingrad in World War II. Listen, I, like, I walked away from that. It's, it's like watching Private Ryan or something.

You learn so much about history by watching those movies. You don't even realize what you're learning. You don't even realize like, wow, like, you know, I actually, you know, that you subtly get yourself a nice little history lesson while being entertained because let's face it everybody wants to be entertained yeah so you know that's what i'm just doing you know i i pick stuff that i like you know i like i like i like mafia stuff you know i like canada stuff i like psychedelic stuff you know that's what i i i just want i want to paint these pictures man i want to show people you know and and really i mean i'm not saying i'm i'm buying and you can say you know i got a

slanted perception because of everything I went through. But, you know, that is my reality. You know, so I'm showing these stories through my lens and, you know, hopefully people, you know, can realize and it can open up, you know, some eyes. And, you know, but at the end of the day, I want to entertain people. I will, people think what I'm doing is cool. But, you know, I do have these underlying issues and pretty much from my writing, pretty much everything I've done. I got these underlying issues. So what about, I was noticing you give a lot of B-roll. are you are you able to use b-roll from come from uh movies like um what was the uh the untouchables like yeah so it's like uh so it's kind of like um you know like when rapper sampled stuff right

you can use like so much so you know in in documentary and in journalism and in the news it's called fair use so if you notice like when it when a news when a news uh agency is is is is is taking footage like on the street or something. They don't have to get all those people to sign off because it's it's journalism. You know, but if you did a movie, that's why in a movie, they blocked everything off. Right. You know, you know what I'm saying? Because, you know, you can't, nobody's signing releases.

So, you know, it's the same with fair use. As long as you use a certain amount, like, you know, in White Boy, we use like the Beverly Hill cops. You know, a lot of times it's like under six seconds, you know, or something like that. But, yeah, so you can use it. as long as you're using it, you know, for a journalistic reason. And there's there's some like other things, you know, like when you use something like it can't be your main point, it can only be like supporting, you know, so I might have, you know, somebody say like, oh, you know, the, the myth of the mafia man of honor or the

the mafia man of honor is a myth. And then I can show a little clip of the godfather. Right. You know, yeah. So, yeah, that's how you do it. It's, it's all fair use, man. and really that's kind of like more the old school thing but i mean you see now with like youtube i mean they just rip everything dude they just rip everything people rip whatever they want and put it wherever they want and you know you know maybe if they make a lot of money there might be a lawsuit but you know i mean it's just it's just information and um i don't know i think i think that's cool man because what i try to do when i make a film i try to get all these

different, you know, forms of media and kind of mash them together. Like, you know, that's what we did at White Boy, where, you know, you get the archival footage, you know, you get the newspaper articles, you know, you get the talking head interviews, you know, you get the animation and you just kind of, you know, put it all together and mesh it all together. So, you know, when you're watching it, I think that's like really visually stimulating, you know, because you just see all these different types of media, you know, in forms of media and it's all put together in one place. And even like the dopeman, you know, some of that stuff, you know, people have seen in different stuff, you know, because some of that footage that we found it's been around

forever. Right. You know, but I'm just putting it in this new construction where I'm telling this story and kind of layering it, you know, all the way through, you know, so, you know, not only is a story good, you know, and the narrative is good, but I want it to be visually. appealing to right i was going to say um because i noticed like there was just there was like tons of b-roll and the b-roll alone kind of tells the story so i was wondering and i thought i'd seen some clips from movies that i'd recognize and i thought i wonder yeah yeah if that has to if he has to pay somebody to use that but it was i couldn't afford yeah i could afford yeah if you only use it real i couldn't afford it you know even for white boy we got the beverly hill cop stuff in there

You know, we couldn't afford that, man. They try to charge you an arm in a lay. You know, even, even like, it's weird because if you just go find something yourself and put it in, you know, a lot of times you can get away with it for fair use. But if you actually like go to the people and say like, oh, I want to use this or then they're going to try to charge you a licensing fee. Right. It's just, it's just crazy. You know, but now on the internet, I mean, you could pretty much find anything.

I was going to say I had talked to a guy who's he's actually a director and the producer but he was saying that for example if you said yeah I remember when I was I was leaving

Tampa you know we were headed whatever we were headed for we were headed to you know Atlanta or something that song whatever came on you know and he said and because in the interview

the guy mentions the song we are he said we were able to play the song so we can play he said where as opposed to a few seconds of it he's like we were able to to use that song for the next whatever it was 30 seconds or so of the interview and with b roll and he said he had he had another interview where the guy was like i forget what he said exactly but let's say you know it was like the scene in the godfather when you know when michael says to you know whatever you know this and then they show the scene and it was more than the two or three it was like the whole scene he said but I can do that

because in the course of the interview the guy specifically mentioned the scene he's like so I'm just using it to support you know that interview and he said as a result of that we were able to play you know a 12 or 15 second scene so yeah so I yeah definitely yeah fair use so that's the difference between docs and like a scripted film you know scripted film has to be like totally original

you need all releases you know forms and stuff like that or you got a license music or whatever where we're docs it's more it's journalism it's just visual journalism so you know because you can see like on a news report they could be interviewing somebody and you know a car drives by you know with fuck the police by nwa or whatever you know they're not they're not going to take it out you know so right they're not going to get they're not going to get sued there's no liability because it's journalism okay well cool so you're saying it's going to be up in about a month or so, roughly? Yeah, maybe sooner.

I would say definitely within the next month. I'd say definitely by the end of August. So that's going to be up. Dopement will be up. Nightlife will be up. And then sometime at September, my first episode of the psychedelic revolution, Secret History, the LSD trade will be up.

And then after that, probably in October sometime, a tortured mind. You know, the reality of post-incarceration syndrome will be up and i'd say then sometime in december before christmas the the first episode of tangled roots will be up i just want hey i just want to be on the other side of it man you know what i'm saying you know it's been a struggle you know but this this is kind of like you know three years of work you know that's kind of coming together and it just so happens

you know because i've been working on them all steadily so it's all uh it's all coming out at the same times. I just want to be, you know, because that's like five hours of content for Outlaw films. So that's going to be big. And I got, I got a lot more stuff shot. So, you know, I got the makings of like 13 hours of content. You know, I just got to get it edited. You know, so next year I'll be coming out with more stuff. And then as soon as I get some of these projects off my plate, you know, and get some more funding or the money starts coming back from the films, I'm going to be looking for more projects. Because that's my goal, man. I kind I want to be the, I want to be like the Quentin Tarantino of kind of this, this true crime,

counterculture, documentary stuff, you know, and in the next three years, I'm planning on, you know, developing and putting out on the market, you know, you know, about 30 hours of content all kind of in this, you know, same vein, you know, which it'll follow on a true crime. But, you know, like I say, my stuff is kind of more counterculture. I get better access, you know, because I was in prison for 21. years. I get better access than a lot of these mainstream filmmakers. And also, I think, too, my work, I keep it more real, you know, because I'm just not a filmmaker coming into these cultures and examining them and making films about them. I'm from this culture, these cultures,

these cultures I'm talking about. You know, not like I'm a mafia guy, but I was with a ton of mafia dudes in federal prison, you know, for years, 21 years. I know these guys. I've talked to them. I've written about them. I've interviewed them, you know, in prison. So, you know, I don't know how many other journalists or filmmakers can say that. All right. Well, so what, well, they'll, do you want to put a link? You know, we can put some links in the description or. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, definitely when I have links, I mean, we could just use my website or the YouTube links. Because of the YouTube, you know, my YouTube channel, Seth Ferranti's True Crime, it has like all the documentary links. And then on my website, too, garela convict.com, I have all the, teasers and then as the film become available you know i'll be putting you know those those amazon and iTunes links up and stuff like that but yeah it's not going to be long man it's like you know probably within i'd say the next 60 to 90 days i mean like dotment and light like we're going to be everywhere you know all right well it's gonna yeah it'll be available to be rocou you know all

all the advertising video on demand and all the transactional video on demand platforms okay You think, is there anything else we haven't talked about? No, man. I think, yeah, we covered a lot of stuff, man. I hope people don't think we're conspiracy theorists. We might get Brandon now. Or maybe the government, the government's going to come after us. Listen, I've had some conspiracy theory guys on here.

So trust me, this is nothing compared to that. This is very tame. and honestly let's face it I would say a 95% chance that all of it's absolutely legit you know even though and I'd like to say too like you know how like law enforcement

and government people they say like oh well if you're selling drugs we're coming after you yeah well I'm a filmmaker I tell stories so if you're in law enforcement and government and you're doing corrupt stuff and you're violating citizens and American people's rights I'm going to come after you and I'm going to expose you and I'm going to put you on TV. Same thing.

They hate that. They hate that. And the only way you could stop me is you can kill me because you already put me in prison for 21 years and I'm still doing it. Listen, I just had a guy who was a sheriff's deputy who was a whistleblower at Broward County. And, you know, he was complaining that the guys he was working with were ripping off the drug dealers.

They're stealing the money. They're taking these guys money. We're supposed to put the money in the bag, and they're stealing these guys money, and they're taking the drugs and reselling the drugs and keeping that money. And so he was like, you know, you guys should be in jail. So they ended up setting him up, got him indicted. He actually went to trial and won at trial. I interviewed that guy three months ago.

His video blew up. It got like, I think it's at almost 700,000 views now. So, yeah, you wouldn't like, you hear his story. You wouldn't believe it. this is just because he was a whistleblower in the department. No, I do believe it. I do believe it. I've heard plenty of stories like that, you know.

I mean, when you're in prison for 21 years, you hear all, you hear everything. Yeah. Oh, that's what I'm saying. They'll turn on their own. Yeah. Oh, yeah, in a second. It's all about self-preservation. Yeah.

Yeah, those people, most of the people, you know, I'm not saying everybody in law enforcement is that. There's some good people in law enforcement. There's some good people in government. There's some good people in politicians. But, you know, if they're protecting the bad people, then they're just as complicit. Hey, if you like the video, do me a favor,

hit the subscribe button, share the video, hit the bell so you get notified. Leave me a comment. We're going to leave all of Seth's links in the description box. So check them out. And I really appreciate you guys watching the video. See you. Hey, this is Matt Cox,

and I'm here with Seth Ferranti, and we're going to do a podcast on Seth Story. Seth was a, you know, I saw on Concord. what was it he said you were like the LSD kingpin or something or yeah so basically Zeth was arrested and did 20 you got 25 years yeah did 20 21 years in federal prison for selling LSD yeah LSD and cannabis okay so all right check it out so um somebody asked me earlier too and like the first question somebody asked me and I didn't even know like where were you born. Yeah, I was born in LaMore. LaMore is actually out in the desert. They call it the central

coast. It's between L.A. and San Diego. Okay. And you, I mean, I kind of know the story. So you grew up there and you said you started basically were just what? You start off just. Yeah, no, I was, I was a military brass. So I was actually born on like a Navy base. You know, it's out in the desert. That's where like they, like they train fighter pilots. Right. You know, so my dad was basically a fighter pilot. And, but he was the Navy. He used to fly off aircraft carriers. So we're in San Diego. We were in Virginia Beach.

We were in Germany. We were in London. But we always ended back up in California, usually, until he retired. And that's kind of where my problem started because I was like this California kid and I ended up in northern Virginia, like in this really kind of Lily White upper class area, like right out of Washington, D.C. When I was basically, you know, like a sophomore junior in high. school and being from california you know and at that age like you know everybody were going out partying and just the weed that they got they just got like garbage weed it was like all brick weed like brown shit and then uh like if they could get lSD or something like that it was just like

super expensive like 20 dollars a hit so um i mean i knew a lot of people you know i had a lot of friends that were getting into that stuff you know back in california so i started getting weed sent you know from northern california you know like like emerald triangle humboldt county bud and from from like san francisco i started getting lSD sent okay but you were how how i mean how old were you at that time when you were man i was i was i was young i was like 16 yeah so i was like 16 and at first i mean it was just for personal right you know what i'm saying so i would just get personal like you know five or six of us we would kind of put our money together and you know i'd get it's sin and I'd send the money and um but then eventually like you know if if if if you do drugs and a lot

of a lot of young kids you know kind of figure this out or at least the smarter young kids figure this out so when you're young and you're doing drugs you know and then finally you're like well fuck it if I can get it why should I pay for it right so that's like the first thing you're like do it for a while you're like well fuck it I don't want to pay for it and I want to make money right So, you know, this was, and it wasn't something that just happened overnight. So this was a gradual thing, like, you know, over my first probably nine to 12 months in northern Virginia, you know, where I've like, hey, man, I can make money off this shit, you know. And then, and then other stuff happened. Like, I started going on tour, like at 17.

I started going on Grateful Dead tour. And anybody that knows anything about the Grateful Dead tour, like in the late 80s, you know, like we're talking like 1988. right you know like what they call shakedown street or the lot i mean it was basically like an open-air drug market right so and and and like i say when i say open-air drug market i don't mean like cocaine heroin there was that stuff around but it's mostly like like i call you know like i'm a weed in psychedelics dude you know i was never into cocaine i was never into heroin speed you know i hate amphetamies i don't even like mdMA you know i've never been like a you know amphetamine type of guy so I was always into like the psychedelics, you know, in cannabis, you know, hash, mushrooms,

you know, even stuff like peyote, mescaline, you know, so that was kind of like where I leaned, you know, kind of on that side. So I would go to these dead shows. And the big thing about the dead shows, like, I mean, it's just this big lot and everybody's selling drugs. So I had two reasons I went to the dead shows. One reason is because I established a connect down in Kentucky that grew wheat and they grew weed and they grew pretty good weed, you know, compared to the brickweed from Texas that was

coming around. So I would take that weed. I would grab that weed for whatever 16, 1,800 a pound. And I would take that on Dead Tor and I would sell it for $200 ounce. And if it was good weed, like what they called kind bud. And when they say kind bud, they were referring to like the bud from Humboldt County, you know, the Emerald Triangle, which I could usually only get in the fall, you know, in harvest time. But that's what they wanted. They wanted that good sungrown organic. Because the brickweed was basically crap the brickweed yeah the brickweed was crap so you know that's what the deadheads wanted you know to go with that whole hippie vibe so i started going and i started selling bud on tour you know and i was making a you know considerable amount of money not doubling my money but you know i was usually

making like you know a thousand a thousand twelve hundred pound and i it was easier to get i got better lSD contacts on tour because you know i had some friends and they could get like some sheets here and there but they couldn't really you know they couldn't really like hit me on and I had to pay like, you know, I wasn't paying wholesale prices, like they were getting at basically like retail prices, you know, but still, you know, not like they were selling hits. You know, I was getting buying whole sheets from them, you know, so I was probably getting like paying like a dollar or $2 hit and selling it for $5 hit. But then I knew if I went on tour and I hooked up with the right people, I could basically get it for like 30, 40 cents a hit. You're not making it though. You're just, you just have a contact. Yeah, no, I never made it. So, you know, but um. Because. when I was locked up, I met one guy, like the whole time I was locked out, one guy that actually made LSD. I mean, because, you know, it's not like it's easy. It's not like growing, growing weed. It's like this guy. No, you got to be a chemist. Yeah. You got to be a chemist. So, you know, so, yeah, so what I know about the whole LSD trade is a lot of times at the shows,

they would fly in, they would fly in the liquid. So, you know, they would fly in like 25 grams, you know at a time but you know each each one of those grams makes 10,000 hits yeah you know to give you the number so pretty much every dead show and the dead used to crisscross the nation you know they used to play everywhere and they would play multiple nights so every show every town like let's say they played three nights in a philly you know from san francisco all that stuff is still basically made in that area you know all the chemists you know and a lot of times it's it's the same guys from the 60s you know maybe they have like uh you know they mentored other guys younger guys and brought other guys into the trade but you know it's like it's not it's not like a big group of people i mean

they keep it pretty you know secret because it's a lot to even like now should to even get the precursors and all the other stuff i mean they've outlawed a lot of that stuff so it's really hard to get the stuff to make it you know but i mean like i say one one gram is 10 000 hits so you don't need a lot yeah he was the guy was telling me like he they would get the sheets of paper and he the you know perforated sheets of paper and he was like it would you're literally just just putting it like a droplet on each. Yeah, the blotter paper. What what also they do is they actually dip it.

All the whole sheet. Yeah, so they dip it. So like what you got? Like one sheet of 100 hits is about this big. So that's like a sheet. And then they would have what you call like a page. So a page would be like 100 of those. All right.

Okay. Or 10 of those. So that would be like, you know, a thousand hits. Okay. You know 100. And then they had what you call a book would be 10 pages. and then you know that would be like 10,000 hits that's like a gram of LSD you know but it's all it's all the blotter paper you know it absorbs it and that's pretty much you

know I mean it's not a perfect science because some places might absorb more than others right you know I've talked to a lot of chemists so you know that's basically they've kind of explained a lot of stuff to me but yeah I've never done it but I know they would fly it in and you know then like when they get it there then they would go through the process of laying it on the sheets you know where there was they kind of dip it in it or whatever right you know and uh they all would also do a lot of liquid i remember going to the shows and this is kind of funny because whenever there were shows they would have a lot of the deadheads or the hippie kids would go to the local grocery

stores and they would buy all the boxes of the food coloring you know like the food coloring it comes in these like little boxes and there's like 10 or something or sometimes five right and those were like what they would use for the vials so they would get that food coloring and they would pour it all out, you know, and clean it out. And then they would fill that up because that one vial and that food coloring that was like 100, that was like 100 hits, you know, so they would sell vials too. Because some people would do like straight liquid. I even did, I did some liquid one time. So one time I was at some shows in Pittsburgh, like in 89. And, you know, I'd always been a big fan of Jimmy Hendricks. And I used to read how Jimmy Hendricks, he used to take

his bandana and he would just pour like a whole vial of acid on his bandana. And then he would wrapping around his head you know so it's not like he was taking a hundred hits but i mean he was absorbed yeah yeah he's still absorbing a lot of that so so one time at this show in pittsburgh was actually right after uh brett midland the keyboardist real popular keyboardist died he like oded on a speedball and um i was like man i was on this jimmy hendricks trip you know maybe i'd seen some documentary or something i don't know or read about it in rolling stone or something so i actually took and i poured three quarters of a bottle basically like 75 hits on a bandana and then I then I wrapped it around my head and this is like this is like before the show starts you know because back then it

was way different back then like you have like free rain in the whole stadium and it wasn't like all the security like they cordon off this area and you can go here with your tickets like back then dude like you gave your ticket you went in the stadium you go anywhere from the lot yeah you can even go back out to the lot you know because a lot's like you know shake down street so it's like a party and stuff like that. So this one time I did it, and I took all this fucking 75 hits, right? And we're waiting for the show to start,

and everybody used to go up to the top. So this is Three River Stadium in Pittsburgh. Everybody would go up to the top and smoke weed, you know, because you don't want to smoke weed. You didn't want to front out the security or whatever. So if you went up top, they didn't give a fuck. So we walked up, me and my buddy, he'd only take maybe like 25 hits.

He took the rest of the bottle, but he drank it, you know. So, you know, he took, like, really adjusted 20s. 25 hits you know i don't know how mine was 75 hits but it was in a bandana so it's not like i took 75 hits right but it was you know going into my skin so we walked up to go to the smoking section you know everybody's smoking weed and so we're up there you know everybody got their you know big ounces or quarter pounds we're rolling up fatties and we're smoking them and then like the show starts you know so like everybody goes back down to the field because then it would just be the whole field would just be like wide open everybody be dancing so me and my buddy though like the trip starts

you know kicking in right so we're like we're like looking at the steps you know you know like in a lot of the stadiums i mean it's it's kind of steep right you know so we're like you start tripping balls right so we don't go back down we're like oh no we're just gonna stay over here we're gonna smoke some more weed so it ended up we stayed up there and this is this is like i mean they used play they play two sets man so they play like you know like an hour and a half and then they come back play another hour and a half so this like three hours dude like we're up there like our friends keep coming up trying to hey man come down and we're like we're like look and we're like fuck no like a couple times we would try to lock down it's too steep right because we're tripping

fucking balls right so we couldn't walk down so eventually um like the show's over and like we stayed up there the whole time and eventually everybody leaves right and uh like the people are going around cleaning you know they're like looking at us like what the fuck are these dudes doing you know we're just up there like smoking weed tripping and uh so i don't even know it seemed forever but eventually like a dude one of the custodian guys comes to us you know and he was like yo man he's like they're about to lock the doors of the stadium like you need to go now right to get the fuck out of here there's like nobody there's just like trash everywhere people picking up shit so finally uh we actually like we crawled down you know like backwards you know on the steps

you know like crawled down backwards until we got to like the uh you know like one of the main floors, you know, then we could walk out. But yeah, that was crazy. That's the most acid I ever took at one time. And, like, I can only say, I remember it, but I mean, it was, I mean, I think I had a good time, even though, like, I missed a show and I was, like, scared to walk out. Because it was, like, a ledge, man. It was, like, crazy. I still, to this day, I have, like, vivid memories of trying, like, I'm telling you, probably in that however many hours, three to five hours, I probably attempted to walk down those steps, like 20 or 25 times, me and my buddy and I just I couldn't do it it was not happening until finally like and you know acid

lost a long time too so you know I was still tripping it was just like they were going to lock the door and I didn't want to get fucking you know locked in the fucking stadium um so so I mean how so at some point though like you started I mean you know you you've you kind of started selling more and more you're making money at it you're you know yeah really I kind of My business kind of exploded when everybody started going to college. So, you know, first I'm like a sophomore and then I'm getting more into it when I'm a junior. And, you know, like I say, I'm selling to the sophomores and I'm selling to the seniors. You know, and I was kind of like that guy.

I was kind of like that dude. Like, if you wanted weed, if you wanted LSD, I was like the dude. And I don't care. I would sell like 10 sheets. I would sell multiple sheets. I would sell like five or 10 hits. You know, because I was like, whatever. It was all money to me.

plus i always felt you know i always felt like i was filling the need you know because i felt like people wanted good cleaned drugs you know and i always felt like you know weed and lSD you know and and mushrooms and stuff like that i always felt they were good drugs i didn't feel like they were bad drugs you know i didn't carry gun i didn't have a criminal organization you know what i go around beat people up you know a lot of times people pay cash a lot of people times people fronted i front of stuff to people. A lot of times people that I fronted stuff to were my friends and they fucked up the money and I still didn't do. I was like, well, whatever, I can make more money. That was always kind of like my attitude. So, um, you were saying you didn't, you don't really feel

like it should be illegal anyway. I mean, it's like, yeah, that was, yeah, I always tell, I tell people to this day, this is my big thing, right? I was never a criminal, right? I broke laws that I thought were wrong. Right. You know, I was an outlaw. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, like I say, to me, there's a difference, you know? I mean, in prison, you got criminals and you got outlaws, you know, and maybe to the government and law enforcement, it's all the same because, you know, we're breaking the laws of society. But, I mean, there's a difference.

Anybody, I mean, you know, you've been in prison, man. There's a difference. You know, a lot of times a criminal is going to do whatever he can. You know, a criminal, like, fuck you over for a dollar. Right. You know, where like an outlaw has, like, morals. Some kind of COVID that he's trying to live by. Yeah.

So, you know, there's a big difference. But, yeah, so I probably really exploded, like, probably like around 89, you know, when I was a senior. So a lot of my friends had went off to colleges, you know, and were, like, freshmen. And so I went to Robinson, and Robinson was a big school in Fairfax County. So Robinson was probably like 4,000 people. And then we had a sister school that was like not even five miles away called Lake Braddock. And Lake Braddock would have like 4,000 kids. And so, you know, for two years, you know, going on three years, I'd been selling, you know, drugs, you know, LSD and weed to all these people in these schools, you know, going all the park.

And, you know, like I say, everybody smoked weed back then. It didn't matter, you know, if you were a jock, you know, if you were a stoner, you know, if you, like, we call them truckers, like the dudes with the big four by fours. You know, if you, you know, some Virginia, you got like the more country dudes, you know, so didn't, you know, the cheerleaders, you know, the popular kids, everybody smoked weed. Everybody did LSD. Everybody did mushrooms. You know, some of them did Coke, but, you know, I didn't really fuck with those people. That wasn't really my scene. So when these people started going colleges, like, and these are all good kids from good families, you know, not necessarily like super rich.

You know, some more rich than others, but all upper middle class. You know, like all these kids, like they got a Mustang or like a hand-me-down Beamer or Mercedes when they were 16. Right. You know, and, you know, so when they all went off, they went to all these colleges, you know, like Penn State, you know, University of Maryland, you know, Kentucky University, UK, you know, West Virginia University, you know, all the way like Virginia Tech, you know, Radford, you know, VCU, you know, all the Virginia schools. So I just had like all these friends that went to all these different colleges. and all within, you know, pretty much neighboring states to Virginia. So when they all, they still need drugs. Yeah, so they're going.

And, I mean, you want to go because, like, when you're a senior, you want to go to the colleges anyhow because you want to party, you know, check out the girls and see what college is like. Because, I mean, that's what it's about in the suburbs, you know. You go to school and then, you know, you go to college and it's like a party. So, like, they're calling me up there, you know, and I'm going and they want me to bring drugs. They're like, hey, dude, what can you bring?

Whatever. They're like, I need this for. for me and like my whole frat everybody needs shit so I started going and it just like turned in it was like just this little kind of local thing you know where I was kind of like you know a retail dude but not really a big wholesale I did maybe a little wholesale but that was like real small part of my market it was mostly retail right you know hand-to-hand stuff and it just turned into where you know I remember the first time I went to Radford right I went to Radford in the beginning the semester, so late August 1990. And Radford is like kind of like the sister school to Virginia

Tech. Radford used to be like an all-girl school, but then, you know, then they changed it so guys could come. And Virginia Tech is like right there too. So it's these two, you know, Virginia Tech is a really huge school, but Radford's a pretty big school. So like August 1990, I go to, I go to Radford and I had just picked up some bud that they just harvested in Kentucky. And back then, like sometimes like in the summer like it would get dry man like you couldn't find any weed and if you did find weed it would be like brown you know garbage brick weed with seeds so i was always known for getting the good bud from like kentucky or northern california so this time i brought i brought like a ton of uh not a ton but probably like 20 pounds you know just harvested fresh you know good

green bud and um i actually go i go to my dude's house right and my dude has a house and it's it's kind like a little duplex apartment thing so like he has a house right here and then his buddy has a house right here and so i bring bud and he's like man he's like man nobody has bud he's like everybody wants bud i'm like well fucking call him dude i'm like we're we're here so we break out the fucking triple beam right and first i'm like in his room and like people are coming but you know it was like so many fucking people like it was like crazy so what we ended up doing is we ended up going to his friend's apartment, which was like kind of connecting you to cross away. And we had that door and we put like a table in front of the door like we're a fucking vendor. And me and this other dude,

you know, my road partner, we're basically weighing stuff out. And there was like a line. So there was like a line all through this walkway and all through my friend's house because they would come in my friend's house, the front door and then, you know, come out in this side door and we'd go and it was like a line dude. And we like literally quartered, oust up weed for probably like, like three hours straight you know and I would like literally like sitting at the table throwing fucking money in the back like I don't even know how much money I don't even know how much weed I'm selling but you know at the end I mean we still had some left I probably had about five or six pounds left but I literally probably sold 14 15 pounds in three hours all for like quarters and ounces

and I just have like this big duffel bag of money you know and that that was just like that's like what it was back then and I did that and once I did that first I was like I was like like man I was like I can make a lot of money doing this you know that was my first thought but second I was like man I got to find a better fucking process because this is like some bullshit because it's you know I mean back then it was marijuana you know the war on drugs and all that shit I was like man this is like this is like too open you know so what I did among the people I knew at the different colleges you know because I had some situations that other colleges like that you know that was the most extreme situation right that's

why I'm telling the story but you know I had different situations like that scene though Yeah. So I just started finding dudes like some of my friends, you know, like the smartest, most trustworthy or on point friends. And I would just go to them and I say, look, dude, check this out. I'm going to come in. I'm going to drop you like 20 sheets of acid. I'm going to drop you like five pounds of bud. And then, you know, you can do all the hand-to-hand sales. And, you know, this is how much you owe me. And then I'll come back and get it. So I did that at all these different colleges. So I started doing this loop, you know, where I would go down. down. I would go down 81 in Virginia and hit all the Virginia colleges. Then I'll come back through Kentucky. I would go to eastern, eastern Kentucky. And then I would go up to UK. Then I would come back to West Virginia, West Virginia University, which West Virginia University in Morgantown was like my hugest market, man. That place at that time in the late 80s, like West Virginia, like in Playboy magazine, like West Virginia University was always like in the top five party colleges you know like like it was just fucking crazy it was just known right you know what i'm saying

they always had like a big football program you know they were always kind of big in football but uh they were just known it was known as like a super party college so um and i had i had my buddies were in the delta tal delta fraternity and they had this big fucking huge old dilapidated mansion like on frat row and they just used to have these big ass fucking parties so they used to have these uh they used to have this party it was called the uh and it was called like the it was called like the the backyard not the backyard brawl but it was called like the backyard something i can't think of the the second name but so it was called like the the backyard brawl or back or something whatever that's it backyard bash you got the word so it was called the backyard bash so they would

have this party and there would be like literally 5 000 kids and they would always have right in the beginning of the semester and there would literally be 5 000 kids like going through this old dilapidated mansion and then they have like this big you know backyard and parking spot and they would get like reggae bands and stuff like that and so i would go to there and you know at first like it would be like i would be selling hand to hand eventually i got one of my dues to do everything but uh like their parties were so big that eventually uh west virginia university like told them they couldn't have the backyard bash anymore they were like you guys that party's outlawed you can't have it so like you know what these dudes did right because these are like some little you know

little smart you know also entitled rich kids they were like okay so they called it the act yard ash you bring the bees okay so they just changed the name like that and still had the same fucking party you know they were basically like fuck the university but um that's what i did i cultivated these relationships i kind of made from friends of mine there were drug users you know partiers into drug dealers and um so you know how you're just the distributor yeah so this started like 89 so then by the time, like 91, when I'm really rolling, I'm basically supplying like 15 colleges in five states with weed and LSD.

Okay. That's a full-time job. No, definitely. Like I see it this time, too, like I didn't work a job because that was my job, but I actually went to college a couple times, just like, you know, the local community college, but it was always like, I even,

I came down to Florida, dude, I came down to Florida in 89 in the fall of 89. And I was enrolled at, what's it called the, USF. Okay. I was enrolled. Yeah, I was enrolled in USF, right, in the fall of 89. But, I mean, it didn't last because I was like, I was just drawn. You know, I was drawn to like the dead shows.

I was drawn to the dead scene. You know, I was drawn to the, you know, just like to me, because to me, Because to me being that drug dealer, it was like being a rock star. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And it wasn't even the money. It was a lifestyle. And not to say, I mean.

No, you're the guy calling in shots. Everybody's like, hey, they need something from you. And you're, they treat you with respect. And, you know, yeah, I mean, I know. And then, too, it's like just the chicks, dude. Because like, like, I would have like, I had like multiple girlfriends just like at colleges. I would have like different chicks.

Like I would, like if they were in the dorms, I would move them out, getting an apartment just so I had like a safe place to lay my head and I would pay like their apartments. So like I said, I was making a lot of money for a teenager. Right. I mean, I always tell people like I was making like 20, 20, 30,000 a month. Like not generating like I was making profit. I mean, generating. I was probably, you know, generating like, you know, a couple hundred thousand a month. Right. You know, but I was literally making, you know, 25, 30 grand a month. I mean, 20 grand, 30 grand a month is a lot of money for a grown adult. Raising a family. that's a ton of money for a kid and this was like this was like you know 8 99 90 but really I always tell people too because you know I sold drugs so so probably from like whatever 16 to I got busted at 20 so four years but it was really only like nine months where I was at that height so it was that last nine months like 90 you know into when I caught my case you know the fall of 91 so you know because because before

like everything i'll explain this is when i'm like putting everything together you know i'm getting all my my sources and my contact straight you know i got it eventually like i didn't even have to go on tour to get the acid because i developed where they would just they would send me they would send me like a hundred sheets 10 000 hits and i was basically getting like 100 000 hits a month you know sent to me and then for the weed you know i would get in the fall to about january i would get weed sent from you know, San Francisco from like Northern California, you know, Emerald Triangle Bud. And I would drive down to Kentucky myself and get their bud, you know, which was that they grew domestically, which was pretty good. It wasn't as good as a humble bud, but, you know, it was close. And then the rest of

the year from January until like August, I would basically get the brick pot, the Mexican brick pot. And I even, dude, I used to get a lot of weed out of Fort Myers. I would drive down to Fort Myers, Florida. You know, I used to go to Dallas, Texas. I'd fly to Dallas, Texas, but I would drive down to Fort Myers, Florida, and I would get weed from actually, it was like Kentucky dudes that were getting the weed down here. Like, so they'd grow the weed, you know, all year in the fall. And then in the winter, you know, sometimes they would come down here, you know,

to kind of keep the business going. So I'd go down to Fort Myers. And I wasn't picking up a lot, man. And, you know, I pick up like whatever, 50 pounds, 100 pounds, a brick pot, which when it's all compressed like that, you know, it's not that much. And also what I was doing was, uh, I was flying down to Dallas and I would, I would bring money and I would get like 50 pounds or something, 40, 50 pounds. And I would actually pack it in a suitcase and I would check it. And I would, and I would fly back with it, you know, like I was, I was doing that like when I was 17. So that was crazy because back then, you know, back then you didn't, you could go right to the airport, right? And you could say like, you could buy a ticket. You could say like, my name is Joe Smith. right and you could pay them cash for a one-way ticket you know what i go no no no red flags no

nothing and i go down with it like i had this green big green 1970s samson night uh you know suitcase you know huge huge right like you know this big and i fly down i check it it it was empty you know what i'm saying and i go down and i literally sit at my buddies down there because i had some buddies that went to university of texas of arlington so i and they had developed some mexican contacts down there so i would literally go down there sit and wait on the mexican dudes you know until until they have their shit ready i dealt with this one dude named mexican eddy and um i would literally get the weed buy it pack it back in the suitcase you know i'd wrap it and stuff like that and then i would check it check it in my luggage i'd go back buy a one-way ticket cash this time i might be

chris smith right and go to uh you know dallas or uh you know dc national airport and go pick it up off the carousel so you know i didn't do that a lot but i i probably did that probably like i don't know 15 times over the years you know but mostly i was i was a smuggler you know i was driver i was a driver that's what i would did because i knew i figured it out at a very early age if you buy a product or you know drug like weed or or lsd in one point you know and brought it to another point i you know that's how you made money yeah yeah Yeah, you could leave that on the table. You're not to, it's not a big deal.

I mean, this is pretty casual. I'm just like, you know, I'm a director, so I'm like, I'm like, you know, get everything out of the fucking shot. I was thinking, the Fort Myers thing, I wrote a story about these two guys that ran basically, like, it was one of the largest bust in that area from the DEA. I think they got called with like 1,200 pounds or something. It's just like, you know, and to just get to get caught with 1,200 pounds, God only knows what, you know, if that's just the one thing they caught you with. Yeah, that's just the one shipment that you know.

But that was Fort Myers. Fort Myers is a big, you know, it's big for marijuana, for bringing in marijuana. Plus, what was the other guy's name that we did? Cowboy. The, the, the, the, saltwater cowboy. Yeah, he, but he was. Oh, Tim McBride. Yeah, yeah, Tim McBride.

He's off. Yeah, he was in the Keys. He was in the Keys. Oh, that dude was a huge fucking marijuana smuggler. Yeah, he's a, he's, boy, he's an interesting character, too. See, that's, that's why I always look, like, I'm not saying for a teenager, I was a big drug dealer for a teenager, but like, when I really look at it, like, after, after doing all that time in the feds and stuff like that, like I look at it, I mean, I was a small, I was a small timer, you know what I'm saying? I mean, you know, for a kid, yeah, I mean, and who knows if I didn't get busting, maybe I would have got bigger, you know, you never know. but you know once I got in the feds and even like dude like like Tim like I mean those

dudes were just right I mean they're bringing in fucking tons so yeah I mean we got an organization or crew that's bringing in tons I mean really what I was doing I mean I'm like a minnow you know right yeah but it's it's hard to you know it's you know you get in front of the judge you could you know they make oh they don't go fuck they act like I was fucking John got here Pablo Escobaro the fucking suburbs the fucking feds every every fucking new cases public enemy number one absolutely i always love that that these guys are get in front of the judge and they make them sound like just the most dangerous criminal in in the world and then they send them to a low yeah or they send them to a camp yeah if i'm so dangerous how did you how did i go directly to a camp

no it's fucking it's fucking crazy man that's that's our criminal justice system man it's it's it's they got all their priorities wrong but um so yeah what what's sorry yeah definitely um like i said i i i like nine months where I was rolling where like like I was like I mean I was probably the man but you know like I was really feeling myself like I thought I was a man you know where it was where like I had built everything up over a couple years and you know even too like as a kid you know I mean teenagers I mean you second guess yourself you know you're insecure you know so I was doing this for several years and you know maybe I still didn't feel how I wanted to feel and then like dude I have like that nine, that last nine months before I got busted. Like I was on top of the world. Like I could

literally, I felt like do anything I wanted. I had enough money. You know, one time right before I got busted, dude, like I went to Hawaii. I just went to Hawaii for two fucking months, dude. I was like, man, fuck it. You know, I was like, I'm going to get the fuck out of here. So I put a couple dudes, you know, that actually, they ended up on my case and they ended up telling on me. But I put them, I said, okay, you're in charge of the weed. You're in charge of the LSD. I'm just going to go to fucking, you know, just fucking stack my money. I'm going to go to Hawaii for fucking two months

and just chill out. You know, but yeah, and then like I say, I had a bunch of different girlfriends. But I was always the type of dude too. Usually, like, I would have like runs with girls. You know, I would have like six to, like I would always have a main girl

while I had like a six to nine month run with her and she'd be like my girl, even though I might have had, you know, other girls that I just saw every now and then, you know, but that was kind of like, you know, there's some 80 stuff. I don't know.

Maybe people would look down on that today. I don't. It's a more sensitive world today. So what was the, like, what was the catalyst that brought it all down? Yeah, so basically, I mean, looking back, I mean, at the time, I thought it was like a real bright idea, but looking back, it was probably pretty stupid. So, you know, the summer, 91, usually, like, in the summer, it would get dry. There's no weed, right? So before I took that trip to Hawaii, you know, in the spring of 91, you know, I set shit up because I was always gearing up for the fall because with the fall was where I could really make money.

So I needed to like get my money up for the fall. So when they harvested in Northern California and Kentucky so I could buy up a lot of bud because you want to buy up in the harvests, you want to buy up of the butt early. Like you want to buy when the farmers are hurt like late August, September, you know, because you can get shit for cheaper. Right. You know what I'm saying? And then by like October, November, by January. So it's like the weed you can get for 1,600 in September by January that we might be like 3,000. Right.

You know, so that was always my thing because, you know, I was trying to maximize my profits. So I had this bright idea in the spring of 91 when all my friends were going to be home from school. You know, because school was over. I was like, you know what? I was like, I'm going to fucking sell as much acid as I can. can this summer so I can get my money for the fall you know and plus like I say that nine months I was making money but I was probably spending money recklessly because when you got money coming in that young you know like water I mean it was just going out the door like water I didn't give a fuck

I was just like fucking spend money on anything I didn't give a fuck I was I was really I was dumb I was a type of kid and I'm sure you know you might have known kids like this but I was a kid that I would buy like some expensive polo t-shirts or whatever and I would wear that shit one time And I would give it away. Because I was like, I only wear new shirts. That was like my thing. Like I only wear new shirts. I don't wear a fucking old shirt.

I don't wash my shit. You know, like I'm saying. So, you know, I mean, I had some shit that I probably wash. You know, keep it real, whatever. But, you know, that was like my thing. You know, I'm not going to front. Like, every fucking shirt I had was like brand new. But that was like one of my things.

And also another one of my things was sneakers, man. I was a fucking sneaker head. You know, so the Air Jordan's has started coming out. probably like 85 86 so you know about like you're talking like 9091 there's like a fucking shitload of air jordan's at a shit load you know everybody else jumped on the sneakers so like like i literally have like hundreds and hundreds of pairs of fucking high tops yeah that sounds like bozzi he he he had he he had like a storage unit filled with two 300 pairs of uh of sneakers it was just like he had a wall like in his room that was just sneakers i was like are you wearing all

the sneakers he's like no i never wear him i just had him i just like to go buy him yeah he's Yeah, he said, he said, he said, he, I just like, I just like to spend the money, dude. To me, it was like just going to spend it. And I always, I always have this thing like, just spinning cash, dude, I just love to spend cash, you know, because everybody else is like credit cards. I just used to, like, dude, like literally. And, and not like I'm spending over $10,000 or because he still had that $10,000 thing back then. But, you know, I just used to love to go to, like, stores or go to the mall and just fucking drop like five or six grand. You know, and I would buy mostly myself, but sometimes it might be girls. I might bring some guys in my crew. I'd buy them shit, too. And I would just go on these fucking whatever, whatever I had of five, six, seven, eight. And I would just fucking drop that shit in the fucking mall in a day. But so I'm, I'm fucking, you know, doing all, went off on a tangent again. But, you know, yeah, so, you know, I'm trying to get my money up because I was fucking spinning reckless, like how I just described. And so I just had this fucking awesome idea. I'm like, fuck.

Because I knew it's going to be dry. I knew there's going to be no weed. I'm like, you know what? I'm like, I'm just going to fucking pump out as much fucking acid as I can in the summer 91 and I'm going to make as much money as I can. So I got my money stacked for the fall so I can fucking make a killing because I know the falls is when I'm really going to make the killing. Every fall, that's when I made a lot of money.

So all my friends are back from the colleges. So they don't have the whole college to sell to. It's just all my fucking high school friends from these two high schools, Robinson and Lake Braddock. And so, dude, so literally acid is going for like $5, $6 a hit. I flooded the areas with so much fucking acid. Like usually I would do like, you know, 10,000 hits a month, but that's like all the colleges. So now I'm fucking, I'm going to get like 150 sheets. I'm going to get like 15,000, 20,000 hits.

And I'm going to flood it all. All my people are in Fairfax County. You know, there's no colleges. So I actually, the price of acid that summer went from like $5, $6 a hit down to like $1 to $2 a hit because I flooded it so much, you know, like, you know. I mean, looking back, I was a fucking dumbass, you know, cut my own throat, but whatever. You know, at the time I thought I was fucking brilliant. I was like, yeah.

So not only did I flood the area, but it was just, I mean, there's fucking acid. There's just, everybody's just tripping all fucking summer. and eventually what happened is there was this kid I mean I never met the kid but he was like a little 15 year old kid he was at this big field party in clifton you know clifton was like the kind of rich real ritzie area in fairfax county where they have like the million dollar houses and they would have like these big you know five six acre lots so the kids that live there when their parents you know just like when any parents would you know go on vacation you know they would throw parties except they would throw like these big field parties you you know and people people would be like stages for bands or they might bring like fucking uh skateboard ramps and all types of shit so it'd be like this fucking crazy fucking scene and so there was this big party but eventually like all parties out in the suburbs you know eventually the cops are called so um this one kid was tripping balls on acid and the cops came and somehow he was running through the woods naked and um like a cop was chasing him you know and the cop like tackled him and for some reason this kid grabbed the cops you know service revolver and uh you know luckily only shot him in the arm right you know so i mean whatever flesh wound but you know i'm sure it was painful whatever i don't know if he hit the bone i don't know all the exact details but i know he shot him in the arm and um so once this happened you know and then that kid like you know whatever

he said yeah he was blamed it on the acid of course told him where he got the acid from and um But she could have been drunk And the same fucking thing Would have happened And who knows I always say look If it's in you It's in you

The drug is not gonna bring it out Right Just like in prison Like you know When they talk about Do homosexual shit If it's in you It was in you

Before you know In multiple ways It was in you It was just When it's just when I'm in prison Bro So But

So this This happens And actually the dude That sold him The acid Actually, I knew him personally because at one time I had sold, he went to Lake Braddock. I had sold to him, you know, for probably like, you know, my first two years. But by this time, like, there's like seven people between me and him.

Because, you know, he was a cool dude, but he was like this metal dude. He actually ended up on my cakes. But, you know, he was this metal dude. And I just thought, like, the way he sold drugs, he would just sell to anybody. You know, so I didn't, you know, so there was like seven people separated, you know, between me and him. But it was still all my shit. so um this kid said he got it from this guy his name was dave the metal guy and um yeah and they started an investigation man and um really it was like you know this this is how law enforcement

in this country reacts too like if you do something to law enforcement like you if you shoot a cop or something like they go hard man they don't fuck around like you know they're like man you know like you touched one of ours you know they're like a gang like any fucking gang or the mafia you know you you know just like the criminals you touch one of theirs they're going to go hard the fucking cops go harder than everybody so um they basically had like a witch hunt that summer man it was like an LSD witch hunt because the domino's start just pop pop pop pop pop yeah they were trying to find yeah like where the fuck is this shit coming from and also like everybody knew my name everybody knew Seth right because you know now Seth is more common because you got like Seth Rogan or you

know Seth McFarlane so there's like some famous people named Seth but back then like dude like 91 like nobody was fucking named Seth right you know what saying so like my name stuck out so everybody you know everybody's Seth so they keep hearing Seth Seth Seth they don't know my last name or anything but they everybody's hearing Seth so because I was kind of like this uh whatever this infamous you know uh you know myth you know if you want to say legend or whatever you know I was just a dude that supplied all the fucking drugs to all these colleges so you know a lot of people knew who I was I'm sure Colby will use a legend in the clickbait title he'll come out with.

It'll be legend. Yeah. You know, a lot of people. The infamous legend. Yeah. You know, but it's underground. You know, underground legends. Yeah, yeah.

I'm not mainstream or celebrity or nothing. You know, I've always been more notorious and infamous. So they start hearing my name, and then they got this guy, Dave Crago, you know, so, like, during their investigation. So he ends up actually. setting up another friend of mine this guy named Chris that was actually getting shit right from me you know he set him up in a you know a deal with like a DEA like a NARC and um then it was like that was like the state case and then they pulled me into the state case right like they tried to set up a deal like the cop got a certain amount like 10 sheets but he wanted 20 more and

he wouldn't give the money, you know, until he got these other sheets. And like the dude, Dave, I mean, whatever. I mean, he was an informant, but I mean, he was basically a pussy dude. And then the other dude, Chris, I mean, he was like, you know, a lot of the dudes, I mean, they're just like, I was always a dude. Like, if there was a problem, like, I was a dude that they would call. Right. You know what I'm saying? Because whatever, I'm not to say, I'm not a tough guy, but, you know, I'll fight.

I don't know, whatever, you know. But these are all middle class, soft white kids. Yeah. Yeah. So basically, like, it's not even my deal, but they call me to come handle it because the dude's Chris. He's like, man, I got this problem, whatever. So I fucking roll down there with like a couple other dudes. And I don't even know. It's a fucking sting. It's like a sting that they set for Chris Miller. They didn't even set the sting for me. But fucking Chris fucking calls me and I get drawn into the fucking sting. So boom. And then they're like, oh, we got fucking Seth.

Right. You know, like who. Yeah, they were trying to get to you. But they had no idea. It was like a flupe thing. You know, and like I say, still, I didn't give anybody any drugs and I didn't take any money. That doesn't matter. You know, yeah, because that's at the time, though, I thought I was, I was like, you know, so look, so it's state. So I get arrested on state. And so they take me back to the station and fucking like the DE agents there.

And they're like, blah. I'm like, man, I don't got nothing to say to you, man. I'm like, man, fuck you. Talk to my lawyer. And they're like, your lawyer's going to want to suck our dick. you don't know how much trouble you're in blah blah blah you know we know everything's coming from you blah blah blah and then then another fucked up thing happened because uh i had this one kid was holding like 120 sheets for me and so they found about out about him through chris and um so

then they go right and they get that right and then i'm like oh fuck so then they got all my fucking product too so now because before they have like they had like 10 sheets right you know it would have been a state then they go and sees you these guys give them the information they go and get another 120 she's now so now they got like 130 fucking she so now they're fucking it was like the biggest LSD bus in Fairfax County ever right you know so uh yeah and so then it's state you know whatever I get my parents bail me out and um the feds come in at that time yeah the fed so this is like this is like early July and um you know I hire people don't realize that you know like the the the the state will grab you for something and then sometimes they don't have enough to prosecute you

so they'll give it to the feds because the feds have even a lower bar as far as prosaicity law right and then even even then you can sit there and think oh they don't have anything they never they don't have me on tape they don't have me on this they don't have me on that they don't have any product that i got so they got nothing except because that's what that's what i was thinking right but what ends up happening and the feds is it doesn't matter it's just what people say right they'll put four people on the stand that say they bought from you and you're done it's over you're like they got no money they got no tapes they got nothing on me they happen to have four guys that say i did it boom you're looking at 30 years yeah because so i was thinking at that time because i was even like

i was like boom i didn't i didn't sell any cop anything right i didn't take any money from any cop you know i got hooked into the sting or whatever and i got arrested but i didn't sell anybody anything and then even the other 120 sheets it was i mean it was mine but it was at somebody else's house. Right. You were watching too much law and order. You know what I'm saying? So I was like, man, I'm like, I'm good. So, uh, you know, I hire a state lawyer, you know, whatever,

paid him with like, I paying him like 10 grand cash, drug money. And he even, the stupid lawyer even asked me, you know, his name was, uh, Michael Rieger. And, uh, he was like, I hope this is not drug money. I was like, what the fuck? I was like, dude, I'm like, I'm like, fucking 20. I just gave you 10 grand cash, dude.

And you're like, I hope this is a drug. And I was arrested for the, biggest LSD bus in fucking Fairfax County. That's my part time. I've been saving that on my part time job just to give to you. I just came out. I'm like, boom, here 10 grand, dude. Like I walked right into his office. It was in an envelope and he was like

I mean, it was just like so comical these dudes like to save their ass like the shit. They'll say, I'm like yeah, dude, where do you think it's from, man? You know, like I didn't even lie to the dude. I didn't even try to lie. I'm just looked at I'm like, come on, dude. Are you serious? So so I got the state case.

But, like, they're investigating the whole time. So, like, as soon as I get the state case, dude, it's like, it's like nobody wants to talk to me because the fucking DEA is going around talking to everybody. So it's like, so I got, until I got, you know, the federal case, it's about maybe like a month and a half, dude. And it was, like, crazy because, like, I don't know who I can talk to it. And, like, also, I have, like, a load of weed at this time. I'm trying to fucking move. I'm trying to get more money, right?

I had, I didn't have that much, but I probably. about 40 pounds you know what i'm saying so i'm like fuck dude because like it's like every other day it's like because i could tell like i'm calling people what is it some dudes owe me money and like dudes are just like dodging me like they don't want to talk to me and because you know back then i i knew anyhow like when somebody gets busted it's like they're hot yeah yeah they're so nobody wants to fuck with them but see so it was that but at the same time it was the investigation behind the scenes in the DEA so i don't know who's given information who's not given information you know they're like going to the chicks they're going like people's girlfriends they're going like my

girlfriends they're going to fucking everybody the feds don't fuck around and they're going to all these little fucking rich kids and they're threatening like give information on seth or you're going to jail for 10 to life so you know like I say yeah I for a long time I had I had a big thing when I was first locked up where I was like oh fuck snitches all this but you know whatever I mean what did I expect them to do it was my fault for putting those people in that position you know that's how I look at it right but uh that's actually how I look at it actually When I hit the halfway house, I actually called like five of my co-defendants that all cooperated against me and apologized for putting them in a position where they had to. I said, because the truth is, I was smarter than that.

And I knew better than to put you in that position. And, you know, the idea that they were going to hold up was insane. That's comical. I mean, they got the fucking, the fucking mafioso killers. They don't even fucking hold it. The whole thing, like I'm not saying, I know some super thorough dudes that I was in prison with. and I know some super thorough dudes that, like, you know, we're in Pelican Bay

and walk like level four yards and, like, still to this day, they're like fucking... Yeah, snitches and fuck them guys. And they would never... But I always tell them, I'm like, dude, if you're in the life, if you're in the life,

or you're in prison, and you want to hold those values and that attitude, cool. But, dude, if you're like, you're trying to live a normal life, you know, and like, and there's still some of my buddies that are like, I can walk in the U.S.

I'm like, okay, dude, whatever. Is that going to help you out here? I was going to say, don't commit crimes. And, you know, yeah, then you get to do 30 years. Fuck that. No, I see, I see, like, my whole mindset, you know, life is about change. Life is about evolving. So I see, you know, I put people in bad positions and whatever they did, what they were going to do anyhow.

So, you know. But, yeah, so I'm having, like, this month and a half thing where, like, in my lawyer, he's like, oh, it's going federal. So we got to hire a federal lawyer. So then I had to get, like, five more grand of people. this federal lawyer five only five grand that first at first okay okay so just that that was like just the retainer so uh paid him cash he didn't even ask me if was drug money he just took it you know he just took it he was like just happy i guess to get it so um yeah so then this fucking shit goes federal right and i'm just like fuck man so then i got to go through the whole

fucking arrest process get bailed out all that fucking shit again and um and still of this time I'm not really sure like what I'm really looking at because I'm not really I'm not like up on the mandatory minimums you know what I'm saying I'm not up on the federal sentencing guidelines you don't have any idea like are you thinking three years

five years are you what do you hear I mean you're hearing yeah I'm thinking maybe like I'm thinking like maybe three to five years even the fucking federal lawyer I hired right he's telling me he's like oh you're a good kid from a good family he's like still you know he has that 80s mentality right you know like he's thinking and like before they changed the laws

and like 88 or whenever they went in effect 88 or 89 so he's like oh maybe you might get like 8 to 10 years at the most and so but even I was like man fuck that I was like I'm not doing 8 to 10 years and you know so like I said

I basically I had I had some product I had money that I was trying to collect you know I had the weed that I was selling you know while all this shit is going on you know even though I have to be careful who I'm selling it with you know I'm trying to fuck with people that you know the DEA doesn't know about or that they haven't talked to or whatever because you know I did fuck with a lot

of different people so um I'm getting my money up and so then uh basically I come up with this plan you know like my escape plan because I'm like I'm like because basically like my my lawyers tell me they're like they're like you know eventually you know once they start talking to prosecutors you know they're like you're looking at 20 to life I'm like 20 to life I'm like 20 to life. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, are you serious? 20 to life? I was, like, flabbergasted.

And then they were like, whoa, you know, you might get like, you could probably get like, whatever, like four to six years, you know, if you, you know, bus bring some of your contacts here, you know, like they wanted me to, they wanted me to bring some people from San Francisco, like some of my deadhead friends,

you know, they want me to bring it in and I'm like big buys. Yeah. Yeah, so they wanted me to set them up. And I was like, I was like, man, I don't know about that So that was like how they presented my choices They were like, oh, you can do 20 to life Yeah, or you can fucking can bust these motherfuckers cooperate

Yeah And get less time And I was like Or you can go to trial, lose And definitely get life Yeah, but I was even like I was even fucked up like You want me to cooperate and I'm still going to get time

Yeah I was like what are you fucking Like I mean I thought when people cooperate Like they get off Like they don't even go to prison so they were like no it's not like that whatever so um i formed this other plan right i was like man you know because i was on a bill i was like man i'm gonna take the fuck off you know what i'm saying i'm like i'm gonna fucking get the fuck out of here fuck these motherfuckers right and like i say

i had some money so um you know i was always a big sports fan right and you know back then it was all newspapers so like we get the washington post every day so when you get the Washington Post, you know, and you go, like, I would go right to the sports section, but the section right before the sports section is the metro section. And so I remember, like, you know, over the last couple of years of my teenage years, I would see like headlines, like in the metro section, like, you know, so-and-so, this person, like, commit suicide at, you know, Great Falls, you know, jumping into the Potomac River. So that kind of always stuck in my mind for some reason. So I was thinking, I was like, man, I was like, how can I just like disappear,

it makes Seth Ferranti disappear so there's like no Seth Fronte there's like no case so I came up with this I devised this plan I'm like I'm gonna fake my suicide on the banks of the Potomac at Great Falls National Park I'm gonna make it seem like I jump in the river and the area where I was gonna jump in where everybody committed suicide it's known as like Class 5 rapids you know because the water's like crazy and there's rocks so you know they got like professional kayakers go there but you know only like the the super most craziest professional ones so I was like man I'm I'm going to stage my suicide in this area. I'm going to jump.

Everybody's go-to move. Yeah. I'm like, I'm going to jump in the fucking water. So I came up with all this fucking big plan. And then two, because I had another problem, you know, because, you know what? My parents had put their house up for a bail, right?

So then I talked to the lawyers, right? So I told the lawyers, you know, because I was like, I didn't bring it up, but I was like, you know, I started pursuing the cooperation thing. I was like, well, what happens if I say I'm going to cooperate? They're like, well, you plead guilty? And then they're going to release you on a personal reconnaissance bond. They released a lien against your parents' house, and it's no longer the collateral.

And I was like, once they said that, I already had this suicide plan, but, you know, I didn't want to, I didn't have enough money to cover, you know, because I don't know, it was like, I think they put up 75 grand or something. So I didn't have enough money to cover that for my parents. So I didn't even want to fuck my parents, right? So then the lawyers, you know, when I asked them about the cooperation and they told me about this, I was about. Like they said PR, I was like, PR bond. I was like, what the fuck does that mean? Right. And they were like, well, you know, they're going to release you on your own recognizance.

I'm like, all I got to do is like, tell him I'm going to plead guilty and I'm going to cooperate. Right. And they were like, yeah. So I was like, okay. I was like, set it up. Right. So I fucking signed the paperwork. They fucking went to the courthouse, pled guilty.

They fucking cut me loose. And then they told me like, I'm going to have to do these fucking debriefings. Right. Right. But I was already planning. I already had everything planned. like I'm I was fucking gone yeah you know what I'm saying so I went and they did like all this fucking transpired like from the time I signed the paperwork till when I fled I mean it was only

fucking like a couple days right and uh so I took the fuck off right I fake my suicide I took off you know I got rid of the rest of the weed I had and I took off to California and um like for real dude like I thought I mean because I just went I was like on a nine month high like where I was on top of the world and then like everything fucking crashed so then i was like fucked up and then like i came up with this plan and i executed it and then i was i was like on top of the world i was like man i was like i'm that fucking dude like fuck these motherfuckers right like you know i felt like i got my fucking swagger back or whatever because like when they when i got busted and all i should like dude my fucking moxie my swag was just like gone i was

like at the lowest point but you you'd also thought that you pulled off the the faking the suicide right because didn't you that wasn't there something in the newspaper or something about you committing suicide and yeah so you thought you you thought it was a lock yeah so so so i go to l.a a flight of l.a and i'm actually i'm staying on uh point magoo military base so i know this girl her dad's like the exo this uh girl named nancy so she was like an old girlfriend so i went out there and i'm staying on the base and uh you know point magoo's a little bit up from la but i was having her down to LA every day because you know back then they had like the big newsstands you know like on every corner with like all the newspapers from different places and all the magazines you know you don't

see that as much today sometimes in the big cities but not really with all the newspapers from the different cities so I was going to get the Washington Post like every couple days I would go to the Washington Post so the first time I went and I saw it said uh you know Fairfax LSD Kingpin commit suicide and I fucking saw I was like fuck yeah I got these motherfuckers because I was thinking like boom now seven years like Seth know Seth Ferranti my parents can have me

declared legally dead in seven years right you know what I'm saying nobody's found or whatever they don't know what the fuck is up my body you know I figure my body was gonna float out to the fucking Atlantic Ocean you know so I keep going back and I'm fucking like I'm on top of the world again

I'm like yeah I'm the fucking smartest motherfucking outlaw I can outsmart the fucking feds these motherfuckers can't fuck with me and I'm like 22 so I'm like fucking You know, you know, when you're 20, it's all like that false bravado. You think you're living in a movie or something. Yeah, dude, like I was. I was like, you know, catch me if you can wasn't even out then.

But, you know, I thought I was catch me if you can, you know. But, you know, I just didn't know the name of the title of the movie. But I thought I was that dude. So I keep going down and I'm reading the papers. You know, a couple of my code offense are going to trial. You know, everybody else pleads guilty. You know, out of everybody, like two dudes ended up going to trial. everybody else like six other dudes ended up pleading guilty so i'm reading all this in the papers

and then it was like probably like two weeks after i go back down and um like i'm still on my fucking high dude and i get the fucking paper and i open up to the metro section dude and i was just fucking crushed because it said uh it was like fucking prosecutors declare uh ls Fairfax County LSD Kings penned suicide a hoax and I saw the headline I was like what like all my planning everything dude I was like what the fuck I'm not dead so I start reading the article right and it's like they said the the US park rangers you know drag the river for two weeks and they didn't find a body and um I was like reading it more and then like it went on to say like you know you know where you know I allegedly went in you know there's like a a dance

like after that so I mean I was like fuck dude it wouldn't have been washed out to see it would have been stuck in this one area and they would have found the body I like seriously fucked up man I fucking staged I staged my suicide it's a good two weeks yeah so I staged the suicide on the wrong side of the dam so that's

I mean so look I thought it was smart as fuck and I mean really in a way you think I mean I did I was real innovative and I came up with this fucking crazy idea and I almost pulled it off just that one little fucking in detail, man. Next time. Next time, you know. So that's how, yeah, so that's how that whole shit transpires. So then, uh, then they made me for some ungodly reason these fucking, and I know

why. Now, I learned later at the time, I had no fucking clue. So I learned later, because when I was in prison, I did all these freedom information action, you know, on all my case and everything. Yeah. You know, because I was a, you know, I was a megalomaniac researcher like that. So you might know about stuff like that. Me too. I see. So, uh, So what I pieced together after the fact, so what happened was there was this dude name Henry Hudson. He was like the assistant prosecutor, like the, you know, not the assistant pro. Yeah, he was assistant U.S. attorney named Henry Hudson, like on my case at the time in the Eastern District of Virginia. So all of a sudden, right after my case, this dude transfers to the Eastern District.

district U.S. Marshal's office. And he's the head of the U.S. Marshal's office. And so I guess like, you know, he felt like I put a black mark on his record or, you know, like I made them look bad or I outsmarted them. Was he, he was your AUSA? He was your, he wasn't the prosecutor on my case. My prosecuting my case was his chick named Christine. Right. He was like the, he was like the assistant U.S. attorney. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. Sorry, never mind. Yeah. So she was underneath him and your case was underneath his caseload. So this dude, he goes from second in charge of the U.S. Attorney's Office to number one guy in the U.S. Marshals in the Eastern District of

Virginia. And this dude makes me top 15 U.S. Marshalsless, I guess, out of revenge factor, or he's pissed off, or I'm the black mark on his record and he has higher aspirations, you know? So, yeah, so, I mean, I had no clue. So for two years, like I'm prancing around the fucking U.S. Like eventually I started selling weed and not LSD, but I started running weed from Dallas, Texas, up to St. Louis. And I'm just like carrying on, you know, war on drugs.

I'm still a drug dealer. Like, you know, really in retrospect, when I look at it, I was really, really, really stupid. I mean, I'm trying to fucking be the biggest drug dealer I can as a fugitive at the height of the war on drugs. So, you know, but I mean, retrospect age, you get some clarity. So, you know, at the time, you know, I got blinders on whatever. I thought I was a cool guy. So this dude, so I'm actually U.S. Marshals, fucking top 15 most wanted for fucking whole two years.

I'm a fugitive. I have no fucking clue because even when I was a fugitive, like I would watch all the shows. I watched like America's Most Wanted. You're like, I'm doing research. Dude, I'm like a researcher. That's what I do. You know, like when I do something, like I research it, right? So I'm watching America's Most Wanted.

I'm watching fucking like unsolved mystery. I'm watching all that shit because I'm figuring out like how do they catch these motherfuckers and so a lot of times like I'm seeing shit like the nightstock

or Richard Ramirez it's taking like three months to match up his prints yeah so you know I'm like fuck dude like I'm low profile I don't have any murders

I never even beat nobody up you know what I'm saying I'm like it's gonna take them forever to match up my prints because I'm you know I feel like I'm not a high priority

but you know lo and behold I had no fucking idea that I'm fucking a federal U.S. Marshal's top 15 Most Wanted fucking fugitive. So, and like I say,

this dude Henry Hudson, he did the paperwork, you know, because later on when I got caught, you know, one of the U.S. marshals told me like he's looking at my jacket, you know, and he's looking at me, and I look like, when I got caught,

I looked like a little college kid, and he's like, who did you piss off? All right. You know what I'm saying? Because there's like, anybody else on the top 15 most wanted list is like violent, has guns, whatever.

Yeah, they're dangerous fugitives and you're selling a product you can't even OD on. I'm selling fucking hippie drugs. Right. So whatever. So, you know, but I came to find out this all later.

So, you know, by that whole time, really, when I'm a fugitive, I was selling weed. I was running weed. Eventually, like in L.A., my money ran out and that girl got sick of me

living at her parents' house. So, you know, I had to fucking roll out. So, you know, she didn't want to, her parents didn't know I was a fugitive but she knew so after about six months she was kind of like dude you got to like the novelty's worn off she's like yeah it was cool seeing you again and having some sex and shit but now you got to bounce motherfucker because there's no this relationship's not lasting there's no future you're a fucking fugitive fucking drug dealer

you know what I'm saying at the height of the war on drugs she's like she saw no future but you're gonna have my kids when I go to prison I don't know but uh so uh yeah I I kind of, she told me kick rocks. I go to Dallas, Texas. I hook up with Mexican Eddie. Right. You know my fucking brick pot dealer. You got fake IDs and stuff right now.

I got tons of fake ideas. I mean, that's a whole other story. That would take another half hour to tell about the fake IDs. But I got a whole fucking bunch of fake IDs that I got through researching through books. I learned how to do it. And I meet some guys and they're from St. Louis, you know, and I'm selling drugs. You know, weed in Texas at Harrigan's restaurants, these other restaurants. these other restaurants and one of the guys one time he goes to st louis so i'm like can you sell some

weed and so i go up i take 20 pounds and like over that next year to 18 months i make like i have like my my second little fucking marijuana empire and um then eventually uh i get arrested for like a quarter pound of weed with the same guy who took me up there but it was in his truck so he claims it he actually was selling weed for me but it was my weed you guys got pulled over or something? No, we were in the back of a Burger King parking lot. Oh, that's right.

Yeah, the Burger King parking lot had just got robbed like two weeks before. I just dropped off like three pounds. We were just waiting for the money and smoking a joint. Cops fall up. Dumb luck.

And I didn't even know he had the quarter pound on the truck. But, you know, he did the right thing. He claimed it. He said it was his, but they still arrested me and took me in a match my prints. You know, released me.

Then I came back and bailed him out, got his car out of the impound. You know, I got my money for the three pounds. And, yeah, but then in three days they match up my fucking prints. so then the fucking the fucking Midwest fucking fugitive task forces looking for me they go to his house first because they got his real name he starts driving him around st louis to all the people i fucking sell we to and then eventually they found some dude that i just fucking loaded up

threat to give him 10 years to life and he brought him right to my hotel boom extradited back to virginia since since to uh 25 years 3004 months did you you didn't I mean you You just pled guilty to 25 years? I'd already pled. I had already pled. I pled before I left. That's right. Yeah, I pled because I pled to the 20 to life and told them I would cooperate.

Because you were never going to be there for the sentencing. Because I was going to be dead. Right, right. But I wasn't dead. My whole plan backfired. So then when I came, they held me to that plea. And they fucking, and obviously they didn't give me any credit for any cooperation. And they enhanced me five years for 60 months for,

taking off of you know obstetricist of justice and failure to appear right so 25 years yeah did you do a 2255 did you do anything i did everything oh okay you went through the whole process of trying to lost everything yeah you know back dude back the end of the 90s you couldn't get you couldn't get any play for anything only if you went to trial you could have went to a play so i would say that to any of your listeners really I mean you got two choices when you get busted man either fucking cooperate fucking fully and fucking get as little time as you can if you're not going to do that go to trial man that's that's only way you're going to retain your rights so you know like I'm saying you know don't try to do anything halfway don't try to outsmart the

motherfuckers like I did you're just going to get fucked yeah um 25 years bro what the fuck and then i i heard on the uh on the other podcast where you're talking about the you were talking about um you know being uh the the different prisons and uh you know the whole thing and uh and uh you mentioned coleman and uh whitey bulger yeah yeah yeah yeah like i was in the medium there yeah at uh coleman i used to write whitey bolter yeah you told me you told me that um dude he has the most awful handwriting yeah you can barely read his writing dude you can barely read his writing Dude, it's like... He was also like 100.

How was he like 70 or something? You got like a fucking magnifying glass, dude. I'd send him the Rolling Stone article about my case. It came out in 97 when I was in when I was in FCI Beckley. And he wrote me a whole fucking letter on the Rolling Stone, my Rolling Stone article. Like I still got that. I don't know.

I think I might put it up on eBay one day. I was going to say that any letters from him would be worth something. Let's see if somebody give me like, I'll start the bidding at 10,000. All right. So we're going to do another podcast about just about what you're doing now because when you went to prison, you start writing and that's, you know, and although I mean, although the true crime story is cool, you know, to me, I mean, that's like, like you're at a spot now in your career where I'd love to be in a few years from now, you know. Yeah. The whole, the whole prison, I mean, it was a lot of time I had to do, but whatever, I got three college degrees. I got a master's degree. I started writing books. And every day in prison, my thing was, what can I do? today for when I get out. So, I mean, everything I've done, it's, it was all planned, dude. I mean, I'm very methodical. You know how I do stuff. I do everything one step at a time. You know,

I research out. I'm not trying to jump from one to 10. You know, I don't mind taking the steps. I'm very methodical. So prison, even though I had to do 21 years, I was very methodical in that 21 years. And I did everything that I needed to do to put me in the position where I am now. You know, I started writing true crime stories when I was in prison. I didn't write any fiction stories like i've heard your your how you started writing it's like some of the gangster guys stories and and uh and some uh some were what fiction kind of fiction started that way no everything was pretty much non-fiction my first book prison stories was true but i wrote it as fiction because you know i didn't want to be like a snitch in prison right and they're everybody so

they're always so worried about oh what if i tell you something that i could get well then let's not talk about that it will change the names but so yeah i i started doing that what i was say it was the same thing. I've heard your interview before. So it's basically like, look, I'm in prison. And when I was in prison, I saw all the other guys. They're learning to play an instrument. They're taking horticulture classes or they're playing softball. And it's like you're spending 10 years of your life or 15 years and you're an amazing handball player. But when you, but you came in with no education you've only sold drugs you know you're an amazing handball player when you get out but you're in your 50s now the fuck are you going to do when you get out of prison none of and the guys

that were taking horticulture are only concerned about taking it because they plan on buying burning a bunch of houses and growing marijuana and the guys that are taking the stuff as far as like um i forget what they called that class where it was basically about how to run a restaurant so highest failure rate out there get a restaurant so what you want to do is you want to put a guy who has no money in a situation where he could open a restaurant and fail or real estate or real estate or something it's like you don't have any speed of no way to do this so my point is to me I thought what can I do in here and the one you can't really work but the one thing they they will let you do is they will let you write they will let you publish books they will let you write stories

you can write for magazines and you can make money that way you can't run a business but they can't stop you from doing that's the one thing they will let you do and there were so many Amazing stories. I would hear guys tell stories. I heard for years. I'd listen to stories and I think, how is that not a movie? How is no one written your story? And they can't write their own stories because you don't see yourself the way you really are. No. So that's when I came in. I wrote my own story and then I started writing other guys stories. And you know, I figured someday I'll get out of prison. I'll have all these stories and I'll try and get them turned into documentaries or movies. IP. IP. I started collecting IP. And so but you, you know, but you're. way ahead of where I am, I just like to be where you're at at some point in the future. That's my, like my goal. That's like, that's my dream. That's what I laid in bed at night in my bunk and thought, well, if I get out, I could do this, and I get to this, and I do it. And I had a whole building block in my head, you know, plan. You got to, well, that's how you do it. You got to manifest it. You got to talk about it. You got to put it out there. You got to make it reality.

I'm a firm believer in, you know, like moving forward, positivity and just saying what I'm to do and then doing it right you know i'm i'm a firm believer in that like i don't like even in prison prison is a very negative place right and when i first started running you know even the guards other prisoners they'd be like you know you can't do that they'd always told me like i can't do this and like i would read the policy and i'd be like man i can do this yeah you know so and so even out here i'm like i will not i cannot stand negativity anybody that is like negative or like second guess is me what i'm trying to do and like i say sometimes like you know you know know i'm doing these documentaries now you know i got white boy on netflix and you know some people

that might be like the pinnacle but to me it's just it's just like like another ladder on the rung you know i tell i want to be the quentin the next quentin tarentino i want to do you know scripted you know fiction fictional like drug you know crime movies you know sometimes maybe based on a real event but you know like dude like i want to do like a hundred million dollar budget movies right you know like i'm not fucking around like i'm already looking right now i'm already looking right now from do this documentary stuff i'm looking to jump to like the three to five million dollar indie flick and then you know then i'm looking to jump to like a 20 million you know 50 60 and then you know i want to do like a fucking marvel movie right i want to do the purple man i don't know if you

know who the purple man is he's this criminal character he's like in a lot of spider man comic books but he's like he wears like a gangster suit and he's all purple and he has like these uh i don't even know how to say it. It's like, is it called fur, fur gnomes or something? So it's like he can emit from his body. Ferramones. Ferramones. Ferramones. He can permit, he can emit those from his body and make you do what he says. So that's like his superpower. But he's like a villain. I had an ex-girlfriend like that. Yeah. A lot, I think a lot of women are like that, especially on men. But so, but he's like a super villain. So I want to do like the Purple Man movie. you know i also want to do uh i want to remake the princess bride right oh nice nice i love the you guys

don't even know the princess i want to remake the princess bride with like with with with good cg i know like a tokenistic version of the princess bride but keep the humor and the sweetness and then uh another movie i want to remake i want to remake uh you know harder they come you know the the classic or harder they fall the classic jamaica movie okay yeah so it's like from 1971 you know it's about you know Jimmy Cliffs in it so he's about like a up-and-coming reggae you know dance hall guy but like he's involved in crime so I want to remake that just like think how they remade Scarface right so I want to remake you know that old Jamaican movie except you know set it in like you know the hip-hop era you

know and have a guy who's like he's trying to be a rapper but he's involved in crime and he ends up you know going to jail for being a crime like a lot of the stories we, you know, heard about in federal prison. But, um, yeah, my whole thing, man, where I started writing, because I kind of looked at it. I started taking college classes and I was like. When you were in prison. Yeah, yeah, when I was in prison. Which is difficult, by the way. Like everybody thinks that, oh, yeah, they offer this. Listen, man, you basically, you're doing everything yourself. They might have some person who's supposed to help you, but they're half-assed about it. So it's basically all on you. And plus, when I first went in, they had the Pell Grants, right?

But in 96, they abolished a Pell Grant. So they didn't even fund the college courses. So my parents paid for all my college courses. I did all my shit correspondence. So I got the A degree from Penn State. I got the BA from University of Iowa. And actually, that was one of my best moves when I got on that program because University of Iowa is, like, famous for this writing program. You know, you got to go there.

You know, it's like on campus. But a lot of the instructors that I was doing correspondence courses, through were the instructors from that famous writing course you know doing like extra work for extra money right and so I had the benefit of these instructors and I was taking all writing heavy because in there you can go like a business administrative route or you can go like a humanities route you know and if you go like a humanities liberal arts it's like a lot of writing creative writing journalism you know reading a lot of books and writing papers and um

eventually I got my master's degree I got my master's degree from University of California so but during that whole time that that's how i learned to write you know so it's not like i just started putting pin to paper whatever i like took college courses you know and i learned to write i already was creative you know i was kind of creative you know my whole life you know i used to write poetry playing bands all that shit like that you know i'm saying creating all these worlds and shit it's so funny like they don't know they don't know what that means yeah so uh-huh Legend Master is. Dungeons and Dragons. That was like the, oh, no, wow. Listen, there's so many things,

there's so many things that I'll say to somebody in my age, and I'll always look over at Colway and Colby's just like, he has no clue what I'm talking about. That's the 80s shit. The 80s was a wonderful time, but pre-internet was, I think it was a better world, really. But, you know, so the whole time I'm getting these degrees, I'm writing. So first I started writing, my first big success was actually writing prison basketball. So, you know, because like, Like in there, dude, there's like these dudes. They're like phenomenal basketball players, dude. And like how you're talking about.

Like, they spend all this time. They spend like 10, 15 years just playing basketball. But, you know, I mean, they can never be professional because when they get out, they're going to be too old. But like in there, dude, like these dudes are phenomenal basketball players. So I started writing about this one guy named Ron Jordan. He was from Harlem. He had like that Rucker Park game, dude.

And this dude was built like a linebacker, right? He was maybe like 6-1, like 240, right? but this dude could like slam dunk he had like all the handles he like embarrassed dudes they they call him ron jordan the abuser because he used to like abuse people he would like do all the stuff like fake somebody out act like he's going to the basket and with the easy lay out but he would pull it back to let the dude guard him again you know because it was just like the the man-on-man like macho shit dude this dude and he could dunk and he could shoot threes this dude was scoring like 60 points a game and everybody used to come out the gym to see him so that was like my first

big success i started writing about this dude and the other prison basketball players and um yeah i was writing for this website called hoop site you know which now they're they're like on i don't know they're like uh i think USA today or something bottom so they're like this big but that time they were just like this little uh kind of hip hop basketball website and then i started writing for slam which is kind of like a hip hop basketball magazine and then from there i started doing the more gangster stories i started right for don diva and feds which are like they call like they call like like, you know, the street, the street Bibles. Yeah, they wouldn't even let, they wouldn't even let those in.

Like, those are like the most popular magazines in prison, man. Guys would get them sent in. They'd have the, they started putting, alternate covers. Yeah, new covers. Yeah. Fake covers. Like, you get one of those magazines in prison, like, like, dude, the line is like 200 long. Everybody wants to read it, you know.

So I started writing for them, Don Deva, feds. And really, I formed a journalism. career in prison because that was like the only thing I could do I was like what the fuck can I do I was like I can write you know so um and they really my biggest break came um this is probably like early 2000s I just started writing really like around 99 so uh you know at first I was just writing like in the prison like I was doing prison sports newsletters like that they post on the boards and stuff I was doing that I did that for six years while I was taking the college classes so then I started doing the don diva stuff and the prison

in basketball and then there was this editor of vice named jesse pearson so this was like when vice was just basically a magazine they had a website but they weren't a huge like they are today so this is like early 2000s you know so they're like this kind of low rent gq you know they have this big thing it's like dues and don'ts where they do like the fashion like dress like this and they make fun of people they take pictures so he had he was a big fan of my work from don diva so he reached out to me you know I started writing dude they were paying me like dude they were paying me like $500

a month right to write a column I wrote a column like 1200 words called I'm busted and it was in every magazine for like fucking two or three years $500 like I was living like a king on $500 a month $500 in prisons a lot of fucking money dude I was like everybody thought I was like a millionaire you know what I'm saying and so that was like my first big break

because I started writing for that and then I kept writing for vices Because they kept growing it. I was like their prison guy. You know, I'll do like their prison. And then I got more into true crime. Then I started doing stuff for penthouse. I started doing stuff for the fix, war on drug stuff.

And how the whole white boy thing came about is, you know, I started writing him around 2005 because I started doing my street legend stuff. Like I had all this material from Don Deva. And Don Deva could only, it's a magazine, so they could only fit like so much. And I had all this extra material. And I like all the dudes, they kept coming back to me. They're like, dude, what about this picture or what about this? you want to use some of the stuff so eventually you know like they were upset with me because

everything was not in the magazine that they gave me you know so eventually i came up with my street legend series i've published prison stories 2005 street legends 2008 so at the same time um i reach out to white boy rick because i'm in fci i gilmer and beckley beckley fcii gilmer in west virginia and there's all these detroit dudes so i'm hearing about this dude white boy rick hold on you know who white boy rick is okay you guys saw the the movie yeah yeah seen a bus in Australia and stuff. Yeah. All right.

So I start writing him because I want to put him in like my street legends book. Yeah. Right? And basically my street legends books are just like all these African American drug lores that are part of, you know, the lyrical lore of hip hop. Right. You know, and gangster rap. I kind of, I just kind of romanticize and glorify it. And I make them into these Billy the kid, you know, Jesse James type figures.

Because, you know, I was writing, I was writing for my peers in prison. And also, I was a white guy writing. about African-American dudes like in prison like you know that doesn't happen I mean you've been a prison that's not like that's not like something normal you know and and the only reason I even have the juice to do that is because you know I had the long sentence I'd been in a little bit and you know the longer year and the more stripes you get yeah you know so by the time I do this you know I'm like in 10 years so you know I got I got a lot of stripes and I played sports I was I was a sports fanatic I'm like really athletic I would be like the only white dude like

out there playing ball with all the black dudes like like i was like the dude like you know you go to the yard like you go to the yard at lunch i'm playing ball you go to the yard and recall i'm playing ball yeah you know i play like three hours straight i didn't give a fuck that was like how i did my time yeah i i actually sat at a table in the library with five guys that were writing or five black guys that were all writing um urban novels i was only one writing true crime but and i was the white guy at the room or at the table because i was the guy that you know as racist as this is going to sound it was it was basically you don't have google what you've got as a white guy so they'd say you know how do you say that hey cox it was always hey cox hey cox and i'd be like no it's this it's

that are you sure yeah i'm sure okay this yeah so i mean i was you know to sit at that table everybody thought i was like a you know like you must be a cool guy to be sitting at the table with all those guys because the white white guys and black guys very seldomly mix in prison you were just google yeah i was google yeah i had a i had a purpose you were like that smart guy from the 80s that Google fucking made obsolete. Yeah, exactly. In prison, only in prison. Yeah, but in prison, you still need that guy.

That guy who knows everything. Out here, I'm semi-smart, but in prison, fucking super genius in prison because the IQ is so low. But anyway. No, that's what I tell people too, right? Because look, like, since I've been out, like, dude, I've been to Cairns, man, I go to Sundance. And I'm around like, dude, these people, they went to Harvard and Columbia. And, dude, they just speak. And I'm like, I just want to be around them.

so I can learn to speak better because they're like so eloquent and they use all these fucking big words and like I feel like a brute around them right but like in prison I'm like you said I'm like the super genius in fucking prison and then I get out around all these fucking talented writers

and filmmakers and people that went to all these Ivy League schools and come from all this money and I just I feel like a fucking brute dude yeah I'm telling you it's fucking crazy this is like my my biggest fucking delimit today you know because a lot of people that are like oh no you're eloquent you

could talk, and I'm like, no, I don't talk like that. I'm a fucking, I talk like a brute. I talk like an educated brute. Yeah. Among my friends on the outside, I'm like a, I'm practically a thug around these guys. And to me, it's like, as far as like masculinity, like I always say like I'm, I'm like a four or five on the masculinity. One to, one to 10. Oh, yeah, there's some tough dudes in prison.

They got tough motherfuckers. Oh, in prison, I'm like a one, maybe a zero. I might as well be wearing a dress when I'm in prison. Now, here I'm a five. Prison, I'm a zero, practically. I'm this far from being a fucking punk in prison. I mean, that's how they look at you. You're a soft white guy.

You're harmless. But yeah, it's funny how just everything changes out here. Yeah. So, you know, so white boy Rick, I started writing him, right? And like, I want to tell his story, right? But I want to like romance, romanticize it. And I want to make it gangster. You know, I want to glorify it because that's what I'm doing in my street legend series.

And that's, I'm hearing these, all this stuff about him. I'm like, who is this white kid that was running all these, you know, black organized crime in Detroit when he was like 16 or 17. And I kind of identify him with him too, you know, because we were both young white dudes. We both got a lot of time. You know, we were both involved in stuff as a teenager. So, you know, there's a lot of similarities. You know, so I'm writing him and we start writing. And he starts telling me like this totally opposite story.

You know how like he was in a foreman and, you know, the police prostituted him and buried him. And I didn't really get it at first because I'm like, I'm like, man, I don't, I don't, I'm not writing about informants. like my my base is like the other prisoners you know now I'm in like medium security prisons like these dudes ain't got to fucking if I write some shit they're going to be like you're writing about snitch you know or whatever so it took me a couple years to kind of get my head around his story and and how to write it and like I say it took me to get older and it took my writing to evolve and it probably took me going to a low yeah where you know they don't carry it like the same you know because I did 12 years in the mediums and then I did nine years in

the low so it was like this kind of evolution in my writing where, you know, I went from writing this hardcore death before dishonor shit to, you know, more about the injustices of the drug war. Because I started seeing the bigger picture more, you know, as I got older and I started writing more. And like I say, also going to the low gave me more room to explore this stuff with not being considered this or be considered that. So, um, yeah, 2012, I wrote this story about his case for the fix, dude. and like the shit fucking went viral dude like it was my first experience of having the prison basketball shit was pretty popular but like this shit like fucking went super fucking viral on the fix

this is a like drug war fucking site right and um just brought a ton of tension to me you know and um the whole time i was already thinking you know because i was writing books uh you know from 2005 till i got in 2015 i wrote eight books and um then when i got out i took two of those books and I divided it up, the chapters, you know, and put 12 out, like, digital books, you know, to make it like 20, even though it's, like, from the same material. And then I had a couple more, so I think I got, like, 24 books out right now. But once I started doing the books, you know,

and I was kind of doing the journalism, and I was like, man, really, I want to do movies. I want to do visual stuff, you know. But it was just kind of, you know, learn it in. Like when I took my master's degree, I took, like, a lot of film-type courses, you know, at least reading the books as much as I could. in there and I did have a couple like they would let me send in some DVDs you know so I could watch different shit but uh really like everything I was doing man was basically for gearing up you know

so you know I even like dude I read a whole bunch of books like like books on like shots like explains all the different shots like in narratives and stuff like that and you know I just went crazy so I was like you know reading because in there that's all you got time to do is read you know what I'm saying so it's like you might as well educate yourself I don't think I don't think I've read five books since I've been out in six years, but, you know, um, yeah, so I kind of hit the ground run and, and, um, you know, I did more pieces on White Boy Rick Story for like Vice News and Vice and some other places. So, um, but still when I first got out, though, I was just a journalist. I was working as a journalist. And then I met the dude

Sean Wreck, the director of White Boy. And he had transition studios. He had just done this movie a murder in the park and was on Showtime. And I actually interviewed him for that, for that for Vice. right and he found out about my backstory and we started talking and at first we were going to do like this prison expoise like on on on how all these sub industries are built around the prisons right you know like like keefy coffee and all the hotels and how it's all kind of interconnected you know with the the dude like the senator brings the prisons there and it's all his friends the businessmen who form all the businesses around the prison so we were looking at something like that and then we were talking and I showed them some it was like right when they announced like the white boy

Rick movie with Matthew McConaughey and I had shown them some of my articles I go did you hear about this and he's like yeah I heard they're going to do that movie and I'm like you know I know this dude I'm like check out here's these articles you know I wrote like four or five articles about and he's like what he's like he's from Cleveland so he's like yeah I heard about this dude no he's like our age so he's like I heard about this dude man and uh then he was like man he was like you got access to him and I was like yeah he's like I'm looking to do my next doc man let's do this you know so it was just like lucky i made the right relationship at the right time when he was looking for something you know and there was a hype because of the white boy

rick movie so it made him interested and um for that he actually he had actually you know told me like he came with a couple different proposals like you know let's do it like this let's do it like this you know trying to lessen you know maybe kind of my role or just kind of you know by the idea or whatever and i and i told him you know i knew how to tell a story but i didn't really know how to make a film. So I told him, I said, look, man, I said, you know, I want, I want to be by your side. You know, I want you, you know, whatever. If you can give me something at the end, whatever, but you don't got to pay me nothing now. I say, I want to, you know, keep by, I want you to mentor me. Also, I asked him that because this dude had cut his teeth doing like crime stoppers.

He did like 200 crime stoppers shows. You saw all the networks. Yeah. And he had won like nine regional Emmys in Ohio for all his work on these 200 shows. So I knew dude was something special. I knew he knew what he was doing because when i walked in his office he had nine fucking emmies yeah so uh yeah man so i made the deal with him i said look dude i'm i'm gonna get you everything you need for this film i'm gonna get you all the access i'm gonna get you all the the people you need to make this film and i go i just want you to uh you know involve me in the process man and and he was very fucking cool about it so like a lot of times we would do the interviews and i would be there sometimes i might watch the camera sometimes not but always at the end of the interview when he was

done, he would give me five minutes in the director's chair. So, you know, actually white boy, so I got a writer credit and a producer credit on that. And Sean Wreck, an Emmy Winnie director, trained me how to be a director, you know, mentored me over that like, you know, nine to 12 months that we did the shooting. You know, and then I worked with his editor, you know, and him as we edited it, you know, over like the next nine to 12 months. So that was like, uh, you know, So really, I mean, Sean Rick, I mean, he taught me a lot. And then also like Rick, man, Rick's still my real good friend to this day. You know, Rick, there was a lot of interest in Rick.

He had the Hollywood movie, man. Rick didn't have to, you know, give us our blessing or participate in that, in that white boy documentary. He did that because of our relationship because I told him because I said, look, dude, I said, I want to make films. I said, this dude got the money to make this film. And I go, first off, you know, our first goal was to get him out. Yeah. you know and he had got this other guy out from a murder in the park right so that was kind of like his track record but that was like the first thing but i said i told rick i said the second thing is

i want to make films motherfucker i said do this for me because you know he was kind of first he was like oh who's this guy and his his representation where oh we don't know about this guy he only made this one of film who the fuck is he but i told i said look i believe in this dude i've seen his you know team he can do it you know and i go this is my entrance into the film world and what I want to do. And so, like, I will always be indebted, you know, to Rick, especially, you know, for giving me that opportunity by giving his blessing to that. But also, you know, to Sean Rick for teaching me everything that he taught me. And it's on, it's on Netflix right now. Is it playing on Netflix? Yeah, it's on Netflix. So it was on, was it on before Discovery and then

Netflix or stars. It was on stars for 18 months. And now Netflix. Yeah, they went on Netflix. And it was crazy because when it first came out, it first came out probably like, you know, almost three years ago and um when it first came out i knew it was a good film right but this is like pre pandemic this is like uh pre black lives matters exploding all over the uh you know world internationally you know this is pre a lot of things and i think when at first i thought like everything that's happening now was going to happen when it first came out man because i was like man this film is awesome man sean wreck and his team you know i contributed to it but you know i'll give credit where credit is due i mean that was sean wreck and his editor you know i was

probably like the third most important person on that or maybe the fourth but uh you know i knew it was a good film i knew it was powerful and it did it helped to get rick out you know not that it got rick out by itself but it helped but um i thought everything that's happening now was going to happen then but i think because the world the way the world was you know people you know they didn't believe it or you know there was too many rabbit holes or they didn't believe in the level of corruption that we were showing and exposing you know and plus i think everybody was still kind of in the rat race of America you know capitalism trying to make money so um you know so it had like a you know 18 month run on stars and you know it didn't really get a lot of recognition or turn a lot of heads

and then you know then like we signed the Netflix deal and um it went on Netflix like right at the pandemic you know like last April and I think it might have something to do with like the Tiger King effect maybe but it man it went on Netflix dude and it just fucking exploded it was like it was brand fucking new man so the first two weeks it was on netflix it's like top 10 on netflix not top 10 documentaries like top 10 movies series everything for two weeks straight right new york times did like a little fucking write up on it and uh then you know like like i say then like they said like in april may like it had 20 million fucking views right so it's crazy because that just for me it put a lot of wind in my sales because i had a bunch of different

and stuff I wanted to do that I'm working on now, but I didn't really have the money. Right. But it just kind of blew me up. And I always look at it, like, I look at it like sports. Like, all right, New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. Everybody knows Tom Brady's a man, but all those other free agents on that team are getting big contracts.

Yeah. So, like, I was part of something that has been extremely successful, you know, on Netflix and that a ton, and it's, it's like recognition, the recognition value, dude. Like, you could talk to anybody. You know, most people, they know fucking white boy Rick, and they know fucking white boy on Netflix. You know, it gives that recognition, like that name value where I do like, I could just meet somebody on the plane and be like, oh, yeah, I did white boy on Netflix. And it would be like, you know, they know it. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so now, dude, I got a ton of shit, man. I'm doing a,

I'm doing a cannabis documentary, the cannabis docu series on Humboldt County called Tangle Roots that I just, I just premiered the teaser at the Emerald Cup, which is like the World Series of Cannabis. Just last weekend, you know, I got on stage and got to talk about it. I had all the farmers with me. I'm doing an LSD docucus series that I'm going to premiere the first episode of it in San Francisco on Bicycle Day. You know, that's like when Albert Hoffman, that's like when Albert Hoffman first synthesized LSD and took it and discovered LSD. They call it Bicycle Day on April 19th. All right. So I'm doing it at this thing in San Francisco.

And then I also got this other docu series I'm working on about the Mafia and Heroin called Doatman. and so I'm making arrangements you know I've kind of come up with this plan because all this stuff I do it's it's kind of niche it's kind of true crime um it's really hard to get in the film festivals you know I've been going to all the big film festival I've been to Cairns I've been to Sundance you know I've been talking to all these people and um I'm kind of seeing like these target uh market audiences like the Emerald Cup or like an LSD specific event or like a mafia specific event right is these are almost like like I think I can use these like my Sundance, you know, because I mean, you know, maybe I could get in Sundance, maybe not. But, you know, Sundance is only once a year and all my stuff's going to be finished up, you know, like in the next six to eight months. So I'm looking for ways, like, how can I create the hype, you know, and the press and make enough noise, you know, to make the streamers notice. Yeah, I got white boy on Netflix, but it's not like I got a direct cook up to Netflix, you know. So you still got to, you got to make the noise.

That's why they have the film festivals because, you know, they write about these things. and that brings the attention of the Amazon's, the Hulus, the Netflix. And really, in today's game, it's not about going to the theater. It's not about going to DVD. It's about getting on these streamers, man. That's how you're going to make your money back. And that's how you're going to keep working. And really, like anything in life with film, it's about you got to keep working, man.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So you got to give this stuff because, I mean, that shit's expensive. We spend, like, White Boy, it costs like $250,000 to make. You know, and like some of these docu-series that I'm doing, now, you know, that are like 180, 225 minutes. I mean, these are like, I mean, we're spending like, you know, $500,000, $750,000 to complete these projects.