Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Building A Podcast In The Worlds Most Dangerous City | Wide Awake Podcast

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Building A Podcast In The Worlds Most Dangerous City | Wide Awake Podcast

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. And get a free Tilly Dog. Not included. The Naked Gun. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. I would wake up, steal money, get drugs, and just repeat that cycle.

And I was, dude, I would sit in my room. I can't even tell you how bad that time in my life was. I was cutting myself. I've got like slashes on my arm. I've got a tattoo here now. where it's covered you can see over there like I was like properly knifing in my arm

for attention because I was just so I felt like so rejected and so by my alone that I was doing anything for attention Hey this is Matt Cox I am here with Joshua Rubin He is a podcaster And a bunch of other stuff

Recovering drug addict Recovering drug addict Documentary photographer photography and all around good dude and all around good guy from south africa he does this research where in south africa so i'm from cape town oh from cape town and south africa yeah um really bro like all the cape town stuff i ever see you know in the movies and stuff yeah it looks rough cape town's not bad um this the thing is a lot of people come to cape town because of what they see online, right? You either see the good stuff or you see the bad stuff. It depends where you're

looking. If you're looking on Instagram, you're going to see the good stuff. Right. And Cape Town is, in my opinion, it's probably the most beautiful city in the world. And anyone that goes there will tell you that. I know a lot of people that come from overseas to visit and they can't get over how beautiful it is. When you live there, you start to notice the problems. Because Cape Town's got one of the highest motor rates in the world, right? Per 100,000 people. I think it was the highest motor rate in the world because of all the gangs and a lot of people are living in poverty. But at the same time, that's all happening outside of the main city. So when you come for a holiday, well, the first thing you see when you land from the airport

is a bunch of shacks. You know what shacks are? Yeah, of course. Yeah. I've been to Mexico. So, yeah, you see a bunch of shacks and townships. Townships are like squatter camps, basically, where people live. And as you land from the airport, that's what you drive through.

It's the first thing you see. But then, after about a few Ks, you know, a few miles, you get to the city. And there's Table Mountain, which is one of the seven wonders of the world. It's incredibly beautiful. It's this massive mountain in the middle of the city. And the beaches, they are phenomenal. The girls, they are incredible. Right.

And it's, the thing with Kate's on, it's got everything. It's got the beach. It's got beautiful mountains in the middle of the city and outside the city. and it's got a lot of cool things to do there's the vineyards you go drink yourself silly if you wanted to um it wasn't my cup of tea but a lot of people come there and uh don't want to leave because it's such a beautiful place and you were you're that's where you were born raised i was born in zimbabwe actually you know what you know zimbabwe so i was born in zimbabwe i've actually got a tattoo called that says made in zimbabwe and uh i got that when i was like 15 years old right that seems

like a 15 year old thing to do yeah yeah i was like they're like what do you want And I was like, made in Zimbabwe, and they were like, why? I was like, too many things are made in China. And it was silly. I regret it. But it's funny. And so I grew up in Zimbabwe until I was seven years old. And then my parents left because Zimbabwe just fell apart.

I mean, the corruption there was just so rife. And, you know, Robert Mugabe was president for like a billion years. And pocketing all the money, giving it to his family. And, I mean, his kids live in South Africa. They've got like Pugatis. and like lamb guineas and for like right like he's he's doing that on a on a presidential salary of two hundred thousand dollars exactly yeah how much how much you're making it's like you would have to work for a hundred years to afford that bugatti varro right as the president to zimbabwe right

so then yeah my parents left and moved to cape town when i was six or seven but i mean that's like zimbabwe's a country like they so they up and moved multiple like you you can just move like if i suddenly decided hey i want to move to Canada like I have to fill out paperwork yeah no they did they did everything um they wanted to move to Australia because that's where our other family was going okay and they got rejected because i think Australia they were pretty focused on getting people with like trade skills yeah because their people don't want to do hard labor and that kind of thing and you actually get paid quite a lot for for I mean if you're like an electrician or a plumber you get paid quite

a decent salary there so they wanted to go there um but they got rejected And they ended up Why? What do your parents do? At the time they had a fabric store It was like a really big one in Zimbabwe And it did really well But it just There probably were other reasons as well

But they got rejected and ended up coming to South Africa moving to South Africa They actually lived in Florida as well When they were younger So they've moved all over the place My brother was born in Florida And he's got an American passport I've got a German passport

Even though I'm from Zimbabwe My dad's got a British passport It's like mixed box of whatever, you know? Yeah, mixed bag. I was going to say that, yeah, that's, that, you know, it's funny. Like there's some countries like Australia's population, you know, 20 years ago, was stagnant. And so I remember, like I told you, I was going to go there. Like, they were actively trying to get people with certain trades to come there.

And they were giving you like two years and three years tax exemption. Like, you don't have to pay taxes. You come here and you have this trade and you get a job in that trade, you don't have to pay taxes for two years because they were actively trying to grow their population. That's why I was asking, like, I wonder. Yeah, it might have been another reason, but for some reason, they got rejected. And I was talking about how beautiful Cape Town was. And the other part of it is, obviously, the high murder rates. And we've got one of the worst gender-based violence statistics in the world as well.

and the thing with South Africa is there's a big problem with gangs and a large portion of that murder rate comes from a very small small part of the population so there's during apartheid there was different settlements for different races

white people had their own places they could stay black people stayed in things called townships and colored people stayed in like very rough neighborhoods right you were explaining earlier that, you know, like in the US, if you said colored people, that's blacks. But in South Africa, colored people who are people that are mixed. Yeah, and I think my auntie was

saying it's quite a derogatory term in America. Colors. Yeah. So I'm not being racist in South Africa. That's, they are called called. And that's what they call. So it's not a racial or anything. But in the colored neighborhoods, there's a lot of gang violence. And because during apartheids, what the government did was there was this program where they basically, and I might get a few facts wrong, but they were funneling drugs through those neighborhoods and they were just letting them kill themselves basically. And the cops wouldn't come to stop a fight. They would come after the fight because they didn't care. They weren't about a risk their life to stop a fight between people in those areas. So they just let them kill themselves. So what the, why, why, what the

gangs you're saying what are the gangs trading in like the gangs aren't just like they're not like a club like they're they're they're connected for a reason to sell drugs to sell guns to sell like what's the specific reason yeah so i've worked with a lot of gangs that's one of the things that i do on my podcast when i started the podcast i was like i don't want to interview celebrities i want to interview you know when a documentary is made i don't want to interview the person or a movie when a movie's made i don't want to interview the person portraying someone else. I want to interview the person that that actor is portrayed. So that's kind of what I'm doing in America as I'm talking to people like you and Tim and Mike and what was the question?

I was saying with the gangs like like like the mob. It's mainly drugs. Oh, it's mainly drugs. Okay. It's mainly drugs. Okay. It's mainly drugs. And I was going to back to your point. Like, because in my opinion, like, you know, you know, truth, like, truth is stranger than fiction, right? Like, I mean, I can't tell you. I mean, like, I would be interviewing somebody in prison and they would say something and I would just be like, this is insanity with this. Like, there's no movie. There's no even like, oh, this is kind of like the scene in that movie. Like, no, no, this is insanity.

What you just said, I have never heard anything close to as bizarre as what I'm writing right now. Yeah. Like, you just can't make it up. Like some of the things that people say, the things that happen, you're like, that's not, like, that's insane. Yeah, but to answer your question, it's a lot of the time it's drugs and the actual gangsters never make the money. It's always people higher up that make the money. But a lot of the gang members that are on the streets doing the crimes. They go to jail.

They get shot. Basically, yeah. And they ended up living in poverty the rest of their life or just dying. The other thing is a lot of these gang members are very wild canons because they, often grew up in very unstable homes or their parents had a drug problem while they were pregnant and these people a lot of them have severe mental illnesses a lot of them don't go to school so yeah it's it's a wild place to be and I am a photographer documentary photographer and I started working with these guys a lot and eventually after taking photos of them and

talking to them I thought let me start a podcast and that's how I started interviewing the gangsters But I started working with gangsters when I was like 16 years old, when I was very young. There was a big, how old are you now? 26. Oh, yeah, you're an old man now. I'm a, I'm an elderly person. But there was this. Way back then when I was 16.

Well, for me, that's more than, it's almost half my life. But so when I was 16 years old, I started working with the gangs because there was a, my dad was working in an area called Woodstock in Cape Town. And there was a fire that broke out. It was in, in, in South Africa. often like in the middle of the city you'll just see a small squatter camp and there was this derelict building this old rundown building and there was gang members and just normal people living there as well but it was predominantly gang members and the area that my dad was working in his building was right next to the squatter camp and there was a fire there and i went to go check it out and help me and my

auntie went and brought some food and stuff because everything was gone and i just started talking to the people and it was so interesting and their stories were like insane so because i'm a sheltered I'm a little white kid from a suburb, a good suburb. And I'd never heard stories like this from these people. And I just kept going back and visiting them for years. I mean, I've known these people for years. And there's some crazy stories I can tell you with them that happened. But yeah, that's how I started working with gangsters.

That was my first experience with it. Law enforcement often questions him. Not because he's suspected of a crime, but because they find him fascinating. he is the most interesting man in the world I don't typically commit crime but when I do it's bank fraud stay greedy my friends

support the channel join Matthew Cox's Patreon well so who I mean so you're going back what people are you going to see like you're just going and hanging out or do you go and see like you go see you know the certain person

yeah so there was this one person I'm not going to say her name but there was this one lady that I would always go to. She was like the mother figure of the whole place. And she would make sure that I was safe. She ended up robbing me several times. This is my victim. Yeah, basically, I'm going to coerce this guy,

but it was for years that this was happening, that I was going to see her before this happened. But there was very crazy people. I mean, people have said to me in my face that they're going to kill me in that, in that little squatter camp and I'll tell you a story. So this lady that I would always go to see, right? The one day I went to see her and I was doing interviews and she said,

there's some really cool guys down the road in another little squatter camp that you can interview. I said, cool, let's go. And she takes me there. She's obviously desperate or something's up with her this point that I didn't know. But she takes me to these guys and I'm taking photos, taking videos and this. guy walks up to me and he grabs my leg and he starts kneeing me in the leg right like kneeing me and he was like if someone tries to rob you this is how they're going to do it this is how they're going to rob you because when people pickpocket you they often do something else to you so that you don't notice that

you're being pickpocketed right right so this guy was kneeling me in the leg saying if someone comes up to you I'm trying to help you here someone comes up to you and starts kneeing you in the leg they're probably trying to rob you so I was like that's really interesting and did he just rob you five minutes later I'm walking away with this girl that I always go to there to see. I'm like, thanks for taking me. Put my hand in my pocket and my phone's gone. I don't remember what the guy looked like that did it to me. Right.

Right. So I said to her, my phone's gone and she starts freaking out. And she's going crazy at all of these guys. There was a whole bunch of different guys there. She was like, who took the phone? Tell me right now. She was like, Josh, I'm going to get this phone back. And she starts crying and screaming.

and I'm like, this is, wow, it's just a phone. I want it back, but I don't care that much. And eventually I just said, I've had enough of this. She was screaming and terrorizing everyone for about half an hour, and I had enough of this. So I went home, and 12 o'clock that night I got a call from her. She got my number. I got a call from her, and she said, I found your phone.

And she said, I know where it is. Do you want to come get it? 12 o'clock at night. I know where it is. No. Right. Go get the phone. Yeah, no, no, no.

But I was young. Right. You know, I just got my license. I was able to go late at night. And I got in my car. I was still living with my parents at this time. And I just remember shaking. I was just like, it's a dangerous place to go.

Yeah. These are dangerous people. But during the day, it's a bit safer to go. But I went there, 12 o'clock at night, midnight. And I just shook the hallway there. And when I got there, she says to me, your phone isn't here the guy that stole it

sold it to a bouncer at one of the clubs in town and I believe this dude I was so naive and I was like okay let's go get it and she was like but you need to buy it back from him because he's paid the guy that robbed you for the phone so he needs to make his money back right so I'm like cool that's whatever

that's reasonable it's inexpensive phone so if I have to pay a little bit to get it back it's fine so we get in the car she gets in the car and then a kid jumps in the car as well like a little girl and another older lady like a well mid 40s maybe and we start driving and these are gangsters hey she's like the kingpin gangster of this place and we're driving there and about 10 minutes into the drive she starts screaming her head off and freaking out she's saying Josh you need to turn back we need to go home Josh we need to go home right now and I said what's wrong and she was like she wasn't responding to me she just said kept saying we need to go home she what she started

think about it no no no she just kept saying we need to go home and i was like what for and she was like just turn around so eventually i turn around and she's crying and screaming and i say what is wrong right she's irrational she's also a big drug addict so extremely emotional and i say what's wrong and she goes the drugs are in the toilets so she's been holding drugs for a drug dealer and keeping them safe in her best up building in the toilet and she said if someone gets up and goes to the toilets they're going to flush and it's going to go and what it just dawned on her she just dawned on her so anyway we're on our way home it's the most it sounds ridiculous but this is exactly what happened no well drug addicts they forget things yeah just is like they they would lose dope all the time like

where's but you've got it you stole it from me it's like you actually just put it down you would think you would hide it in the top of the toilet or something but I think she had stuffed it in the pipe, if you flush it, it's gone, basically. So she starts freaking out. We get home, she sorts it out, and she basically sorts it out. We get back in the car, start driving to town again to go to this club to get my phone back. And we get there, I go withdraw the money, I give it to her.

She says, she said, give it to me. You must stay here because this guy only wants to deal with me or saying, I'm young, dude, like, and I keep saying I'm naive, I was so naive. I gave her the money and she goes into an abandoned building in the middle of town, right? This is like a Monday. There's no clubs open. Right. And she goes into this building.

She comes out screaming again saying she got robbed now. She just pocketed the money and took it. Yeah, yeah. So that's how I got robbed twice in one day. And on the way home, she's crying again saying, I'm so sorry, Josh. You know, we've known each other for years. I really apologize. guys and I'm there consoling her after getting robbed twice yeah so you get you got a new phone

I got a new phone yeah yeah try to get home at two o'clock in the morning after that happened and go to sleep it was just wild it was wild so what happened after that how old were you I was probably 18 at the time at that point because um yeah I mean I remember I just got my license. Right. You have to be 18 to get your license? In South Africa. Well, you're 17 to get your learners. Right. And then 18 to get your full on driver's license. Right. Here it's 15 and then 16 you get your... Yeah. See, that's for like motorbikes in South Africa. So yeah, but going back a bit, I think also part of the reason I was so naive and just run and gun and just did all these impulsive, well, did that kind of thing. I mean, lots of stuff

like that happened to me. I'll tell you just now about another robbery story. was because I was a big drug addict as well. Right. And I was just going to say part of the reasons you've got to be going back to this area is for drugs, right? Like, I never really bought drugs from them. I never bought drugs from them. Because it was always stepped on stuff. Right.

And I, I was going to say, I'm an upper class drug addict. No, their stuff was like really bad. Right. But I did drugs with them a few times because I wanted to try it out. and I was smoking out of a broken bottle neck and like going home to my parents after doing a thing called tuk which is like speed

I don't know what the equivalent here is it just makes you messed up basically like meth yeah yeah so when I was very young I just I did that with them but then I mean going back to you I started taking drugs when I was very young I mean I started drinking when I was like 12 or whatever

but I started I think the first time I ever did like cocaine I was like 14 which are probably not that young. I mean, I think there's quite a lot of people. The thing about my story is not unique. It's pretty relatable, I think, because everyone knows a drug addict.

Right. Everyone has someone in their family, probably that suffers from addiction in some form. So it probably wasn't that young. I know people that started at nine years old. Right. But, you know, I started doing drugs at a very young age

because I just felt like I was an outsider. I never felt like I fitted in. I always did badly at school. I mean, I was terrible at school. And when you're a kid, that's like, all you know. all you know is school right um and if you fail that you feel that you've failed everything um and i failed grades and i was yeah i was held back and i was always in trouble and so i started doing drugs and when i started doing drugs people accepted me as their friend because when you have

something to offer right and especially when you're young if you're doing drugs people see you as like a badass yeah yeah you know i went to like a Jewish school i was like this like crazy kid with tattoos and drugs all the time um so yeah i started doing drugs back then and uh before i went into rehab the first time i mean i was doing roofies at school you know what roofies are the date rape drug yeah yeah uh um it what did they got m d md md that's ecstasy that's like liquid ecstasy and not great with it's like a benzo it's what you use if you want to knock someone out and basically assault them okay so i was taking those for fun and i was taking those at school i was like i looked at my friend and popped in my mouth and like laugh and i was doing lines in the classroom next door right and

it just got out i mean i was riding off cars i had like seriously bad car accidents luckily i never got physically hurt the one the one time i was um driving home from this was slightly after i was driving home from college and uh i hit a tree i hit a hit a car deflected over a electrical box and hit a tree. I was going 120, probably like 80 miles now. Right. So I'm trying to do the math because in Saifka. We used kilometers. Right. But things were out of control. I mean, I was stealing my parents blind because I wasn't working. Yeah. And it kind of culminated when I was about 16, I think, when I went to Cambodia for a holiday to visit my family. So I had an uncle and auntie, the one from Australia, moved to Cambodia for a few years.

is. Who moves to Cambodia? Yeah. What? I don't understand what's going on. Yeah. Cambodia? No, they're like adventurous people.

They move around. They do this and that. And they, I mean, I'm not going to talk about their relationship. Cambodia, I think of campbell. I just think of super, super skinny little people. Like, I'd be a giant in Cambodia. No, I don't think so. No?

No. I mean, they're not, I don't think they're massive. But they're not. small they're not tiny but um so yeah they moved to cambodian we we we went there on holiday um and me and my brother went there in in in jamaica in jamaica i'm a giant in jamaica i'm sorry in in um in mexico they like the average height down there's like five foot two i'm i'm massive in in in mexico i should move to mexico exactly yeah because i was like people around there was like hey watch it you know i could be a bouncer in mexico you got the muscles for

yeah right yeah anyway go ahead sorry but yeah so we went on holiday and my brother's the complete opposite of me he's a straight edge really good guy very decent guy um plays by the rules works hard you know has a kid now one of those guys he's a good guy i love my brother so we never had a good relationship at the beginning when i was on drugs but we do now but um so we were there together with my auntie and uncle and my cousins and i think i was 16 at the time i also lose dates on time so um and the first day we got there we were with my auntie and uncle my cousins hadn't arrived yet my uncle says you guys should order a massage to the room we were like that's a good idea you know we've been sitting that's a good uncle we've been sitting on a plane what kind of

what kind of massage that we're talking about well this is it we were sitting on a plane for ages right and we're like yeah my back saw we can get a massage and he's thinking my uncle's like yeah you definitely get a massage so we get back to the hotel says 24 seven massages. We're like, convenient. So we order a massage. Me and my brother are in the same room. And next thing, two prostitutes walk into the room and we get, yeah. I was going to say the really, the really good massage parlors, they already have the condom in their mouth when you walk in. But me and my brother just wanted a massage. Right. You're like, hey. Yeah. I was, I was an insecure kid and my brother was not about to sleep with a prostitute.

And neither was I really. I've never slept with any prostitutes. I've never paid for anything, even in Amsterdam. But so we were, so we were sitting there and these two prostitutes get on the bed, sit on our pillows, like they bums on our pillows, and they put our head in between their legs and so, like, touching us a little bit. And they're like waiting for the signal. And me and my brother just keep looking at each other, fucking laughing.

And we ordered an hour massage. We got about 15 minutes and they were on their phone the whole time, touching us with their pinky. but as the trip escalated my cousins arrived and I did you tell them you got to get a massage no they know they know that's why they come what do you think and so they get there and my cousins are pretty heavy drug addicts and at this point I was doing drugs but I mean I was doing cocaine I was doing all I was doing all that kind of stuff but um they were doing heroin and I clocked on to this like as they got there they went bought something and I was like

what's this right and then you had to drugs so they were foolishly probably they were like it's heroin so at 16 years old I'm in the middle of Cambodia tried heroin for the first time and we were snorting it so it's very hard to regulate how much you're getting into your system at one time especially I didn't know you could do too much like I was just like whatever I took before that I was fine I just kept putting drugs in and I was always fine but if you take a little bit too much heroin, you get really sick very quickly. Like, it's almost instant throw-up.

And I got very, very sick, but I was like, this is amazing. You get so sick, but you don't care because you're so comfortable. They always say, like, with heroin, you can sleep on a bed and nails. You'll be comfortable. Because it's just that. I don't want to say it's amazing,

but at the beginning, when you first tried, it's amazing. It's a euphoric feeling. So my cousins knew, I had a bad addiction problem when I wouldn't let them control the heroin. I wanted to control it. So I started going buying it myself. And me and my brother were getting money for my parents.

They were giving us money for the trip. And I just kept saying to Dano, my brother, I need some money. I want to go buy a fucking gong or something. I bought some gongs and some hashish pipes or whatever. And I just kept buying heroin. I mean, I spent three weeks in Cambodia just absolutely doing nothing. else. I mean, the one night, we were on a overnight bus. Have you ever been on an overnight bus? No. It's the worst thing ever. In Cambodia, it's the worst thing ever. Because basically,

what it is, it's a normal bus, but instead of sitting, you're lying down, right? So there's an aisle in the middle. On this side, there's two levels, and they're cut in half. So people are sleeping on top of you, people are sleeping underneath you, right? And it's two people in each section in each bunk basically right um and me and my brother were staying together and my cousins was staying in front of us and this bus was packed there was bags everywhere it was overloaded they couldn't fit all the bags underneath the bus it was tight and they don't have a toilet they only stop once in like 12 hours for a toilet break or once or twice and it's like really uncomfortable it's hot awful and uh me they did they have you handcuffed and chain a chain to your waist and have

your ankles chained? No. But it was like... Different experience than I had on the list. Yeah, yeah, slightly. But you couldn't like... I was uncomfortable too, though. Just saying.

I'm sure, yeah. Probably a bit more. I knew I could get off and walk away and go home. No, yeah. Yeah, I could, but there's the guy with a shotgun that would shoot me in the back. Yeah. See, I didn't have that.

So basically me and my brother were staying here together. There was a bathroom. But go ahead. Not on my bus, though. Yeah. So we were sitting together and then my cousins were right in front of us in the next bunk and

we were doing heroin on the bus and like I said if you do a bit too much you just start throwing up everywhere so we were all getting sick in that one bunk

and I mean you start getting the cold shivers and like it was just it was probably the most the worst bus ride

I've ever had in my life or just transportation experience I've ever had and then when I got back from Cambodia I went straight to rehab did you tell your parents that you were going through it or you just

no my parents put me in real okay i mean i was a baby the thing was with me is i was like a lot of people i was very immature um i was immature until i was like 23 um because the drugs i never had to grow up i never accepted any responsibility i never did any of that so my parents babied me for a long time and they're like amazing people and i always say like I know I talk about these stories, I laugh, but like the same thing with you, what you did to your parents, I traumatized my parents and they always stood by me. So even though I'm laughing and telling these stories as a joke, there's obviously, it's for storytelling, you know. Right. He's been known to cure insecurity just with his laugh. His organ donation card lists his charisma.

His smile is so contagious. Vaccines have been created for it. He is the most end. interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. But so when I got back from Cambodia, I went straight into rehab for the first time. It was also, I think I was 16 still.

It just got back from Cambodia. And in the rehab, I mean, I was a baby. I just went nuts. We were fucking smoking gel out of a Coke can. We would, I mean, it was like a summer vacation for kids. And I only got worse from there. Yeah. And then literally the day I got out, I went home and started smoking and using drugs again.

So it didn't help at all. How old were you then at this point? 16. 16? Yeah. So what, so this goes on back and forth for the next few years. And what did you do? Did you go to college?

You said you went to college. Yeah, then it escalated from there. I just got, I mean, with addicts, you never get better unless you really stop and take some time and reflect or get clean completely like I have. But so from there, I just got worse and worse. It dropped out of school and did not know what I was doing. I also met a girl during that time who I had never really been with anyone at that point. And she was like my dream girl. She was beautiful.

and she was like the sweetest girl ever and she was just like she was everything she was like the perfect girl for me and I just like fall madly in love with her and yeah we started using drugs together like a lot of drugs I mean the presence we would get each other

some people would come home and give boyfriend a rose or a girlfriend a rose she would bring me a bag of cocaine and that's like how it was it was like oh good she's home you know and yeah I just got worse I left school and I started studying.

I didn't go to college. I went to like a... Technical school? No, I studied photography. Okay. I studied photography. I was just like, this is the only thing I'm good at.

So that's not college? You don't consider that college? Maybe it's college, but I don't get any, like, I get me like a little certificate. I don't get, like, a diploma or anything, yeah. We would call that a technical school. Okay, yeah.

But in the U.S., you have a, that would really fall under photography in a university. university, but you're saying there they actually have a technical school that's for photography. No, I think it's just like a, I think it was just some courses you did? It's probably a college. I think universities where you get like diplomas and stuff. So I'm like, when it comes to education, I'm useless. Like I never, even when I went to study, I never paid attention. I did really well though because I took some courses. Well, it was a two year. I studied for two years. Okay. So here that would be like a community college. Okay. Yeah, it's probably like that.

Yeah. But I did really well because I'm pretty good at what I do. Right. Because you're passionate about it. And I'm passionate about it. But I would never show up for class. I would always like, they just give you an assignment. I did whatever I felt like doing and I gave it to them.

At the end of the day, it's just your portfolio at the end of the year that you get marked the most on. So I had a good portfolio. So I did well. And when I got out of college, I just didn't know what to do again. I started doing jobs and stuff. And there was this, I started, I started working for just like random people, doing all photo shoots here and there. And this, I remember the one day I was like so lost.

I reached, I think I reached out to this one guy and I said, can I shadow you? I want to come and just work with you on a job, see what you're doing, see how you do it. And this is a photographer? Yeah, photography, yeah. When you say photographer, you mean for video or just fill, photos? Photos, yeah. So I went to go shadow him. We went like out of town to this beautiful,

vineyard like a wine place where they make wine and they had this amazing building there that they did for weddings and it was like you could stay there as well for overnights and um the place was run by we have like a master chef's african you know master chefs Australia you know the cooking show in Australia oh okay like master chef yeah yeah sorry I slow but no it's all right sorry but um so the the chef there was the guy from mars chefs so it's like a really high in place and I'm like staying here for free because I'm shadowing this photographer and um we go to bed and I like sneak into the kitchen and I brought a bit of cocaine with me and I got really fucked up um I got really really hammered and drank all the alcohol in the kitchen and all the leftovers that

the chef had made for everyone and I ended up like completely missing the whole day of photo shoots the next there um but yeah I mean things got super bad I think it was at its worst point another time like I would sit in my room all the time I would never really leave my room towards the end of my using days unless I went to like see a friend every now and then or I went to like a festival or whatever go take some photos

and I would sit in my room by myself for a long time usually with addicts and people with addiction it starts out that it's a fun social thing but the worst you get a lot of the time the more isolated you get because you start burning bridges, people don't want to hang out with you anymore, and a lot of the time you just don't want to share your drugs. So you just get the drugs, and that's enough.

That's like all you need. And I would wake up, steal money, get drugs, and just repeat that cycle. And I was, dude, I would sit in my room. I can't even tell you how bad that time in my life was. I was cutting myself. I've got like slashes on my, I've got a tattoo here now where it's covered. You can see over there. Like, I was, like, properly knifing in my arm for attention

because I was just so, I felt like so rejected and so by my, alone that I was doing anything for attention. And I was doing, like, crazy stuff in my room. I turned my whole room into a jungle. I went to the nursery, you bought plants, like little, not little, like to the roof kind of plants, like four or five of them. And I took my bed out, put a tent there. I swear to God.

And then I took the gong, you know what a gong like dung? Yeah. From Cambodia, I put it in the tent. So if someone wanted to say hello, they ring the gong. I got a guinea pig, a hedgehog, a rat, and a bunny rabbits. Put them in the room. And they would always jump in the plants and throw the dirt everywhere. I got ground plants.

I had like shit all over the walls. And your parents are? I don't know what they were. I was going to say that. That would know. I broke them down. over so many years well

at that point probably a few years of active addiction so they were just used to me being batched crazy and I would just stay in my room all the time and I would

like another thing I did was I made a tattoo gun out of a drill motor you know you like do those homemade tattoo guns like stick and poke I decided to make a real tattoo gun out of a drill motor and a ruler and a guitar string

with a pen you fished the pen through the I mean you fish the guitar string through the pen and this thing was like so when you're like tattooing yourself it hurts and I tattooed my leg and I used pen ink to tattoo myself with which is not good for you yeah I know I mean that's how they do it in prison they use the the uh the shavers they take the bat the little motor out of an electric shaver and they do the same thing with the pen and the needle the needle the whole thing but it doesn't hurt it's not like it's not like it's going to hurt you but I mean this thing

thing was basically a draw. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's insane. With a pointy thing on the end. And I tattooed my leg and my flesh went gangrene and it fell out. I tattooed a TV on my leg and an arrow going down. Yeah, a TV. Who knows what reason. And then half an umbrella stopped halfway.

I don't know why. And an arrow going down. And my thinking was at the time was, I was like, this is, I can't really get much lower than this for me. that's how I felt and I put the arrow going down and I was like when when things turn around I'll get the arrow going up yeah but that arrow is gone now it's just rusted away and I had to go to the hospital I waited like two weeks before going to the hospital eventually my friend saw my leg and they were like what is going on with your leg it's the flesh had eaten out I mean

you can't see it that much now it's on the wrong it's the wrong foot but it's all it's on the side but it's like the flesh literally fell out the doctor couldn't believe what she was seeing she couldn't believe what she was seeing she'd never heard of someone doing that to themselves um so yeah it got really bad and then it turned into getting arrested i kept getting arrested uh the the first time i was at a festival with some friends and i had taken like seven row hypno the the the roofies right um and like one of them is enough to knock a normal person out but i was taking them all the time and i was driving on them i was really bad um And I had taken like seven aeropinol, cocaine, weed, alcohol, and I was so messed up.

And I was sitting at my tent at this festival, and this police officer starts walking towards me, or like a security for the place. And he starts walking towards me. And I was so messed up that I didn't even put the bong down. And it was illegal in South Africa. So I didn't even put the bong down when he came to talk to me. And I was talking to him with the bong. And he said, stand up. And I stood up, and there was a bunch of drugs underneath my bum.

I was sitting on them. So they arrested me and I was crying and I was being a baby. Because I was so messed up. I was just like, I just want to stay at my, you know what I mean? I didn't want to move. So they took me to the police station and put me in a cell. And I was so gone that my parents came to see me. I didn't register that it was them.

I couldn't. I saw them, but I couldn't. My brain wasn't putting it together that it was my parents. So I stood up and I looked at them like a zombie and just lay back. down again and went to sleep and they said to them you can keep him so they just left me there for the nights and then came the next day when I was sober and then I mean it just got worse and worse and worse from there and the second time I got arrested was I was in I was went out with my friends and we were all doing drugs and my friend got into a fight so the police were like

watching the streets at that point and then I was I was going to get some drugs and then go home. So I ordered some cocaine, got the cocaine. And then I was like, okay, bye guys. I'm going. They were like, no, no, no, come to the car. We'll do a few lines. And then you can go. I was like, okay. So we went to this underground parking lot and we were sitting in the in the car. And the police come down and we see them and I dropped the cocaine in the car. They saw me drop it as they were walking towards us. And they were like, get out of the car. Everyone on their knees. Put your hands in. up against the car and we started doing this and this is within like six months of my previous

arrest so I was still going to court for the other one right um and if you get arrested like I was trying to get off with nothing right it was a minor thing there was a bit of drugs that they found me with so I was like if I get arrested again I'm going to get a criminal record I got a German passport it's not going to you know I didn't want to risk losing it I didn't want to have a criminal record basically so I sat there or I was kneeling against you the car with three or four of my friends and I was like I'm leaving and I just got up and spruented and I remember hearing the cops say we'll get him and I could I couldn't see my friends but I could just imagine their face was that motherfucker just left his drugs in our car

and he's running away and I ran up out of the parking lot down the street and I could hear cops the siren start to come so I jumped over this person's fence in their house and now I'm sitting in someone's garden basically and it was a small garden their curtains were closed, lights were on I could see the shadows so there was people in there but when I try to jump back over the fence

or the wall sometimes walls are higher from one side than the other side right right so on the one side it wasn't that high but in their garden I couldn't get back up and I was messed up so I just couldn't get up but

there was a shed in the garden and like I'm trying to step on a plastic table to get on top of this shed and the plastic table is like buckling and I'm scared about the people inside finding me in the garden like trying to scramble over the wall. Right. So I get on this table and get on the shed and then I get end up on their roof so they've got like these tiles on their roof and I'm like treading on these little tiles like a monkey trying to like keep quiet and uh the cops are flying by and everything and I just ordered an Uber. got in the Uber and went home. So the Uber didn't realize,

but he was taking a fugitive at the moment. It got really bad. I mean, it was just ridiculous. So at what point do you clean up? Yeah, so I was lying in bed the one day, and like my parents was so finished with me at this point. I was lying in bed, and I think it was this day. I would sleep the whole day,

get up often late in the afternoon, get drugs, stay up the whole night do the same thing again and I was awake the whole night using drugs went to bed at like 8 in the morning and then I fell asleep and when I woke up

I went to my parents' room and I said Dad why aren't you at work why aren't you at work he was like Josh it's 8 p.m. at night because I thought it was still dark I was like I woke up early

you know I was like days and I thought it was the morning and he was like Josh it's 8pm you slept the whole day and often when my parents try to wake me up, like my mom went to Australia on a holiday to visit my cousins and my auntie,

she would shake me. It was like I was dead because I would not wake up no matter what she did. She would scream, shake me. It was like a lifeless body. So it just got to a point where I was like, I need to, my dad said,

do you want to go to rehab? And I said, please. And I went into rehab and I screamed and shouted the whole way. I wanted to go. But I was so manic that it just, even though I wanted to,

do it. I was just like, I need to get out of you. You get in, you want to escape. And the, in, in South Africa, I don't know how it works here, but there's like a primary, secondary and tertiary thing where you start in primary and it's like you don't, you can't use your phone or anything of that nature. You can't have much communication with the outside world. Your parents can visit you sometimes. But it's, you're pretty closed off. And I was so crazy in that time. I mean, I was, I don't, know why but I was hitting the punching bags so hard and doing it in a way that it would rip the skin off my my my knuckles and they would just bleed everywhere and I would go sit at

sessions with my knuckles bleeding and like the my counselor just thought I was a lunatic they said to my parents this kid is gone but as time went by so I stayed in rehab for six months eventually I eventually calmed down and took it seriously a bit more seriously but people didn't think that I would succeed. I think the success rate for someone trying to get clean is about 3% which is insanely low. I was going to say for six months. Six months, yeah. That's a long time. Yeah, I know it was it was a long time but it was worth it. The thing is with rehab, if you go in for three weeks, you're just getting clean at that point. Right. The drugs are just leaving your system. But if you stay in for a few months, your head comes right. You learn some

coping mechanisms and that's what I was learning throughout that time and just giving myself some time to be in a safe space without having to worry about anything else besides just getting clean so who pays for this my parents your parents it's not like the they don't like provide no that's what I'm saying is I was completely useless growing up as a baby I didn't take care like my parents sorted everything out for me it probably to their detriment as well where we had we had such a, we loved each other so much that they just couldn't let go of me because I was at the point where they should have just let go of me

and let me go on my own journey. Sing or swim, figure it out. Yeah, but I think this was pretty much the last chance. So I went to rehab and I stayed in for eight, well, for six months. And I started to come right and, I mean, the counselor said, the counselor kept saying to my parents, if he leaves now, he's not going to stay clean. Right. But I said, I want to leave.

I'm ready. And when I got out, I relapsed within two months and started using drugs again for about a month and a half. And since then, I've been cleaned four years later. Yeah. And so how did you come to the... I mean, you started a YouTube channel.

Yeah. Which was just like taking off. Yeah. Like you said in the last month, you've gotten how many subscribers? I think it's like 60,000, which is not that big. In South Africa, the podcasting scene is not massive.

So at the beginning, most of my audience was South African. it's not the same as in America the cool thing about it though is like I said I don't interview celebrities I interview people that are extremely interesting people like yourself

I love talking to gang members I love talking to basically anyone with an interesting story survival stories stories like this I talk to recovering addicts as well sometimes and I started the podcast and it did really well

I mean it did really really well the first episode I ever did was with my dad sharing his story about what it was like to raise me as a drug addict and how that affected him and the family

the second podcast I did was with a gang member called Turner Adams and he's one of South Africa's most famous gang members partly because of the podcast but before that he was in a few documentaries

right is the guy with all the tattoos yeah or see the guy because I saw one where the one where he's telling you no he's the guy with all the tattoos yeah

hit the book I use that as a reference so everyone thinks he's the book now but I just use it as a reference but in every comment with him in it they think he's the book so I'm not going to get into the story with the book but anyway so I interviewed him

and the podcast it was my first podcast I ever did the actual podcast got 600,000 views and I was like oh my God that's insane I've always wanted to do YouTube and like it's really something's happening here and then I posted a clip on YouTube and it got like 1 million views

and that one went like insanely viral because of the way he spoke in certain things he said just were hilarious this guy's a murderer right and he spent 25 years in South Africa's most dangerous prison Paulsmore prison but he's a funny guy

and he's entertaining and he's likable and some of the things he said just went super viral and like everyone that knows my podcast knows that video and knows the things he was saying because it was just he's just such a funny guy but yeah that relationship went a bit sour we worked quite a lot together

and I think there was a situation Is this the guy that wanted to kill you? Yeah so I'm sorry with that I'm supposed to say that no it doesn't matter but he I don't think it was particularly his fault he lives in the Cape Flats which is one of the worst areas in South Africa

I think it's one of the highest murder rates in the world per 100,000 people and he comes from a bad place and he was doing all these interviews and people were looking at him online and in documentaries and I think they thought he was super wealthy so people started harassing him and they were like they were shattering his windows and I was getting calls from him saying they're outside my house with guns and like they're going to kill us if you because that they equate that you oh you're on YouTube you must have a lot of money basically it's not always the case yeah somebody else had a camera

And an internet connection. Yeah. So they thought he was wealthy, and I did pay him quite well, but he spends that. Yeah, yeah. It's not enough to last a lifetime. No. And that's just that, like, is he a drug addict or drugs? I don't want to get into that, but he did have a drug problem back in the day.

I don't want to speak about now. But basically his house got messed up, and this was corroborated by someone else as well that he was working with him, said that it went and his windows was mashed in. so he was trying to get money out of me and extort me for money so he could pay the gangsters and he knows like he knows where my parents places he's been to their house he's at lunch with my parents and

he was saying like if you don't do this I'm going to give these guys your address so I was shit scared about that for my parents' safety obviously but yeah I just ignore I turned my phone off I got a new number for a month I turned my phone off and he called down

but I was getting calls at like 12 o'clock a night because his phone would break he would call me from other gang members' phones because his phone was broken and then they would have my number and I would get phone calls at like 12 o'clock at night or two in the morning with someone just like breathing on the phone

to intimidate me and it was a bad situation he has apologized since then but I can't I don't want to do work with them anymore. Yeah, yeah. No, it's too dangerous of a situation. I get that.

The thing with working with gangs is you see like Ross Kemp and these guys do work with gangs, right? A lot of the time they have protection. And a lot of the time they don't live in the places. They're interviewing the people at it. So I live there. So I can't get away from it. Yeah.

So if something happens, they know where I live. Right. So it's very dangerous. And that's kind of why I stepped away from doing work with gangsters. I really find it interesting because there's so many different kinds of are gangs, so many different reasons, people join gangs. And a lot of them have really interesting stories. So I love talking to people like that and interviewing them, but it just got too dangerous.

Well, you have like a list. What's the next on your list? Do you have a, you're prepared? I've never done a podcast before, and I've probably waffled on here. No, it's fine. I just thought I'd write a few things down. I think I've covered a lot of them. but I think

I think probably coming towards the end like I say I don't have a unique story No it's good And honestly like I mean let's face it You've got like You're coming up on 100,000 You know

100,000 subscribers You only started six months ago a year No it was about a year and a bit ago Yeah so like a year ago You're at 100,000 subscribers Like you're blowing up Like all the interviews are super Are interesting like you're obviously

you're you're taking off so it's good to have this like this will be up and yeah i think the thing might be the south african that's why everyone keeps calling me as africa yeah but um what do they call danny danny's the the is he the no wait it is something like that it's like the what is it like the something the yeah the southern jo rogan or the white trash i i kind of modeled my podcast off to joe rogan oh yeah the thing i like about his podcast is that it doesn't matter how famous the person is, doesn't matter how successful they are, it's all about the story. Yeah, yeah. I don't care who you are. Yeah. If you have a good story, that's all I care about. And I think that's what makes a podcast interesting because a lot

of the time, and I've noticed this since I've come to America, people with interesting stories have they've all been told. Right. A thousand times. How many podcasts have you been on? Yeah, tons of How many podcasts has Mike Dowd been on? Oh, even more. You know? Yeah. So the thing with being in South Africa is, I've always wanted to come to America to do what I do, or go to the UK or wherever. The thing I like about being in South Africa is that I find people that no one else is found.

And I'm telling stories that no one else is told. There may be a few articles on it or it's been online a little bit. But that's what I like about being in a place like South Africa is that you can be kind of the pioneer at what you're doing. Because there's a lot of podcasts And there's a lot bigger than mine But there's no one really doing what I'm doing in South Africa Telling the kinds of stories that I'm telling And you have a captive audience

Like you have an audience that other people aren't getting to Like not a lot of people are going to South Africa To interview these guys Where you have to drive an hour or two Here or there Yeah I mean Talk about getting guests as well Because in America everyone understands the deal

I come on your podcast I get exposure right right it's like they don't understand that yeah you have to explain really hard why they like this would be a great experience for you as well if you got a book come advertise it and what are they thinking no pay me money no i often offer people money because if i don't make a lot of money yeah but i like to pay certain people because if i interview someone from an underprivileged background. I don't think it's fair that I bring them on and get like a good viewership like Turner Adams, right, the gang member. His podcast, I can't explain how big it was. It was massive on

every platform. And like there's thousands of clips of it. It's like something just spread like wildfire. Right. How am I going to benefit like that and not give him anything, right? It's easy. Just don't do it. I mean, you know, the point is, is like, it's like to me, you know, like for instance um um sorry uh um jeff turner right which is a counterfeiter that came on like he was like hey he was in the halfway no he was in the halfway house he just got out i think i talked to him in the halfway house and he was getting out he was like look i got a buddy that told me to listen to your podcast um i i would like to come on i've got a good story and i was like okay yeah i get it and i said but he was in living in texas is texas is texas

right Texas I think it's Texas so he's like living in Texas I could be wrong about Texas but it's somewhere over there so he's living in Texas and and I was like okay well listen if you can get yourself here and you can pay for your room and your flight and get here then absolutely I want you to come on the podcast but I can't afford like it'd be different if I was making like we talked about this like if I was making $20,000 a month yeah I'll fly people in I'll do this we'll do that But now it's like, no, no, you come. You pay for those things. You do that because I just can't afford to.

I want to. I can't afford to. But like we were talking, like, you're a lot of times. You're going in your own pocket. I mean, I've spent so much money flying to America. It was a 32-hour flight. But I'm not even talking about you flying. I'm talking about you bringing these guys on and paying them.

And I get it's a benefit to you. It's not a benefit to them, though. That's the difference. Right. But it can be a bit. But to me, like Jeff Turner. Jeff Turner sold his, or he optioned his life rights. He came on this program.

I got him on Danny's program. He got contacted by a producer and a screenplay writer. They came to him. They said, we want to talk to you. We've seen a couple of your podcasts. They optioned his life rights and they've written a screenplay and they're now shopping it to be a movie. Like that's the benefit to you.

Can I promise you that? Absolutely not. But it's a possibility. Right. Now, if you're going to drive and you have no money and you're going to drive here, And it's going to take a couple hours and a couple hours. Like, I might give you your gas money, but that's all I can do for you. So it's not like, you know, that that's the way I see it.

Maybe someday if I'm Joe Rogan and I'm getting millions of views. I don't think Joe Rogan probably pays people either. No, I don't think Joe Rogan does either. You have so much to benefit by going on there that. I mean, 11 million views in episode roughly. I understand that. What I'm saying is if my podcast was making me, if I was making $2,000 or $3,000 on every podcast, I'd fly people in. I can't afford to fly people in.

So I want you to come on the podcast. I want to hear your story. Maybe that story turns into something. There's no chance of you getting a benefit coming on or with your story if you don't come here. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So that's my pitch is your only chance of having your story told and getting a large enough audience that you could end up benefiting from it is to come on the podcast.

And so you have to get yourself here. I can't do everything for you. So I get it. I hear your point of view, but I also, I do a different perspective. I think the thing in South Africa is, as well, here I find people really want to do podcasts. Right. In Zika, they don't really want to do them. People want to be famous here.

That's why they hear a lot of them. Yeah. If you're in this industry, you're here to be famous. Right. In South Africa, I mean, a lot of the people I interview don't live in a nice house. You know, a lot of them live, some of them live on the streets. I've had homeless people on the podcast. and there's no chance of them

a lot of the time I tell pretty normal stories like a homeless guy right comes on and tells this story which I find very fascinating but at the same time that story is never going to get picked up and put in you know what I mean and like I say I can't afford to pay people

but I'm doing it because I feel right it feels right for me it's different here I feel like there's more to gain by going on someone else's podcast. In South Africa, there isn't so much. There isn't people rushing to look for stories all the time. And that guy has got an interesting, let's make a movie about it.

There isn't that at South Africa. You might sell a few books if you have a book. But they have to write a book. And that's not going to happen. Yeah. So I feel like it's for me in the place I live, it's right. And I also feel like there isn't that many guests. So if someone does say no,

there's not like five guys waiting line there's not five guys waiting in line um it's like with me coming to america i took a complete gamble no one was replying to me when i was inside africa so i was like i'm going to fly to america and then just call people hope they're on so when i get to america luckily they did but uh i spent the money traveling here um how much is that what's traveling here from south africa like that's got to be a pretty penny it's a few thousand then car rentals is that that that's round trip yeah okay cool yeah it's not that bad but i'm not making much money i mean i was going to say it's not great a couple two three thousand dollars like that's that's a lot of money i was scared to bring all my equipment um so i bought a whole bunch

of equipment here to have waited waiting for me um i'm paying a lot of guests because they won't do it without it and the thing is i've flown all the way here i'm not going to go home i'd rather pay someone and not get the interview, you know. So I'm in a weird position where I'm not a good businessman either. I was going to say, I'm not going to strong arm anyone. So I'm a bit of a pushover in certain aspects. But especially living in South Africa, though,

it's a different, I come from a different place. Yeah. You know, and the people that I'm interviewing come from a different place. So I'm just used to the way things are there. But in South Africa, as well, when I pay someone, it's not the amount people want here. It's what? It's not the same amount as people want here.

Right. People want a lot more money here. Because inside Africa, I can give someone a thousand round, which is like a few hundred dollars. All right. Not even. It's not even.

Here, $100 is like $1,600. I got the math wrong there. But yeah, basically someone asked for a few hundred dollars here. That's a lot of money back home. Right. Back home, if someone asked for a few thousand around, it's not that much money. but yeah

I've taken a risk and it's been amazing so far I mean I've spoken to there's some crazy people in America there's some interesting people in America

which is cool yeah yeah well I was going to say that the population is you know what 12 times is large it's like 300 isn't it 300 million

350 million trees that's crazy and what was it South Africa it's like 50 60 million 50 million 50 60 million

Yeah. And most, a lot of people don't speak great English. So you're working with, to do what I do, you're working with a very small part of the population. And a lot of the time, I have to do a lot of research to find these people. And then I have to go fetch them. There's a lot of the time they don't have cars. Right. So I have to fetch them, bring them to the studio. I do all this stuff myself at the studio as well. I don't have a guy behind the computer. You got a Connor? No. So. Oh, you got to get a Connor. No, I need one. But I'm spending all the money on the production that I can't hire anyone. You need a credit card.

I know. Credit card. I'm getting one. I try to apply for one before I came to America because you can't rent a car with that one. You need a credit card. But I didn't get it in time. So there's a lot of things I go into it. Listen, give me your name, your date of birth, social security, another birth.

You'll make me another identity and I'll be here. I got it. I got you. I take care of it. Give me a good credit score. Absolutely the best But yeah You know

I think the main thing is I'm enjoying it And I'm meeting some awesome people Some not so awesome people as well Yeah Yeah There's some scum back here Like today I met this asshole Scam artist

No I'm joking Good times Good times But yeah I'm having fun doing what I'm doing And the thing with me is I want it to be Everything has to be perfect

Right Like I will never do anything subpart and also that's that's not that's not our approach is it Connor yeah we got a whole different thing before starting the podcast I did so much research on the best microphones the best cameras I never did video before the podcast if you look the cameras aren't the best but they're the best I could afford I know that because as soon as he walked in here before you got here

he said he looked at our mics and he goes oh man you've got to get my mics you get oh then he looked at the cameras he's like listen if you're planning on upgrading Fuck are you. Like, immediately, he's like, you know, everything was like, bam, bam. I was like, I'm proud of my little setup. No, it's a sick set up. He's like, you know, these have like a really bad echo.

I don't know if you were listening to your program. No, I think I might have got the mic strong because I, yeah, I think I got the mic's from. These are pretty good. These are pretty good. He's backpedaling now. I love them. Yeah. These are the best.

Where did you get these? If I yell like this, can you hear an echo? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I'm having fun, and I am making some money, but I think I'm spending almost as much as I'm making. Well, how long are you staying in the, you know, because you've been here a couple, like a week, over a week, right? We can change. About about a week, yeah. I'm staying here for five weeks.

Okay. Feels like I've been here forever. Man, imagine being able to just pick up and go and hang out in some other country for five weeks, like, you know? Yeah. You've never left the state. Connor's never left the state. been on a plane. I'm just joking, have you?

Yeah. But, uh, love it. But, um, the first time that Jess was on an airplane was when she got on, was on Conair.

You know what Conair? You know what Conair is? You know what Conair is? It's the prison plane. Is it really? Is it really? Oh, the movie on the plane. They call it Conair.

Okay. Like the movie, yeah. Yeah. It was the first time. That's pretty wild. With all the, as you're getting on, there's like 200 guys locked up

and they put all the girls in the front row and all the guys are hey baby hey baby baby hey hey hey and she just says this is ridiculous what do I got myself into

yeah come over here come over here but um savages yeah so and the thing of the podcast is I record everything separately

so the camera records the camera the mics record to a sound board and then I have to sync it all up afterwards and then manually cut as people start talking and stop talking. Yeah. So, I mean, I've worked on editing podcasts

because I've had to subtitle podcasts as well, but some people don't speak very well. I had to type out like an hour worth of podcast. You know how many thousands of words that is? I've spent 30 hours editing a freaking podcast. For how long was the podcast? An hour. Hour and a half?

You try and subtitle that. though an hour yeah i just post it like we're just gonna have to wing see the thing with me is i'm like super ocd there was i i did i posted a podcast other day right and i was overlaying some video footage i was interviewing this guy and he gave me some stuff to put over it and i overlaid some video footage and i cut the clip in the middle right and so when you re-synced it it was slightly off no no but i cut so it was like it was a video with many clips in one video and i left one frame of the next shot in so when the when the frame moved there was a slight second it was like it was like a flash of it i almost took the whole video down off youtube no and i get it because i've

done that before where i've gone i've never once it's uploaded it's done yeah i listen you should see we had mike dowd we did a podcast with mike dowd and colby that didn't have it synced so part of the video in multiple different chops there's part when he flips to when it's on me, and I'm going, and you can hear my Dow talking, and then you can hear me, then it chops up where you can tell like it's off by like,

I don't mean like a split second. Yeah. I mean, it's off by 10 seconds. Yeah. Where it's a completely different conversation. And this is multiple spot. That video got 150,000 views. And I was like, I didn't even watch it.

I didn't even watch it until I was checking the comments. And it's like a week later, I read a comment and the comment was like, bro honestly like that's a great interview but the audio is slightly out of sync i don't but matt have you watched this video like you know that you're what some of the some of the audio is way off and i was like no and i start watching and i was like oh my god this this happened to a podcast that i watch and what i did was i got both of the i got a podcast up on one screen and the same podcast up on another screen and i paused it where the sync was on the one and let the other one play

and then when that one got to the right point, I pressed play so that the audio matched up from the two different laptops. Listen, listen, he was telling me this, I forgot about this. What's his name, Tim McBride? Tim McBride, I had him up in the studio upstairs. Saw what a cowboy. Yeah, I had him upstairs in the studio. And I put him on the stool and said, okay, tell your story.

And then I left. Came back an hour later. I had never started recording. I let him go an hour. Man, I've never seen, you know, so I'm a recovering drug addict, like I've said. I don't hang around people that use drugs anymore. That's a big part of staying clean is that you need to change the places you go and the people you see. Right.

And I'm fine now. I go out, I've been to festivals again, but I went to Tim's house. A little bit of weed. Oh, my God. When I got home, I opened my bags, and it smelt like a freaking grow room. Yeah. And the whole, it was amazing interview. It was so entertaining.

But, geez, that guy smokes a lot of weed. And we did it at his house. So he had no hold the barn. He was just like going off. Yeah, listen, he's told his story so many times. Like, even when I went out there, I was like, oh, God, Tim, I'm so sorry. And I explained what happened. He goes, wow, that's.

He's like, just hit play, man. It's fine. Just make sure you hit. record this time i'll do it again i go oh man i'm so sorry he's fine i hit it came back two hours later he was just finishing up and it was just like this is insane and i've i've seen like i interviewed him he did his whole spiel he did his spiel upstairs he did it with boziac i've seen him he has his story down he tells it he gets the numbers wrong sometimes but that's that's that's all i noticed yeah what he keeps going that he's he definitely he's my podcast he was so high that

like you have no idea he was he didn't put the joint down the whole time and he had the vape pen on and he was like have you do you guys have these in South Africa and he like put in these drops and he was like this is the most potent you can get with the

with the joint in the fucking thing and he's hitting the fucking vape pin on the other side and he was just like coughing the whole time but it was so funny it was such a good interview but Jesus he was he was high

He was, I don't think I've ever seen someone that high in my life. Yeah, his, his, uh, his podcast definitely got like limited monetization on, on YouTube for me. Yeah, yeah, it did. It was good. It was nice and long, but yeah, you can't, you know, he's talking very specifically about drugs. So, you know, YouTube's got an issue with that. Well, they shouldn't have any issue with this podcast. No.

No, not at all. You can monitor. Do you, when you upload, do you do, you verify it yourself? So they allow you to say whether it's, yes. So I get to do that, which obviously at this point, they don't believe anything I say. Since then, they've never demonetized the video of mine. Since what? Since they gave me that feature.

Oh, no, I do it. And they still de monetize it. Then we have to go back and they'll do the limited monetization. So we go back and we say, hey, we want to make a review. Right. They go back and they look at it. And probably out of every, probably 80% of them get monetized, full monetization. The problem is the ones that don't, you can never.

tell why. You're like, why? Like, this makes no sense. This guy's talking about drugs and murder. And you let that one go, this one, they barely mentioned, you know,

I've rated mine so accurately. Because I just demonetized a video if I know it's going to get demonetized because I want the trust in the AI or whoever's reviewing whatever. So I've got like, they never demonetize anything of mine unless I demonetize it now.

And I talks about some wild stuff. I mean, but I think, coming towards the end. Are you ready to go? I think, yeah, I've got like a four hour drive just now. This is the second time you said, coming to the end,

I'm assuming that means let's wrap it up. No, but I think, well, I just think the thing is my story's not that long. You're played out. Yeah, I understand. I'm tapped out, man. I've gotten everything out of you I can get. Well, there's so honest stuff.

The thing that I want to just convey is that, you know, like I say, my story isn't common. I mean, it's very common. Right. And often when you're in a position like I was in, it feels like you cannot get out of it. And I'm sure you went through the same thing. You know, you were so deep in the hole you were in.

Yeah. That it was just like, how do I get out of this? And you just keep getting worse and worse because, I mean, where do you go from there? Yeah. You know, how do you turn it around from the hole you've dug? I'm writing a story right now where this chick is so deep in the hole. She just can't get out, but to try and keep going until it just collapses on her. So, yeah.

But, um, yeah. Because I write true crime. So I still, I know, I know story. I still write stuff. That's, that's how I think, I think it was one of the reasons, I think I saw, when I was doing research, you know, I saw, you, I mean, you said you've done like seven books, eh? Seven, eight, like eight books. Yeah, I've written a bunch of books.

And they saw what? Seven, right? I mean, they pay my car payment, my insurance and my gas, like, you know, but I don't drive that much. Um, but yeah, they do okay. like it's like probably a year and a half ago they were doing a little bit better like it's it's up and down but yeah it's it's it's a little chunk like i would miss it um if it didn't come in and the big thing is like selling the options and then you know the fact that they're being turned into some of them are being turned into um documentaries and that sort of thing so when that takes off i'm assuming it's going to take off then i think that's uh you know it's a process it's a process when is a documentary going to come out do you think i mean i'm i'm Have they started for me? I got two documentaries being pitched in Netflix.

One of them's already with a production company that has already, mostly both production companies have made multiple documentaries for Netflix. And actually the same other one too. The one in the UK is the same thing. And we're going to meet some people, a production company where me, two of my subjects, just being one of them and another guy, we're going to meet the production company in, in a few days

well in next week so yeah it's like it's all in process of happening but yeah so when I was exciting when I was growing up

I always thought my story was so interesting and until you asked me to be on the podcast and then you started thinking about and then I was like you know you could always go like

I would love to be on like Joe Rogan or like a big podcast right and like share my story because I'm so interesting yeah and then I started thinking about it I was like

I'm really not that interesting I mean, it's not some wild shit, but who hasn't? Yeah. But what I was saying was that, like, if you get to the kind of point that I got to or you got to, maybe it's a bit different with drugs. Yeah, yeah. But even if you have a family member that's going through that, there's nothing you can do for an addict. Right. There's nothing you can do, but let them play it out.

Right. And I think in my case, my parents held on to me for so long that it was probably worse for me. me in the end and worse for them right so like if you have family members that are going through what I went through or something similar um you can be there to help and support if they need it but you can't try and fix it right because you will never fix an addict the addict has to decide with me my dad said to me do you want to go to rehab and I said yes you'll never be able to get someone to recover if you force them to recover um but uh when the when the opportunity presents itself, take it.

And for me, a lot of people don't like going to rehab. For me, it was like the best thing I ever did because it gave me time to get out of the environment I was in into a safe space, clear my head, get sober. And then by the time you get into the real world, you have a bit of time on you, clean time. And you can make decisions more clearly, even though I did slip up.

it was it was the best thing I ever did was going away for six months even though it seemed long I mean at that point it was a big portion of my life but yeah it was worth it

and the thing I also want to say is family members go through so much you don't realize that as an addict what you put your family members through because you don't really care the only thing I cared about was getting my drugs

and yeah that's the that's the thing I feel the worst about is what you put your family members because not only you're ruining your life you're ruining everyone else is around you what is you know you've never said the name of the podcast oh yeah it's the wide awake podcast and it's only on YouTube at the moment why didn't you use your name just you just Joshua Rubin yeah and you know the funny thing is a lot of people think that it's the wide awake podcast because it's like a woke thing or whatever but it's because I did a lot

of cocaine oh I actually didn't think that at all it was like part of the reason it was because I was always awake because I was always on drugs and this guy said to me my name on Instagram was Josh Wideawake as well and this guy's this guy once said to me

because I had like a funny username and he's you should change your username and he just gave me a few options he said this is potential and I was like oh I like Josh Wide Awake for something I don't know why it's related with like

it was always wide awake using drug right so that's how it started it's not like a woke thing okay and it's on YouTube Instagram or does you also play them on Instagram the podcast is only on YouTube the clips go everywhere yeah yeah you don't put them on uh you don't you don't put you don't put you don't pull

the audio and put it on i'm starting to oh yeah the thing with me is i always want to be a youtube yeah yeah i love youtube i love i love i'm a visual person i love to watch a podcast i don't like to listen to someone i want to watch them i want to see who the person is and a lot of the people that i interact with are so interesting to look at yeah and expressive that it just doesn't come over the same in audio so it's right so what do you think about what about the the wall here you think I should strip that I could go with the red you think I think that you know the dark red like a dark yeah yeah I got to do something how do you feel about that you like red she says she likes red but not on the wall she likes red I heard that's what I heard I did you paint these paintings yeah these are like what they're called modified screen prints and so they're you know they're all different like the part part of it is a screen print and then part of it of course you know I painted me you could obviously look like they're awesome though yeah yeah they're pretty like I got all kinds of These are con men or con women, you know? See Boziak?

Yeah, as I'm sure what to say, that guy looks familiar. Yeah. The Tinder Swindler, look. Who's that? You know, honestly, it was a modified screen print that I did of a picture that I found on the internet. I played with it and played with it and ran it through some filters and got a screen print of it, you know, the whole thing. My friend messaged the Tinder Swindler after the documentary came out. Oh, yeah.

What did he want? Are you, he messaged? Was he trying to get him to come on a podcast? No, my friend messaged. messaged him. It was a girl messaged him. I think she just said, fuck you, basically. And he replied, it was so, well, you know, he does podcasts and stuff. What a wild guy that guy is there. What a little, what a fucking jackass. Hey, appreciate you. Appreciate you. Appreciate you guys watching. And if you like the video, do me a favor and hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Leave me a comment in the comment section and I will respond to about 80, 90% of the comments if they're worthy. Also, in the description, I got Patreon. I've got an Etsy account, although Colby keeps forgetting to put it in there. Also, I have, what else?

What else? What else? My email's in the description, and I have tons of, I have books and all kinds of stuff that you can buy. And I really appreciate it. I appreciate you guys supporting the channel. Thank you very much. See you.