Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - EX COP BECOMES MARIJUANA ACTIVIST | STONED SAILOR ( FULL PODCAST AUDIO)

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

"The Stoned Sailor" Goes over his time as a correctional officer and how marijuana changed his life from almost losing his legs.

You know, when you stand up to go to the toilet to pee, it takes 100 miracles to happen. Yeah. From your brain to your spine. It takes 100 miracles to happen. And I'll never take those miracles for granted again. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I am here with Robert Farlow. And he is a former, well, retired. Porn star.

Porn star. Yeah. Former CEO at, was it just Coleman? Coleman, yes, just Coleman. At Coleman and basically he's got a story. He's got an interesting story and we're going to go ahead and go through it. So check this out. I know you've been interviewed a bunch of times.

Yeah, sure. But like, you know, I just basically, to me it's like start at the beginning. Like where were you worn? First of all, I want to thank you for having me. Sure. And, you know, I'm watching your show. I really like it. And I really wish you the best, man.

And like I said, I know that you're, you know, you're an intelligent guy. and I know you're going to put your, your energy into good things. And I know you're going to be successful again. Well, most definitely. I'm your biggest cheerleader. Okay? Just like all the guys that get out that, you know, I'm their biggest cheerleader. I don't want to see anybody going there, but there are people that do belong in there.

And we talked about that. Right. But, you know that, you know, like, John Boziak. Yeah. He had told me about you. Really? Uh, I had, I had heard about you prior to that where I think, I think it was Josh that mentioned it, but also Tyler, Tyler, my, Boziac and I is, like, our booking agent.

He mentioned you. And I think I had two people in the comments, and I had a guy a couple days ago mentioned you. And I went back and I said, bro, I'm interviewing him like in two days or on Wednesday. Cool. So it's funny because it's like all of a sudden, it's just within probably a month, multiple people just got got bombarded. When it was meant to be, Matt. You got to check this guy out. You got check this guy out. It was meant to be then.

So where were you born? I was born in Philadelphia. I'm originally from South Philadelphia. When I was a young man, my father committed murder. He was in the underworld. He was a bag man for organized crime. He dealt drugs. He pimped women. He was a gambler.

You know, ran gambling, illegal gambling, underground gambling. And he ended up, you know, getting caught for a murder. Okay. And he got sentenced to life without parole when I was a young man. Now, the person that he murdered retaliated and burnt our house down, and my sister perished in that fire. Three days, yeah. The person he murdered.

Excuse me. The person he murdered's cousin. Yeah, not the person he murdered. He must have been Jesus. No, it wasn't Jesus. It wasn't Jesus. But he was the devil. And he retaliated because his uncle was murdered

And he burnt our house down My mother and I My father was in prison awaiting bond He had just got, he just got picked up This was in 76, no no 78, 79 Around that time You guys were, but I mean you get out of the house Or you got to run in there?

My mother saved my life She handed me to a fireman on a fire escape And my older sister was supposed to be behind her Holding on to her gown And she got scared because her dog ran in the room And my sister dropped my mom's gown and ran to get her dog and when she ran into the bedroom it collapsed and then my mom couldn't get her and then the fireman pulled my mom out and the whole house went down and my sister my

older sister died terra okay so that's how i you know uh that was my that was a big event in my life a watershed event in my life because all of a sudden i had a someone who used to take care of me and like boss me around and now all of a sudden i'm the old i'm the only child you know at that time and um well my anyway my father goes to prison and my mother remarries and she remarries a big drug trafficker and um you know and uh she gave me a he gave her uh you know they had a baby which was my baby brother my little brother whom i loved and um he was you know he was everything to me and uh i always wanted to protect him and things like that and the things that were going on in the house as far as the money and the drugs being

hidden and the cops coming in kicking the doors down and the state police raid in our house and people in the neighborhood never wanted their kids to play with me I was ostracized I was blackballed people were calling me your father's a jailbird in school I was embarrassed I was humiliated and um kids are dicks oh yeah they're yes they could be mean and I just remember I just remember telling myself you know my my father and my stepfather were always teaching me about how to like you know

how to steal something how to stay away from the cops how to carry a baseball bat with you with a glove just in case you're getting a problem you know you can hit somebody with the bat but if a cop stops you you could say hey I'm on my way to playing softball you know I mean shit like that like little stuff they would teach me as a kid how to hide drugs how to hide money

how to do all this shit and it was stuff I just I was completely turned off because I was like I don't want to live that kind of life that's not for me you know I didn't I wanted nothing to do with that I was disgusted I was embarrassed I was humiliated because I, because of that what that life brought me and brought my, the pain it brought me. Yeah, you're growing up around kids that have normal lives.

They got a dad, they've got a mom and a dad. Yes, I, you know, and at one time I had a dad and a stepfather in prison. At one time, I went to Trenton State Prison on a visit, and a month later, I was in Danbury, Connecticut at the federal prison to see my stepfather. So that's, I grew up in prison, prison waiting room, and visiting rooms, playing those little tick, tecto games in Connecticut. for, I was one of those kids. Yeah. So, and I was also, I also know what it's like to have a loved one incarcerated. And I know that the family does the time just as much as the person, you know, the family

suffers too, you know, because, you know, your dad's not there. Your mom's got to find another way to get a job or make money. And, you know, it's a ripple effect. It's a terrible effect. So I never wanted nothing to do with that life. Right. So I said, I'm going to do, you know, I don't have any positive male role models, but I have a lot of negative ones. So I'm going to learn from them. See, everything that they do, I'm going to do

the opposite. I just figured out this formula. It wasn't like Einstein equal E equals to M square or whatever. It was my little theory of relativity. I'm like, well, I'm just going to do the opposite of these guys and I'm going to do something, you know, respectful and honorable. So I joined the military as a young man. And I, when I got in the military, which branch? Navy. I joined the Navy. I, uh, I loved it. I finally, I finally got an opportunity. My whole life I was told, you know, you're going to be like your dad. You're going to end up in prison, you know, and then I would start acting out that way in school and things like that. I'd gotten arrested as a juvenile disorderly conduct, shoplifting. And, um, people would just tell me, you're just going to end up like your dad. And I believed it for a while. And when I joined the Navy, that was the first time I, I, I, you know, I went in the Navy and I loved it. I loved the structure. I loved, you know, the whole idea of, you know, honor, courage, and commitment, all the core values they preached down. And it was something I wanted to be. It was something I aspired to be. I would watch TV and watch the movies. And I would say, wow, I really want to do that one day. So I did it. And while I was there,

lo and behold, they said, you know, I picked a job and they said, you'd be a great military police officer. And I'm like, wow, what the, you know, that's pretty crazy. So they sent me to the Navy Police Academy in Lackland, Lackland, Texas. And when I got in a police academy, when they were showing us how to search people, and they would bring in, like, actors from, like, the local

dinner theater to come in and play criminals. Right? And they would have them come in, and they would hide, like, hide drugs in a, in a house, like a crime scene scenario, and you'd have to respond like a domestic, and it would turn into a domestic to a drug possession to something, and you had to, you know, they were grading

us. Well, I just always know, this is how you search him keep him here separate him oh they probably here it's probably in his sock oh he's got something in his pocket he keeps fidgeting all this stuff my my dad and my stepdad taught me like i just keyed in on that and then they thought i was like the greatest thing in the world right they're like oh my god this guy's great you know this guy's freaking you know he's dirty harry you've been being tutor for the last 25 years you know we would do these scenes where we would pull people over and i would search the car and find the drugs right away because i knew where i knew where the hiding spots were my dad taught me they all taught me

So, um, so basically I ended up graduating first in my class, which was the first time I'd ever been first in anything in my life. And they made me the honor graduate and they brought me before this big crowd and these, uh, the commanding officer, you know, they had medals, ribbons down to here. And all these important people were praising me in front of all these people. And I was, they were telling me that I was this great guy and I was the top performer and the distinguished honor graduate. And I actually at first thought they were putting me. on. I'm like, no, no, no. This is going to be a joke. Like, Ashton Coucher is going to come and this is pumped, right? You know, I'd never. And from that point, um, they told me since you're the honor graduate, you have the choice. You could pick a specialty school. And I said, well,

what schools do you have available? And they told me we have investigator. You could be, um, a bodyguard for an admiral, someone important, a dignitary, a state of, uh, you know, a, um, you know, like secretary of the Navy or somebody like real important be a personal bodyguard wear civilian clothes and just drive around with them and go on all these little trips around the world or we have canine dog handling and I always had dogs my mother we always had German shepherds we always had Doverman pinchers and my mom used to raise dogs so I came from a family you know that you know loved animals and I loved animals too so she said I said well can I you know can I go and look and see what the canine school is about and the lady said sure well you know we'll bring you over there they're going to do a

demonstration right and i remember i showed up and i saw this guy come out with this camouflage uniform on creases so sharp you'd cut your fingers on them if you touch them and he had this big beautiful german shepherd next to him and the dog was walking at the heel and there's a man out in the field with the bite suit you know being an aggressive person you know because he was going to send the dog for the bite yeah and i remember he sent that dog. He said, get him. That dog ran in the field, tackled that guy down in that big bite suit. And I just remember looking at it. And I said, that's me. That's my life. That's what I want to do. And then from there, I went into the canine program. And I was a drug detection

dog handler, bomb detection dog handler. I was in two tours in Iraq, counter IED, looking for bombs. Okay. And it was a pretty chaotic time when I was over there. This was right after the invasion during the election time frame and it was it was a really it was a crazy time over there was a lot a lot of death and destruction uh over there and um are you doing iraqi freedom or are you talking about uh no the second iraqi freedom yeah two thousand and three not 91 yeah yeah yeah not ninety i was i'm too i'm too young for 91 i was you know so um yeah it's funny the um you know you've mentioned that i i never think of uh i never think of the drug dogs um as far as you know being in the military but i i guess you big business you drug dogs right now

i mean in the military we have a drug problem too i mean our drug dogs sweep all the barracks rooms all the ships i don't even think about that i can see that i can see the bomb yes but not okay so drugs yeah we have sailors unfortunately we go to foreign ports maybe thailand or or or some other and they bring drugs on the ship. Okay, because they want to traffic them because they can get them there cheap and sometimes they're even legal. They buy them in a pharmacy and stuff like that

and they bring them on the ship illegally and then we sweep and we find it. And sometimes sailors deal drugs and shit out of their rooms on the base. Well, those ships are like small cities, right? They're massive. Like a carrier, of course. Like 5,000 people.

5,000 people. You could be there for three years and not see everybody. You'll be on one side and the other person may be on the other. You could both be there at the same time. but never came near each other. Wow.

Yeah, it's one of those things. It's real, if you've ever had an opportunity to go on a tour of an aircraft carrier, do it. It's something amazing. And so basically I was a canine handler. I was, I ended up, I went on from there, and I was selected to be the Sixth Fleet, chief mastered arms of the Admiral's Ship, which is the USS Mount Whitney. And on that ship, I became the anti-terrorism officer, security officer, And I was an investigator and, and that's where I finished out my career and I retired from there.

I was going to say, how long, how long was it before you were in, uh, in Iraq? I mean, like, Oh, I had a 20 year career. So I was, I was, I was done, I had two tours in Iraq. I had, uh, I was, I was, I was part of the, uh, Odyssey Dawn, which was the invasion of Libya. I was, I was other operations to, as far as, as a canine handler, I would get assigned. to the Secret Service sometimes to do bomb sweeps for like Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger when he came to Tokyo. I lived in Europe for five years. I lived in Asia for three years. I lived in the Middle East for two years. I lived in the West Coast. I lived, you know, I got an opportunity to travel the world. You know, I've circled

the globe, you know, several times. So it was, it was a great experience, you know, being in the Navy. When did you retire? 2012. Okay. And when I retired, I was looking for for a new career. How old were you then? 38. 38. How old were you now? 47.

Okay. Yeah, 47. And I was looking for a new career and I was going, you know, I'd done police work for damn near, you know, 20 years. And I said, okay, you know, I'm going to walk into a federal law enforcement job. I was, I was a dog handler. I had all these skills. So I was looking for like customs or maybe TSA, but all their duty stations were somewhere

I didn't want to go. Right. And at the time I was married and we wanted to do. and we wanted to relocate and live in Florida because my mother had moved to Florida many years before with my brother so they moved to South Florida so that's where I wanted to eventually be so I ended up taking a job at I was you know looking on this federal job search and I see the Bureau of Prisons and from there I applied and I was selected I went and did the testing and and I went in there and they hired me so I started there August 12th 2012 exactly one month after I retired I started at the prison I started their academy okay at the prison how long does that take they have an academy yeah they have academy it's in glenco george it's four weeks I don't know four weeks of correctional academy and they also bring actors in too from a dinner theater to play inmates too they do yeah yeah yeah so um it's kind of funny though

you know but um they uh so I did that I ended up getting hired with them and I was the type of guy when I went out there, I know what it was like to be in a visiting room. I know what it's like to have a father incarcerated, a stepfather. I had cousins that were in federal prison. There were drug traffickers in the 80s when the crack cocaine came in. And they jumped in on that easy money, that free money. Right. And they all paid dearly for it.

And their family's paid too dearly for it. And, you know, these mandatory minimums came in and just started wiping people out, you know. I had a cousin that got 15 years on a first offense for trafficking because he wouldn't talk, Matt. He wouldn't give up anybody. Well, that was a mistake. I had to cut everybody's throat. Well, his wife, my cousin, she would say, you know, she would agree with you. But he was one of those guys from Philly that just felt, you know, I'm not talking.

And they hit him. They hit him with it, you know. And everyone else talked on him, though. Everybody else, sung like Canary's on him, you know. The same guys that you're going to prison for turn on you immediately. Exactly. So he was a stand-up guy, and I give him a lot of respect for that because, you know, he really paid the price. and he did all his time.

He got home and she waited for him and they're still happily married. That's nuts. That's the part that never happened. Yes, they're still happily married. The only guys I know that that happened with is if it's one, if it's short time, a couple years, or if they've got a bunch of money.

Like I know multi-millionaires. Neither. The government took every penny. That almost never happened. They took every penny. They seized my cousin's house. They took everything. Took every fucking thing because he wouldn't cooperate.

So I saw. I kind of knew how the system was working. So I also have empathy because I, you know, when I got to the prison and I actually saw firsthand when I started reading PSIs and things and seeing that some of these guys got 50 years, never touched a gun. No one got so much as a bloody nose in the indictment. And they're getting hit with all this time for drugs, you know? But then you got a pedophile that comes in, does his three or four years at the low,

walks out. And this guy that's got 30 years for cracks, got to watch this son of a bitch come in and out of the prison. It's so fucked up. It's, you know, can I say that word? Yeah, good. I'm going to say it. Fucked up. It's fucked up.

And so I just remember when I got hired, we had an indoctrination at the training center. You go there, you stand up. You introduce yourself to everybody. And I just remember, I stood up the first day and I said, hi, my name is Rob Farlow. I was in the Navy. And if you do something wrong in front of me, I will report you. And I told everybody that from day one because I will. Right.

Because, you know, if you do something wrong, I'll write you up to. But if an officer does something wrong, I'm going to report them too. You know, it works both ways because you can't call these guys dirtbags if you're doing bad shit and falsifying documents and, you know, assaulting people, excessive force or planning contraband in their fucking cells and shit. Right. You know, so I just made, I put everyone on notice that, you know, that I, you know, people called me a rat, whatever. I don't give a shit. I knew from that point going forward, anybody that worked with me would be somebody that was cool with that. You know what I mean?

So if you didn't want to work with me, that's for you. Yeah. You know, I don't care. I don't want to work with you anyway. Yeah. So. Yeah, I'm not, I think you're not there to make friends. Not there to make friends.

No, I'm not there. I'm there to give you what you got coming and go home. All right. You know what I'm saying? That's it. You know, I'm not there to be petty, to violate anyone's rights, to mess up anybody's locker or sell. And that kind of stuff makes me sick to my stomach. And I just, I didn't tolerate.

that and people that worked with me knew that. So which which prison? You were predominantly in Yeah, I was assigned to USP1, which is the max pen there. But the thing about Coleman is, the good thing is they have two pens. You got pen one. You got pen two, which is called like a drop pen, more of a senior citizen pen. Like if you get really old at pen one

and you can go there. Or if you a gang drop, you dropped out and you debriefed, then you can go to Penn 2. And that's the difference is basically you have Pepsi and Diap Pepsi. Penn 1 is Pepsi, Penn 2's Diap Pepsi.

And you got the medium and you got the low and then you got a female camp at the time. It was a female camp. And the good thing about Coleman is as an officer you can go on the roster and you could do overtime or you could get sent to any other prison. So you get to see all the different levels of custody

as a corrections officer. So one day you know, I work at USP 1 and then all of a sudden they go, we got overtime at the low. Well, everybody at Penn 1 wants to jump on that because that's easy 8. That's an easy 8 overtime. Right. You know?

And Penn 1, you're running all the time with the body alarms, you know, you've got an inventory, packed property, all that shit, you know? And you go to Penn 2 or you go to the camp or you go to the medium. And it's an easier day. You know what I mean? And so I would take advantage of those opportunities and I would work at all the different custody levels because when I went into something,

just like anything, when I enter it, I always see myself with a long-term strategic plan. I say, okay, today's an officer, five years I want to be a lieutenant. Right. You understand? So I have a plan going in because I jump into things with both feet. I don't half-ass stuff. All right.

So, okay, sorry. Go ahead. I was going to say, so at Penn 1, like how often are those guys locked up? Well, they were locked down pretty frequently because of the violence. Now, I retired before COVID, and I hear COVID, I hear now it's just pretty much a shoe.

Now they just lock it down 24-7 and very, very limited movement. You know, and it's, you know, but when I was there, we would lock down for violence. We would have a fight, maybe possibly a gang beef that could overflow into the next day or the next shift, and we would just, as a precaution,

keep them locked down for a week, two weeks a month, and to let everything cool down. So we were locked down quite frequently because of violence. We had a murder there. We've had many assaults, many rapes. And I was part of the evidence recovery team. I was on a special team there, and I used to actually go and collect evidence for crimes and things like that.

So I got the process stuff and trained with the FBI and all that kind of cool shit. Yeah, I don't know if you, I mean, obviously you weren't there if you were there in 2012. of it when I was in the medium I remember they had like six guys got stabbed a couple of guys people got shot they had we could hear the helicopters and they locked us down yeah yeah that was in the medium then yeah what was funny about that was there was a newspaper article that came out and it said that the the Coleman complex like you know there was a there were several people that were like life flighted to the hospital there were several shootings there was a several six people got hurt officer so they go on and on and then they put

but that the complex hold such notorious criminals as. Matthew Cox. No, one of them was Matthew Cox. So it said Conrad Black. Black, who was at the low? Yes. Me, I was at the media. Like, everybody they named, none of them were in that riot, like in the pen.

Yeah, we're in the pen. But if you read it, it seems, I'm like, it looks like it was in the pin, in the riot. I mean, practically puts me in the riot, which was hilarious. Yeah, they love, the media loves to spin their tails. The closest I got was hearing them, hearing the. helicopters some gunshots and them screaming locked down we were locked down for like three days it was i mean coming from an environment a combat environment where you know you you're constantly on guard and your situational awareness is always high you're heightened alert you know working at the

pen it was like pretty easy for me to transition because i was used to that working in a high stressful environment right in the military whether it's the tent finding bombs or investigating crimes or things like that or planning um planning uh against repelling possible terrorist attacks against our assets and stuff so it was i'm kind of used to that like a like an adrenaline junkie type of guy so i i like that kind of occupation you know um so i hey okay why do you know whitey bulger right yeah why did where was he was he was he was at penn too i saw him a couple times when i would when i would do overtime with him and i remember one time like because he was the only living inmate that actually served

time in Alcatraz yeah at one time so I remember I remember saying something to him like you know I was doing an overtime and he he had a walker you know he would go with this walker and I remember saying something to him and and and I was like you know Mr. Bolger you know how I said to him you're pretty you're pretty popular guy and he was like yeah that's my problem like that's my problem kid like you you know muttered it under his breath and and um i remember he said something along the lines like uh one of the one of the counselors said to him you know he was complaining about something and she said i guess you don't like the accommodations here and he said no i was better in alcatraz i wish i could come back there or something like that he made

some kind of you know thing but um they transferred him to hazleton and he was dead within six or seven hours, right? Was it Hazleton? Lee County, I think it was. I mean, I don't know. I know. I do know. One of them. I forget. I think it was Hazleton maybe or. I know they killed him. Killed him immediately. Within six hours of getting off the bus. You know, that guy should have been in segregation. There's no way. That was a, that was. Yeah, he should have been in the medium.

Absolutely. He's that he's an old man. Absolutely. Absolutely. I remember there was, I was sitting on dry cell. You know what dry cell is? If someone was suspected of ingesting contraband in the visiting room, you have to keep them in an isolation cell and they have to have three successful bowel movements okay and you have to watch it so you talk about a shitty day yeah it's a shitty day yeah and i remember i had an inmate on dry cell and i don't know some some guys get angry with the term inmate prisoner i don't know is you know some guys are sensitive about that but yeah yeah i i'm a convict yeah i i i just say prisoner inmate at the time because that's what that's what it was at the time

You're still a human being But at the time you were classified as an inmate But a human being, but an inmate But And he told He was in the shoe with Whitey The night before he transferred And he told me that Whitey told him

He said, yeah, I'm going to this place And yeah, I'm going to die there I remember him telling me that Like five days after I was sitting on this guy Watching him and he told me he was in the shoe with him And Whitey told him, yeah, they're going to kill me I'm not going to make it You know, so it was kind of

I don't know I think somebody orchestrated that I don't get conspiracy things But, you know, that's, that was a pretty, that was a, that was like a rookie mistake for the shift lieutenant to not recognize this guy and know that he had separaties and things like that. I mean, they usually know that before you get off the bus. That was just, I don't know. That just didn't smell right to me. Well, I mean, we were talking about this, like the, the custody, or not the custody level, but the actual security around, let's say, like the pens and the medium.

And, you know, look, I was, I was in the medium. I mean, I've gone to the pen. I was in the pen for 24 hours. Okay. I was there in the shoe. You got your street credit, then, I guess. Listen, in the shoe. And the whole time, they were walking me in there because I had to go to the shoe.

Oh, I'm sure. They were. Listen, I was like, hey, bro. To the C, I was like, oh, you can't put me in with one of these guys. I mean, these guys have tattoos on their eyeballs and they're fucking. And I'm like, and he's like, no, no, no, Cox. It's okay. Don't worry.

We know, we know better. And they were so cool. Like they put me in a room. They go, look, Cox, I got you some book. I got this, I got that I remember he said You're a medium prisoner And we know that

At that time I was a whoa Okay well they know that and they don't want nothing I mean they don't want nothing bad to happen If they put you in with a with a pen guy That's a big no-no Exactly Those guys when you're walking in this shoe I could see you could see the

The rec yard And they look like caged fucking animals And I don't mean just because of the cages They are there they're just They're the tension And there's tattered it up and they just looked like they were bottled energy and I remember thinking oh hell no yeah you can't put me in they really no no no no no don't worry and you know I was there 24 hours

next day they called me out they said hey Cox should have been locked up we're bringing it back yeah give me about an hour because they didn't have a shoe well you were going to the media medium yeah what was the shoe full in the medium yeah what's so funny is the one guy that I went with he went to the medium and that was it they were like full and then they brought brought me to the to the you know to the uh the pen and i was like oh this is fucked up yeah and luckily 24 hours later i was right back you know well i would know when we would get a guy from the low or something at the shoe like an overnight person you know they're not going to give you any trouble they just want to get put in their cell and they're not you're not going to hear a peep out of them

it's the guys that are you know it's the guys on your range that are from pen one that you know are the ones that are going to be kicking doors and screaming and throwing piss and all that shit and what you know that the so the pen like let listen you this is what kills me is that the custody levels are so fucking outrageous like i went to a medium yeah first of all you know well you know you got over i had over 20 years you're an escape risk are you out of your out of the pen i mean out of the medium like you're not getting out of the pin you're nobody's getting out of the escape risk because of the time or did you have an attempt if you had over 20 years you had to go to the medium okay under 20 you could go to the low under 10 you can go to a

camp. But as soon as I got to the medium, my counselor was like, yeah, you shouldn't be here. Yeah, yeah. You know, um, you, I'm glad you had a council that had some brains that actually recognized that because some people would just throw you out there and say, you know, fend for yourself. Yeah. Well, I mean, she did. I mean, what she did. All she did was say, you really shouldn't be here, but you're here. Oh, she didn't. Oh, she didn't move me. No, I stayed there. Can I ask you her name? Um, it was her name was, I don't know, her next last, her name was Bates. She died about five or six months. later. I know who you're talking about. Smoked like a chimney.

Yeah, I know who you're talking about. I know who you're talking about. Super cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you're talking about. She was a salty, salty lady. Yeah, she'd been there a while. Yeah, I know who you were talking about. She died.

A heart attack. Yeah, in her sleep or something like that. She was like in her 50s, but she smoked like a chain smoker. You know, even though there was no, there's no tobacco on the compound, man, she didn't give a fuck. She walked right out on the top. And it would smoke and come back in, being there for 20 minutes, come back out, smoke. Yeah, yeah. It's reeked to smoke.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know. what very nice super super cool um and thank god um uh not that due diligent on her paperwork because i actually came in what and i had restitution right so i got in there and she has you fill me filling out my paperwork and i said okay you know sign here sign here she's okay well you have to make restitution payments and i went what and she goes you have to make restitution payments and i went no no no no no i said listen my judge said i owe restitution i said but i don't have to make payments while I'm incarcerated.

I said I have no money. I have no job. 20 cents an hour is. Right. You get the prison job pay scale. Well, and I had just gotten there. And she looked at me and she said, I mean, well, first of all, she said, you don't have any money on your books yet. Yeah.

And she said, but you have to, she has, you have to pay. And I went, listen, I said, my lawyer made two arguments with restitution. One, I shouldn't have to pay interest. And two, I said, I shouldn't have to pay while I was incarcerated. Yeah. I said, and I know those are the. the only two arguments she won by the way this is a complete lie and and she said okay well i'm gonna look into it i'll i'll take a look at your judgment commitment i'll see what it says

she's and i'll get back with you and i said okay cool i get up and i leave i don't hear anything from her six months later she dies several months later a few months later i get called into the office because it's team yeah team you got your team unit team right so the unit manager is there my counselor's there and they said okay coctia you're fine everything's good i mean you got a lot of time like you're trying to keep yourself busy stay out of trouble and they went um you're not paying restitution and they go but you're not on um what do they call it when you didn't pay you're not on like a garnishment type of thing where they where they deduct it out automatically if you get any money in your books or something no well what it

you're not on um where they basically they put you on refusal oh you're not on refusal she's you're not on refusal but you're not paying and i went well i don't have to pay and actually this was a guy and i said no i don't have to pay this is my new counselor and i went i don't have to pay and he goes well why is that i said no i said i went over this with miss bates and they were well she's not here i said i understand i said you know i explained what happened with my lawyer boom boom boom i said she checked into it i said she called me back in she said you're right i looked into it i've never seen it before but you don't have to pay and i said cool and i said so i've never paid and he went i said you can check look in my file the file's there it's this thick and i go look at my

file and he was yeah yeah he said I'll check I'll let you know I said okay cool I get up on leave six months later I have another counselor now yeah I I so boy you're nailing it right on the head how it works in there huh listen so this time say they go you're not on FRP refusal that's what they call yeah yeah you're not on FRP right now with all this lingo you're saying but go ahead he goes you're not on FRP refusal and I went right and I said yeah I know he said but you're not paying and I went no I said listen I said I went over this with miss Bates I went over this with mr johnson or whoever his whatever that guy's name was i said and i explained it all again he go and i said you can look i said they they both checked it out and he goes no he said i'll

check it out and the unit manager's there and he's like yeah yeah he's we'll let you know i said okay cool i get up on leave i that guy for like the next two years i think he was my counselor then i had another counselor which was like miss brown or somebody miss brown yeah sure and then same went to the same thing with her i go to the low i had this first day mr mr smith Mr. Smith, yeah, Mr. Smith. And he goes, and he was like, oh, I remember he was, listen, I liked him, but he was a dick. To me, he'd been around a long time, Mr. Smith. Here's what he said.

I remember he said to me, he looked at it and he goes, Jesus Christ, Cox. He goes, you got, you got 26 years. He goes, your nuts are going to be hanging down by your knees when you get out. Oh, my God. And I just went, I just thought, what's this fucking horrible? And he goes, what's up with this, with your FRP? And I said, oh, I don't have to pay FRP. So I tell him the same thing.

Then I go to Ms. Jenkins. About a week later, I'm in Ms. Jenkins. God, she was something else. So I go to Ms. Jenkins. And she goes, what's up with your FRP? You're not paying? And he happens to walk in. I said, Mr. Smith just asked me the same thing.

I said, he looked, he checked out my file. I said, I don't have to pay. And now that's not what happened at all. I just told him the story. And he goes, yeah, yeah. He said, it's weird, but he's never paid. He's never had to pay. He said, if several people have looked into it,

He doesn't have to pay. And she goes, okay. I go, can you make a notation or something? You guys keep saying this. And she was, I'll put in a note. I said, okay. She didn't do it. Yeah, I doubt she did it.

Listen, I never was asked about it again. I went 12, almost 13 years until I went to ARDAP. And an ARDAP, they caught it. Okay. And it goes to Grand Prairie. That's when they caught it. But, yeah. So anyway, what I was going to, so I just thought that was comical.

I got you. Um, so I did three years in the medium, but honestly, like, so the pen, I mean, you know how it's set up. Like nobody's getting out of there. No. The medium, nobody's getting out of there. Shit, we run to get out of there after a shift so we don't get mandated, you know, because a lot of times you get off and you got no relief. And they go, you're mandated. You got to stay, you know, so now you're doing eight, a mandate, in other words, I finished my eight hours.

Right. And no relief shows up. Someone banged in, called in sick. Okay. They got no relief from me. So then they call me on the phone and say, sorry, you got to stay there for another eight hours. Do you want to stay there?

I can swap you to another unit, but you got to stay. Yeah, I understand. I mean, but you're not escaping. No, no, no, but I'm saying that's why officers at the end of their shift when they get relieved. They bolt. There's a lieutenant's office. You go the other way.

Yeah. Because they'll stop you and say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you know, and you try to run the fuck out of there and get to the gate. You're trying to escape, too, you know? But they have to buzz you through. You know that through the, um, Shelly ports. So they'll tell the control officer to keep the door locked and not let you out.

So they're locking you in too. Yeah, it's, the security is outrageous. Sure. It's outrageous. Even in the low, like we mentioned before, like you're not, it's too late. It's the, what, there's motion sensitive? Yeah, everything. Yeah.

There's, what, four layers of concertino wire, two fences and a patrol guard that drives. Yeah. I mean, it's insane. And that's just what you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's just no way. There's more.

Oh, I'm sure maybe. I can't divulge, but there's more. It doesn't matter. I'm not getting over the fence. No, no, no. Yeah, it's bad. Matter of fact, there was one guy that actually escaped while I would, not at Coleman, but another pen. I think it was in Texas.

And he, they, he got over the electrical fence. And they were so puzzled how he did. Now, they caught him right away, but he got over the electrical fence. They were so puzzled how he did it that they actually told him, if you show us how you did it, instead of the five years or whatever on this skate, we'll give you like 18 months. All right. But you got to give it, and he did a video and demoed it.

Nice. And he used, like, he stole plastic things from wreck, and he put them on the barbed wire. Like, so it didn't have, on the electrical, so it didn't, and he put his foot there. and then he had the other put his hand there and he was like just doing that to get over the fence so he couldn't get shocked he showed him in a video how he defeated it so you know it was kind of like

you know show us how you did it and we'll and we'll you know so you don't get hit with the whole thing but he did so he was telling him how he defeated the fence because we were like you know how to hell did he get over there so and then of course they make recommendations and fix the things and stuff like that you know but yeah we we have 24 hour electrical security fences we have a very high-tech system nobody's getting out of there you know

what was the majority of your time you said was basically the pin one yeah pen one yeah so what is i mean what's what's that like like what's a day at the pin like not a lockdown day but like a regular day is you know it pretty much runs itself but you know you have to be aware because at any minute you're going to hear the tones you know the body alarm is going to go off and you're going to have to respond lock your unit down you know do things like yeah it can go from mundane to complete sheer terror i mean like two guys are stabbing each other right you know i mean it can go from that to a big fight in a unit you know 10 guys are rumbling locking a sock you know all that shit going down and you know and and it's just it's one of those things like you know you just you

show it's something different every day and it's it's it's you have this I don't know, you have this heightened sense of, you know, at any moment something can happen. So it's kind of like, it's, I don't know, it was a little exciting for me. I like that. Well, it's funny that you say lock in a sock. Like that sounds benign. No, that'll fuck you up, a lock and a sock. Oh, God.

So one of the, probably the most blood I think I've ever seen was a guy get hit in the back of the head. The guy, I don't know if it was a belt or a sock, just ran up behind him and hit him in the head three or four times. Right when he was on the phone, I remember. He came out of his cell like Indiana Jones. with the whip and he was like this and I'm just watching him and he went like this when the guy was on the phone and by the time he looked here it just his eye socket gone everything gone I mean right there and he was just I mean pouring blood he was out like a light the guy just got his put in his pocket walked in the cell and just started packing his

shit because he knew he was getting locked up and that was it I just I locked everybody down I came to a cell he's like I'm ready you know it was just like that you know so so I worked there And I always, I always, I never had a problem at because I gave people respect. I, um, I always treated people how I'd like to be treated. I, I, I never abused anybody. I don't, you know, I would bump into even now on my YouTube channel. I have, you know, guys that, you know, that, uh, were inmates and it worked in my, you know, that were in the units with me and stuff that, you know, send me, you know, comments on my

YouTube page a channel and like, you know, like everything this guy say is legit, you know, because I tell prison stories and things like that on my YouTube channel. Where are you from? Where are you running your channel? At my house. No, I mean, I'm saying it's Tampa, Orlando. Orlando. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't have a nice big, you know, fancy studio like you, you know, pictures of President Trump. By the way, 2024, when he's president again, put that painting in with your pardon application. Because I think he'll sign it. He'll see that and he'll say, Matthew Cox, let's clear his record. I have a bunch of these. Send him one. Well, your pardon application. I'll give you one if you want it.

I like it, man. Yeah. I would appreciate that. That would be awesome. I have them in the garage. I like that. You didn't go in the garage. I'll take you in the garage and show you where I, I didn't see it.

But I love, I love, you know, I'm looking at him and you're very talented, Matt. You're very talented, buddy. I like that. Appreciate it. Definitely. So I was there and I was working there. I worked there for seven years. Love the job.

It was doing great. And all of a sudden, I, I, um, I, um, You know, I, a lot of things were going on in my life. I was going through a rough divorce. You know, I was, I was, you know, down in the dumps. And, you know, I was drinking a lot and doing things like that, you know, because I financially, I was paying lawyers all the time and my house was gone and I had to sell everything and all this stuff like this.

And, you know, I remember there was a big staff outbreak in the prison, staff infection. Yeah, yeah. We would always have, they have, they had a lead, they had a lot of, Legionnaires outbreak. Legionnaires I thought was cured in the 70s but they had a Legionnaires disease outbreak at the at the female camp you know they would always have you know whether it was lice or crabs or friggin whatever it was it was you know and they had a bad staff outbreak in Penn 1 staff infection and I remember a couple weeks after that maybe two weeks or so after that I developed an eye infection really bad and it started in

one eye and my eyes swell up and it was like very sore it was like someone just like beat me up and punched me but it was just like oh the pressure on it and it was next thing you know it started to bleed a little bit out of my tear duct so I I you know I'm one of those guys that last minute doesn't go to the doctor it's always like I'll be fine I'll be fine I still worked everything you know I would use and then all of a sudden I said okay maybe I got pink eye let me go in and get checked so I go to one of these clinics and and um they tell me it's pink eye oh at this time it spread to the other eye too it went over finally and they gave me medication for Pink Eye.

I put it on, I put it in my eyes. I did it for a couple days. It got worse. Finally, I woke up one morning and my eyes were just blood, just dried blood shut. I had to go in the sink and just throw it. It was like, it was like the exorcist, man. So I went back to the doctor. I went to the VA and I, with an optometrist.

And he said, no, that's not Pink Eye. You have a staff infection in your eye. And it needs to be treated because, you know, it can, you know, go in your body. and hurt you and kill you, you know. So he gives me antibiotics and medicine and says it'll clear up in a couple days. And I took the medicine, a couple days, it went away, and it was fine. And I was, you know, everything was fine. My vision wasn't affected.

It went away. It just like went away. About two or three weeks later, after it went away, I started developing serious back pains. And I have a bad back anyway from being in the military all those years, backpacking, you know, carrying a rucksack or. lifting up my sea bag or, you know, going up and down ladder wells and ships and going up and down the tiers and all that shit. And, um, but this was a different kind. It felt like someone had a knife in me and they were just twisting it, like right in this

one particular spot. So, of course, I'm, you know, I'm, you know, laying flat. I'm taking hot, you know, cold, hot, putting ice packs on it, doing all kinds of things. I got to get my back check. This, this is hurting me. So I go in and you didn't think it was related? No. Didn't put two and two together and make four men.

And I went and I went and I got an x-ray. I went into the emergency room. I got an x-ray. And they said, well, your back is, your back is damaged, you know, but I don't see anything, you know, really bad. And they said, but I, you know, other than that, I don't see, you know, anything in that area. What do you mean damage?

Well, I had the degenerative disc disease. Okay, which is unrelated. Unrelated. Yeah, yeah. It was just, I had a lot of damage on my back, you know, from that. So they told me, here's some muscle relaxers, take these, blah, blah, blah, right? Okay. So I'm taking muscle relaxers, and my back is still hurting, but since I'm taking the muscle

relaxers, it's masking it. Yeah. And the next thing I know about a week later, I come home from work. I was working morning watch. I get off at 8 a.m., 12 midnight to 8 a.m. I drive home. I lay down in my bed, and I woke up a couple hours later, and I urinated myself, and I couldn't move my legs.

They were just jello. They were done. So my girlfriend, at the time, she called 911. They had me out of there in an ambulance. They took me to the emergency room. And I was in the emergency room. I had to pee so bad, but I couldn't urinate. My bladder was like, you know, it couldn't urinate.

So they had to cathetered me. Right. And I don't know if you've ever had that. No. Okay. Well, I've been lucky. It's not good. And they're, I'm totally anticipating this.

painful you know thing and and they hit me with it and I'm like oh you know and I'm like and next thing you know I feel great because it's all you know all that stuff is getting relieved and the doctor's like he's like I don't know what's going on with you you know because of course they think me I don't know maybe they think because I'm a government employee I'm trying to fake it to go out on a disability or some shit like that I don't know but there was a military doctor there that was a naval reserve doctor and he saw my Iraq bracelet on and he came in the emergency room and started talking to me and I told him what was going on and he said send

this guy for an MRI I think he did an MRI sent me for an MRI as soon as I get back from the MRI 15 minutes later he comes running in and he's like I got to get you on a helicopter and get you out of here you have an abscess on your spine and I'm like an abscess what you know whatever and I'm like he's like I got to get you to emergency room right I just got off the phone with a with a surgeon spinal surgeon they're waiting for you and I was like oh shit Because I'm so freaking oblivious that I'm thinking I'm having a bad reaction to the muscle relaxers. And they'll probably give me a shot. This will all come back.

Like, no problem, right? Next thing I know, they wheel me out. They put me, send me to the emergency room. Doctors are waiting for me. You know, and this one doctor, I remember he looked like Richard Dreyfus on jaws. Remember Richard Dreyfus when he played in jaw? Okay, he had a little bit of a beard and he had that, you know, and he said to me, he said, Mr. Farlow, you have an abscess on your spine

and it's caused you to get paraplegia and you will never walk again and this is before the surgery right as there walk I mean the anesthesiologist is here asking me how much I weigh he's here telling me the paramedics are behind me pushing me and he said

right now I'm concerned about saving you from the neck from the waist up The waist down's gone. I'm like, Jesus Christ, this guy's telling me, he's like, you're never going to walk again. I remember him saying that and he kept doing this and it's never, you know, you're never going to be able to walk again. He kept doing this. And I'm looking at him and the lady asked me how much I weigh and I said, give me enough to kill an elephant. And I told her that, the anesthesiologist, because I said, that's it.

I don't want to live telling me I'm never going to walk again. You know? Right. And they put me to sleep. I woke up the next day. It was my birthday. I was wrapped up like a mummy. I had a tube in my throat, a tube down there, a tube in my rear.

And they were all looking at me when I came out of it. And they, you know, the doctor was talking to me and he was telling me the same thing. You had an abscess. I had to cut your back open. You had staff infection that penetrated into your spinal cord at your T6 level, thoracic six. and from that abscess pushing into your spinal cord the infection the pus contaminated your spinal cord yeah and it caused you to have paraplegia from the waist down and I'm like wow I don't want to live no more at this point can you

feel your feet or anything nothing nothing everything's gone it's all gone I can't move I can't feel it's like jello I feel everything from the waist up they cut me right here, I was split down the spine like a Thanksgiving turkey. I have, I mean, I'm cut right down. Because they had to open me up wide and they had to clean all that infection out.

They even had to remove two little bones that were there that were so infected that they were just brittle, that they didn't want them to break off, that they removed them. And they don't know very much about they, even like the best doctors in the world,

I found this out after, but they only know limited amount with your spine and your brain how they communicate they know how it they know how like this releases this and all that but they don't know how it works yet they're still like you know scratching the surface of that stuff you know and now they're doing implants with chips and all that other stuff and stem cells but um i woke up the next day they told me the news again i thought it was a dream it was my birthday i'm paralyzed for the waist down and that's when my you know and that's when you know the nightmare all hit me now in between this time

I left this out. It's very distasteful for me to talk about. But while I was going through this divorce, my brother was a heroin addict. And he had gotten sober. But then he fell off the wagon. And he was living in Fort Lauderdale with my mother. And he was starting to steal things from her.

So I said, bring him up here. I have this big house. And I'm going to get him health insurance. You know, through, you know, I got him health insurance. I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to get him into a rehab. And while I did it, and I brought him up there, he ended up committing suicide in my house, and he died in my arms. So this was all going on.

My wife left me after that, and this had all spun, and then the staff infection, and now I'm paralyzed. So this was a really shitty time. This was, you can't get any lower than this, you know? And then my cat died, who was like my best cat, you know, because I'm an animal lover. I had a cat. He was with me for, you know, 15 years, and he was like my best buddy, and he died. And, you know, it was all right after, one, two, three, one, two, three. So it was a very bad time.

And I just woke up and I said, you know, I don't want to live no more. You know, I want to die. And I was, I was trying to ask people to bring a gun in so I could blow my brains out in the hospital, you know. And, you know, they were trying to get me, you know, they were, you know, I was in the hospital for three months because my infection, what they have to do is they have to do is they have. to put you, they put me in an infectious disease ward with other people that were like compromised because when you have a massive infection like that, your immune system's low. Yeah. So they have to put you in an isolationary and they had to run IV antibiotics in my arm.

Every day, two different bags, two different antibiotics. And they do it for 45 days straight. So it's like a full spectrum. To try and kill the whatever it is. They treat you for every virus known them, every infection known the man and they give you the antibiotics for it. And it's like a 45 day only. intravenous two bags a day two different drugs so I was going through that and this is before

COVID all right so that we're talking January excuse me November 2019 I was paralyzed on my birthday so I'm in the hospital November December January February finally they released me and I end up going you know they told me I would need assisted living forever that I would need care 24 hour care you know a catheter you know I wasn't able to pee on my own. I wasn't, I was wearing diapers. It's really humbling experience when you're shitting yourself again like a baby and you're wearing diapers. Right.

You know, and you're, you know, you're watching TV and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, Jesus, I got to get changed. You know what I mean? It's, it's very, it's very humbling, you know, and I, I, I, um, they were giving me a whole bunch of pain pills. They were giving me whatever prescriptions I wanted, oxy cotton, whatever the fuck I wanted, Matt, I got. Whatever I wanted, you know. And while I was, you know, I would try to get people to smuggle me alcohol, it was like I was, I was like in the prison. I was like paying off the CNAs, like the nurses assistants. You know, here's $20.

Bring me back a little bottle of vodka when you go out. Like I was, I was getting people to bring me contraband in, right? When I was in that thing, you know, because I couldn't move myself, you know. And so I was working my, you know, using my prison, my prison smarts to get things into me, you know. Even food, you know, because they have you on this bland diet, whatever. Pick me up a cheese. or checkers or something and bring it in

you know I would do things like that because I didn't give a fuck I was going to die anyway I knew as soon as I can get out of this you know I can get around somewhere where I can get something

maybe some pills or whatever and I'm going to just take them all and just you know go to sleep forever I can understand yeah and so I'm taking all these pain pills and they had me on a morphine pump

and you know and next thing I know I end up getting discharged and I had a caregiver She was an angel. She's an angel. I had physical therapists that were angels, too, that came into my life and saved me. And, you know, and I remember when I got home and I had a friend, I wouldn't let anybody see me, not even my mother.

I, like, I refused visits. I just didn't want anyone to say. I didn't want people to feel sorry for me because I was a big guy. I worked out, you know, this and that. I was in good shape. I'm a jiu-jitsu black belt. I'm an instructor. I've done this for 25 years, you know?

I've been doing this. The military, I was always known for my physical prowess for my athleticism and stuff. And that was gone. You know, that was gone. Not being able to work out, not being able to do jujitsu, not being able to have sex. It's all gone. All taken from you. And I had no will to live.

And I had a buddy and he came to see me. And he said, I'm coming to your apartment and I'm not taking no for a fucking answer. You're going to let me in. All right. So he came to see me. me and I'm laying there and you know he he hands me a joint and I said what the fuck is that I'm like I don't want that you know because I'm anti-drug the cop that you know a drug dog handler I'm the guy I'm anti that I'm like that's a those are drugs get those the fuck out of

here but I have a whole stack of pain medication right here yeah I was going to say exactly but in my mind this is from a doctor Matthew it's not a drug you have a prescription yes it's not a drug. That's a street drug. This is cannabis. Right. By the way, this is cannabis. So he hands it to me and then I said to myself, well, fuck it. I might as well just go out as a drug addict

too, you know, because the pain pill. So I lit up that joint and I smoked it and it completely saved my life. It elevated my mood. It brought my mind temporarily away

from what I was in. It helped me with my pain. It helped me with my motivation. And it completely just elevated my mood. And I said to myself, I don't need all this shit. I got this. This is better.

You know? So when people say that marijuana is a gateway drug, they're wrong. Marijuana was an exit drug for me. It helped me exit Big Pharma. And the first drug you usually try is what? Marijuana. No, alcohol.

That's a gateway drug. Alcohol, tobacco, then usually marijuana. So I started researching, reading all these books like Marijuana Manifesto from Jesse Ventura and the history of marijuana and how it was made illegal and how it was based on, you know, basically it had a racial component to it. The War on Drugs by President Nixon, he wanted to lock up the hippies and the blacks because they didn't vote for him. So he wanted to prosecute them for marijuana. So I started researching that hemp was the original cash crop of this country for the first 150 years.

Okay, they used to actually pay people to grow hemp and stuff. We, our first constitution was written on hemp. The first Bible was written on hemp. Hemp is American as apple pie. And it's been criminalized and demonized. And from that point, I remember I went to sleep and I had a vision. And I saw this. Okay.

And from that point, the stone sailor was born. And I said, the stone sailor. I said, I'm going to be, you know, the stone sailor. I'm going to push for cannabis, you know, reform because especially me with PTSD from being a veteran and things, how I don't need all this other bullshit medication that they want to keep me on that numbs me down where I don't feel anything. I don't feel bad. I don't feel good.

Right. I don't feel, okay? This allows me to feel. From there, I was going on about. a year still not no movement in my legs nothing you know the cannabis motivated me to start working out and the pain pills made me groggy I couldn't do anything the cannabis elevated my mood okay I'll do physical therapy today so they would come in and they would stretch my legs and massage them and I would start working out

my upper body like I had a little thing here like a pull up by my bed and I would start pulling up my upper body and get my upper body strong and then I had to learn how to transfer like go from the bed to a board to the wheelchair from the wheelchair to the toilet from the toilet to the shower I had a bench in my shower I then then from the shower to the wheelchair to the car getting in the car you know all I'm you know I'm learning this all on my own and I'm and I remember watching it like on YouTube and I was and I would start doing it like learning tricks and doing this and then when I would go to physical therapy I remember going in and I said guys they were teaching me the same thing right and I said guys I want

you to teach me how to live my life without this chair don't teach me how to live my life with this chair because I don't need you for that I already watched YouTube and I know how to do all that so if you can't teach me that then I don't need you so from that point the they agreed they'll do it my way and I started researching and I said and I was once again using cannabis I started learning about the strands, the sativa, the Intica. One is elevates your mood, gives you energy, a sativa. An Indica puts you to sleep. That's a daytime.

That's a nighttime. The hybrids, the RSOs, the cannabinoids, the receptors. I researched everything, and it's all science, and it's all proven. There's no need for any more studies. They've been studying it for 75 years, and the government's just been lying. And finally, the states are starting to take the lead. We got, what, 36 states, I believe. have some form of legal cannabis.

Right. But what I remembered is George Mortarano, who was at the medium, who got a life sentence for cannabis. Yeah. And he was in my mind, and he's from Philly. And I used to talk to him all the time because he's from the same neighborhood I was from. And his father was a legendary guy there, you know, a mobster, you know. And, you know, he has a nephew that owns a restaurant and, you know, they're, you know, really successful. successful man, Steve Mordorone, a very successful man with a great restaurant.

And he has one in Fort Lauderdale, Cafe Mordoranos. But that's his nephew. And I remember thinking, Jesus Christ, they gave that guy a life sentence for weed. There was other guys in there for 10, 15 years for cultivation of cannabis and all this. And I said, these people don't belong in fucking prison. This drug should be, everybody should be allowed to grow this. Like my own medicine cabinet, I should be able to, just like you can get an aspirin, I should be able to go into my little yard and pull some buds off, grind.

them up and you know make a joint or or smoke it and well going back now all of a sudden after from that point I started learning about aquatics like putting the same paralyzed people in the water to help you know because it's zero gravity and and you know it helps it less stress on your body zero gravity less pain and I started going to the pool in my neighborhood and they would start seeing me and I would wheel up there and people would cheer me it was like I was rocky and I would go to the pool and I would just throw myself in like a fucking thing like this and then I would swim my upper body my lower body's just dangling and I would get to the little end and I would hold the end and I would try to do squats and I would try to make

myself walk and I would try to I and I started filming all this stuff and then out of nowhere one morning I out of nowhere I I was my big toe on my left foot started moving. And at first I thought it was, because I spasm, you get like chicken legs. I have to, I have to take a, one medicine I do have to take is a anti-spasm medication because my legs will spasm sometimes because I have nerve damage, permanent nerve damage. And I didn't know if that was me or if it was a spasm. And then I looked down and I realized it's me.

I'm doing this. And it was just that little toe, that big toe on my. left foot when that started moving it was like such a victory for me because I finally had some fucking hope that I might be able to regain some of my body again you know and I remember it was just so emotional I was just crying when it happened and I was just it was such a it motivated me because I was you know 10 11 months with nothing and and my mother would call me every day and go did anything move yet did anything move you know and everyone was and I was just and

finally and I got tired I got sick and tired of people asking me that question every fucking day because it was like a disappointment you know what I mean because I had to say nothing and uh next thing I know a couple weeks later Matt my my calf started moving my butt cheeks like everything started unlocking but in different ways you know my toe and then then you know this toe worked and then my calf muscle started twitching and then my gluteus maximus started twitching and then you know things like that next thing you know now I'm I'm able to move my legs a little bit and the doctors are are amazed

They can't believe it. Is this 10 months after you got out of the hospital? A year after. Oh, a year after? Yeah, I was completely no movements for about 10 months. Okay. I was wheelchair bound. I was in a diaper.

You can't control. You got a little bug on your chair. Oh, there is that son of a lot. I thought I noticed. That's my OCD. I wanted to do that, but I don't do it. So, but the, I was, so then the next thing I know, things are unlocking and now I'm like okay I'm going to stand I think I could stand for the first time

and I tried it a year at about 12 months to the day I went and I got in a wheelchair and I stood for the first time I got out of the chair and I stood it my legs went like this and I pissed my pants and everything because my body was just like that and um it was an amazing moment because I said I would never be able to do that and uh out of nowhere then my my my my my bladder control came back and i remember talking to the to the to the to the urologist and and he was like i was like uh you know he goes you know how do you feel your bladder i said yeah i could feel it better like i feel it and and i remember going i'm going to take the catheter out and see if i could do this on my own like urinate right right and all of a sudden i pulled the catheter out on my own right out of you know

right out and you know all of a sudden next thing I know I'm peeing on my own and I'm you're bladder and you're you know the way they I would think the muscle was a muscle yeah was so relaxed by that point yes it's not ready to you have to retrain you have to exactly you have to work it it's a muscle the same thing with well how they tell if you're paralyzed or not it's it's pretty gross but I'm going to tell you is your anal sphincter they know you can't fake that when a doctor puts his finger there you clinched automatically you can't stop it

unless you're paralyzed if you're paralyzed you have no control of it that's why you wear a diaper right right same kind of concept with the with the

your bladder right it's a muscle you know you got to build it to hold and I just started you know doing these exercises in my body

like contractions and things to like work them I would contract contract contract and work them I guess women call them Kegel exercises I was going to say, women do it. So, exactly.

So I started doing it. And then with that, all of a sudden, next thing you know, I'm, you know, I could pee on my own and I don't need a diaper anymore. And, you know, and I'm on a walker. And I start training again, you know, I start, I start hitting, you know, hitting it real hard because I'm like, I got momentum going. I'm not going to let this thing stop. You know what I mean? I'm going to walk again, you know, and it was just an amazing thing. They couldn't, the urologist couldn't believe it.

He's like, you got your bladder back. When you get urine function back, he's like, that's a major. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but he's like, you don't understand that muscle. You know what I mean? He said, you're getting that back and it's a miracle, you know? They have certain, you know, they have certain thresholds or certain things and certain things. Like I remember when my mom stopped being able to, when she had a stroke and was in a wheelchair, they were like, she's going to go down and help fast.

Like as soon as you start losing momentum, a moment. mobility, you start going down. Absolutely. And there's certain things that doctors are like, okay, this just happened. Yeah, bad sign. Yeah. So all those bad signs were now coming back. But you're reversing.

I reversed it. It reversed. And I don't know why. When I was in rehab, there was a 24-year-old kid that was on his way home from a concert, gotten a car wreck, waist, neck down, paraplegic, a quadriplegic, quad. And I remember all the people that were like, we had this young kid, he was shot in the spine. over a girl. He was paralyzed from the waist down. These are all in the rehab

centers with me. And I remember going back to the rehab centers and I'm now on a walker when I was with those guys in a wheelchair. Now I'm on a walker. So I started feeling guilty because I'm like things are coming back for me but they're

not coming back for these guys. And they're seeing me in the progress and they're putting me in the pool and... Survivor guilt. Yeah. Just like when I got back from Iraq and you know, I I had a real good buddy of mine get blown up and killed. So you have a survival guilt. And I just, I didn't understand why, you know, why I got this back, you know, like, why me and not them, you know, I'm not no more deserving than they are.

Right. You know, and I just said to myself, you know, I'm going to, I have to just keep moving forward and I got to get back on my feet because I got to be an example to them because if I could do it, then they could do it. So every step, you know, every little inch I would try to gain. Maybe I'd be on the walker and then I would try to get a cane and do one step and then I'd fall. You know, busted my ankle up real bad, had to get laid up again, came back again. Then I've tried to go two steps and then three steps. And then, you know, with the cane and I'm, you know, like this. And I just said to myself, I got a, you know, I got to show them that if I could do it, they could do it.

You know, and I can't, I have to, you know, show them that you could beat this. You know, you could beat this. There's a lot of medical technology and things, but in the States, we're so restricted because of these stem cells and the fact that they won't allow other countries where they could do stem cell implants and your spine and things like that. I was even looking at going to South America. They have a big stem cell thing in Medellin, I think, Colombia, where they'll put stem cells in your injuries. A lot of people are going down there because there they don't have the restrictive laws because of the stem cells with the aborted babies and all this other stuff, the placenta. it's just all you know to me it's all bullshit if you can help living people help them right you know what I mean and so um I just you know it came back to me and I just said to myself you know there's a

reason why I got brought back there's a reason I'm here that obviously wasn't you know because I remember just completely you know having a you know and I'm not like some super religious guy or anything like that I'm very I'm very spiritual and I know enough to know that I don't know what God looks like or what he wants and things like that. I know enough to know I don't know that, you know. But I do, I do know enough to know that there is a higher power out there, whether he looks like Jesus or he looks like whoever else. We don't know.

It could be just an entity of being, who knows. But I know there's just, there's a higher power out there, you know, because this, the way your body works and how everything complements each other, you can't, you can't deny that. You'd have to be a fool not to think that somebody didn't, of greater intelligence. didn't create that, you know, because how your cells work and how, how I was learning how my nerves and my signals, if they can't, if they meet a roadblock, your body will create an alternate route to get through.

Your body does that. The doctors don't do it. Your body does it. So that design right there has got to come from someone that's intelligent, you know, super intelligent, higher intelligence. So, and even the best doctors don't even understand our brain and our spine. So I just know that when you get it. up in the morning to, before you, you know, when you stand up to go to the toilet to pee,

it takes 100 miracles to happen. Yeah. From your brain to your spine. It takes 100 miracles to happen. And I'll never take those miracles for granted again, ever. So I know that. So, and I just, from that point, I started cutting videos and I started my own channel and I found that people just really like hearing prison stories.

Well, I don't know. know what I mean I've done a lot in my life and I you know and of course they're like but the prison stories they just love they just every time with all the things I've done in my life like people I would get around and it would be crazy because I would get around like doctors college professors um somebody who works in the business world who works in you know corporate America and I'll sit around at the table and we're eating and everything is just directed at tell me what it was like to work in the prison I'm sure you get you know car you kidding it's crazy it's it's I I've said That exact scenario, what you just said.

Yeah. I'm like, this guy's a doctor. Yeah. This guy is a CPA. This guy is even a police officer. Yeah. And it's like, you guys are asking me what about being in prison, you know? It's crazy.

Yeah, it is. It is. I have a quick question. Shoot. So how long once you started before you were actually walking on your own? Because you walked in here. Yeah. Like I didn't even, I did something.

You have a cane. Yeah, I used a cane because my legs shake sometimes. I get spasms. Oh, I didn't notice. I didn't notice that when you walked in. I saw you holding the cane, but I didn't use it, really. Yeah, I spasms sometimes. And I don't, sometimes, like, it's weird because, like, my legs, sometimes there's a delay.

So if they get too tired, sometimes I'll just fold. Like, so I use the cane, you know, to some, if I feel like my legs are buckling, I can hold on to it. Okay. I mean, so. But, I mean, are you going to the gym? Are you doing, like, leg extension? Yeah, I'm doing a whole. I'm doing everything.

I'm, you know, I can't run. I can't, you know, I can't do cardio. I do it on a bike. Yeah, yeah. I pedal and I lift weights and I teach Jiu-Jitsu. Okay. You know, I teach kids, Jiu-Jitsu, young adults, defense and stuff. And I used to roll all the time, like, you know, compete and do things like that.

I can't do that kind of stuff anymore. Right. But I still teach self-defense. I still go to class. I still, you know, I... So how long from the point when you actually have said, okay I'm in the pool something's happening here I can feel it to where you were actually walking on your own uh from well I would say two and a half years okay yeah a little less a little over

two years you know well this thing happened mm-hmm um 19 yeah okay so I was going to say because you walked right in here yeah yeah it's you're looking at it this is this is you know I mean, this is my, you know, this, I would say six months ago, I was on a walker. And you drove here? I drove here. Cool. Yeah. And there's no problems with you driving?

You don't feel, you feel? No, no, no. I'm fine. I had to take a driving test. You don't know, but when you get disabled, they suspend your license. You know that? They hold it because you have to, I had to get a handicapped parking sticker. Right.

So when you go to do that, what they do is they tell the DMV, this guy is handicapped. So now they bring you in and they make you do another driving test. Okay. Okay. So I had to come back in and do a driving test. And I passed the driving test in a wheelchair. I wheeled in. When I took it, it's like I wheeled in.

I opened it. I got in the thing and I did it. I did the driving test and I passed. I cheated a little. Why? What do you mean? I cheated a little. How's that?

Because it was during COVID and they don't come in the car with you. They put a cell phone in there. Oh my God. So they only watch you from the waist up. They don't know what it is, but, you know. I'm not divulging any. I'm not going to admit to anything else. So I passed.

How long have you had that? So you started a YouTube channel? Yeah. How long have you had the YouTube channel? About a year. About a year. The first show I went on was, you know, I was watching a lot of TV because it was COVID. I was paralyzed.

So I started watching a lot of YouTube and a lot of stuff. And I came across John and Gene, their show. And I was watching it. And it seemed like he had a good voice. John. He was, you know, pushing a lot of stuff, helping kids out and things like that. And I just commented. I said, it was a good show, you know, whatever. And he saw my name like the Stone Sailor, I guess, and looked at my Instagram. Right. Who, who? John A light.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. John A light. He was, you know, a mob guy. You know, he was. Yeah, he was on. Yeah, yeah, I know. He was on your show. Yeah. And he, and then. But you said John and Gene. I didn't know there was a Gene. It was John and Gene. They originally had a show. Gene Barrello and John A light started a That was before he and Mike He and Mike yeah before he and Mike

Yeah yeah he and Mike And they had a show And I was just watching it one day And they had a military veteran on And and they were talking to him And next thing I know I get in contact with John I sent him a great show

And then I talked to him He's you know He happens to live very close Not near me but near a relative of mine And he said you want to come on the show And I'm like I don't know I don't know if I want to do that because I, you know, I told him I was retired, you know, I got medically retired from the job and all that, too.

You know, so he said, I don't know. Let me think about it, whatever. And then I said, you know what, if my story can help somebody. Because I'd never shared, like, that my dad was in prison and things like that. Because when, you know, sometimes I, from my experiences as a kid, other kids ridiculed me for that. My dad was in the newspaper because he killed somebody. You know, all the stuff and people knew. And it was like, you know, kids weren't allowed to play with it.

me weren't allowed to come to my house I wasn't allowed to go to their house I mean it was just a whole big thing and I never really shared a lot of that so that was my first time telling my whole story you know about what about how I grew up and things like that right I you know I always took that with me it made me a better corrections officer that's for damn sure well I mean going on people's channels also helps you with your channel oh it'll help grow your subscribers it helps get your story out there yeah people tend to you know they get they get invested in you and then they then they they want to help support you

Do they, you know, and they're interested in, you know, you interact with other people. Yeah. It's a good way to. More importantly, though, when I did his show and it was the first time I ever talked about these things in my life, when I, when I, when we shut down and I closed the laptop, I had never walked out of a psychiatrist's office or a psychologist's office and felt as good as I did that day. Catherty. Absolutely. Absolutely. It was a purge. Absolutely.

A complete purge. And I felt better than any psychiatrist. And I've been to a lot of them at the VA. And I never felt as good as I did. Like, I let a big load off because I just shared it. It's out there in the open. And now everyone knows. Yeah.

You know. Yeah. It's so much better to just talk about stuff than to model it up. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Okay. So anything else?

What can you think of? Well, I... You've been great, bro, because you could tell your whole story. I don't have to say anything. I don't have to do anything. I just, you know, so. I have my YouTube channel, the Stone Sailor. Yeah.

And you have a cannabis line. I have a can. Yep, I have, I have, well, this is my swag line right here. This is all my shirts and I have hoodies and things like that. Right. Shirts, hoodies, cups, mugs. As a matter of fact, it's Mother's Day and you should get, and you should, you need to get your mother a stone sailor mug.

My mom's, that is. I apologize. Okay. How about your father? He's gone too. I'm an old man, bro. girlfriend. She's a recovering drug addict. Well, coffee. She's not, she's doing coffee. It's a coffee. I thought you were talking about that. Actually, wait a second. Cannabis is proven to help people. They're using that to wean people off opioids. I can get a coffee cup. She loves coffee. Okay. But you need to look, she might want to look into that. Cannabis has been proven to help people wean off opioids. That's another great thing about cannabis, you know. So it really is. I mean, you should check into it. You know, but get her a coffee mug.

Don't be a cheespeake. I can't get her a coffee mug now. She just walked in. She's going to, well, when she sees the coffee mugs on my site, there she has. You're going to get a coffee mug from him, okay? He's going to buy it off my site. I think I thought he was trying to give you to, you can get her cannabis too. I can't get her cannabis?

No, yes, you can actually. Well, I told you, cannabis is, they're using cannabis to wean people off opioids and it's successful. Very successful. Look into it. If that's the thing. It's out there. The information's out there, you know, and it's really a miracle. There's people that are weaning off opioids, alcohol, all kinds of stuff through cannabis.

Well, we'll put the link to your YouTube channel and, you know, and see if you can get some subscribers. But there's something else I'm doing too, Matthew. What's that? I am now in the world of professional wrestling. I'm a manager. Are you really? Yes, yes. With who?

With pro wrestling. 2.0 right now. What's his name? You know Johnny Walker? I know the drink Johnny Walker. Very well. No, listen, we had a guy on here who was... Oh, him.

Yes, I saw him. I liked him. I loved that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You have bothered me? I think that was one of the best interviews I ever did. Didn't do well because people want to hear about prison stories.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I like, they're like, put me in touch with him. Yeah, I was going to say, we've been to his... Put me in touch with him. He's great. Yeah, I love when he's... was on the show. Yeah, I loved it. Yeah. You got to go though. I mean, it's, you know, it is what it. It's hilarious, though. He's like they got the, he focuses more on the story. Yeah, the storyline. Yeah, the

backstory. Yeah, that's what I like. The original wrestling, the original stuff that we grew up watching in the 80s, not this stuff here. Yeah. We go into the whole thing. It's great. Yeah. And they, they saw some videos because, you know, I'm a character and I cut videos and promos and stuff. And one of the guys is like, you'd be a natural to come do this. Let me train you. Yeah, well, you're a big guy. So I went down. Yeah, but I'm not. I'm not going out there wrestling and, you know, and I'm a manager. I'm the guy that, you know, cheats and, and insults the crowd and gets you to hate me. And any time the referee's not looking, I beat up your guy and I hit him with a cane or I strangle him or hit him and stuff like that.

Yeah, you should talk to. I'm a bad guy. I'll put you in touch with, with Heather. Heather's his. Definitely. Heather's his, what is she, is she his manager? Not manager. She's his, does the promotions and stuff.

Whatever, his, the Booker or whatever they call. Booker, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Make sure you get you a cup. Don't let him get off like that, easy. Good. And a shirt, too. You need to get a shirt like this.

See? You need to get one too. Don't be a cheap skate, man. All right. So. But that's what I'm doing now. They're training me to do that and I'm doing that and doing a bunch of things. I said to myself, I didn't learn to walk again to walk on eggshells around anybody else ever again.

And I got a bucket list. I've been all over the world. But there's some things I still want to do. and I've always been a huge fan of pro wrestling I thought I would eventually maybe be a wrestler one day when I was a kid but that's a different things happen but this is a cool way and they saw a talent in me for it

so they're training me I was gonna say it's like they were the Marvel movies before they were Marvel movies yes they were the good and evil the characters good versus evil yeah exactly the storyline yeah definitely you would listen you'd love Johnny

Yeah, I would love to meet him. Yeah, I saw, I did see him. I didn't watch the whole show, but I saw a little bit of it. Yeah, I saw a little bit of it. He's just, he's such a nut, and he's lived a life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, please put me in contact with it. I would definitely like to meet that guy, definitely.

I thought it was an, a great. What's his name, Johnny Walker? Yeah, what? That's his stage. Oh, that's his, that's his name. What? Oh, yeah, Jeff Crean. Yeah.

All right, Jeff. I'm going to, I'm going to get in contact, which I want you to train me. You understand? I can't think of it was Johnny Walker. It's just him. That's his, yeah, that's his wrestling name. It's his wrestling. I'm the Stone Sailor.

That's just, but I'm the manager. I'll definitely, I'll definitely get you in touch with him. Definitely. So yeah, definitely. So what's the name of the channel, the YouTube channel? The Stone Sailor. Yeah. Okay.

I'm on Instagram, Rob Farlow, the Stone Sailor, YouTube, the Stone Sailor. Mob Swag is my, is my merchandise page. You know, I'm up, she's laughing. Mob swag. They got a bunch of guys, you know, that, that, uh, came up with this company and um you know they this is try trademark this it's mine and um they do all the shipping and all the yeah logistics of it you know we split the money so yeah i got i got i got i got i got i got to call him back do the same i'm not talented like you i can't

paint paintings like this and all that stuff i don't you know design the problem with like designing you you have to you have to really know how to design a logo everybody thinks it's so easy I think you could paint that? Yeah, of course. For anything. Well, my birthday's in November, Matt. Hint. Thanks for, well, thanks for being here.

Definitely. Thank you for having me. All right, so if you like the video, do me a favor and hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell so you get notifications of other videos like this. Leave me a comment in the comment section. I try and respond to all the comments, although I don't get to all of them. And share the video with as many friends and families you can possibly think of. And I appreciate it.

And see ya.