Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Locked Up Abroad | Escaping a Jamaican Concentration Camp

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

Locked Up Abroad | Escaping a Jamaican Concentration Camp

I told the psychiatrist that I'm hearing voices. A fraud took advantage of my mother. She had her kid kidnapped and held for ransom. Holy ****. I don't know why that's funny, but at some point, I snapped, man. I was involved in some kind of heinous crime that they will never be able to prove. Every authority figure has failed me. This world will grab a hold of you, kidnap you in the middle of the night, and do whatever it wants to you.

My dad's major thing when I was growing up was you got to take your brother with you everywhere you go. Like, you guys can't leave the house together. Because in the 90s, I don't know if you remember this, there was. this mysterious man in the van who's going around. And I guess if he caught you, you'd come back, just gerbilized, staring at the wall forever, you know. Me and my brother, my twin brother, actually, we're like Renan Steppy.

Right. Like, he's a big guy, and he's very soft and sweet. And I'm wiry, and I'm like a mean chihuahua. Or when I was a kid, at least. I've mellowed out. Maybe my testosterone's lower now. But he's fat and I'm mean. Those are not kids that you want to kidnap.

So my dad was pretty smart in saying, stay together. Because him on his own, maybe, you know, and then me just being small by myself, probably be easy to grab. But the two of us, no. He's got a pretty mouth. But here's the thing is, like, every time we moved, because back in the 90s, it was okay to, like, be mean to people if they were fat or any kind of different.

I wear glasses. I wear glasses. I miss the old days. So every time we would move, my brother's getting picked on for being fat, and I'm getting picked on for wearing glasses. So I became the enforcer where it's like, I'm fighting all the time. Like, and I start to resent my brother because every time we, basically we move a lot and I'm expected to go out and make us friends to hang out with, right? And then they would, we would either lose those friends because he's kind of an awkward introvert and they're like, what's up with him?

Like, you know what I mean? Or then he started doing things where like I'd go out and make us a friend to skate with or whatever, ride bikes with. And then he would like kind of get close with him and try to exclude me. He always thought that he, you know, he has self-esteem. He couldn't he didn't feel like he could make friends on his own because of his weight problem or whatever You know and he wasn't even that fat. He was just a husky boy, you know, and So I bring that up because it kind of sets me off on a path at a young age of like Not taking no shit from nobody quickly quick to get violent, you know, but also kind of being an outsider and

like resenting I feel like it was one of the first things where an authority figure failed me So I started getting into trouble at a young age class clown Dad didn't want me skating. He saw that as like, didn't want me playing guitar and stuff. He saw that as like a one-way ticket to being a bum. Like, I feel like your dad was on point, though. He was, but he also was a very sadistic punisher. It was okay to beat your kids then.

I just talked to him yesterday. And he's like, I was like, you know, with all these new things with like parenting and stuff, like, if you were my age and you had a kid now in this day and age, would you still beat the shit out of your kids? And he's like, yeah. Yeah. No, I don't feel that way. I don't think I needed to be. Here'd me give me an example of like the extremes my dad would go to I wasn't really like to have a lot of friends

Like we never had people over at the house And on my 11th birthday I finally we each got to me and my brother got to have a friend over And the dog took a shit on the carpet in the living room And my dad Grab me by my neck and held my face up to the dog shit And hit me like you do a dog That's the kind of shit he would do

Extreme punishments like my dad would never come home and just beat us but if we fucked up you were going to get fucked up up it was going to be a sedate like one time i bucked up to him he's beating up on my brother i bucked up to him and he like you're gonna step you want to step up to the champ you want to step up to your old man you're going out of this house the same way you came in and he stripped me butt naked and put me out on the front porch like dino from the flintstones right like that's the kind of well he sounds like a doucheback but yeah it's a little too extreme but really extreme yeah um so anyway

But I can see spanking kids. Yeah, with more than spanking. Yeah, I can't see abusive. And I get it too. Like sometimes they need that negative reinforcement. Sometimes a physical one is the only thing that will work. Their frontal lobe is not developed yet. You know, like they got some, and I have to learn lessons the hard way, you know.

So anyway, one day me and my buddies are out. I discovered the PSTA, the Pinellas Sun Coast Transit Authority. Okay. It was $2.50 for a all-day pass. So I could go anywhere in Pinellas County from Williams Park to downtown, on Clearwater and go skateboard for 250. So I got, this was like my Sunday routine. Me and my brother would go skate around Pinellas County everywhere.

But my parents' rule was, don't go to Clearwater Beach. We're running late to get home. We got a curfew, right? And so we're trying to make it down to the other end of the beach by the Sankey Bridge to get the bus to go home. And so we're riding our skateboards holding on to a car. It's called Skitchin. And my brother and our friend Bird, that's his nickname,

They're on the back of the car holding onto the wheel wells. That's where you're supposed to do it. It's the safest place. But there's no room for me. So I'm on the side of the car holding onto the door handle. Well, when we go to a red light, this guy, the old man doesn't see us this whole time. We're riding down Clearwater Beach. The old man doesn't see us.

We stop at a red light. He starts to go again. I pull on the door handle because I'm starting to fall back off my skateboard. And the door opens up. And I look in the door in the car and the old man looks back. back in me with like the most terrified look on his face. And he pulls over and gets out of his car. And he's so kerfuffled.

He can't get his key into the trunk of his car. But who knows what he's going for? I think he thinks that we were trying to carjack him or something. Right. And he's probably going for a gun. So, but we get away from him. And we're like the warriors now at this point. We got to get home.

We're going to be in trouble. We weren't supposed to be on Clearwater Beach. So if we're past curfew, we're going to have to call pops and have him come pick us up. And we're not where we're supposed to be. Right. So we go to. this uh we're skating down sankey and uh we see one of those like call boxes for a condo building and i think it's a pay phone 13 years old i don't know any different you know so i pick up

the phone it's not a phone i'm pissed i think i like bang the phone on the uh on the receiver on the whatever and security guard shows up grabs me up makes me my my buddy and my brother walk over to the security hut um and we ended up getting arrested because when the cop showed up for that there had already been a call out for three skateboarders who carjacking or carjack but they charge us with burglary felony 13 years old for accidentally opening a car door up right yeah so that's my prior right so i've got a prior i've got one charge and so what happens you get probation i had to do like a diversionary program like that was it write a letter of apology do some kind of anger management class or something they're easy on you on your first one but

But if I was going to get another charge, which I did, I was going to do some time. Right. So a couple years, maybe a year goes by. My parents split up. We're living with my mom, and we're just like, Lord of the Flies. Like, we're doing whatever the fuck we want. I'm every girl in the neighborhood. I'm getting into fights every day, not going to school at all.

Like, pretty much dropped out in the ninth grade. And I had gotten into a fight. I had a problem with a kid in our neighborhood, and I threw out coffee on him because he'd already beat me up. Right. He's bigger than me. I couldn't do anything about it. I happened to be walking out of a fight. a gas station. Don't ask me why I'm 14

years old. I'm already interested in coffee, but I had a hot cup of coffee, and I saw him, and I knew if I saw him, it was going to be on. Right. So I scolded him with coffee, and I caught another charge. So, was that wrong? Should you not do yet? Is that, what would you do? No, I was here, and you had a hot cup of coffee, and he wanted to

fuck you. Yeah. So. I'm already, I may all, probably already get, there's a better chance if I throw the coffee on my, I don't get my ass beat than I do. Right. So my mom is talking to a lady at the DJJ, like probation office because as soon as you get arrested you get assigned a probation officer it kind of helps you go through the court system even if you're not on probation so she's talking to somebody at the office and she's like gives her a brochure like hey there's this school

it's in jamaica and uh if you send your kid to it it's kind of it's a really strict like boot camp style school right if you send your kid to it they almost always drop the charges and it's state's attorney's office right so my mom's like well I think I'm going to do that. And that's where he's going. Yeah. So what they do is to reduce the chance that you're going to run away. Like if you find out that you're going, you know, they may be driving you down to the airport and some of these kids might run out of the car and just run on, never come back, you know.

So they kidnap you. Yeah. You have no idea when it's coming. And they feel like this was a documentary they did. It was. Yeah. So they talked about all these different places. There's three out now.

They're in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. There's one that's like a survival school. That was. So it started, I'll give you a brief. history there was a drug program in malibu in the 60s called synodon okay and they took um some a little bit of stuff from like chinese internment camps and then seriously and literally logs Chinese internment camp and then rehab like and then like and then eh hey right but it's this like it's this like shaming

the addict kind of thing and then using the other addicts in there as like enforcers of the synon program shape their head take their identity away cult right yeah therapy cult and then there was another offshoot that called the Seed, which was here in Florida. I was in the 70s, so like 60, 70s. And then in the 80s, this Mormon guy from Utah saw the opportunity, like a business opportunity to do it, you know? And he started those like survival camps where they take kids out in the desert of Utah. And that's just where you live.

Like you got to just do your camping for who knows how long. He gets some heat in the 80s and 90s for doing that, all the abuse and everything. And he realizes that he can. go to different countries, and they have much more laxed child abuse laws. Right. And they're also separated from their family by so much that they're not even, the parents aren't even going to figure out that their kids are being abused. So they opened up schools in, like, American Samoa.

I don't know if this guy is related to the one that I was in. The company that owned the program I was in was called Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs. It was owned by a Mormon father and son from Utah called J.K. Ken K. I don't remember which one's which. But this, the first guy, the guy, the documentary, if people want to do some research on this, it's called like Camp Nightmare. They break down like this dude who makes the business of it, right? And like famous people have been in these schools. Like Paris Hilton was in one in Utah. There's a comedian, Rachel Wolfson. She was in one.

And then there's another documentary came out called The Program. That's like, on Netflix, and that one, is it specifically about a school Ivy Ridge in upstate New York that is a WASP affiliate. Okay. So there are schools in America, but then there's schools in American Samoa, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Jamaica. And those schools are the ones that, like, if you f*** up at South Carolina or Montana or Ivy Ridge, you get sent to that one.

So we just, I just went straight to that one. Like, I didn't get a chance to go to the nice, nicer American boarding school. So, oh, and then there's one more that's on HBO Max called Teen Torture Incorporated. And that's a better, like, overview. It's not just specifically about a wasp school, but it kind of breaks down. They're like, this shit is still going on. You know, the business of troubled teens and warehousing children is still happening, right? And when I say warehousing or I call it like a human trafficking scam, I think a lot of people associate human trafficking, like, sex.

trafficking or whatever, but what this was was just warehousing children because the program, like the therapy that we were going through was like we listened to like Tony Robbins tapes and Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra and had to write essays about it. Like it was not, didn't see a psychiatrist not one time. You know, I was having, I had some psychosis from the trauma that I was experiencing in my neighborhood and in my home. I needed help. That's part of the reason why my mom sent me down there to keep me out of the system and to get

some help, but there was no help. There's just this like abusive kind of therapy cult, like the guys of hidden behind the therapy is we're just keeping kids down here and basically charging a monthly ransom to the parent. Like, it's like kidnapping. And

now I took some good stuff out of it. I was going to say that's a little extreme, but like I'm trying to be sympathetic. There's some people who I was a rough and tumble little fucker. Right. All right. Like to me it's just another thing. And I ended up going into the system afterwards. I'll tell you that story. Like, but so, you know, I have resolved the issues I had with that place because I know that there, I know now there's way worse options, you know? Like, it wasn't that bad. When I went to boot camp in Pinellas County, I was wishing I could go back to Jamaica. I would have stole a boat

and sailed back and locked myself back up in that prison to get the out. Right. Like, so, um, but the, the reason I also say that they're trying to keep you down there is like the, the merit system, the school, the pro, there's the school work. And then they, there's the program you got to work the program you got to earn merit points you got to climb the levels you got to go to these seminars which are like some people would call them brainwashing sessions but again there's there's good stuff in there i think a lot of people call it brainwashing sessions because you were almost they talk about this in the documentary you're almost expected to make your story sound more extreme to the seminar like moderator

or whatever the person given the seminar because it's like they'll ask you like what are you in here for and some kids are just in there for like being disobedient and um and smoking skipping school right and now they're in a jamaican prison with kids who have like 26 felonies who are who parents are sent them down there to keep them out of juvenile prison you know right um but the way that the program was structured is like everything this is a kind of a funny one but everything is the when you get a violation and you got to you got to get some demerits everything is made to sound like it's way worse than it is. So if they catch you jacking off,

you know what they call it, a self-inflicted injury. Right. You're just beating your dick. You know what I mean? Right. So your caseworker talks to your mom every week or every month or something like that. He's self-mutilating himself, right?

Self-mutilation. Yeah, exactly. That's what they call it in prison. If you're tattooing, it's self-mutilation. Yeah, but you're just getting your gang tent. I'm getting a tattoo, bro.

I got a butterfly. Or like, you could leave, like, they, you know, they don't want any wet clothing. It's tropics. There's no. air conditioning, there's no climate control. They don't want any wet stuff in your dorm. Right.

The kids are stacked in there like spoons. There might be six, eight kids in a little room with no AC. So if you got a wet sock in your cubby, that's a blatant rule violation. And you've got to go to study hall. You got to not go to school for the day. You've got to go to study hall and you got to write a 5,000 word essay on why you left a wet sock in your dorm. And then the caseworker is going to go, well, another blatant rule violation.

He just got 50 demerits. Better keep him down. here you know and you can't you earn your merit points by um they would play those tapes like the uh tony robin self-help style tapes all those guys less brown i've heard them all twice because they repeat after a while they only had so many um and then you at the end of the night you got write a reflection on what you earned on it and then the caseworker grades your reflection and gives you merit points based on that but it's stacked in a way where you can never earn enough merit points versus the amount that you're going to lose.

And guards were given quotas to give kids consequences for talking without permission. These motherfuckers would watch you so closely. They talk about that in the documentary of how on top of you, like eagle eye they were, that if you were in line and you looked at a line, maybe you look over here is like the Caribbean Sea and there's a nice sunset and you go like this and look at it, that's run plans. You're planning to run away because you looked at the ocean. Right. Right. And so the jail within the jail, they don't have like a hole or a shoe or anything.

They have a place called observational placement. And if you get enough demer points or you do like a, you get into a fight, I never saw one fight the whole time I was down there. But major violations of the rules, you go to O.P. And it's a room with no AC with the window shut, those little shutters, and you got to lay on a towel on your face all day long. And you get up a couple of times a day and they PT the shit out of you. and your diet is reduced to beans and rice. And I think I went in there only one time. I was down there for 15 months.

And I went in there once just for like talking back basically to a supervisor. And actually while I was in there, one of the girls from the girl's side jumped off the building herself. She just got there and that like that dread, you know, they're telling you when you get down there, you've just been kidnapped. And I had to be driven from Tampa to Miami to get. on a plane. And now I'm in a third world country. You've got to drive from Montego Bay out to Treasure Beach, Treasure Beach, yeah, St. Elizabeth Parrish. This is just a real experience, you know, and then they're telling you, your parents don't want anything to do with you, settle in for the long stay. You're 14 years old, and you're not getting out of here until you're 18,

if you don't complete the program. And if your parents don't want you back when you're 18, we're going to give you $50 in a plane ticket to Miami. And they tell this girl that, and she jumped off building herself. Like, and, the reality is like i think maybe one kid i ever heard of um that happened to him where his parents wouldn't take him back he turned 18 right they sent him to Miami 50 bucks he joined the army like and then i'm down there while 9-11 happens so i'm thinking worst-case scenario i'm they're going to go to war this country's going to go to war because i didn't really know all the deal 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 chili dog. Chili dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. Details, but I knew that we were attacking Afghanistan afterwards.

Right. And I'm thinking my only option is that I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to be 18. I'm going to have $50 in my pocket. I'm going to have to go to an army recruiter, join the army, and I'm going to go to war and die. But that's a lot to put on a kid. An indefinite sentence is pretty extreme for basically just being like a troublemaker. Right.

You know. So when do you get, when do you get released? Well, the, a few of the kids I think had heard about, so in the documentary in Ivy Ridge, they rioted and took the school over and destroyed the place. So I don't know how these kids took over. I don't know how they found out about that while we were there because you're locked down. I wrote a letter to my mom, my brother, my other brother, my dad, and my grandma. I wrote one letter to each person every single week for 15 months. months, and my mom only wrote me back when she got letters.

So how many letters is that that I sent? And she only wrote me six, six letters back. So they were, like, there's no communication. I didn't talk to my mom until I'd been there for a year. Right. So I don't know how these kids found out that maybe one of the kids had, after the riot, maybe, and Ivy Ridge had gotten sent to Tranquility Bay. That's the name of the school in Jamaica.

And, uh, that sounds nice. Yeah, and they're like, oh, well, we should do that here, too. And Tranquility Bay. Yeah, it sounds great in a brochure. You're like, oh, who get the help they need? I think there was even on the website. I think there was a kid like riding a jet ski. And it was nothing like that.

This is like, when you tell people it's a boarding school, they're thinking like, oh, Hogwarts, you guys are probably whipping each other with towels and having a good time. No, it was like Hogwarts meets Midnight Express. Okay? Like, it's scary Potter, not Harry Potter. Like, it was fucked up. Like, I'm a word smith, man.

You can expect more of that in my books. Ellis Jones, go go pick them up on Amazon. But, uh, but, uh, so these kids playing a riot and they get caught because they're idiots they like write it all down what their plans

right like and they're these kids are talking about I heard one of the kids talking about the plans after it all got busted up and he's like yeah we were gonna grab

one of the guards and stab them up a bunch and I was like you're gonna grab a Jamaican guy who runs barefoot plays soccer all day long like they're gonna break your neck like you're not taking this school over

some of these motherfuckers were beast dude like that was never going to happen it was a hype dream so but they get busted they find a bunch of shanks I do know that there was some oh that's serious

yeah I mean but is it do they even know how to fuck it these are you know I don't even now that I'm an adult I'm like do these kids even know how to make a shank right you know and who knows if it was really a shank right like these guys are just

they were stacking up two brushes to make shanks you know they didn't know how to do the whole melt cellophane onto the thing sharpen it in the crowd wrap it in duct tape so that you can get the handle yeah they didn't know that I very seriously doubt any of them were that advanced of a criminal.

These are kids who were like 17 to 12, you know, and half of them were soft as baby shit. They just like had been to every military school and every boarding place and gotten kicked out. A big seller of the school to like rich parents was like, oh, you keep sending your kids to these schools and they keep getting it. They figure out ways to get kicked out so they get to go home. Well, we'll never kick your kid out. As long as you keep paying. As long as you keep paying. Yeah.

We'll just keep them in a concrete box if we have to. But he'll stay here. Yep. He ain't going nowhere. Not until you say so. So right around that time They're going to have a riot It gets broken apart

It gets broken apart There was a new kid who had come And he snitched him all out I knew he was a snitch as soon as I saw him Like but he just had a snitch Nothing against snitches but there are some people Look you snitch out of necessity I'm not saying I would do the same thing

I would never admit publicly to that But that's a snitching out of survival This kid was born a snitch I can see it in his face He comes from a long line snitching motherfuckers like and so he snitches on him gets it all broken up and uh at the same time I had gotten like higher up on the levels so I finally got phone calls with my mom and just like a miracle one day I'm getting my phone call and the caseworker gets up and walks away from the phone

and I wasn't even going to say anything because that's they they sit right there and listen to you because they don't want you to manipulate your parents and getting you out of the school right it's terrible get me out of here because by then I'd already kind of just accepted my fate right you know I'm not super traumatized by it like a lot of people are I try to be respectful of it. But to me, I was just bored and it was whack as far. Like, at first it was heartbreaking, but I got over it. It's like in the Navy, when you cross the

equator, you're a polywog before you do, and then afterwards you're a shellback. You got to get hazed. Like, it's maybe people will get it. I don't know, but like, I just felt like at some point, mentally I turned a corner where I was really heartbroken and fucked up by it, and then I just got tough.

And like, it's just a thing I got to deal with. You know, and like, make it easy for yourself. You get to a certain point where you just accept it. And it suddenly stops being a big deal. Yeah, it didn't matter to me anymore. And I just enjoyed beautiful sunsets and, like, the clouds would come and dip into the mountains right behind the wall. And, like, and then I befriended a guard. I don't think I should say his name, but he was a stoner.

And I knew he was high all day long. Right. I mean, this guy's eyes as red as the devil's dick, like, just fucked up all day. And he's trying to play it off. So I called him out on it one day. And he's like, have you tried Jamaican ganja? And I'm like, no, obviously not. I got kidnapped brought here and I've been behind a wall for a year.

So we somehow cooked up a scheme where we could, there's only two sports that you could play, basketball and tennis. Because this used to be a hotel. And the Mormons bought it and turned it into this prison. Put bars in the windows. Now it's a school. So there were a couple of like beat up tennis rackets and basically like the white kids played tennis and the Spanish and black kids played basketball.

Not stereotypes. It was just they didn't even. when I went to go play basketball, they would throw the ball at my head, pretend they were passing it, throw it in my head to knock my glasses off because they just didn't want me out there. So what we did was we would knock the ball, the tennis ball, over the fence, and you got to take a staff member out there to go with you, and then we blaze it up. And I got so stoned and so paranoid that I think I only did it maybe twice,

and I just refused. I could have smoked every day with this guard. It would have been no problem. Right. And I was like, yeah, I can't be in this strict boarding school where I'm being. looked over constantly and I'm stowed to the bone, like, because it's just powerful shit. And they smoke a fronto paper. I call it voodoo paper.

It's like a special kind of strain of tobacco that they take white paper. They put the fronto on it, and they put the in there, and it makes you even higher, like, eighth grade stone. Like the first time you were ever high. Right. Eighth grade stone. So I get the, I think it was my very first phone call when my mom, and the caseworker gets up and she goes, my mom. my mom just perfect timing goes if I brought you home now

would you think you could do better and I was like I would be so good I was like you have no idea like yeah please like but I was like yeah I just said yes because I didn't want to hear if I said I would be so good

yeah if the caseworker overheard that manipulation I'm probably gonna get busted down a level like that's how on top of you they were you know and yeah but my birthday came up I got a letter from my grandma My grandmother sent me. I could have a necklace now.

So she sent me a little gold rope chain. She probably got to Walmart. And I asked for a copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I heard it one of those self-help tapes and I wanted to figure it out, you know. So she sent me that. And in the book, she wrote, your mother has another surprise for you coming up soon. And so it was a combination of like, my kids probably not safe. They're probably not telling me everything.

And she also ran out of money. So they should have to cash in her retirement. We were not wealthy. Like there's some kids down there who were wealthy. And I'm also pretty sure that my mom got some kind of financial aid. Okay. Because I think that the school was like $60,000 a year or something. Fuck.

Like $5,000 a month. And there's no way. Even my mom cashed in her retirement at the time. There was no way she could have afforded that with two other kids to feed. So I think they had like a sliding scale. But when I got back, I'm like, did you bring me home because of the riot? And she's like, what riot? And I'm like, they didn't tell you.

These kids were planning on rioting, taking the school over. And one of the kids told me, because I had gotten upper levels, right? So you get it like a job, not upper levels, but I had gotten up to level three. And you kind of get a job to help the guard out. When you get to the upper levels, they make you into a staff member. Right. So you get to go giving kids demerits and shit. And you're expected to do it.

If you don't, you're in trouble. But when you're like level three, you get to kind of like hand out the treats. You're like a trustee, basically. Right. like um but my job was uh keeping track of the demerits so i could keep everybody i could be in everyone's favor because i can make demerits disappear right but then you have to make some of them stick so i would kind of if a new guy came in all his demerits were going in the book yeah because you got to learn and you got to you got to get so

pissed off at this shit that you got to get the shell back you know what i mean so you're going to have to go to study hall and the guard's going to meet his quota on you until you toughen up a little bit. Right. But then all these other guys who have been here who, like, one demerit, you get 10 demerits in a week, that's a BRV. That's a blatant rule violation. You got 10 demerits. So not only do you get the minus 10, you get minus 50 because now you've got to go write a 5,000 word essay by hand in a sweaty room.

Right. Right. So a guy who's been there for a while, he's my boy. He's getting his 10th demerit. I can make that disappear. Well, not everybody looked at it like that. When they were planning on the riot, one of those shanks had mine. name on it. Right. Like, I'm considered, I'm considered a cooperator, right? You know? And, uh, sympathizer. Pretty much, but I was just, I was trying, I was doing the best of what I had. You know what I mean? I'm

trying to make it, try to make it work, but try not to make it as cruel as it could be for some of the kids. What's another word they used is, um, oh God, it's, you're not cooperator, not sympathizer. It's, um, oh, there's another word. Turncoat. No, not, that's like a saying. No, no, I mean, there's a, It's not sympathizer. It's collaborator. Collaborator. Nazi collaborator. Yes.

Nazi collaborator. That's exactly where I was thinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Collaborator. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny. It's fun. But I wasn't.

I mean, anybody who would have been put in the position, I think they would have been crueler and had more of an agenda. Because I talked to some survivors. Survivors. I went down the, after I watched the documentary, I went down this like a forum or something and everybody who posted a phone number, I called every phone number, a cold call, telemarketer style. And I only got three people on the phone.

and basically the three were like a pretty good example of I think how everyone interpreted it in their own way like the first kid was is like a redneck from Maryland what up Stephen and uh he's just like telling me stories like yeah man I'll drive my truck and I got pipe on that thing so loud it just breaks car windows out when I'm on the freeway he's like a troublemaker still but he's like a you know whatever it's fun cool like I want to go to Maryland drink beer with him like right and then there's another guy from queens who's like yeah my mom told me I was going to be down there for a year and you know I was just bored. Like, I think that, you know, if you had

some mental health problems, like, it could make it worse, but I was just bored all the time. And then then I called another guy, and it sounded like, he was like, hello? Like, he had a pistol in his mouth when he answered the phone and he just sounded like, Eeyore from, you know, like, Winnie the Pooh.

Right. Just, clinically depressed. Like, and he even said something like, not making fun of them or anything. Everybody interpreted it their own way. Like, but he's like, yeah, I was pretty depressed, you know, for like, until like, pretty much like the last two years. And I was like, damn. Well, it's been 20 years since I was down there. Like, I just, I don't know, where I turned the, the, hit the switch mentally where it's like,

are you going to be fucked up about this your whole life? Like, are you going to be burnt with injustice your whole life? You're going to turn into Batman? What are you going to do? Like, are you going to just be like, this is something crazy that happened, you know? And like, it's like going to prison. Some people get out of prison and it becomes, having gone to prison is their whole identity. Yeah, whole identity for the rest of their life.

And the other people were like, yeah, I went for like six years. It was, you know, it's. But anyway, so now I let my hair grow and I beat up a couple dudes. Like, you know, now I got it really in to give myself manicures, you know. Yeah, well, yeah, now I own a construction company and we build new houses. Like, I don't even think about it anymore. I got my GED, you know what I'm saying? Converted to Islam, did my time.

You know what I'm saying? So, so I get out and, yeah, nothing changed. My brothers were they had been giving my mom a hard time and they had really resented me while I was gone. I don't know why. I think it's just because you're not there. it's easy to like villainize you Yeah You know and one of my brothers said to me one time

That basically I was the reason that my parents split up Like my dad was so abusive That my mom told him She didn't really know that he was like beating the shit out of us Right Because she worked a lot She was the breadwinner And he'd get off it

He'd get off before her And if punishments were meant to be dealt out Then he would be the one to do it And she basically once she figured out that he was beating us up She was like you put your hands on the kids again And I'm out of here Right And one day

I was arguing with him or whatever and he grabbed me by my ears and bashed my head into a telephone pole and she was like I think she still tried to like get him to go to therapy with her and I heard from the office or from the waiting room

and they were in the office and I heard him say if you were a better wife I wouldn't beat the kids oh okay so then all I hear is high heels coming out of the office and my mom doesn't even look at me she goes Eli let's go

right and I was like all right like that's it and they got divorced and he's so he's still so in denial. I talked to him. I went and picked him up in Largo and drove him around just went and looked at all the new shit. That place is

crazily overdeveloped now. Largo? Every place is overdue. I mean, I'm just overdeveloped? Or you mean just a lot of developments being built? Yeah, like it just looks nicer and like there aren't any houses that are in disrepair. Like, they used to call it Largetto because it was fucked up, you know? Like, it wasn't just that it was dangerous, it just looked trashy.

Largo's a gorgeous place now. Right. And when I was a kid, it was like, I used to call it a suburban slum. Right. It's kind of like, like how Long Beach goes from like crummy areas to nice areas really quick. And then once you cross that Orange County border, it's nice. Okay. Yeah, that's, I thought you were talking about just the overdevelopment of Florida. Like there's like every cow.

I've already known that was going on. We lived in Newport Ridgey right when they were starting to turn that from swamp land into subdivisions. Bro's insane here. Oh, it's insane. Like if you had the opposite way you came, it's one massive subdivision after another, after another. after another. I mean, it's outrageous. And these houses are being built.

They're 10 feet apart. And they're 10 feet. And they're massive. Are they those, they're 2,500 square feet. Are they the McMansion? Yeah, they're the same floor plan,

different direction. Of course. Just like when you came in here. It looks like the Truman show. It's like there's five floor plans with eight, and each one has four different faces that they can swap out, plus the color scheme. But really it's the same five houses.

I used to hate that kind of shit. Like I never wanted to live in some homogenized community. But driving in here, I was like, I think I'm ready. I think I'm ready for them. I think I'm at an age where I'm like, yeah, it's tough. So Ellis Jones, books, we'll do an infomercial later, but I need y'all.

I want to move to the suburbs, okay? I live in the hood. I'm tired of it. Everybody waves to you. Everybody was not. I'm not even from here. There's fountains. Yeah.

There's a little bridge to go over when you come in. I don't feel like I belong here. I'm driving here like. Well, you know, I've started, I don't really hang out with people who look like me anymore because I'm like a, I'm like a, I'm. such an extreme personality. I'm too high profile. They see me as a threat.

Like, people who look like me are generally very concerned with how cool they appear to be. I didn't get these tattoos to say anything about myself. I worked at a tattoo shop. It was a hazard of the job, right?

And so I don't really hang out with a lot of skaters or surfers or tattooed people anymore. Like, I hang out with just normal ass motherfucker. I got a friend who's just like your regular guy. Like, I don't like people who belong to a group. Like, when you think of,

when you think of metalheads, you think of me. I'm into metal or I'm a surfer like that's my identity I went to prison I'm an ex-con like you know you're Matt Cox you rob people of the real experience of you when you think that you belong to this group right and and and also I was in a therapy cult I was in a cult I was in a cult I was in a cult I was in a cult I was in a kid and everything and now it's like all I can see with groups of people is how are they thinking in mob mentality how is this a cult how is this social norm when is the therapy you mean that the you mean as a kid Jamaica would make a thing. I call it a therapy cold. Okay. Well, I know you were associated with that. Yeah, yeah. So I developed, like, I have this saying that's in some of my songs and my books is,

the rules aren't meant to be broken. They're meant to break people. And that goes for social enforcement mechanisms. I mean, how many groups, how many scenes do you know where it's like a faux pa? You know, in surfing and in skating, we have like what I call kook law. There's these unwritten rules of the culture that if you violate them, you're a kook, you're not really part of this, you know? And it's just that exclusionary kind of shit. All it does is trigger me for this kind of manipulative control situation that I was in in a cult in a third

world country, you know, that like, and I also developed this a different tier to the ship on ship on my shoulder after that where I was like, every authority figure has failed me. Every family member has failed me. And this world will grab a hold of you, kidnap you in the middle of the night and do whatever it wants to you. So after I got out of there, when I was not received well by my family or my neighborhood, there were kids in my neighborhood. It didn't even believe that it happened. I would have to bring my brother out and be like, tell them.

And then they're like, okay, we believe you. They just thought I was a liar. Like, maybe I went to go live with a family member or something. And I was like, I was in a Jamaican concentration camp. Like, because they, it really was like. That does not sound normal. The new Bimo, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some.

Get your ticket to more with the new BMOV-I-Porter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit BMO.com slash V-I-Porter to learn more. No, I know, if you'd start to, I'd be like, stop it, bro. So I'm used to, like, I don't care. I'm sure there are going to be people. In the comments, like, this guy's making all this shit up. Like, that's happened since day one since I was back.

Well, I know, listen, do you know, there was, I want to say it was called White House or White Castle or something. Anyway, there's a school. There's a famous school. Yeah, in Florida where it was a juvenile, we're in a school. It was a juvenile facility for kids. And they were killing the kids. Like, they've recovered like 100 bodies, like beside the school. Oh, my God.

Oh, I did hear about that. 40s and 50s, 30s, 40s and 50s. And it was a lot of minority kids were getting sent there from group homes. Like, if they were a trouble in a group home, they'd get sent there. Yeah, they'd get sent there. Or if they were, whatever, if they got caught, you know, you got caught shoplifting two or three times. They said, okay, we're going to give them two years here. They'd send them there.

And then their families, they'd be writing letters. And then the letters would stop coming. And then maybe at some point, the family would go down there and say, hey, my son was supposed to be released a few months ago. I haven't heard from them in a year. Like, what's happening? And they're like, well, we released him. okay well where is he like he's 16 years old or he's 15 years old like you've had him since he's 13 where is he and they're like we don't know we we put game of bus pass he was supposed to go back

to the city to go with you sorry that he didn't show up like what are we supposed to do he's a bad kid he just spent two years in prison yeah he's a he's a 16 year old but really he's he's in a he's buried in a in a in a hole in the back because these guards were him and they were and he was going to squeal and he was going to squeal and they just him one day and threw him in the See, I heard story. I talked to my friend Amma. He was my friend down there, and we've spoken a few times since we got out. And he was saying that there was some kind of sex abuse shit going on and that they ran the guard.

I think he's one of those dudes like, you know, people who go to jail and they're getting punked out for their tray and they're being extorted. And they're having a rough time in jail. Right. They don't know how to operate. And then they get out of jail. And they're like, man, I was in there. I was running. I had all these cookies.

I was winning in spades. So I think maybe there's an element of that. I'm not, I don't want to piss him off because he's going to watch this, but like, maybe he needs to come on here and share his story and you can determine for yourself. But we, we were so locked down and like, look, if he said something about they were running the guard, they had control over the guards or some shit. And I was like, how, what? I guarantee and fuck it.

In prison, you have to have money. Yeah. To get a guard on your side. There, you have no, nothing. So were you exchanging sexual favors for, right? To control the guards? Like, and I just don't believe with how locked down the school was, I don't believe that a guard could have taken anybody anywhere and fucked them or whatever.

And something you've got to understand about Jamaicans is that they're the most homophobic people on the planet Earth. If you're gay, they will come to your village and they will light you on fire. They will chop you with machetes. Maybe just maybe they'll let you go live down in a gully in trench town. Right. And they'll call you a gully queen. And you have to live in a gutter, like, if you're gay, if you're openly gay.

So I don't believe that these Jamaicans were taking kids and molesting. Well, I wasn't suggesting that. No, I know you're not, but there were kids who, after the fact that I've talked to. Then they said that. Are saying that this was going on. And I was like, yeah, I don't think so. It's always the go-to move, you know, is sexual abuse of something. Right, right.

So anyway, I get out and I really gave it a try. I tried to go back to school. And I found out as soon as I got there, I get to Texas, right? My mom had moved to Texas while I was gone. And I get to Texas. And it's like this. It's north of Dallas. It's, like, developed cookie cutter houses.

suburbs for miles like that show you know like North Texas McMansionville right right and it's like now I'm the weirdest kid nobody there's no one to relate to at least in Florida there's a bunch of scumbag kids that I know that are they'll get it you know right but here I'm just the the weirdest person that could be here and I find out that none of my credits that I earned I was almost done with high school while I was down there none of my crates not accredited none of the schools in America accepted credits from Tranquility Bay or any of the wasps programs as far as I understand I could be wrong but I get back I'm 16

go in there right before I turn 15 get out right after I turn 16 and now I'm still a 16 year old freshman I have like one credit in high school so they're like you got a or no I had one credit to get to get out of the ninth grade so I had to take algebra and then they're like you got to fill the rest of your day up with electives so I was like just picking creative electives it took like sign language and I took world agriculture because I was like I'm gonna learn how to grow some weed man And that's not what world agriculture is about

It's like you get to adopt a goat And you have to raise the goat for a future Farmers of America show or something's Texas You know and I really pissed off the teacher Because he said something about 9-11 And he's like And I know that American flag got Closer to everyone's heart

On 9-11 And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like what's 9-11? I had heard about the terrorist attacks But I didn't know it was called 9-11 I didn't know what the I was not there with you guys You know what I mean

I didn't go through this with you You were locked up in a third world country I was in a concentration camp In Jamaica I mean you heard about these things Right and so And I said that in the class And he just looked at me like

You're crazy You like you Like you didn't say that But like just with the nastiest look on his face So I was like you know I know Florida I know bitches Down there that will fuck me

You know what I mean I've been beating my dick Like it owes me money For the last 15 months Like I need to go get laid And I need to go be around my friend So my dad still lived in Florida, even though he'd been beating me up when I was a kid, I was like, I'll take my chances. Right.

I'm not getting along with my brothers. I'm a little resentful of my mom for doing this. I've come to realize that she was tricked, too. Like, she's a victim here. Right. And so as much as I am, you know, I was just a kid when it happened. So it's more harmful, but she was a victim, too. She had her kid kidnapped and held for ransom.

Right. And I even think, and some of the survivors do not agree with this, but I think some of the guards are victims too. because they're these are poor people from Jamaica who are getting paid $10 American a day right and you know they're in a socioeconomic situation where they can't say no to a job like that right and some of them weren't sadistic there were some but like if you grow up in a small village in Jamaica and you are told every day Americans are horrible white people are horrible they're the ones who brought you here from Africa you're going to have a little chip on your shoulder too and now it's your turn to hurt the white man there were some guards that made it very

uncomfortable for us down there. And then there were other ones that were just very strong Christians. They were like, you need a good, they're being told, these are the worst of the worst American kids. Like, when I was working at a tattoo shop in Largo, a Jamaican lady came in with her granddaughter or daughter or something. And I was like, oh, I went to that school in St. Elizabeth. And she stopped and looked at me like, you were in that school?

Like, it's like folklore down there. Like America's sending their worst kids. But it wasn't the case. Like, you know, some of them were just trouble me. Some of them were just spoiled kids who just got kicked out of boarding schools. Like, and some of them were serious felons, but none of them were sociopaths or, you know. Maybe there's some sociopaths, but you can't. Those are hard to find, but nobody does anybody that I know.

Some of them probably have now. I mean, I try to look people up and stuff. You're arguing against your case. Am I really? I mean, yeah. I just think a lot of people. There's some of them so. Because, well, they probably have now.

Maybe, yeah. You're having an argument with yourself. Probably. I do this all day long. And I actually, I have an Australian Shepherd, so I have conversations like this with myself, and then I throw my, my dog's voice in there because I'm trying to be in Australian. Yeah. So, anyway, I spend a lot of time alone when I'm in Nebraska. When I'm in New York, I'm a little more social, but Nebraska knows the grindstone working on writing, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, I get out, I give it a try. I'm still in ninth grade, but I'm 16. So I'm doing the math. It's not a lot of math. It's not hard. I'm going to be 20 years old when I get out of high school, dude. So I'm not going to school. I'm over it.

I'm not going to school. GED time. Yeah, but then my dad would not let me sign out of school. Because even if you're 16, you still have to have parental consent to, they call it signing out in Florida. Like dropping out is not a thing, but it's a negative connotation, dropping out, you know, sign out. My, my, how, you have to be 18 or 17? It's 16, I think it's the minimum, like the first age that you can legally. Like, if you're under 16, you have to be like homeschooled and it has to be like a legitimate

homeschool program to get out of actual high school. Because I feel like my buddy Trent signed out when he was 17. Yeah, but he probably had to have his parents on board with that. No, he didn't. No, he, well, this was, I wouldn't, he may have been 18, but I think he was 17 because he went, it's funny, um, his dad was just, anyway, he was a former Mr. Florida. He owned a bunch of gyms. They're called Culta's, uh, fitness.

He owned like five or six gyms. Never heard of it. And he was just a very, like, he would tell you like, he would, he dropped out of school in like the fifth grade. And he'd tell you, if I knew then what I know now, I would have dropped out in the fourth grade. He was because the truth is, I knew how to read by then. And it was just like, holy shit, he's like, I didn't need any of that. This is part of the reason that I didn't have any interest in school is like when I was probably in the first grade, my mom found a couple of babysitters in Texas when we lived out there that they were like master, they had master's students or they had master's students or they had master's students or they had master's students or they had their master's students or they had like a master's students or they had.

No, it was great because they educated the f*** out of us. I know, but I'm saying you end up, you end up getting a master's degree and you've, and you're, you're, but really, I mean, it was more, more people who have master's degree, stop bartending. Right. Because I know a lot of bartenders with literature degrees, like, and start off kiddie daycare. And you're going to help the kids. I mean, I learned more in that, like, until I got into, like, higher levels of high school, I knew stuff that I learned from there when I was six years old. You know, I could draw a map of the world, a loose. one when I was six years old because of that that day care.

So Trent signed out of school when he was 17. I remember I drove up there with him. And they told him like, do your parents know this? He's like, I'm 17. I don't have to, they don't have to know anything. And so he signs out. And they were like, they said, well, we're going to call your parents. He just call him.

So that night, we went to his house and they were having dinner. And so it's dinner time. So his little brother comes in and sits down. Trent comes in. I sit down to have dinner with them. Frank's there at one end of the table. His mom's there, and she serves everybody and sits down, and we're all, we're all eating, and it's kind of quiet. And all of a sudden, his mom's name was Tina.

She looks over at Frank, the husband, and, you know, Trent's father, she looks up and she goes, you're going to say something? He goes, about what? And she goes, about, she's, what do you mean? Like that, he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes, hey, he's Italian. He looks at Trent. He goes, hey, load. He was, how was school today?

and Trent goes, best day of school I've had, he said, in years. Like that. And he goes, and he goes, and Frank goes, and he goes, what? And she looks at him, and he goes, what? And he's like, from the Sopranos, bro. She's just like, what the fuck? And she's like, well, what are you going to do now? He said, what do you mean?

He said, I'm going to get a job. He says, I don't need to learn. His dad dropped out of the fifth grade. And he said, he said, I'll be fine. He just kept eating. And I'm sitting there thinking, my God, what would happen in my family? If I had dropped suddenly dropped out of school, I'd be terrified. And I'm sitting there eating. Frank's laughing. This kid, Trion's like, he didn't know what's going on, you know. And I'm just sitting there eating. And it's like this, listen, being around that family was such entertainment. Trion actually got like a contract. Like he's 18. We turned 18 got a contract with Calvin Klein to be a model for Calvin Klein, right? Super over the top, good looking guy. Goes down to Miami. Never been away from home in his life. Goes down to Miami.

took for his first shoot with Calvin Klein goes into the water on the beach goes to the beach like they put him on a hotel on the beach top notch goes out in the water he's standing there in the water barracuda huh barracuda gets him no looks around and he suddenly starts thinking like there's a lot of gay people here and then he starts thinking you can get you can get you can get AIDS from gay people this is back like back in the fucking 90s right or late like late 80s, early 90s. People wouldn't even drink out of the same cup or water phone. You're not going to get, you know, and he started thinking, these gay people are in the water. I'm in the water. I'm going to get AIDS. I'm going to get AIDS. And he has a massive

panic attack in the, you know, to have a panic attack, your body will manufacture situations that are just unreasonable. Yeah. And everybody has different versions of it. And suddenly he starts trembling and he's he's uncontrollably terrified. He gets out of the water, goes back to the hotel, packs up his bags. Immediately he thought he wanted to see his mom. I want to see my mom before I die. Goes back, packs up his shit, gets into his car drives all the way back to Tampa, goes back in there, tells his mom and dad what happened, never answers the phone. The people from Calvin Klein are calling nonstop for a week.

Never answers the phone. Doesn't know what happened. Wow. Holy shit. I had a roommate like that. I was staying in a Russian tenement in Brooklyn, and one roommate had moved out. a Ukrainian guy that was running it, got another kid that he was square as a box of Apple Jackson, twice as green, should not be living in a place like this in Bushwick.

And we got him stone the first night that he moved into the apartment, and he had full on panic attack. When called his parents and got a hotel, like, I don't think I could live here, man. I already paid a security deposit. He was afraid of us, and we're just like a couple of stoner. We're not doing anything illegal, but, yeah, I don't know. But the paranoia just took over. Yeah, got him.

That's why, you know, if you ever have panic attacks, man, I don't like taking Xanax because I don't like being high, but you can take a beta blocker. It's a heart tranquilizer. And it will, you start to get through those heart palpitations from it. And it will, if you can keep your heart tranquil, then your mind will fall, because the heart's, the heart's, the mind's, the heart. So I used to have panic attacks, right? And I had X-I do, too.

I still do. Well, what's funny about that is that in the middle of the panic attack, I would know it was a panic attack. Right. And so you've got one, you have, it's like the little devil on one shoulder and the, and the angel and the other like you're having a conversation where it's like this is just a panic attack you're going to be fine the other one is saying you are about to die you know yeah yeah you're going it's like this argument you can your heart's going nuts and i'm like and i have i practically have

to sit down because i feel like i'm about to faint and yet i'm still having this conversation where i'm saying it's just a panic attack and the other one is saying no it's not you're about to be snuffed out and and then you know 30 seconds later it dissipates and it's okay you ever done And you feel crazy. You feel like you're walking around for the next 30 minutes thinking, I'm crazy. Yeah. Like that was not normal. Yeah, I got toast with some speed on an accident one time.

Right. And I thought I was doing coke and it was speed. Does it everybody? I mean, I'm sure it's happened. There's speed and everything now. You're doing white powders. There's probably speeder on it. But I got a dude gave me the wrong bag and I did a bump of speed instead of coke.

And it's kind of like that where your heart's out of control, your mind's racing. But you know that it's the drug that's doing it to you. But it's still the come down from speed. I could see how you could get addicted to it because you're schizophrenic for hours and you can't sleep. You're just stuck with auditory visual hallucinations. We're getting all over the place. But so anyway, so what, where were we? Oh, we get back from Jamaica, right?

Yeah, you already got back from Jamaica, into Texas. Oh, no, high school. Went to Texas. You got to get out of high school. Yeah, went to Texas, go back to Florida, realize like, I started banging like a 22 or 23-year-old chick almost as soon as I got down there. And I was like, why am I going to go to school and get harassed, beat up? Yeah, this is all I mean. And I'm humiliated because I'm a 16-year-old freshman.

Right. Like, you know, kids aren't, that's not funny. That's not cool. They're making fun of you because you're a 16-year-old freshman. Right. My homie, Ian, who's like a famous chef now, he, uh, he, he felt really bummed to me. He's, like, I'm almost done with algebra one. And then I'll be a junior and he's 16, too, just because he couldn't pass algebra, you know?

Right. Um, so I was like, yeah, why am I doing this one? like I know how to get money and I know how to bitches, that's all I wanted to do. They got me locked up in the first place, you know, sent down to Jamaica. So I go get my GED, go to P-Tech, take the GED, don't study, take the GED pass it.

Right, right. So now I can work and whatever, but I worked, so I get a job at McDonald's and I worked there for 15 seconds, dude. Oh, okay. I, literally, I get the tour of the place. There's this guy, Brian, who's been there for 15 years. And he has cheeseburger grace all over his face and pimples. And 15 years, he's been at McDonald's.

And I'm like, I don't know how long I'm going to work here, but it ain't going to be that long. Right. And so I go to the bathroom to put my uniform on and I walk out to the counter and he goes, you were born to wear that uniform. He said, I quit. Turned around and took the uniform off, dude, and brought it back and threw it over the counter. That's it. Went out to the beach, got a job barback in and busing tables.

And then eventually, like, when you're 16 and you're not, going to school right and I don't know it just I had this chip on my shoulder I got down with a graffiti crew and I was like I don't even need to work anymore like I got into like organized retail theft and like vandalism was all I would do all day long I would go to department stores and lago and steal shit I would take orders from people for groceries for clothing lunch for the kids that were still going to school you know I would I had a shop set up not a shop but I mean, I would, like, have my backpack at this spot where everybody would smoke cigarettes before they went into Largo High School, and I would, like, have a concession stand, basically, of shit that I would just steal. Like, and then I was saying, I was some older kids, and we'd go out and paint trains and ditches and shit at night.

I was just living, like, a 25-year-old lifestyle when I'm 16, and you can't do that. Like, it's just a matter of time before you're going to end up locked up. Right. And I was dating an older chick. That was pretty fun. I mean, that was probably the best part of that whole year. But my dad's like, he knows what's going on. He doesn't know what's going on, but he knows what's going on.

Yeah, something's happening. You're not something to make money. And when I say a large school, like, I mean, I was taking Walmart to trial, dude. Like, you know how that, remember they used to have the, you get the stock radio in your car and it doesn't have a CD player in it's just got a cassette. So they would sell the replacement one where you can take the face off of it so no one can steal it. Yeah. And they're kept in the little glass thing. I got one of those at Walmart.

I mean, I was like just, I didn't even need it. I ended up selling it. But like, like, like no one put it. an order in for it. And I was just, like, challenging myself. I was just directionless, like, you know, all I would do all day long is smoke, skateboard, and steal shit. And I did not mind, at that point, I was not afraid to go into jail.

Like, I'd already been locked up in horrible conditions, and I'd been to JDC, the little, you know, it's basically a county jail for juveniles, JDC, and, uh, no fear of going to jail. I'm under 18. There's no consequences. Yeah. Like, um, So one day I'm out skating with a buddy of mine

And we stop at a Burger King And I don't have I have enough money to get a little bit of food But I don't have enough to get something to drink So everyone knows everyone's done this You ask for a cup for water And you fill it up with soda Right usually if it's a clear cup What you want to do is get Sprite

Because it looks like water Right Well the homie goes back to get a refill And he gets orange soda And the manager comes out from behind the counter and loses his shit and it starts raising hell. And I just bolt out the door, but I look back and the manager is between the door and my buddy.

He's not letting him leave. So I come back in and get in between the two of them and are like, we're leaving. Like, don't try to keep us here. You can call the cops if you want to, but you're going to let him leave. Right. And so whatever, he's not from this country. He's an immigrant. So if he gets in trouble, he's going back to where he came from.

I don't want to say where because he'll know I'm talking, or somebody will figure it out. But anyway. He runs off. I'm not taking it serious at all. Every day, you got to understand, being a skateboarder at this point in time in Pinellas County, a police state like Pinellas County, you're encountering the police every single day. And it was okay socially for people to roll by you while you're skateboarding and call you a skater faggot. And if you said anything back to them, they would come and fuck you up.

So every day was some kind of tango like this. I'm not thinking anything of it. And I think I, like, stopped somewhere to smoke some... And I had one of those markers that has the pull-out, the bottom of it is a pipe. Okay. I don't know, but okay. Whatever. Anyway, I had that on me, and I'd smoke some...

And just put it back in there, and a cop comes around the corner. And he's like, were you just at the Burger King? Like, yeah. All right, he's like, you got to come with me. Clacks me up, puts me in handcuffs. And I'm thinking, this is all for a 99-cent soda. Right. Right.

So he takes me back over there. And then the cop, who's... It gives me over to the cop who's taking the report from the Burger King manager. And the cop's like, well, what happened? And I'm like, we came in, we asked for water. We took soda. And he's like, so you didn't swing your skateboard at him. And I was like, what the fuck?

No. Like, and he's like, oh, you didn't. Then wire employees and customers and the manager telling me that you swung your skateboard at him. And I was like, you mean to tell me I took an eight and a quarter inch plank of wood and swung it at this guy's beach ball size head and didn't hit him. Right. That's what you're telling me. And he took me to jail for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. So then I go to court and the judge says, I'm thinking I can plead guilty to the petty theft for 99 cents.

Right. And no contest or something are not guilty to the aggravated assault. Right. The judge says, I want one plea for both of these charges. So go out there and talk to your probation officer in the hallway. And when you come back in here, have one plea for both of those charges. And I'll tell you right now, if you come back in here with a not guilty plea and you take this to trial, and you want to take this to trial, I will make sure that the DA files this into the adult system, direct file. I'm 17 now at this point.

And a direct file is when they charge you as an adult. Right, right. So, and he's like, and you, if you are convicted, you will get five years in a state penitentiary. and I will make sure that you do at least, I mean, you had to do 85% you, do you still in Florida and stay prison? Yeah. And you're going to do 85% of your sentence.

So I'm thinking, I'm 17. I'm going to be 23 when I get out of prison. But he's like, if you plead guilty today, I'll put you on probation. So it didn't take much time to deliberate. You know, I just took probation. Now, I'm 17 years old. I'm committing crimes every single day to survive.

Basically, my dad was like, just stop being a dad. He was out of his girlfriend. friend's house every night and wouldn't buy groceries for the house like would uh we'd get into fights and he'd throw me out and then he'd report me as a runaway so to absolve himself of right his kid being out of the house when he's not supposed to so now I'm I'm basically spending every day like I'm on the run right you know and uh so but I get a super cool probation officer this dude looks like shack I actually used to sell it did it looked just like Shaquille Neal's name was Pierre big big dude

I don't want to say can you say big black guy He's a big black guy. Yeah. He looked like Shaquille Neal. His name was Pierre. I was like, I thought that was funny. He's got this kind of like pussy-ass name. But he's like, he would fuck you up.

Where's Pete? What? Pete's name's Pierre. No, I'm sorry, Pete. Go ahead. Anyway, he's like, you're not a bad kid. You're not a criminal. He doesn't know what I've been up to.

I'm really non-pettie thief. You know, I'm not. But I'm not a real criminal. He's got armed robbers on his book. He's got. Yeah, he's got 17-year-olds that are doing home invasions. Yes, yeah, 100%. You know Florida.

Kick-Doh shit is what they call it here. So, for real, though, and I ended up locked up with some of those kids. So he's like, and it's intensive probation. So I got to be indoors by 7 o'clock every night. So no going out and painting graffiti all night long anymore. Right. Not supposed to. I was still doing it, but I'm not supposed to.

And the rule is I got to be at the house at 11 a.m. every day for Pierre to come by, and I got to sign his book. Okay. Like, he has to make contact with me every single. single day for intensive probation. So he's like, just, I don't care what the fuck you do. Just make sure you're here at 11 a.m. every day, sign my book and I'm going to get you off probation.

Okay. Well, Pierre goes on vacation and his, of a supervisor takes over. Can I not say that? Probably shouldn't say that. Why? Because it might be an issue for us. Oh, we have to try and get this monotide. Can you mean, okay.

But she wasn't. Okay. She was an issue. Yeah. She had it out for me as soon as she saw me. Right. Like, and she's like, well, you think if I drug tested you, what would happen? And I just didn't say anything, you know?

And then the next day, the van pulls up with all the other juvenile delinquents. Right. And it just takes me to drug test me. And what had happened was I missed, he goes on vacation and I missed the check-in with her. Right. I'd been out all night doing something with a buddy. And the fucked up thing was is I was out with the kid who I got arrested with in the first place. the one who's such an idiot that he didn't know not to get orange soda.

Right. I was out with him, and what we would do is his dad was a 911 operator at night. So he was at this place right down the street from their house from seven at night until seven in the morning. So we would skate down to his car, and he had a spare key, and we would steal his car, and we'd go out joyriding on Clearwater Beach and stuff. So we were getting back late to where he needed to get the car back, or we'd get caught. but he's going by my house all he had to do was stop the car he would not pull over i was like it's almost like he wanted me to to get caught you know so he's like just come stay in my house and i'll get you back in the morning and i ended up being late missing the check-in with the lady and then

she uh you know says the whole thing about what if i drug tested you she takes me in for a drug test i get violated i got a court i think me and my dad started arguing in court in front of the judge like and the judge is just like i can tell that you're boiling over with anger so I'm going to remand you until we've got to find somewhere for you to go. We're going to sentence you somewhere. But we're going to hold you in JDC until it's time to go. So I have the hearing to where they're going to sentence me. And I had a mental health diagnosis because of this, the Jamaica thing.

Right. Right. And the psychiatrist at the hearing is like, I don't think that sending him to boot camp is going to be good for his psyche if he has this mental health diagnosis. Okay. And my dad just goes off about that's bullshit. he's been using that as a crutch. It's not real. He doesn't have a mental health diagnosis.

But they still decide they're not going to send me to boot camp. That's what I'm told when I leave the hearing, right? And so I walk, all right, I go back to my cell. My probation officer comes back a couple days later and he's like, all right, I got some good news and some bad news. He's like, good news is in a couple days you're going to get out on electronic monitor. You need to go home for a little while. The bad news is you're going to boot camp.

And I had heard all the stories that boot camp was this really nice. gnarly experience. Right. They have like a shock program for younger kids where they'll take them into the Pinellas County boot camp for like a 12-hour stay, not the kids who are doing the six months there. It's an eight-month program, six months of boot camp, four months of boot camp, four months to transition. This story gets pretty wild.

Pretty quick. You look like you're getting bored, but. No, I just play. But, so I go to boot camp, and it's actually had an opportunity to have to discuss. The first night that I get out of JDC, I get out late. My dad had to come pick me up after he got out of work. So they're like, go straight home, don't go anywhere. The electronic monitor guy is going to come put your ankle bracelet on.

And this guy, he ended up coming the next morning. He's a million years old. He was probably already asleep by the time I got out of JDC. But my homie, Jake came and picked me up. And we went out to Clearwater Beach one last time, drinking beer and stuff. And I could have just ran away. I could have gone maybe to Texas But who knows what was going to happen

You know what I mean? You know how in Florida They all give you absconding can be When you go to court can be called escape Right You were supposed to be on electronic monitor And you absconded Right

So I could end up getting the five years For the aggravated assault Plus another five for escape Right So I'm like I might as well just take it You know I might as well just go to boot camp Even though I know I'm going And now that I know I'm going

So a couple days later go to boot camp it's hell on wheels they're beating the shit out of the kids throwing us into brick walls dude they would run the clippers so long shaving your head that it would burn your skin because it would get so hot

right they would sexually humiliate you like strip you down butt naked and uh my dad was already doing this shit to me you know what I mean right uh you get 60 second showers like when from the first day that I was in there like they have six shower heads you get 10 seconds at each shower head

right just bring you in and align and there were times when some of the sadistic guards would be like you have to march in naked military style marching in and the guards would be like all right nut to butt and we're like what like I don't think y'all understood me I want your nuts

on his butt and he would stand there and make you like you try to get his clothes you could without touching your dick to this dude and he would the guy would stand there and make you do it all right like and they would do other fucked up shit like they had a sandbox out in the PT area and it was all dirty Florida beach sand right and they would make you PT in the sand and then when you're all sweaty and stuff make you squat down grab handfuls of sand and then jump up in the air and throw the sand all over you and your platoon mates whatever you want to call it and then they would march you back in this would be like right before you're going to go to bed you've already had your shower Like, you're about to go to sleep, they would cover you in sweat and sand and then put you in your, in the barracks.

And if you shook any of it off, if they heard you in your cell trying to get sand off of you, they'd take you back out in the sandbox and make you just roll around in it. P-T you until you're sweaty and make you know how it is here. In Florida, you walk, you're getting ready to go to the bar. You take a shower. You walk to the car. You need a new shower. That's how, I don't think people who don't live here understand how sweaty you get. It's extremely hot, yeah, like.

And human. And human, yeah. Um, so at some point, I've snapped, man, like, and I was like, I remember my friend Bird that I had gotten arrested with the first time. Mm-hmm. He, we're sitting in JDC and he's like, bro, you are in for hell on fucking earth if you go to boot camp. He's like, your best bet is to pretend like you are hearing voices and you are crazy and they're going to send you some pussy-ass program at a hospital and you'll be playing PlayStation. Like, he's like, you better start on that right now. Or you're going there, and you are going to want to fuck yourself.

That's how bad it is. Like, so I remember what he said, and I was like, I got to beat these guys. Like, I've already had an abusive father. I've been in an internment camp in Jamaica. Like, the streets aren't nice either. It wasn't like, yeah, I had this fun year living like Fritz the Cat, just older women and stealing. It was a lonely hard year before I went from Jamaica back into the juvenile program. And so I was going to start with, I'm hearing voices.

I'm going to start working on a fiscite case. right and I don't know why it's funny but schizophrenia is not funny it's funny when you're faking it well it couldn't have worked out better because I come out of myself and so the old the boot camp at 49th Street was the old juvenile hall it's a hall with a yellow line down the middle

showers office for the guards right it's a hallway and the yellow line they call you out onto it but the okay so the doors don't have like a clasp anything it's just they're just open all the time They're not locked or anything, but this facility is so maximum security that, like, you don't need to be locked in your cell because there's four Marine Corps drill instructors out there who are going to beat the living shit out of you if you try anything. And then did they have the chair when you were in prison? Or it might just be a Florida thing, but they have.

Yeah, no, they have the strapped down chair, right? Where they strap you down, you can't move. The back of police cars in Florida, they're plastic seats and they have like an indention so they can put you in there with handcuffs. Right. So they have one of those just sitting on, like, a throne in all the jails in Florida, like county jails and state prisons. And if you do something that constitutes getting locked up in that chair, you're not getting out for four hours. So if you haven't taken a shit and two hours into your little stay in that chair, you've got to take a shit, they're going to let you sit in that chair and shit your pants. They're not taking you out of it.

So anyway, they don't need to have the doors locked, I guess is what I'm saying. Like, they have ways of torturing you. Right. would make it completely dissentify you do anything like that. So I come out of my cell and I go, Sir, yes, sir. Like I heard him call me out there. And he just looks at me with like the most evil look in his face.

And he runs over to me and grabs me by my BDUs. We're wearing like camouflage shit. Grads me and slams me into the door. And like it caught me off guard. I didn't know he was going to come do that. They would make you stand online sometimes until you fell asleep, standing up. And then they'd come and bang.

into the door because it makes this really loud boom so he comes over slams me into the door I lose my balance think I'm gonna fall back my thumb goes between the door and the door jam and all my body weight goes back onto it completely crushes the middle bone in my thumb so now that's a victory dude I'm not doing push-ups anymore right I'm doing I'm doing sit-ups I'm about to get a six-pack I'm about to get out of here and hit Clearwater Beach so so so and then even and they're like, why did you come out of your room during the incident report? He started doing that. I don't know if you saw guards the way they work where they're like,

so you came out and you broke the position of attention, and that's why your thumb got cut. He was telling me how it was my fault and my thumb got broken for his incident report. And I'm like, go ahead, dude. Like, absolve yourself of injuring me because I don't care. I'm not doing push-ups anymore now because I got a cast on my hand. Right. And this is one step towards I'm working on my psych case to get out of here

because I just want to beat you guys at this point. Like, I had no problem. when I was 17, spending the rest of my childhood, my, you know, minor year in jail. Right. Because everything, the streets were rough, home was rough, at least I had somewhere to sleep. You know what I mean? And food to eat. Like, and I'll get out.

I'll be 18 and I can do whatever the fuck I want, you know. I didn't want to do that, but I was okay with that happening. But I was not going to stay in this boot camp place. Right. So I end up talking to the psychiatrist. She's like, you know, you say you're here in full. We said you, did you, you know, you had an honest story of hallucination that this guy called you out online and it resulted in you being injured. And then it wasn't working, right?

Like, they weren't going for it. They think it's a lie. And it's getting to the point where six weeks go by, cast is about to come off. And I'm like, God damn it, I'm going to start doing push-ups again. So they put me in an immobilizer when the cast comes off. I can take it off. And so I line up my foot, every night when I would finish homework, I would line my foot locker up right here, put a book underneath it,

and then knocked the book out so that this heavy-ass military footlocker would fall on my thumb. I was trying to keep it broken. I know. I know. I was desperate, dude.

I mean, I'd really like to hear what you think about that. I want to know what that look was all about. It sounds horrible. It is insane. But desperate people do desperate things, man. So that was not working. The bone was still healing, right?

So then I get, and this is probably going to make you cringe, but I get the bright idea that, like, I'm going to make up some kind of crime and I'm going to make up that I was involved in some kind of heinous crime outside before I got locked up that they will never be able to prove happen so that it adds to the site case you know what I'm saying they'll either think that I'm lying or they'll think that I'm hallucinating this right because I've already established that that's already documented

that I told the jail psychologist or psychiatrist that I'm hearing voices right and like one of the guards brought me aside and he's like bro you don't want to go down this path of telling and these people that you hear voices. Like you don't want to go to a county jail psych ward. Like, because once it's on your record and you go to jail, they're going to put your ass in the psych ward every time to make sure that you're stable

before they put you in general population. And that is hell on earth. Yes. From what I've heard. Yeah. Cycourt is not. It's not, it's not, it's not, it's like,

even the, I've been in the psych ward in the hospital. Like jail. And those aren't, yeah. And those are just people that they were walking around the street. But we're talking about a dudes who are throwing piss and shit all over each other or like drinking the jankum out of their toilet you know like real criminally insane people he's like you don't want to go down that road um so anyway uh i go down that road and i tell them i got something to confess me and my buddies we were all out one

night riding around i think i told them like we were in some kind of catac like one of my dream cars like because you know people i don't know if it's like this in prison but in juvenile programs all the kids do is lie to each other they all just tell stories of about they were doing this or they were doing that out on the outs and they weren't at all. They're all liars. So anyway, I make up this story that me and my buddies were all out getting liquored up and I get drunk and crash the car and my buddy flies through the windshield of the car and dies. And we're in like Indian Rock's Beach when this happens.

And then I tell them that we load the body up in the trunk of the car and go to like Newport Richie or something like that, like ridiculously far away. And we're somehow going from, I don't know how many miles this would be, but it's a very urban, it's very densely populated area. I believe Pinellas County is like the most densely populated county in Florida. And there's no way you're driving a car with a hole in the windshield where a person came out all the way from Indian Rocks Beach to, like, holiday. Or I can't remember what I said. Somewhere in like the swampy area of Pascoe County. But they still get a detective from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office to come down and take my stand.

statement. And I, like, I think I said one of my accomplices was my cellmate in JDC because I knew that he was in Falkenberg. And then when they go interview him, they're going to be like, he's going to be like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, I never met that kid on the outside. Like, we were just like, look it up. We were just cellmates in JDC. Right. And the person who allegedly died didn't exist. It was a made up person. Like, um, so can you imagine two weeks later they come back and say, we located the vehicle? Right. We found the vehicle. We found the body. We found. Yeah. You're like, huh? I was willing to take that risk, but I knew it wasn't going to happen.

So, like, we're formally charging you with. If I was a detective, I'd do it just to fuck with them. I'd be like, this is all bullshit, but I'm going to come back and I'm going to, I'm going to type up an arrest warrant. I'm going to type up an indictment. I'm going to type up formal charges, and I'm going to be like, you need to sign here, sign here. We're taking you to trial. What? Yeah, I probably would have broke at that point.

I didn't do that. That's true. But, yeah, so whatever, I just remember. He came a couple of times to ask questions and whatever. And then I remember the last time he came. I heard him coming before he came and met with me, and I heard the guy say, I think I'm chasing a goose or some shit like that to one of the drill instructors.

You mean a ghost? A goose. A goose. A wild goose chasing. Right, yeah. And the fact that the statement that I gave that they even put a detective on this is absurd. Like, I don't know what it was like in Hillsboro,

but we were over-policed in Pinellas. Like, they have a very aggressive sheriff's department out there. I know they're true. I know they have a real issue with crime. They want it to go away. Yeah, but these bastards. But they also kind of like...

What are you people thinking? They don't have to do what they do sometimes, man. They go a little... Well, sometimes they've licked crime, and sometimes you just got to bully people after that. You don't have enough to do. Right. Yeah. Sheriff Grady Judd.

I love Sherry Judd. I love him, too. But I hated that, I hated that mentality. Like, I know that sheriff's office mentality from because I was in sheriff's custody. Like, so... As a, as a... As a... As a...

As a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen, Jerry... I mean, Grady Judd's great. As somebody who's on the cusp of breaking the law, he's a terror. I'm so glad you say that because now that I own a home and I'm caught, I play golf now. Right. Like, I live in a bad neighborhood where the cops don't come there. They don't do anything about anything that's going on there. And I was like, God damn, that Pinellas County Sheriff's Office was awesome shit.

Like, that they would never stand for this. Like, there's a 14-year-old on a four-wheeler with a shi-stie mask on shooting a gun for fun. I'm not around. Right. And I was like, I would kind of. appreciate a little bit of that here like that would be nice maybe so we could take him have a talk with that kid yeah well they're actually they the my other house in omaha they have uh like a juvenile reform thing there where they're not even taking kids to do the cops the kid in the street shot him

or something and now they're not they're not anything about him run wild now uh there was a house next down mine that caught on fire and i was talking to the arson inspector because it was 100 person arson and uh but he couldn't prove it and he's telling me about a kid that's known in the neighborhood. He's carjacked people like 18 times at gunpoint and they finally put him somewhere in probably like a punk-ass little juvenile facility. So anyway, the detective determines that I'm full of shit. So he goes to the guards and says he's lying and the sergeant at boot camp had already told me if we find out that you're lying about this, we're going to recycle you into the next platoon and your time's going to start all over again. So they were hard on us when we first came in.

Now I'm the one who's pissed him off. So they recycle me back into the new platoon that's coming in. Strip me out of my BDUs, put me in the PT gear, and I've got to wait for the new platoon. So then now I'm in like a leadership position. Every time they need to teach a lesson or something, I'm the one that they make an example of, you know, like, because I know how to fold my clothes right and hospital corners and all that. Like they're like, you don't even get a name. They strip you of your identity. You're a recruit number nine.

And you're not allowed to say the word I. Like, you can't say, I need to go to the bathroom. You go, sir, recruit number nine, request a head call, sir. Like, it's full on. I don't even know if that's like that in the Marine Corps, but I know that the obstacle course was based on the one from Paris Island because they would have leathernecks, like the guys with the in uniform come to look at the obstacle course.

It was, you had to memorize, like, passages verbatim from the Marine Corps handbook. It was the Marine Corps with none of the clout and none of the weapons. And Marine Corps is only three months long. And we had to do the same shit The Marine Corps Physical Fitness Test You got to run three miles Do a bunch of sit-ups

Do a bunch of pull-ups We had to pass that In order to get out of Boot Camp into the next program Called Transitions Which is helping you acclimate Back into society So things are going pretty good

And I think that I mean they weren't going good It was still hell on earth But they had kind of stopped Punishing the Fack out of me For lying about that But I never came clean Right

I never broke I stuck to my guns on that dude So then one day I get called into a room and the psychologist, the corporal, this dude, corporal wrath was the human donkey con. This motherfucker could grab the ropes, like those big ship ropes you got to climb. He could grab one in each hand and climb with no legs. He was a bastard. Like he was a mean motherfucker and he could fuck you up. Like, and he would.

He'd throw you around like a rag doll. But he's sitting there at the head of the tribunal and he's like, we can't determine whether he said, you said that. the night that this alleged incident happened, you were high as a kite, do you think that there's a possibility that you imagined all this? And I was like, I don't know, sir. You know?

And he's like, well, based on our findings, we're going to transfer you to a mental health facility. No, this is good news. This is good news. And he's like, and he's looking at him, he's like, now you do know your time's going to start over again. Because I'm only supposed to be doing a six-month bid, and now I've been in for six months.

So now I'm starting over for six months. Like, I'm starting the six months over. but I didn't care because like I said I'm I just want to be free when I get out I want to be 18 years old and I'm thinking they won't put me on probation when I get out if I'm 18 I can't be on juvenile probation you can but that's what I was thinking I'm not going to be on probation when I get out and I'll be able to go just get an apartment get a job and live the life that I wanted to that everybody didn't agree with you know right and so they sent me to this like boys home inside of a hospital it's not in a hospital it's like a wing It's converted from a hospital, and it's the most pussy play. Just like Byrd told me. And I walk into the recreation room, and guess who's sitting there? Bird. Bird, playing spades with a stack of cookies that he won.

And he's like, I told you. Like, glad you finally decided to listen to me. Like, this kid is, I wish you could have him on him. He doesn't, he's just such a character. Like, he was the kid that everybody, he would challenge the guards at every, we're both older. We're both like 17. Right. Everybody else is kind of young.

He would challenge the guards at every turn. He'd piss him off all the time. And they'd be like, they'd be so mad at him. Like, this kid's got to go to prison. He's a sociopath. He has a master's degree now. Right. He was just advanced.

And he would fuck with him just because it was fun. Like, he can't figure out how to not drive drunk with an ounce of in his car. But when we were in that place, he took a broken radio from the classroom. You got to get searched when you come from the classroom into the pod. Right. Took a broken radio, like a terrestrial radio, snuck it into the dorm. That alone is, you know, a miracle. And then he fixed it and got caught listening to the radio underneath his covers at night.

Like, he's a genius. I'm sure you met guys like this who are like complete geniuses. They can make a shower head out of a tube of toothpaste, but they can't figure out how to stay at a prison. Yeah. Like, so yeah, it was just pussy as fuck. Like they, these kids are arguing over who's playing PlayStation next. And I was just in hell on earth boot camp for stealing a soda, dude. Right.

And there were kids in there. that we're like, like, other kids in this mental health place. Like, the boot camp was like robbers, kids took guns to school, carjackers, stabbing, shooting, you know, like the gnarliest of the gnarly. And I'm in there for stealing a 99 cent soda, dude. Like, and, but you know what? It would have been so much worse if I had gotten direct filed and sent to a Florida State prison because when you're like 17 or whatever, like a juvenile to 24,

they send you to these things called jit camps or gladiator schools right and these are of her horror stories yeah yeah the broomsticks go up your butthole and like all kinds of shit so at least it was just the guards we were so locked down that of all of my incarcerations i never had any fights with anybody i never had to fight but naked in the showers or any of that shit but uh yeah they send me to this pussy-ass school and like uh how long we're there six months yeah got out two months after my 18th birthday and uh Another six months? I thought you were going to tell me they were bullshit.

So I did six months and then another six months. No, like, I was well behaved, all right? And I, and I, I buddyed up with a guy who was a guard there that also had his church. So they would,

you were allowed to take, he was allowed to take a couple of the kids out of the program to go to church on Sundays. So I was like, reading that Bible, quoting shit. Right. Beget, whatever,

like learning all of it so I could, you know, like the hobo code, like a little religious talk and get you something to eat. Yeah. Yeah. So, and that's what it was.

That's why I was going, because they had, like, donated food, like, enemans donuts and shit, like, so I'll go listen to, I still right now, somebody's like, I'll give you a box of donuts if you just listen to me preach for a little while, I'd be like, all right, cool. If I didn't have anything to do, I'd do it,

like free donuts? Come on. So, and then the other guards were like 24 years old or something. You know what I mean? I'm not that far in age difference from them. So I'd get to stay up late and clean the place so that they didn't have to do it. And then they would,

they take me in the employee break room and be like, eat whatever you want in that refrigerator. Just don't get sick so we don't get caught. Right. So I'm eating all the other kids are asleep. I'm eating pizza and ice cream watching Chappelle's show or like late. I think there were basketball,

like basketball finals or hockey or some shit going on at the time. Like it was total coast of six months. And I didn't have to go live with my dads. I didn't have to go back to the streets or anything like that. And, uh, yeah, I got out two months after my 18th birthday and went to Texas for, oh. I was like, I got a quick question. Do these guards, do you think they knew like, okay, this guy really?

Yeah, oh, they heard the story. This was always, there was actually a guard in JDC when I first got locked up. He looked like, man. He looked at you. Like, but he was like a Queens guy, like talk like Queens, you know? And I told him the story. He's listening to me. And he's like, and then he just cracks up laughing.

He's like, you can't even make this shit up. I'm telling you, I need to write a show. He's like, I can make a sitcom about the shit that I hear in this place. Like, I'm like, thanks, man. Like, there's nothing you can do about it for me, you know? There was also a guard in, uh, in the boot camp who I told him that story. Or no, he realized that I was like advanced. A lot of these kids are like semi-literate high school dropouts.

Right. You know what I mean? They're like, they have no education. And I've always educated myself, you know? Like, I've always just had a passion for knowledge. So I remember the guard was like asking people questions in it because the guards taught school on the weekends during the week. it was a teacher, but on the weekends, the drill instructors taught classes.

And he asked me, like, how can you tell the difference between a venomous and a non-venomous snake? And I said, like, the venomous snakes have more of, like, rounder eyes, and their heads are more oval-shaped, where you'll get, like, a shovel-shaped head on a venomous snake for the glands and blah, blah, blah. And he listens to me, and he goes, you're not supposed to be here. And I, like, I, like, had a sigh of relief. Like, they're going to send you home. Yeah, right? And he's like, he's like, that doesn't mean anything.

like at all but I don't think you're supposed to be here like and then uh what was another thing I had to write a report on Andrew Jackson and he was like this is the best thing that has ever been written in this boot camp and I was like it means nothing he's like don't go get in a big head about it you know it's another fucked up thing I'm glad you kind of took me off on this tangent because I was like I just jumped into school when I was in boot camp like just drown out the sorrow read educate yourself and we weren't allowed to read for recreation we weren't allowed to read or we weren't allowed to draw do any art or anything like that you could only do schoolwork so I would get the teachers to give me textbooks that I wasn't even taking a class

for just so I had something fun to read and all the other kids are either you know retarded or can I say that or they don't care and like you know how it is in school it's not cool to be smart right like so if the teacher asks a question these are the coolest kids in Pinellas County you know how I know because they're in boot camp like right because that's what happens to cool kids they go to jail because that's cool right so none of them answer the questions so it'd be like buler and so finally i'd raise my hand and answer the question like and so it would just become there was this other kid who like was dumb but he was just competitive with me so he would try to beat me to raising his hand but then he would be completely wrong and I'm like you're dumb ass

dude like no wonder why you're in here like I was taking college algebra and we had a kid like that Like they would say, you know, you know, whatever, 2A plus 3B. You know, they would do that. And he'd be like, oh, 12B. And he'd be like, that's usually, but no. And I mean, this happened six or seven times. And me, there was a guy named Elvin that was in class that we used to be study partners. Listen, we would burst out laughing.

I mean, we would just be like, bro, stop. Like, we got to get through this. I mean, we're in college. You're like, we're trying to get through this, man. And so the other kids in the class would start laughing. The other college students would start laughing. Like, y'all are so mean to him and was like, listen, four times in a row. Just statistically, he should have gotten one of those, one of those guesses right.

I mean, you know, and he just can't. Like, he doesn't understand, like, stop doing it. And then, sure enough, five minutes later, he'd be like, 12B. Yeah. I remember the guard that was friendly with me, the kid's name was, it was spelled GUD, but it was pronounced good. Right. But the one D.I. that was friendly with me would, like, call him good. He's like, shut up good.

like you're always wrong good I don't know that guy Ken Jenkins I think his name was he's as they're all sheriff's deputies they worked at the jail they went through a boot kit they had to go through a two week

boot camp to be the drill instructors at boot camp and now he's like I look all these people up the ones whose names I remember you're going to love this one dude so I found Ken Jenkins because I was like man

I'd love to have a beer with this guy he was funny he would basically do stand up on the Saturday classes I would look forward to it but he works at the Pinellas County He's like the lieutenant of the bailiffs at the jail or something. I didn't reach out. I'm not going to, I don't want to hang out with a cop.

But there was this one female guard who was a smoke show, dude. I mean, like, I'm talking about furious, furious masturbation at night when she was working. And she was always the one, too, when I ended up getting arrested in my early 20s, I'd go to Pinellas County Jail. And she'd already been back. She was an intake. And she recognized me from boot camp. And she goes, what platoon were you in? She's like, I knew you were going to end up here.

Because this whole time, these guys are like, you're not going to get better. You guys aren't going to get better. We're just making, this is job security. We're training the new crop of criminals that are going to be in the county jail when you guys graduate this program. And so she's like, shames me when I come in to the holding, right? Well, I remember her name, Rutz was her last name, right? And every once in a while, especially when I come back here, I'm like, maybe I can meet up with this bride. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, she was hot. Maybe she's got some kind of fantasy, too. I don't know. Actually, when I was working at the tattoo shop in Largo, she came in with her mom to get nose piercings, and she still tried to give me, like, tough talk. Like, staying out of trouble. Like, well, she got kicked out of the sheriff's office

because she got into some domestic thing with her husband or boyfriend, and she was in the middle of the street honking a horn wasted behind the wheel of her car. So she got, you know, disgraced from the Pinellas County Sheriff's office, and she works for a title company, dude. Because I believe that everyone who works in real estate is a scumbag.

And I feel the same way about cops. But what was I going to say? Oh, about school. So there was one teacher who also taught at Gibbs High School in St. Pete, which is a gifted school. And the guards and the teachers started resenting me because, like, I would just get every answer right. I would ace every test. It was a stupid, easy curriculum. You know what I mean?

Right. And I remember one guard, De Palma, having it out from it. Like, you think you're so smart. Like, you wouldn't last a minute in the Marine Corps. And I'm like, anybody could be a Marine. And he's like, what the fuck did you just say? Like, like, you were saying prison is somebody's whole identity. Like, this guy was in the Marine Corps in the 80s and it's like, it's his whole personality.

You know, you think you could be a Marine? And I was like, motherfucker, I'm doing it right now. Like, I am a Marine. Like, what are you talking about? But it was so strange that the people who were teaching me and supposed to be rehabilitating me were starting to resent me like I thought I was some kind of know it all. And all I'm doing is participating the way that they expect me to. And I'm not saying anything. like, ha-ha, I know it all.

Like, I'm not correcting anyone being an actually, actually, you know, I'm not being an asshole. I'm just answering the questions I'm asked. And they're challenged by the fact that I'm bright. And I remember a teacher saying something like, you know, I don't care how smart you think you are, but if I took you to Gibbs High School and put you in a gifted class, you'd be the dumbest kid in there. And I'm like, you could take anybody anywhere and they'd be the right circumstances.

You'd be the dumbest guy. I take you, a teacher who teaches at Juvenile Hall. I take you to Harvard. Harvard, you're the dumbest motherfucker there. Like, you didn't end up teaching a juvenile hall because you were a great educator. Yeah, I was going to say, like, nobody ends up working at the BOP because they're at the top of their field. Right. You don't end up being a, I remember an emergency room doctor.

I'd gotten into a fight, split my whole shit up, and he wouldn't glue it back together. And I was like, you need to irrigate the wound and you need to glue it back together. And he goes, I've been an emergency room doctor for 27 years. And I'm like, I told my mom about it. And she works in health care. And she's like, if he's been in an emergency room for 27 years, he's a piece of shit doctor. Like, he is not good. He hasn't even thought of going into private practice for himself at any point.

You never made it out of the emergency room? Yeah, it was a joke. But I remember the guidance counselor took me aside after I'm starting to get treated like this by the guards and the staff for being good at school. Right. Like, I'm supposed to be rehabilitated by you guys, but you're shaming me for being good at school. That's how backwards this situation was. And she takes me into her office and she's like, look, you need to go to college. You're gifted.

You can go to college. You should go to college. If you don't go to college, you are going to work for people who are dumber than you the rest of your life. And even at 17, I only had one job. I was like, that doesn't sound like a bad thing. Like, being smarter than the people who are in control of you, it sounds like a pretty good thing. Like, it sounds like you can get away with a lot of shit.

What are you thinking? You can manipulate these fuckers? Yeah. Like, I have always done that. I try to find bosses that are dumb as shit so I can get away with whatever the I want while I'm at work. Like, anyway, I mean, I don't make it a mission, but I'm okay. I know how to deal with that if that does happen. So would you get out of?

So I get out of, yeah, boot camp and go to Texas again because mom was still out there. And I skirted, they were going to try to give me six months after. Boot camp. Or out of the, I get out of the. The mental health. Yeah. The psych thing. Whatever.

That was that stretch. Okay. That stretch ends. My mom's still in Texas. I figure that I can skip, they do call it aftercare in juvenile. Right. Where you've got to do like six months probation. and you know I probably want to smoke some or whatever stay out late at night I'm 18 now like I don't want to be on probation and I also know that probation is just the judge's way of telling you you're going back to jail just a matter of time we're going to keep a tab on you so we know where to come get you like um so I tell the guard like I can't live with my dads I got to go to Texas like so just transfer my probation out there and he's like oh it sounds like a lot of work like you probably you probably stay out of trouble and the whole time I'm being the most well-behaved kid in there because I've just been in boot camp

right and so he releases me with no nice yeah aftercare and uh it was funny i even had to stick it to them a little bit because they start giving you uh home visits to get you used to be in out in society and i was walking out of a and so me and my buddy are out driving around on the beach scoring chicks while i'm out i'm still an inmate in jail and i'm out on clearwater beach finger bang and broads right hey that's you want to hear some crazy this must be a thing Right? Have you ever heard that finger banging? I've never heard it before.

Geez, man. No foreplay? I've never heard. I know what I'm saying the term. I've never heard it until Boziak said it. So I was like, this must be a street kid time of thing. He's like, you know, so I'm trying to finger bang this broad. And I'm thinking, it's finger banging.

And you just said it. Yeah, finger bang. There must be kids in the system must come up with. Yeah. Okay. Well, the guards used to say in a boot camp, they were like, And somebody else's finger-banging old Susie Rotten Crotch back home. That's what they call your girlfriend, Susie Rotten Crotch.

And the guy that's banging her is Jody. I don't even know. I don't remember that. But, yeah, I remember that. I actually caught the guards one night. I woke up in the middle of the night, and they were watching full metal jacket. And I was like, I knew I remembered some of these insults. Like, how tall are you, boy?

I don't know they stand shit that tall. Like, steers and all, like, whatever the fuck. Like, it was just fucked, man. But, yeah, I get out. I was doing really well. Like I just wanted to fly. If somebody told me to that Florida State prisons are basically like that, they're basically boot camps.

Like you got a march that guards talk to you like you're a dog. Like and I was like if I have to go, if I up and go to prison and I have to get treated like that by a guard. And then I also have to watch my asshole when I'm showering and shitting. Like I don't want any part of that. Like I'm not going to get any kind of trouble. Yeah. So I go to Texas and I'm doing really well.

but it's just I'm not getting the action I want in Texas like I can't get a chick to I can't I can't be fun like I you know I don't want to commit crimes but I want to have fun you know and Texas was just boring so I go back to Florida and uh yeah it's kind of a law and order state yeah and it's also just like the deep suburbs like Pinellas county's like it's small and there's a lot of different shit to do in that small area there's the beach there's this that the other thing and as soon as I get back I'm at a party and there's a dude hanging out there with this chick who's like, she's like the chick who took everybody, popped everybody's cherry and like, she's like

the older chick hanging out with the butt, just a full on unabashed slut. Like, and I mean that in the best way. I love sluts. Like I wrote a book about, uh, I lived with them like Jane Goodall with the apes. I lived with the sluts and I wrote a book. What was the name of that one? It was called Sport. Oh, okay.

Okay. Well, I'm just joking. All right. It's technical called swipe out because they change the name of the title. Anyway. I love that we've done nothing but talk about books that aren't published. Yeah. It doesn't have been helping you at all.

Well, I mean, they know all right, books. Right. I'm sure if that one intrigues them, then they'll check out some of my other ones. So anyway, I get out, meet this dude at a party who's banging the neighborhood, Flusi, and this dude, Ralph, he's dead now. And he was a body piercer at Atomic Tattoos in Largo, where I grew up. And I used to, I knew about the place. I used to hang out in the parking lot and, uh, or actually used to hang out next door to it because it's where a railroad track ends, like there's a paver company over there

and they pull up rail cars to put the pavers in or the supplies to make the pavers. So I would always be out there painting, paint and trains, right, feedy and stuff. And, um, I had run into a couple. I already knew some of the people like very vaguely, but then this guy's like, he's a body piercer, but he's learning how to tattoo. So he's like, hey, why don't you come down to the shop and get free tattoos because I'm learning. And if I f*** them up or whatever, I'll fix them, you know, like, but you get to be my crash test dummy. And I was working at Suntasia, which was a telemarketing place, which was a full-on scam.

It was one of those like coupon books that they send old people and is like cancel the subscription within this amount of time. Right. And we won't sign you up for the subscription to it and or the recurring payment. but then they don't even mail the thing out until it's past the contractual date of cancellation so they're just ripping off old people and I'm just kind of the hangaround guy at the shop for a while

and then they brought me in as an apprentice and worked there for a while and one day I'm hanging out and it was like kind of the best environment because these dudes are like kind of half criminals already but they're squared away you know like they're not out doing dumb crimes like they're you know

they're not driving around with fucking ounce of in their car when they've had beers in their system or something, you know, like they're, they're, they are living this adult lifestyle that I wanted to live as a teenager and they're doing it without getting themselves in trouble. So they were really good role models for me in a way because, I mean, you know, they're not churchgoing good Christian people, but they're, they're like navigating their dereliction and depravity with dignity. You know what I mean? And, uh, uh, uh, so one day we're hanging out at the shop and I'm talking about skateboarding. and the owner dude is like dude you really love skateboarding

like I'm talking about it I know all these nerds out on different stuff and he's like you should like you should think about maybe getting a job I don't know if like working in tattoo shop is like for you man like you're still young you need to be out there skating and like maybe you should get a job in skateboarding

and he knew the guy who owns skate park of Tampa over on Columbus in East Tampa and yeah it didn't take long of like a vetting process to go work there. And so I got to jump into a couple of different jobs where I got to kind of influence my area. You know what I mean?

I created a, they have a big pro-am contest at Skate Park of Tampa that brings a lot of people in. So I set up an event, I brought the tattoo shop to the skate park and they still now, 10 something years later, give out free tattoos to the people who are at. the contest so it's like I got to see how I got to I went from within a year or so being out of juvenile hall I'm like making dreams come true you know what I mean like I'm leading it's it's an alternative lifestyle but I'm leading a positive lifestyle making

a positive impact on my community we we had a big skateboard contest or a protest on June 21st is National Go Skateboard Day and And so we decided to do some renegade contests out in the street. Just go to a street spot and have a contest. It's totally illegal. Like, and we skated through downtown Tampa, 150 kids. It's kind of like a flash mob. It's not necessarily a great thing to be part of because it's illegal.

But again, it was like me. To skateboard? 150 kids stopping traffic is like kind of like this protest for skateboarding because it was still illegal at the time. Skateboarding is illegal? You can get a ticket. Or you could. I don't know about any. more, but you could get a ticket and go to jail.

Even in San Francisco, when I lived there in the late 2000s, early teens, you could get a ticket and the charge was skateboarding. That's why they had all those shirts that said, skateboarding is not a crime, because it was a crime in some places.

So anyway, I'm saying, I'm not living like a, you know, what my parents would say is like, this is what we expected of you. You know, my dad always kind of treated me like, if you're not going to be the son that I want, then I'm just going to torture you. and make your life living hell. So it's like, and he was, you know, he told me recently that, like, he's like,

I was just afraid of you getting caught up in the system and becoming one of those guys who becomes a lifer. Not necessarily getting sentenced to life, but just a jailbird in and out, who loses track of his dreams. And it's like, within a year and a half, I'm already making impacts in my community pursuing my dreams, right? So then it ends up not working out at the skate park, and this is where I revert back to my youth. And, like, the day that I got fired from the skate. park by a buddy of mine happened to hit me up and he's like oh you got to come out to San Francisco and trim some right and uh you get 200 bucks a pound you pet trim a pound and weed you get 200 bucks and uh I started doing the math on it and I was like I only need to

sell like this many pounds a year in order to have like a minimum wage salary you know what I mean? What I always really wanted to do was find a way to work the least amount of hours so that I could have my free time to do art, skateboard, surf, enjoy my life. I did not want to work 40 hours a week in an office and not have any time to do anything creative. Right. And that's kind of why I worked at the telemarketing place, because if I hit quota by like noon and it didn't look like I was going to get above quota and make the company more money, they would just send me home for the day and still pay me for the full six or eight hours

whatever the shift was. So it was like I was getting paid to skate while I was out. I'd go straight to the park and skate. And I've dated a bunch of like bartenders and waitresses, my holder, or servers, excuse me, but they always make more. I've always had girlfriends who make more money than me. So I don't know about this wage

gap. I don't, I don't know if it's maybe like a myth. It is a myth. It is a myth if you actually do the number. it's basically even but but but what's one of those things that if you say it people want to they want to cancel you because they want to go with this skewed statistic that's been pushed dude no one is going to pay me what were you saying 15,000 30,000 a month to take a picture of their beaver and put it on the internet nobody wants to see my balls no nobody wants to see them like and they don't want to see pictures they're not going to pay to see pictures of

i'd have old studio set up for it if that was the case right like i mean 100 percent i have a ring light like i have two ring lights one for each ball like yeah definitely i'd have a zoom lens the whole thing i'd get in there yeah so let's get we got stay on topic dude ADHD man this is the ADHD radio hour doesn't you be a call letters like but um escorting for guys how easy is that i would love to you know like i need like a couple of pills and and i'm good to go let's do this you know you know i can be charming yeah i look good in a suit you know what it is is be destitute because i've been broke and homeless at different times and women will they'll give you a place to stay but then you're kind of like their dog for

48 hours or something like dog for their weekend you know like and that's kind of being a male prostitute you're just not walking away with any money afterwards like you're just it's a privilege to get laid and have somewhere to sleep for the night like okay so much I ran for a while all right I was going to say to me I'm afraid they'd come in they'd be like okay so I have you for the whole day yes and they'd have me putting up curtain rods and changing fans out I'm a rental, dude. Odds and ends. I'm cool with being a rental.

I'll put up some curtains. Like, if you're going to let me stay. There was a period of time where I didn't have anywhere to stay in San Francisco. I was getting too expensive. And a buddy of mine who was fronting me drugs and was like, you're staying at a different chicks house every night anyway. Like, or are these faties or? No, these are dimes, dude.

Yeah, Mission District. Females? Females. Okay. Yeah, human, legitimate, born, female, females. Like, I was probably. Probably, I don't know, 40 pounds lighter. This is a while ago, right?

Yeah, it was about 10 years ago. Okay. So I was a little trim. I was like, I was a little thinner. I had a better jawline, better haircut, you know. But yeah, I just, I was like, oh, you need seven, seven phone numbers one day a week. It's kind of gross, but I ran it for a while. And it got me a book deal.

Got it put in the time. Yeah, it got me a book deal. Nice. So. What was that book? Well, it was originally supposed to be called sport. Right. But the, yeah, the investors didn't like that.

See, it wasn't a publisher that gave me the deal. These guys were going to basically finance my research. Give me, like, a big upfront payment so I can. That's the way to do it. I just sustain myself and do it full time. So you're going to give me $100,000 to a bunch of random chicks for a year. Well, just for tender because they didn't. I mean, what had happened was I was, how does this?

This starts with, like, I was working at Yellow Cab in San Francisco, right? And I was dispatching taxis at night, graveyard shift. and I was living in a little like sunroom at an ocean beach I couldn't I was hurt I couldn't skateboard anymore so I was trying to get back into surfing and there's a surf spot out there so staying in this room I'm making $320 a week that's it I'm living in the most expensive city in the country right but I'm not drinking not smoking or smoking like the $5 pack of cigarettes or whatever like my expenses are very low I think I was getting food stamps too like didn't need a lot of money rents maybe 500 bucks a month but I'm living in like

pretty much a closet. Right. And the girl I was dating, she had a lot of money. So she was picking up the tab a lot. Like we went at the dinner. She would just be like, tip the waitress. Right. She'd pay for dinner. But, so I was making it at work.

But what ended up happening? Oh, so we'd be out, you know, in North Beach or whatever, and we'd need to get back to the mission and not want to ride on the bus. So we'd take an Uber. This is like when the ride shares are starting. So we get an Uber. and I'm going to work dispatching taxis and I can't get these assholes

cab drivers to pick up somebody and get them to the airport on time and I'm like this ship is sinking dude like they are not they're not gonna last and their gate was at the time the gate fee to drive a cab out of the yard was $200 a day

the last time I was out there and talked to somebody in the industry it was like $80 a day because nobody wants to drive cabs right nobody even wants to take them I don't even see cabs anymore yeah I mean In some places.

Well, I'm saying in Tampa. Like, I don't even see caps. So I had done some work in focus groups, market research, right? But basically, like, got these people's attention because I figured out a way to scam the focus group by either liking or disliking the product. If they're like, we're doing a focus group on lamps today, just tell us how you feel about lamps for your preliminary email. And I'd be like, I hate lamps. It's all about, you know, light fixtures. or I love lamps and say why I love lamps.

Like I would just try. Sometimes I'd send different opinions to the market research people under different names because they're paying cash. They don't need your real information. And they, but then they've noticed like this guy, he's bullshit and us. Like he's ended up in every focus group so he can get 200 bucks. Right. And then they started kind of bringing me in as like a professional focus grouper because I got the gift to gab and I have an opinion about everything, good or bad. I can tell you what I think about it and why I think that way.

And I was out drinking with some of the buddies one night and they're like, you know, we're doing a thing. I don't think I can say which ride share company it was, but they were doing a market research thing for one of the rideshares. And they're like, would you be interested in coming in and just talking with them, conference room style, just sit, just like we're doing right now. We even crack some beers in the conference room and just talk to these people. And I was like, yeah. No problem How is this Is this headed towards sport

Yeah Oh okay Go ahead So I'm dying The whole time I'm sport In my personal life

But no I've been doing research It's a verb So So anyway I go in And Give them my little talk

Whatever I got them all cracking up We're drinking beers We're having a good time And when they go to pay me At the focus group guys They always slide An envelope patch

It mob style And there's a check in there that is my year salary at Yellow Cab. So $320 a week times 52 weeks, you know. And so it's like more money I think I'd ever had at one time probably in my life. And I was like, this is awesome. They brought me back in for another session. It was two-year salary.

Okay. And the same check. So I'm financially free now. So now the girlfriend who feels like she owns me, like I'm her dog, because I'm financially dependent on her for pretty much everything. get rid of her 100% moved to New York I mean she was already

it's not like that it's not like I was just using her it was a it doesn't sound like that at all she was a bad person and I was poor you know what I mean right she was really hot

she had some redeeming qualities but she treated me like garbage the redeeming quality was like she pays for everything and she no no it's not just that it's not as simple as that I'm a very complex individual dude

okay like I have a heart I like the girl she's intelligent she's very good looking You ever heard that? I have the heart of a, I have the heart of a small child. I was actually going to put it in a jar behind my death. That's a good one. So yeah, I split to New York and actually a buddy of mine caught a graffiti case and he was, had to do six months in Rikers. So he had this tenement room in Chinatown that he had since like before 9-11.

So he's like, you're back out, you're on the East Coast. You need a place to stay. Stay in my room while I'm in jail. And so I do that for about a year. So hold down the spot. My mom's staying in Jersey, so I'm spending, and at the time I quit drinking, mostly just for finances. I was like, I got a good amount of money, and if I go wild with this money, I'm not going to have anything. Like, I need to figure out something to do with this money so that I can, by this time, I'm 28 years old, so I've fucked money off, you know, and so I know I needed to do something with it. I just didn't know what it was going to be yet, and so DJing and hanging out in the city during the week, going to the jersey to help my mom with her house. and working at a bar on the weekends.

And I kind of never really got anything going on. Once he got out of jail, I was just doing sublets around Brooklyn. I had a lot of DJ gigs, but they don't really pay very much. Like it's commission-based. You only get 10% of what the bar brings in. And you're DJ on a Wednesday night. You could make 60 bucks. Right.

Or you could make 200 bucks. It just depends what they make. um so when the crazy girlfriend hits me up and she i think she came out to visit or something and we're talking about maybe getting back together you know i tend to forget physical pain and emotional pain i think it's because i grew up in like a lot of trauma you know like abusive household and and abuse out on the streets and stuff like i think once you're traumatized at a young age you can kind of sit in a shitty diaper like you don't so like like even physical pain i forget what a tattoo feels like until I

get a new one. Right. Like, um, so I kind of let her talk to me into going back to San Francisco and a friend of mine was managing a bar and he's like, dude, if you're coming back, work here, be a bar back. You've been doing it in Jersey, like, do it here. So within three months, I quit the abusive barback job and the girlfriend was throwing my shit out into the middle of Caesar Shabish street. So my buddy, Sprinkles, Bobby Sprinkles, best drug dealer known to mankind. That woman got, his name, yeah, because he would give you samples. He called John Sample, too.

Like, if he had some new Molly or something, he'd be like, here, test that out. First one's free. Sprinkles, you know. Right. She actually, that same chick got really mad at me. She saw a text message in my phone from Sprinkles, and she knows a DJ on a street that's got a bunch of strip clubs. And she's like, really, really? A stripper named Sprinkles.

Like, and I'm like, no, it's like, I'll introduce you to him. Like, he said, this dude was living on a boat. This guy's like a, a. a legend he was living on a crab boat living on a crab boat for free in fisherman's wharf and I guess like with a boat title you can transfer the title from one vessel to another but you have to sink that vessel so they were like waiting to do that and so his job was to stay on the boat and run the bilge so it didn't sink into the bay before they could get a new boat to transfer the title I don't know why I went off on that little tangent but anyway so she throws me out

He's fronting me pounds of And Molly here and there And liquid All kinds of shit And He was like Dude you're staying Either at a friend's house

Every night of the week Or with a different chick Like Do you, I'll front you Whatever you need to make money Do you want to have a bunch of money Or do you want to like Spend that

That consulting money Do you want to spend that on getting set up At an apartment in San Francisco That in five years You're not going to be able to afford Anyway Right So I was like

Yeah I guess you got a good point. So I spent a year in San Francisco just couch surfing, playing Tinder in the morning to see if something meet a nice lady at night or just go hang out with one of my buddies. I thought you were saying he was going to front you a bunch of front stuff to sell. Yeah. But I'm not. So I'm just selling drugs all day and selling in Molly and not nowhere to live, though. I got it all in a backpack or stashed at friends' houses.

And, yeah, I was just like, I'm going to stay in San Francisco. So I had enough money to leave and go move somewhere. I had money in the bank to do something. I just didn't know what I was going to do. And I didn't want to leave San Francisco and I was having a good time. Right. So I hadn't seen the market research guys in a while, I think maybe about a year. And I released an album and a book.

And they were like, we want to sponsor this. Like, we will invest their venture. Like they have friends who are venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. And they were just starting to get into, I think you've talked about it on your show, how certain venture capitalist groups are working with people like Mark Wahlberg and just different actors. They didn't really understand. They want to get into entertainment, but they don't understand how the business works. And these are people who, these are the kind of people who watch Jeff Bezos work for years and years and years developing Amazon.

And then it turns in, they're used to in tech working on something, nose to the grindstone. For years and years before it pays off. And they see how big the payoffs can be in entertainment. So I think they made a switch at some point to like kind of working with people who are already established in the entertainment industry. But my deal was kind of like we got, we'll develop our own talent. They bought a production company and then they started buying stuff for me that could add valuation. Because it's another thing these tech guys do, these venture capitalist dudes is they'll buy businesses, get it to a point where it's got a high dollar value. and then sell it.

So they think, worst case scenario, we'll buy this production company that's just doing car commercials and stuff right now and we'll acquire scripts that we can shop around, books that can get optioned, and even if we don't sell anything, at some point, if we want to get out of this, this is an asset that the company has.

It's like if you owned a brewery and you got all the taps and the big, whatever, silos, I don't know what they put beer in, but anyway, I don't know. So they all right. offer me a nice chunk of change to write a book about basically what I'd been doing for the last year. And that's doing Tinder, like just writing Tinder stories, weird, just what it's like

to be successful at Tinder because a lot of guys are just hopeful. They don't, I don't know what it is. I don't know why I, I don't know if it was the photos I took or if it was just, I was persistent or whatever, but I was cleaning up. And they saw that. Like, I was doing a record release. And I had like probably four or five girls who I had all met from Tinder. I met all of them from Tinder and they all were record collectors and I had them like round robin DJ and they're like what's going on? You have like a count Dracula over here. You don't haven't had a place to live in a year and you got four different chicks who are all here that know about each other and they're all playing records at your record release. Like we want to put some money into this so that you don't

have to live on the street basically because there were times when I didn't have places to go at night and I would either stay out all night writing graffiti and then sleep in the park in the daytime. You're just a hipster when you sleep in the park in the daytime. If you sleep in the park at nighttime, you're a bum. You're homeless. Yeah. Or I'd go to, I call it, my homies call me Millhouse. It's like street nickname because I'm a nerd. And so I'd say I'd call it staying at Bart's house and I would go to Bart Bay Area Rapid Transit and buy a like a ticket to go one stop and then find the car where all the other bums are sleeping and just pull my beanie over my head and get a nap in and even if you wake up down in daily city or something like that you just go to the attendant and

tell them like hey i fell asleep on the train look at me i'm a normal guy i'm not a i'm not a homeless right and they'll just let you back on the train and let you go back into the city so um yeah where were we going with that where so they gave you so they gave you some money to do this seed money to do it and then did you write the book oh yeah wrote the book, sending them pages the whole time, and then about two years into it, the Me Too movement happens. Now, I'm not doing anything wrong, dude.

No, right, but probably. Questionable of character, but illegal, scummy, I'm not, you know, coercing. I'm not doing anything wrong. Even by the letter of the Me Too law, whatever it is. Law. It's a law, dude.

There's a woke law, okay? They're afraid to be associated. with a book like this. But I had gotten really lucky because I talked to my mom about signing a contract, never signed a contract before. And she negotiated, she was like, if these people decide not to go through with this, she's like, the two things that you got to do, if this is, if it's going to go through is you've got to get some kind of back end, whether even if it's merchandise or if it gets optioned

for a movie or they mass produce the book, you got to get some kind of royalty on top of it. It can't just be this money that you're getting, this is seed money. This is, you know, and she also said if they're going to get, if they're not going to go through with it, then you have to get compensated for the period of time that you've spent working on this. And I think they call it a fee. Right. So if they're not going to publish the book and you're not going to be able to access your back end money, then you have to pay me a fee, right, for can't for not going through with the project. Bingo. Okay.

But they got clever with the contract, yeah, whatever, where they're like, you got to turn a book in at the end of five years. And it's got to be the book we expected to get. Right. Or we're not going to pay the kill. So they can always say this isn't what we wanted and try and get out of it. They're just going to pages the whole time. Okay. So that's a hard time, hard sell for them to say it's not what we expect.

At the very least, you've got a lawsuit. Yeah. Right. So, but they're also trying to wait to pay me that fee until the five years is up and see if I up between now and then so they can get out of paying it. So I finished the book. And I continued to do around the same time, a friend of mine had died and he was kind of a locally famous dude in Brooklyn and it literally

this like this all happened at the same time my book gets canceled my homie dies we were actually going to work on a vice show together and um so I literally like ended up using Tinder as like therapy like I would go out on Tinder dates and just talk about I'd be like you know that bicycle messenger got beat to death that was my homie they're like oh we knew him I remember about it in the paper and I'm like and then every night would pretty much be a Tinder date me talking about this to a different woman Like, I'm not proud of it.

It's a little embarrassing, but, like, I didn't have anybody else to talk to about it. Right. And nobody really gave a fuck, too. That kind of really fucked me up. It was like a high profile. And, like, nobody gave a fuck. Like, nobody was, there were people there who saw it happen. Right.

And, like, baristas, you know, bartenders. Like, they don't live by the G code. Right. I don't care if you're afraid. I don't care if you're afraid of the people who, they might give you if that's what you're thinking, right? but don't go saying we don't talk to police or we're in the G code. You didn't sign that contract. Yeah, yeah.

It's for G. The G stands for gangster, okay? Not granola or whatever the fuck you're selling. Like, you're a barista. Yeah, but everybody listens to too much hip hop. We don't talk to police. Who's we? Because I'm seeing you.

Yeah. Like, anyway. Yeah. So, and actually, Curtis Valentine, rest and peace. But I wasn't going to do anything as far as writing. I was pissed about that. I'm waiting for my check to come. I signed the deal.

on March 11th, 2015. And so March 11th, 2020 is when my check was supposed to come in. And that's the day the world shut down. Right, right. So then I was like, I had done a little bit of real estate with that consulting money. I invested in a property in Asbury Park. It was a real long shot. It was where I was barbacking at the time.

And the guy, the Jersey guys are like, yeah, this is going to be the next Williamsburg. I can't tell you many times I've heard that. It's like, this is going to be the next. This is we're going to be. is going to be the spot. It's up and coming. Like, okay, whatever. But I found a property for, like, under $20,000, dude. So, bought

it and just kind of forgot about it. And then that ended up, it really did blow up. Like, all the double-income... I think it's, like, got a big gay community now or something. Double-income, no kids. They call them dinks. Yeah. And Asbury Park literally was, like, kind of a bumy little beach town on one side of the

literal... One side of the tracks, New Jersey Transit. It's a little beach town. Nothing right Bradley Beach and I think Ocean Grover right there and they're really nice old Victorians like beautiful but Asbury Park wasn't so nice the other side of the tracks was a nightmare dude like it went through race riots in the 70s or something that this side never recovered from and then now a bunch of people from the city have like their apartments in the city and then they have a home that they own or lease down in Asbury Park so I ended up making out pretty good on

that deal just selling the land because it had a dilapidated house on it I was spending part of my summer like tearing it up until i found out it had asbestos in it and um i'm out there in a tank top with no mask on just beating the shit out of this old house with a sledgehammer am i getting off topic i forget what was you talking did you ever get the check oh yeah i got the check oh okay yeah you said the world shut down you never said your check came yeah no i got the check and then i got all that unemployment money too so i was using that was just beer money and then i took the check from the fee and started invest in real estate so what about the book What happened to the book?

It's in limbo. They own it. It's theirs. I don't know what the fuck they're going to do with it. Do you remember? They could take it and switch it around and make it about a woman or something. You know what I mean? Like they could take the skeleton of it and the experiences that I went.

Dude, I had some wild shit happen. Like, Okay. No, no, go ahead. Well, I was just going to ask you. I was just going to ask you about, like, do you remember the book? I hope they serve beer and hell?

Everybody compares my shit to that guy. And I've never read it. I've seen the video. Well, that guy's book was released in the movie. successful so I'm not really comparing it to your book that's a good point but he was like the first guy of the kind like after that there was a big no after that there was a big memoir craze after that so this is a guy who was and I probably got I'll probably got to butcher this but he was a law student at Tulane I thought it was Chico like I said I probably got to butcher it I think it was

too lame whatever he was a law student so he's a six foot tall blonde hair, blue-eyed, clean-cut-looking law student who goes into bars at night where girls are there, you know, looking to meet a guy, and he gets to open up, I'm a second year, like, I'm about, your second year of law student, you're about to be a lawyer. I'm a six-foot-tall blonde-haired blue-eyed. It looks like you. He's you only, he's a law student, and I'm about to graduate. These chicks are doing everything

But falling on their back with their legs in the air I mean they are just like like holy shit I just hit the jackpot He chats them up for 20 30 minutes boom Right back to his place and and having sex with them It was pretty much exactly like that Except the exact opposite where I was like broke Well they thought I was broke but I didn't have anywhere to live

And they're like oh let me save you I'll give you but then they feel like they have control over you We were talking about this earlier like It looks like you're their dog for the night Or the weekend it is the opposite because now he treats these women like dogs dog shit and i've worshipped women i do he's been two or three times he's just not physically abusive but i mean he's just degrading and the more degrading he is to him the more they keep coming back for more and he's just he's he's he's slaughtering at least one chick

sometimes two chicks he's got insane um stories he's you know i was doing in new york i was doing too sometimes i call him double headers or sometimes triple headers like but in but he ends up The book is huge, by the way. So he writes a book, it blows up. He options it. There's a movie. It's over the top insanity. And you know what that guy ends up doing?

He ends up graduating, I think. He graduates. He's extremely successful. He ends up marrying a chick. And now he and this girl run a consulting firm where they counsel men or married, married couples. because he gets with this chick and she changes his entire perspective of how he feels about women.

So it's a total kind of turnaround story and although he's definitely kind of a shi-ish-ed. Yeah, I was going to say, he's a shi-sty guy so you don't really know. It's also like, he's shit all over the hotel somewhere or something. Some of the stories are just so over the thought. It's almost like, come on,

nobody behaves like this, bro. Yeah. Like, this is too much. It's funny, too, because part of my first book of Future Drugs is like making fun of that like memoir phase that like because then after that there were just a ton everybody wanted to cash in on that like wild memoirs like there's that book cherry i never read it but i heard about it people people i tell people about my book or they read it and they're like oh you should read this and i'm like yeah if i'm already writing something like that i'm not

going to read it i don't want it to pollute what i'm doing but um so a friend of mine lexie was like you should you should just make certain things in your book way more extreme than they were like I went out into a I was in San Francisco I go into the alley to smoke next to the bar and I didn't know that it was the alley where they have the needle exchange

they give out free needles to the junkies and so I'm sitting on a window and I look up and there's cops right there and so I pull down my pipe and they immediately you know, pull up on me and they're like, what are you doing out here? And I was like, I came out to send a text message

and they're like, you came out of the bar to send a text message and I was like I'm smoking. all right they're like you're over here nervous about some right

and they're like all you got is on you then we'll you know we'll issue you an advisory and send you on your way and I was like

all right well is that like a notice to appear or something and they're like no we just have to advise you it's bad for your health and you should stop smoking it

oh my god San Francisco yeah and they've so they search me are you stopping people that smoking cigarettes right

right because it really is that common marver all walking out of the street he's okay but the guy smoked we have to advise you. They actually will do that in Dolores Park. If you're smoking a cigarette, the park ranger will come up

and tell you put the cigarette out, but if you're smoking a joint, they'll let it fly. This country's doomed. So whatever, they go, all right, you don't got anything but whiz on you. He puts the whey, back in my pocket. He just bought a brand new, ate the one. He puts it back. He's like, how much you pay for this? I was like, 40 bucks. He's like, all right, you put it in my pocket.

He put it in your car. You go to my buddy. He's way better. Yeah, right? I believe it. San Francisco, it gets down like that. But, so then the rest of the night, I go into the bar, I'm at the same place, and every time I finish a beer, I go into the bathroom and poke holes in the beer can and smoke in the bathroom so that I don't go out in the alley anymore and get harassed by these cops until the bartender figures out what I'm doing and kicks me out of the bar. So my friend Lexi was like, we were making fun of how people think that their story is more, like, exciting or enticing than it really is. Like, oh, you smoke once and you DJed and found out you were bisexual.

So she's like, replace all that weed that you were smoking with, not. me, but, but it's like, it's not that interesting of a story, but when there was that memoir plays, everybody's writing one thing and like, oh, I'm so wild. I have such crazy stories. And she's like, you should just say it was, you were smoking in the bathroom. Just, like, she's like, go through the book and every time you're like talking about smoking a joy, change it to crack. Like, just kind of as like a, the book is like a satire on memoirs. Right. So, what are you doing now? Oh, like bookwise? Yeah. Well, after the book deal got pulled out from under me, I was like, not going to do anything.

I had my first book Future Drugs done. Right. My idea was like, since they are going to own swipe out, the Tinder book, that I'll have at the same time another book that I own 100% of. So like, if this one's getting attention and people are like, you know, interested in how I write, what I write and they're looking for another book, I can get 100% of the sales of that one. And I wasn't going to do anything with it. And I think I mentioned earlier, my friend Curtis Valentine, who got in Brooklyn. Yeah. I never knew his middle name.

Okay. And so some friends of mine in like 2022 tell me come visit their friends of Curtis, right? And I'm chilling at their house. And they have Curtis's one of the guys worked at the liquor store that Curtis was a bicycle messenger for it. He had delivered wine. And he had, he took out of Curtis's file his birth certificate and had it pinned up on his wall. at the house and his middle name was ellis i never knew that we've been friends for 10 15 years like i never knew his middle name was ellis so i was like i think i have to i think i have to

publish his book like so i did okay yeah that's pretty much it and then after once i held a copy of the book in my hand i was just kept going like so most most everything else that's on this table right now is written after 22 when that book came out Okay. Is that answering your question? You look confused? Well, I'm saying it, so you went with the name. Yeah, I mean, for not for the YouTube, like if I'm talking just to you. No, no, I'm just wondering why you mentioned the Ellis.

Because that's the pen name, Ellis Jones, right? Yeah. So I was going to, I was like, maybe I need to do something else right under my own name. Right. You know, because I was like, that's kind of corny, you know, like maybe people look at it. Ellis Jones, Ellis and Jones is an intersection in San Francisco. So I didn't really want people to think. think i'm trying to associate myself with the city right i'm trying like i was just it's like mark

twain's name isn't mark twain yeah yeah clements jack london is from oakland you know it's right to have a pen name so one day i went to the hospital i broke my arm in a fight broke my wrist and a fight and uh went to the hospital and told him my name was ellis jones and they bought it and until there was an older black lady who was checking me out she's like the lady who make sure you're going to pay your bill yeah and i she's behind the sorry she's behind the curtain and I just see her feet and she's like, what are you doing for lunch, girl? It's like, oh, well, I just got to check this one

client out, Ellis Jones. And she goes, Ellis Jones and throws the curtain open and she goes, your name is Ellis Jones? And I was like, yep. And so whatever, it was like a funny joke when I went back to the bar the next day with the bracelet that said Ellis Jones from the hospital.

So I was just like thinking, oh, I'm going to rewrite future drugs or something. So maybe you don't want to put this in because it's all about the pen name. Yeah. But, wait, that's what I was saying. I thought, did you want to mention the pen name? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

It's your buckets, but I'm just telling stories. I think it's kind of interesting that you not. Yeah. Oh, yeah, because you were saying put it at the end anyway. Like, if we do break the fourth wall, like, put it at the end. But just bill it as Ellis Jones. I like that. Okay.

So that's where the name came from. It was like my fake. They have cops in San Francisco that aren't real cops. They ride around on the bus, and they're like a private security force, but they look and act like cops. Right. And they write you tickets for not paying the, uh, the ticket like or paying your fare to get on but it doesn't it's not a criminal offense it goes against your like credit score or something like so i'll just tell them ellis jones all the time right but

i wasn't going to do it because i thought maybe it's kind of corny having a pin name and i didn't want people to think i'm like i hate people who moved to places like new york and san francisco and they don't do anything to contribute to the culture they just think that they're valuable because they live in this kind of cool place you know so i didn't want anybody to be like where you're just trying to associate yourself with somewhere cooler than where you grew up, right? I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense. But once I saw that Curtis's middle name was Ellis, I was like, I think I should put it out.

And, yeah, it just kind of broke the seal. I was thinking maybe I'm not going to write books at all. And now I'm, you know, putting one out every couple of months. Right. Yeah. Well, that's, are you doing audio, audio? You know, I was thinking about it, but, like, I really want people to buy them. So if I read the books to them, I don't think I could.

You know they'd have to pay for the audit. Audible, yeah, no. Because I couldn't do. I make as much on Audible. You got to be shoo me as I do selling rate. But okay, this thing is I couldn't not do it and not be an asshole, whoever's listening. Because I would be like, okay, I'm reading this. And then like, I would probably stop in the middle and be like, okay, you baby.

Like, here, let me hold your hand. It would probably end up being like a comedy podcast and the audio book. Well, I mean, I hear you, but people like long distance truckers, you know, like a ton of people. So you can actually charge. For, are you serious? I don't know, dude, I write books. I don't, I don't do, you do that. You already have all the equipment.

Why wouldn't you do it? First of all, they're cheaper. Secondly, people pay for, do you get more of a royalty for them? Like, can you structure how much of a? Yeah, you could structure. Absolutely. You can, and people will join audible.

Yeah, what do you talk about? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I wrote most of future drugs on a type write. Guys that drive. I think personally, I'm probably never going to read another hard copy book, but I was a book. Really?

No. So I'm leaving. Even money on the table. Yeah. You know how many people will say, hey, bro, I was going to buy your book, but I see you don't have it on Audible. That's why I started doing it. They're like, bro, I don't- Do Kindle to? Because somebody told me to do that.

And I'm like, I want people to read, hold a book and read it. Right. I understand. But you know, but you already have a Kindle. So if you have this book, you can just click a button on Amazon and it creates the Kindle for you. Like it's a couple more clip. Why? I don't, because I want people.

I'm like old school. I like tecto. I still do shows with my music and sell cassette tapes. Like, I know it's dumb. I'm not, look, I want to make art. I don't want to make content, you know? I'm not a huge fan of, I wasn't a huge fan of TikTok either until they started cutting us checks.

And then it was now, listen, prior to us becoming monetized on TikToks, I was like, yeah. Do I get a residual? I was immediately. If you guys use my, no, you don't get nothing. So I used to be the guy, be like, that, that, that, you know, Chinese company, shut that shit down. Then they started cutting us checks. And I'm like, hey, now, wait a minute.

Now, that's just content. That's freedom of speech. What do you, you know. I'll give it a show. I guess. I'm a sell out like that. And I'll tell you audible. You can make as much on a little, maybe more.

I think I don't get that at all. But I think, but I think, yeah, I think you should do that because what happens is people, if they like one of your books, they'll, you can advertise a shit out of one book and the other ones start selling. I don't know why I'm not putting it together. My mom is like a major reader. She's read more books than probably definitely anyone in this room. and like anyone than I know like I mean for real like uh and we've both been locked up like I know I know you read a lot on you're in there for like three years I was reading at least one or two books every single day for like at least three or four years well I was locked you still

I'm telling you oh dude this woman I mean she's cut down trees that's how many books she's bought and given away like but uh yeah even she her favorite author is Stephen King and she hasn't read the new Stephen King book she's been listening to it on yeah so yeah I am I'm being But what about this? Okay, so instead of Audible, how about I do a Patreon page? And then I do it like kind of half reading the book to them And then half making fun of them for listening to audiobooks Because I think that's pussy as fucking reading or listening to audiobooks.

No offense, but I like to read books that are made of paper. So I just feel like it's childish. Like weed to me. Please weed to me. I hate to say this, but you're very liberal. Liberal? What do you mean? I mean, it didn't seem like, I understand that you like to do it your way, but people have to like to do other, they are, they, they are like, people want to read your stuff and some people want to read it.

Some people want to read it. You mean liberal like politically? I mean, I mean like you're saying that you have to do it my way. Nobody can do it any other way. Yes, I want you to listen to a cassette tape. I want you to hold a cassette in your hand. I want you to have to pause. What's a cassette tape?

You know what a cassette tape. There's no casset. There's no way to make a cassette. I wouldn't know where to go, where to play it. Like, I don't know what device I'd have to even. Then I suppose it's not for you. It's not for anybody. No, that's the cassette tape.

That is not true. That is not true. Go to shows, and I'll bet you if you go to the merch table, they will have a cassette. Okay. Well, they're not putting them in cards. Look, I'm just telling you how I've been thinking up to this point. But like I told you, I did need you to, I needed to consult with you because then this is a tax write off. Okay.

So I'll give it a shot. Maybe I do need to take the extra step. I'm my God. So you're telling me you don't sell any hard copies of books. No, I do, of course. I'm saying I sell as many hard copies as I do audible. Like I make as much on the hard on audible as I do on audible as I got to do I'm saying? I mean, look.

Do you have to get an audible, is it, do you have to like, because to get my music on Spotify, I have to pay an aggregator like distro kid to get anything. No. You just make an audible account and put your shit on it. You make it, well, obviously you have to make the audible book. Well, if you have microphones, like you knock it out. Right. So you do that. And then you have to design, you have to redesign this. You have to make it in a square, look like a square. Okay. And then you put that up and you put the audio up, the file. They listen to it to make sure it's, the quality is good. Your quality is going to be fine.

No. And then once they do that, they say it's okay. And here's a great thing is that they actually, they recommend it to people. Well, they won't do that for me on Amazon because my shit's dirty books. Like, they won't, there's no, I'm not allowed to have expanded distribution because of the content of my books. Is it content or is it because of what you're saying on the back cover? Is the back cover saying anything that's? No, I mean, none of them, they almost. Because I had one issue. I've had one issue with a book where my subtitle used the word offender.

Oh. And that was an issue. I mean, this one has like the story, like a poem about smoking with a cockroach. I may be an issue But either way You can do the audible and you should be able Take one of your more mundane You know ones and do an audible and you put it up

And then maybe start with like a short story book And then yeah then you'd be shocked What would happen people will start Yeah I guess I need to compromise if I want to make some money Because I do that's kind of why That's the point that I was getting to is like My real estate thing is kind of leveled off It's just a well oil machine now

I'm a landlord Yeah it's a different And what am I going to do just like get a job and fade off. Like, why am I going to keep writing books if, you know, only my friends and when I do shows, I sell it as merch. Yeah. Why am I writing books if I don't have an audience?

Like, I'd really like to get one from that camera. You know what I mean? From being on the show, that'd be nice to get platformed. But, yeah, I have to compromise. You're right. I mean, you have to do anything, but I'm just saying you'll leave money. You're leaving money on the table. I'm only going to be able to make more money if I do give the people what they want.

I get what you're saying. But this has been my logic for not doing. doing it. Like, I, you know, I feel like your best, your best thinking has gotten you thrown in jail multiple times. It's not exactly. How are you not putting it together that there's also some bad luck here? Like, I'll open a car door an accident.

Get a felony. Steal a soda. Get a felony. It's funny that you put, like, you mean holding on to a car door about skating. You know, I hate that these ex-com motherfuckers do this. They're the ones who will hold you the most accountable. I just don't. Listen, dude, you're justified.

You know, I heard you talking. about Ardap a lot and all that rhetoric in there is exactly what the Jamaican therapy cult was like like where you have other people be like you're justifying. Yeah it is accountable. It is yeah it is all that. I know I am but whatever

I know I hear you and it's like it's like you know you sent me to jail for this long for wait a minute didn't you didn't you one that matters 99 cents didn't you steal come back and threaten somebody I mean you just hold my friend hostage man come on

Yeah. It's like saying, it's like attacking a cop because he's arrested your friend. You're not saying, hey, he's under arrest. You're saying he's holding him hostage. He's not holding a hot. He was arrested in the back of a place. Hold on. Let me just, let me close a theory to you here. If you and I are soldiers in a war, okay? You're not a soldier. I'm just one hypothetical here, bro. Hold on, hear me out. If we're soldiers in a war, we're fighting for America, okay? And North Korea comes in here, and they try to take you captive and I fight them to get it to stop, right? right, I'm a soldier in the war on drugs.

I've been a drug dealer my whole life. Not anymore. You know, I'm clean now. But, you know, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon declared war on my people, drug users, okay? So if the police want to come and bag and tag my boys, my fellow soldiers, I'm going to stop them. I'm going to do whatever I can. I mean, I won't because I'm a pussy. But, like, I think that that's logical.

I don't think there's, I think it's honorable, as a matter of fact. Like, my friend took a 99th century. We already talked about how Pepsi owns the goddamn. companies and it's a little bit of syrup with some water and they took a year of my life away for that. This sounds to me very this is very reminiscent of the

speech that Johnny Depp's character or the guy's name is fuck what's his name George Jung gives to the your honor yeah your honor what are we talking about it? imaginary line some some

some plants that I that were grown that I moved across some imaginary line for some law that somebody wrote Why are ex-cons like this? Why are you guys like this where you hold each other accountable? And then she's, do you ever see that line?

And then she turns to him and she's like, well, unfortunately, those plants are illegal and you move them and that line is real and those laws are governed in this country and you're going to prison. That night and since sort of wasn't yours and we have laws and play. Right, fine, whatever.

You came back and you threatened someone. You got to understand. I just have this like, I have such a disdain for authority that it's like, you know, I had, I look at it as I had my child childhood taken away from me by every authority figure that I ran into. So for a long time, I was really willing to live my American dream by any fucking means necessary, dude. And I'm not, I didn't do it by running drugs or fucking, you know what they would call that in the, in the concentration camp you were in, you're holding resentment. I mean, is it resentment?

I mean, I'm doing it. I'm not doing it in spite of that. It sounds like you're doing it. It's not an angry thing. I mean, you just described in spite of. I don't know. It doesn't feel. I mean, there's no anger behind it.

is just like, this is fucked up. I was unjustly like a cult, a scam, a fraud, took advantage of my mother who needed help for mentally ill, troubled son. You just told us, you were faking the mental illness. No, I'm saying, I mean, I was having, I mean, I also said,

I had definitely had some psychosis when it came to how I was being treated by the people in my neighborhood, authority figures. Like, I needed help, dude. I needed, I needed help. I really did. And these people took advantage of my mother. Like, how can I not, it's not even, it's just the law now. It's not a resentment.

It's not anger behind it. You guys took away from me and my mother, and I'm going to have the life that I want to have, and I don't give what the consequences are. I'm sorry. I don't understand why that's a bad thing. It's like, you're justifying bad behavior. Is that really? I don't know.

Whatever means, so what? Bad behavior is, hey, what did Mark Twain say, be good and you will have no fun? I've had a pretty fun life. Yeah, you sound like you've had a lot of fun. I have. I haven't been, I caught a charge in February. My God! You want to hear it?

For what? Oh, it's great. For what? This was my graduation. This is my 20-year reunion, bro. I love it. I love this story. What was the charge?

My friend Lexi was supposed to come see me from L.A. She died. No. Yeah. Okay. And you've been talking about Lexi, too. Yeah. And she's one of my oldest friends.

How did she die? Did some had f***ling it. Fuck, bro. This shit is off of the people left and right. You want to hear how heartbreak? this is i'm actually getting a little teary thinking about it like i was i wanted to surprise her we've kind of been off and on buddies right like for ever for a long time and uh she was going to come i was going to meet her in omaha and uh she was going to stay at the cottonwood hotel it's like a really

nice hotel there and uh so i was gonna surprise her like wait at the hotel bar and then i get the call she never got on the plane because she's dead right and so i proceed to get fucked up and i get over-served at the cottonwood. I don't know if I should say their name, but whatever. Anyway, I get really fucked up. I had a bunch of old fashions or something like that, and I'm so wasted that they're, like, thinking about

comping me a room because I'm like incapacitated. I mean, somebody could have even put something in my drink. That's how fucked up I was. It's more than likely that I just got hammered. So instead, they call me a cab, and they shove me into a cab. I kind of blackout. Don't know what happened. But I get out of the cab, and I'm

miles from home. and I go into a store to buy more beer because that's what I need right now a couple of beers to drink remind me to tell you about open carry and then I'll get the fuck out of here so go into the store put my pin in

put the wrong pin in because I'm so drunk walk out of the store with the beer anyway a beer open start walking down the street go sit in front of a fast food restaurant and wait for an Uber like I'm calling an Uber and then the boys roll up on me And they're like, you know, you didn't pay for that, right?

And I'm doing the whole, I'm doing the boziac. Yes, sir, no, sir. Hands up. Right. Being, you know, cooperative. And they're like, you put the wrong pin in and you still walked out with the beer. And I was like, oh, man. So I got to go to jail.

And they're like, well, where do you live? And I'm like, down that way, like a mile, you know? And they're like, all right. What do you say? Like, write him a ticket for theft under 500 bucks. And they gave me a ride home. Oh, nice. Like, it goes up really, it really does go a long way.

You know, my early 20s when I wouldn't. be doing anything. I'd be getting harassed by the cops. I'd call them fuckers. Tell them, I'm going to fuck your wife and all that. It went a long way because they could have taken me to jail. Instead, they wrote me a citation. It took me home. And when I went to court, I wrote the DA, a letter, sent her screenshots, sent a letter or sent a check to the convenience store company. It's a local chain. Wrote the DA a letter, told her exactly what happened, like verbatim. Right. And go to court. The judge was so impressed that I flew back from New York to Omaha to go to court that

he in the DA I said here and watched her read my letter she's like let's put this on the back shelf I go sit back in the courtroom and I'm watching her like kind of giggle and wiggle in her chair and I'm like I'm getting out of this shit and the judge

was like she goes Mr. Brooks was intoxicated he went in the store put the wrong pin in the police corroborates that I think we can drop the charges and the judge goes then we're going to drop the charges and he goes and he Mr. Brooks, try not to get too intoxicated.

College World Series coming up and just let me go. And then, so I have like the crinkled up citation on my wall in a frame with the, with the dismissal letter that I got from the, that's like my diploma from a lifetime of the oldest juvenile delinquent known to mankind. There's your title right there, dude. I was going to say, and had you handled the 99-set theft the same way? It probably would have. I learned my lesson, Matt.

So if you're justifying and I'm resentful and I'm, I learn my lesson, man. I'm rehabilitated. It took 20 years. I'm sorry to hear about your friend. Yeah, it's really sad. That's, that's bullshit. It's fucked up. You know what's really fucked up, man, is like the people who I've been the closest with have died in these really tragic ways.

Like, I mean, I feel like the people on this planet who have lived a very strange life and the people who have understood me, you ever, you ever watch wrestling, pro wrestling? I mean, yes, not recently, but yeah. Well, there was a guy back in the 90s, Chris Canyon. Okay. He used to do a character called Mortis, and then he just decided to go as Canyon, right? Well, he was gay. First, he was trying to become the first openly gay pro wrestler, but he was basically ostracized.

His story, he was ostracized from the sport. Okay. And he went to a horrible depression. I was his roommate at one point, right? Just rented a room in his condo on Clearwater Beach, and we became really, really good friends. And he was suicidal. and so I somehow got his mom's number and Queens and called her and she's like an old Catholic lady and he was so mad at me but I was like I was like this has this is if you don't take that step with people who are talking about killing themselves they might actually do it yeah and then everybody says why didn't you say something exactly and it's not about that I don't want my friend to die right care what you guys think you know like I just don't want my friend to die and we were very close friends like and then get a load of this dude I'm doing an art project when I'm working a yellow cab at night graveyard shift I'm And I'm doing these little drawings of famous people who have died.

So I'm Googling famous people who have died by certain methods, drinking themselves to death, suicide. That's how I found out Chris died. I was like famous pill deaths. He was living in his parents' house in Sunnyside, Queens, and he fucking ate a bunch of antidepressants and he said himself. And then my friend, Acacia, also one of my best friends in the whole world, drove off a cliff in Northern California. Yeah. Curtis got into a fight in Brooklyn, hit his head, died in his sleep because he had a concussion. Didn't know it. Lexi, who's like, my spirit animal, like, that one really hurt.

And, dude, I want somebody to blame, to be honest, I want to believe it was some jealous boyfriend or something who gave her some dirty drugs or something. But it's just, what, it's the state that we live in. So. So, can we talk about some books? Yeah, I was going to ask us. Can you explain what each of these books are? I'll try and go as fast as I can. Some of these are, like, kind of joke books.

Like, I'll do those ones first. Like, this one's called Theoretical Conspiriato, which is, it's, like, a complete, like, Mad Magazine Signate book of a satire of making fun of conspiracy theorists. Okay. This one, I noticed how, like, emotionally inbred Midwest people are once I live there. And so I started, they're all kind of, like, lunch table bullies. So I was like, oh, it'd be cool to write, like, a gang. novel like old school gangs like the black diamond rangers or some shit like that you know those old

school chicago style gang uh gangs okay so but i was gonna use this like an allegory for just how lame midwesterners are and then i gave up on it so i just so what i did was that so what i did was so halfway through the booker just stops i wrote like i can't do this anymore i wrote like 12000 words and i was like fuck this is dumb like i don't care it's stupid and so what i did was the charge that i got where i went to the court for the beer and everything. I made it sound like I got community service and I go to an old folks home and this is the old guy that I'm sitting playing checkers with is community service.

This is the story that he tells me. And the reason it's not done is because he just dies and then I leave. So sorry, spoiler, but that's it. And then this one is a bunch of like short stories that are from poems I wrote, or a little bit of poetry. But I put the poems into AI and then kind of touched them up a little bit. But mostly this is written by AI. And it's called interdimensional indigestion.

And then this one I wrote on an artist residency in New York. State of my buddies loft in Brooklyn. My homie, Justin Tessone, is a fine artist, a painter. He did that painting. And it's just a couple of short stories. They're funny with more poetry. But it's like cool poetry. You know, it's not like lovesick lover boy bullshit.

So first book that I put out was Future Drugs and Other Sciences. I don't know why I named it that. I think it's because it's so weird that I just couldn't come up with an appropriate name. And this is a dumpster being thrown into a dumpster fire. It's my worst moments in life. I think there's some of what I talked about in this podcast on there, but it's like if you took, you know,

I heard a famous music, like an influence of mine, a musician named Jay Retard. And he had like a reputation for being a wild guy, right? And he was like, you know, I got this. Did you say James Retard? Jay Retard. Yeah, that's his stage name. Yeah.

Look him up. It's pretty tight. He's dead now, too. But he always, he had like a reputation for being a party animal. And he's like, I don't know why. Because, like, I'm pretty good, like, 29 days of the month. And then I'll just have one night where I, you know, body slim someone at the bar. Yeah.

So it's like, what if you took those that made it into a compilation? And I wrote it in kind of this like jailhouse manifesto shorthand, really, you're going to really hate it. If you're a stickler for grammar and punctuation and stuff like that, you're going to set yourself on fire if you try to read that book. So, and then energy vandal is touching on that concept of like, I think you were talking about it, that people meet you and they automatically just don't like you. Right. So it's like, I vandalized the energy in the room kind of thing. And it's really just an overly written, over-academic response to the people who hate it on this book. I, this looks like the biggest, the thickest book you have is what?

It is. It's like, 250, maybe, yeah. I like to keep it short. Okay. Because I have a lot of friends that I want to read my books that are semi-literate high school dropouts. And, like, he read the first, uh, he read the, the, my homie who loved this book read the first page of this one. Right. And he was like, dude, this book.

It's like overly, you want to go ahead and since you love Audible, why don't you read it. I'm not going to, I'm not going to read it because you don't want it. Because I have dyslexia and I read like a fourth grader. And that's part of the reason why this book is written the way it is. Because I just embraced my dyslexia. I also write with a typewriter. And then I scan in the pages and just copy and paste them to Google. Google Docs and I don't really edit them that much.

I think it retains some some rawness. So yeah, that's pretty much it. I'll get out of you guys here so you can... This is, hold on, what's going on? What? Okay. Well, you got some stuff in Spanish, you got...

Yeah, that's the dialogue of the character in there. Oh, okay. He's speaking in Spanish. I like that. Cormac McCarthy did that. I'm hugely influenced by Cormac McCarthy. He has large portions of his book

where a character speaks Spanish and he doesn't translate. So you just got to figure out how to translate it or speak Spanish. Are these selling? Yeah, to people I know. Yeah. I mean, I do events and this is like I'll go play music or I'll DJ or I'll go do a spoken

word thing and then bring copies to sell. And that's basically the only way I'm selling books. But what about on Amazon? Yeah. Okay. You're in there. Yeah. But again, they won't recommend it to anybody because they're dirty books.

Right. And that's why I'm here, man. So I want your, I like your sense of humor. And I think that people who like your sense of humor are going to like the, dark sense of humor in these books. Even though I don't, I think you think I'm a retard. Like, I think you think I'm retarded, but I think that there's, I've gotten some laughs at you. I feel like I've really, I've hidden that.

No. No. What, no. I've tried to suppress it. You have not tried at all. Yeah, I don't know. You got, yeah, you, you got to think about doing the audible. I'm going to.

I'm going to do it. So where can people find you on the internet? Ellis Jones, 456 is my Instagram. That's pretty much it. you can email me Ellis Jones RTM at Gmail I'm down I got a lot of free time right now

so I can I can show up and do spoken word DJ play some music I'm down to take it on the road I've just been doing kind of like friend hookup gigs you know And to buy the books where do they go?

Amazon. That's it exclusively Well I appreciate you coming out I appreciate you having me right What are we doing? Oh are we doing a shake? Okay let's do a shake Fuck it. Is it weird to shake with my left hand? It is weird to shake with your left.

Okay. All right. This? Yep. All right. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching. Do you be a favor. If you like the podcast, please share it.

Please subscribe. Please leave a comment. Also, we're going to leave all of Ellis's links in the description box. So take a look. Send him an email. Instagram. Instagram or go to Amazon. Buy a book.

I really appreciate you guys watching. Also, please consider joining our Patreon. as you can see this is a really kind of a dumpster fire podcast and you can tend there's a whole bunch of stories that are going to that are going to end up on on on uh patreon there's going to be some like this is i want to see it too i'm not subscribing to watch my own episode bro there's going to be some some stuff on patreon uh it's ten dollars a month for um exclusive patreon please consider joining i really appreciate it and it helps colby and i produce these programs thank you very much. See ya.

All right. Are you still recording? Yeah. You want me to stop? Dude, can I do one of those? Like, you know how, like, you know, sometimes people have a guest from their podcast, be like, you're watching True Crime or Matt Cox, and you can use that as like a promo. Go ahead.

I'm sure. But when you just lean forward, don't you got on. You move this. So, I mean, you can move this wherever you want. I don't really want to do it. But I just thought it'd be funny. But you can do it. That's not the end.

No, I'm saying you can do it. Just don't. But make sure you say it in here. Because even when you just did it now. No, I get it. I just go. No, you took the wind out of myself, man. My feelings are hurt.

I feel like you resent me for being so scatterbrained. Don't try to justify it. I'm not justifying it. I'm just playing. You really do need to put these things on all of them. I know, but those are gifts for you unless you don't want them. I'm good. Thank you.

I may actually just hire somebody to put them on Amazon and take the money myself. Anyway, you fucking asshole. Yeah. Give it to a fraudster. Why don't you? It's like, this guy's easy to rip off. Somebody already stole a book from him. Oh.