Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Vice Reporter Becomes An International Drug Smuggler

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Vice Reporter Becomes An International Drug Smuggler

So the idea being that once you fly out of Vegas into Australia, they have somebody in Australia who's in on it in the airport. Do they really? Or they just tell you that to make you feel like, oh, I'm covered. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm here with Slava P. He is a Ukrainian immigrant turned vice reporter turned drug smuggler. So super interesting story. Check it out. Yes.

We're in Kiev, Ukraine, June 14th, 199. So this is right before the fall of the Soviet Union. And my mom and I got out of there. Well, she got out of there. I went with her. I was four years old and we moved to Toronto. Okay. So from Toronto, I went to public school here.

I went through the system. I ended up pretty far north of Toronto, which is where I went to high school in Barry. And the first chance I got, I moved back to Toronto. And I had a nice little marketing job, really nothing crazy. But I was trying to do more with it and I had a real passion for writing. and I decided to kind of marry that passion for writing with my need to go to concerts for free. And I kept seeing that I would go to these concerts and I would keep seeing the same people and I would wonder why are those people always there? I would come to find out that they're

press, their media. And I'm like, okay, well, I can do that. You know, I can write a review just for a free ticket to a show. So that's when I started doing. And because of my writing style and I wasn't completely positive about every performance I went to, I developed a bit of a following online because people really do gravitate towards negativity. What year was this? So this is all, so I moved to Toronto in 2011 and I didn't start vice officially until 2014. So there is that gap where I was just kind of building a name for myself by writing comedy articles for like college humor and this company called this brand called Points in case. I don't know if they're even around anymore, but this is in the heyday of like

early internet stuff and people still went on websites, right? And yeah. So, yeah. So I kind of built a name for myself, built an online identity, and then I lucked into a chance interview with a rapper named Donald Glover. He's like an actor slash, well, he was a rapper at the time. Anyway, I didn't get this because of the Vice connection, but I just ended up interviewing him for two hours. It was a chance encounter and it changed my life because it got me this job at Vice. In early 2013, I officially started at Vice, but I had been freelancing for there up until then. how long did you so you started working for for vice like i mean what were you just doing the just doing music or yeah so evolve into anything something else well here's the the cool thing about

vice is they started off in canada and they went to america and then when they came back to canada it was not it was to uh kind of test pilot this uh program that they had where they wanted to start a tv channel v iceland right so they entered into a public private uh partnership with rogers which is the biggest telecom provider in Canada, kind of like our AT&T or T-Mobile, but there's only like, it's a two-horse country, right? It's either Bell or Rogers. So by going with Rogers, they got half of it. So they were kind of building out their staff as in anticipation of this move. So they had hired on an editor for every vertical. And an editor was in charge of not just like making sure the content on the website was good, but also producing video and just kind of having their nose to the

ground for stories in their seat so i got brought in i was the music editor there was a tech editor there was a news editor and uh some for the primary uh vertical of bites so they were just i was part of the first boom of staffing for vice canada uh before the second boom before the the rogers partnership okay what was so was the channel was just going to be about music or because i mean yeah so it's obviously it's much a lot of crime and and all kinds of stuff now like it's very true crime absolutely and the the reason that i fell in love with vice was because you see shane smith like buying guns in liberia or doing some kind of crazy like borderline criminal activity right and when i got brought on there it was to be the editor

of the the music vertical was called noisy uh the tech vertical is called motherboard you've probably seen these websites around but they're all vice properties and i think they've actually all rolled them into vice by this point so i don't even know if noisy exists But pretty much I was in charge of the music scene, but because I was in charge of music scene and I had these connections to all these, you know, seedy types of individuals, they would come to me for a lot of other things.

I remember the news editor came to me at one point to ask me if I knew anyone who could get him a gun. You have to remember we're in Canada. It's hard to get guns. So I like that began, that became a little project for the week. I mean, not for advice. just because no no no for vice for advice story but that's what i'm saying like they would they would outsource their reporting within the company and they would ask does anybody who works here know

anybody who does x or does y and my x and y were always some nefarious illegal activities you know somebody else be like hey does anyone else know like a doctor or a psychiatrist we can interview about something smart and then i'll be the guy where it's like hey do you know anyone who has you know this right okay so how long how long did that go on how long did you work there yeah so i started there in 2013 and in 2015 is when this all went down so i'd worked there for about a year and a half and my biggest problem was that there is such a low ceiling on being the music guy especially the music guy in canada uh the team at noisy by the way were like fantastic we're the only people

uh in the department where every one of us ended up with a book deal so it's we had amazing writers and like very whip smart people but the ceiling is just very very low when you're talking about just music. So I burned a couple bridges as a result of my reporting in the same way that Toronto's a two horse town for telecommunications where a two horse town for talent, there's Drake and the weekend. And if you burn one of those camps by writing something that they don't like, a lot of doors end up getting closed to you. So over the course of my time as a music editor, those doors closed and I figured, okay, well maybe it's time to pivot. And I wasn't really sure what I was going to pivot to until one day when I'm having brunch with my friend

he mentions that he had these friends from university who were running drugs into Australia. Okay, that doesn't seem like, so, oh, so you were, okay, so at this point, you're just thinking a story. Anything, yeah. This is a story. Okay, pivot into a story, because that's not what ultimately it becomes, but okay, yeah. Well, that's kind of what it tended to become. It's such a short span of, I think, from, you know, the month of September to August. So pretty much what happened is this guy told me about these individuals who run drugs.

I'm like, oh, maybe I should talk to them. They also did some kind of medical stuff. Like they were in a medical school. So I asked to get introduced to these guys under the guys of asking if, like, if they thought Drake was doing steroids. So I wanted to do a blog post. And the blog post was going to be, is Drake on steroids? And I was going to talk to these professionals and ask for their medical opinion on whether or not they thought he was or wasn't. One of the people I reached out to you was this medical student.

he was the person who was in charge of these Australia trips, and I knew this, but he didn't know that I knew. So I call him, I started asking about the steroids, whatever. That story didn't end up becoming anything. But at the end of the call, I asked him, hey, you know, our friend told me the other thing that you guys do to Australia, and I would really like to talk to you about that in person one day if you have time. And he said something like, yeah, sure, no problem.

And I thought he was brushing me off, and I think it didn't go anywhere, right? two days later that same friend tells me hey that guy he's in town he's in Toronto from Vancouver they live in Vancouver and he wants to meet you and I'm like well really like out of nowhere this guy flew across the country just to meet me all right like this is going to be good so I get with my co-accused and some other people and we all drive down to have a life-changing dinner okay what happened what was the life-changing dinner was I don't understand

listen what I don't understand is this started as a story how did you make the leap to hey I'm going to go ahead and smuggle drugs yeah because that was the story the story was that this is how it's done vice always does the first person

thing right and you know if you Google are you serious like I'm not going to Listen, this is on YouTube right now, type into the search bar, Vice drug smuggling, and you will see somebody literally do, this is how I smuggle drugs. Like, this is a story that Vice writes about because it is a story Vice has written about since it's happened. Right, but I'm saying that's like that's a, as a reporter, like, you know, I guess in a way, it's kind of like being embedded in it with the troops. But, you know, to me, it's like saying, hey, I'm going to write a story about guys robbing banks. So as a part of my research, I'm going to go ahead and rob Bank of America.

Like, let me, let me clarify. I'm 24 at the time, right? I'm not, I'm 24. I'm living life like penny to penny. And I'm not going to lie and tell you that the appeal of some money also didn't help. But this is kind of what happened at the dinner, right? We go to the dinner and these guys put on the most amazing show. You know, they tell me about their life and how they kind of put this plan together.

And I go through everything in the book and how they kind of built this connection to work with the cartel. because the entire genius of it is that they fly Canadians into Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, they get the luggage. The luggage comes from South America somewhere. It's presumed, right? But it's fairly quick to get to Las Vegas from the border, right? Las Vegas is also the busiest airport, probably in, like, the world, right? People are always flying in and out of Vegas.

Does not really set off any alarms. So the idea being that once you fly out of Vegas into Australia, they have somebody in Australia who's in on it in the airport who makes sure that everything goes on. Do they really? Or they just tell you that to make you feel like, oh, I'm covered. Yeah, no, that's exactly what you would tell someone, right? It's like, no, we have people all over the place. We have people working. Check this out. So wait, I'm getting out of myself here. So the dinner goes through and at the dinner, I'm just finding out about this and finding out about this. And then by the end of it, these guys have almost sold me on the idea. And I'm like, yeah, let's go. So I was

supposed to go with the person I was dating and then the other person who went my co-accused his name's Ali he went first so Ali goes with his partner and it goes off without a hitch right and the craziest part about it is when he lands in Australia if he opens up his luggage and there's a little piece of paper there and it says this is a special notice from the TSA just letting you know that some of your contents may be misplaced because we went through your luggage in a random search have a nice day Now, at this point, not only did he make it, but he has that note, I'm thinking this is, these guys have really figured it out.

Like, whatever these guys are doing, this is not some kind of like, um, rookie operation. Lo and behold, I go, again, no problems. Goes off without a hitch. Everything. Get a note? Nope, no note for me. No note. But, uh, because of some things that happened, the person I was supposed to go with backed

out and I had to go with somebody else who doesn't fit the profile of like a happy couple. It was another guy. And it's like a young black kid who's like, you know, he was my drug dealer pretty much. And I went with him and it still went off without a hitch. So I'm thinking this is like the most Teflon operation. And I'm kind of justifying it in my head. I'm like, well, I mean, we're Canadians? You know, we're going to Australia.

Maybe there's like, maybe people just implicitly trust us. He's been known to cure insecurity just with his laugh. His organ donation card lists his charisma. His smile is so contagious. vaccines have been created for it. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends.

Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. I don't know. You know, I was going to say, the other thing that, to me, I would be thinking, is people don't fly drugs out of the United States. Like, they're trying to get drugs in. to the United States. So if you're coming from the United States, I would think that the officials would think they're coming from the United States. Trust me. They're good. Nobody's

flying drugs out of the United States, you know? Yeah, absolutely. You would think that the hardest part is getting the drugs into Vegas. So, and that's taken care of for you. So you're thinking like, well, if this luggage was good enough to get them into America, you know, it's going to be good enough to get them out of America. But again, like when we flew out of Australia into America. Bags got checked like five or six times, all these x-ray machines, crazy stuff. None of that happens when you're flying to Australia. Right. So how much do they pay you? Yeah, so it was $20,000 for two people. So the idea being you could split it, but also everything is taking care of free. So it's a free vacation to not some shabby places, you know?

Like you get to go to Vegas for a week and then you get to go to Australia for a week and then you get to come back with money and you get spending money when you're there. Again, at 24 years old, thinking your risk reward is not properly calibrated in a way that it is now. Right, right. Yeah, you're not thinking, hey, if I have to go to jail for four years or three years or a year or whatever, you ended up going to jail? Yeah, everybody ended up going. So at the end of the day, about seven people ended up going to jail for this whole thing. Well, so you come in, you come in, everything's great.

You hang out in Australia. Where did you fly into in Australia again? Where? Sydney. Sydney, sorry. Yeah. Yeah, so you fly into Sydney, you hang out for a few days or a week, you fly back, back to Vegas or straight to. Yeah, well, no, I think we had a layover somewhere in San Francisco, but we did fly as directly as possible.

We didn't stay overnight anywhere. Okay, so you go back to, did you go back to Vegas or did you go back to Canada? Toronto. Yeah, so, yeah, Sydney to Toronto, yeah. okay so how long so are you're still are you you're still thinking about writing this is still kind of part of a story right or you right so i come back and the way that it works is you get paid when you come back but you have to take this little five dollar note as a receipt and the serial numbers have to match so the person in australia comes and takes your luggage she gives you the five dollar note you fly back to toronto you meet up with the original people who met me at the restaurant you give them the note they give you the money and So this all happens in a very short time span, right? So in that time, when I'm actually meeting these people up again to give them the note and get my money, they ask, hey, do you know anyone else who wants to go on these trips? And at this point, I'm thinking like, yeah, you know, a few people a bit asking about it because you have to remember, Toronto was a small city.

So my friend had gone. He came back. I get, I go, I come back. By this point, at least my roommate knows. And my roommate's a DJ. So he's probably told people. So people in the city know, and people have begun approaching me. So this is where everything kind of really goes out is because I introduced this next set of people to the same thing that me and my vocuse had just done.

And it does not go well for them. So, okay, so those guys fly. So what happens? They fly into Vegas. They get their luggage. They go to Australia. Bad? Yeah.

This answer you just such, man, honestly, like, it's such a comedy of errors that I really, because everybody's out now, right? Like, everybody did their time. Everybody was back by 29 seed. I don't know. For me, personally, it's almost getting to the point of like farce to think about what happened. But I really go through it in more detail. But this whole thing went south because one of the guys did not want to take a $15

Uber ride. He wanted to save $15. So instead of meeting at the hotel, they met at the airport and exchange luggage. incredible red flag to anybody watching this never exchanged luggage with anybody you just met at the airport

right you will get flaffed and there's no nothing an inside man at the airport can do about the TSA going these guys go look at these guys

right oh listen I had I literally had a a co-defendant change her hair color you should She had an ID that had her hair

Was like Jet Black She changed it as a blonde and brown And goes and tries It uses the ID and because of the idea They looked at and then woman went This isn't you Now it was her But she had altered her appearance slightly

And it was like We're running a multi-million dollar scam Why would you go get your hair done And she was like it just wasn't me Exactly It wasn't you And you know So that's part of the thing that brought one of my scams completely down.

So you're right. It's like people do silly things they're not thinking. It's honestly the most basic instructions. And this is what the people who told me about the trips hammered home for me. They said, don't drink, don't do drugs, show up to the airport, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, have everything ready to go because that is where things are going to go rock at the airport. Yeah. Don't get to arguments.

Don't. No, don't show up on the airport. stay with your partner in line yeah don't exchange don't exchange luggage at the airport with someone you just met really something should be gone without saying but okay but anyway so it went south for them they ended up landing in um australia all uh five of them get pinched and this is where like the real trouble starts for me because they end up like i think one of the girlfriends of the DJ, I don't know which girlfriend, said, told Vice that I was doing this. They conduct investigation. I get fired. I get another job in the city. And I'm thinking everything is

kind of clear. About a year after this, I get a call. And it's like the biggest national newspaper in Canada, the national votes. And they said, hey, we want to talk to you about this thing. And then they mentioned my roommate's name. And they're like, and I hear the words cocaine in Australia. I just hang the phone up. And I'm like, there's no way. This is all happening right now. There's no way. Like, I'm in complete denial, right? And then as I started thinking about, I'm like, okay, there's probably a story coming, but like, what's the worst? They're not going to put my face on the cover of the newspaper. Come on.

Anyway, I wake up and they put my face on the cover of the newspaper. And it's like a very unflattering picture. And it's like the one time I had like long hair. Obviously, I'm bald. So like, they really stress that fact. And yeah, the story is, the original story that was reported was told through the lens of what the people who got caught said. Now, as you probably know, you're going to say whatever you have to say to avoid jail time or like to even make bail. I don't think that was a possibility for them

because they were in another country. But pretty much there was like all of these very outlandish things about how like the banks were held together with like duct tape or crazy glue and there was like a Mexican standoff or guns were pointed at people. So the story originally was incredibly salacious. But it was also spun in a way where it made me seem like, was running this through the aid of the company bytes, which isn't true. Again, like, like I said, Toronto's a small city. A vice intern very quickly becomes like a scene kid over the course of, by the end of his internship. So the one person who went who did have a connection to vice didn't have a connection because he was my intern. He had a connection because he

was trying to get in touch with me through a music thing. And funny enough, my co-acues also worked advice but we were not friends because we worked at vice together we were friends because we just like you know had a similar interest and stuff like that and that's how you end up connecting with people at bikes not because you work advice but because of the other thing right so okay maybe I missed it did you ever go on a second trip no I never got the chance this all happened within such a short window that I came back at the end of October like around Halloween and then by and about four weeks later these individuals life and they got captured. And this is happening in November, December. So my plan was to put

some kind of story together for the new year to pitch it to Vice and be like, hey, listen, this is what I did? It's done. What could we do about it? Can it be a re-telling, a dramatic whatever? Yeah, I think it had legs. So, okay, so your picture, but you wake up, your picture back to, you wake up, your picture's on the front page or, you know, and you're not thrilled. about that, how do you end up getting arrested or indicted or I'm not sure exactly what the process is there? Right. Some guys in Australia, you know, cooperating with the authorities and they say you're

involved here in the United States. That's not enough to arrest me. Well, though, but here's the interesting thing is, no, I didn't get arrested until two years after that story came out. And I don't know how it works in the States. you're arrested here, you get all of the evidence against you. So you can see when they started the investigation. And they started the investigation the second those people landed. They were Canadian citizens and they got arrested in Australia. The Canadian government is going to look

into that. It has nothing to do with the story itself. The problem with the story was that it kind of handicapped me because I can't come out and be like, no, like, yeah, okay, the drug smuggling is true, but these specific parts aren't, you know, because I'd be incriminating myself. So I had no choice but to stay silent after the story came up. Well, you could have always come out and said, I didn't do anything. Like I was working on a story. I did go to, you know, Australia. I came back.

I didn't have anything in my luggage. So I don't know what they're talking about. They didn't find any drugs. So that's not. So yeah, absolutely. But what I ended up going down for is conspiracy to import. So I didn't end up going down for smuggling the drugs myself. Right.

I went down for helping them smuggle the drugs. But what proof is there that that's true? that's just you've got a couple of guys saying it's true yeah like me and my co-accused not very good criminals i can tell you that we uh used our real cell phones there was actually that that one intern that i was telling you about he actually surreptitiously recorded audio of me and my co-accused explaining the whole scheme in detail from start to finish well that changed everything he's in evidence right but here's the craziest thing is like i can't understand the logic of why he did it because he still ended up going through with the trip,

and this is the $15 Uber guy. So, yeah, I really, I wish I could have some insight into that guy's head because you never talked to him? No, no. How? Like, I've talked to a bunch of my co-defendants. Yeah, so my co-defendant, he's a super cool guy. I really like him.

I wish him the best. He actually just found out that he's guilty because he took it to trial. so he's about to be looking at like probably 12 to 16 the good news being that in canada you only do a third of your time months or years years yeah years oh shoot so how much time does he do on 12 to 13 so a third you're eligible for day parole after a third so for example just talked about my case i got uh nine years because of some time served i ended up doing eight years it ended up being eight years eight months eight days the amount of time I fully did in custody was 28 months. Wow. That's some good gain time. They call them a good time or gain time. In Canada, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, sorry.

The gain time was only like 100 days. Do you mean the dead time, right? The dead time ended up only being 100 days. But you do 28 months because you're eligible for parole after a third of your dates. So on a nine-year sentence, after three years, you're eligible for date rule. But they don't have to give it to you. they don't but if you're non-violent have no history and you're kind of like you have a very low risk of reoffending they're more likely to give it to you canada's justice system is actually like pretty good

yeah that sounds like the u.s justice system back in the 60s and 70s where you it was you know you did you know at at at one third year time you were eligible for parole whether or not you got it or not it was they may not give it to you but you know if you were a decent inmate, you pretty much were guaranteed getting parole, you know, unless you got in there and you were like, you were in fights and, you participate in drug subculture. Absolutely. Yeah. At that point, you'd have to do two thirds, but that's the thing. Nobody does more than two thirds. So even though you're eligible for day parole at one third, uh, if you don't get it, you can apply every year, but add your two thirds, you're almost guaranteed to go out unless

you're like a dangerous offender. And you have to remember very much. that's very much like Canada everything is run by the government we're like a pretty socialist when it comes to our criminal justice system and you know they kind of want rehabilitation for guys they don't want to just have you sit there so that you're taking up space which is how I understand it works in America yeah definitely and you're hindered like the moment you get out you're you're extremely hindered like you have this criminal record you've got every time you go to a job they pull your criminal record and they're like you're like you're extremely hindered like you have this criminal record you've got every time you go to a job they pull your criminal record and they're like like oh wow we can't hire you right um you know it's it's very much the deck is stacked against you you can't even vote in america if you have a criminal record that you you have to try you you once you're done with like probation or parole you have to go to the government and you have to kind of apply to get that right back that's crazy I voted two times in jail in jail nobody would step up in jail like you could vote for Justin Trudeau in jail like you could vote for Justin Trudeau in jail.

Yeah, that's not happening. So you were in there, so you got, so you didn't go to trial, though. No, I pled out. That's the thing is like, at the end of the day, I know what I did, right? Yeah. And ultimately, the risk is right in front of me. Like I said, my co-kews just went through the, like, my co-kews and I got arrested on the exact same day.

and we talked in the jail. I'm like, bro, are we taking the plea or are we not taking the plea? Because I know what I want to do. Because I find out from talking in the jail, I'm like, oh, two thirds. Oh, sorry, oh, one third. Oh, I can go to camp. Oh, you cook your own food. You wear your own clothes?

Okay, I feel like I could do that. Y'all, we had HBO. I'm telling you. So I tell him, I'm like, bro, let's just take the plea. What are we doing here? And he was like, yeah, maybe hemming and Han. He ended up not taking the plea. He ends up taking his trial.

He tries to get this thrown. out on human rights violation this against yeah just like you know anything that you can kind of pick off judge said no no no no no guilty so we don't find out a sentencing for um another few weeks but i went in and got out and he took his to trial and that's how long the trial took so i really feel like uh i made the right decision i don't know if he feels like he made the right decision maybe he was able to do some really cool stuff in the past few years but The result is the same, right? That's kind of what I mean.

You still have to pay your pound of flesh at some point. Right. Yeah, I always say, like, in the U.S. justice system, like, you know, if you're guilty, don't go to trial, no matter what. But if you're not guilty, you still have about a 50% chance of being found guilty. Right. I mean, if you're guilty, you've got 100% chance. You're just not, almost nobody goes to trial who's not, who's guilty, and it's found not guilty.

the federal system. In the state system, that happens a lot. They have a lot of rules in the state system that benefit the criminals. In the federal system, none. And is the difference that you mean state and federal how much time you receive? Um, no, but it's really, mostly it's about the crime, but it also does have to do with the time. You're going to get a lot, a significant amount of time in the federal system. Right. Because they have a much larger budget. So the way it works in Canada is anything over two years. So two years plus a day means you're going to federal. Anything under two years, you're staying in provincial.

But provincial is pretty much maximum security, like orange jumpsuits, the tables, the octagon tables, you know, all that stuff. That is, because we've modeled our provincial prisons on what you guys did in America. Yeah. But the federal, the federal systems are more or less disrupted to provide like a pro-social environment. That's why it was funny that you were telling me that at minimum security, people are still getting stabbed. Because in my minimum security, if you raise your voice to somebody, that person will run and tell the cops that they're being threatened and you will be

sent to medium security. So do you know how people get back at each other in minimum security? They do something called spite baking, which is where they will bake some kind of baked good. And if they don't like you, they will give some of the baked good to everybody except you, just so you know that they do not fuck with you. And that is how guys expressed their grievance. in minimum security jail in Canada. Wow. Super passive aggressive. Incredibly feminine.

It's the crazy. You remove all women from the equation and someone still finds a way to act like a catty and yeah, it's crazy. These are like gendered traits, right? Some people are just, you know. It's funny in the low security prison, people gossip all the time.

Not so much as you get, as you go up through the, the higher custody level, the less people, the more respectful people are, the more respectful the guards are, the less people talk about each other. Because, of course, if you're dealing with a bunch of guys that have 30 years to life, like, they'll stab you for any reason at all.

They're not put... Their whole life is based on people being respectful to one another, because that's all they've got left. That's right, yeah. But the lower security, they gossip, they start rumors. They act like a bunch of women. And the interesting thing about it, too, is like the upper securities will have more solid guys because the guys who are in on a bad beef, which I don't know what it is in America,

but in Canada, yeah, the pedophiles are the fucking, like, lowest rung on the ladder. And then anyone who has violence against women or children is also, like, not the greatest. But when you get to minimum security, these are guys who kind of come from PC. because there's no PC, there's no protective custody in federal prison. Everybody is general population. With the exception of like some segregation that goes on based on

neighborhoods. Like if you're from one neighborhood is Toronto, you can't go to this prison. And if you're from this one, you can't go to another one. But other than that, minimum security is pretty much full of pedophiles. So that's why I say when I was writing this for nine months,

I just kept my nose to the grindstone. And then when I stopped, I like looked up and I like, oh, I hated here. Like, it's all, like, because pedophiles are not really criminals, if you know what I mean. Like, they don't have to seem understanding of breaking the rule. You know how many times I've said that? I have said, these guys are like, oh, these guys, this. And I go, these guys aren't criminals.

They're perverts. They're weirdos. Like, they're not really criminal. I mean, what they're doing is criminal, but their mindset isn't criminal as much as it is just perversion. Right. Well, it's like, you're a weirdo, but they would tell on people all the time. Immediately, they complained all the time. That was the great thing about prison, was that almost nobody really complained about it, except for the sex offenders.

They complained all the time. But the main guys were like, don't complain because it only makes it worse. And you're not going to change it. And nobody wants to hear you complain. So, you know what my worst experience in jail was? It's not even like almost getting stabbed or seeing someone die or anything like that. They put me in a house when I got to minimum security. And this house was known as the Dungeons and Diddler's house.

Right. And these motherfuckers stayed up until 3 a.m. every morning at the kitchen table playing Dungeons and Dragons, rolling those ice. Those fucking dice, bro. They kept me up all night. That was the worst experience I had in jail with some nerds playing a board game. So I, okay, so I have a question. So you wrote, so you wrote your book.

Were you approached to write the book, or did you just decide to write it and then? Yeah, well, so because it had been kind of a big story, I knew that something was coming. And then there was a really big article that came out from the Ringer by a really smart journalist, named Cade Nibs, who I think like nailed the heart of this issue, which is like, hey, these are a bunch of dumbasses who did a really stupid crime. and it got blown out of proportion by like the media who made it out to be nefarious.

I don't think she took my side or anything but she definitely presented it in a way that was a little bit more humanizing because the first one that not that Canadian one they painted me out to be like a fucking villain and the reality is I'm just like a knucklehead and so is everybody else who went on these things. We're all like just I like naive 20 year olds

who were chasing things for the wrong reason. But as a result of that article, Brian got in touch with me, Brian Whitney and he's a co-author on this book. So pretty much I would send everything to him. And Brian put me in touch with his agent, his agent put me in touch with the publisher, and that hadn't got the ball rolling. But to be honest, I had written the book before I had officially gotten the deal.

So, you know, what else am I going to do? I got some time to kill. Sure, I'll write my book. This is the next step. Like, what are you working right now? Are you? Yeah, well, so I'm in school right now. But the idea was, you know, I'm going to get out and there's all these interesting stories.

that I found and maybe there's going to be some interest for them, but all that stuff kind of ended up fizzling out. Some of it might still come in terms of like specifically with my book, but I don't understand what you said there's all these kind of interesting stories. What do you mean? With you or with people you met in jail? Yeah, with people I met in jail. So there's like literally five stories that I can think of that would make amazing books. And I'm not talking to like, oh, this guy had an interesting life. I'm talking about like, no, this is like a systemic problem, where this is part of a bigger thing. They're honestly insane stories.

I hope to tell them one day. I'm always going to have them in my back pocket. But it feels like some of the money's dried up for that in Canada. And also, like, writ large, if you look at the way that people are spending on content, it's not what it was five years ago when everybody's trying to make the next big HBO Max show, right? But there is definitely something that's coming down the pipeline. And we'll see where things end up.

But I just say that to say that it's not an immediate action. item. So I'm in schooled, become a welder. I'm going to become like a good blue collar worker and kind of build up life the right way instead of trying to take shortcuts. So are you your plan, is your plan though to still continue to write? I mean, that's not something that's ever going to leave me, right? I'm a writer right now. I'll write about something on like, like something about Toronto music or something about, I just wrote something about fentanyl culture and how like, you know, they're pretty much just long tweets, right? But no. I'm going to be writing forever because that's something that I really feel like expresses me.

Whether that's journaling or blogging or another book or a screenplay or whatever, I'm always going to be writing. Okay. How long is the welding school? I should be done by this August. Yeah. Um, I was going to say, so, okay. Well, yeah, it's too bad that you said you had these stories that you were thinking about

that you're saying are that you're saying they they fizzled out like i don't yeah oh i guess it's it's kind of interesting to think about it from the lens of canadian media where things don't get pitched in the same way that they do in america so the one story that we had interest for from the american media was my story and i think that that guy kiboshed just because i think some something happened in the back rooms uh with vice uh it might still happen but again might not but the other stories i had they are a little bit more Canadian and we had put together the decks for them and we had sent them away to directors and nothing ended up coming back from the people that we would need to get the money from because the government has kind

of turned off the faucet on how much money it's spending on culture in Canada. What little culture there is. Yeah, I was going to say, you know, before we were talking about, about like, publishing on Amazon. on. So I have, I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, for sure. And that's, I see where you're going with it. And that's definitely something I thought about too to just like do a YouTube video about some of these things that I had met. But in my mind, it's always best to go big or kind of go home. Because my worst fear is that

something I put out tanks, you know, like that. So that's the most embarrassing thing to me. Because as someone who is like a hater, I don't want to give other haters the fuel. to hate on me, because I know exactly what I would do in their situation. I look like, ah, you put that out, you thought it was a good story? Look at that. 1.2,000 views in six months or whatever. I mean, that's, you know, but that's what it is. I mean, it doesn't, you know, listen, like for every, you know, for every 50 people that love, you know, one of my videos, like, there's five or ten of them that just hate my gut.

For sure, but at least you have those 50. What if you did have those 50? What if you just had five or ten and they all hate your guts? Well, I would be okay with that as long as they were watching. You have to understand, like, you could start, look, you've got just what you're doing right now. You could start a YouTube channel right now. Yeah, listen, it's not that I haven't thought about it. And that is kind of like Plan C.

And I do just need to see this year through because like I said, there's actually like a few contracts that I signed. I mean, I can't do anything outside of book promotion, which is absolutely what this is. If anybody's watching it, this is just me promoting my book. Right. And I'll put, listen, we'll put the link in the description, like, to buy the book. Right. I just mean more so there's things I've signed that say I can't be doing stuff like this unless it's for the express purpose of a book promotion. So I'm just saying, like, some of the contracts that I signed expire this year. And once they're expired, I'm going to be able to take a little bit more better stock of my inventory and think, like, what can I do? Because, no, you're absolutely right. I think YouTube is the future of the way that people consume everything.

I think these little clips worked so well, both with telling stories I saw in jail, plus, like, explaining how the system works. You know, if you Google right now how to go to jail in Canada or something along those lines, it's just one Vietnamese guy talking to his phone, and it has like 75,000 views. There's no production, there's no stagecraft, there's no editing work that really went into it. Like, there's definitely a niche that can be exploited, but I'm not really worried about somebody else coming and doing it before me because they would have done it by now, and I feel like I still have a little bit of time, but that's definitely plan B or C.

But plan eight, I just can't talk about it right now. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I was gonna, well, I was gonna say, like I'll write, like, I've probably written, I think I've written like 20 some odd short stories. Like we're talking about between eight to 12,000 words, you know, so basically the size, like double the size of, let's say, a Rolling Stone article. Yeah.

Right? So, you know, that's a, typically there what, about 6,000 words? Um, you know, six or seven thousand. So mine are probably, you know, whatever, 10, maybe 12,000. And I've put those up on a website. I have a website called inside true crime.com. So I've actually optioned several of those stories. And the books that I've written, like the books I've written, you know, I always say like, six or seven. Because the truth is is like one of the books, like I don't really, some of the books, obviously I don't really have possession of anymore. Like, like, I wrote a kid story, a guy's name, his name was Ephraim Devoroli. He, did you ever see the movie War Dogs? Yeah, I love War Dogs. That's one of my favorite movies, bro. Oh, yeah.

Andy De Arvice? Yeah, Eddie, I'll watch anything with Andy De Arvice in it. So, you know, the main guy that, that Jonah Hill plays? Yes, the best character in the movie, yeah. Right. So I wrote his memoir. I was in Britain. Yeah, it's called Once a Gun Runner, and I wrote his memoir.

And, you know, he, of course, got out of, listen, Jonah Hill didn't do him justice because the guy is such a scoundrel. Way worse than you. Jonah Hill made him look soft and cuddly. So he gets the manuscript. And I have a contract. I had a contract with the guy. He gets the manuscript.

He leaves prison. Never contacts me again. He sues Warner Brothers saying that they stole the manuscript. script. They settle with him. He thinks I'm, see, keep in mind, I was supposed to get out in 2030. So I get out of prison. I sue him because he's thinking, this guy's done. I get out, I sue him, and he settles with me. Jesus, crazy. Expecting to never have to talk to me again. But anyway, so I wrote his story, you know, but so whenever I say, you know, I say like, oh, you know, six or seven, like, I don't usually include that because he doesn't even have the book available for sale. I think he might

have an e-copy, an e-book. But you can't even buy it. I don't have the, you know, he's got control of the book. But other than that, I've, I've written a bunch, I've written several books, and I've written several synopsies. And all my books are available on Amazon. And some of those books, like two of the books right now, well, one of them is being turned into a documentary series. I'm working with someone right now on my, on doing a documentary series for my story. And I've got another one of my buddies who's in prison doing a, there's a guy who's pitching his story right now. And I've got another story. I'm going to Miami to pitch.

Actually, it's two stories, two producers. And one of the, one of, they're already overboard on one of them. Like, they're like, they're done. Like, they're flying into Miami to meet with me and my subject. They want to do a documentary on it. We've already, so it's, it's, so I'm saying, I know what you're saying. Like, it's great to be able to hand it off to somebody and have. them do all of that but you could probably do a lot of it yourself you're probably right but the

things you remember too is canada right like i'm in canada warder brothers is out coming to toronto to see some kind of crazy story when they can just stay in their own backyard where it's probably like everything's way bigger the stakes are bigger the amount of drugs is bigger the amount of time is bigger the amount of money is bigger um but i i hear what you're saying absolutely the other problem is like our institutions like our version of Warner Brothers or whatever like whatever our studio is they have a little bit of a different mandate when it comes to pursuing stories where they're more focused on telling stories about people who are underrepresented more so than people who have done something bad or committed a crime but that's that's more of a structural change and again like I just

there is something coming it's just not something I can talk about yet and once that Domino follows. I think if we have this conversation a year from now, I'll be singing a different tune. Right now, yeah, welding looks pretty good. Well, anyway, well, I mean, I hear you. I'm not saying stop welding. I mean, you got to do. Listen, like, I don't, like I make money on doing YouTube videos. Yeah. I make money doing speaking engagement. I make money selling books and selling paintings. And at the end of the day, if you said, hey, if you could only do one of those, well, no one of those pays my bills at the end of the month. It takes all of these.

So it's like, you know, I have to do all that like, you know, it's a couple thousand here, 500 here, 500 here. And at the end of the month, it's like, hey, I made a good, I had a good month. But if you said, hey, you have to live off of just book sales, aren't, no, it's impossible. Yeah, no. And then that's definitely, look. The goal is definitely to diversify it and do some stuff. You will probably see me on YouTube soon.

Also, I do have a channel right now. If anyone wants to follow it, it's just my name. Same one here. But, um, you know, you. Yeah, you know, I just feel like at this point, it makes sense to focus on something that's steady and something that is not going to go away. And then everything else is just kind of gravy on top of that. But yeah, no, I'm definitely kind of thinking about that route for sure. Yeah, that's how I was going to say, that's like to me, I was like I, the stuff like pursuing going to Miami and talking with these producers up like, if it happens, great.

You know, if it doesn't, that's fine. I like, you know, I like meeting with these guys. I like having the meetings. I like writing. If I never make any money writing the stories that I'm writing, in the end, you drew up for outstice. Right.

Like, listen, honestly, I was talking to a guy the other day and I said, you know what my fear is? My fear is that I write the story. I go through the process of working with the producers, getting it done, going to all the shoots, watching it put together. It gets, it's finished, watching it on Netflix. and going, eh, like, it wasn't that right, right?

It's like, that sucks. Like, that's my biggest fear is that maybe one gets made. You know, like, that might be the worst. That's true, absolutely. And that's why you have to kind of trust the people involved. But also, one more thing to remember, there's more people in the state of California than there is in the country of Canada. You guys are dealing with an exponentially bigger market.

There is no such thing as a local celebrity in Canada. because and that's why like my real focus and that's why I've turned down a lot of Canadian publications and press but I'm happy to speak with you is because the focus should always be on America Canada gets 99.9% of its culture from America very few of the things that are homegrown in Canada end up being big and like I said I want to be I want if I want to do something I want to be the biggest version of what I can do the most extreme version so to speak right even though I'm a lot smarter than I was at 24 when I did the things that that led me to jail, I do still kind of have that same drive and hustle and it's just going to

manifest itself a lot differently in the years coming forward. Right. Well, look, if your thing with whatever it is, plan A doesn't work out, you know, like let me know because like I can like I'll, I can talk to you about how to start a, you know, if you look at my videos like I have like this is just a very basic video right now, right? Like I'm using the camera on my, you know, on my MacBook Pro and, you know, and honestly from Canada, let's, listen, like, you might as well be in the United States if you're in Canada and you're doing YouTube, like it doesn't matter.

That's absolutely right, right, yeah. And if you could interview, you know, you could just interview criminals, like let's face it, how much prep did this take none? 10 minutes? Good to hear that you really, you invest in San Francisco. Sorry. I still have more time a month ago when we've played,

or two, three weeks ago when we first started, Then I did just now. I literally knew we had a podcast this morning when I was at the gym with my girlfriend. And she goes, what are you doing today? And I went, let's see. I said, I've got to interview some guy named Slal. Yeah. And she was like, I was like, I don't know.

I'll figure it. I just, I don't remember. He's an immigrant, turn, vice reporter turned international drugs. But we're out. We talked about in the intro. Yeah. But I did. I had to go through my, my emails.

And I was like, oh, now I remember this guy. Oh, yeah, yeah. but yeah like you could just interview and here's the thing like nobody's buying my books because I promote them because you know how much money I've spent promoting my books on Amazon? None. People buy my books because they watch the video and they think that's kind of interesting. Like he mentioned something about this and maybe they go to my YouTube and they say, you know what? He said he'd been locked up so maybe they research me.

They watch part of a video and they go, oh, he's got a book. he's got a book and they buy the book and then they like that book and then they say oh my god wait a minute this guy's got like five more books so they read another story right actually time and they go wow i really like the way this guy writes and so they read most of the people about half the people that have read my book have read at least one of my other books and you know is does that make a lot of money every month. No, but it does pay for my gas, my car payment, and my car insurance. You know, so that's a bill that I wrote some books when I was locked up. And they're buying me a car right now, you know? Yeah, listen, yeah, absolutely. I feel like you're definitely

talking me into it more. The plan A or plan B, maybe I've bumped up to plan A2 or A, A, A, A, three. but no I really I get what you were saying and I will reach out when it comes to that but I really just do think like give it six months and something will come out the pipeline that kind of justifies me waiting to do this and also like you know I haven't been out for a year right I got out in April and the first six months of living in a halfway house you're not going to be focused on content or I had a little newsletter that I was writing but that went out to like 700 people it's nothing like crazy but that newsletter did detail my entire journey through jail because once the book was done i'm like well i'm going to keep writing and then i wrote everything out that took me through jail uh into that newsletter which i again think that you can repurpose for youtube content and boom you have like 24 episodes ready to go so i have a plan for how i want this to work and i am the type of person that like once i start something i'm going to commit it to it and see it through all the way that's why i don't want to like kind of half start on this youtube thing and then lose interest i want to get in i want to plow it through but before i do any of that i need

some kind of foundation to like make decent money in and that's why i see a career of trades and specifically welding as being uh right for me oh listen i i i hear you look i i i i lit like i said i went from the halfway house and i moved into a friend's spare room and lived in her spare room for 14 months before i could afford a one bedroom were you making youtube videos um i just start when I moved into the new place I actually had started for about two weeks in the in her place and like my first videos where it's just me

like me and there's like a red background yeah and I had a light I had some lights in the background like I still have the lights in the background hitting the wall I want to paint this wall red because I was watching those videos the other day and I was like I love that red so um I did a few videos like that and then when I went to my my apartment my one bedroom

And the only reason I got a one bedroom was because in the living room, I turned into my studio. Well, I really, it's a, it's an efficiency with a, with a, a studio for YouTube. I ended up buying, got some cameras, got a switcher, and have a guy that switches it. And the first month, you know, it made, I think, almost, you know, no money, 20 bucks, 30 bucks. And then it went, but then I kept doing interviews like this. and then it went to a couple hundred dollars and then it went to seven hundred dollars and then it went to twelve hundred dollars and then it went to twenty two hundred dollars and then it went to so it's a solid paycheck yeah that's that's

what you've been from working like a seventy thousand dollar a year job right right so i was going to say it's like you know now granted look the bulk of a lot of that goes to my you know the production guy right like like colby gets a chunk of it because all i have to do is sit in front of the camera and then i'll text him and say hey man i just interviewed this guy you know um you know by the way i might tell him something like hey we talked on camera can you put that part in the back you know i might say something like that he'll watch this he'll cut it up it'll be you know good and it'll be cool he'll make a thumbnail he'll upload it and then in a week from now I'll notice that it's coming out.

And I like that because it gives me more time to focus on just finding people that I'm interested in talking to. So what I'm saying is like to me, it's like I don't do, I do like three of these a week, but they don't take a lot of time. And the channel continually makes more and more money. And in six months from now to a year, if it continues to go the way it's going, a year from now, I won't have to do anything but YouTube. was YouTube around when you when you went in or oh so how did you hear what it bro do you know podcasts so podcasts weren't around so when I was writing these stories I'm writing these stories you know guys are coming up to me every day you know hey bro you got to talk Matt Cox Cox Cox I'm like yeah what's up and they're like you'll you got to talk to my celly I just got to sell it like a week ago

and I'm like well what is it bro you're not going to believe this this guy and then he'll tell me you got to talk to him and I'm like okay I go and I talk to the guy, and you know, you hear the story and you're like, sometimes it's like, look, I get it. Like it's sad or it's an interesting story and you do have a story, but it's common. Yeah. Like I can't write a story about a kid that grew up in the projects. His mom's a prostitute.

His dad's in jail. He's surrounded by drugs. He didn't have much of a chance. He's a black guy. He had no support. Like, that's a tragedy. And it's a story worth telling, but it's common and it's been told over and over again. Now, if he turns around and he says he was working with the, you know, the head of

the of the narcotics task force. And they grew up in school together and that guy became a cop and he started hiring, working together to bust drug dealers. You're like, whoa, that's interesting. Like, that's different. So I started looking for more unique stories and I would just put them on my roster. Like, look, I got about two months left. I'll get to be, well, in September we'll be talking right just order your start ordering your transcripts are ordering this keep in mind i still have stories i have like three stories right now that i'm i haven't even gotten to yet and i have people that i know that are incarcerated that are still contacting me saying you need to hear this story yeah that's a huge one too just saying contact with someone who's still in

is one of the best resources you can have in terms of like finding new ideas but yeah you you come out of there with a whole bucket of stories and i really feel like i'm going to have to rethink this based on how passionate you are defending this path uh and i feel like now i really do have to consider the moving it up a little bit on the scale but for right now i'm really just focused on i think the audio of this comes out in april and by april we should have something announced because this this did get optioned as well i think i can reveal that like there is something i mean yeah there is something coming with this i just there's like some big names and i can't fully maybe when we get off the recording i'll be able to tell you but um yeah again like let's uh i don't know if i told you everything

about this i feel like i kind of broke everything down there's so much more to it the the characters the the whole music aspect um i think it's a good book check it out before the movie or the show or whatever it is that comes out comes out uh but we should absolutely stay in touch yeah um yeah by the way Did you do the audio? No, I really, no, I didn't want to. And to be completely honest, like they were paying enough. It's for me to do it. So it just would not have been worth my time.

But it's a memoir, right? It's a memoir of my 20s. Yeah, I'm sure, like, if things feel the way I imagine things were going to go for me, I'm going to be writing another memoir in about another 20 years. Well, you know, so like I didn't do mine. My audio version isn't my, isn't me. because I read so badly. Like, I'm a horrible reader.

I was like, there's just no way I can do this. Like, I mean, I could, but what am I? It was just to be overwhelmingly horrible. And, you know, what's cool is the audio versions are great, too, because I actually, the guy that does mine, we just split the royalties. So he got the book. And two weeks later, he said, hey, listen, I'm done. You want to hear it?

I was like, yeah, I heard it. He goes, you got to need to approve it. I said, okay, it's approved. And he put it up and then, you know, probably after he put it up, probably three, four weeks later, I started getting checks for $150, $200 that I wasn't like, I didn't do anything. Yeah, no, that's great. That's a dream.

I'm working with a publisher and they have to work through with Canada to do all that stuff. Like, they actually got a grant from the government to write this, funny enough. Yeah, Canada's, man, I'm trying to tell you like, Canada's a whole different beast. Everything is, everybody kind of works for Canada in one way or another up here. Out of there. Yeah, well, I'm on parole until 2028. So, what do you, what, you're on parole until, what, 2030 then? No, I'm, I did off.

I got about 18 more months. Okay. And what do you, you just ask me with a parole officer every month? I don't, um, like I did the first year I did. But now I just send in a report. And whenever I have to. travel. I need to get permission. And probably once every six months to a year, she'll just stop by my house and walk through and say, how are you doing? And I'm like, I'm good. How are you

doing? She's like, I'm here, I'm good. And then they look through my finances because I owe like $6 million. They, you know, every month I have to fill out a financial report. I have to tell them where I got my income. And then I have to make a payment based on what I make. Or you do restitution payment. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we don't have lives in Canada. Oh, that's nuts. That's unfair. Yeah. Yeah. He even going to do that.

Yeah. Oh my God. Listen, so sometimes I make a payment of, might be $150. Sometimes it's $900. Like, Listen, if you're looking for a vacation,

come to Canada, commit a crime. I really feel like you would thrive in Canadian prison. They're looking for something to teach real estate courses right now, actually. I'm very popular. So, oh, God, listen,

it was so funny being in the medium. because guys would take my course and I mean we're talking about massive guys yeah it's foot two black guy veins ripped works out all the time guy I wouldn't even make eye contact with and I would be walking down the

you know walking towards the library or whatever and the guy would go hey Cox and I'd look up I'd be like yeah what's up you go good class last month last night and I'd be like yeah thanks thanks okay I'd be like oh my god what's happening Like, guys that are terrified are like, hey, Cops, man, I appreciate you last night.

That was a great, it was a good class. Or, hey, where can I get a book on this? And it's like, I'll get you one. Yeah, whatever you want, whatever you want. I take care of it. I hear you. Yeah. So, yeah, I was, I got lucky with the teaching real estate.

And I taught GED, which is for like high school equivalently. Yeah, we have something like that. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching. Do be a favor if you like the video, hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell so you get notified to videos just like this. Leave me a comment in the comment section. Also, check the description box.

We're going to have Slava's book. We're going to have the link to his, I'm sure they sell it on Amazon or wherever it's sold. Colby's going to put the link in there. Also, I have a Patreon account. My books are all for sale. I appreciate it. I appreciate you guys watching.

Thank you very much. See you. the book bad trip got what is it bad trips i went from a vice reporter to a international drug smuggler available now where you get books that's a good that's a good cover too i like the cover big fan yeah the the publishing team at dundered killed the production office honestly it was so cool because i wrote all of it in jail and then i like approved the cover in jail and i went through all the editor's notes on the phone like on the crappy little pay phone so the process was really cool it actually came out the day that I got rural okay nice I mean I it's funny because I wrote a book

about some um it's called Generation Oxy and it was the same thing it was you know the you know the problem is in federal prison I don't know how it is in Canada but in federal prison we have like a with a system called quarreling so you can email people back and forth but it's not like a normal email okay right so it's like they email to a a system you go on the system you get the or you know you get the email then you can respond to the email like it's very it's almost like a text system so can you imagine how frustrated the editor was he had to print out the entire book with the edits and everything i had to then go through and approve them or make notes send them back then he would send it back then it was just it was a

huge pain and that was i you know it was one book it was called generation oxy i got these guys in rolling stone magazine i got a book deal But, you know, the other books that I had, I wrote and then just waited until I got out of prison because, and it's funny, too, because I made, have made better money on Amazon than I made on the book that was on Barnes and Noble's shell. Really? Like, literally, I got like a $3,500 advance. And it wasn't until just recently that I started getting royalties, you know, because you have to pay back the advance first. Right. So probably six months ago, I.

I've got my first check and it was like $120 or something. It was like, wow, it would have been five years to pay the advance back. And then the ones you publish on Amazon, you don't go through a publisher. You just do those yourself, right? You just do it yourself. Yeah. Yeah, listen, there's a lot of really great stories in jail. Yeah, I was amazing.

Like, I would hear them and hear them and hear that. And I kept thinking, you know, why is it this a movie? Why have I never heard about this? But the truth is, let's face it, those guys, they can't write their own story. It's hard to write your, if you're a writer, it's hard to write your own story. It would be easier for me to write your story than for you to write it. You know, it's hard to kind of look at yourself. Like I literally would write several pages about myself because I also wrote a memoir about myself.

And I would write three pages. And then I'd go back and read it a couple days later. and I think that really has nothing to do with the overall arc of the story you just wrote that story because you wanted everybody to know

how clever you are that didn't really further the story like yeah the reader might think oh wow that's kind of interesting but the truth is that didn't help the story you could have done that in a paragraph so then I'd tear up three pages

and write a paragraph and just move on I mean, luckily... So how I'm going to take you to write the book that you wrote inside? On myself? No, the one that you wrote inside, you said it was the Oxy one, right? Right. Well, I wrote like five or six books on different guys. Okay.

So the book I wrote on myself probably took a year to write, and then another six months to rewrite multiple times. Right. The book I wrote on the OxyKit guys, I wrote that in about four months, three or four months. And that includes ordering the Freedom of Information Act in order to get like their transcripts, their police reports, because I had to do all that through the mail. You know, I couldn't email anything. So that and pretty much every book I wrote took between three to, four or five months

you know because but there's also like I said there's a lot of ordering documents and so it takes a lot they take long time and I understand most writers say like oh it takes about a year yeah mine took me nine months but I was like laser focused on that

where it was the only thing I was really doing I just buried myself in writing with the bachelor's well I still had kind of like a job like you have a job but it's not like you're working 40 hours a week in prison and no exactly you know so i'm sitting there with my legal pad writing scratching out writing sitting in a plastic chair in my room or sitting in the library with guys talking and you know just um but it's still

it's still i was still pretty fast i mean i i did have but like you said it was like the only thing i was really focused on doing i had a rule where it was i had to read i had to do two pages a day so it doesn't matter if they were good or bad or whatever whatever, I would handwrite out at least two pages of the book per day. And then when I would get to the computer later on in the week, because it was limited because I went in during COVID. So there is a bunch of really innate restrictions on stuff. So all these set amount of guys could be the library. So when I would go into the library, I would type up 10 of the pages I had handwritten. That was normally the ratio. And then as I was typing it, I would edit whatever I thought did

it really work in the handwritten. But I never really had an experience like you where I would I kind of go back to it and say it didn't further the story, so let me get rid of it. And I think a big part of that was because a lot of my story is not brand new. You know, it was told by somebody else first. So part of it is kind of like a course correction and giving my perspective on the established narrative, more so than like creating a new story, so speak. Well, you were also a professional writer. I was a professional writer for vice. That's right.

So it's kind of cool how that came about. I move to Toronto. let's do this I'm sorry because we got off like Colby will put this at the back we'll put the back of it so I'm sorry let me let me start with like just let's start at the beginning like you were you were born you were born in in where you're you're born in