Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Vice Reporter’s Descent into International Drug Trafficking

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

Slava Pastuk tells his story how he went from a Vice report to an international drug smuggler. Slava's Youtube channel: https://youtube.com/@SlavaP Slava's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Trips-Reporter-International-Smuggler-ebook/dp/B097QSQJBH Follow me on all socials! Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/matthewcoxitc Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxcrime Follow my 2nd channel - Inside The Darkness! https://www.youtube.com/c/InsidetheDarknessAutobiographies Want to be a guest? Send me an email here! [e-mail] Want a custom con man painting shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/insidetruecrime Get a painting by me. Checkout my link! https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart Listen to True Crime Podcasts anywhere! https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my prison story books here! https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Cox/e/B08372LKZG Support me here! Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69 Cashapp: $coxcon69

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That's a little too excited. Sorry! Smurfs. Only dinner's July 18th. 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. Yeah. 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 that? 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?

Right. And 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 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 program that they had where they wanted to start a TV channel, Weissland, right? So they entered into a public, a partnership with Rogers, which is like 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, the music editor. There is a tech editor. There is a news editor and some for the primary vertical of bytes. So they were just, I was part of the first boom of staffing for Vice Canada before the second boom before the Rogers partnership. Okay. So was the channel was just going to be about music or because I mean, obviously it's much a lot of crime and all kinds of stuff now. Like it's very true crime. Absolutely.

And 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 music vertical. So the music veritable was called Noisy. 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 Bice by this point. So I don't even know if Noisy exists. But pretty much I was in charge of, uh,

the music scene, but because I was in charge of the 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 vice just because. No, no, no, for vice. For a vice 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've 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. The team at Noisy, by the way, were like fantastic. We're the only people in the department where every one of us ended up with a book deal. So we had amazing writers and like very whip smart people, but the ceiling is just 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 if 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 what was me i don't understand listen okay what i don't understand is i this started as a story how did you make the leap to hey i'm going to go ahead and smuggle drugs because that was yeah because that was the story the story was that this is how it's done vice for vice always does the first person thing right and you i is right if you 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 smuggled 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. 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 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, rookie operation. Lo and behold, I go, again, no problems. Goes off without a hitch. Everything... Good a note?

Nope, no note for me. No note. But because of some things that happened, the person I was supposed to go with back. 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 into 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. Like 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. 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 um 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, you're 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'd 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 Toronto? Yeah, so, yeah, Sydney to Toronto, yeah. Okay, so how long, so are you 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 $5 note as a receipt and the serial numbers have to match. So the person in Australia, hey, so what did you

want to talk about. Well, I want to tell you about Wagovi. Wagovi? Yeah. Wagovi. What about it? On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you. Oh, you're not? No, just ask your doctor. About Wachovie. Yeah. Ask for it by name. Okay.

So, why did you bring me to the circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers. You know, with the chair and everything? Ask your doctor for Wagoe by name. Visit wagoe.combe.com for savings. Exclusions may apply. on Monday. Gym on Tuesday.

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I exams provided by independent optometrists. comes and takes your luggage, she gives you the $5 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 is a small city.

So my friend had gone, he came back, 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 vocus 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 I really because everybody's out now right like everybody did their time everybody was back by 29 seed um 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 it $15 Uber ride. He wanted to save $15. So instead of meeting at the hotel, they met at the airport and exchanged luggage. Incredible red flag. To anybody watching this, never exchanged luggage with anybody you just met at the airport. Right.

You will get flacked. And there's 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. She had an ID

that had her hair was like jet black. She changed it as a blonde and brown and goes and tries and 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 brought my, 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 tape. 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 over. Yeah. 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 Australia. All 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, uh, said, I told Vice that I was doing this. They conduct investigation. I get fired. Um, 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 it, I'm like, okay, there's probably a story coming. But like, what's the worst?

You'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.

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 I was running this through the aid of the company bytes, which isn't true. Again, 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 added connection because he was trying to get in touch with me through a music thing and funny enough my co-a-cues also worked at vice but we were not friends because we worked advice 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 uh and about four weeks later these individuals went 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 range telling a dramatic whatever um yeah I think it had legs so okay so your your picture but you wake up your picture back to you wake up your picture's on the front page or yeah you know and you're

not thrilled about that well how do you end up getting um arrested or indicted or i'm not sure exactly what the process is there right and 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, but when 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 Austria. 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 in my luggage so i don't know what they're talking about they didn't find any drug 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 used our real cell phones. There was actually 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. but that changed everything Now he's in evidence right But here's the craziest thing It's 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 talk to him? No No I've talked to a bunch of my co-defendants Yeah

So my co-defendants 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 no good time or gain time like in Canada yeah no no no no sorry the gain time is only like a hundred 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 April 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 US justice system back in the 60s and 70s where you it was you know you did you know at at one third year time you were eligible for parole whether or not you got it or not was they may not give it to you but

you know if you were a decent inmate you pretty much were guaranteed getting uh getting parole you know unless you got in there and you were like you've a bunch of fight you were in fights and the participating 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 third but have your two you're almost guaranteed to go out unless you're like a dangerous offender and you have to remember 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 um 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 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 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 besides you you you have to try you once you're done with like probation or parole you have to go to the government you have to kind of apply to get that right back that's crazy. I voted two times in jail. In jail.

In jail. Nobody would set up in jail. You could vote for Justin Trudeau in jail. Yeah, that's not happening. You had. So you were in there. So you got, so you didn't go to trial, though. No, I pled out. That's the thing. It's like, at the end of the day, I know what I did, right? Like, yeah. And ultimately, the risk is right in front of me. Like I said, my co-cues 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 like oh two thirds of 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 heman and hon he ended up not taking the plea he ends up taking his trial he tries to get this thrown out on um 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 his 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 and 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. 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 a hundred percent chance. You're just not, almost nobody goes to trial who's not,

who's guilty and he's found not guilty. Not in 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. Is it a difference which means state and federal how much time you receive? 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 significant amount of time in the federal system. Right. Because they have a much larger budget. 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 saying 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 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 were 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 at 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 express their grievances in minimum security jail in Canada. Wow, super passive, aggressive. Incredibly feminine. Like, 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 quite gendered traits, right? It's how 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 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. their whole life is based on people being respectful to one another because that's all they've got left that's right yeah um but the lower security that 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 what 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 Ferano you can 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 looked up and I'm like, oh, I hate it here. Like it's all like the end because pedophiles are not really criminals. If you know what I mean. Like, they don't have a seem understanding of breaking the rule.

You know how many times I've said that? I have said, these guys be 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,

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 Drag it. rolling those I think lights those fucking dice bro they kept me up all night that was the worst experience I had in jail is some nerds playing a board game um so I okay so I have a question so you wrote so you wrote your book would did you approach 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 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 humanized

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 uh 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 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 is the next step Like, what are your, 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. You said there's all these kind of interesting stories. What do you mean? With you or with people you met in prison, jail? Yeah, with people I met in jail. So there's like, 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 um 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 um 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 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 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 something happened in the back rooms with vice. 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.

I yeah I was going to say you know we before we were talking about about like publishing on Amazon so I have I'm sorry good 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 um 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 fucking 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 but 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 are five or ten of them that just hate my gut. So. For sure, but at least you have those 50. What if you did have those 50? What if you just had five or 10 and they all hate your guts?

Well, I would be okay with that as long as they were watching. You know, like, 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 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 uh 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's hopping 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 um yeah i was well i was going to say like i 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 6 or 7000 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 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, I'll watch anything with Vanity Arvus 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 know the total hole 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 mat the manuscript 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 he's 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 written a bunch, you'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 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 we remember too is Canada right like I'm in Canada. Warner 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. But 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 of crime. But 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. I'm not saying stop welding. I mean, you got to do so. 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 are no it's impossible yeah no and then that's definitely the goal is definitely to diversify 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 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,

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 Rostas 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 Yeah 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 9.9% 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, if I want to do something, I want it 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 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 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 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 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. I still have more time a month ago when we've played

or two, three weeks ago when we first started than 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 I was like, I don't know. I'll figure it. I don't remember. Great immigrant turned vice reporter turned international drugs. But we're out of 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 do 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,

this guy'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. I see 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. 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 gotten bumped up to plan A two or a they a way three but no I really I get what you're 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 even 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. 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 into that newsletter, which I again, think I can repurpose for YouTube content. And boom, you have. 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 to it commit 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 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? I just started 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 the videos the other day and I was like, I love that red. So I did a few videos like that. And then when I went to 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, but really it's a one, it's an efficiency with a, with 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 $700. And then it went to $1,200. And then it went to $2,200. And then it went to, so it's a solid paycheck. Yeah, that's what you've heard in Kremlin. from working like a $70,000 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 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, by the way, I might tell him something like, hey, we talked on camera. Can you put that part in the back? You know, and 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 went in? So how did you hear what? 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. I'm like, yeah, what's up? And they're like, yo, you got to talk to my sally. I just got to sell it like a week ago. And I'm like, well, what is it? Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking?

By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you open select small business banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business. visit td.com slash small business match to learn more conditions apply 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 a 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, having 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 transcript, start ordering this. Keep in mind, I still have stories. I have like three stories right now that 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 finding new ideas. But yeah, 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. And I feel like now I really do have to consider 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 did get optioned as well.

I think I can reveal that. Like there is something coming. 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. Right. Yeah, again, like let's, 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 characters, the whole music aspect. 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 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 uh it's for me to do it so it just would not have been worth my time but 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 are 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 said you got a 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 week 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 the dream I'm working with a publisher and they have to work through with Canada to do all that stuff like we they actually got a grant from the government to write this funny enough uh 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 20 30 then

no i'm um i get off i got about 18 more months okay and what do you you just have to be able the parole officer every month? I don't. 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. Oh, you do restitution payment. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we don't have those in Canada. Oh, that's nuts. That's unfair.

Yeah. Yeah, I... You can't do that, yeah. Oh, my God. Listen, so sometimes I make a payment of, might be $150. Sometimes it's $900. Like...

Listen, if they're looking for a vacation, come to Canada, commit a crime. I really feel like you would thrive in Canadian prison. we're they're looking for something to teach real estate courses right now actually i'm very popular um so uh oh god listen it was so funny being in 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 thanks okay I'd be like oh my God what's happening like guys that are I'm terrified are like hey Cox man I I appreciate you last night that was a great 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 think care of it I hear you yeah so yeah I was I got I got lucky with the teaching real estate. And I taught GED, which is the for like high school equivalent. 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 of 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, you know, the link to his, I'm sure they sell it on Amazon or wherever it's sold. We're going to, 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 ya.

The book. Bad Trip. Got live. What is it? Bad Trips. I went from a vice reporter to a international drop smuggler. Available now where you get books. That's a good cover too. I like the cover.

Big fan. Yeah. The publishing team has under killed the production office. Honestly, it was so cool because I wrote all of it in jail, and then I, like, approved the cover of jail, and I went through all the editor's notes on the phone, like on the crappy little paid phone. So the process was really cool. It actually came out the day that I got rural.

Okay. Nice. I mean, it's funny because I wrote a book about some, it's called Generation Oxy, and it was the same thing. It was, you know, the problem is in federal prison, I don't know how it is in Canada, but federal prison, we have like a system called Quarling. 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 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 him back, then he would send it back, then it was a huge pain. And that was, I, you know, there 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 got my first check and it was like $120 or something. It was like, wow, it had 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. No. Yeah, listen, there's a lot of really great stories in jail. it yet I was amazing like you I would hear them and hear them and hear that I and I kept thinking you know why is it this a movie why is 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's easier 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'd think that really has nothing to do with the overall, you know, arc of the story. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you no matter the size.

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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 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, of four or five months, you know, because, but there's also, like I said, there's a lot of ordering documents and, um, so it takes a lot, they take a long time. And I understand most writers say like, oh, it takes about a year. Yeah, mine took me nine months, but I was, uh, like wazer focused on that where it was the only thing I was really doing. I had 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.

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, it's just, but it's still, it's still, I was still pretty fast. I mean, 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. 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's 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 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. 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 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 this at 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. You.