The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Bank Robber & Porn Star Describes Doing 9 Years In An Ultra Violent Federal Prison | Ep #14

Episode Date: December 11, 2022

Youtube celebrity Big Herc joins the show to talk about his life in the 90's adult film scene, robbing a bank and taking the cops on an insane high-speed chase, and then spending the next 9 years inside one of the most violent federal prisons in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And we were on the freeway. It was raining, a ton of cops, helicopters. They eventually threw a spike strip. And he rode on rims until the car was basically, wouldn't go no more. And the driver pulled over. I was in the back seat. I jumped out the car, jumped over a center divider on the 101, ran across like four or five lanes of traffic,

try to run up an embankment. And I was looking for somewhere to hide. I was coming down the stairs when, day and this guy was laying on the ground. They had stabbing with a chicken bone and he was bleeding. He looked at me, but what can I do? You know what I mean? If I stop, I'm a co-conspirator. What's up you guys? Welcome back to The Connect. My name is Johnny Mitchell. As always, make sure to like, subscribe, turn on notifications, follow us on Patreon. Patreon. Patreon.com slash The Connect show. You guys, it's cooking. We're putting so much bonus content out there. It's

amazing. All the stuff we can't show you on YouTube. which, you know, of course, they make it kind of difficult these days to monetize. So the best way you can support the show if you love the show is by going to patreon.com slash the Connect show. We got live zooms, bonus episodes behind the scenes footage when we go to our travel episodes. So it's really great. Love to have you. Today's episode is with my man Big Herk.

He's got an amazing YouTube channel. You've got to go check out. He spent nine years in prison for bank robbery. and he's just an amazing guy and he's got some crazy-ass stories from being in the joint. I know you're going to enjoy it. All right, let's get into it.

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You look good, man. You still got your prison swole, I see. You didn't lose that. You know, I got to stay healthy, man. It's working out in the cocoa butter. Oh, is that what it is? I the cocoa butter not to get gross right away but I put that on my my unit you know my swipe my cock and it it like repairs it after like a real hard jerk session the cocoa butter on the penis hey man I coco butter keeps the stretch marks away that's it that's it that's it I think that's like a bill burr joke bill burr like comedian he's like yeah people are always like how to black don't crack. He's like, yeah, it's, they moisturize. They use lotion. There's no secret to it. You know, it's how your dick's smooth? Yeah, it's because you put lotion on it. Which I love, which is like,

yeah, that's why black people age well. They just skin care. That's all it is, you know? That's all it is, man. It's the oil. Um, dude, so we were talking about, uh, well, there's so much to get into, first of all, like, I love your channel. Uh, I think your content's super i mean it's very like super prison specific you know um but it's like it's really you're doing something different than these other channels so very very flattered you would come on i appreciate it man um yeah i don't have the prison swall anymore though dude i i lost it i was the hottest the best looking i've ever been fresh out of the joint i mean i'm six foot six but i was like two 15 i was just fucking working out. Literally four times a day, I had my prison car, you know, car that I was

rolling with, fucking three square meals, pure protein and carbs, and I was just jacked. Now my girlfriend, she like wants me to go back to prison so I could be hot again. You know what I mean? I just lost it all. Oh, shit. You know? So what does that say, man? Got to go to prison to get big. What's, uh, so let's just start at the beginning. You're from San Francisco. Sacramento. You were born in Sacramento originally. Born in Sacramento originally, and then my stepdad was in the military, the Coast Guard. So that's how I ended up in the Bay Area living on Treasure Island.

Treasure Island is what? Treasure Island is a military base. It used to be a military base. And before that, it was where they had the World's Fair. It's a little island in the middle of the Bay Bridge. When you drive across the Bay Bridge, you see that little island. Yeah. That used to be a military base.

Oh shit. And it was the World's Fair back in the day. So if you look at Ironman, remember Ironmen? Remember Iron Man they were talking about back in the day, the big World's Fair and stuff? That's where they used to have the World's Fair at on Treasure Island before it became a military base. And now I think they're turning it into luxury homes. They're going to have like million dollar homes with boats and shit around there. Wow.

Of course, right? Yeah. That's all, that's what San Francisco's becoming. Yeah. Yeah. Rich Man's Haven. It's like. It's that. All San Francisco is now is just like wild luxury, stupid money. And then Chinatown, right? Old Chinese people that have not sold their buildings. And then a couple of projects. Right. Still have like Hunter's Point and like maybe a few scattered like hoods, you know.

Yeah. Phil Moore, Sunnyvale. Right. I'm talking about in San Francisco. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely changed. the mission, is the mission still hood or is that all gentrified too? The mission, I'm not sure. I know Petroa Hill, you know, they, you know, try to buy up a lot of that. I don't know how Third Street is if that's still, I mean, when I was younger, Third Street was crazy. Tenderloin is out of control. Yeah.

Drug addicts everywhere, just filthy. Yeah. Polk Street. I don't know if that's still crazy, but that was kind of like, you know, kind of grimy when I was a kid. Right. But, you know, then you have Pacific Heights, which was nice. Right.

And then some of the other areas, you know, but the crime out there, man, it's just, it's everywhere now. I mean, you know, it used to be isolated, but, you know, it's kind of spread out, man, which is sad for San Francisco. Yeah, you can't even go. You can't even park your car if you're a tourist, like in a rental car, like especially on like the Embarcadero. They'll just smash your window, you know. Yeah, I go once a year to Monterey, and Monterey Carmel, they've kept that pretty much secured. I mean, you don't want to mess around. They don't play over there.

I mean, the richest people in the country live there. But it's like its own little world, but you go outside of that, like Santa Cruz, San Jose, I mean, all those places are open season. Yeah, for sure, for sure, which is so weird because the richest people live in that area, but it's their kind of like phony liberalism that's allowed for all of this crime to eventually like turn on them. You know what I mean?

Well, it's funny because like you said, the liberalism of what they preach, but they live conservative. They like their shit secured. They want this and that, but then they say oh, that's racist, but it doesn't make sense when you look at what's going on in other communities.

I mean, it's out of control, man. I don't I don't get it, man. I really, you know, I don't understand the mentality behind, you know, just the looting and, you know, it's cool to steal from everybody. Well, when you don't have to live it, it's easy to like, you know, it's easy to say those kind of things, right? It's like everybody, you know, I grew up as a rich white kid or, you know, well off in Portland. And just like every liberal kid in their teenage years, you like pray to Chairman Mao and you're like, it'd be, better if we had socialism and communism because you never have to fucking face the consequences of that shit you know what i mean black people brown people people in the ghetto they want more cops

they want police because they have to suffer day to day like the consequences of like crime you know well you know within the black community i mean there's a lot of people waking up now but the mentality is that we turn a blind eye for you know we turn a blind eye for to crime on ourselves. But if it's a white cop that does something, oh, God forbid, that guy, you know, he's out of pocket, which, okay, I understand, you know, you have an oath to uphold the law

and you shouldn't be racial. But the most crime that is perpetrated on other blacks is black on black. Yeah. I mean, dude, the threat of black on black, I mean, growing up, I mean, that was my, I've never worried about skinheads, cops. I mean, you know, you heard little things, but it was mainly the people I got in fights with when I was a kid 15, 16, 17, 18 with all black guys.

And so this was in Hunter's Point, where you... No, this was in Sacramento. This is when I was going to high school. I went to high school in Sacramento, I went to high school in Sacramento, and they moved to Orange County to move back to Sacramento. But when I was living in Sacramento, I mean, predominantly most of crime with black on black, because gang banging was really big, fighting in the clubs and stuff like that. I mean, but it wasn't, it was never like racial. I never really had any issues with white people. Oh my God, you know, trying to get me on the street.

I never had that type of fear. I didn't grow up like that. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would imagine, especially in the 80s, it's like black on black gang banging, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely, that was.

And then, you know, when you're young, you don't really understand. And I mean, I used to hear things from older people like, you know, watch your company. you keep and, you know, beware of your friends. But when you're young, you don't really see that. You kind of feel like you're indestructible and you figure like, hey, man, this is, you know, it is what it is. But I can see now just the ignorance, you know, because it's just perspective. But that all come good age. What kind of foolishness, like, were you getting into, like, criminal activity in your teenage years?

Yeah, yeah, man. I mean, you know, just shootouts. I mean, I went to see what was. Was it minister society? Yeah. And a guy got in, we fighting in a theater, pitched black. I mean, people getting busted upside the head. And this is right after I graduated high school in Huntington.

And I wanted to move back to Sacramento because I want to be around my friends I grew up with. And, man, it just was all bad, man. A guy pulled out of Uzi or a guy hit me. We got into a big fight. guy pulled out of Uzi, shot a bunch of people, high-speed chase. Luckily, I didn't get hit, but that was like the start of my summer. And then from there, it just kind of perpetuated into bad choices, just getting into stuff every weekend. I mean, we were whaling out.

I mean, me and my friends, we, you know, we thrived on, you know, getting into shit. And, you know, eventually that led to me getting caught up with a home invasion when I was 18 with another guy, giving a guy a ride and I caught a case when I was 18 and a guy told and I'd give him a ride and I ended up doing two years, eight months for that case. Where? And I did, I caught that case in Sacramento and I ended up doing, I went to the California Youth Authority, which was like gladiator school back then. Right.

And then I ended up going to fire camp. And so I was in fire camp up north in Washington Ridge. And then while I was there, I pretty much stayed out of trouble, got in the bodybuilding, and kind of like just did time. I mean, back then it wasn't like you had an OG to kind of give you game like in the penitentiary where you got an older guy that kind of takes you under his wing. But, you know, so in there I just kind of did my time and then I got out and was still kind of wasn't very mature as far as, you know, as an adult.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's not real time. That's not real like prison time. That's just going through the system almost. Like when you're in CYA and then you go to like a camp.

You're not really going to learn your lesson probably unless you have like a good. There's nobody there to talk to. Right. Right. Right. You know, it wasn't until I got to the feds and I met a guy 20 years my senior. and he really pointed out some things, which may be reflect. I mean, at 20, I don't even know if you're capable of reflecting at 18, 19, 20, 21.

Right. What do you reflect on second grade? Yeah. You know, there's no time. Yeah, you're so fucking young. What, how did you, what led you, I guess, to, you know, the bank robbery that eventually, you know, got you locked up in the feds? Like, were you involved? Were you actively robbing banks?

Were you selling dope? Like, were you living crime? Or was it just a couple of isolated choices? Well, you know, leading up to that, I always tell people you don't wake up one day and decide to rob a bank. You have to have built up a certain type of mind frame, whether it's through other criminal activity that gave you kind of like the sense of, you know, this is normal so that you entertain something like that. So prior to that, I was doing adult movies. So I was doing that. And then on the weekend, sometimes I had to go and pull a lick.

You know what I mean? Go, go, you know, try to find somebody to rob, do something out of town, come back. You know, I was living a double life. I was still, I was doing adult movies, but I was still a gangster in the street. I mean. Hang on. Can we just let me ask you about that. What, were you acting in adult movies or were you producing them?

How are you? Oh, yeah, I was, I've got probably over. I don't know, three, like 400 movies to my credit. So I would do a movies. Can we find those? Have you uploaded? I mean, I haven't done them in years, but there's, you know, there's some classics. I mean, that's kind of like, you know, when I went through YA, the California Youth Authority, my, you know, all I did with the, you know, I missed that whole window.

So all I did was look at, you know, a hustler, you know, adult magazines. I'm like, when I get out, I'm going to be rich. I'm just going to, you know, have sex or there. all the women and make a bunch of money, then I found out you don't make no money. You're broke. Right. But I got into the industry thinking, hey, man, I was going to, you know, I was going to sling pipe, man, and I was going to be the hammer man? When you were in, when you were in Y.A., the Youth Authority, was everybody just like, dude, you got a cock for porn, man. Well, you know, we had this one guy that worked there, and he was cool, and he used to sneak in magazines and pass, let guys look at magazines.

So my mentality was all, man, I'm going to be a bodybuilder slash porn star. You know, I'm looking at these different little pictures. I'm like, I can do this, you know, I'd get out. And so when I got out, I went and moved to Southern California. And I found one of little back in there, they had the LA Weeklys. Remember the LA Weekly? Of course, yeah. I found a little ad.

And I went to a studio, a little creepy studio off of Santa Monica Boulevard. And met this guy who was one of the agents back then. And that started my, you know, a porn career after I got my first call. And, you know, I was this young guy, 21, hadn't had sex for, what, since I was 18. So, you know, I was trying to make it for lost time. But. Oh, yeah. I realized very quickly you can't live off your, you can't live off your cock.

You know, you got to do something. It's not enough money. Right, right, right. Yeah, exactly. I bet you were just drowning bitches, though. Oh, man, I was beating them down. The penitentiary beat down. For sure.

For sure, dude. Oh, my guy. You need to sell that as merch. You need to sell your old DVDs, your old VHS tapes, dude, for your Patreon members. Oh, that's hysterical, bro. God damn it. Oh, yeah. Well, you don't get paid shit in porn as a man.

That's a little secret. You get no residuals either. I mean, you do all this work, and then you get your little, 100, 150 sometimes, you know, when you first start or 300 bucks, and that's it. Yeah. You know, you got on to the next one. Yeah, but nobody wants to talk about how men are exploited in porn. Do they hurt?

Nope. No. Where's our means? You're a prop. Yeah, exactly. You really are, dude. You really are. You're just a, yeah, totally.

You're just a placeholder for that big dick. And back then, there was no performance enhancement. Right. Oh, my God. I would have been screwed, dude. Dude, you had to go hard. I mean, your reputation rested on your cock. One bad day on the set, you might not get no more work.

Right. You're like, dude, I was nervous. There was a gaffer who was like pointing at his watch. Like, hey, I'm trying to go lunch. Hey, imagine you're trying to put down, you're trying to put down a major demonstration. And then you've got a guy on the side who's hoping you fail. He's the backup coxman. Right.

So he's looking and if there's a time frame, and these guys, back then they had the big cameras. The big cameras with all the crew and they're like, oh, man, you know, are you all right? And you're like thinking, oh, my God, am I all right? Come on, please. Right. He's like a guy on the bench. He's like a rookie in the NBA on the bench just hoping that fucking, hoping the guy, the starter gets injured. He's on the, he's like, put me in, dude.

It's rough, man. It was rough back then, man. Yeah, now you could just, dude, now, I mean, you could just jerk off into a camera and make $100,000 a day. I mean, it's just silly how much money, porn stars, you can't even call it porn stars, just cam people in general. Yeah, yeah, the cam game, it changed. It changed the way things are done. And then, you know, it's just a different now. It's a different, it's not like porn stars.

It's back then you had, you know, these girls who were like really stars. I mean, literally, you go to Vegas and adult conviction. I mean, it looked crazy, man. There was lines around the casino back then. Right. Just to meet these. Dude, it was crazy to meet them because you couldn't see them anywhere. These girls, I mean, everything was DVD.

Right. And these women had fan bases. I mean, it was like, you know, this was right after the Tracy Lord's era. So, I mean, it was still, these girls were celebrities. Did you, who was the most famous chick that you were in a scene with? I don't matter shit it's hard to say man I mean I worked for like

I worked for I worked for vivid video team Anabolic Some of the bigger companies I mean I've met a bunch of people on a set Ike Turner I remember doing a porn He was kicking it on the set No way

Yeah he before he died Back in the day The guy one of the guys that worked for He used to have ICE to shoot for yellow back then from NWA used to have a own porn company. He used to have a lot of girls around. I mean, it was the heyday. It was a heyday.

Yeah, it was like the golden era, man, because that's when the internet had just started with the porn sites. Yeah. So, you know, there wasn't really that mass distribution of where you can pop it up on your phone. I mean, you know, that was next-tail phones back then. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it was.

But I remember doing the craziest place. I can't remember the girl, but the craziest place was probably, we did a shoot one time in a grocery store. Oh, nice. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, grocery store. That was pretty crazy. And then we did one at a, we did one on a construction site, and we did one at a jump site where a girl jumped site where a girl jumped out of an airplane, a porn star, landed from parachuting.

And she had sex right there outside on the jump site. I mean, that's that, that creativity. The creativity. back then was way surpassed what they have now. Because if you're going to do it, you're going to do it big. Because only you can't just shoot a porn by the pool. I mean, anybody can do it now is my point. Then it was like kind of a, it was more of an art back then.

Let's be honest. Well, I actually did one. They called it Maverdick, where I was a cowboy. So I had a acting scenes. I had a little scene, a couple of scenes in there. And that was my first big. It was like actually a movie. You know, and it was pretty crazy, man.

But, yeah, like you said, it was costumes. Yeah. It wasn't just show up in your sweatpants. You know, you actually, you know, it was out of ranch in Malibu. And I remember we stayed at the ranch, man. And that was like my first big scene. And I was young. I mean, you know, 21.

I mean, it was pretty crazy, man. But, yeah, that was one of the bigger scenes back then. So you're already working in kind of a nefarious, you know, dubiously legal industry, right? So you would go out of town on the week, as you said, and pull licks. And for, you know, the dorks listening, a lick is a come-up, right? So what did that look like? What was a lick for you?

You know, usually they weren't, you know, it wasn't nothing major, but, you know, I had some people out of town and they would try to set stuff up. So I was already kind of like tapping into, like, said an energy that wasn't very well balanced. So my mentality was like, okay, I'm willing to take these chances. And so by being involved in that, the transition into a bank ride, which, you know, I hadn't robbed any bank before. And I didn't even know these guys that well like that. I mean, I met these guys. One of them was an agent in the industry. And he got me work. You know, he got me a couple gigs. I mean, I went to Japan through him and I did a bunch of other

scene. So I made money with this guy, but the bank robbery thing was totally out of, it was out of pocket. So for him to bring that up, it was just a bad move. But I entertained it, man, because of my mentality. You know, I would just, you know, when you're not really thinking and you're on that bad path, man, it's easy to entertain dumb shit. Especially when you're around, as you said, that energy, those kind of people that, you know, don't have the strongest, whatever, moral compass. So were you were you robbing people when you went out of town? This is before the bank robbery. Like were you with these home invasions? Okay. And a couple times. Not home invasions, but like this other licks. You know, somebody would be like, hey, man, this dude right here, he owed me this or he did

this. And so, you know, I was the muscle. I would come through and, you know, Asple, you know, you was like brute force. I was a pretty big dude. So, you know, I would be involved in kind of mussel and dudes out. And by doing that, like I said, I still have one foot in the streets, which was, you know, which was not good. Yeah. You know, I hadn't, I hadn't really, I didn't have any, besides doing adult movies, I didn't really have any real direction.

I didn't have any five-year plan. It wasn't like I had a sculpted out, you know, lay out of where I wanted to be in the future. So I was getting into shit still, man. I mean, and before I moved, before I was doing that, you know, I was selling a lot of drugs. I said so, you know, I was involved in the Wii game and some other stuff and, you know, and some MF. And so I was already, like I said, when you're around that element, those people, all that stuff, it leaves, it leaves like an essence on you. So you can't, like, that's always told people, man, if you're messing with somebody who's involved in that scene, you can't have one foot in, one foot out. You got to cut that crowd off. You got to go somewhere else.

So that was the big thing. I hadn't cut. I was still tied into people that weren't. weren't in my best interest in that, you know, I kept making bad decisions in the process. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Were you, so were you like collecting for drug dealers? Like would they send you out? I would do collections or like if somebody owed somebody, I would, I would go extract that cash for them. Just, you know, things that, like other guys, if they needed somebody to come in and take care of it, I was willing to do that, you know, maybe get recognizance if somebody I watched somebody for 24 hours and just like follow somebody and see where they're going. Wow.

You know, all that type of stuff. You know, I could lay in some bushes for a couple hours and just watch somebody and see what time they left their house, what time they showed up. Right, right. Because you need somebody to do that. That's the grunt work of crime, you know. Yeah. And I had this that mentality, man.

I don't know. I couldn't imagine entertaining it now. But, you know, at the time, I was like, I felt like, you know, in public, I could be one person and then behind closed doors, I could be another person. And that's what that's what kept me kind of like in that element. And, you know, now I look back, I don't even know that person, but I've been there. You know, that's why I laugh at a lot of these guys when they, you know, think they're gangster or this and that. I'm like, dude, and it's, and it's nothing to brag about, but I've been, I've been in the thick of some serious shit. And it's like, you know, I'm not glad,

but the way this all came out, it was, I'm glad I'm able to kind of be who I am. today. For sure, for sure. Prison probably did that. It was probably a good thing for you. Yeah, man. I mean, I don't know if I could have found the mentor that I found in prison on the street. I mean, it's hard to find those type of people that it give you the time of day on the street. So in prison, when you have to really sit down, and if you ever talk to somebody who had five lives in 100 years, you'll think, dude, five lives in 100 years. That's what my sellie, Herk, Myselli at the Two Rivers Correctional Facility in Eumatilla, Oregon, he had basically that. He had 500 years.

He showed me his paperwork. And I just like, it made me sick. It made me sick because like, I don't know. It was just like, you know, this wasn't like a serial killer. He just was a hell's angel biker guy. And he like, I don't know, he caught a couple of bodies, which is like, you know, I get you can't run around doing that. just the inhumanity of it was, it was like surreal, you know. Memorial Day weekend is almost here, and it's time to kick off summer right.

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Drink responsibly must be 21. Well, the people think like the game, especially a lot of youngsters, you see them with the guns on IG and social media, they think this is a joke like, oh, I just killed that dude, so what? But you got to remember, that's energy you're taken from the world. And they're the consequence to that energy.

that person has a family he's been on the earth for so many years there's that's you're weighing out some serious shit but you don't think about that while you're doing it oh man I used to roll around with a 380 you know under my seat you know I was like if somebody you know I wasn't even thinking

about not on a carmatic energy but just on universal energy so these kids are so so unvolved that they don't realize that when you kid when you shoot her if you kill two or three people and you think that there's nothing to come from that, dude, you have no

idea. Yeah. Even if they are involved in the gang, you know, a fellow gang member or whoever the case may be, man. That's, that's serious shit, man. I never really thought about that until I started really reading spiritual stuff and meditating and learn about like Buddha and, you know, Hinduism and all these different religions and spirituality, man. It just put another perspective. So did tell me about the bank? robbery. This is the big fall. How did that play out? Well, I guess one of the guys in the industry, you know, I had an idea. He's like, hey, man, I know, you know, you do a lot of stuff in the streets, blah, blah, blah. I got this idea to rob this bank. You know, there's some banks that's one.

These banks are very secure. You can do this and that. This is about how much money. And it wasn't even a bunch of money. I mean, you know, 100,000, $100,000, $120,000 is not really a lot of money. But, you know, when you're young and you're thinking about risk versus reward, you entertain it. So he came up with an idea, and then he invited another guy, which was his neighbor in the apartment he lived in in Hollywood to get involved. And so the three of us got together, playing out this bank robbery. And in the process, you know, there were little things that I saw that were warning sides, but I ignored him. And one of the biggest was when we first went to go look at the potential bank to be robbed,

these guys are in the car. I'm in the back seat. And the guy, his neighbor who he got involved in the bank robbery, he wanted to pull over and get some chocolate. So this guy's arguing about pulling over to get chocolate because he said it helps him think better. And the other guy is saying, no, we're not going to pull over because we don't want to be on camera over here before the incident, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And he's like, God damn, pull over, I want to get some chocolate. I need to go in this gas station to get some chocolate. These guys are arguing over chocolate like something from a Pulp Fiction movie. Totally. And I'm going to back. see, you know, like, like, Redsboro Dogs, like, what the hell he does? I mean, yeah, this is like, I have no business messing with these dudes, man. But, you know, here it is right here. They're arguing over chocolate before planning a bank robbery. Right. Well, this is not alpha brain boys. Joe Rogan

is not started that company yet. Yeah. So that was the first sign. Yeah, sure. And so. It's funny you bring up Pulp Fiction, too, because you look like Ving Rames, a Pulp Fiction. Yeah, that was the first sign. And then, you know, as we got closer to the bank robbery and, you know, planning the second car, getting all the stuff we needed for the robbery, the morning of the robbery, it was a very dreary day, overcast, rain. And early in the morning, and my mom calls, she never called me. It's like 7 o'clock in the morning.

She's like, what are you doing? And so I'm sitting here in this Army fatigue outfit. it like, you know, getting ready, waiting for these guys to come pick me up. And I'm like, that was like a sign from the universe that, hey, man, you know, what are you doing? Yeah. Your mom called you and she's kind of like reaching out.

Some energy told her to call. She never called me that early. You know, we're talking about the bachelor. Oh, did you watch The Bachelor last night, season one, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we're talking. And I'm sitting there like, damn, man, you know. And I'm looking around my apartment.

I'm living off of, you know, Beverly, Glenn, and Pico. I was in a very, you know, pretty nice neighborhood. Yeah, I know that area. I'm thinking like, damn, you know, this could be the last time I see this place. And, you know, when I went out to get in a car instead of, you know, instead of really manning up and saying, you know what, dude, I'm cool. I got in a car against my better judgment, man. And, you know, you could feel the energy.

It's like you were on autopilot, but it's not a good feeling. You know, anything that you feel like that, you shouldn't be doing. Right. And I could feel it in my chest. I can feel it in my gut. And when we pulled up to the bank, it was just dead silence on the way up there. It was just a very eerie feeling.

Nothing like in the movies, you know, the town or whatever you want, all these different gangster movies. And we pulled up and we're sitting there and we got our straps and we pull up. And it's one of those banks that, you know, you can pull one side or you can go around and pull around the other side. And I'm like thinking there's like seconds. I don't know how long it was. And then I said, F it.

I just jumped out, pulled out my ski mask, and ran up in there. And then the other guy ran behind me. So I initiated, you know, ran up in there. But, you know, it was just a, it was all bad, man. And like I said, when I think back to them, it's like, I played in slow motion, how it all played out in the energy and stuff, man. It's just like it was, I don't know. I mean, to be able to share that now, a lot of people don't put that into perspective.

but, you know, while you're in there, you see all the stuff go down in slow motion, people screaming, this and that, and security guard. I mean, I could have been shot. And then I see a cop in the distance, like a sheriff in the rain suit. I'm looking at my peripheral, and I see him with a shotgun while my co-defendant is over-the-counter trying to get the money. I see the cops. They're already in the parking lot.

Oh, my God. So I'm like, this is all bad, man. I can see it. I'm like, I'm telling him to come on, and I'm looking at the clock, and he's still. over there messing around trying to get the money. And how I said, dude, let's out. How are you guys planning on getting the money out of the safe?

Well, you know, through the strong arm, you know, jump over, open a save, you know, put the gun to them, you know what I mean? And do it the old school way. It wasn't like, you know, there was any serious, you know, equipment being involved. involved. It's basically, you know, the cash drawer, you got the cast drawers or you got to drop and

you're trying to get the bag and basically you want something that doesn't have a, uh, the ink, the ink pads in them. And, you know, you're trying to grab that and get out. And so, you know, um, why did your co-dees, sorry, why did your co-defendants think this was a good bank to Rob? Like, why do they select this? You know what? I had, I hadn't really even thought about that. I don't know if because they thought it was out and about, wasn't in LA. It was on the outskirts. so maybe it was more laid back, but not knowing Ventura County has more resources, a lot of cops because they're, you know,

they don't want to be like L.A., so they're ready for shit like this. So that, you know, it was just all bad, man. And like I said, when you're in a certain state of mind, you entertain dumb shit. It's like you don't think about like all the different consequences or ways this can go bad. I mean, luckily nobody got, I mean, somebody did get hurt.

You know, my co-defendant, he, he hit somebody with the gun. and, you know, but nobody got shot, nobody got killed. But if any of that would have happened, man, I'd still be in a penitentiary. Yeah, for sure. You know, I mean, I was still being, I've seen guys in there, you know, still because it went all bad and somebody got shot. But yeah, man, I mean, you know, we ran out of the air. We ran and jumped back in the car. And soon as we left, when we turned to leave the bank to head on the main street,

I don't know if it was luck of the draw of the cop or this timing, but a cop pulled right behind. us and as we pulled out he bumped us and so the cop bumped us and we looked at our river mirror three black guys and it was on he turned his lights on we we high-speed chase man and um it was it was crazy man that whole morning it was just a weird it's all bad man i mean you know so we we got chased by that cop pulled into a a parking lot he got out drew his gun we're in like a a four-door Ford escort. And he's telling us to get out the car. We're like, damn, man, it's already over.

And we had another car parked like a couple parts of streets away, but we didn't want to go straight there just because we don't want to bring the cops here. So the code of the guy, the driver, gunned it, drove past the cop, looked that he didn't shoot. We drove into the other spot, switched cars. We got into a Lincoln Navigator. And as we pulled out the Lincoln Navigator, they had already now, kind of swarmed the area. So as we pulled out, naturally, early in the morning,

it's pretty obvious. I can see this car pull out. It's not in place. So they started following us in the Lincoln Navigator. And we were on the freeway. It was raining, a ton of cops, helicopters. They eventually threw a spike strip. And we rode on rims until the car was basically,

wouldn't go no more. And the driver pulled over. I was in the back seat. jumped out the car, jumped over a center divider on the 101, ran across like four or five lanes of traffic, try to run up an embankment, and I was looking for somewhere to hide, and eventually they rested me on Ventura on the beach boardwalk.

Eight cops told me to get on the ground. Wow. You know, so I just got, I laid on the ground. I looked out at the ocean, and that was the last I saw the ocean for almost nine years. What were you, how long were you out running before they got you? I don't know, man, it was a blur. I don't even know how I got across the freeway. I mean, dude, it was traffic, morning traffic.

Commuter traffic, I ran across freeway. I could have been smacked. Right, for sure, for sure. You know, it was rain, man. I don't even know how I did it, but there's a picture of me in the paper where I'm, like, jump and look like I'm walking in the air, and I'm running across the freeway. Yeah. And I ran up an embankment, and it's like, what's happening so quick, my mind is, like, racing,

and I couldn't find me where there's nowhere to hide. And so by the time I got there, they had, I mean, there was, I don't know, there's probably 50, 100, a lot of cops. I mean, they were all over the freeway that already made like an area on the back street. So they were everywhere. And they were like probably, when I got stuff, when they told me to get on the ground, there were probably like 10, 15 cops. And so I just laid down, man, put my hand behind my back, wasn't trying to be a tough

guy and fight and this and that. I just laid there, man. And that was it. Did you make the news? Oh, man, it was all over the news. Yeah. It was all over the news. That thing was like, it was crazy, man.

It was just like, it was a horrible day, man. I mean, how do you tell your mom you try to rob a bank or tell your, you know, your girlfriend or your friends? You know what I mean? It's like your life is over. That's it. It's a rap. You're not getting bail, you know. They didn't give you a bail?

Nah, it's federal. You know, I mean, there's federal. And they said you were a flat risk or threat to society. So, you know, it's not like these kids now. they're getting out with, you know, gun charges. They're going right back to the street, man. Back, you know, no, you're staying your ass in jail. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I didn't have bail either. They caught me with a bunch of cash and they were like, this guy's just going to get on a jet and, you know, fly to fucking Barbados or something like that. He's not coming back to court. And you know what? Looking back, that's exactly what I was going to do.

Damn, dude. So, all right. So your life. locked up in Ventura County. You know you're getting charged in federal court. This is a bank robbery. What did they, what did they throw at you? Well, I didn't know initially because I was going to, we were going to try to say,

because we didn't get caught any money. We left, we left some of the stuff in the other getaway cars. So we were going to try to make it feel like there was another group of guys. I mean, I was, I was going to tell my, let's make up a story. Right. But little did I know the guy who jumped over, who jumped over the counter in the bank, he had gave up like a hundred-page discovery of everything that happened. But then when I seen him, when we're getting transported from Ventura to MDCLA,

he said, oh, man, I didn't say anything. So I'm thinking, oh, this guy didn't say nothing. So, you know, we're kicking in. I'm buying him food. I'm getting a little bit of money sent to my books. And then when I get the discovery from my public pretender, I'm like, damn, this dude, told him, I said, dude, why do you tell me? He's like, man, I'm sorry, blah, blah, blah.

So the irony in this is that this guy, he had a deal for seven years. He'd never been in no trouble. I had a juvenile record. He was going to get a seven-year deal. He felt so bad that he tried to say he made up the story that he gave the cops with the trial. And he got like 14 years. Wow. How?

How? Because he went back on his testimony? He tried to go. They offered him a deal. And he went to trial because he didn't know the law. He was, you know, my co-defendants were both, were African. One was from Cameroon and the other ones from Nigeria, but they had been living in the United States. But he went back and tried to, because he felt so bad for telling that he tried to go back and, you know, think that he was going to make, say that he made it all up.

But it was, he went to trial, man. And he got, he got 14, 15 years. And he went crazy in prison. Stop showering. stop talking to people. Literally, he lost his mind. His skin broke out. He had like pock marks on his skin, black marks.

I mean, dude, he went crazy, man. This dude, and he was a, this guy, man, he, if I had met him under other circumstances, I mean, he was a good dude, spoke French, spoke American, you know, wants to be an actor. He's like idolized Robert De Niro, you know, really cool dude, good looking, worked out, new martial arts. And, dude, he did 14 years in prison. man went crazy and when he got out he was living on skid road man i mean this guy he never recovered wow never recovered so i just took a deal i mean yeah my deal was um they offered me a hundred and like they offered me 12 years but i went and started researching on law library and i was able to knock

off two years off my sentence and so i ended up getting 120 months and um that was my deal did you get good time out of that i know you got to do 85% of your time in the fed yeah 85% i didn't qualify for program. So I ended up doing eight years, eight months. So I did my time and all I did while I was in prison was study the law and kind of separate myself from everything that got me there. You know, I just backed away from a lot of stuff. And you kind of went on my journey. And even the guys that did the crime, I stopped talking to them. I didn't, I said, that's it. I was done. You know, so I stopped talking about anybody who was kind of still with that mentality. and I became like a loner,

and then I found a couple mentors that kind of helped me on my journey. Tell me about your mentor. I had two mentors. One of the mentors was an old white guy, Harold, Vietnam veteran. He was doing 30 years from manufacturing heroin. He was making synthetic heroin at Missouri.

And he was just an old school veteran man, and he knew a lot about the law. and he had some stuff in there, man, that literally when I would read it, I would lose sleep. I mean, this guy, he put his daughter through college from, well, before he went to prison. I mean, it made a lot of money. But his daughter actually, I want to say work for the Federal Reserve. So she was super smart. And he had some documents in there from the U.S. Attorney's Manual, which is what they used to prosecute people in federal, in federal detention.

FEDGENFEDERALS. So when he started letting me read this stuff from this manual that he would get in and literally like educate me, dude, I was like, I was blowing away. I felt like a straight jackass because, you know, you think you're gangster because you got a gun or you're running around doing whatever legs. And I'm telling you, these guys, if you don't know what a statute is, you don't know a Black's Law Dictionary is, you don't know what the congressional acts are, you don't know what the U.S. Attorney Manual is.

you're a fool. You're playing a game, literally like going to the bank and you don't know how to count money. You tell them to tell you how much money you have. That's how stupid you are. And so when I started reading the law, it just changed my life. And this guy, he's seen the potential in me, man. And people used to look like, what are you talking to that white guy? You know, he's crazy. I'm like, man, you call him crazy if you want, man. I'm learning. And so what do you say, what do you mean like when you're studying all that stuff? Do you mean like, the capabilities of the federal government to just give you is basically give you so much time for like what do you mean when you say like what you studied made you lose sleep what I mean is

that when you get knowledge and it's like when they talk about awakening your chakras and but this this chakra is not a spirit this is a knowledgeable chakra so imagine reading something and if you would have known this information before you even committed a crime, let alone or fighting your case, you would be so empowered that somebody talking about a bank robber, you'd be like

with me with that. You know what I mean? You'd be so above that. So by learning what I learned, I elevated so high where when I would hear people talk about stuff, I'd be like, dude, you don't have a clue. You're so low on a totem pole.

Yeah. And the knowledge of what's going on because you see how they build case. It would talk about in there how to prosecute a conspiracy, how to how to build a case, getting a big fish to make the little fish, getting little fish, make the big fish talk and all these different things and these laws and these statues and how they all work and how pleadings work. I knew none of that. I mean, I never studied a law before. So I was in there studying the law and he's seen me always going a law library. He's like, what are you doing? I said, man, I'm trying to figure the way to get out early. He said, you're trying to fight your case. I said, yeah, man, but I don't want to do all this

time. I mean, look at this place. I was in the Long Park USP. They called the castle. Horrible. You know, dude, it is people get stabbed. There's no people die over the TV up in there. It's no joke. Horrible place. This is Long Park. Long Park USP. God. Oh, so this is in California. This is Long Park County. And for those of you don't know, this is one of the wealthiest areas in America, you know, huge wineries and, you know, people owned, people own like hundreds of thousands of acres. You know, Oprah's got a sex trafficking ring up there or something like that. You know, so, but Long Park, USP, tell us about it. This juxtaposed against this prison.

I'm fascinated. Tell me what was going on in there. When we pulled up, we pulled up, they dropped the people off the camp first. They were all excited. You know, we had left San Bernardino, which is another shithole. San Bernardino County, bro. Yeah, for sure. Them police up in there beat your ass.

Wow. Beech your ass. You look at them, it's horrible. Horrible. San Bernardino's worse. I mean, oh, man, you starve up in there. It's just a dirty. Yeah.

Worst place ever. But we went from San Bernardino. You were happy to get the hell out of there. Yeah. And we're on the bus and we get the lawnpox. They drop people off the camp. They drop people off at the medium. and there's like a handful of us on there

and they're like, oh, you guys are going to the big house. And I'm like, what the hell? The big house. And we roll up and it looks like this old castle, like Castle, Bracekull and Heat Man. And you roll up, gates open. I mean, there's guard towers, you know. And it's like, it's eerie, old gates.

And literally, when we roll up, it's on lockdown. So when we get in there, I'm like, damn, you know, what the hell? This is how the prison works. You know what I mean? there, no activity. Yeah, where the fuck is everyone? Yeah, somebody got killed a week before.

Or like somebody that killed somebody. Before that, they had killed somebody else. And there were a couple weeks before that, some inmate strapped two shanks to his hands and came out to Chowhal and started just shanking guards. And he killed a guard and injured the coach. And they killed him. They killed him right in the, by the Chowall Hall.

Wow. And this guy lost it. He just, you know, guys have no hope. You lose hope. Guys, this, you know, this guy is, I guess they said he came out to Chow Hall. two shanks and just was going at it. Wow.

And this bloody mass, man. So they had killed him. So there's always something going on there. But they, you know, they give us our bed roll. We head into the unit. And they opened a unit and literally ask you,

what's your gang affiliation? Where are you from, blah, blah. As soon as you do that, you're kind of screwed because now that follows you. Because everything you tell these people, they put on your jacket. It's your blood, if you're crib,

GD, Biclor, skinhead, whatever case may be. And so long pocket is three tiers up. And you roll up in there and everybody's looking because it's locked down. They got the mirrors out. Oh, where are you from? It's like a dog can lie. He's like looking around and you hear the door click and that's where you're supposed to walk into that cell.

Long pocket is so small. Your average bathroom is probably bigger. Literally, you got to get on the bunk for the other person to stand up. There's no room in there. Right. Toilets right by the bunk. I mean, you've got to step over the toilet to get out. to sell. This is old school penitentiary.

Old school, man. Old school. I mean, this place, man, it's no joke, man. I mean, and, you know, they don't fuck around in there. If you're, if you're on some bullshit, I mean, they rolled, dudes get rolled up. It's not, it's not no talking. It's straight sticking up in there. So, um, you know, I just really, um, when I've seen that and I'm like, damn, you know, you're trying to figure out how'd I get here,

how'd I get here. It wasn't the bank robbery that got me there. it was all the other choices leading up to the bank robbery, all the bad choices, all the people, the bad company, just the things I did in my life that led to the bank robbery. And so, um, you know, I just really tried. Did anyone in there recognize your work? No, not till later. I mean, there was a guy who was, um, they called him Big June. He worked in the kitchen and he's like the shank man. He had all the shanks. If you needed a shank, come talk to him. Wow. You want a, you want a wood shank. You want a shank out of plastic. You want a metal shank. I mean, this guy, big ass dudes, six foot.

How much would you have to pay for like a good shank for, what do you call it, a bone breaker? Or a bone crusher. A bone crusher. Yeah. Bone crusher. Bone crusher might be like, I don't know, maybe, you know, 20 books of stamps. I don't know back then. I mean, depending on, you know, because the book of stamps was what they used for money.

Currency, right. So currency. So, you know, depending on how many books of stamps. But he told me, he liked me, so he said, I'll just give you a book. I'll just give you a shank, just let me know what you need. So, like, literally,

he would, he would give me shank. So once one of the dudes in there, I don't know how they found, one of the dudes is like, hey, man, I've seen you in a book, man, you used to,

he was fucking out there, you were porn. And they're like, man, you were Robin Benson doing porn. You was a goddamn, you was a gangster, man. Oh, man. Then I, you know,

it was cool. So I went to laundry. And the dude, and one of the inmates told, the guard, he said, man, it's that guy. He was the one I told you was doing porn. You were out there, he was busing him. He was hitting him women.

Man, hit this dude up with all new shit. I got all new shit. New blanket, new everything. You know, so it kind of had its way of opening up conversation for different people because it's like, you know, oh, this dude, he was out there. Because most guys, they've been on the streets in a decade. The average person in Long Park, they've already been down 10, 20, 15 years. Right.

So for you to have been in these books and these guys see you, you're like, oh, my God, this guy is like, you're on a different status. You're almost like quasi-celebrity. So it did allow me to talk to guys from Chicago, New York, D.C., different places, L.A. and, you know, create conversation. Plus, the way I articulated myself, it threw a lot of people off because a lot of guys thought I was in there for, like, credit card fraud or something square. Right. So because people see me the way I was. was always carrying myself. They're like, man, what do you in here for? Because if I would have said I was in there for like credit cards or some type of white collar, I probably would have got pressed, you know,

because guys think, oh, you're on some, you're on some soft time. Because, you know, people used to get mad because they'd see me studying so much. I had guys confront me because I'm in the law library. Like, why you keep going a law library? Yeah. I'm like, I'm trying to educate me myself. But what do you, what are you trying to figure out? I said, I'm trying to see if I can get out early. And they said, what are you in here for? I said, bank robbery. He said, did you. do it. I'm like, yeah. And one dude told me, he said, man, why don't you just do your time? Yeah. I said, man, why don't you do your time?

Yeah. And me and him had a standoff. Literally, I thought I was going to have to stab the dude, or he's going to try to stab me. Were you strapped? Were you strapped wherever you went? I wasn't strapped, but I kept a lock and a sock, you know what I mean? Right. So I would use that like, you know, like anything else, you know, I knew it was a weapon. So, but my whole thing was to outthink these guys, you know, I mean, most guys, I could play chess moves with him. So if I felt somebody with a threat,

I would try to neutralize the threat ahead of time. And so I wouldn't have to get involved because I know if I had to do something to somebody or somebody tried to do something to me, I can possibly catch more time. And my whole goal was to make it out alive. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not in the feds. I mean, we talked to this guy, Chad Marks, who's got a big YouTube channel now.

And he's, he became like a jailhouse lawyer. And now he's out. And he writes appeals and he's got a lot of inmates out, you know, on like compassionate releases. and stuff like that. But he would, I mean, the feds, people think it's like a walk in the park because it's the federal government, but it's the hardest time. It's the most violent in the, in the USPs. Because I think it's because everybody has so much time, you know?

Yeah, especially. And then you got, see, if you do state, time, it's just a state. But like the feds, like you said, is all over the country. Yes. You got guys from Puerto Rico. Cubans, D.C., Florida, Texas boys, Serenios, Noregios, Pisces. I mean, you got everybody, man. So you got to really know how to navigate and how to treat people, man.

Because, dude, it's serious up in there, man. And, you know, there's a lot at stake. And like you said, somebody looking at 100 years, man, what do they got to lose? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's nothing to stab somebody when you're fucking, you're never getting out anyways. Yeah. Is it true that if there's a stabbing and the guy doesn't die,

they'll just send whoever hit him to the hole and then let him out 30 days later? Typically, I think if a guy stab somebody, they would ship that guy. But I remember they were pressing some dude up in there. I can't remember what it was over because I tried to stay out of the way. But there's a lot of heroin floating around at Long Park. There are some guys I heard making, you know, 20, 30,000 a month selling heroin in prison. That's insane. Yeah, dude. This guy, I heard you do. Dude, dudes are making money. I don't, like I said, there was, of course, there were guards involved, everybody. A lot of people, but I would hear stories, but the less you know the better. You know, prison, you don't gossip. You don't, people start talking about, lead a room. You don't want to be an ear because now you're a co-conspirator. Yeah. And anyway, they're oppressing some guy, and I guess some other guy would associate with this dude. And I was coming down to, I was coming down the stairs one day.

And this guy was laying on the ground. They had stabbing with a chicken bone. And he was bleeding. Like, you know, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on. But what can I do? Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I'm, I'm, I'm a co-conspirator. Yeah. Or I'm tight in or. Yeah. Or you're a snit because that guy's supposed to die. It's like you're helping like, you're helping, like, you're helping save a dude that needed to go. Yeah. Yeah.

And so I, I, I walk by him, bro. and, you know, he, I don't know what I, I see, he was gone. And then he came back. But when he came back, he seen, you know, he looked at me. You know what I mean? Like, you know, you didn't stop in hell. You know, I mean, what can I do? I can't stop in hell.

I've seen people bleeding out in, you know, somebody's corridors. You just got to step over and keep walking because you stop. You get involved. That puts you in a, now you're a target. So you could literally just be walking to chow or like walk at a yard. And you might just see a dude bleed now. and you just got to keep looking forward walking. Oh, you start walking faster

because you want to hurry up and take a shower before they lock it down. So you're trying to get back to you as fast as possible so that you can, you know, get your shower in. Right. They're locking down. Because see, there's people in prison

that think they're slick and they'll try to go from like work to the unit and they owe somebody and they think they can't get caught so they're trying to avoid the people they owe. Yeah. And I've seen them catch a guy going to work by the, like, right in the blind spot.

And literally this guy was, he was leaking, just laid out. And everybody's kept walking, walking by him, bro. And everybody started walking faster before the guard seen him, you know, because you don't want to get, you don't want to get caught and not, you know, get locked down or get, if they see you in the area, they're going to make you get on the ground. Right. And start searching you.

Right. So you want to get as far away from the body as possible. Yeah. Right. So, you know, in prison, you learn to mind your business, man. Yeah. So there's like a protocol, like stabbing's. happened in the feds so much that you know exactly what to do, even if you're not even involved,

you're like, well, I got to hurry up because I got to take a shower. I got to go to maybe canteen or whatever, because I know we're getting locked down for 30 days or whatever it is. By the way, how long, like somebody gets stabbed, let's say they die, how long is the entire prison locked down for? I want to say the longest we had with, man, maybe a month and some change, because they got to keep the factories open. The factories, basically unicorn, which is prison labor to prison industrial complex,

if it closes for more than three months, the prison loses money and they lose their contract. So these prisons all are dependent on, you know, inmates working for these corporations. And so I would say, if we were locked down for like anything over 30 days, they would let some guys go to unicorn to go work still.

Right. I want to say maybe we were locked down for like 90 days, 90 days one time where a couple of people, like they had a riot on the yard, they investigated. We were probably locked down for maybe a little over 90 days, maybe 100-something days. Yeah. Because there's so many people got stabbed. I mean, dude, they probably 20, 30 people got stabbed on the yard. Wild, wild, bro. Did you wear you ever on the yard? When the riot popped off, were you ever on the yard when that happened? When that one happened, somebody told me, say, hey, man, don't go to the yard today. But they had a yard, they had a riot out there. And

somehow some of these guys even had real knives out there so you know and they had metal detector so you know the guards were in on some of those nice being on the yard because how else could they get there of course how you do these are nice out the kitchen like what handles right like real nice yes these are Thanksgiving turkey knives yeah these guys were they were going at it and the two different clicks that were going at it and they they they were blowing the thing and and you know luckily I wasn't on the yard that time but I was on a yard when another incident happened and you know they'll shoot a warning shot, but sometimes they don't even shoot a warning shop, but they shot out in the yard and then everybody hit the ground. Right. Because if you keep fighting when they shoot again, now you've got one warning shot, they're going to shoot you. And it's been knowing that certain guards will actually, you know, guys have been, you know, they've been assassinated on the yard, certain inmates.

Wow. Yeah, absolutely. And those guards, man, those are working class scum. I mean, not all of them, right? But, you know, especially up there in the middle of California, you know, those guards making 20 bucks an hour and they're bitter and they're around murderers and like the worst of the worst. And just over years, they hate these guys. And a guy might be a problem.

You know, a guy might be a real fucking problem. And so a riot is a perfect chance to take care of them, you know, get them out of the way. Or, you know, when I was locked up in Oregon, gladiator fights, right? Like, say there was one guy who was gang banging, and the guards would just, they'd say, hey, here's 10 minutes and two shanks. One of you can go. You're out of my hair, you know? And, you know, you got to remember, too, that for a lot of these people, their life

is maxed out. That's it. Yeah. They're never going to do that more to be a guard, 20 years, and that's it. Yeah. But, like, you know, if you're somebody who has a chance of getting out and you're going to get out and. and live a life because I used to, I had a vision board in one of myself, and the guard used to go up

there and he would act like he's searching a room, but I would look through the thing and he's looking at my vision board. And he would look and see, I'd have this different thing, the house, car, different things. And they would ask me like, hey, man, what are you going to do when you get out of hurt? What do you think you're going to do? I said, oh, man, I'm going to do this and do that. I'm start my business. And he was like, is that right? You think you're going to do that stuff? And so they would be looking like, man, you know, this guy, is he going to get out and do this? So you've got to watch out for the guards who also are jealous or feel you're overly ambitious. Right.

So you're dealing with a lot of that too. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Now, when you were getting ready to, did you release from there or did you get class down to like a camp? Oh, no. I never got down to a camp because I had a violent history.

So I went from Longpock to Sheridan in Oregon. Sheridan in the Oregon. Yep. Yeah, Sheridan and FCI for like three, four years. And then I went to, um, her long. So I actually, uh, paroled from her long in 2008. And then I never looked back.

So that's the last place. We opened up that place. Did you, uh, when you were getting ready to leave Longpock, did you, uh, like, did you feel scared like your last couple of months? Like, did you tell the guards like, hey, I got to go, I need to go to the hole. Like, I got to get away from every. No, no, no, no, I never did anything like that. I actually was filing paperwork on the warden in them.

You know, I started learning about the law and actually, you know, trying to file things to get back in the court so I could try to get my sentence reduced. And I remember one time coming out the kitchen and the warden was looking at me crazy, like mad dog, I'm like, you know, because I put his name on paperwork. And they're like, dude, you better quit. You and that old man, you guys are going to mess around and disappear. And I'm like, dude, I'm already in prison. I'm in prison.

you guys are, you guys are walking the yard playing basketball and dominoes and stuff. You guys are cool with this shit. I'm not, I'm not cool with this shit. So I'm going to do what I have to do. So and I, and the thing is, when you know shit, see, people who are ignorant, it's like running around watching the shit like people just doing dumb shit and thinking all, man, everybody else is doing. I knew.

So I had a higher knowledge because I've been reading all this stuff. So for me, I knew that there's nothing they couldn't do because I was only using their own knowledge against them. Yes. So it wasn't like I was making. up shit or doing things that were contrary to what their law books said. So I remember one time they were calling me, inmate, inmate, convict, come me. And I kept walking. And I knew they were calling me, but I kept walking. And I'm like, hey. And then a lieutenant, hey, did you hear me call you? And they

grabbed me and they brought me over there and put me against the wall. I said, look, man, I'm not an inmate. I'm not a convict. You call me Marcus. You call me Mr. Timmons. You can call me Big Hur. But I'm not no inmate or no convict. And they looked at me hella crazy. Get the hell out of here. Because, you know, I didn't buy into that. Right. And so that I never, I never associate myself as being an inmate or convict.

I always program my mind to say, you know, I'm just passing through. So when I left Long Park, I went from Sheridan. I said, man, I'm just passing through. So my mind was like I was never in prison totally because all I kept telling myself, if I get out tomorrow, okay, I'm going to. go get a BMW, 650. I'm going to be on a 405. Yeah.

I'm going to do this. I was always, I'm going to work out in Venice. I was always pictured myself back in L.A. So never did I actually see myself as prison being my norm. Yeah. And so when I transitioned from place to place, I didn't ever lose nothing because none of that stuff meant anything to me. Yeah.

Yeah. That's some hurricane Carter kind of shit. You know what I mean? That was my mentality. I want to hear a little bit. You touched on something fascinating about the prison industrial complex and the fact that at Longpac, there's a factory probably producing goods for private companies that have contracts with the prison, right? And dude, if they stop working for a couple of months, that prison is losing money. but what's so crazy is that it's a federal institution.

It shouldn't be dependent on labor and products for private. There shouldn't be any profit. You know what I mean? So can you talk about that? Like, that's, that's chilling to me. Well, you have, you have CCA corrections corporation of America and you have Wackenhood. Those two corporations basically are private corporation that have private privatized prisons. So her long with a private prison. There's a couple other ones that have been,

there's a lot of private prisons, but what they do is they contract with their feds. And they say, look, man, we want to be able to house these inmates and we can do it for this amount of cost per year. And what they do is through doing that, they create a business model. And so their whole objectivity is to, at that same time, loss. lobby for certain laws so that they can have crime at a certain rate where they know that these prosecutions are going to guarantee them so many people in their bed space, which will be returned for the stockholders because every person in prison, they have a four o'clock count. That four o'clock count accounts for a bed space, which is a monetary value. And so that's

across the country, that four o'clock count. And so every time they do that, that's like counting your cattle. You know, you go through and you see these cattle are alive. Each one of those have the value. So the more people you have in there, the more valuable your ranch or your prison is. Right. On top of it, if you have a contract with IKEA, the military, to make desk, these chairs, these bookshelves, and whatever the case may be, now you're not outsourcing that to China. You got it right here in America. You pay these guys, you know, $0.40 an hour. and you're charging them 15, 20 bucks an hour per labor, and you're making a profit margin.

So it's big business, man. These guys in there are working. And the sad thing is if those guys didn't go to the factories, they would probably have to let a lot of dudes out because they couldn't sustain the food, feeding, the food, feeding, the clothes, they couldn't do it. So they need these guys to go to work. And most people, because they get to prison,

and their mentality is like, oh, I'm just going to go get. It's like you went from being a gangster to now you're going to be a slave. You're a slave. You're a slave. Dude, that's it. You were a gangster, but you're not going to say, hey, if you were really a gangster, you'd be like, no what, F working.

I'm not doing shit but studying. Meditate becoming a better person. That's right. You guys can shut that factory. If the factory shut down, the prison is no good. Right. Without the factory, the prison doesn't exist. That's right.

It literally, and that's why a lot of these prisons, if you sign up for work and then you say, okay, actually, you know what, this is slave labor, I don't want to make 75 cents an hour, I can stay in Honduras and do that, you know? They will take good time away

from you. But I was at Two Rivers Correctional Facility. I was working in the kitchen, and three days in, I was like, nah, fuck that. I'd rather go lift weights. They were like, well, you're going to lose 60 days of good time.

So they literally have your free freedom hanging in the balance, dude. That's wild. It's a flesh factory. So they're making money. They're making money by charging the corporation $20 an hour per head, but only paying you a buck 50. Plus they're selling the goods, making the profit off of that. And they're getting their budgets. Because my taxes go to pay for the federal prison to stay open. So it's a triple-pocket. Remember the stock prices. Right. Of course.

Of course. That's right. That's right. The dividends. And you've got to think about all the commerce around there. Now that prison, you have a Walmart. You have a target. All these hillbillies that work in these prisons are all, they're all time.

You know what I mean? That's their commerce. Right. You shut down to prison. Now you'd have to go to maybe agriculture, which you can still survive. There's so many other things you could do that would create a better economy for your area, your community, but you're prison that's easy, no brain labor. Now, if you got a, farm down the street, like, hey, man, Bob, remember I hope you get that prisoner, make them

buy my milk, make them buy my cattle, make them buy my, so now you're supplying the prisons and you got locked in people. Maybe your other buddy has a little store, and he's selling shoes to the prison. He's selling hygiene items to the prison. It's a racket. It's a sick racket, man. Yeah. There's no rehabilitation. The people in there are being exploited. Yeah. You feel less and less humane.

And that's why people get out angry and worse. Because if you don't hold on to that humanity and when I just started seeing it and I watched the Matrix in there. Yeah. Dude, I felt like breaking them. I'm like, damn it. Yeah. Damn it.

I know. How did I get here? The Matrix. How bad do you feel knowing that you're, you played their game? Oh my God, man. You played into it. Yeah. I bought into it.

And it's, and when you, it's bad when you see it, but heart everybody else, just like they don't even know what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like there were a handful of guys that we used to get together. And I had a very diverse group, you know, white guy, Asian guy, a Mexican guy. We used to study a law library.

And we would talk about this stuff, man. And you would look and you go back to the unit. And, dude, it was like clockwork guys eating top ramen spread. Yeah. Watching TV and sports and garbage. like, man, they've accepted this reality. This is nothing to them. That's right.

This is like, dude, these guys are comfortable. They're like, if you told these guys, hey, you guys, there's law library, you can file a petition and get out, they'd be like, oh, man, I got five more years. Yeah. Herk. Yeah. I got five years. I'm short-timing. That's how they, that's how they think about.

You only got five years left? Yeah. You only got a sixth of your life left to do? Dude, but Herk, what you just described right there is America. Is it not? Yeah. It's four guys studying in the library and they come back and everybody else is brain dead. You know? Yeah. Yeah. It's insane. It blew me away because you know what? I mean, dude, when I seen what happened here in the last couple years and I looked, I'm like, my God, they brought the penitentiary to the streets.

These governors are wardens. They're running like a fucking, excuse me, like a warden man and how they're setting up the food, you got to go to a grocery store and stand alive, you can only get two. Remember, you go and in prison, you can only go and get so many of one particular item. And the same thing, when they started doing it, I'm like, my God, the Matrix is like, this is crazy, man, but people who have never been deprived of their freedom or had an opportunity to really reflect, they have no clue on what the hell's going on. That's why during the lockdowns, like it was especially like draconian in California during COVID, it drove me out of my mind. It drove me nuts. It made me like want to vote Republican,

you know, and I'm like a Democrat from Oregon lifelong because it did something to me viscerally. Like it turned, you know, people into tyrants, right? And it was like, I'm like, guys, I've seen this. This is just the first step. Like, we allow this and we will never get our freedom back. You know? It was, and we were this close, too. We were this close. If it wasn't for the South and these

gun-toting motherfuckers who California's shit on, the whole world might be living like Big Brother 1984. We all might be like China. You know? You see what's going on in China right now, but like what you said, I tell you, man, you know, I caught a lot of shit

because people said, oh, man, you're a cell, this and that. And I really, I never got an apology. and I always consider myself pretty open to liberal. Like, you know, I did porn, bro. Rob Banks and sold drugs. You know, buss and cheeks. I was, you know, I've never tripped off of race, you need that.

But then when I start, like you said, I started seeing, I said, man, this is an agenda. Yeah. These people, this is control, man. This is beyond. They have all the power. This is control right here. They have all the money. They really want to see how much can we push these people to listen to us with this

bullshit. Yes. And me, I read Behold and Pale Pail Horse. I read all this stuff from prison, really deep. I mean, I would have conversation with guys that were like ex-Vietnam vests that told me stuff they did in the military and then come back and they're locked up right now. And I'm like, dude, man, the guard. I didn't think I would live to see it though.

When I've seen what they did in California, I'm like, my God, these people are executing this shit. That's right. And, you know, dude, like you said, God bless the Second Amendment. God bless the people that are able to carry, man. I'm telling you, man, if it was like any, like look at Australia, man, what they to those people. That's right. Or Canada. Also can't have guns there. You know? Yes. They were so close. They were so close. So, man, obedience for obedience sake. For power's sake, right? Because like you said, they have all the money. But power for its own sake is the sickest evil, in my opinion.

Oh, sick, man. It's sick. And when you talk about experiment on humans, right? When you just talk about like, when I remember in prison, oh, go get the flu shot, get the flu vaccine. I'm like, dude, I'm in prison. What the hell out of? In prison? Get the hell out of here, man. I mean, dude, I'm like, I survived all this and you think I'm going to get out here and buy this shit. And literally, it's like you would go into somewhere Trader Joe's put that on your, it's like,

it's like, you're challenging power. People who are seeing how far they can go with this shit. And I'm like, dude, this is, it's insane. Nobody's even thinking. You mean to tell me I'm not capable of reading a study to see. what the hell this shit. That's right. You mean to tell me only this guy, doctor, you know who is capable of telling the whole world?

Right. You've got to be kidding me, man. This guy's no smarter than me. No smarter. And what's interesting is that people are waking up because of the power of the internet. It's a twofold thing. It's a brain washer and it's a time sucker and all that. It makes kids depressed.

But it also cracks the matrix, right? And, you know, a lot more people now are questioning. questioning things because of the flow of information. Could that happen in prison? Because, you know, every prisoner now is a TikTok account. Like, do you think prisoners could get a little more, I don't want to say woke because people kind of tate that with like leftism? But could, yeah, could there be an elevated level of consciousness

amongst prison inmates because of the internet? It's funny you say that because my friend, he worked at the EMT and now he's the actual doctor. And he was saying when they used to go into MLK, and some of the hospitals and when he was doing his intern and they would talk to guys from prison he said, man, these guys are more

on top of shit than people on the street. Fuck, yeah. Because see, in prison, you have to think out the box. I mean, not everybody, but like yourself or somebody who's really, like, reflected and looked at the system, you question shit.

And you're like, man, this is some straight bullshit because you see how they break the rules all the time. Yeah. So you look at life differently, man. And for myself, I had a very, non-traditional group of people. Very rarely do you see a black guy,

white guy, Mexican guy, a guy from like Belize, a guy from Korea, studying, eating together, people would be tripping out like black guys from down south. I'm like, what do you doing eating with that Mexican? You know, and my white friend, his friend, be like, man, why you eat with that black guy? So I was already

different. And so when I would get game, I'm learning from so many different people from around different parts of the country, and we would put all of our our intellect together, we would be talking about stuff that was like literally, if we had it on the internet, it would be these incredible podcasts about just intellectual

and light stuff. So when I brought that to the street, my whole thing was, okay, how can I apply that on the street? And like I said, when I started looking at what's going on, and a lot of my friends that I did time with, I'm still cool with. So when this was going down, I would call them, and they'd be like, dude, this shit is crazy.

And we would talk about, you know, when we were locked up and how, how it's the similarities. Yeah, that's right. And how they're doing stuff. That's right. You know, and then how, what's the first thing they did? The racial. They had to divide us. Right, right.

That whole, you know who thing was about race. And then divide and conquer. And so, you know, and in prison, the biggest thing is race. Yes, that's right. It's race. But, but what I found. extremely similar and I would scream at my fucking parents

because they're boomers and they believe MSNBC what did what do they tell you in prison all the time to justify searching your asshole and running up in your cell and tossing your shit and you know basically taking away every piece of privacy you have

they say it's for the safety and security of the institution and so what was us right and when we were in this on the street from 2020 to the beginning of this year, when I'm in Trader Joe's and told myself an 18-year-old bag boy, sir, stay six feet away. It's for the safety and security.

It's safety and security. So this is, we're doing this for you. We're making little grandma, you know, we're making children put masks on four-year-olds because it's for you. We're keeping you safe. It's like gaslighting. You know what I mean? So that was the similarities I saw between the streets.

and prison while that was going on. Well, just like what you said right there to six feet, remember in the county jail, six feet, six feet, remember they would say that? Yes. So, dude, they took that same shit. Right. And then put it into this.

How did the virus know you're six feet? That's right. Yeah. No, it's fucking insanity. And when you try to explain it to somebody, and when you try to explain that to somebody, they just get all toughed up, right? It's like when you win an argument with your girlfriend,

she'll just like she'll just change the subject right that that that that's it it was truly a mass psychosis right but yeah that's so funny i remember that in in county that's all they would scream at you you know what i mean yeah yeah keep your fucking shoulders of the wall that's right yeah god damn put your arm out put your arm out space yourself yep yeah it's like so a lot of see i always tell people prison is a micro of a macro you got to remember when you look at prisons how they're constructed. How many people can they house in an area before it creates a situation? And I would see wardens play with certain demographics and inmates. And when a prison have no problems, they would specifically try to look at how many people they have from one particular

gang or demographic. And they would ship in an unbalanced or a shock caller that would upset the power, create a riot, take away something, and then ship people out. And then that's how they could justify, that's how they could justify the over, the, basically the goon squad. Yep. That's how they could justify taking away to weights. Yeah. That's how they can justify. See, when they do the mass shootings, now we can take something away.

We can justify it. That's right. They would, they would set this shit up. I've seen where a prison was, I seen a ward come into a prison. He's like, you mean to tell me, you guys have concerts here. There's no bob wire. What? Right.

He's like, oh, okay. Yeah. And he plotted, man. Something's about to happen. And within two months, he took away the hot breakfasts and no more, no more eggs and bacon or certain in the morning grits. And he just, he shifted everything. First, he shifted to food to create anger. Food is one of your number one.

Remember, food is one of number one thing's in prison. That's right. That people that can create a riot. When that didn't work, he brought in another shock call from another demographic. And he knew by bringing this dude from Pelican Bay, it would create a. a riot. And eventually they found out who he was. It created some tension. And from there, when we came off of that lockdown, there was Bob wire everywhere. Right. The police, the guards had go to Goun Squad mask on. They remember they made us go to Chowall Hall with guns on us.

Dude, they turned that place upside down. Was that at Long Park or what facility was that at? Sheridan. That was at Sheridan and Oregon. Yeah. Sheridan, FCI, man. This Long Park, this black guy, oh, man, he was a piece of shit. Wow. He came in. And I'm telling you, man, I mean, this place for prison, it felt like almost like a college initially because, I mean, they had, they had waves. They had everybody, they had basketball tournaments. They would give away prizes. You can go art room. They had music. I mean, it was like, it was a place for you to get your mind right. You felt like you were locked up, but you're like, damn, you know, I feel like I'm not stressed out like Long Park. Right, right. And when this guy came in, ooh, man. I mean, turned it upside down. Wow. Totally. That's like, you know, and now, look, we get to justify more corrections officers, more budget.

I get more money. I get all the goon squad riot gear, right? More contracts. It's very sadistic, man. It's very sick. Man, these people who run these system, and it's no different than when you have Newsom telling you to put on a mask and he's partying in Napa. That's right. friends, you know, drinking wine, laughing, making money off all the extra stuff they're selling

to the public and all the stuff that the requirements and all the businesses that are shut down that now have lost all their clientele and now you can only go to the big four. That's right. How many small businesses were put under? Dude. And these motherfuckers. 20, 20 years. That's right.

20, 30 years of building your clientele base. Gone. Yeah. And you can take a PPP. We'll give you a PPP. That's right. That's right. I know. Garbage. It's so funny to me how how prisoners, you know, black guys get out of prison. They love Trump now. Because they're like, Trump went, you know, he's giving out those compassionate releases, right?

It's so, it makes me, it makes me happy because, like, the identity politics just gets shredded, right? When you hear some big black guy that was doing life for selling crack, right, that you would associate with, like, voting for the Democrats. and a guy like Trump comes in and he's like, no, we'll give the judge some leniency so he can get this guy out because he doesn't deserve to be doing all that time. That makes me happen. But honestly, wouldn't have Trump become racist?

That's my question. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Is he any more racist than the rest of us? Dude, I read all his books, and Trump was one of the first pre-pull to allow blacks and Jews into his country club at Mar-Largo. Trump helped Mike Tyson with his vice

when he could book him in Atlantic City he tried to get him into investing everybody took pictures of Trump before he was an actual ran for politics. Remember what is it called Apprentice? I mean everybody I mean dude

I watched his old interviews I used to go and then because you have one person whoever who put a hat on who maybe lived in Missouri and he said make America great, that's racist. Right. Why are the racist to make America great?

Right. What's racist about that? And some of his followers certainly could have been racist, but... Yeah. Whatever, dude. You can't control, like, you know, he's about money and he's about... There's problems with him. You know what I mean?

But Trump's... He's the beauty of America is money Trump's color. But that's also the problem, right? Because racism is just the small. All, Racem is just the easy trick to divide us where up here, color doesn't matter when you have a billion, when you're a billionaire, right? When you're a billionaire, like you said, multi-millionaire, at the end of the day, Asian, black, white, German, French, nobody cares.

These guys are elitists. But when you talk about values and you talk about at the end of the day, getting past like his narcissistic or whatever, but look at you can't be bullied. You don't want somebody who's not going to get bullied. Yeah. Somebody who stands for values, creating business, helping grow their economy. Right. And looking for the better, not selling out everything, all our, what is it,

all of our ports to China, all, you know, getting rid of, you know, oil dependency, energy dependency, all this shit, man. I mean, at the end of the day, we want to have as much independence as possible. And at the same time, like he said, I knew it was going down when he went to Davos. to that economic summit, and he told them that we will not succumb or allow you guys to be for America to be under your authority. They didn't like that. No.

They don't like that, man. They want you to play the ball. That's it. Nobody in power wants to be challenged. The elites don't want to be challenged. The warden doesn't want to be challenged, right? The masters of mankind, doesn't matter how rich a guy is. He's still an outsider, and he's challenging them.

And it just takes courage, dude. It takes balls. I don't know. Yeah. And that's what more people need, you know. But, man, Herc, I can do this all day, brother. I really appreciate you coming on here. It's like, yeah, dude, we got to get together when you're in L.A. You come into the studio. We do this properly, you know? For sure, man. Like I said, I mean, we need to have more dialogue like this. And my whole thing is, the more we talk rather than, you know, you got these people yelling at each other. We should both have sensible conversations. It doesn't matter if you're right, left, middle, but we need to find resolve. And that's the only way we're going to grow as a people,

man, because it's not, it's not about race to me. It's about everybody wants to live in an environment that we can all benefit from that's safe. Yeah. You know, and that's how I look at life, man. So I appreciate the opportunity, man. And I could, like you said, I could chop it up with you all day, man, because, you know, I don't, I never got really involved in the whole political arena. but at the end of the day, I just want to see people win, and I'm not with somebody controlling my life. I've been in prison, man, and these people I hear don't realize what the hell's going on.

Man, man, it's like you lose it, and then it changes your life. You lose your freedom, and, you know, it's kind of a benefit. Everybody should lose their freedom for a second, you know? Like, I think what it did for me was it created, like, it focused me, it created a sense of urgency, right? I was like, I got to hurry up and get living. Yep. Yep.

Yeah. And it made me appreciate, like, the freedom we have in America. And it made me, when all this shit started to happen, I was on high alert because, like, I've seen it before. I felt it. You know? And you would cherish, you would cherish what we have or what we had as a democracy in America. So, but you know what? The only way on an individual level to challenge, like, the prison industrial complex is to not fuck up and go to prison. You know, it's to be, and, you know what I mean? You're absolutely right. Stay out. You're absolutely right.

I mean, you can't, you can't, one of the biggest things I tell people is you got to stop being a victim. Yes, that's what it is. That's totally what it is. You sell drugs. I rob because I can't eat because I'm poor. That's bullshit. It's bullshit. You're being a victim.

You're saying I can't. You're just giving up. So. Yeah. That's a hard conversation for a lot of people, though, because nobody. wants to accept that responsibility that they're a piece of shit because they're a piece of shit or they're not going anywhere because you're lazy. Dude, you're lazy. Right. I see you sleep till 10 o'clock every day. You talk about there's no jobs. Yeah, right. Dude, you're lazy. Right.

So also people don't want to accept, too, that life is unfair and things are unequal, you know, on a talent level, intellect level, economic level, right? And it is a lot. And it is a, unfair. Like I had a lot more opportunity than a lot of people locked up doing a ton of time. But that doesn't make me any more capable than somebody who's just from the hood. You're just as capable. I promise you. You know, if you would just like know, on a higher level what you're what's out there and what you have the ability to achieve. Do you know what I mean? But people just, you know, because it is a tough thing to swallow that things are. are unequal, but like.

But you know what? They're always, they've been like that. I mean, okay, it's like, it's like, I know exactly what you're saying, because I always tell people like, and I've seen in many situations, like, if you're a black guy and a white guy walk into a certain place and you guys are dressed in, you're both dressed in suits. Now, depending on what kind of car you. you guys get out of is going to determine how people are going to proceed what you do. If we both get, if you get out of a Porsche 9-11 and I get out of Ferrari, oh, this guy,

you know, he must be, you know, super successful, but this guy is just as successful. So there's always image, but like what people don't know is like if you know how the game is playing and you know that there's different things in the game, it's like playing whatever video game you get these different guns and whatever you're doing it for your character. you got to you got to understand that these things project a certain image of yourself. So for me, I'm not going to be sagging. I'm not going to do this because I think, oh, man, I'm being black. This is culture.

That's bullshit. They sell you on some bullshit to get you to act a certain way and you're setting yourself up. Right. So I already know that because of who I am, big black guy, you know, people usually say, oh, man, this guy, either you call me Ronnie Coleman, Mike Tyson or something. They think I'm some very intimidating black character they've seen in somewhere. Dub C from West Side Connection. There we go.

Dubcy. So I got to, I got to automatically play my character differently. I can't come in like Debo. I got to come in like, hey, man, I got to come in with a certain type of cachet to get to where I need to go. But I understand it. I'm not going to get, you know, if a police says, hey, man, you know, you walk some time, I'm like, hey, man, how you doing today? Yeah. I got a light in his load.

That's right. Hey, man, why you pull me over? I'm a black man. Oh, man, I already know that game. Yeah, that's right. You got a deep. But think about the advantages you now have because you've accepted it. Think about the advantages you have as a big black guy.

You know what I mean? There's many. So, for example, and that's what I mean about when you can accept reality, you can then go change it for yourself. So, for instance, I'm in show business, right? And when I first got into comedy, I wanted to be this kind of like corporate comedian or this comedian who was like, accepted by what's left of like these Hollywood establishment.

So I wanted kind of like a clean comic. I wanted to be in sitcoms. I wanted to be on late night TV. But like that's not who I am. I'm like a troublemaker. I'm a dirty comic. I do racial humor, right? I do, you know, political humor.

I'm sexist on stage, right? Like it's very pro. Like my humor's got some balls. And like that's not what Hollywood's about right now. Right? They're about like cuck shit. as I'm sure you're aware of. So, but I, when I accepted that reality, I just immediately, I was like, this is not

happening. I accepted the unfairness of it. And I just leaned into the internet. And my life's changed. You know what I mean? And I got this career. And I'm going to be bigger than those comedians that are getting on Jimmy Fallon and dancing. You know what I mean?

Doing all that bullshit. So that's what I mean. like, and that's kind of what Buddhism and, you know, the Eastern religions, it's like if we can accept, I don't know, it just makes everything easier. So I think, I think fucking meditation is what the kids need. I think spirituality and all that shit. We need that just as much as we need a political revolution. Well, I think you're exactly right. And what you just said right there is finding yourself or your calling. And a lot of people never find that. But I always like to use the metaphor like imagine if you were a superhero and you were not you didn't know all your powers so

you're fighting people with your hands but you actually have a laser in your eyeballs right just laser people on half but you haven't been using it you can the one day you get mad you you're like what the fuck yeah oh man and then the whole time you've been you've been walking but then you you you turn around you you fart and you start flying like damn fight you i could fly So you're not even using your potential. You're like, dude, you're like using 1% of your superpower. That's right. That's right.

Use your superpower, man. That's right. Everybody's got a superpower. Everybody's got a talent or something. Yeah. So when you can just accept what that is, your life will change. Right? That's right.

Big Hurk, plug the channel, man. Hey, everybody check it out. YouTube, fresh out, life after penitentiary or just fresh out on YouTube. also Big Hurk 916, positivity motivation on YouTube. Cool. You got Instagram or anything like that? Instagram is Fresh Out series

and also Big Hurk 916. So yeah, check me out all positivity, life changing stuff, man. Awesome. Yeah, and we're going to put the links in the description. So definitely go check this guy out. Thank you so much for coming on. And we'll do this again soon, all right?

Hey, man, I really appreciate it, man. Thank you for having me on, man. You got it, brother. Take care of yourself. All right, take care.