Inside Crook County: Behind the Mic with Kyle Tekiela

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You're listening to a Tenderfoot TV podcast. Hello, everyone.
Welcome to Inside Crick County, your exclusive backstage pass to the show.

Today, I'm sitting down with Kyle Tequila, the creator and host of Crick County, to dig a little deeper into his process of turning a personal life story into a top 10 podcast.

Before we get started, this interview is full of spoilers.

So if you haven't listened to the show yet, I recommend that you pause, go binge the entire season on TenderFit Plus, and then pop back in. Hey, Kyle.
Thanks for sitting down with me today. Yeah, happy to be here, Laura.
I'm really excited to connect. And, you know, this show is so personal to you that I feel like I already kind of have a sense of who you are, as do, imagine everybody else that's listened, especially on Tenderfoot Plus, where we just get to binge the entire story in 24 hours, which is what I did.
Wow. It's really engaging, you know, and I'm excited.
This whole thing's been a whirlwind. I'm kind of speechless.
So but thank you very much. It's amazing to hear stuff like that.
So you're a film producer and you have a lot of other creative outlets, not necessarily podcasting. So why did you decide to create this show as a podcast and not as a film? That's a good question.
Well, yeah, I've been producing movies since 2013. And anyone who is in the industry knows just how much of a behemoth producing a movie is and how awful and stressful and how much of a nightmare it is and how it can collapse at any moment.
And if you're not fully committed and like 24-7 on with your brain and you can't live any other life except getting this movie off the ground, it's exhausting and it's a lot. And so I'd done probably seven movies or so in some kind of producer capacity.
And I'd also been editing movies and working as what's called like a post-production supervisor on a bunch of other movies. I was just really, really burned out.
I think by the time this story really started to kind of come into fruition production wise, and I'd finished two movies in a span of two years, and they both were coming out in theaters with pretty significant releases in May and June of 2020, which we all know the theaters were completely closed because of COVID. So both those movies just were completely decimated at the box office.
And it was like, I killed myself trying to get those two movies made. And so like just all that happening and then it just kind of going nowhere, just it really hurt.
It really was a big blow. And I just wanted nothing to do with the industry for a while.
and you know i had been recording the interviews with my dad on this show for for a while and you

know the seed of the idea to turn it into a podcast besides just being kind of like a family archive

really my dad on this show for a while. And the seed of the idea to turn it into a podcast, besides just being kind of like a family archive, really, which was my original intent, was just to get these stories.
Because I had no idea how long he had left to live because he was such a mess. And so I just wanted to have them so I can share them with my family and my son when he was old enough.
I didn't really listen to podcasts. I think I probably listened to Serial when it came out, the first one, because it was just like this huge nationwide thing that everyone was talking about.
But I wasn't really into the podcast thing. And then for some reason, someone told me about Up and Vanished, season one.
And I listened to that. And I think that kind of blew me away because it wasn't just people talking.
There was so much production value that paint put into it you know so much sound effects and and he really took the time to make it sound good and get the right microphone and and mix it and you know getting makeup and vanity set to do the music on that it just felt like a theater of the mind it felt like a movie and so that was when i go oh my god i could i could do that with crook county or It wasn't Crook County at the time. It was just with my dad's fucked up story.
And so then I started developing it as a podcast series at that time. And then when COVID hit and I was just so burned out of the industry, it was the perfect time for me to really do the show, to make it it happen and so i had a pilot episode prior to covet actually done sent it to mavs actually i after i heard up and vanished and i heard that score i was still producing one of those movies that was coming out in 2020 and i wanted him to to score the movie and so that's i initially reached out to him for that and we became kind of fast friends.
And then when I had the pilot for the podcast,

I said, to score the movie and so that's i initially reached out to him for that and he you know we became kind of fast friends and then when i had the pilot for the podcast i sent it to him and he was like this is great i'm gonna send it to to the guys if you don't mind i was like absolutely so and then they loved it and they came to la and we met up at a coffee shop and we struck a deal and and then we we seemed to be off to the races but i was still so burned out even even though mentally I wanted to do this podcast. I just physically couldn't sit down and edit.
I was just so done. And so nothing really happened until 2023 when I kind of cleared that cache of whatever, disappointment and pain and anguish.
and uh and and started getting creative again and just started cutting just crushing episodes just really getting into it and i was i was just in the zone and pumped out a bunch of episodes and i called donald up i'm like you still want to do the show and he's like yeah so over the next year we finished the show and you sold it and we developed a plan to get it out there. And now here we are.
It's very exciting. So it's a long journey, to say the least.
Yeah. But I think it was totally worth the wait to wait till now.
Absolutely. And I mean, the fact that the show, the actual production, once you got into the weeds of building each episode and then producing each episode, the fact that that took about a year makes a lot of sense to me because it is a very highly produced, in a good way, show.
There's so many elements to it. There's so many sound clips that you pull in from news.
And it really brings people into the world that you grew up in and that your dad was living in. And I think if you know, if you'd put a show together in three months, it obviously would not have had nearly as many layers or depth.
So yeah, that time really shows. Yeah.
It's a lot of, um, because it's really just me in a room doing all this by myself. So it's, it's literally just a lot of me just kind of like just staring at a space and letting my brain go, kind of fucking trying to pull threads and like make a story happen.
And it's a lot of self-reflection, too. So, yeah, it does.
It does take all that time to really get it right. Another creative outlet that you have in the show is your music.
I think it's a really awesome Easter egg for listeners. I didn't realize initially that that was your band that was in the soundtrack.
Can you talk a little bit about Starry Eyes' music and the songs that you featured in Crook County and how that all fits into the show? Yeah, it's kind of like one of those things. Another reason why I'm glad it didn't happen before 2020 when I first started doing the pilot is because I didn't have a band.
I'd always been in music when I was a kid. That was the thing that I wanted to do.
I got my first guitar at 10 and I started an original band at 10. We were called Malice and it was just really heavy, dark alternative.
For 10-year-olds? For 10-year-olds, long hair and black fingernails. I was a little goth kid.
I played bands all throughout high school. I was in punk bands and i was in the chicago scene that you know spawn fallout boy and the academy is and we were playing shows with fallout boy and garages and vfws and community senators and like we had this amazing punk rock scene obviously that turned into like this huge nationwide phenomenon and in the early 2000s it just went crazy but by the time it all went crazy I had my dad was dealing with the heroin addiction and our family was falling apart and it was like I don't had the freedom anymore to like go out and be like a rock star and you know or pretend to be a rock star and and like you know be completely irresponsible and be broke and like I had to get a fucking job and I got into film which almost is dumb dumb.
And, uh, but it's glorified. There's at least kind of like jobs, you know? And so, yeah, I got into film and, and in college, I went to SIU Southern Illinois University.
I met this like group of nerds that had this TV show that aired on the Midwest PBS affiliate. And it was like a docu-series show.
They would record these little five-minute documentaries. They'd drive all over the country.
They'd find these crazy stories. They'd interview them.
They'd shoot them. They'd come back.
They'd edit it themselves. And then we packaged it into this little show and it would air on PBS.
And it was an amazing show and it was an amazing experience. And we ended up winning a ton of Emmys.
And it was a huge eye opener. I could actually do this as a a career and so it gave me a huge confidence boost and and I met a lot of the people that I ended up working with like in my career through that show like a lot of these people moved to LA and before I moved to LA I actually moved to Atlanta that's where I started my like real career as an editor I was editing a bunch of stuff for TNT and TBS and movie trailers and whatnot but um back to the music thing so music kind of went away the guitar basically was collecting dust on the wall and then same thing covid hits and i'm completely burned out and i i hate everyone and uh um and i'm like i just like what am i doing with my life and and i started playing guitar again and it was like this spark just lit and it was like oh yeah I used to fucking love music and so um I just like couldn't I became obsessed and I'm like I need to I need to write songs I need to do something and so I went on Craigslist good old Craigslist and I found this dude John who had like it was him and a drummer and they had a bunch of songs that written, but it was just instrumentals.
And they were like looking for a vocalist singer for like three years. And I, you know, Craigslist said them back and I'm like, hey, send me your demos.
And they sent me the demos and they were great. They were the songs.
And so I started writing the lyrics. And so, yeah, like the songs that are in the main titles and the end titles, Aloha, Crush, and No Show, a lot of that, I mean, all of it really is about those issues and about my dad's heroin addiction, about me trying to put him through rehab, about him telling me this fucked up story about his life and how am I supposed to deal with that shit? Like, what does that mean? All that.
So when this whole thing actually came together in 2023 as a show, the music was there, the podcast was there. And it was just this perfect marriage to kind of like put everything together in one package and completely just like purred all.
It was like just the biggest therapy session ever to get it out. So I feel so light.
I feel like I can fly right now. Just so happy to have all this shit off my back.
So note to anyone who's dealing with really tough family stories, make a publish it to millions of people and and write an album and write an album yeah music is a really incredible way to process anything absolutely is there anywhere that people can go and just listen to these songs a little more in depth since we get clips of them in the show but we don't really get the full start to finish song yeah i mean I mean, anywhere you stream music, they're out there. Spotify, Apple Music, whatever, you know.
Quick plug. And the band is called Starry Eyes.
Starry Eyes. We have two albums out.
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I just knew him as a kid. Long, silent voices from his past came forward.
And he was just staring at me. And they had secrets of their own to share.
Um, Gilbert King, I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott. I was no longer just telling the story.
I was part of it. Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer.
He's just straight evil. I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.
If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been

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You talked about initially gathering these stories and interviewing your dad with the intention of this being a family archive, not something public. Yeah.
Can you talk a little bit about that process of when you actually first started interviewing him and what that looked like? And then if that shifted as you decided this was going to become something for the public rather than just for your own family's kind of internal processing? When I first learned about all this, besides the heroin, the heroin was an ongoing thing for years and years and years. In 2013, he called me and I had been estranged from him for about five years.
And so when he called me, it was odd because I don't talk to him at this point.

And when I do talk to him, it's like, fuck you.

You know, it's like really not, it's not healthy at all.

So when he called me, he was just like, he was a wreck and he was like vulnerable and emotional.

And I was shocked.

It's like, what the, what is this?

And it was, I, this is basically my last day.

Like I'm done.

I'm dying and I'm done and I need help. And you're the only one that can help me because everyone had cut him out at this point.
So he comes to his first born son to save the day. And so I, um, I heard him out and I felt, I felt sympathy for him.
I mean, he was a great dad growing up until he wasn't until the drugs turned him into a monster. and by this time, I was healthy in my career.
I was healthy. I had a wife and we were already talking about raising a kid.
I was healthy. I'm healthy and I'm in a good place.
And I felt like I could do it. So I immediately kind of like figured out rehabs, like whatever that means.
I started calling around. I got him a spot at this detox facility in southern california and then put him on a flight from chicago to la the next morning and i picked him up at the airport and he just was this skeleton of a person it was really awful i mean like he didn't have a belt on his pants were just like falling down he's constantly lifting his pants up just really sad really sad state and um you know i drove him to the airport and it was pretty much a silent drive.
And so I dropped him off and that's what you do. Drop him off and you leave.
And then he started getting clean as you do, hopefully. And then I would visit him and then he would slowly start opening up all this stuff to me.
And it wasn't a lot. It was just like, you don't really know who I am.
And, you know, I used to do bad things and, you know, it was just like a lot of little hints, you know, breadcrumbs kind of thing. I don't know if he's on drugs.
Like, I don't know if it's like some heroin hangover or if, you know, he's just like hallucinating. I don't, I don't really take any of this stuff, you know, on face value.
So when he does get sober and I know he's sober and we're having conversations and he's like, kind of like the, you know, the old Ken is, I can kind of see it a little bit. And then that's when he's really laid it out for me.
And it was just like, what are you talking about? Like what? So I gave him an iPad and I said, write this shit down. Like just in your time and your spare time.
And he was staying with me for like a couple of days too. And then you go back and forth and then just like, whatever thought you have just write it all out because it was hard for him to get it out like he would say it then he'd stop and be like i don't want to talk about that you know he like shut it down again so i'm like just write it down in your own time and then like one day it was probably a year or two later it was like 40 pages like you know kind of autobiography all over the place scatterbrained you know but i read it I read it and it was just like, it's the story.
It's the story. It's Crook County.
It's insane. So I spent a good amount of time kind of like organizing the thoughts, asking him other questions and telling him to send me a little voice memos every now and then if he has a thought.
And I just started compiling information and materials. And at the same time, I was really busy doing movies stuff.
So I just like there wasn't a podcast. There wasn't anything.
It was just like working on my dad, having him purge all these things. And then in 2017, that's when I heard Up and Vanished, like I said, and I was like, this could be a podcast, you know, and that's when I pulled out the recorder and he was ready and I was ready and he was sober at this time.
And he was working in a rehab facility, you know, helping people stay clean. It was kind of like his penance for his life of crime and what he felt like he had to do.
And we just started recording. And over a couple years, we got all this material and then I would go and fly out and I got my mom in Chicago, got my brother, got my dad's twin brother, Rich.
I found his old paramedic firefighter partner, his high school girlfriend, just like all these things, started pulling clips, started learning about the mafia, just all this research, really dive in. And then the rest is history.
I i put it all together and now here we are but uh but yeah you know so the the question was how do you transition from family archives to that and it was creatively i had to insert i realized i had to insert myself into the story to tell the story as opposed to just like having this be like archival footage that i could share. You know, here's an hour interview with your dad kind of thing or your grandpa kind of thing.

Right.

So that's that was the change. That was the flip that I had to do.

What was that like? therapeutic and and very lonely because i was just sitting in my room like just thinking for weeks and weeks and weeks and just like then i'd write a little something and then

then i'd tie two pieces of footage together with this little thought that i had right and it was just like this slow like brick laying process that took a long time you know how do you connect all these dots right because it's three it's three four decades of stuff plus my life you know and how it affected us and how it affected everybody else. So it was a lot, but I learned a lot.
I could do, I can be a lot more efficient at that now. I think through this process, I know how to do it.
Has the process of doing this show, you know, recording these interviews, reaching out to your family and, you know, extended community, has it shifted how your family operates? Um, that's, that's interesting. You know, there are a bunch of stubborn bastards, let me tell you.
But I will say that this whole process has brought us a lot closer together. Yeah.
And I think, you know, one of the morals of this whole thing is secrets kill. And you can't have a functioning family unit when everyone's holding on to shit and burying realities.
You know what I mean? Because they're not fun. They're ugly.
And so for us, I forced everybody to dig this shit up and say it to me and say it to my face and put it out there. And I have these conversations.
And I think just like it was cathartic for me, it was really cathartic for everybody else too. So yeah, in a way now that it's all out there and especially now that it's out in the world and people are hearing it and they're getting like, my mom's getting Facebooked by people like, holy, like what? It's like, there's nothing left to hide.
And now, and they're almost

like, it's, it's weird. It's like, they feel lighter.
Like I just said, I feel like I can

flow. Like everyone feels a lot lighter now.
It's like, yeah. Like, and, and because they're not

being persecuted, like they thought they would be persecuted by sharing this stuff. People are

actually like sympathizing and empathizing and being like, oh my God, you know, and like feeling

the need to, to help or be friends again, or, you know, reignite an old friendship or whatever. I'm like, oh my God, now I understand why you were the way you were or why you, you know, why things happened and why we fell up, our relationship fell apart.
It's like all, everything has been kind of glued back together again in a weird way. So yeah, it's very healthy.

That's so beautiful. That's really cool.
Are you still the only one in touch with your dad, or has anybody else made contact with him? 99.9% me. Every now and then he'll text my mom, and she just wants nothing to do with him.
So she'll just be like, whatever can, you know, kind of thing. That's my mom voice.
Whatever can. And then my brother wanted nothing to do with them for years.
I mean, really, like high school for him was a nightmare. Yeah.
And he hadn't talked to him for over 10 years. So I'll share a little secret with you.
We had this sit down on Christmas two months ago, my mom, my brother and myself, and I played them all, all the episodes. We sat down in this, in this room and we played eight episodes straight and we drank a shit ton of wine and we got really drunk and we got really emotional and we just hashed all this shit out.
And it was again, but in the middle of it it was the craziest thing in the middle of it my dad texts me and he says and he says i'm gonna kill myself today seriously yes i have the text and it's the hot it's christmas he's got no family he's fucked he's my his head is fucked still and you know the poor the guy. He really is.
As much as I try to help him, but he's still a fucking mess. And I go, whoa.
I pulled up my phone. You guys can just text me and read this.
And I put it out and they read it. And my brother goes, fuck that.
Give me that fucking phone. I'm going to FaceTime him right now.
It was the first time he ever said anything like that in over 10 years. And so he FaceTimed my dad.
And I have it all recorded. And he just confronted him and just let him have it.
Like 10, 12 years of all this backlog of hate and pain and things he wanted to say. And he just fucking crushed him.
And it was crazy. It was super healthy for him.
And at the end of it, they were both kind of laughing a little bit. It was wild.
It was wild. And so I'm going to release some bonus episodes that has a lot of this like kind of present day stuff going on, this present day drama.
Wow. Welcome to the tequila family.
Never a dull moment. That is kind of the opposite action I would expect someone to take if they heard their dad was feeling suicidal.
He's like, I'm going to let him have it because in case he goes, I have to get this off my chest kind of thing. Yeah.
No, it was kind of cool. Life, it sounds like, right? It totally knocked him off that train of thought.
Yeah. What am I thinking? Because that's literally what he said.
He's like, what the fuck are you thinking? Texting your son who's like done nothing but help you that you're gonna fucking kill yourself like you're putting that weight on your on kyle like what is wrong with you and just he just crushed him it was it was pretty incredible i mean the thing that comes through in the show from both you and your brother and your mom is the fact that there's still so much love there And I think that's what that is. It's like, if you are angry, you still care.
If your brother didn't love your dad still, despite everything, he wouldn't have cared. He would have seen that text and not, you know, bothered.
C'est la vie. But yeah, no, you're 100% right.
I mean, it's really so vulnerable to put this out into the world. But I think a lot of people live with these huge secrets and these weights that sit on their shoulders.
Like you were saying, everyone feels lighter, even though it's been really painful and really messy. And y'all's way of processing it is not necessarily what a textbook therapist would be like, this is the proper way to process these sorts of things, you know, but it works for you guys.
And it's created a lot of healing. And I think it's really cool to share that so publicly because it has the potential to really connect with a lot of other people that are in similarly messy situations that might feel like their past forgiveness, like your dad, I imagine, does.
Anyway, I just think it's very courageous to share stuff that's this intense and personal, really. It's so freeing.
Yeah. It really is.
I don't care what people think of me at all. This is exactly who I am, and this is my fucked up family.
Enjoy. And it's amazing that it sounds like you've been met with a lot of

compassion rather than vitriol, which is wonderful.

Honestly, if you're mad at me for this, fuck you. You're an asshole.

So who helped you with the show? You basically already covered that you just did this on your

own mostly, but you did work with Tenderfoot. Can you talk a little bit about that process of

Thank you. helped you with the show.
You basically already covered that you just did this on your own,

mostly, but you did work with Tenderfoot. Can you talk a little bit about that process of building a team and who you worked with and how you worked with other people on this? Yeah, it was a one-man band.
I mean, all production was me, all the editing, the music, sound effects, the sound design, whatever, all that, like, me, me, me. It's It's like a college film shot by me, edited by me, all that.

But Tenderfuckers. the sound design whatever all that like me me me you know it's like a it's like a college film you know shot by me edited by me all that but tenderfoot is they're so efficient and professional and they know this space so well donald is the one i work with day-to-day on this and and maps for the score but donald's like it's got to be eight episodes and two bonus like he gives me the format right you know there's gonna be two mid-rolls so plan for that okay so i know i could i basically 30 minute show which was always my plan i didn't want some like droning hour long it's just too much you know some things hours perfect but like i just felt like it would just be too much at an hour on the show so i i was like always like 30 minutes i was like okay i do literally three 10 minute chunks like and just break it up like it very episodically like a tv show and so like that the form is tenderfoot like that's their that's their guidance and then you know i i filled it all with tent music from mavs actually he sent me just his library of stuff like you know that to cut two and then he crafted an original score once everything was locked cool and which is amazing because he's such a beast he's so talented he really just elevates everything he touches so thank you maps bud you're great and then um as far as trailers and stuff you know again that's them like this wasn't a video thing he's like you need you need a two minute you need a 60 you need 30 you need video stuff you need personal stuff for you you got to fucking learn how to do tiktok you gotta dance uh so yeah all that stuff is is tenderfoot and you know a lot of conversations between donald and i and like you know like what what do you think we should do with this like should i hold this story back is like stuff like that you know he was kind of like an advisor in that front.
But, but yeah, I mean, for the most part, it's me sitting in a room by myself, just staring at a computer screen, pressing buttons. Wow.
That, that is very intense. Very lonely.
Extremely lonely. Has your dad listened to the show? He listened to the pilot.
Okay. And we played it for him and we sat down with him and and it was a lot for him it's one thing for him to finally unveil all of these things to me but another to listen to it back in this packaged movie thing you know like it it kind of messed with him a bit and he didn't he was kind of speechless probably he didn't know what to say and then it scared him he's like oh my god like it's it's like a thing like it's not just my it's like a thing now and then so we had to talk about that and that that leads into that well are you comfortable even doing this and so eventually it was like once once that shock of like oh my god this is a thing now wore off and he understands and he knows i'm a film he knows what i do he knows that i he trusted me to tell it the right way and so um once that all kind of settled itself out he was totally at peace with it and supportive of it and always asking me if I needed any more stories or, you know, whatever, any more clarification on anything, you know, as I'm in production, as I'm editing all this stuff.
And, you know, even nowadays, like every now and then it'll hit me up with a voice memo. It's just some whacked out crazy thing.
And he's like, I don't know if you need that or not, but there it is is so i've got just a folder just full of insanity uh voice memos from him but uh but yeah so i mean he's and i told him like hey the show's coming out february 11th dad that's great son you know congrats uh you know you're so proud of you blah blah blah you know so there are there are moments where we have like normal human conversations and then they like spiral into like like i'm gonna fucking kill myself you know kind of stuff it's very odd it's very a lot of a lot of like almost like bipolar conversations um but yeah so i mean he's 100 supportive of it to answer your question i think it's really interesting i don't remember what episode it is that you mentioned this but he talks about how he never shared his story in AA. You know, like he wasn't comfortable in that setting sharing these things.
And now that same person is confronting the fact that millions of people are hearing his story. It's just one thing to tell it to a group and the other just to like, not even like, just pretend it's not even happening.
And then it's on the radio, you know? Yeah. And you're not a part of the experience.
Yeah, I suppose that's what it is. It's just interesting.
It sort of fits with the picture you paint of your dad of this like life of extremes, you know? Very much so. What if your morning coffee could make a positive difference in the world? With wire to fish coffee, it can.
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I just knew him as a kid. Long, silent voices from his past came forward.
And he was just staring at me. And they had secrets of their own to share.
Gilbert King, I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott. I was no longer just telling the story.
I was part of it. Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer.
He's just straight evil. I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.
If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.
I never expected to find myself in this place. Now, I need to tell you how I got here.
At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer. Bone Valley, Season 2.
Jeremy. Jeremy, I want to tell you something.
Listen to new episodes of Bone Valley, Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire new season ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
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Visit your local Kubota dealer today. so you mention in episode three that you talk to a criminal defense attorney and he encourages you not to release the story is is your dad concerned about that are you concerned about it at all your dad's rebuttal was that he thinks that everybody that he talks about is dead but but he's not.
And he, you know, goes on Mike and admits to committing a number of murders, basically. So can you just talk a little bit more about how he's reconciled that, how you've reconciled that, if there's any kind of concern or fear showing up now that you've released this? No, if anything, there's less fear.
Interesting. Weird you know because you your brain goes when when it's all conceptual and you know you think of all the worst things that can happen and of course it's like yes you think that everyone's dead because you were the kid but like it's it's different when it's conceptual than versus reality and you know it's not just the mafia that that could be you know, but it's also law enforcement or FBI.
There's no statute of limitations on murder. So yes, all these things are going through my head, which is why I talked to this attorney.
And of course, I'm asking my dad all this stuff. And I think really what it boils down to is it's two things.
One, we decided not to name names in the show.

We decided... really what it boils down to is it's two things one we decided not to name names in the show we decided not to dig up bodies in the show we we do a lot of we take a lot of creative license in telling the story without revealing incriminating details and i think i do a pretty good job balancing that and two he is just at a very interesting point in his life where he's right at the end of it he's not healthy and he has nothing left to lose and just getting this burden off of his chest is the most important thing and putting it out there in the world also it's monetarily like i he made a little cash on this deal let's just be honest you know he doesn't have any money he's broke he's living on social security he's not he's basically he's borderline in poverty he was living under a bridge for six months two years ago like he was literally homeless i mean he's a he's a wreck and so like i you know i'm able to pay rent for him now.
And I bought him a car and he's stable. His situation is stable.
And so there's just all those things. And it's like, if karma's going to come get me, then let karma come get me.
That's where he stands. I don't feel like I'm in any danger whatsoever because again, I'm not dropping names and I'm not digging up bodies.
My role in this is to learn about my father. I'm not here to point fingers or blame anybody.
So I don't feel anything. And now that it's out, I've gotten a few DMs on Instagram, like when the trailer came out, from Chicago names that I know.
And that was a heartbeat moment when I saw that name pop up in my messages and um it's kind of funny like it was a very simple message it was like this looks cool and i'm like is that the most ominous chill thread i've ever heard in my life or what like or does he actually like it so i don't know so i wrote back and i'm like and i say last name as in last name and he goes yeah that's my grandfather i'm like oh god here we go wow and then i write I'm like, don't say last name as in last name. And he goes, yeah, that's my grandfather.
And I'm like, oh God, here we go. And then I'm like, don't worry.
It's not some like snitch fest. So it's really just like a father-son story, blah, blah, blah.
You know, I hope you like it. Nothing for like a day.
And I've been like, oh God, it's already happening. I'm done.
My worst fears are coming true. And then the next day he hits me up and he's like, actually, I have a book that I want to write and I have a screenplay.
And I'm like, this is so cool. You're doing it how I would do it.
And it was like, oh, everyone just wants to fucking tell their story. No one cares anymore.
As long as you're not saying that guy did it, people just want to tell their story. So again, I i feel better about everything so yeah it's been a really weird been a really weird journey so far say the least yeah well and to embark on that journey too during the pandemic is particularly intense because everything is closed down and you're closed down and you're digging into these really dark things you know it, it's just, it's very cool.
I'm drinking a lot of wine. Day drinking, as we all did.
As to everybody. That was the thing to do in 2020 and 2021.
But it is so cool to hear about this trajectory of, it really is a story of like from the darkness to the light. You know, it sounds so cheesy to say that, but I just keep hearing you over and over again talk about how beautiful this has been to open that up.
And I love it. And I hope that it encourages other people to do that.
Yeah, me too. This is a great segue into my next question, which is, what do you hope people gain from listening to this show and to your family story? Yeah.
I mean, it's really simple. Like I said earlier, secrets kill people.
And so there the themes of of of addiction and getting help and you know alcoholics nominous or anonymous uh you know narco anonymous cocaine anonymous you know there's all the anonymouses and there's so much value in seeking help and it's really hard to admit that you need help it's so it's like almost one of the hardest things. And especially like in Italian families,

you just don't,

you just eat it.

Sorry.

You don't,

you don't tell anybody about it.

You fucking choke on it.

So yeah,

I think I just really important,

you know, and my dad never would have gotten help.

Like I had a,

he had to call me on his fucking,

he had a,

he was going to kill himself.

He had a gun in his hand.

And so he had to get to that point to, to seek help, to seek help. But he didn't seek help.
He sought my help, not a therapist. And so I had to basically put him into a situation where there was therapy.
And even then, he didn't want to tell anybody anything. But just being in an environment where people are seeking help and dealing with their issues kind of publicly know it can be the best thing you ever do it you know i've never met someone that's gone to aa and said it was terrible terrible idea you know yeah a lot of people relapse but it's not aa's fault that's that's you like that's you not following the program and that's you giving back into the to the demons or the depression or whatever it is and you know it's it's hard it's a battle It's a constant battle.
It's a lifelong battle and takes a lot of strength, but you have to take that first step. And so I hope there's a little bit of that in there, a little bit of hope for people, maybe a little inspiration.
Everyone knows somebody that's addicted to something. Your dad's story of addiction was not something that I expected to show up in the show, you know, just because you look at

we listen to the trailer and you're like, OK, this is going to be, you know, a mafia story.

And then you put it right in episode two. It's like you get the first impression of your dad

and then you immediately bring in his heroin addiction, which happened a little later than

the full story. Like you kind of jump in time a little bit.
Why was it important for you to have that not chronologically ordered, like bring that in early? Yeah. You know, this, cause this never was a mafia show.
Yeah. Fair.
It's not a third person, whatever rehashing of things that happened, you know, news clips and whatever. It's like, it's my story.
It's my relationship with my dad who fucked up big time. And I thought he was just a piece of shit heroin addict.
But no, he actually had this insane history that I could never have even imagined that played a huge role in why he's a fucking heroin addict. Right.
And so it's like two sides of the same coin.

You have to tell both sides of the story.

And you have to lay them out.

And I did it.

I kind of did it naked.

Like it's just episode one is mafia.

Episode two is fucked up family and heroin.

And then you smash them together and you start mixing it up.

And that's what happens for the rest of the episodes.

I'm just like mixing up this ball of, you know, pain, pain and anguish. But the cookies are delicious.
Well, it's I mean, it's effective. Like as a listener with absolutely no context going in, it gave me a very different perspective on your dad from the get go, you know, and instead of, you know, ending up in this, you can just dismiss him as a terrible person it's like you have this layer of okay i understand how he ended up where he ended up and all the layers of trauma and all of the things that's a really interesting point that i think has been really surprising is the amount of people who have said wow he was actually a really good guy and he really loved you guys.
It's like they say that for like, that's like, yes, you kill people. He's in the mafia.
But like their takeaway is that he at the end of the day, like he was actually a good person. He was put in a really bad situation and then just it got completely out of control.
And I think I think a lot of that's true. I mean, obviously, he made those decisions, you know, and he did those things.
And you can't ignore that. That's awful.
But people are super complex, and there's no such thing as a real monster.

I mean, maybe there is like super sociopathic people, but, but he's not a sociopath. I don't think, I think he is actually just a really complex person who found a way to deal with his awful child, like know how he was recruited as a 17 year old kid living on the streets and how he basically was just like ended up in that life and how he was able to kind of get out of that life and start a family and raise a family who loved him and be a great dad you know he he's just, he's kind of this guy who just like fell into a pit and dug himself out of it,

but the pit's still there.

And all you gotta do is look and,

oh, there's the pit, you know?

You just had to find the pit.

And so, yeah, it's like the complexity of him as a person,

I think is what makes this show really,

really special and different

because it's not just some like good guy,

bad guy, mafia thing, you know?

We're all a little fucked up and we can all be really good too at the same time you know yeah i think the show does a really good job of that and i think that theme i mean that theme is something that a lot of tenderfoot shows explore too is the humanity you know part of the picture and no one's story is straightforward like you said there are some people whose brains are very different and they get pushed into these very like dark places but a lot of people who end up committing crimes are kind of i think in situations more like your dad where it's less their choice than externally people perceive it is yeah a lot of external pressures and a forcing of the hand and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
I mean, of course, at the end of the day, they could just say no and walk away or try to, but it's hard. It's really hard sometimes.
Yeah. So at the end of the season, you have this kind of call to action for listeners to reach out to you with questions and comments.
And you've touched a little bit on some of the things you've heard from people, but is there anything that you've heard from folks so far that's really impacted you that you want to share with everybody? You know, I got a comment yesterday and it was someone, basically what you just said, like I wasn't expecting the addiction stuff and I had battled addiction. And that really struck a note with me, how he said that AA saved his life because AA saved my life.
So there's that connection I think is going to land with a lot of people. Someone this morning reached out to me that I went to high school with that obviously had no idea about any of this stuff.
I said, I don't know if you know this, but my dad died of alcoholism when I was 15 and he battled it for a really long time. And, and it was a private thing that we kept within the family and, um, hearing your dad

story now and understanding is like, it makes me want to tell my story, you know?

So it's a lot of, I think, I think it really, it's like triggering people in a, in a positive

way to, to like, to, I guess, embrace these really hard things that have happened to them in their past instead of hide it. I think that's beautiful.
So what's next for Kirk County? Well, there's going to be a bunch of other seasons of it. I have ideas for it.
I would love to, there's so much going on with my dad currently things that I have not even talked to you about yet that are wild that, um, I might be able to squeeze into a season two, like a continuation story. If I can, great.
If I can't, then I'm going to do other stories like under the banner of Creek County, you know, cause in the same kind of way I did this one, you know, it's going to be thoughtful and, and a lot of humanity, um, mixed with the, the bad. But then immediately we are pitching this as a TV series, you know, like a prestige show, you know, like a Sopranos meets Dexter meets, uh, Fargo meets Chicago fire.
We didn't even talk about that. The whole paramedic firefighter thing, you know, that's such a unique angle to his story, you know, to be a first responder who's a mafia asset.
You know, he's a hero by day and a hitman by night. Like, that's that's a show.
Let's go, HBO. What are we talking about? That's true.
We'll see. We're working on that.

We didn't talk about that, but that whole trajectory, I think that's part of why folks are reaching out and saying your dad was a good guy, clearly loved you, because he so obviously was trying to do better.

The fact that he wanted to be a firefighter, it's such a complete balancing effect for what he's doing. It's like Hitman, and then you save lives.
That is the goal.

And so it's so clear that he, yeah, wanted to do better. And I mean, it's a great show.
So where can people get in touch with you to stay updated about all this that's coming next? Maybe send you a story potentially if they have something that could fit. I don't know if that's something that you're looking for, but what do you suggest people do if they want to stay in touch with you in the show? Sure.
You just send me a postcard, go to the mail. Yeah.
You know, I've got all the social stuff. So I control Crook County Podcast Instagram account and the website has like a email feature and a contact.
And there's also vo voicemail thing that actually I want to do. I want people to leave me voicemails and I want to play them on a bonus episode.
So go to crookcountypodcast.com and leave me a voicemail. Ask me a question.
Tell me how you feel about the show, whatever. You can call me a douchebag.
That's fun. I'll talk to everybody.
So pretty, pretty available. Awesome.
Thank you so much, Kyle. This was really fun.

I really appreciate your time.