Ep 538 - LSD Supermax (feat. Joel Blaeser)

Wow, wow, Wes.

And we're live. Joel Blazer, what the fuck is going on, dude? Thank you.
Thank you for coming. Doesn't it feel good? Yes.
Feels good, dude. Every now and again, just to jump in hot.
Get the juices flowing. So, Joel Blazer, so we met in Milwaukee.
I saw you on Soft White Underbelly, and I was taken by it. I was like, dude, this is crazy.
Honestly, I think you're one of their best guests. You know, they've done some.
Thank you. They've interviewed a lot of people, but, you people, but it kind of struck me, bro.
I saw you. I said, damn, this guy is the man.
And we talked, and then eventually we met in Milwaukee. It was pure accident.
Because I had this fucked up post on Instagram. My phone's off.
It's like, you're talking right to me. You didn't even see me.
And I'm like, man, I got to. And I grabbed my phone, and I my phone during and i'm like okay no they're gonna kick me out you can't turn the phone on because i wanted to erase it it was just some fucking negative bullshit like because at the show you can't turn your phone on right right right right so then i go out and then you and i wouldn't even turn my phone on had i not had that thought which is that you inspired me from the thing and then you're like dude I saw you come back to the green room I could have missed you I'm obviously stealing your grip right now I could have missed you that was fucking rad my friend I think Nate you met Nate I think it was AJ AJ comes back and he's like yeah there's a guy looking all white and i was like i know who that is that's joel blazer i was like dude hell yeah so yeah we talked a little bit and um then we met dude i you dude you're the fucking man we met in milwaukee you gave the signed copies to nate and aj of your book uh gave him a little note letters from marion the notes were i thought beautiful man they were i was uh i gave them their books and we were reading them like they're they're just beautiful notes you're the man dude you're an absolute beast but we went to the steakhouse five o'clock steakhouse yes might have been the best steak I've ever had in my life dude I'm not lying it was good it was so good and then I the thing that really killed me was I've never seen this happen before when you showed up you had had an incident with gas oh my god dude that was dude you smelled like gasoline you showed up i like we're all sitting there eating i'm like i thought you're working with power tools all day so i'm like maybe he was like chainsawing all day or something i don't want to be rude of it what the fuck the mother yes the motherfucker clicked i'm sitting in the car the thing's full it full.
It clicked. I pull it out.
Dude. And it just was squirting.
And it just squirted on the car and splashed. Yeah, you got drenched with gasoline.
Like, that is wicked. Bro, I swear to God, I've never.
It was such a pungent smell. I'm like, what am I going to do? You had to just show up.
It was a beast move. You could have lit me on fire if you were smoking cigarettes i seriously was concerned i was worried someone's gonna order like off lombé or something and you would have went up because it was a thick gasoline smell although that's kind of the most manly like cologne maybe we could start it letters from marrying gasoline but yeah so okay so you're and this is what kind of got my interest.
I watched you on Soft White Underbelly, and you had the story basically about going to a Supermax prison for selling, you know, LSD. And the case was crazy.
Like, you know, we talked about it. It was just, you sent, you know, LSD in the mail, Western Union.
Some guy got caught. He never got even caught with it, right? No, his friend got caught.
Okay. his friend just told on him, they showed up at his front door, and he just told them this crazy story.
So they wasn't indicted. He just completely...
Right on his front step. Jesus Christ.
And then he gave you up, and then you got on some bullshit trial where it was like, you never got caught with drugs, but there was enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that you had used a fake name to western union money and lsd around and they sentenced you to you said they 151 months 12 years seven months which i jumped for joy that was short yeah when i was facing 40 and i get 151 i looked at my mom and i just went like this like really you turn around yes because i'm like it's 151. True.
At least 40 when you're 23. It's your whole life.
You're done. You're like, how do you look down that hallway? True.
151, it's like, okay, I can file some appeals. Maybe I'll get lucky, and I did.
That was 1992. 92.
It's crazy to think about the drug laws back then. There's even weed back then.
You'd go to jail for four or five years for selling weed if you had enough. When we drove through Texas or Vegas, Nevada, the older deadheads, the shit was hid.
You couldn't do anything. Ponytails back.
You just had to get through the state, especially Texas. They said, if we get pulled over and they find weed, we all going to prison yeah it's crazy and now look yeah and so we paved the way i should put a collection bucket out you should you should that's the young people have no fucking clue man yeah even even the early 2000s it was like you could go to jail for like like little bullshit like weed and stuff i guess they softened obviously softened there's still some there's 25 states where it's illegal right yeah texas is texas it's still illegal like if you austin you're fine if you have weed in austin they don't care if you leave austin you can still they'll like throw you in the because in front of the hotel everybody they don't care in austin but if you is that isn't that right josh i think if you leave austin and you get caught with weed like to decriminalize in Austin proper.
Yeah, pretty much. I mean, at least they don't prosecute it at all.
That's the lib side? It's a lib. This is a lib haven, yeah.
They actually have like decent food here, but you got to deal with all that stuff. But yeah, man, in Austin, I think I knew someone who got pulled over with a vape cartridge and got like held overnight.
In Austin? No, outside of Austin. Oh.
So Austin's a safe haven. So they can't, do they sell it here? Yeah, it's like now we have that weird stuff where it's like the hemp.
It's one little thing. The hemp bill.
No, the hemp bill. Oh, yeah.
The farm bearer. Exactly.
Because if you get it from hemp, you can, it's like. Yeah.
Or the big thing's THCA. Because THC is what's illegal.
THCA. You know, you have to, you know, like heat up weed and make brownies.
Carbolic. Yeah, decarboxylated or whatever.
So now if you have that extra carbon molecule that heat removes from literally a little lighter, it's technically legal because you can be like, well, this is hemp. Weed's legal now, by the way.
But is it medically legal here? No. Texas is like, I think it's, i think it's yeah i don't think they even have a i think all drugs should be legal and the world would be way different that's really one of the driving forces behind the book just to be part of that wave yeah yeah i mean dude it's like it hasn't worked the i mean look at the prisons well what happened with portugal didn't portugal yeah i mean obviously people up for years.
They did. It was much smaller.
The Cato Institute did a big study. I wrote a couple op-eds for that.
I don't remember all the statistics, but they would track it all the way to when kids first tried drugs. It just had a positive impact on all the metrics of drug use, amount of drug use, when they stop.
And then when you go in to do it do it they say if you get addicted or you want help here it is but there's a lot of moms whose young daughters and sons have od'd and died that if it was legal if they were at one of those places they wouldn't have died yeah and and you take the the mexican cartel would go out of business like that think of that so that's the big one yeah. Yeah, well, that's the...
But here's the thing. I read the book Chasing the Scream by...
Yeah, yeah. Great book.
They talk about that, how in London they would give people heroin. And then if they had to go to a center and the heroin was clean, there were way less deaths.
But now the critique in America is like the. Well, it's a cesspool.

America did it wrong.

Like Oregon and Seattle is just like a whole area of.

Exactly.

And it does give the harm reduction stuff a bad name because it's like if you just let

people lay on the street and you're like, oh, here's fucking here's needles.

And then my friend, Jerry Clickstein, was actually living in Skid Row for a while.

And he said the problem was you like throw these guys in like an apartment like, oh,

here, we're going to give you housing. And then they OD and die die and nobody finds them because they're by themselves rather if they're outside but if you can at least discover them if both metrics were the same legal and illegal the use there's still the metric of the criminal elements out of it and we get the money that we can bring back in yeah that's true and it's also it loses a lot of the all's like, you know, if you're telling me if I got to go to like a professional office building to like go do heroin, I'm going to be like...
You're going to start to question it. You're going to think, what am I doing? Where's my life going? Yeah, what is it? What the fuck am I doing? It's not the thrill of like, you know, you're getting it.
It takes the rock and roll element out of it. I think good work.
And it always is a personal choice. It is like, you know, it comes down to personal choice.
What I do with my head is my business. Can a government really tell me? Yeah.
Well, apparently they told you they sent you to jail for fucking 15 years. So, dude, so you have a book.
It's called Letters from Marion. I read it.
I love the book, dude. I thought it was great.
Thank you. Book was fantastic.
It kind of gave me that shout out about the jack rag on another podcast. i did i did i did actually i parted it too dude that's i'm glad it's got to cross a weird threshold though for other prisoners to be like yo here's how you jerk off because i know in jail it's like nicky at the third place yeah nicky told me he started to tell me and i thought he was fucking with me yeah and i'm like but he's not gay sparky already got me stoned with all this weed and then i'm like all right i'm gonna try it right i did and it was wicked and it was what was the technique again you rolled the socks inside out so it's smooth and then you're not actually like going up and down on the shaft you're and it's hard it's hard when you get a really big hard on but you grab the shaft and then that heat created and then right at climax boom right on top and underneath put some pressure on it it has an effect man that's crazy you mean like most don't guys know that oh man i don't know i've never tried pressure play at the end.
So you turn it inside out, and then you fold it over so it's a little tight, right? And you got to get a big sock. But no, it works.
And then it's all contained. No spill, no thrust, no must.
You don't have to buy a cab where I'd home in the morning. True.
Got to wash the sock, yeah. Got to wash the sock.
Throw that fucker out. Throw it out.
After like six or eight six or eight uses what oh so you still wash it or i'll rinse it but not i don't want to put it in the machine ah true you need to keep it pure yeah yeah i get that true you don't want all those chemicals on you the funny so you were telling me this made me laugh a lot so you get you go to trial you took your case to trial you fight it yourself which you know is honorable. You go take your case to trial and then you were sentenced.
Like you said, what was the first thing you did upon sentencing you back to the cell? What was your play? So it was a that was 23 years old, sober experience, sobering experience. I went to that cell and I just started to think, what do I want to do? What am I going to do when i get out surfing sushi and then i'm like somehow i got aroused right on you know and the the marshals were out of the office there there's bars and i just fucking hit it i made myself come hard dude and then i'm like get used to it motherfucker because that's all you got and i think that's actually pretty good realization and just accepting

this is what it is dude i mean and who knows maybe if i spent 151 months in there i mean i might have been getting my dick sucked i don't fucking know i don't think so but after a certain amount of time like say if you're there for 30 fucking years man i hear You've got to gotta be touched like what the fuck something's gotta happen yeah or a guard you get lucky with the female prison guard that'd be huge that'd be very lucky so i don't know i've never had to deal with that but um you never had it that was that was your primary concern you said going in you didn't want to have to get raped get my asshole filled with cum can i say that you can say that yeah. It's your journey.
No, man. Dude, that's a real fucking fear.
I'd be terrified, man, because you were down where? In, like, Kentucky? Yes. That trial was in Covington, Kentucky, 6th District.
The first prison was, like, really low and normal. But, you know, as it progressed, and the thing is, the face of the medium security prisons at that time changed the normal medium security in the 80s you might have bank robbers couple drug dealers the average sentence was maybe eight six eight ten years but now there was every other fucking guy at 30 35 years and they're young so it was like that was like a penitentiary and a medium because like you know if a dude's got 35 or 40 years and he's 25 and he's disrespected like what the fuck does he have to lose exactly it's not like you have eight or 10 and you got an out date and you're close right so like the tensions were different and also i did like that i i have to say like so you're there you know that just being like look i've never tried sushi i'm gonna get that when i get out i'm gonna surf around the world when i get out and then just like you know and it is funny to like just jerk off but it is something there's something serious about that level of acceptance to be like this is my situation because i feel like people in and out of jail struggle with that of like just accepting your lot in life and just kind of like getting getting with the program rather than just constantly spinning yourself out acceptance it's a big thing it was luck i don't know how i like i look back what the fuck and why you were wise you were definitely at 20 for 22 to be like all right this is what it is is pretty crazy i don't i wouldn't be able to take it i would have been like this is bullshit there's no way i would have been in total denial i think when they arrested me i thought to myself as they're driving me in the car like i had the thought i'm like i know a motherfucker who's got a kilo of coke i'm thinking in my head and um and i'm like no and they brought me to the courthouse in this room with christopher bick and a couple other agents and And they said, you're going to spend the rest of your,

you're going to spend all of your fucking 20s

and probably most of your 30s in prison.

This is the best part of your life.

And they said, just, we, you don't even,

we won't even process you.

Just tell us you'll cooperate and help us.

And it can stop right now.

And I said, take me to myself.

Fuck you.

Which was the hardest fucking thing. Because I knew it was not.
I'm not going to jail then. Yeah.
They threw the 18 count indictment on my lap when they arrested me, which I thought, holy fuck. That means they convened a grand jury.
They've been fucking following me, trying to catch me with shit, which they were. So, yeah, man, that was a that was a wicked a wicked situation then i got out on bail for like four months and then went out on bail i got in trouble so they arrested me i don't know if i put this in the book and then i had to go back to kentucky through the federal prison system and then once i got to kentucky they there was a mix-up with getting the car and then i got out again talk about this yeah i went through six or seven prisons because the way the marshal services like transfers you through and then i went to this one in oklahoma now they built a different one but you actually went into a prison with like six tears and so i'm only have been arrested i informally charged but i have i have not been convicted or sentenced so I'm only have been arrested.
I've informally charged, but I have not been convicted or sentenced. So I saw in that point, I saw what prison was like really what prison was.
Yeah. You got to get your shuffle.
So I remember that in the book you were, you had to get yourself down to Kentucky to get like a rain or whatever. Yeah.
Cause I, they arrested me in Milwaukee, but the indictment was out of Kentucky. So they ar arraigned me here they gave me pre-trial probation they said you got to show up in three weeks and you couldn't get to kentucky right right like two days before i called the marshals they said you got to get there you got to get there we're going to come arrest you and then there was an issue with my getting a rental car and then my brother wasn't going to let me use his car and i mean i fucked up yeah so they were pissed so they had to literally transport you from milwaukee down to but they don't go straight you just get in the system and you just you go around and then it took me like 31 days a couple county jails but the it was the one in um oklahoma oklahoma city i can't remember the name of the federal prison but like you would go to the ch to the chow hall, and you'd mix with the prisoners, like the WIC, you know.
Yeah, yeah. I remember Gene Gotti was there, I believe, at the time, but it was like, holy fuck, man.
Then I get to Kentucky. He gives me the bail.
He's like, you can't fuck up. We're going to piss you, all that.
He's like, but I'll see you. I don't know.
The trial was in four or five months after that um but that that no i went back to milwaukee okay if that that could have made anybody rat yeah because you see like this is the gonna be home oh you weren't i see what you're saying you weren't even like a fully uh sentenced yet and the thing that struck i didn't know i didn't even have the trial exactly so you got like a taste and you could have totally been like bro fuck this i'm out i did like the thing in the book where you talked about how they gave some people what was called diesel therapy and they keep prisoners traveling just in perpetuity that like diesel therapy dude that's fucking terrible because you don't you maybe shower every two days you're constantly in chains belly chains and the leg irons and like if you file complaints, and I'm sure they do it to people that they want to break, like maybe secret service people they think are selling secrets or whatever, like some sort of thing. And then it's also a threat.
Like, you know, like if you go on diesel therapy, you're basically on a bus like seven days a week and stopping off only every couple days and like in the big tanks with people you're eating bologna sandwiches like yeah you don't know anyone so you're just getting shuffled or you're a stranger everywhere calls no mail sucks dude this episode is brought to you by call of duty calling all call of duty fans verdansk is back in call of duty war. Starting on April 3rd, you'll be able to drop back into Verdansk,

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The thing is, like, on the commissary slips, they sold at every single federal prison, they sold raw garlic. And when you went to the hole, there were certain things on the commissary they wouldn't let you buy.
But you could buy, always buy raw garlic. Really? Cloves.
And, like, for the whole entire time, every single day, I'd eat two to four cloves every day and just wanted to do it yeah did it probably kept like infections at bay and you know getting sick in jail would fucking you never no one ever thinks about getting sick in jail it's it's the thing the light sicknesses are you're gonna kind of get poo-pooed but like if something's real serious they take because it's the feds they they will take you right out to the hospital. That's cool.
But the. Well, my friend was in a county jail.
And that's the thing people don't know, too. Apparently, county jail is the worst.
Exactly. That's what I've heard.
It's cesspool wickedness. It sucks.
My friend was there and he was he was an older guy and he was in the county jail. It's dirty.
There's no regulation. He was there during covid and he said the guards were so like whacked out about interacting with the prisoners that he was like if you they didn't come check on you at all and the heaters were fucked up so he was like it was freezing cold it always is and the air is recirculated so you're getting dandruff yeah he was like it's freezing cold and he was like i'm an older guy he had you know health issues he's like if i had a health complication i would have died because like we would there was like a bell or a button they could ring to like get people to come and he's like they would all ring it nobody but like for you know eight hours a night that people just wouldn't show up because they were like we don't want the guards were like we don't want to be around the fucking prison right because even if you're federal holdover in a county jail you don't get the federal like if you're in a federal prison yeah there's just like you're in the county that's it you would think the county would be the nicer one because it's lesser well at least you're you can be waiting to trial but it's like usually if you like a dui you think that conditions would be nicer to go serve a dui sentence and like it's got to be the worst place in the scheme it's a pyramid scheme no i, I'm saying, if you did a high-level crime,

you get better jail conditions, basically.

You get a federal prison.

Well, once you get there...

Yeah, it's true.

But that just shocked me,

because my friend went, and I was always kind of like,

oh, you would think federal prison's worse than the county,

but he was like, no, it's actually way better.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Yes, definitely got so you got uh so once you were there and in the book you move around a lot and also there was doesn't it come together at the end though i like it yeah i like you did it you did a good you did a good job of like chronological leaps because it's like you know you're talking about your one time period like you know i'm waiting trial and then like you're jumping to like being released and the stuff you were doing after that and then back and i thought yeah that's you pulled it off the chronological jump thank you pulled off the letters were so what was your thought because within the book it's too many well here's the thing i think they were fine but they really you gave a pretty um a pretty serious glimpse into like the psyche of a incarcerated you know young some of it was a little too deep. I loved it.
I thought it was great. But the best is when you send a letter to your brother being like, I'm going to fucking destroy you when I get out of here.
I'm so jacked. That made me literally laugh out loud in my bed.
I was reading that. I'm like, what a funny fucking thing just to be in jail.
I'm going to fucking beat your ass when I get out of here. I'll be so strong.
Which I'm sure you're fucking around with your brother, but it was like, yeah, the letters did, like, the story, you know, was flowing. The letters, like, they really gave it some kind of, like, some weight to it, man.
It was like, some of those letters were, like, kind of dark. I thought it was cool.
Here's my thing. You didn't have to put those in there.
And you did. And you really showed kind of an unfiltered view of how you were.
And it was kind of cool. Yeah, I wanted to do the envelopes to prove I was there.
And then Hillary wanted me to type the letter out. But then I'm like, that means it could be edited.
If this letter, this is it. You can't change that was, I couldn't, I didn't know what you were talking about.
You were asking your mom for photos. What was the photo? Oh, she, for Playboy.
My parents met at Playboy and she posted a photo. That I heard, yeah, that I knew.
So what did you want the photo for? Just to have, I don't know. No, so she, there's's we would see the photos like when we were little and so they weren't all they're not nude yeah obviously they're not all nude but she has a couple and then on the back it says playboy studios but i think i had a bet or something with someone or some reason ulterior i can't remember what it was But I got the picture and I showed it.
I said, look, Playboy Studio. Yeah, that was the one.
I think it was a bet. That was a letter I saw in there.
There's no context on the letter. So I kind of looked it up and I was like, okay, that's what I thought it was.
You wanted the Playboy photos for a bet. You never said that in the book.
No. When you're reading it, you're going, this is a freaky-ass bull, dude.
In prison in prison i'm gonna be jacking off to my mother i would never say that i would never say no but you're right that's a reasonable thought how fucked up does this dude get he's jacking off to his mother oh my god i'd never say so god damn it just made me laugh because i was reading the book and i'm like what the fuck is he talking about these photos and that makes sense. You had a bet with somebody.
They didn't believe you. No, Gary.
I'm pretty sure it was Gary. He didn't believe it.
It might not have been a bet. It might've just been, look, I want like a, Hey, my parents met.
I play a boy. Check this out.
Like, yeah, that was an interesting story too. That was a, so how did that go down? I think it happened on Lake Parkway at the mansion.
You have to his mansion. My dad collected money.
He worked in the credit department. My mom worked in some area where like, you're just kind of the traditional whatever.
And then they met at the party and then that they married. I think they married in 63, November 22nd, the day John Kennedy was shot.
And they, I think they met in 61, but but they both worked at Playboy and then Pompeo Pozar was a big staff photographer just hounded the shit out of my mother until she um relented to pose so but the the rest of the story which I've never told anyone probably never happened in the history of Playboy so she posed they picked her for centerfold everything was set type set and everything and she fucking freaked out and she was like take it out i don't want to do it she's like no and but she still stayed working there for another year and a half but they said no one's ever done this like said no yeah and so she's like i can't do it she was sort of traditional italian uh yeah it's a big catholic especially back then 60 especially back then like people now wouldn't care because everyone people have like only fans and shit but like yeah back then that was a big deal she was old-fashioned like that pull the chair out like just what was the thinking though why i guess you know i guess if you're in I guess if you're in the environment and you get kind of, they do that at strip clubs a lot too. We'll take the bartenders and they'll be like, yeah, you should get up there.
Just a, it's just when you're in that environment, they're probably just kind of pushing you. Well, she was super fine.
Really? She was extremely fine. Yeah.
No, unbelievable. Like, okay.
I had a party at the Lake estate. The, the super bowl was february 4th and my friend was there and my mom came into the kitchen and um so i'm i don't know 40 my mom's 65 probably now she's my mom so like i you know but petite and perfect you're cursed with a hot mom so she leaves the kitchen and bob's there it's probably five years my elder he's like dude your sister is so fine can i get her can i call her and i said it's my mom and he's just like you know like that's who she was but she wasn't like uh what's the word like she didn't act like she was but she was really yeah what was it like growing up with like a like a hot mom basically i how could i know the difference what do you mean oh yeah you know what i can't say yeah i always wonder what that was looking back like the way people reacted to her and would talk to her, like when we would travel, like they were very attracted to her.
Yeah. I don't know.
It probably helped me. I mean, if I'm doing my ugly.
No. Yeah.
No, no. You're a good guy, dude.
I think she might have been able to do a lot better than my dad, though, right? Yeah. So what was in the book you include some stuff, like you guys had a rocky relationship, and then he just died.
Yeah. How was that? Because you go into the, it's kind of jarring because I read it.
It's like you guys have this physical altercation, and then he dies that day. So a week before he died, maybe two weeks, we were at the dining room table, and I'm like, dude, I think something's wrong with you.
I think you're going having these dreams it happened with my grandmother he said I'm fine I had the cholesterol check everything's good then the day before so what was it October 15th 1989 1988 because the first time I took LSD was a year later on that date unbeknownknownst to me. And so we got in a fight over something.
The cakes went flying. It was like a birthday.
Someone's cakes. Was it my mother's? Someone had a birthday coming.
And then that, so we had the fight and I ran out of the house and I was kind of a fuck up. I got this new job.
And then at the started to panic and freak out they trained me and i said i gotta go home something's wrong and then he died right in my arms damn that's crazy which is fucked up yeah that's and you were you know early 20s it's got to be a pretty heavy experience uh 20 or yeah 20 19 okay No, maybe I was 21, 69, 89, 88, 7, 19. Okay.

Damn, that's pretty wild yeah that was just like a quick thing mentioned in the book but i was like that was that's kind of but then what happened in marion like so like you know like uh in his in world like in nature there's no wasted energy and if you live to be 80 you've had six years of dreams yeah it's kind of crazy right and so like once i got to mary and from this very first day to the day i left every single night i'd dream and we'd meet and we'd talk and we'd get it out that's cool every fucking day so like i made peace with it somehow like but yeah there was a rocky relationship. I mean, my dad suffered from PTSD.
He fought in a war. Um, and like, I mean, I don't know if I was, I don't like, cause you mentioned it when you did your thing about hitting a kid.
Is that really the way? So five or six year old boy, like that's, it might it didn't happen all the time but it happened enough to where it's like it's significant right but it doesn't have to define who i am today for sure yeah so i don't know does that answer your question no yeah that does that was a it was like a heavier moment and the uh and this was i thought this was kind of interesting too in the book the uh i mean this was kind of like the crux of the tale. It was like, you're in jail, you know, and you're kind of having a good time.
You're, you know, sounding a little black tar heroin. Just finance my weed.
Oh my God. That's just the hypocrisy of it, right? Like we're going to keep this shit illegal? I know.
What the fuck? It is crazy. But for me, it was crazy that you just tried heroin and were like, man, that was cool.
I said the whole thing, withdrawing the needle back and the blood coming in. Was that creepy as fuck doing that? I don't like needles at all.
That's why. No, it was creepy as fuck.
And the thing is, it just felt like I was really stoned. So I'm like, I'm not.
Why would I want to do this other than smoke pot? Yeah. Because then I'm getting physically addicted.
I'll be sucking dick to get more or whatever. For sure.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it wasn't, it wasn't this like other worldly. Oh, that's the thing.
That's it. That's the other thing.
When I went to the, when I jacked off in this thing, that's the third thing. So when I was out, that's was very significant.
So when I was there, I said sushi surfing. And when I was out selling LSD, they thought you were an alcoholic or doing coke or heroin when you could not get the good LSD.
You were cut off, yeah. You were done.
And they always trained you for safety first. And it's like they knew.
They could see in my soul, this motherfucker will not rat. Somehow they saw that.
And when I jacked off, I said, I'm going to fucking try once. I want to just try it.
I want to stick a needle in my arm and I'm going to try heroin. Was that because of Jerry Garcia having, was he like into heroin then or that was until like the nineties? It's, I don't know the whole history.
He was in it. I mean, probably from the beginning, but when he got addicted, it was definitely in the nineties bad, really bad bad and then he went to the forest knolls or serenity knolls and then he died i don't know if it's because of that but it was the reason no it wasn't because of that because the people that do heroin and coke and are alcoholic they're not thinking safety first right and then they bring that heat on people because the're in the circles of the heavier drugs where LSD was very clandestine.
Yeah. Okay.
That makes sense. That was part of your thing.
I'm going to try heroin too once. Once.
Now I can do it. That was the three things I promised myself.
You were getting crushed by the corporate lifestyle of selling LSD. So you're like, I'm going to always to get to the next show like because if you went broke you could sell grilled cheese and beer make six or eight hundred bucks buy 20 or 30 sheets go to some city for two weeks with someone that you just met or they know the city and then make four or five thousand and you're good for like the whole tour yeah i mean two or three grand in the 80s on tour it was like you're set true you got three or four guys in the car but like there's always was the juxtaposition it's like i'm risking my fucking life for a little bit of money even though i believe in it like so that was the dichotomy of wickedness i mean how fun was that just being uh you know a younger that was amazing basically around the Grateful Dead.
It was beautiful because like those people accepted me. It was like a family and it was just like love.
The scene in the parking lot when I went to the first show was unbelievable. Like it just was what was missing at home.
That makes sense. And it was beautiful.
But no, it wasn't like I was in fear because I sold very little drugs at a show. I would meet people and like make things happen.
But it wasn't like I was out there. Doses, mushrooms.
Yeah, you weren't really getting after it like that. And you didn't have to because you could do grill and you could grill, grill cheese and beer and do fine and make money.
And then, you know, the acid connects. And then like these people who did the lsd like we'll just say rainbow you know the suvian man the vesuvian man yeah yeah so one side had that and then the one side was surfing hippie ladies and then a sheet is a thousand hits which is like maybe a seven by ten and then ten of those is like accordion so that's that's one gram of lsd which looks just like a gram of cocaine and then they would pay someone to batik those sheets with each square of a hundred hits would have the that vesuvian the vitruvian man from what's his name on astronaut vinci yeah da vinci and the other side would be the surfing hippie ladies but that piece of paper was like artwork You could not counterfeit that.

That makes sense, yeah.

If I saw one of those sheets on the lot i'm like all right rainbow is here i'm gonna search them out like i know i can get and then they would front me anything but i would never they would front me 10 grams which is a hundred thousand hits but i can i would like what am i gonna do with it and they would train me like if you ever think there's heat around the corner like throw that shit away you just have to stay safe like one time we did a 10 strip and like they were just with me when they met me and you took 10 hits you're saying yeah and um they could tell somewhat however they told they could tell but like i was in damn you know i was what was that like when you you like that was your first experience was that your first experience no the first one was uh the year the year anniversary of my dad's death i was right a friend's new friends that i met and um we were in the show they were blue unicorns and there were lights like this on the ceiling and we just kept eating the lsd because we're like i'm like i don't don't think it's real. I don't think it's real.
It was her second time. And then I don't know, I probably got to eight or nine and then all of a sudden we're like, this is real.
But then we just spent the next 15 hours together. We were at the show.
It was the most beautiful, lovely experience. Like you could see, you could just, you were just in the moment.
It's hard to explain in words. But that was a beautiful trip.
But the time I took the 10 was Northern California. And like you could sleep.
I mean, pure good LSD is not, I don't think it's really harmful unless you have a very something psychologically that's really impending you. And or the precursor to the trip.
Like if you just got in a wicked fight with your ex-wife and she's taking the kids and you got to double the alimony. And then that might be bad.
Yeah, that makes sense. And you were saying in the book, too, these people who were like, there was only a few people who were able to somehow secure the ingredients necessary to make LSD.
Because it is hard. I knew a guy in a lab, and he could make almost anything, but he's like, I can't make LSD.
There got to mean tartate. No, it's a substantial amount of glassware, and it's not just some bathtub shit to get pure LSD 25.
It took some time. And so the other thing is, like, and you're not just going to make, you're going to end up with millions and millions of hit with a batch, you know? So it's like, you're going to have a lot, but those people that I met, they never were about bling bling.
They were specific to safety first and wanting to bring about radical social change. And when I was in prison, I met people from Caracas and all down South America these big huge coke dealers and this one dude I remember his face I can't think of his name and he sort of made me start to think even more about it because he said like when the LSD came and he knew about Owsley he knew all this stuff about like the scene but he was like this wicked cocaine dealer but he was so smart and he said when that lsd came in it's when people were rioting in the government and we wanted to overthrow things and he's like that stuff brought about radical social change so it makes it makes sense that the government wanted it illegal but who knows why maybe you know maybe they found some true serum way to like make people yeah i didn't want russia to get it but it did They did a lot of stuff with alcoholism too.
Yeah. That was a big thing for AA.
I think LSD. Bill wanted it everywhere.
Yeah. And then there's the, at the Jefferson in the fifties, they did.
When I was in prison, they had a show with Barbara Walter and LSD and the whole was sentencing and everything. And so in the fifties, they did this thing where they would take alcoholics, non AA, they take them on one bad trip, seriously bad and show them everything they did wrong.
And they filmed it. And then on Barbara Walters inside federal prison, they had like the dude's daughters or sons and they're like 70 or 80.
And they said the LSD saved our lives. Like our dad or mom never took another drink.
They completely changed them. Damn.
So that was a small study. How much was it? Do you think how much they were giving them? They were probably back then.
I think it was. They show it.
It was a thousand mics. They showed that it's the, it was from Santos.
They called it Diceland or something like that. And they would give them a thousand mics, but they literally would take them on a horrendously negative trip the whole entire time in a thing with doctors and like, well, it's weird too, because, and then it would affect them forever till they died.
I mean, imagine in the, and again, in the fifties, like LSD, like, you know, I grew up hearing about it. You have like a context for what it is.
Like, Oh, it's like's like you know it's like hippie stuff and jumping out the window you're gonna die or even even being like you know say i was following like fish and i if i was a kid i would have been like yeah it's like it's like weed it's like you get high but in the 50s if someone just hit you with 10 hits of lsd in a lab and like get your fucking life together i'd be like i always thought I thought it was going to crazy i mean i didn't take lsd till i was 1990 1989 20 was the first time and so i had a few times at shows i would buy a sheet or two from someone i didn't know and i just would sell it at high school i'd say is this real and i did mushrooms a couple times but like even though i thought i was a free thinker there There like you know you're gonna take it and you're gonna want to fly and jump out a window like somewhere that got started because that was always in my head but it wasn't that dangerous but i don't know if it's for everyone yeah it makes sense but i think that if a if a big slice like if you go to gaza right then terence mckenna would go all the way to group sex but he's like you get both sides palestine the jews and let's all take some lsd and sit in a room i guarantee you they're gonna fucking figure it out and they might start fucking each other that'd be sick right i mean the peace on earth man you know yeah i mean it does seem like it could you know do that it is it is unfortunate because i like you were saying it's not for everybody and i have seen people who who abuse it kind of lose it like lsd yes so i've never seen that i believe it but i think you have to have underlying stuff already kind of kicking around used it like daily they were just no there was like every weekend just boom like and like constantly as you said in your book you didn't take it less than a dozen times because it's so profound what do you need these guys were every weekend that the nitrous they're just partying with it and they i remember wow i see the one guy i was in a grocery store and i'm like oh hey what's up man he was working there i'm like how you doing dude he was he cornered me he's like i'm fighting a battle against light and darkness and i was like oh boy i was like all right bro i was like you know i'm gonna grab my my stuff and get out of here but it was uh

yeah i remember this guy but again it could have been just like underlying stuff because that is

like you know if you take a person who already has even if like you know they could have like

had a job and just been a little weird or whatever but it's like if you really kind of

ramp that shit up and it's like you don't give them any kind of like way to work through all

that stuff it's like yeah no you're right it makes sense you would lose your fucking mind

because you have psych now what is that that was a i'm still trying to figure out how to do it. I have an idea with what I want to do, but I got obsessed.
So I've always liked psychology, so I've always liked psychology. And then I went to school for social work to get my master's.
Yes. I wanted to start something like AA that's just not centered around drugs where you can you can kind of get anything.
Yes. who are like, I could talk to people who are, you know, like a a that's just not centered around drugs where you can you can kind of get

anything yes who are like you i could talk to people who are you know like uh phds or whatever and have them help me come up with some sort of program that could be peer-led around like just mental health stuff in general that way like you can't afford a therapy if you can't afford a therapist you could still have like a group that's like it's not like therapy per se but it would be using um sharing

the tools yeah like that these people like these phd level people make up and like how do you kind

of disseminate them in a way that like that could be done in like a peer-to-peer thing that's my

goal and i'm still now looking for therapists now because i want to just salary a couple therapists

now that i can to just kind of like run groups and like kind of like see where curate the whole

like online space.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And it'd be,

it's for,

how did you get that name?

I made it up.

So I,

Thank you. now that I can to just kind of like run groups and like kind of like see where you're at the whole like online space.
That's awesome. Yeah.
And it'd be it's for how did you get that name? I made it up. So I know I don't know.
It's kind of funny because, you know, but but yes, that is my goal. You know, we do need to figure something out collectively because this isn't, you know, it's clearly not working, dude.
It's like the fact that we're immune to like kids shooting kids in school now, it's like it happens enough to where it's like, all right all right dude there's some we need to organize ourselves mentally a different way we're organized around you know one thing right now and it's not really money yeah pretty much and it's like it's it's good i don't hate i don't hate money but it's like it's clearly something's getting fucked up and it's like i really feel like as human beings you know we're organisms and like we're not it's it's hard for people to wrap their head around the fact for everybody that they're not like the most important person in the world. Cause as an organism, if you, you know, if you think about organisms, the cells, we're all a cell.
Yeah. Well, if you're an organism and you sense an organism that's bigger than you, that's a threat to your life.
You know what I mean? Cause if you're, if you're an animal, just say you're an animal, if you're an animal and you see, if you're a wolf and you see a bigger wolf, that wolf is good, very well kill you. And that sets off a chain of reactions.
But human beings are sense of like largeness is kind of abstract. So if you perceive somebody's bigger than you in some sense, it can set off like a very real biological events that can color your thinking and behavior.
And it's like no one really thinks about that. But it's like something people have to come to grips with.
This episode is brought to you by Max. The Emmy award-winning series Hacks returns this April.
The new season follows Debra Vance making a move from her Vegas residency to Hollywood showbiz. Tensions rise as Debra and Ava try to get their late night show off the ground and make history while doing it.
Starring Gene Smart and Hannah Einbinder, Hacks Season 4 is streaming Thursday, April 10th, exclusively on Macs. And don't forget to check out the official Hacks podcast on Spotify.
Last week was our first playoff game, and my plexoriasis was so itchy under all my gear. Sometimes just thinking about scratching could take me out of the moment.
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Tell your doctor if any of these occur and if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts live in a moment ask your doctor about o tesla call 1-844-4-0-tesla or visit otesla.com for prescribing info info about cost and more but whatever but the um but yeah so that's i don't know man i think we could we could have a good time up here on earth but it's you for everybody. It's kind of shitty.
Is it the human condition? I think so. We're stuck, the iPhone? Yeah.
I got an iPhone in April or May. I had a flip phone from 2013.
I shut off my iPhone, too. Dude, that motherfucker is worse than bad cocaine.
Yeah, dude. I'm coming to grips with how addicted I am to my phone,

and it's bad, man.

I got my screen time down to, I think, like three hours,

and I think this week I should be hitting two,

but it's like, dude, it's such an addiction.

But you need it for your business, right?

Yeah, I do, but it's like I could use it in a way

where I'm not pulling it out and being like,

let me see if anyone.

Every two hours, you're just a lot.

Well, the worst part is with social media, you're addicted to yourself. You're like, you've commodified your personality.
How many likes? You're checking your numbers. How much money? Yeah, now you have like, it's like very real, you know, quantitative data on like your personality.
And so, of course, there's an addictive component to the phone, but like nothing's more addictive than yourself than yourself. And like, you know, your insecurities and checking on all that.

And I think that's what ties a lot of people to it.

And the kids now that they're like,

if I don't have likes this whole idea of.

Yeah.

It sucks.

Shootings.

Yeah.

So that's,

you know,

but either way.

So,

yeah,

I kind of agree.

I,

you know,

something needs to happen,

but you know,

it's one of those things where it's like when people try to push the pedal,

like I got the solution and push the pedal, usually it's just 10 times worse. So 10 times worse so i don't know i'll be curious to see what happens with people but either way um so dude okay so you're this is what else did i want to ask you about so you oh this is the thing that was i thought was crazy so you're in you're just you're kicking around different uh you know prisons yeah you're I didn't adjust well.
Who does, right? True. But you're kicking around.

Things are going well you know you're you know you've got some you got some hustles going on and then always hustle you have the altercation with the guard and this was the thing i thought the craziest part of the book you have the altercation with if you said that name in a disrespectful way the aryan brotherhood would have killed you what do you mean wait which guard you're talking the guard who sent you to marion oh that guy the lieutenant okay no what are you talking about and when i in marion when i said i'll do you like tommy silver that was crazy that's like ridiculous okay oh no the black lieutenant though that really was the chain of events to get me there this was a kind of i thought it was kind of nuts so you're you're in jail things are going well whatever this black lieutenant takes your bag you guys get into an altercation so he called me a hippie rat he did he threw me down he called me a hippie rat and i called him a really fucked up name i don't want to say it you don't have to so and then but the whole yard saw that yes and he had and i never ratted but he knew that he knew i didn realize that. He said that to you in front of all the other prisoners, which is kind of a death sentence.
He's like, well, because when I came to that prison, he wanted the bag. He's like, I'm going to get that bag.
I know you faked that property slip. And your friend stitched it for you.
It was like your prized possession. James Irving, yeah.
So that was the third prison I was in with it. then it i'm coming out of chow to go to the the yard and he's give me that bag you hippie rat and i yanked it back just out of reaction he body slammed me it's like six four six five two fifty two sixty huge lieutenant i mean he's running it and he's like you fucking hippie rat and i'm like oh fuck but he knew when you come in they know who's ratted who didn't rat who might have to be in pc or not so he knew that he was pushing my buttons but anyway yeah so the thing i thought that was wild was like that incident uh kind of aligned itself with the uh the crack laws where it was like they reduced the sentences on powder cocaine didn didn't reduce the sentences on crack cocaine.
So then there were these racial riots in the jail. And then that...
That was the first one out of 12 to riot. That's really significant.
12 prisons around the country. And dude, the damage was crazy.
You were saying it was just... Did you see the report? What was the report? I have the whole riot report.
Well, now I got to re-put it back up on my new website but it's a report from the justice department it shows like all the prisons that rioted what was uh burned down to the ground and they said that the instigator was talladega alabama and they charged me with leading it which was the lieutenant like crazy thing yeah well it was it was really like a racial racially inspired right because it was like black guys were going to jail for crack like for the most part white guys are going to jail for coke and methamphetamine and lsd they changed all those oh okay so so the black guys were understandably kind of pissed so they ride the same drug i know and then they but then that lieutenant was like oh yeah this guy instigated the riot so you went to from just like you know prison to then having to go to supermax prison based on really just a beef you had with the lieutenant which is fucking crazy crazy yeah there's 22 or 23 black guys and me and then after the riot when they did the hearings everybody in the prison got in wicked trouble but no one got sent to marion but just us 23 and marion you just explain what marion is because i didn't know what it was before i read super max federal prison opened up in 63 after alcatraz closed there was a control unit and then in 1983 tommy silverstein and clayton fontaine killed two prison guards in the control unit which was the super max of supermaxes and then as a result of that they made all of mar in the control unit, which was the super max of super maxes.

And then as a result of that, they made all of Marion, the control unit, and they called it the Marion model. So that was the most secure, heinous 23-hour lockdown ever fucking conceived.
And man, and then in 2006, they decommissioned it, and then the ADX opened. But in the 1990s was like 385 of the most sophisticated, predacious motherfuckers on planet Earth, man, and me.
What the fuck, dude? And it was 23-hour lockdown, one hour outside a day. Yeah, and you had bars.
So that actually was a saving grace because if you're laying in your cell, single cells, you're looking out and you see the big the big tall windows where if you imagined it was

like a door like in the adx and some days they might give us 90 minutes damn and you were you

know but you were saying in the sorry and the thing that really kind of like i thought was nuts

in the other prison during the riots you were like about to go to the yard to work out and you

were like it was weird let me go back to my room and you were saying the the yard itself was just

like an apocalyptic battle of like dudes getting raped people me go back to my room and you were saying the yard itself was

just like an apocalyptic battle of like dudes getting raped people getting their heads smashed when i went to marion my neighbor told me a story of dean who went out on the yard because he said that they after the riots they both got transferred to this other prison then t came to marion and And then he didn't know that what you just said that i put in the book but he told me what happened out on the yard and he said dean was almost dead like he was beat so bad like his head caved in like he was alive but just like not doing really good even after like months of like he was that fucked up but then in the unit you walk in and it was just a jungle but like we were all together they were breaking the machines we were trying to break down the door to where all the records were because that all the official records were still like physical these guys we had all the crack log guys wanted to burn them no i only have a year have said. I know.
I know that. I'm saying I know.
That'd be crazy taking that down. In that book, I taught, in the book, You Can't Win by Jack Black.
He's like a burglar or whatever in the early 1900s. He ends up finally in a jail in California.
I think in, was it Folsom? Maybe it was Folsom. I don't know where it was, But either way, he got, there was an earthquake, and all of the records for all the prisoners got destroyed in like a fire or something.
And he ended up getting stuck because he couldn't get out. He couldn't go in or out because he was already there.
So he couldn't prove like he did enough time. But he eventually did get out.
But yeah, that's, damn, if only those guys had grabbed the records. That would have been so sweet.
When they toured us out of the,

because I didn't see everything that happened.

Once they locked us down, we were in that unit

for 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 days before we left for Marion.

But when they took us all out to go to Marion,

one building was burnt to the ground

and another building was halfway burnt down.

And then when we were in there,

we could hear bulldozers and shit,

but you didn't really know what's happened. But I'm where the whole housing unit was it was gone it's like fuck i mean you could smell smoke but you just didn't know how bad it was yeah you got to see the damage before they took our radios we would hear on like uh that one dude i can't remember that guy would always come on in the morning it was national radio show but he had started to say about all these other prisons that rioted oh he said all the other ones and they kind of tried to suppress that I remember reading how they were trying to act like nah we're good didn't other ones say there was stuff just so they could clamp down and get overtime exactly that was in the report too were some that did that.
And the funny thing is the ones that, here's the thing, what I talked about earlier, the medium security prisons were the ones where the most violence in buildings being burned happened because these guys that, it's a consensual crime. I sell you something.
I know it's illegal. All right, I didn't do the crime, do the time, but time but it's like i could have raped i could have robbed you i could have stolen so much more money and gotten less time like it's not fair and equal justice that was always my thing it's like the prison law should be according to who would you rather have as your neighbor right yeah yeah would i rather have a guy who sold coke or a pedophile it's like all right a pedophile should do longer time than a guy who sells sells Coke because it's like that's who I'd rather live next to if I had to choose or if I didn't have a choice.
It would be like, you know, people should be sentenced accordingly. Did you ever look at when you moved to a new neighborhood, the federal sex offendory registry? I check it all the time.
It's unbelievable. Map, and you could just hover.
You see who they are, what their crime is, are they on probation? And there's a lot of them. What a tool.
They're everywhere they're everywhere and there's a lot of them man i did it when i lived in philly and there i was shocked there was like a there was a decent amount i think they had them all in one house they were all in like this one house uh like four blocks away and i don't know if they just like some landlord that might be my next play uh you know free prison what do you mean like you know like because the state there's a demand where are you going to put them when they come out right yeah and maybe like there's just i don't know like the greed makes me think about it but like if you could find a place for them to live you're going to have a you know you'll be able to rent the unit out every time oh you're talking about like pedophiles specifically or? Yeah. Pedophiles.
Pedophiles. Yeah.
What are we going to do with them? Where are we going to put them? And the thing is, I don't know if it's an addiction. I want to think it is.
But those guys should never come out, ever. Yeah, they should have to.
Ever. There documentary to watch where they, it's called Pervert Park.
It's a really rough watch, but they have like a trailer park in Florida, and they're just like gated community. It's like they just all live in here, and people just fucking put beer bottles over at them.
No, okay, so they're contained then. At least they know where they are.
But, dude, not like, so I used to get housing for people. When I went to school for social work, one of my jobs was to get housing for prisoners.
So you get out of jail. I would do a little interview.
I'd be like, hey, you know, I'd have to get like, what is the nature of your crime? But it was like, it was just like selling drugs and stuff. And then the lady who ran it didn't tell me.
She had opened up to pedophiles. Because that was one of my, I would like, you know, break the ice.
Because I didn't like being like, hey, what'd you go to jail for? So I'd be like, hey, I have to ask you this. As long as you're not like a pedophile whatever don't worry and they would always be like what the fuck i'm not a fucking pedophile i'm like oh you know and then one day the guy was like well i actually am and i was like what and then they were like yeah and i talked to my boss i'm like what the fuck and she was like yeah i decided to start taking pedophiles we had to find them housing too and i was like uh okay but what year this was only like this would have been 2019.
2019, 2018, around then. My thing was like, I didn't want to...
And I would call their probation officers because I would be like, I don't... Isn't there laws? These guys can't be...
I can't like throw this guy into Best Buy. Like there's kids around there.
No, there's the thousand feet or whatever. That's what I thought.
By school and all that. I think there is.
That's what I thought it was, man. But this person, it was kind of like, you know, leading the thing, you know, as far as I remember, was kind of like, no, no, no, they're fine.
They have rights. And I like, I call the guy's probation officer.
I'm like, this guy can't work here, Kenny. The probation officer was like, fuck no.
And I was like, yeah, I didn't think so. So it was weird.
I remember I ended up telling the lady, I was like, I don't ask, don't tell. We got to get rid of them.
I was like, bro, I'm not sending this guy, you know, into apartment buildings.

I don't know.

So it was I just told her, like, I don't, you know, the stigma seems less now for ex-drug

dealers.

It does.

Those guys legal.

I mean, if you went to jail for weed, like, is how could that even I got those I got those

guys houses pretty easily because I would just cold call landlords and be like, hey, I got

this great deal.

Six month upfront paid rent.

And they're like, well, what is it?

What is it?

I'm like, here's the catch.

And then they will go.

Oh, come on, man.

Thank you. houses pretty easily because i would just cold call landlords and be like hey i got this great deal six month up front paid rent and they're like oh what is it what is it i'm like here's the catch and then they will go oh come on man i'd be like dude they're not like fucking pedophiles they're just they just sold drugs like come on six months is paid up people pay their rent who cares and then so they were cool about that but once she tried to have me find like the pedophile and i had to tell her like look i'm not the guy to help because now they're gonna you don't know well not even yeah then you're gonna fuck up all these other guys housing and it's also like like i remember the one dude would call me like the guy who was on my caseload who had that kind of stuff and he would just be like hey i'm outside in my head like you know i wouldn't even be there and i'd be like i don't give a fuck he's like it's raining and i'd be like tough so i'm like there's gotta be someone who can help that guy so they do need help from somebody but it was like i'm not i can not, I can't do it, man.
I just, I couldn't do it. Like you just build like a, you know, a 600 unit spot.
Like, and you just, they're all there. Where are they going to go? Dude, it's a weird thing to do.
And they just kind of like hush the, yeah. And quietly tuck them in a neighborhood and like, Hey, you know, here's the guys here.
And it's like, it's fucked up, man. It's really fucked up.
And then when you do the real estate transaction, you got to say you know about the sex offender registry.

Like, you have to check that box.

Mm-hmm.

Because it's like no one, if someone moved into your neighborhood and they were that, it's going to devalue everything.

Yep, it's that.

Those guys have a hard time.

They never seem to be able to break free.

No, it's not like you sold LSD, you went to prison,

you never sold it again.

Exactly, even if you did. Well, I did flood marrying with it.
Did you really? One last time. What? How'd you do that? So, yeah, you were in the sewer.
No, I did. I set it up.
I don't want to say his name. Oh, I remember this.
Because you were pissed when you got, was that correct? I don't think I put it in the book. But maybe I put it in the book.
I don't think it's 2015 I got out. No, that would have been after the statute of limitations so i set it up i set it up i said to my friend i said listen i don't know if i'm going to do this but if you get a letter that's like this from this place this is where the lsd will be so i drove i mean i was on federal all this shit's past it's five years statute of limitations.
The only way that they can extend it is if they ask a court and then they have to notify you. It's just all entertainment anyway, dude.
So, right. And so I got it.
I got the liquid. I put it on the paper.
I wrote this letter with gloves on with my right left hand, you know, the envelope. And I drove, actually drove past Marion,

way down south through Illinois,

and then into some, that state that's right to the east,

either Tennessee or Kentucky,

and then just went to a mailbox with a stamp

and just put it in.

So then it had that thing, right?

And then he acknowledged it in a very, with a future letter. He didn't say anything, yeah.
But then I never wrote him back again. That's cool, guys.
I had to do it as one last act of defiance. Like, just I had to do it.
The thing is, like, they could have come to me and said, he said he got caught with it. You sent it.
There was no fucking trace. I didn't have a cell phone.
It's not like they knew I drove. I didn't get pulled over.
There was no, there's no way. And it just ran right through there.
That must have been wild, dude. The thing is, I did a line of coke one time in prison.
And smoking weed, it was hard to get used to. When James first got me st stoned i was crying in my bunk because it's just the horror of what dude that must have that must have been terrible getting that high in jail twice there was acid and i didn't take it but one time this guy gave me this lana coke ether base just wicked just so high but then coming down off that dude was like not that you want you wanted more but you're like i'm in fucking prison dude that's a hard fucking reality so taking acid yeah herb got four or five hits each was 200 mics and he asked me for like a week not to push me but he said because he's like we're all gonna take this but there's one for you and he kept coming to the channel and saying, are you sure? Because he's like, I'll probably never get this again.
And then I remember when they took it, they had a great time. But I just thought if I took that in jail, like eight or 10 hours of tripping in prison, I don't know, man.
I couldn't do it. I couldn't.
I have a friend who smoked K2 in jail, like the synthetic weed. Yeah.
And he said he fucked. And this guy, you know, this guy was doing.
Isn't it just like weed? Yeah, but apparently it's like, it's like kind of harsh from what I've heard. It's like, it can be like, because it's just a chemical.
So like weed, the plant can only get so strong. But K2, they're spraying these synthetic cannabinoids.
You know, it could be fucking. Who knows? Exactly.
So he said, and this guy, he had, you know, he had done like. Tripping.
All the drugs you could possibly do. And he was like, dude, fuck that shit.
He said he was in there. He kept hearing people come in, checking on.
And it wasn't happening. It was him and a dude in there just in terror the whole time.
Did you like the way we made pipes? Yeah. It worked perfectly.
And the thing is, if you blow the smoke out with another tube of bounce, you see smoke, but you cannot smell it. That was the old college trick, too.
You got to suck the whole hit down, though, so there's no little smoke left. That was the college trick.
You would put the Febreze fabric softener sheet in a paper towel thing and blow it out. Because spots smell so strong to people that don't smoke it.
Yeah, smoking weed in jail does seem like a lot of trouble. Seems like you'd have to be really kind of careful.
I guess you could go outside. Sparky took me out.
We just kept hitting this joint, kept hitting this joint during the move right when I arrived. When I got back, I swear to God, it was like I took 10 hits of acid.
Freaked out. I was so fucking stoned.
Dude, and I'm like 151 months I hadn't won an appeal it was

just this wickedness

it really set in that weed does that to you

where the reality of stuff sets in

every day it took me twice a day

and after about a week

fuck it you gotta do your time

right and then they taught me how to

beat the piss test

you drink a gallon of water

and then the lieutenants give you two hours

Thank you. time right and then they taught me how to beat the piss test you drink oh yeah i read about that you drink a gallon of water and then the lieutenants give you two hours and because they can't just grab you and say pee they say you got two hours to report to the lieutenant's office you got to drink a full gallon in 15 minutes they taught me this and then they said by the sixth or seventh piss they said you want to wait to seven if you can wait till eight? It's just pure water.
Don't you get a dilute, though? I heard the drug test now, they can hit you with, it was too diluted. This was the 90s.
And the thing is, whenever they would take it, you'd go back to the lieutenant's office. They would make it look like they're putting it in a mailer.
But then they would always ask you, if you admit to us you did drugs, we'll only you we'll only give you 30 days i mean i never would but nothing ever came back dirty today the test might be different like the whole whatever but if you didn't piss you would get it dirty then it's 90 days in the hole and you'd probably get transferred yeah it sucks which is the fucking worst and you also if they you know even if it was diluted you'd have the time because it have to get mailed out ran through through a lab. And by then, it's like, hey.
I don't know. Did they do that in the 90s, the dilution? I've just heard about it.
I don't know. I was so young.
In the 90s, I was a wee boy. But I remember hearing about that move, like just slam a bunch of fucking water.
But then the test would come back as like inconclusive because it was just too diluted. I don't think.
I think that eighth piss, because you're talking now maybe at 45, 50 minute mark, if you slam that, it looks like water. It smells like water.
Yeah. It's probably barely 98 degrees warm.
It makes sense back then that they would have been, it would have been like, but today I think they probably could detect it. Yeah.
I had to do a drug test when I was working for my dad. He does demolition.
We were like in like a on the hospital kind of or it was at hospital it was a school it was a school so they like everyone had to get drug tested so i remember what we had to do we you know we had all day and it wasn't like you had somebody watching you so we just had like i filled up a latex glove of pee from somebody i knew and then you just keep a hand warmer on it so it keeps it at like 98 degrees how did did you know he was clean? You just hoped? I just knew he was. I asked him.
He didn't smoke weed or do anything so I was like let me get pee in this glove for me or pee in a thing and then I just dumped it in the glove. And it worked? Kept it on hand warmer but then I got there my friend needed some too so we had to split it and then we both I didn't realize there was a minimum amount so we both gave like that.
Did they take it? Yeah. That's awesome.
The nurse was cool. She was really, but they hit you with the temperature.
That was a big thing. They temp, check it.
Because then they see if it's cold. Exactly.
It's 98.6. So the hand warmers, I'd ask for hand warmers in like July.
I was like, you guys have hand warmers back here? And they're like, yeah, but why? I was like, I don't know, man. I just need them.
I'm going somewhere. But yeah, that's pretty crazy.
So then that story too about what about the duffel bag what about it what do you think happened to it what the duffel bag you got taken from you didn't you get it did you get it back yeah yeah that was the end of the book man you got that that was it all came together that guy what the fuck so that motherfucker fucking bad he held no he that lieutenant sent it to me after i got home from marion which means he held it the whole time i was in marion what the hell was it what was that about why did he give it back to you it was the fuck you you think that was his fuck you 100 what you don't think that was i thought i took that as the guy who was like had a nice moment where he was just like yeah let me give this guy his bag back no way why did he did he do that? Just to be a dickhead? I think so. I burned it in a 55-gallon drum that day.
I had a ceremony to let it all go. That's cool.
That makes sense. I did.
I never thought that. I wasn't in a bag.
It just struck me. This motherfucker sent it back now? It is weird.
Is it normal to keep like how would he even get an alert that you were out he was following and he had to be yeah that's kind of weird yeah so like but it represented so much yeah i had to like the phoenix like just let this go and i had a ceremony that's pretty cool yeah no one was there and i just like this is going this thing's out of here that that makes sense just i don't regret it but it would have been kind of cool to say hey here's the green duffel bag but i had to let it go i had to just get rid of it it symbolized so much yeah and just to move was that bad psychologically what do you think no i think that's you know feel good doing that get rid of it, that way you're out. That's like a chapter that's totally done with.
Yeah. And there's something kind of cool and ceremonial about being like, all right, I'm done with this part of my life.
I can let go. Especially if you think the guy was fucking with you.
I'd be like, fuck you, dude. Well, I don't know that.
It shocked me, though. Yeah, I'd be freaked out, dude.
It was shocking. Yeah, that would have freaked me out.
Like, first of all, I was like, dude, you're keeping tabs on me. Staying with my brother, which the probation officer would have known.
But all my other stuff I had. Yeah.
Because when I left Mary and there's that stuff that got sent. This is maybe weeks or months later.
It just was weird. It is weird.
And then the one thing I did want to ask you about, because this is in the book as well, you got out and you started a pretty successful real estate dude i was so focused i gotta come back no i was like uh by accident the house yeah there was a bust they've took the they showed coke i was going to my job there's an arcane law that was like you can make an unsolicited bid with the marshal service if they take if they seize assets and i knew all this from jail yeah and so then i actually dated the marshal it helps um a little she probably would deny it but so i bought that house yeah yeah i bought that house uh probably 18 months later for like 25 000 and then i just like felt like changing the design my mom would always take me to these frank lloyd wright homes and so i just started doing it and then some people helped me in the neighborhood they saw sympathetic to the architecture but i needed help like with the design and just people and contractors and then that just started the evolution and And I was hyper-focused, monster, just like going after it,

like not worried about a Rolex, but just loving what I do.

And I was good at it.

The best that I've ever been at anything probably in the world of commerce and making money that's legit paying taxes.

I mean, 2005, I paid $175,000 in federal tax.

I mean, where the fuck did that money go, man?

A fucking tank tread?

Like, goddamn.

But yeah, so that just focused me and i just would buy buildings restore them or buy apartment buildings restore them rent them and sell them that's cool yeah and you got into like just kind of i remember the i did addresses and everything and then my lake house i this massive lake estate, S109W35190 Jacksbury Road, Eagle, Wisconsin, 53149. Dude, fucking unbelievable.
That spot was unbelievable. And you got hit with a subprime mortgage crisis.
Yeah, man. I was told.
That's wild, dude. I was told not to.

Yeah. I mean, I don't blame them.

I was, I wanted to get the 3 million and then get 3 million in T-bills.

And then still what I did, still do what I do.

But that was my goal.

And I had nine years at a million 10.

I bought that Lake estate and two other houses, 6429 North Santa Monica and 1525 North Marshall. And then just, it went, man.
And I paid all the mortgages till I had like 11,000 left. And then a bankruptcy lawyer came to me and said, if you file bankruptcy, you could stay in that lake house for another 18 months.
And I said, dude, I'm giving the keys back. Like, it's done.
I'm not just going to stay. and I flew to Hawaii and I started to care take a farm but that took me 10 years mentally like now like you

being on here like that focus and drive like it's there I have it but I I still do it today

and I have a little not where I was but I'm not driven like I was and I want to be right I want

to be you're still doing the properties yes that's cool rehabbing and fixing up yep yeah that was i guess i'm an artist and buildings are my medium i'm not a contractor because i can't do it for someone else because then it's their vision and i can't just do what i do with the people you know that's true so it gives that's what i know like i can't you know like i'm not a painter for sure That's kind of like what the hand i was dealt yeah no that's and i love working out i like working out it's a nice physical job yeah yeah so what so what's uh what's the plan now what are you up to now and what's your what's your plan to do well you've inspired me i'm going to do an audible on the book i'm going to do a second edition i'm pretty'm going to keep the name. Um, and then the whole social media thing is like all new to me, but like you can get paid for views.
Yeah. Like you can go on a show and drink liquid death and show it.
And like, you're going to get 10 fucking grand. Like I see it.
I understand marketing. Like, Holy fuck, man.
You want that liquid death money? Fuck. Yeah, man.
Why why not like it's cool the the fame part is weird to me but i guess like that's part of it you know like you're gonna start a podcast or something i don't think i could compete right but you just want to do the real i'd love to sell the book the movie rights i had started a cream plate that would be really cool yeah with the book it was funny because you sold you did what 5 000 copies yes sold them and now the only books are on amazon and i was like people that's i'm not i'm not selling them for 200 those are other people looked up his book me and nate were there nate marshall were looking you thought it was me i was like damn this guy's selling his books for fucking 200 no and that's all their secondhand sellers. Because they sold all your ones.
From the soft white underbelly. It's like within a couple of months, I'm like, Mark, what the fuck? People are selling my book for $250.
He's like, yeah, that's part of the deal. You got to print more, dude.
I could print more. Or do a second edition.
Because what I want to do is a chapter every other, a letter, every other chapter. And then add Marion.
I took a bunch of stuff out about Marion. Yeah.
The book was, I did. I'm telling you the book was great.
I couldn't stop reading it. So.
But they, they do a feature film on a guy who invented the delay on a windshield wiper, $80 million. Like they'll do it on anything.
But I, the story, this not my story. I mean, my story is there, but just the story of the history of marion yeah and the um uh the drug laws and like the the riots yeah what the fuck and it was fascinating it's crazy after this many years like you have me on this podcast it makes it relevant again like un-fucking-believable like how the fuck like you saw that show and you're like i gotta get this guy like yeah what what and then i took 21 days to respond i'm like oh my god this motherfucker's gonna think not big i'm like what the fuck well i i didn't think it was crazy how you were in there and you were describing like the people especially in marion like these guys would kill you like without hesitating and you have to form friendships

with these guys and hang with them and you knew holiday and the fact yeah the fact that you did tell big mike mcgillian we didn't get i'll leave that in the book but yeah that is funny that you just completely beefed with the guards on that level and threatened them to you're gonna kill well i thought about it on the plane coming here there was a leader of the irian brotherhood who's now in the ADX

Mike Michalhini.

He never overtly, I thought, danger of him, but I knew he was a wicked dude. Like you have the big wolf, but he gave me a respect.
And it had to be, because who the fuck would... He also probably thought I was a fucking idiot because the guards could have killed me but like who would have ever said that yeah i'm gonna do you like tommy silverstein like what the fuck man that's insane i mean i'm not bragging i'm like at all like how could that have even come out of my mouth it shows you the i don't know the naivety i still have probably this day in some form.
But no, that was pretty sick.

But, well, dude, yeah, man, fucking pumped.

Thank you for coming on.

Thank you for having me.

Perfect.

Thanks, bro.

Thank you.

See you, man.

Thank you.