Transcript of Chris Young (on being sentenced to life in prison)

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. Experts on Expert. I'm Dax Shepard, and this is Lily Padman, everybody.

Everybody, it's me.

Welcome, everybody. This is the most inspirational episode of the year.

Oh, my goodness.

Fuck, am I delighted we got to meet this young man. To me, he's a young man. Chris Young. Craziest story ever. Chris Young is an author and a public speaker, and he has a memoir out now called The Wound Is Where the Light Enters. About serving two life sentences, uh, for something he did at 22. Yes, that was nonviolent. Yeah, it's, um, an incredible story. It's so inspiring. It's very Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning. It's really important.

It is. I agree. Please listen to this one.

Yeah, please enjoy Chris Young. Chris. How are you, brother? Dax. Nice to meet you.

Thank y'all for having me.

Oh, so excited. You smell delightful. Were you offered everything? Do you want coffee?

That's fine. I try to drink a gallon, uh, a gallon a day between working out and just sitting.

No, no, a gallon a day? Wow. How do you break that up?

Carrying a gallon jug of water.

You do?

Yeah.

And would people ask you questions?

Embarrassed when you got the gallon?

It's funny you said that because I used to be embarrassed when I first started, but I knew it was the most convenient and efficient way for me to get what I needed in me.

Yeah, yeah.

And so after a while I got past it because it was a conversation starter.

Right. I carried around a gallon of water in high school. This is the most hillbilly thing I ever did. We had well water and I didn't like anyone else's water, so everywhere I went I had a fucking gallon of water in high school. It looked so bizarre. And people hate well water.

What does it taste like?

It's like more minerally, you know? Like you can taste it more.

Yeah, yeah.

You had only city water?

I try not to drink tap water at all because I went so long of drinking nothing but tap water.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Prison water.

Exactly. Exactly. It's gonna be darker than tap water.

Yeah, yeah.

So— But I know what you mean, 'cause when I drink beet juice, I feel like I can taste the earth.

Uh-huh.

Yeah. And I like to drink it on purpose because it helps with the red blood cells and me having sickle cell.

Yeah. Explain sickle cell to everybody.

Sickle cell anemia is a genetic— mutation that the body was attempting to adapt to malaria and prevent from having to deal with the effects of malaria. It affects mainly people from Mediterranean areas or African descent. Because it's genetic, you have to be born with it. And I have the form that is called SC. You have SS and you have SC. Each form affects the patients totally different. But what sickle cell is, simple and plain, your red blood cells go from a circle shape to a sickle shape, and that hooked form of your blood cells makes them get clogged and occluded in your veins, which makes your body hurt. Imagine your blood not flowing, not pumping. It's like you got oil clogged up in your engine. Your engine is gonna get to coughing.

Yeah.

Your muffler is gonna get to letting out black smoke. But this is happening with your body.

Yeah.

And sickle cell is interesting in that instead of being dominant or recessive, it's codominant. So if mom has the healthy gene and dad has this codominant sickle cell, you can make a split. Normally one gene's gonna be prevalent and you'll make all sickle or all normal. But this one allows you to make some sickle and some non. And when people have both of those recessive and then they make an only sickle cell, then they're really in trouble, yeah.

Exactly. 'Cause you can have the trait, you don't have the full disease, but you can still have some of the consequences. As he was just saying. And that's what Dax was explaining. But when you have the full disease, it's 'cause both parents had the trait, such as in my case. Both of my parents had the trait, so I got the full disease.

I didn't realize until reading your book that you can have spells of it, like it comes on and goes off. Like you have different periods where it's kind of what we would think of as inflamed. What causes those and how long do those periods last?

So in the lexicon and parlance of people that's dealing with it, we call them attacks.

Okay.

But the professionals call them crises. Okay. So the sickle cell crisis can be triggered by anything such as dehydration. It can be triggered by Stress? Um, so you took the words out of my mouth. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

No, no, no.

Actually, I was gonna make that last because that has been my biggest trigger. I literally just got over a severe crisis where I had to get an exchange blood transfusion. And that is basically they sucked a lot of my blood out and put in somebody else's blood because my body wouldn't stop creating the sickled blood.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.

And I really don't have the crises as frequently as other people. Yeah. But I've had really extreme consequences from it. Both of my hips are fake.

No!

And I need to get my shoulders replaced also.

Because the joints have deteriorated so much from that.

Exactly. Exactly. Because your body, her body, anybody's body, when you need new red blood cells, it takes it from the marrow in your bone. Not to mention when the blood's not flowing, now the bone is not getting oxygen and blood flow. So it's two different ways that it's leading to deterioration. I think the triggers and catalysts of stress will always be there to the extent that you stress. It's up to you.

Yeah. How am I managing that stress?

Exactly. Exactly. And so with me this past 2 months, because I'm a strong believer in the power of the mind, mentally, I was on top of everything. But eventually, that energy of having to wrestle with them thoughts will manifest. And my body was like, hey, you know what?

You know what?

Fuck you.

That's what your body said.

Exactly. Exactly.

Hey, not, not, hey, fuck you. We're gonna take you down for a minute.

That part. The body said, I need to reset. And if I put your ass in the hospital, you ain't got no choice but to reset.

Yeah. The body weirdly protects you sometimes, even when it feels like it's trying to kill you. How long will the crises or attacks last? Or when you were a kid, how long would they last?

When I was a child, they would last 2, 3 days, and it would be nonstop pain because the blood's not flowing. So I can't move. I'm running a fever because technically I'm inflamed in my whole body because the blood's not flowing. So that leads to inflammation and it leads to a fever. I would just cry. Imagine a child who is living with technically a stranger. As much as I love Big Mama, I got adopted by an older lady in our neighborhood that everyone revered and called Big Mama. So Big Mama adopted me and my brother. I was 10 years old, he was 13, and she already had 6 kids living with her. So it's 9 of us in an 800-square-foot house.

Oh my God.

So each of you got less than 100 square feet.

Exactly. And so I'm sitting there crying, wishing I had my mama, wishing I had— A daddy, because I never knew my biological father. Never even seen a picture of him. Never met him. But my mother's husband, he did try. And when they divorced, that's when my mama really just spiraled out of control.

When she was in route, which helped with the—

Exactly. Unfortunately, she was already addicted.

Clarksville, Tennessee. We just built a house on the Cumberland River 2 years ago. So it runs through your backyard, the Cumberland?

It does. It does.

Where is it in the state? Is it east of Nashville or west?

We're north. West, just barely northwest though. It's more just straight north. We're 45 minutes if you drive the speed limit, but I've gotten from Nashville to Clarksville in 30 minutes.

Okay.

And are you getting close to Kentucky at that point?

We're actually on the Tennessee-Kentucky state line.

Oh, no kidding?

Yes. Yes.

Is Bowling Green on the other side?

Bowling Green's middle Kentucky, so it's more northeastern of Clarksville.

Got you.

And I actually was already making memories in Bowling Green from being a young promiscuous man, but I had to sit in their county jail for 4 years.

Oh my God.

Wait, in Bowling Green?

Yes.

Oh, no kidding.

'Cause they have a contract with the marshals. And so when I was being held to go back and forth to federal court, I was in Warren County Regional Jail in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

And I can't imagine there were any field trips to the Corvette Museum.

I used to look out the window and just see the sign and just be yearning for a day to not only drive any car, it could be a Honda Civic, let alone a Corvette.

So from 0 to 2, it's just you and your older brother Robert, right? He's 2 years older than you? 3 years, yes. So at 2 or 3, y'all move in with Mickey and mom starts dating him. You guys move from downtown Clarksville and some projects to kind of a nice area in the Northside?

Yes.

So tell me about Mickey. What kind of dude was he?

Mickey was the sail on the boat amongst the storm, giving us still some stability and some direction. Unfortunately, Because the captain of the boat likes to make sure all the sailors listen, he was controlling to an extent that as a child, I couldn't perceive it as that. I just understood that everybody's complaining about Mama. What is Mama doing so wrong? But then I'm also seeing that when they're complaining about Mama, Mickey wants to complain with his fists.

Mm-hmm.

Uh-huh. So to this day, I consider Mickey my daddy, the only man that ever tried. So I love and revere him for giving effort. I'm not his biological child. He could have said, "Eff me," even when they started dating, not to mention once they got divorced. Because even though they got divorced and we moved and went through all the hardships we went through, people gossip. And once the gossip got around that it was being so hard on us, that I was going to school with holes in my shoes, that I was going to school with too little or too big clothes, not only did my brother push his pride to the side and reach out to Mickey, Mickey had made it possible for them to communicate. And he came back around and he was trying to help.

Yeah, he was a dude who worked at the post office, right? He never missed a day of work. His car broke, he walked 5 miles. So in some ways, yeah, he's like a rock. And then clearly he's in over his head with this relationship and everything else that's going on and he doesn't act his best. And yeah, it starts to get violent. Your mom was kind of a badass, right? In her day.

Yeah, she was blessed to have a father who got his hustle on. My granddaddy was about his business, and he got to the money. You know, my granddaddy had successful funeral home, but then he bought and acquired other funeral homes and then other small businesses, just trying to pursue all his entrepreneurial instincts. And so my grandfather made sure my mother was raised in a good environment. And at the same time, good environment, that line gets blurred. Due to the fact this is the '60s and the '70s, so Black people are only allowed in certain areas. And so he got money, but you want to interact with who you're allowed to interact with, which is other Black people. So you're gonna be in the hood. You're gonna be around certain things. And so by the time cocaine and crack came along, my mother's the pretty girl who all the hustlers are hollering at. Yeah. Everybody's flirting with. And she let fun become something that ruined her.

Yeah, but she was tough. She liked to fight. She was hell-bent on repeating to you guys, "You shouldn't ever let anyone put their hands on you." Yeah. So after one of these beatings, and you're present for it, she grabs a butcher knife, and what happens?

Yeah, so I forgot to shout out my grandmother. I'm named after my maternal grandmother, Ms. Christine Hooker. And Christine was known to gamble and carry a knife and a gun.

Uh-huh.

And my mama learned from her. And my mama named me after my grandmother. She died on my mother's 21st birthday. She died from cancer on Mama's birthday, January 27th, 1984. And so, Grandmama had always taught Mama to protect yourself no matter what. If you can't whoop 'em with your hands, you grab a weapon. And that's something that Mama embraced wholeheartedly. And so, one morning, her and Mickey had been going back and forth, and she said, "You know what? I ain't taking no more slaps or punches. I'm finna kill him." And she pulled me and Robert together. We crying, screaming, she's hugging us, and also telling us, "Shut up." and tell us, "Suck it up. And when you hear us get into it, when you hear the tussle, go call your granddaddy." And tell him I killed Mickey. Exactly.

Wow.

Verbatim.

Meaning— Oh my God.

This is what's coming, y'all.

I know. And are you guys like, "No, don't do that." And you're what, 5 and 8 at this time?

I'm about 7, 'cause this is the last episode. So I'm 7, and my brother's 10. And so imagine seeing your mother already welped up, bruised up, a little bloody, and she's telling you, "I'm finna murder somebody that you love." I love Mickey.

Everything's so fucking confusing.

Exactly.

It's like, wait, no, Mickey's a good dude, but how's he also hitting my mom? Like, trying to make peace with this.

Exactly. Preach. Imagine a child trying to sort these thoughts out. And then this is happening in real time, so you don't have the space to be patient, to organize the thoughts.

Yeah.

You got to react. And in that moment of reacting, when we seen her storm out, And then we also heard the scream afterwards. We knew she carried out her promise. But by the time I hit the corner, I see blood dripping down Mickey, but I also see him stomping the hell out of her. I see a grown man's foot coming up and down. And my brother Robert, being the braver one, the older one, he took off running towards the fight. I took off running out the door. Oh.

Yeah, mine was like watching completely paralyzed with fear, thinking, oh wow, she's gonna die. That's a real specific moment. And Dad's already gone, so where are we going? You know, where are we going when the dust settles from this? And just the deep fucking emasculation of wanting to protect my mom and not having the courage or size or strength has set me on a fucking trajectory for the rest of— I mean, I'm still dealing with that moment.

Them inner child wounds. And I'm glad that you're conscious of them to heal from them. But I wasn't for a long time. So like you said, that feeling helpless, that feeling emasculated. But then also knowing that I am a man and knowing I do have the nuts to stand up, it led me to taking what Master P was rapping about as not only a real fact of life, but it was also entertainment to me embodying it and naming myself Soldier and literally being on the front lines every time.

And is the C— you were Soldier C. Soldier C, was that for Chris? Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

And Soulja for the people at home is spelled S-O-U-L-J-A.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's like Soulja Boy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I was before him. I'm older than him and I was naming myself that before him.

You started it.

You started it. No, I, you know, when he came out, you know, I used to get in the club and nod my head, but I used to be like, I hate the fact he's famous and I'm not. But no, no, I was a young man. I ain't know no better. But yeah, when I got older, I realized that I am is the most powerful thought that you can have, an I am thought. Because then whatever you follow that I am with, you are literally manifesting it because you will embrace that mentality. And your mentality equals your reality. So me saying I'm a soldier, I am literally putting myself in harm's way because I'm saying I'm willing to ride. Whatever the situation is, let's go. But I realized also, I was spelling it a certain way because I was putting my soul and my whole heart and my whole being into anything I was choosing. So I had to finally realize, okay—

There's the added shame of when you're that fucking family on the street.

That embarrassment, that shame.

Yes.

The spectacle.

Like, when you know you're the fucking spectacle on the street. Exactly.

You're trying to, like, make friends and get girls, and, like, you're the fucking house on the street. Like, blah.

It's funny you said that exactly how you said it, because making friends in an environment where you're the butt of the joke most of the time is a hell of a complex situation. Like, now that I'm older and I have tried to heal from a lot of things, when I talk with my fiancée, she's like, "You got bullied." And you know, in my mind, I didn't look at it like that. And then some of them same—

'Cause that's weak, to get bullied.

Exactly. Exactly. And then in my mind, those same guys are now my brothers too. But when you going around with holes in your shoes and you musky, you stinky. Kids don't know no better. They just like, oh, you stink, haha. Oh, look at your shoes.

Yeah, your mom's a crackhead. That's a funny joke.

That was the biggest joke that led to my first fight in school. I'll never forget his name. I'm not going to say his name, but, uh, he was a heavyset white guy, and he literally happened to just see my mom one day, and he wouldn't let it go. And we sitting in lunch, and he and another guy cracking jokes, and he said, your mom's a big fat I hit him so hard, blood just started oozing down his nose. But that was a guy I didn't have to see every day. The guys in my neighborhood, I gotta see every day, and they also are the same guys that I kinda look up to, I kinda love, but I also know they supplying my mama with drugs.

Yeah. God, it's so complicated.

So that transition from— I don't know, it's not clearly detailed in the book, but clearly Mom partied here and there, but there becomes this period where your mom misses— the project. She misses downtown. You guys are in a nice kind of area, but she misses it. So you guys always hang out at your uncle's baby mama's house.

Yeah.

Rie?

Yep.

It's a good time there, right? You go downtown, there's kids everywhere, there's family members, the ladies are playing cards, and you start noticing like mom's not playing cards with everyone. She's out. And do you remember at that age— I know it's hard to remember, but Were you theorizing, like, what was going on, or are you just not overthinking it?

Yes, I actually asked my cousin Kootis, who's Reeve's son, and he was 8 years older than me. I'm 6, 7, 8, so he's 14, 15, 16. And my brother's 3 years older than me, so my brother is 9, 10, 11. And we're on the bed listening to music, playing a video game, and I said, "What's that shit?" That shit, that phrase right there is what I always heard the adults mention when they was negatively talking about the mother.

That she's chasing that shit.

She's chasing that shit. And I was like, "What's that shit?" Because I'm wondering, one, where she's at. She's not in there. Like you said, everybody's in there playing cards, listening to music, and she's gone. And every time, they would always say, "She gone chasing that shit. That girl gonna let that shit ruin her. That girl got that shit on her mind so bad, she ain't even here for these kids." So I didn't theorize I asked a question. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was inquisitive, and I didn't know how to embrace that. I just knew people always tell me, "Shut the hell up. You asking too many questions." Yeah.

"Be quiet." Drugs is a big concept, too, when you're young.

That's why now that I'm free, and not only free, but have some good things going for me, I never hold anything against anyone, but I haven't forgotten anything about anyone. And so a lot of adults and a lot of people want to come back around as if as if, you know, I'm your uncle or I'm your cousin or, you know, you wasn't when I was living with no electricity, no running water. You wasn't when I was incarcerated with two life sentences. So, you know, I'm not mad at you.

But it's a convenient time for you to be involved. But now it's easy.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So did he tell you, he said it's drugs?

No. They told me quit cussing. Oh, okay. They want me quiet.

Okay.

Yeah.

My cousin was like, boy, watch your mouth. And my brother punched me. That was his way of trying to get me in order. He would punch me in my arm. What hit me? That's the first thing that'll come outta my mouth. But I'm still wondering, what is that shit? Ain't nobody told me what that shit is.

You're constantly in these situations where people are talking terribly about your mother. And even if you know it all about your mother, it hurts so bad. Your grandpa would talk really shitty about your mom.

Yeah.

His daughter.

As much as I revered my grandfather for his entrepreneurial skills and for his material things, him as a person, I was too young to really get a chance to know. I knew him well enough where I was sad when he passed. I knew him well enough where this is granddaddy, and I feel a sense of excitement when he comes around.

And pride. He's your grandpa. He's a big dog. He's the king of fucking Clarkston.

But I never knew him enough to make a conscious decision where you're like, "I'm not finna be around my grandfather no more." The person I did do that with that was candid in a way that I hated was Big Mama. One day, after I'm having one of my sickle cell crises, the kids that we live with that I perceive as cousins now, but back then they just people we live with, they're picking on me. They're talking and laughing about, "Oh, Robert, help me. Mama, I want my mama." Aw.

Kids are fucking awful.

They're so cruel.

Yeah, kids can be cruel.

Yeah.

And they're making fun of me for calling for my mama. And I'm like, "You couldn't deal with that pain. If you had to go through a sickle cell attack, you couldn't deal with the pain." And in their mind, they like, "I'm not even talking about the pain. I'm talking about you calling for Penny." Penny's not here. You know she's not here. But I'm a child, and this is my source of empowerment, my source of protection for so many years. And now that's gone. Now that's stripped away from me. No matter how many years I watched her decline, I just know now that I'm in this moment of pain, I need someone. And for years, that had been that person. And when the kids are making fun of me, I go to fight one of them. I go to stand up. I'm finna run over there. And Big Momma must have been close listening. She hit the corner. She grabbed me and, "Dayreike, I don't know what the fuck you calling for your mama for. If she wanted you, you would be with her. She don't want you." God. And I got to crying. I got so mad, I wanted to fight Big Momma so bad.

Yeah, it's so hurtful.

And I hated Big Momma for so many years.

And she thinks she's helping you move past it.

And accept reality. In her mind, it's like, "This is the reality.

If your mama wanted you, you wouldn't be with me." Yeah, that's not a reality we ever need to—

It's also not real. No, it's so much more nuanced than that.

Thank you. You're right.

Like, it's not like, oh, she doesn't want you, so that's why she— No, she's an addict. Like, there's so much to it.

Major terminal disease.

Yes, exactly.

That she's going to choose over herself.

So yeah, thank you.

She's going to choose it over everything.

You said it best.

Yeah. As an addict, I know people are like, they're confused by people not showing up for their family, like, "Wow, you choose your addiction over your family." It's like, well, y'all, I choose it over myself.

Exactly.

I'm killing myself. I already declared I'm gonna destroy this thing. So you're shocked that I also— Yeah, I mean, that's where we're at.

If I'm imploding, you can only imagine if you around me, you gonna get this blast. You're gonna be a part of this. But Big Mama was my anchor, my rock, my foundation. She was my heart.

What were the events that led to you living there?

Mama and Mickey, she stabs Mickey, Mickey beats her up. I go call the police. By the time the police come, they arrest her. And I'm like, "What?" I'm panicking. I'm like, "I called y'all. He's beating her up." They like, "She used a weapon. She's going to jail." You're not allowed to do that. So she go to jail. We go with my granddaddy for a few days. You know, they eventually make her bond. And my granddaddy had gifted my mother a house. This house happened to be in the middle of the hood, though. We get to living there, and that's when Mama really just spiral out of control. She quit paying the bills. The lights and water get cut off. And she had another boyfriend that lived in an even smaller house that beat her ass even worse than Mickey.

This is Roger?

Yes.

And Roger was fucking enormous, right?

Exactly.

He's like 280, 5'10". He looks like a linebacker. He works for the city.

You took the words right out of my mouth. He's literally— the spitting image of Emmitt Smith in the face and about the size of Brian Urlacher back in the day.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Just a monster. But he's partying, but he's still going to work. I mean, he's got a constitution, though.

Roger was a functioning addict to the point where he ain't gonna miss work. But after work, he's gonna—

It's on.

—get drunk. He's gonna get high. Drunk to the point he's falling around. But somehow he's gonna get up and clock in when it's time to go to work. And so, you know, that relationship was very abusive. And same thing.

She stabbed him too? Yes. Oh, wow. Yes. Yes. Narrowly avoided getting arrested that time.

Yeah, but they still issued the warrant. After me and Robert cried and screamed enough, the empathy kicked in and they was like, you know, go handle them. You gotta do something with these kids, but just know that you do have a warrant for your arrest.

Turn yourself in tomorrow morning. Yeah.

Which she did not do. And we moved back to her house with no lights and no water. For 2 years you guys live in that house?

Yes. With no lights and no water. Just you two?

No, my mother was there, but she wasn't there.

Right, right.

She was there physically when she needed to be, and she wasn't there none mentally. No water for 2 years? Yes. Can you imagine if you wake up in the middle of the night? Not only is there no lights, but I got smart enough, I started carrying a lighter in my pocket so I can strike my lighter to get to the bathroom. But I got to preemptively cover my— nose because when I lift the lid of this toilet, it's 3 people's feces from 3 different days of using the toilet.

And dudes are in and out of that place, probably partying with mom or no?

I know this is not the best nomenclature and I don't use this phrase now, but we call them smokers. So yes, people that got high like my mom, they would come and get high with her.

Take a shit in your toilet with no water. Yeah.

So the house was very derelict and very wretched and Big Momma, the older lady in our neighborhood that everybody already loved and knew, she came one day and she was like, "Y'all gonna go with me." And Momma was like, "Yeah." And I'm like, "For how long?" And Big Momma was like, "For how long you need to." And I'm like, "Nah, for how long? I don't want to be away from my mama." As much as I'm mad at Mama, as much as I hate what she's choosing, this is still Mama. You have a primal connection to your mother, 'cause whether you're aware of it or not, you're literally the division of herself.

You're of her. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you just love Robert, and he's such a fucking sweet brother, and he's got way too much on his shoulders. And again, reading his story made me so sympathetic to my older brother too. It's like they're doing everything you're doing, and then also they have on their shoulders that they're the father. Exactly. Like, they got to be your father too. Man. I'm writing a memoir myself, and I text my brother after having to write some passage about him, and I just wrote him and I said, dude, you did such a good job. "Thank you." Absolutely. Yeah. And then he called me crying. And I was like, "Oh, shit." He's been waiting to hear that for a while.

But it's good that you got to the point where you did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause some people get to that point and skip it and don't realize to embrace the moment.

Well, I was just— I'm locked into my own experience, but it's like you just did it, right? It's like forcing to tell other people's story in your story forces empathy onto you, forces perspective. Like when you really gotta sit there and think like, "Oh, fuck, what was Robert thinking about in this situation?" Amazing. All those things plus— He got to protect you. He's watching mom get beat to death and she just stabbed somebody and you're in the mix and he's responsible for you.

And he got to think about, man, Chris needs something to eat tonight. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking I'm hungry. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And you ain't thinking about anybody else's hunger but Chris's. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

And so I'm here to be vulnerable. I'm here to be candid. But my mother's brother, with me being free now and me living a certain way now, he wanted to come back into my life. And that's cool. I don't have nothing against you. But within it, he wanted to try to dictate a celebration that me and my fiancée just had and invite people that we weren't inviting. And he's like, "Well, they're family." I'm like, "No, they're not family." We might share some DNA somewhere, but family is a verb. They've never treated me like family. I could care less about their DNA.

Weirdly, Mickey was more of a family.

Thank you. Mickey— and we share no DNA. And Mickey was definitely more family. And I say— I brought that up because I had to kind of check my uncle. And as I'm checking him, And in the midst of it, he happened to say something negative about Robert. And I'm like, hey, hold on.

Oh my God.

You never can understand what that man went through because, one, you had a mama and a daddy— That had money. Exactly. This man didn't have a mama nor a daddy. And on top of that, had to look out for me. Then turn around and made a child himself when he was 16. That's a lot for a young man. Oh my God. Not to mention, then he jumped in the streets. And that come with its own set of circumstances.

I just want to mention quickly, you are a great student, though, throughout all this. Thank you.

I appreciate you for thinking that. You're getting A's.

You're like the only kid in your group group that can be reporting that you're getting AIDS. And people are like, how's he getting AIDS?

Yeah.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

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The murder of my cousin Kootis. When Kootis got murdered, I was 10 and Robert was 13. And that's when I consciously knew, okay, he smokes weed because he didn't want to go to the funeral with us. He wanted to ride with the older guy, the other guys, because, you know, they was gonna smoke weed, listen to music, and When he got to the funeral, I noticed, I'm like, "He high." I know what weed is by this time, and I'm dabbling too. I'm a child, I don't got access. He's 13, and he actually has access.

He's starting to probably use it to regulate. Self-medicating, exactly. And—

but he also had an interest. He— back then, you know, we didn't have— the weed of today is not the weed of yesterday. And so, back then, if you got some dro, as we called it, when you didn't have no seeds and it was a certain— it was actually truly grew with the hydroponic system, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I said that because most of the time, guys was gonna have weed with seeds. My brother would take the seeds and actually grow some weed. And a lot of people did that, but I could see he truly had an interest in it. Mm-hmm. But he's not around anyone that can tell him, "Hey, you can be a botanist." Right. No one is telling him.

He never met anyone that is— Exactly. Yeah. —in biology or anything. Exactly.

There's nobody to guide and direct him. Yeah. Mentor. Except to, "Hey, you want some money? You need some money? This is how you can get some money." And that is slowly but for sure, I started to notice he was selling drugs because he popped up with a new CD player. And I'm green, I'm a child. I'm like, how you get this? And he like, such and such gave it to me. And I'm like, gave it to you? He like, yeah. I'm not knowing though, he traded it for some drugs.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He gave me that. I gave him some weed. Crack.

Crack. OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Robert jumped in the streets when he was about 13, when I was 11. 7, first time I sold some drugs. And it was just some weed, but that weed slowly but for surely became consistent. And by the time it got consistent, I'm seeing Robert and everybody else in my neighborhood go from being kids with not as bad attire as I have, but to a little decent attire, to not only a little decent attire, now they got cars. And not only do they got cars, now they got necklaces and gold teeth.

Yeah. And Jordans. Exactly.

But can you imagine how having control for the first time in your life, like how intoxicating.

We all would do it.

That's the thing that's like, it's so frustrating when people are judgmental. No one wouldn't be doing that. Yeah.

Anyone that wants to survive. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone who has a survival instinct. Any opportunity.

It'll happen even when you're not realizing you're choosing it. It's like being a castaway stuck at sea. You know, you can't drink seawater. You know the salt is in here, but you're dying of thirst. Yeah. And the same way with a child a teenager, you know you shouldn't sell drugs, you know eventually you might get arrested. Then you're seeing people get arrested, you're like, "All right, the odds of me getting arrested is pretty high." But you're dying of thirst. No choice. And like you said, you're like, you wanna survive. And so, eventually you're gonna drink this seawater. And then you might do all right the first day, then the second day, and then eventually you're in the back of a police car. Yeah.

Well, the other thing is, I think from the outside people would think, think, oh, you declare, I'm going to be a drug dealer, that's such a huge decision. But that's not what happens. Little tiny things happen, and then the frequency of the little tiny things happen that all feel like one-offs. And at some point you have to look around, evaluate, and go like, oh, I'm a drug dealer, right? Or am I wrong? No, you're right. Little things happen and all of a sudden you recognize, oh, I do this kind of a lot, and I— yes, I am this. Your self-protection prevents you from acknowledging what's happening in some weird way.

Yeah, like your body is composed of a bunch of cells, and then those cells are composed of subatomic particles, but they all come together to make organs. Then the organs come together to make a body. Them different decisions, one by one, make you into— and like I said earlier, the most powerful thought you can have is "I am." So those little decisions end up adding up to saying, "Oh, I am a street dude. I am a dope boy. I am a gangster." And eventually, you get to that point of you walking down the street, you got some drugs in your pocket, and you're super nervous every time you see some headlights. It's like, "It's the police, it's the police, it's the police." And then it's to the point where the police pull up and talk to you, and you got a fully loaded .45 on your hip and an ounce in your back pocket, and you like, "What's up, man?" Shooting the shit. Yeah, exactly. Because they know you, you know them, and you just like, "All right, you ain't got no probable cause right now. Either you finna be an asshole and do something that you know is illegal, but you probably can still justify later on, or you gonna just act like it's a normal day.

I'm in my hood, you doing your job." It becomes that cat and mouse of like, "Okay, we coexist." in this weird dynamic. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What age does Robert start getting into trouble? When does he get arrested for the first time?

The first time Robert gets arrested, he's probably 14, 15. I'm gonna say 14. It's a couple of young guys standing on the block, and this particular police wanted to jump out. And instead of them playing it cool to see how he react, because, you know, every action has a reaction, they just straight run. So when they run, he chases them. He catches Robert and he dumps him on his face in some rocks. And Robert came home, his whole face was scratched up. And Robert didn't even have no real drugs. He had some fake drugs. And so they just called Big Mama at the station. She went down to the station. They let him go. That was his first arrest, but his first true charge. He's 19. I'm 16. And by this time, as you said, them small decisions have led up to— I'm a full-fledged drug dealer. This is what I'm doing day in, day out. And this is what he's doing day in and day out. But we're making it easier for the police because we're doing it out of a house that we also live in. Not ideal. Party in. Yeah. And everything else.

Exactly.

Talk about shitting where you eat. Thank you.

That part. Exactly. It's a frat house with ounces of crack going in and out daily. Yeah. You know, they kicking the door and all the drugs in there are mine. Me being a juvenile, Robert being the adult, he claimed everything as his. Kept me out of trouble. But that decision and choice to try to keep his little brother out of trouble was also one of the inflection points in his life that led to some of the most stressful moments of his life.

He already had the baby or he's about to have a baby?

Yes, my niece at this time is 2 years old, finna be 3. By this time, she's walking, laughing, and— Oh. Saying daddy, and it was torture for him. He didn't make it to prison, but he spent his last 18 months of his life in the county jail.

And then he died by suicide.

Yes, unfortunately. Where at? In the house that my grandfather gifted my mother. That house was a gift and a curse. 1206 Vine Street, AKA the Boulevard. The Boulevard is a name that I don't think anybody that was in Clarksville in the early 2000s will forget. Between my mother's drug usage, other people's drug usage, then me and my brother's drug selling, and then the other guys in my neighborhood drug selling, the house became a staple of our neighborhood. Everybody knew about it. Everybody would do something at it in some way, shape, form, or fashion. And my brother laid on the couch, and with my gun that I literally just had took off my hip, that I usually would never put down, not even if I'm going to the restroom or to the shower. I happened to take it off my hip because I had just got arrested the week before. And I'm like, where I'm going, I don't need it. And I don't want to take any more risks and chances. And he took his life with it. Yeah. January 1st, 2007.

Oh, so horrible. That's fucking brutal. It is.

Yeah. It was so— traumatic and so hard, like, it's a memory that is intoxicating. It's almost like I take a hallucigen just remembering those next 72 hours. Because between me already smoking a shitload of weed daily, and then his death, and then mixing the Remy Martin, it was so convoluted to the point where I don't even really remember sleeping. And when I do remember sleeping, I remember waking up. Thinking this gotta be the dream. The dream in the sleep, I'm praying and hoping was real and not what I'm waking up to. But eventually I had to push off the intoxication, I had to push off the pain, and I had to organize a funeral.

How'd you know not to try crack? Watching Penny. A lot of people watch and they still follow.

And unfortunately, my brother was one. He literally admitted, you know, I wanted to know why Mama put this before everything. Like, I literally was curious. He was like, you know, I had been curious and knew I shouldn't do it. But then one day I couldn't get it out of me. He couldn't get no good weed, 'cause by this time we getting money. So by this time, like I said, right now if somebody buy some weed, it's not bad weed. Technically, all weed is good nowadays because of the— Mm-hmm. Right. But back then, it was a good and a bad. And he was like, "I couldn't find no good weed." And I had always wondered what it was like. And I had some crumbs, and I just put the crumbs in the joint with the weed and tried it. And for me, I never wanted to experiment because— the stigma, I will admit and look in the mirror and take that I was very judgmental. But now I realize all people are sinners and we sin in a way that we're comfortable with. And then some people choose to judge those that sin in a way that they're uncomfortable with.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. But not to let you off the hook entirely, we got to add, when you have nothing to acquire status and you're low rung on everything, some moral superiority can keep you afloat.

You right. You right.

It's like you're searching for anything that confirms that I'm not the same piece of shit as I think everyone else. You know, like, you just kind of got to, for survival, think there's something special about yourself. And that kind of can lead to moral superiority. I mean, I don't know.

You're also smart. Maybe there is something that just that straight-A brain was just like, I'm not doing that. That's where I draw the line there or something.

Well, thank y'all. Thank y'all. And I definitely know war gives tools that peace could never give, and peace gives a perspective that war could never give. Being caught up in that dynamic day in and day out for most of my childhood definitely had me believing, "Okay, I am not gonna be a thief, but I'm gonna be the biggest dope boy I can be. I'm not gonna be a mass murderer, but nobody's gonna fuck with me." And if they do, they gonna have to face the consequence. And so you do— How do you create this moral code that no matter how flawed it is, it is your compass?

We can tell ourselves a lot of shit. Yeah. When did that news reach Mom, and what was the reaction?

My mama was locked up. She was in the county jail. She had been there for the past 5, 6 months because she had a year sentence. And usually when you don't go to the actual prison, when you just have small sentences like that, they'll give you 2-for-1s, which is basically for every day you do, we'll count it as 2 days, as long as you keep a job. In the jail. So she was incarcerated, and she had been in the county jail for about 5, maybe 6 months. And Big Momma took it upon herself to do whatever the process was. She reached out to somebody downtown that could get in touch with the judge. And the judge eventually signed off and gave her time served to release her, to make sure she could come to Robert's funeral. Oh, wow. I'll never forget it. I was in Big Momma's front room. And I hear somebody coming down the street with all this crying and screaming and just making a scene. Unfortunately, you can probably walk down Hollywood Boulevard and see somebody doing it, or Sunset Boulevard. And so, I hear somebody coming down the street being hysterical, and I look out the door, and it's my mama.

And so, you know, she comes, and she had to be in a cell and get the news that, "Hey, not only is your son dead, but it's the reason why we're even releasing you. You really got a few more weeks." Yeah.

Yeah. You get arrested twice. What, 16 first?

I got arrested when I was 17, and that sent me to the juvenile detention facility. For how long? A month and a half. Okay.

How was that experience? Not as bad as you thought it was gonna be, or worse, or what you thought?

A prophecy coming true. Kootis actually told me one time that if I keep acting and thinking how I was thinking and acting, that I would be going to juvenile detention.

It was when you were declaring yourself Soldier C to them. Yeah.

I had seen Koodus cry after he was arrested for an attempted murder charge. That ultimately he was released because the charges were dropped because he didn't do it. But at that time, I'm just a young child in a courtroom with my mama and my auntie, and I see the person that I think is the pinnacle of being cool, the pinnacle of being a man. He had all the girls. Exactly. And now I see tears coming down your face, and I've been been indoctrinated that men don't cry, gangsters don't cry, soldiers don't cry.

You've been teased a ton yourself.

Exactly, for crying. And now I see you crying. And so Kudis warned me that if I keep thinking the way I'm thinking and acting the way I'm acting, I'm gonna get locked up. And so that first arrest, sitting in the back of that bus, and they take us to a whole nother town that's about an hour and a half away from Clarksville to this juvenile facility. And so it's a long drive for somebody that just got arrested. You're like, "Goddamn, I just got caught.

Not only did I get caught, what is gonna happen next?" Really quick, did you have moments of dramatic shifts between feeling like a fully fledged adult and then all of a sudden going, "Oh my God, I'm a fucking kid." Like feeling like a kid. I would imagine, like, slinging dope, getting paid, you're feeling like a man going shopping.

That bus ride, you're like, "Oh." It wasn't the bus ride, it was the ankle monitor. The ankle monitor. When they finally let me go a month and a half later, They wouldn't let me go unless I had somebody to live with. Another moment where Mickey comes in the picture and allows me to live with him. And living with Mickey was being a child again. And I couldn't be a child, especially not to a man that I feel like, "You ain't nothing anyway." You are something, and I appreciate your attempts, 'cause I haven't forgot the past attempts, and I'm appreciating this attempt. But I'm a man now, and he ain't trying to hear that, and the court ain't trying to hear that.

You're so fucked up at this point, dude. I mean, you're just so fucked up. You're trying to make sense of everything. You're trying to be a man. You're disappointed in him and you love him, and you feel heartbroken that he didn't— That's so fucked up. —turn out to be who you want him to be. But now he's here, and so you're both appreciative and judgmental. Yeah. Yeah, it's a mess. Fast forward to 2010. You're 22. There's a sting operation. And they arrest 30 people.

36, to be exact. And 3, their charges got dropped because of their cooperation. And then the other 3 was charged, but they agreed to cooperate too, and they just got less charges than everybody.

But yes, a lot of us. Wow. You get arrested. Mm-hmm. And then you have 4 years before your trial starts. Insane. I know. Also, what did you have on you? Like, what did you have on you? On you? I had no drugs on me.

You had no drugs? No, I had a gun. I had a loaded 9mm Ruger, and I had $11,000 within my reach. Okay, so technically I came with the money. There's no, you know, I've been convicted, uh, the past is the past. So I brought the money, and the guy I was getting my drugs from, he had the drugs. Let me tell the story quickly. Yeah, he's the target. So they have been tapping his phones, they have been wanting him for years, they've been knowing who he was. He actually had beat a federal case roughly a decade before. This particular night, case is over with. They like, we got enough evidence, we finna arrest his ass. But the phones are tapped and I call and they like, we don't know who this is and it sounds like they're finna do a drug deal. Let's let them meet. We think they're gonna do a drug deal. They let us meet and we're at a store, a convenience store, a gas station, and they jump out. When they jump out, I have the money but I throw it under the car and I have my gun inside my car and inside His car, he has roughly 15 ounces.

So, yes, they charged me with attempted possession, charged me with the conspiracy, and then charged me with drugs in a school zone, 'cause it was a little alternative school that's not even a real school, and it wasn't even— and it wasn't even in operation anymore. It still had its charter, and the charter was for that address. And like when we really got into trial and really dug through the weeds, I got 4 charges altogether. Felon with a firearm, the conspiracy, attempted possession of the drugs, and the drugs in the school zone.

The 4-year stint before your trial, when do you discover the library at the county jail?

So from the moment the handcuffs got put on me, I knew that I was through. I knew that I wanted change. Because it had been too much pain. I'm like, "This has to stop." Like, my life has been fucked up. And I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what God got in store for me. By this time, I am in an existential crisis. I'm like, "This is crazy. There's no way in the world my life has been this messed up." I've had to live with no electricity, no running water, no parents. My cousin got murdered, and I pull up to the crime scene. Well, I didn't pull up 'cause I wouldn't drive. I'm a child. But— And then my brother died by suicide, and I have to find him. I have to navigate not stepping in his brains, but also getting help. I am now getting arrested by the FBI and the DEA. I'm seeing these jackets that usually you only see on movies.

Yeah, exactly. So I'm like— You're like, what happened?

Exactly. I'm like, this is unreal. Like, this can't be true. Like, how can one person's life be this crazy?

Yeah, and I guess probably from the outside, a lot of people would be like, people might say, their knee-jerk reaction might be like, well, of course, what did you think? It's kind of shocking how much you can ignore stuff until the rent's due. When that happens, you can both be going like, well, yeah, this makes sense, but also like, oh wow, we're here.

Exactly. Think about the amount of things you just said that weren't choices at all. Like the parents you're born into, the house you're born into, the not having electricity. Like these aren't decisions. You're a kid. You're just like being drug along.

Surviving. It's so unfair. And then once the cuffs got put on me, I'm like, okay, let me figure something out. And so I reverse engineered and I started with my mother's choices. Then I went to my choices. Then I went to America's decisions, which led me to having certain thoughts, but I'm still not getting the answers, but I got the questions.

Really quick, was the question like, how did this happen? Mm-hmm. Is this happening to everybody? If it's not happening to everybody, why is it happening to me? What system is in place that allowed this to happen to me and not everybody else? Than anyone else.

That's a great way to paraphrase it, but I will admit, like any other human being, I'm being so subjective. I'm like, nobody else's life is this hard, not in America. I'm knowing people go through other things in every part of the world, America, every other country. But at that time, I'm being so subjective, I'm like, ain't no way. Ain't no way my life is this hard. What is going on?

Something stinks. Yeah, exactly.

I need an explanation for this. Thank you. I had all these questions, Walking into that county jail library, I'm going in there because we have to. They're searching us. Even though we're incarcerated, even though we're locked up, you still are subjected to certain treatment that people wouldn't expect. They expect it because they hear stories and like, "Okay, this is inhumane. This is mistreatment, blah, blah, blah." But they wouldn't expect it like, "Really? Like, what do y'all think they got?" Like, unless you bring it, how does it enter the facility? That is the ultimate reality. But— I see on the board a Bible verse that has always resonated with me. And I happen to look up after reading the Bible verse, which was, "Faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain into the sea." And you know, it's different variations of the Bible, so it might be a little bit different, but I'm thinking of that as I walk past left it. It's on the chalkboard. So I'm thinking about, okay, church must have just been in there, because this same room, the same library is what it technically is, is also serving as church, mosque, temple.

Everything that is allowed in the jail is serving for that. So I'm like, okay, the last pastor wrote this. I sit down, and out of nowhere, the same way that stack of books that you have right there is color-coded, all red, I happen to notice something red and I'm like, "What is that?" And it was a set of encyclopedias. And it embarked me on a trajectory that saved me. Yeah.

Wow. We've heard from numerous people that their first love was the encyclopedia. Like, it's funny what a gateway that thing is. It's true.

I mean, it holds all the answers, as you said.

Well, do you think it just like, if we could get metaphorical about it, is it that You had such a myopic view of the world and life. You were in such a specific thing. And to find out— was it the vastness of the world and everything in it? Like, what do you suppose was the romantic aspect to the encyclopedia that had you hooked?

I got two quotes to answer that. One is by Carl Sagan. He said, "Books are like seeds, able to lay dormant, but able to flower in the most unpromising soil." unpromising soil. So them books had just been sitting there collecting dust, and I was that unpromising soil that now was finna water and nurture and cultivate something from those seeds. And then another quote is by me. I said, "Memory gives humans the ability to store information and build upon that information. Imagination gives people the ability to envision what to do with that information and change and build." The former can keep you trapped with painful memories. The latter can keep you trapped fearing future possibilities. Them encyclopedias contained so much information, so much about the world that I wanted to know, was curious to know, and hadn't been exposed to. So, yes, you're right. It was because so much was contained in that. And then they had 4 sets. I only noticed the red ones initially because red is what it serves as. It's a stimulant. It catches your attention. Caught my attention. And since we're in LA, I gotta give the name drop. You know, the late, great Nipsey Hussle was a Crip through and through, was unapologetic about it.

But he made sure red was on his logo because he understood the power of the color. So the red encyclopedias caught my attention, but they had a set that was black and a set that was green. So say, for instance, I'm curious about zoning and housing. I'm going to look up in the Red Encyclopedias, the Black Encyclopedias, and the Green Encyclopedias housing policies in LA, or whatever I might be interested in, and compare and contrast the three different encyclopedias. Oh, 'cause they were different brands? Exactly. So I definitely was yearning to be a part of a different group. Like, right now, I am the iconoclast. I am the abnormal, the one that is just— The anomaly. Exactly. I am. Yeah, yeah. Because clearly, I'm not white. Clearly, I'm not— I didn't come from the suburbs. Clearly, I don't fit what I match in some ways. Most people, when they see me, I break all the stereotypes. When you think of street guy from the ghetto, a drug dealer, a gangster, gangbanger, any of the— certain images pop in your head. Yeah, yeah, every movie we've seen.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. And I don't fit that. I fit the suburban guy that has been around white people all his life, that has money.

that's assimilated— Exactly. —to white culture.

Some people will say, he talk white. No, everybody talks white because our language comes from England. We speak English. Yeah. So no, unless you're speaking a different language that I don't realize. But that is the fallacies and the misconceptions that come with not fitting a certain paradigm, not fitting a certain model.

Needless to say, you take a real fucking journey for those 4 years of education. And then there's this crazy life-defining moment you have, which is you're now— it's 4 years later, you're gonna get sentenced. You walk into that courtroom knowing what you're up against, which is they have now added, in that 4 years, they've decided to kind of upgrade to a 3 strikes, which, for people who don't know about mandatory sentencing, federal 3-strike law, if you've got 2 violent felonies or 2 preexisting drug felonies, drug felonies, third one, life, period. Federal's no parole. Yeah. Life means life or life means 20 years?

No, life means stay in this little cell until you die. Until we pronounce you deceased, you will not leave the custody of the BOP. Okay.

So you know without question that's what you're about to hear on that day. Yeah. And you have been advised not to speak by several people, but then the judge asks you if you'd like to say anything. What is that speech?

That speech is— Can you imagine a child that has been dumped into a swamp and he's been told to get out of this swamp? And then by the time he makes it to civilization and walks into a restaurant, he's muddy, he's dirty, he's stinking, and everybody in the restaurant looks at him as if he's done something wrong and reprimands him and say, "Get out of my restaurant.

You can't come in here like that.

We got a dress code. You're supposed to follow the dress code." strict dress code. And so I just wanted everybody to see me as a human being. So not only did I speak about what I had endured, but I spoke about possibility. I told them, look at everything I had been doing since I got arrested. I've been studious with my time, taking copious notes, just voraciously reading anything I can get my hands on. But not just consuming information, but actually critically thinking, actually letting myself ask another question on top of a question and letting I'm not getting the answer from that be something that adjusts my behavior. So I've been practicing cognitive behavioral therapy on my own in this inhumane environment. I've been in here in this tiny room with these other people that I don't know and having to deal with them and they nonsense, deal with the pain of my memories, and deal with what I know the future is finna be. And still believing that, "Hey, I can be something different, and I'm going to be something different. And so I'm choosing to take in this information and let it adjust me.

And as it's adjusting me, give me a chance. Give me the possibility to be back with humanity. See the humanity in me and give me a chance to be back in society." And I'm knowing that's not finna happen right then and there, but I'm just hoping that when it's all said and done, what my son, the record, would reflect. That we are finna throw away an asset, not a liability.

In all that 4 years of reading, had you read Viktor Frankl's book? Yes, sir. 'Cause the story's so parallel. And for people who don't know the Viktor Frankl story, he was in a concentration camp, and he said it occurred to him at some point that they can own your body, they can take away all your autonomy of your body, but they can't have your mind.

Exactly.

And you get to have some control over how you process and deal with even the worst scenario. Is your remaining freedom. Exactly. I love the existentialists.

I loved Viktor Frankl for, one, what he actually went through, and The Measurement of Man is one of my top reads. And he basically was like, you know, for the person that knows the why, he will figure out the how some kind of way. You know what I'm saying? You know you want to survive, you will figure it out, no matter if you're being starved, beat, or whatever. But I also love James Allen, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and— And even though they were racist, Heidegger and Hegel— I'm gonna shout out Heidegger and Hegel and Kant. I gotta also acknowledge they believe a person like me didn't have the capacity to think in a way I think. So yeah, I have figured out that it's power within choice. And I understood that the way I think affects the way I choose. So by that time, I realized all the power is within you. You can choose, and how you think affects how you choose. And so all the power is within you, no matter what these outside circumstances are. You know, that's it. External. Pay attention to the internal. You know, know thyself and you will be able to succeed.

You will be able to excel. I had my mind made up that with every choice was going to reflect a different person and not only a different person, but somebody that was worthy of being a part of society. Yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dig it.

There.

So this speech is so moving that the federal judge, Kevin Sharp, who had been appointed by Clinton, I think— Obama. Obama. Not immediately, but he's already not loving mandatory sentencing. He's very moved by you. He does not like having to dole out that sentence. And ultimately this event, along with, I'm sure, other weight on his conscience, gets him to step down from a lifetime appointment federal judge. Wow. And become an advocate against mandatory sentencing. What other things start happening that pave the way for your release?

Let me put it in context. A lot of people don't realize this man had to get appointed by a president. Like you said, you pointed out, Obama appointed him. But not only that, you have to get confirmed by Congress. So he jumped through a lot of hoops and hurdles to even get this job. And he's like, "You know what? I can't live with myself." And they can keep that job for forever, until they die or retire. So I just wanted to make sure I point that out because I will always, forever love Kevin H. Sharp. That was a very courageous and brave act of him. And I'll forever admire and revere him and love him.

I mean, the integrity to do something like that. Exactly.

Because, like, you have security. You know this paycheck is coming. Exactly.

You know, giving up the ultimate security blanket. Exactly.

Exactly. And prestige and the sense of dignity that comes from identity. He was one of them people that's like, you know, the value of me is not tied up in that identity of being a judge. The dignity is tied up in me knowing that I have the power to choose. And with my choice, I'm going to choose to resign and speak out against what's going on. So not only did that lead to the freedom, but the media is a very powerful to her. One of the journalists sent the article of Judge Sharp resigning and speaking about him wanting to get me released to an attorney in Dallas, Texas named Brittany K. Barnett. Brittany was a corporate attorney that was working on billion-dollar deals by day and at night working pro bono for free to help people that was incarcerated for drug charges. And then on the weekends, she was taking kids to go visit their mothers in prison. What's wrong with her? Exactly. You're like, "Something stinks." Yeah, she's just doing so much. I never met anyone that acted like that. Exactly. That's—

I swear. Hard to trust that person.

That's exactly how I said it. I was in disbelief when I heard him resigning. And I thought, like you said, I was like, "What does he benefit?" But I was like, "I've never seen nobody do this. I've never seen nobody say, 'I'm gonna care about the parent that's addicted to drugs or selling drugs and the child that's affected by their incarceration while working my 9-to-5.'" So Brittany blew me away. Away meeting her. Monica, they're engaged. No, I love that.

Yeah, I love you.

I love how you whispered it to the mic. You've gotten too good at your job.

It should come out later, but I could tell it was gonna really land with her in that moment. She just heard what an angel she is. Yeah.

And this is a time for me to plug, you can read her book, A Knock at Midnight, where she speaks on, altogether she's freed 77 of us that had life sentences for drugs, nonviolent offenses in federal prison for drugs.

How soon do you guys start falling in love? Don't fucking lie.

Yeah, tell us the truth.

Immediately.

Oh, I fell in love as soon as I heard about it.

Like, I was just like, hell, I meet this beautiful attorney who cares about me. I'm like, what?

Like you said, I ain't never messed with nobody so kind. And I just, I come from a neighborhood where everybody is trying to get over on the next person. And so, I had been spending my whole life looking for unconditional love. Didn't know I had it with Big Mama. Didn't know I had it with different people that was loving in the way that they knew how to love me. Your brother. You know, my brother, exactly. So, but at the time of meeting Brittany, I'm just blown away and I'm smitten immediately. But she was very professional. Yeah, but you got a good smile.

That'll wear a woman down. Oh, my gosh. Thank you.

Thank you, my brother. Thank you.

I see that smile so many times.

Thank you, Dad. It's funny though, because everybody think I got veneers and I don't. These are my natural teeth, dawg. Perfect teeth. The only tooth that's fake in my mouth is this front one. I broke it when I was 10. And I was so embarrassed for the next 3 years that I wouldn't even talk without covering my mouth. I wouldn't laugh without covering my mouth. And Mickey found out and he took me to the dentist and got my tooth fixed. Wow. Yeah. But by this time, I'm intoxicated with the streets. So I'm also selling drugs. And so then, I got some gold teeth, but they was the pullouts. But back then the pullouts wouldn't go to the mall and spend $50. They was $150 or $200. Yeah. But I said that 'cause he complimented my smile. So thank you. Yeah. And everybody think I got veneers, but literally only one tooth in my mouth is fake.

Wow. In the midst of all this, so you're getting media attention and you have a lawyer now, you have Kevin working on your behalf in some way. The fight for freedom has begun. You have one particular moment where you had to put in a clemency request and you you really thought this was gonna be the one, yeah?

Yeah, I was laying there asleep and the unit manager came and said, "Young." And immediately my mind kicked in. I'm like, this is it, this is it. I'm finna get it, I'm finna get it. Because Obama has started the clemency initiative and that has to date released the most people through executive presidential clemency ever. He actually at the time had released more people through clemency than every president combined. Wow. So I'm like, okay, I'm finna get it, I'm finna get it. Judge Sharp is speaking about me, other articles are speaking about me. I'm like, ain't no way he ain't heard about me. But then once the union manager told me it got denied and everything came crashing down and I was sad, I have enough common sense and enough empathy to say Obama's not reading nothing himself. He has so many people, everything has to go through before it touches him. I was probably denied 10 people before he read or heard anything. Yeah. And so I never look at it and took it personally because I understand the chain of command.

But it's uniquely heartbreaking when you let hope enter the scene. Like, hope is this wonderful power and it's also so dangerous.

It is intoxicating, and I think it's a drug that we all should be taking. So former Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns said, Hope is the greatest factor of the economy. If people don't believe it'll get better, they will never get up and try. And so I was getting up every single day and trying despite having two life sentences. I was never gonna lose it. I give people the analogy, they be like, "You had to believe that you was gonna die in there." I'm like, "Nah." They was like, "Okay, well, if you didn't think you was gonna die, you at least thought you was gonna do 30 years." And I be like, "Nah." Just the way you work, you wake up and you go to the bathroom and pee, when you're walking across that floor, that floor can collapse. If you live in a house or you live in an apartment, that floor is not directly on the ground. It can collapse. Even if it's on the ground, it can fall through. But you don't think that. You have faith and you believe that this floor is going to carry me to the restroom so I can pee.

And that's how I was. I woke up every day and I'm like, I'm going to make decisions that's going to carry me to my release date, whenever that it's gonna come. And so you're right, that hope had came in, and that hope can also let you down. But I was never gonna stop having hope.

So then COVID happens. You think you're already experiencing a terrible situation, but then obviously now solitary confinement starts entering the equation.

To make the equation look worse than what it is, let me— let me really put it in context for you. By this time, Brittany has introduced me to Kim Kardashian. And so not only do I have the most famous woman in the world speaking out on my behalf, Brittany had already been to the White House once with another advocate of mine, Doug Deason, and then also a second time with another advocate of mine, Mark Holden, who used to be general counsel for the Koch Industries. And then Kim enters the picture. Koch Brothers or Coca-Cola?

Koch Brothers. Everything's all complicated at that point.

Yeah. Yeah. I know what you're thinking, and I'm definitely thinking it too. Yeah. Mark's a great man.

Well, there's this incredible attorney he has hired since passed, but this attorney, and I got to have dinner with him one time, fascinating dude, a right-wing guy. He tried the case in federal court to get Citizens United passed, which is a terrible bit of legislation. He also was the lawyer that got DOMA overturned and allowed gay marriages. You know, like, oh wow, man, people are complicated. I was just about to say, humans are complicated.

Yeah.

You can't write people off because you don't know. Exactly. You're going to miss the good side.

Exactly. Exactly. Opportunities come. What you said, since we're on the topic, that's why the whole I don't like you because you're I don't like you 'cause you're a Republican. I don't like you 'cause you're gay. Like, that sounds crazy as hell to me, but to each his own.

Well, that's a luxury of people who don't have anything real on their plate, if I can be honest with you. If you're trying to get out of a place— Brené Brown said this— is like during the Katrina floods, when people were in a boat and they were holding their hand out to pull someone in the boat, no one said, "Oh, hold on. Are you a liberal or a conservative?" Exactly. 'Cause something real was happening. Thank you. Yeah. And so you were dealing with something real. You right. And I think to be so spun out out about this other shit is a total luxury and almost says you got really no problems going on.

I'm gonna ignore the humanity in you because you believe in—

because you grew up in the town you grew up in, dude. I can look at the zip code you were born in. I can tell with 85% accuracy what you think. Unfortunately, we all think we've come to this independently through lots of scrutiny.

Yeah, but back to the story. I'm being not only shipped to a new maximum security prison whose nickname is Bloody Beaumont. Doesn't sound very promising. I've just had my new attorney have 3 different meetings at the White House about me, the most famous woman in the world tweeting and posting about me, a judge who sentenced me speaking out about me, and then other advocates that are very prominent, influential. So I'm thinking release is on the horizon, but it wasn't. I had to go to Bloody Beaumont, and not only was Holmont, what his name is. It was very violent. But Brittany won a very rare post-conviction motion, a 2255, which is a habeas corpus petition, and she won it.

She basically demonstrated your counsel was insufficient, right? Is that what it was?

It was. Exactly. Exactly. The lawyer who represented me at trial had admitted she didn't listen to all the wiretaps. And had she listened to all the wiretaps, she would have known the weight of the evidence against me. And she was willing to admit this, and we really appreciate her for doing this.

I love how few resentments you carry or appear to carry.

Yeah, I appreciate her for that. Her admitting this, it was a part of Brittany's motion, and less than 5% of these have ever been granted in American history. And so Brittany got my sentence reduced from life to 14 years, but I still had another year and a half. And like he said, COVID has hit. So not only is it COVID, I've been at a violent prison that's been locked down because of violence, but then now we're locked down because of a rare contagious pandemic that's going on. On top of that, okay, Chris, you don't have life no more. You're not maximum security no more. You're actually camp status. But we're not gonna send you to a camp even though it's right across the parking lot. COVID is going on. We're just gonna throw you in the hole. Ugh. So they put me in the hole. And the hole is why we call it that. It is literally the jail inside the prison. And it is very torturous. You can't see outside. There's no windows or nothing. You can't have commissary. And unfortunately for me, because I was technically a different security level, I couldn't have a celly.

And they put me in the only single-man cell they had, and it was flooded. And so literally, it's like 3 inches of water in this cell. Fuck that. Exactly. But dedication, determination, and discipline had got me where I was at. So I refused to give up my strict regimen and routine routine, which was waking up, I'm gonna defecate, clean myself up, work out. After I work out, clean myself up, and then read. And so I'm doing push-ups in this flooded cell. Oh my God. Not knowing I'm getting myself sick. I'm figuring I'm gonna get sick, but I can't stop my routine because it's how I get through the days.

You articulate it is psychologically dangerous to be isolated like that. You've been in some journeys in your head, I'm sure, that I can't really relate to.

Yeah. That's actually why I loved Hamlet so much. So much when I finally read it. When I finally read Hamlet, I happened to be in the hole a different time for a different scenario. And that "to be or not to be," I bounced it around for what it could mean or not mean so many different ways and so many different times for so many different days while I was going through the extent of being in the hole. I really think he was questioning, "Am I a man or am I a coward? Am I a killer or am I not a killer? Should I be a killer or should I not? Should I kill myself or should I kill others?" Did I kill my uncle? You know, the question can be perceived in so many different angles, in different ways.

Oh, man. And you decide to start writing this memoir in there, yeah?

Yes, I was in the hole. And just like speaking at my sentencing speech, I wanted the record to reflect my humanity. And so no record can reflect it better than my own words. Yeah.

So then, lo and behold, kind of shockingly, despite thinking you have probably 4 more years, 'cause your sentence has been reduced to 14 years, at 10 years in, How do we get to Trump? How does that final push happen? Through the people closest to him.

Miss Alice Marie Johnson, who Kim had advocated for before me. Ivanka, Jared. So, despite that family and what anybody might think of them, it was some people a part of that family that really spoke up in my favor, and I really appreciate them. Look at Miss Alice now. Miss Alice now is the first pardon czar in American history, despite Spike serving 22 years herself and then getting released. And so, yes, that last push effort was by the people closest to him. They was like, you know, you've been told about this case. We know about this case, and you're finna leave, and why not use the power that only the president has? Literally only the president of the United States of America could put that pen to that paper and say, okay, this is completely forgiven. Them go. Yeah. Where is the exact moment?

I'm sure it's etched into your mind where you hear the news.

I can tell you play by play. Yeah. I'm in a better cell. I just got done doing my workout, just took my shower, and I'm hungry. I am laying in the bed cold and hungry and waiting on the tray because there's no commissary in the hole, but we know what time of day they feed, and I am waiting on I need to stay occupied to keep from thinking about how hungry I am. So I pick up the most recent printouts that Brittany has sent me, 'cause I had asked her for specifically something I wanted to read about, and she sent it to me. It was about gene editing, to be exact. So I'm reading about the gene editing, the latest progress with CRISPR and other technologies.

Which, by the way, that's the solution for sickle cells, CRISPR.

It is and it isn't, because I have sickle cells. I have the SC version, if you remember at the beginning of the conversation. Right now, because they're only in the trial stages and it's so expensive, it's $2 to $3 million per treatment, they are only doing trial phases with the SS version and not the SC version. Roger. Despite my bones deteriorating, me having artificial hips, needing artificial shoulders, and my tailbone deteriorating too, I don't have that particular version. So I don't meet the criteria. —today. But yeah, maybe one day.

But there was no technology that was even going to spell it out, sickle cell, until that.

And to fully put into context, it's excruciatingly painful. And for decades, people have stereotyped and judged people with sickle cell anemia, believing they're just trying to get high, they just want pain medicine, they're drug seekers, as some doctors have actually phrased it. And that is not the case. They're dealing with a level level of pain that most people couldn't fathom, couldn't even begin to believe. If you've ever been shot or felt a tattoo or been hit by a car, like, multiply that. It might sound outrageous, but multiply that pain, and that is a sickle cell crisis. And over your whole body. Thank you. Exactly, exactly.

Not acute to anyone's place you could attempt to ignore or distract from.

So I'm sitting here reading about this, and as you can only imagine, wondering, one day will I get it? Will I be able to get my sickle cell eliminated. And I'm laying there reading, and Lieutenant Franks, if you're listening to this, he's gonna laugh and say, "I remember it like it was yesterday." But Lieutenant Franks is a lieutenant at USP Beaumont, and he's a prankster, a jokester, for lack of a better word. He's a hard-ass. Like, he's one of them ones that's quick to lock you up, but he's also one of them ones that wants to crack jokes, if you can only imagine a person like that. Yeah. So he came to my door, and immediately I can tell he's, like, in a jovial mood, and he's like, He was like, "Young, you wanna go home?" I'm like, "What's up, Franks, man? Don't play with me. I don't play with you." You know what I'm saying? I show you respect. Take your jokes somewhere else. Exactly. Take your jokes somewhere else. Exactly. I'm hungry. Where the trays at? I was like, "Where the trays at?" So he laughed and he was like, "No, I'm serious.

You wanna go home?" I'm like, "Franks, who don't wanna go home?" Every person in this prison wants to go home, including y'all that's getting ready to go home when your shift end. You wanna go home right now. I'm like, "I'm asleep now too." And he was like, "Well, come on." I'm like, "Go on, Franks." And he laugh again and he stuck the key in the door. So when he stuck the key in the door, I'm like, "This something that can get him fired. He ain't gonna play that hard." You know what I'm saying? And he turned it. I said, "Oh, shit." I jumped up out the bed. And so I go to the door. He said, "You know you gotta cuff up." I said, "You serious?" He said, "I'm serious, man. You finna go home." Man, I hurry up and turned around. I couldn't believe it. I get to shaking a little bit. I'm cuffed up, but I still don't know what's going on. And then when they take me in the office and they say, you got to sign this. And when I look down at the paper, I seen that presidential seal is gold, is shining on the paper.

And then I seen that D and that T. I mean, I was ecstatic. I was elated. I couldn't believe it. I'm like, I thought this was over with, you know what I'm saying? They didn't let me go. Britney had went to the United States White House 3 times in the year 2018. And I know for a fact my name was brought up all 3 times, not to mention Kim bringing up my name, not to mention Judge Sharpe bringing up my name. And all the other advocates. Here it is, January 20th, 2021, and I'm looking down at a paper that is telling me to release me immediately. And I was like, man, nervous system on max.

Holy shit. Yeah. Best feeling of your entire life, maybe?

I will admit I've never felt a high like that, and I've only tried a few drugs, but you know, no ecstasy, no marijuana, No Remy Martin could make me feel how I felt at that moment. And when I truly walked out the doors, like, when I really felt that fresh air on my face and really saw Brittany standing in that parking lot, to be fair, I'm feeling nothing but happiness at this moment. But Brittany helped me put everything into the equation. As we're driving, she was telling me, process it all the way. And I'm like, what you mean? Like, I'm smiling. I'm happy. I feel good. She was like, but that's the thing. Like it's a range of emotions and don't run from them, embrace them all. And she said, do you wanna hear some music? She know how much I love music. I said, yeah. And she told the driver to cut on a song she knew I had always said I wanted to hear when I get released. And it was Lil Boosie's True Soldier. And the whole song is rapping about people in prison. Immediately I start crying. And I'm not talking about just a few tears down my face.

I'm talking about that gasping for air, snot coming out your nose.

Yes, exactly. The nervous system letting down. 10 years later.

My God. And it wasn't just a cry for me. It was a cry for Big Mama. She had died while I was locked up. It was a cry for Mickey. He had died while I was locked up. It was a cry for my granddaddy. He had died while I was locked up. It was a cry for a few homeboys that got murdered while I was locked up. And it was a cry for the people I had to leave behind. It was so many people I had just spent this decade with that I loved. Love and revere and look at like friends and family now, and they still have life sentences, 35 years, 40 years. And I'm like, damn, I wish I could take y'all with me. Yeah. I wrestled because I'm like, it's people that's incarcerated that didn't do nothing but had people lie on them, whether it be the police officer or witness. And I did sell dope. No if, ands, or buts about it. I tried to sell as much crack and cocaine as I could get sold. And I know that's destructive. And I accepted that I was causing I'm getting shown empathy, sympathy, compassion.

So I had to wrestle a little bit because that dynamic of, "I did do something, but I didn't do nothing worthy of killing me." Like, literally, I have a death sentence. Like, I am supposed to stay in this cage until I'm pronounced deceased. That is crazy. It's crazy. So that's what helped me get over it too, because I'm like, "I didn't do nothing worthy of dying." Bryan Stevenson says, That every person is worth more than the worst thing they've ever done, or something like that. I might be butchering his quote, but I know people that have murdered people and did less time. And I gave someone something they wanted. True enough, that substance was destructive. But, you know, we didn't lock John Pemberton up. You know, he put cocaine in Coca-Cola for decades. And, you know, Albert Niemann, he was the first to isolate it. This is a plant that has been existing on Earth. For a long time. I didn't create cocaine and I ain't bring no cocaine to this country. I was blessed to get that level of empathy, sympathy, and compassion shown to me.

So you pretty immediately enroll at Southern Methodist? How soon before you enroll there?

I didn't enroll there until 2023. I started at Dallas Community College because I'm a non-traditional student. So basically I'm above the age and then I became a transfer student once SMU you accepted me. So I was at Dallas Community College, I got enough credits where technically I can transfer, but I got to get accepted. And so when SMU mailed that acceptance letter, it was exciting. And that was 2023.

I think of you getting out of there is, is very similar also to returning from Vietnam, where it's like the arousal setting in there, the spidey senses, the amount of attention you got to be paying to everything going on. Did you feel a sense Sense of, like, after the elation passed and now you're in school, did you wrestle with boredom at all? Like, you were feeling dead in the lack of stakes?

So, you know, boredom is a state of mind. I know you know that. And so I never let myself embrace that. The stimuli is different, though. I agree with you on that. And so it was definitely times where I'm in school and I'm like, "I hate standardized education." And there's no disrespect to anybody that plays a part of that system. That is just me knowing that— Like, right now I'm reading Jacques about Lakin and everything he propagated about his belief of the Borromean knot and how the consciousness is the real, the imaginary, and symbolic. And all of that comes together to make us who we are. But within that, as I'm reading it, it's going to mention somebody else he learned from, or it's going to mention something that stimulated him or made him think of something. I'm going to stop and go look at that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the breadcrumbs. Exactly.

Yeah, but standardized education doesn't it doesn't want you to do that. Yeah, right. It wants you to memorize what we just told you to memorize and choose the correct answer on this test. It was plenty of times where I was annoyed and it was hard, but I will admit walking across that stage this year on May 16th, 2026. But beyond walking across the stage, the love and support SMU showed me, like SMU really, once they found out about my story.

They were proud to have you. Yes. Yeah.

They showed me that. That's cool. And I appreciate that. Yeah. Expecting that.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Amazing. What'd you major in?

Economics and public policy. The two things that affected me the most. Yeah, being poor and the system set up that everybody needs to operate by, and if you don't operate by it, you will pay the consequences.

Yeah. I forgot one part that was my favorite. When he gets out of prison, Kevin Sharp is there. Yeah. And you guys have this beautiful hug. You haven't seen each other since the courtroom, right? Yeah, yeah.

I hadn't seen Judge Sharp since he had to tell me I'm going to do a life sentence in prison. Next time you see him, he's hugging you. Not only hugging me but crying. This man's serious. Like, he really was moved by speaking to me, by interacting with me, and he really wanted me free. And he showed me that, and I really appreciated that.

You know, the big headline of your life, which I hope you feel, is like, you're so worthy of love, dude. You're so easy to love. A lot of people love you and want to love you.

It's funny you say that because Brittany had an an event the night of my graduation, and that is what I spoke about. I had spoke about speaking on freedom and how I believe freedom is the ability to cognitively process and imagine despite any circumstance, to be able to have this level of cognition and still see something different despite what's around you. But I got on stage and I spoke about unconditional love because I didn't realize it and fully process it, but I had been yearning been in search of it, had made terrible decisions hoping I was finna get it reciprocated to me, and finally got it shown to me when I wasn't even searching for it.

Yeah. Oh, how beautiful. Oh my God, so inspiring. And like, there's just so many people still in there.

And I hope Congress, and I hope President Trump, and I hope anybody that has the power, specifically that person and that group, realize that is that these are human beings. Acknowledge their humanity. This system is not rehabilitative. That system is punitive. Yes, I know. If you just wanna punish somebody and harm somebody, you're cruel. I don't care what you say, that's cruel. It is. But if you wanna help somebody, acknowledge the power you have and help 'em. And that system can be completely something different. We have other countries doing it totally different. Yeah. And we have the technology where we can do it different.

I mean, just on prima facie, there's no way we can have 2 million human beings sitting in cement boxes and think, yeah, we figured this out. Preach. We're nailing this. There's no fucking way, dude. Exactly. I mean, you're talking about nearly 1% of the population's in prison is fucking bonkers. And you look at the rest of the world and no one's close to that.

Exactly. And that's because it's a business.

Yeah. Business slash control. Undesirable socioeconomic people.

Go into it, Dax.

Let's put the white trash in there. Let's put the Black folks in there. Let's put everyone that we'd rather not deal with or see or have to— yeah. Chris, you're awesome, dude. I'm really glad I got to meet you on this trip on planet Earth. You're so exceptional. The book is called The Wound Is Where the Light Enters. It'll be out August 4th. It's a beautiful read. I hope everyone reads the book. Delight meeting you. Good luck with everything. Thank you.

I appreciate you.

Oh, we should say, if you need some consulting, Coherence Consulting is the company you own. Yeah. Thank you.

What do you consult on? Business management. But technically, I want to speak on everything with critical infrastructure. It's not just an industry. It is the whole operating system that the civilization is running on. So it'll span everything from civil engineering to cybersecurity security.

Wonderful. Chris, be well. This is great.

Thank you, sir. Thank you.

He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here, she's gonna let him have the facts. I have an update. Oh, wonderful.

So remember the episode where it was a fact check where I talked about being in Venice and going into a store and feeling like the lady was rude to me.

Yeah. And we had a little post-story debate about whether or not you want people to have that power over you. Or that was my take. Right.

So we had a debate on the fact check and then it came up again on actually today's episode that came out. Mark Brackett's episode. Oh, uh-huh. That's when we talk about it publicly. Uh-huh. Um, and I edited that episode. Yeah. In the morning. And that afternoon, Anna and I went to Venice. Uh-huh. So it was weird simp. Yeah. We're in Venice, we're having fun, walking, eating, and then we—

what brought you out there again? For people who don't live here, that's like a commitment to go to Venice. It is. That's your entire day.

It is. We decided to have a Westside day. Oh, okay. You have to like, you know, make the declaration.

You didn't have a facial appointment or anything like that? Just let's go have a West Side day.

We're going to have a West Side day. One of my favorite restaurants, it's called The Tasting Kitchen. Okay, it—

is it on Abbot Kinney?

Uh-huh, it's on Abbot Kinney. It closed, it's been closed for years, and it just reopened.

Ding ding ding, earmark, continue.

It just reopened, which was so exciting. Yes, it notoriously had my favorite cocktail in the entire city called a Blue Monday originally. It doesn't have it anymore. That's okay. All right. Um, but anyway, so we made a reservation at the Tasting Kitchen and we just bopped around. It was very fun. But we walked by that store. Okay. And I thought, let's go in. So we went in. The same lady? Same lady? Yes. Okay. And I had a lovely experience and she helped me try on. I let her help me try on jeans because you weren't—

she didn't want you to grab them yourself off the rack.

Yes. And so this time I just asked her, I said, do you have anything in this size? And, you know, and then she— look, I do think her personality is specific. Uh-huh. Yeah. But we became great friends. Uh-huh. And I understood her more. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And I left and I was here healed.

Did you see— yeah, this woman just has a very specific way of doing everything. Yeah, it wasn't personal. Like, she's trapped in her own—

yeah, routine. Yes, kind of. I mean, I, I would say she's, um, not a gentle type. Yeah, yeah, right. And it's just her personality. And so she wasn't looking down on me, right?

She just was you weren't getting with the system.

Yeah. But, you know, I do have a weird— I do have a weird thing that goes on in those situations where I do think I feel like, okay, I got to like show that I belong. Like, I got to buy stuff. I, you know, I think I do get in a weird zone where it's like—

or start talking to them about fashion and let them know, like, I'm— I, I am hip to everything.

Yeah, yeah, kind of. Or yeah, but more, I think— I hate to say this, but this is the truth— I actually think it's more about the spending. Like, you're not wasting your time on me, right? Right. And so I did buy a lot. Um, and I mean, great products, great products.

Uh, but you can afford to have shitty bedside manner if your products are phenomenal. Like, if you got so-so merch, you better put on all the smiles and frills. Yeah, I guess that's true.

I prefer— you can have— you can be—

it's like a prick, um, restaurateur in New York. So you can only do that if you've got soup that's incredible. The Soup Nazi is a Seinfeld reference.

Classic. Yeah, um, yeah, I just— you can be both, you know. Yeah, I'm healed. Close the loop on that.

Oh great, that's a good update.

So that was That was good, that was good. And it was very sim because I had just listened to it though.

Yeah, that is, um, the ding ding ding is the CineramaDome's reopening. I saw, I could not— I don't know if that means the whole Arclight's back on.

I think I sent it to you. Did you? Yeah, because you said that buys me more time.

It buys me more. You said something like that buys me like, oh, in LA. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, I could retire and live in LA if Arclight was still functioning because— so exciting. Oh, there's nothing I enjoyed more. That place, I would walk in, I'd just immediately be like, oh, this is a monument to cinema. Yeah, everything's run perfectly. The popcorn's delicious, the fucking— the seating, they start the movie on time. We went to the movies a few times in Nashville. In what America is accustomed to, it's, it's 30 minutes.

I told you this, I told you. I've been going to the movies, I've been timing it, and it is 30 minutes. It's insane.

Yeah, uh, we were going for opening day of Odyssey. Yeah, me too. And of course you I want to get there. And we had friends in town and they really wanted to see the movie, and we were lollygagging getting out of the house, and it was driving me berserk. I'm like, we're gonna fucking miss the beginning of The Odyssey. Oh no, nope, we were 15 minutes late and we were 15 minutes early. Exactly. I know, I was like, fuck, man, we should leave the house when the movie starts.

I start planning now with that 30-minute window. Even today, Jess was sending me some, um, movie options. We might see a movie this weekend, and he was like, starts at 12:45, so 1:15.

Like, we now know, right? Right. That's not the case at the Vista. True. That's true.

The Vista or, um, like Los Angeles 3.

Yeah.

Or our client. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's very exciting for the city.

Oh, I just pray that the whole shebang is back online.

Me too. Yeah. Um, okay. But real quick. So in keeping with my healing. Mm-hmm. Okay. I did have another Uh-oh, a little separation. I peeled one. Uh-huh. And then created a new wound. Yeah, a new wound also opened. Not in that moment, but, um, I was in New York and I was with my friend. I have to be— I'm going to be careful about this because I don't want to get anyone like fired. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I was with a friend. We are at—

okay, how do you roll this out?

We're at a big store. Okay, sure. And, um, it's a store that has stalls. You like, you know, changing stalls? No, no, no, sorry, like, like a Loewe stall and a Prada stall.

There's little sections of the department store that have different brands, correct?

I was kind of trying to not say department store.

Yeah, but it was already— I already you, and I'm a simpleton.

Yeah, so, um, there's a bag, there's a bag out in the world. It's a Chanel bag, and it is new to the season, and it's, um, gorgeous. It's a must-have for— it's beautiful. I've actually never seen it. I've only seen it in pictures, but my friend— I'll shout her out— Maddie, she, um, has seen this bag in person. Her friend has it, and she's like, it's stunning. Uh-huh. Um, and it's this big bag. And I was like, okay. And so when we go, I was like, let's just see, let's see if we can see it, if they have it. Yeah. So we go to the Chanel stall and, um, I met with a person there. Uh-huh. And he said, can I help you? And I said, yeah. Um, do you guys have the Chanel like tote? And, and and he was like, what, what, we don't have any tote, there are no totes.

He didn't like the word tote.

Yeah, he hated that. We don't have any totes, you have a picture. And I was like, um, yeah, I, and I was like looking for it and I was like, is it in? And Maddie was like, it's the one with the flap. And he was like, oh, the flap. That was the key word. Yeah, he was like, oh, the flap bag.

That's what we're calling it.

Yeah, he was like the extra large flap bag. I was like, yes, um, that. And he said, no, we don't, it's sold out, it's sold out completely, can't get it anywhere, can't get it anywhere in the city. I was like, oh, that's a bummer. And he goes— oh, this person goes, if we had it, would you buy it? Mhm. And I said, maybe, yeah. And he was like, oh God, whatever, it's a he. Um, and, and yeah, and he was like, oh well, yeah, I just, I don't know, people are coming in, a lot of people are asking about it, like 11 people asked about it yesterday. I'm just like, it's an $11,000 bag, so I'm just like wondering. Uh-huh. And I said, it's 11? I thought it was more than that.

Ah, uh-huh.

Which I did. Yeah. Um, and he was like, yeah. And he was like, but let's just take a moment moment.

That's, that's significant.

It's a $11,000 bag. Trust me, I know, like, it's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but anyway, he said he— and yeah, and he was like, yeah, there, I think there's gonna be more in fall. And I was like, okay, great. We leave. And I— okay, so I'm doing a thing, right, where I was like, we walk out of the store and Maddie, not Brown, yeah, by the way. Um, honky. Um, she's not Lebanese.

I just want to say it twice today.

Um, but she is, uh, also very fashionable. Great job. And she looked at me and she goes, oh my God, that person needs to be fired immediately. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And I was so— I was like, okay, yeah, I didn't really know. And she was She was like, that was crazy. And she like really had a very strong reaction. And on my behalf, it was me who was being asked, you know?

And so— Also real quick, is she a New Yorker? Yes. Okay. That's relevant.

She's a New Yorker. Yeah. And she also works in fa— like she knows fashion. You can't like go into a luxury, you can't go into Chanel and think—

And guffaw at the prices.

Exactly. Or act— exactly. She was like, "It's just so crazy. Like, you can't know anything about how much a person has these days by, like, looking at them." And yeah, she was very offended.

She was taken aback.

And taken aback. And I felt protected by that. And I also felt like— Vindicated. Yeah, a little vindicated. And also like, yeah, I'm like bending over backwards to not be offended. Offended, and it is offensive. But mainly it wasn't that it was offensive to me, it's that that is bad behavior. Like, you should not ever ask someone, would you buy it?

Yeah, so he's in the wrong role.

He's in the wrong role.

Yeah, yeah, he would do great at a more mid-level store.

But yeah, but you still should never ask that. That's like a weird thing to ask. I agree.

You do— you can't be a a Ferrari dealership salesman and go like, you're going to pay $350,000 for this car? Like, duh, that's what you're—

and also if someone comes in to look at a Ferrari.

But we could excuse someone who is like from modest background, who newly is in this job, who's truly wowed by the seemingly the amount of people that can spend $11,000 on a bag. Like, we can't—

it's fine to be wowed.

Yeah, he's got the job for him. You can't say that. But as a human being, kind of. Yes. Yes.

It's like, you know, because yeah, you can't go into a Ferrari dealership and the person asks to see a Ferrari and you're like, what? Yeah. It's like, why else?

You would spend that much money on a car?

Why do you think I'm here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like anyway, even if it's, look, I also understand it might be very annoying. People might be coming in all the time to just see it. There's a lot of lookie-loos. Lookie-loos. And then they're lookie-loos and maybe it's annoying 'cause you gotta go in the back and you gotta get it. But guess what? That's the job, correct?

Sure. It might be compounded by being in a department store, because if you're solely in a Chanel store, yeah, the, the, the bar you have to cross to be there, it's like you parked, you went to that store, you meant to go there. You're at a department store to get some Ralph Lauren and you're like, oh, I see Chanel. Fuck, I wonder if I have one of those bags. There's probably more lookie-loos in a department store than in the brick-and-mortar standalone.

Sure, doesn't matter.

A lot of tire kickers, but you're right, that's part of the job.

It's part of the job. And you don't know.

And you don't know.

And then Maddie made a good point. She was like, if they did have a— like, you couldn't buy it from him. You're not— you can't give him commission for that, right?

It's like, that's really true. You'd have to say, oh, when are they back? And great, and what days do you work?

Yeah, okay, I'm gonna say I need to— I'm gonna ask somebody else to help me. Yeah. So anywho, so that was an interesting counter.

These luxury stores are a minefield. They are. Okay, now I have a dangerous thing that occurred to me while I was listening. Yeah, let me hear. So again, it's just very, very bizarre for a 38-year-old to be able to be in that shop. I mean, okay, it is. If I, if I put on a graph for you what Americans make at what, at what age, right? Of course. Yeah, it's really, really— it's an anomaly.

But okay, I would say for anyone to walk into that store at any age, sure.

But if of the total number of millionaires in America, a very, very, very small percentage of them are below 40. The vast majority are above 40 because it takes a lifetime to accrue through that.

Sure, sure. So it's just our industry's so different.

Of course, I understand how it happens. But what I'm saying is, if you acknowledge that it— you're gonna be an anomaly, period. That's just the reality of the situation. You're an anomaly. Yeah. Yes. And so in the face of this anomaly, if I was a salesperson, I would start thinking of like, well, how does this person have this much money at this age? I would be very interested in what they did for a living.

Sure.

And if I didn't ask them what they did for a living. Yeah. Um, my reigning theories, if I didn't recognize them from TV, would be they're either a trust fund person. It might end there, you know. I might go like, oh, they have— this person's rich from their family. Yes. Here's my provocative, um, dangerous question. Okay. What's preferable to you? Uh-huh. The salesperson who doesn't think you have the money to be there, or the salesperson who thinks she must have been Saudi. She must have been a Saudi. She's Lebanese royal. Well, now I'm going to Saudi, uh, because you're not white, you live in LA, and a lot of Saudis live here. Let's just say they went like, oh yeah, she's like, she's a Saudi. Uh-huh. Is that preferable to you than she has no money, she doesn't belong here? Yes, it is. Okay. Yeah, I was just curious.

Yeah. Um, because I don't know why that crossed my mind. Maybe they thought I I was a Bollywood actor.

Oh yeah, that could have been— yeah, that might have come across the theories. Um, listen, but that you would be delighted, like, that would— yeah, I know that. But if you're just like, you're oil money Saudi, does that— does that—

okay, this is interesting because I, I don't care what they attribute your— yeah, financial— um, because I know the truth, which is that it's not, it's not family money. Yeah, yeah, it's earned. And of course I am grateful, and I prefer having earned the money. Yeah. Than having received the money passed down.

Yeah, it's hard to have a lot of pride in receiving.

Exactly. I have a ton of pride in that. Sure. But I don't really care what they know or don't know about it.

I do, right? So Mm. It crosses my mind when I'm at a very nice hotel. Oh. And I'm seeing other people, and the other people at the hotels I go to don't look like me. They're not covered in tattoos. They're not wearing shorts and Converse. You know, they're not— they don't look like 12-year-olds with money, which is what I look like. Yep. And so I of course wonder what they think. Yeah. You know? Oh yeah, yeah. I go, oh, I look out of place. Yeah.

Clearly. This is exactly what That's what Maddie was saying. She was like, you can't look at anyone anymore and know anything about their finances. She's like, look at all the tech bros. If you saw them walking down the mall, you'd have no idea.

It's my favorite part about LA. When you're in line at Gelson's and there's 4 guys in front of you, all 4 look homeless and one of them has created a TV show and has $400 million. Exactly. And I think that's hilarious. Yeah. And I think it's very democratizing about LA. It is like in, in, in, in Michigan, there's so many indicators that you display, and then people treat people differently. And if you're in the polo-colored shirt and you have a golf bag, you know, and I hate that. Yeah, personally. So I prefer here, which is like, they kind of got to treat everyone at Gelson's the same because who fucking knows if that guy created a TV show or that guy's living on the streets. We don't know. There's nothing visually. There's no cues. Yeah. So when I'm in the situation, and I assume some of my fellow guests are wondering why this guy is at the hotel, Well, it would be my great preference that they think I earned it, right? And not that I was a trust fund kid who's been to like 7 treatment centers and shit.

Because, well, I mean, let's not rule it out. Um, that's because you have a chip on your shoulder about money.

Well, big time. I would prefer, like you were saying, yeah, I don't— I would I prefer to not be the recipient of generational wealth. I have a lot more pride in the fact that, but I mean, you have a real, so I prefer that the people think that I made it because I have more pride in that.

Yeah. I think so. You have a chip on your shoulder about money and I have a chip on my shoulder about being lower class.

I was about to say class. Lower status. Yeah.

It is. It's actually class. It's like kind of class. It's like you're brown and you're not what the elite in America looks like.

Yeah. And there's immediate judgment. You're lower class because you're Indian, or you're, you're not, you're an immigrant. Like, these things, literal, literal status, like literal immigration status. For sure.

And this parallels perfectly the other huge difference between you and I, which is like, I'm always— I was always trying to be as different as humanly possible, and you were trying to blend in. Yeah. So again, I, I like being the dude that doesn't look like he should be at the hotel. I actually enjoy it. It doesn't— like, I don't leave going like, they think I shouldn't be here. I, I get off on the fact that I'm here. Yeah, probably in an unhealthy way. On the other side of it that you're experiencing at these stores, I get a real buzz out of being a trailer park kid who's there. I know.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

I mean, I was thinking this when I was home in Georgia the other day. We were at— I was at the Town Green in my town. It's very cute. So cute. But— Is it a restaurant?

Outdoor space? A big outdoor space.

Like park, amphitheater, restaurant. Duluth's got it going on. Oh yeah, it's really cute. Yeah. And it started to build, the town green started to build when I was in high school. So the amphitheater got erected and then, you know, there was a soda shop and then some other things, right? Yeah, yeah. And people, you know, they do movies or concerts and we'd all go and it was so fun. But, you know, I always obviously, I grew up I felt a little on the outside always. And I think I, when I was back in Town Green and walking around and, and it's also changed so much, but I, I was like, I do think I have to acknowledge that part of the reason that I am drawn to nice things and shopping, and ironically it's the same thing you are doing with the tattoos, don't fuck with me. Mm-hmm. It's the same thing. It's walking in saying, I'm not to be messed with here.

Like, you can't kick me out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I— it's all— yeah, it's all different versions of the exact same situation.

It's like the opposite side of the same coin.

Yeah. So I did acknowledge that that is part of what's going on. Yeah, it's like, if you know, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have some if you know, you knows. Yeah, my my Hypervector 2000, my skin burning— oh, your machine. Did you bring it home? I ordered a second. Oh yeah, I was like packing, um, on Monday. Yeah, I'm staring at this big contraption I got, right? Yeah. And I was like, hmm, I could leave it here. Yeah, because it's plenty of time to do dermatological work. I'm there 4 times a year. I'm certain— how often do I need dermatological work? But then I was like, man, if something starts driving me nuts in LA, now I know how to get one. Yeah, or not expensive. Um, I should have one in LA. So I ordered one the day I was about to pack it, and then I ordered one. Great. I love it, Monica. I have the results. Um, I don't know what side it's on, but I burnt off this, this, uh, hyperplasia that's been driving me nuts. It was like the size of, uh, a jelly bean. Oh, not in its, uh, thickness, but in the, uh, the diameter. And, um, it was raised and it drove me insane. Oh yeah, yeah, I I couldn't stand it.

And I zapped it off. That was the first thing I went after.

Is it gone? Totally.

And today the scab has come off and it's like a little red, but it's flat. Wow. I'm like, damn, yeah, this fucking machine is awesome. I want to burn everything. I was laying in bed and the door wall is in front of me, so the light's coming from across my feet up to my face. Yeah. And I can see in my chest. I'm like, oh, from this angle I'm seeing so much hyperplasia that needs to Zapped off. I'm like, I gotta figure out how to lay it at this exact angle with that light and my unit. Oh, so I can do some zapping.

Oh my God. Yeah, there's a lot of zapping to come.

I don't think I could have this machine in an age of not ChatGPT, because I have this machine, I— and I have the wand, and I'm looking at the wand and it has 3 buttons, and I'm like, huh, what are those buttons? Yeah. And so I take a picture of the wand and I say, what what are these buttons? And it's like, that's your hyper— whatever the name of this device is, that's a Hyperbar 2000, and that's the one, and that button's for this, and this button's for that. Okay. And then it goes like, do you want to know about the different settings for the different skin things this is used for? I'm like, yeah, tell me every single thing about this fucking machine. Because there is a power setting out of 20, a dial, and you can plug it in either high or low. I'm like, I don't know. My instinct is like, let's go low. I mean, let's go high and let's get to zapping, right? Right.

I'm glad you didn't do that.

Yeah, that's for big moles if you want to get rid of big moles. And you don't touch the skin with the wand, you hold it just above it and then it arcs. And that's on high, plugged into the high setting. Anyways, I'm just like, I read this whole thing and of course you'd imagine I have some pushback in my house about having this thing and among my friends, of course, and certainly online. But my argument was like, no, I do not— I'm not claiming that I know as much as a dermatologist. I have no— I have 100th of their knowledge. Yeah, but if you tested a dermatologist and I about that machine, they would not— they would not beat me. I know every single thing about that machine now because it's learnable and it has a fucking owner's manual, right? And sure, they know everything about the dermis. Yeah, they learned all that, but ultimately they have this fucking machine they got to use, and they got to learn everything about the machine and what settings it is. So I would argue no, in this one domain of a dermatologist's toolkit, I know everything about the machine.

But you don't know necessarily, like, what shouldn't come off.

Well, okay, the immediate concern people would have, which is very legitimate, is like, so often you need to get a biopsy. Yeah, I think you're getting rid of to make sure it's cancers. Yeah. Um, but guess what? That's really detectable. And taking pictures of it, and AI is really fucking good at telling you which ones are problematic and which not. In fact, in many studies, they're better than radiologists are at identifying that stuff.

Well, I'm gonna— I'm glad, and I, I like that that's a pro in the AI.

I'm sure the comments will be filled in this fact check about all the reasons I shouldn't use it. And guess what? You guys are right. Right? Sure. And I'm going to use this for the rest of my life, and we'll, we'll just see if, you know, how it goes. Everyone will get to evaluate it at the end of this journey. I now have two. If you want to come over, I'll fucking zap anything.

Oh my God, not anything. No, because like, you have to be a little careful.

Well, of course, I'm not going to try to remove someone's big mole.

You're not?

I doubt I'll ever be on high with that thing cranked to 20 with a big arc and fucking sizzle.

I doubt 'Cause also the numbing cream, like we need more. Anyway. Yeah. Um, AI, that's a pro. Okay. I had a bad experience with AI while you were gone. Okay. Okay. I had a questionable one too. Go ahead. Okay. Very bad. Well, not very bad, but bad. Like it didn't help me at all in a thing that I felt like it should help me. So I, I already told you this, but so I was out of my Keppra, my seizure medication. Mm-hmm. And this is what I do. I, I always put 6 pills when I get them into this teeny baggie, and I put that baggie in my pharmacy that goes in my purse. So I always have some extra if I'm out stranded or something.

Yeah. Um, you get marooned.

Exactly. Mm-hmm. So I went, I was out and I hadn't requested a refill yet, so I was like, okay, gotta go on my stash. And I went, I got, 2 pills, took them. I go upstairs, then I'm gonna take the rest of my medication, which is a statin and my antidepressant. So I take my antidepressant and then I get the statin and I look at it and I'm like, huh, this looks identical. Exactly like the one I ju— the 2 I just took. But that's so confu— I was so confused. So then I'm taking all these pictures and sending it to AI and asking like, what is this pill for? It can't figure it out. And I'm saying it's either—

That's really shocking to me. I know.

And I said, it's either this or this.

Yeah, which is it?

And then it said, well, if it's one of those two, it's more likely the— it was like, not sure. Okay. And then I was like, well, I'm gonna die because if I took two of the statins, statin, which I should say, I actually take half of the statin pill. So 4x the— So 4 times the amount of statin and no seizure medication. That can't be good at all. But I don't know if I did that. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. So then I go to bed and I'm actually trying to not sleep 'cause I'm like, I shouldn't sleep. If I sleep tonight, I'm dead.

Okay, 'cause you're gonna have a seizure and then the statin medicine.

And a heart attack or something. Yeah, okay. And so I did have a really weird incident that night, but I think it was maybe a panic attack. Psychosomatic. Well, I don't know. So what I—

It's a triggering word, psychosomatic.

Yeah, because, okay, I make it through the night. Oh, I did in the middle of the night ask it— Am I dying? I said, what happens if I took 4 times the amount I take? They said, how much do you take? Blah, blah, blah. It basically said, you're probably fine, but if you get more, don't take it tomorrow. Whatever. So then I make it through the night. I'm very happy that I've lived through this. Okay. Then I, but I'm still not sure. I'm like, actually, probably I just took the Keppra and it's fine.

Mm-hmm.

Then I go to the pharmacy the next day, I get my Keppra, I look at it. I, I didn't, I was right. I took 4 times the amount of a statin and no Keppra. I did fuck up. Okay, great. Which means when I put it in the baggie, I put the statin in the baggie.

But hold on, also explains why the AI was confused, because there was no picture of Keppra on the table.

No, no, I took a picture of the statin. Oh, okay. And I said, what is this? Yeah, I said, I said, it's either this or this.

I wonder if you could have just said, what is it?

I think I did first say, what is it? And it was confused, and I was like, no, it's either this or this. And then I was like, could be Tylenol. I was like, well, it's definitely not Tylenol. Yeah. Um, you're no help to me when I'm dying. So that's a negative in the AI. Well, here's what happened to me.

So, okay, I get, I get to Nashville. You know, there's Army Corps of Engineering land in front of my land, between the lake and my land, because the Army Corps owns the shoreline of the entire inner coastal. That's how it works. So there's restrictions on what you can do on their land, right? You can't landscape you know, you can mow it, you get a mowing permit, blah blah blah. It had been cleared in spring, and, uh, I get there and it's— man, did it grow up fast again. So I get a fucking zero-turn mower, I'm out there just chopping the shit out of everything, and everything's so long, stuff's flying everywhere. Also, I bought it at Lowe's, got it home, drove it off the trailer, and now I'm sitting on it. I'm like, oh, I'm just driving around a little bit. Then I'm driving it in my yard, not cut to mowing, right? I'm in shorts and a fucking, um, Italian dinner jacket, right? A tank top. And I don't think about poison ivy. I don't— it doesn't occur to me it's out there. So I get poison ivy everywhere. Now again, it could be from that mowing thing.

Also, a tree fell over on the Army Corps land from an ice storm, and I had to go out there and cut all that up. So I'm also out there with the chainsaw. I'm stacking shit. I'm getting busy. That time I was covered, but the first time I wasn't. So I'm inclined to think it was the mowing thing. It's just throwing the shit everywhere. So I get poison ivy. Brutal, man. On the tops of my hands, on my wrists, on my leg, all over my rib cage, on my mom's pubis. Yeah, it's everywhere. And it is. I had it once 4 years ago on that trip home from Boston where we had to sleep in the airport, but then we went to Larry's friend's house. And then we went a little hike in that next morning. I got it then. Oh, it's like 3 or 4 years ago. I got it too, but just on my legs. Well, this was fucking everywhere. So it's like most of my trip to Nashville is dill. It lasted like 3 or 4 weeks, right? Yeah. And so Eric and I are about to work out, and he like got outside and he's sitting on the steps in front of my house, like the little walkway from the driveway to the porch, and he's just sitting there.

And I walk out and he goes, is this, is this poison ivy? And I look and there's these two— I have two bushes. Oh, that greet you. You've seen them.

Okay.

Yeah, I take pictures of it and I say, what is this? Now the AI knows I already had poison ivy, and I was taking pictures out in the Army Corps land and I, I, I found a big patch of poison ivy. Okay. And now I know what to look for, and now Eric does too, like serrated blades, 3 leaves, and then generally like red on the stem where they come together. Okay. So he's looking at this thing and he's like, dude, it has all those things. And I'm like, yeah, no shit. Take a picture of it, upload it, and it's like, yeah, that looks like— like, I'm almost certain that's poison oak. Okay, okay. And then I email the— a video of it to the landscape architect architect, the guy who installed it, and my builder. And I said, guys, is there any way that poison oak was planted decoratively? Yeah. Which is insane. I'm like, is the guy who installed it, who I've had little— or like, did he fucking plant? Oh, no. Like, literally my head went to, how could poison oak end up as decorative? Okay. So I send it to all three of those dudes.

No one responds. So I have a full day where no one— well, not a full day, probably 7 hours before someone responds. Responded to that. So I— I'm so pissed about the fucking poison ivy I've been dealing with. I— no, dump gasoline on both, both plants. All right, now the audience is already panicking, and you're right to panic. So this was a huge blunder. I shouldn't have done this. I make a long trail, I light it, boom, fucking torch these two bushes. Okay, so public service announcement. Okay, no, let me finish. And I'm like, that didn't really do it. I go to back up to Lowe's, I get a ton of Roundup, okay, specifically for poison oak and poison ivy. Come back, just douse these fucking things. Oh my God, all done with this. Finally, in the evening, my landscape architect, who I love, he's like, no man, that's not poison oak, that's low-growth sumac, which looks like poison oak. Okay, often confused for poison oak. And I said, well, they're gone. And he said, did you torch them or round up them? And I said, both. Yeah. And so later I learned you can't burn poison oak or poison ivy.

The oils can get into your lungs. Oh my God, die. And then I meet a dude who I have out to do some clearing who says his grandmother died of burning poison oak.

Dax, I know, I know, I know.

I'm admitting it. Okay, I'm just— I know I'm in trouble. I was in trouble with everybody, as you can imagine.

Yeah, also everyone's upset. So, pun intended, rash it is.

It is. Yeah, if I'm like, something's a threat to me, it's gone, right? Yeah, I'm just like, threat neutralized, threat neutralized. Um, so the— I destroyed these two very pretty bushes.

That's horrible. It probably looks awful now.

We had to dig them out and throw them away. And yeah, it was a disaster. And it was AI's fault because AI was like, that's poison oak. I'm like, I can't have poison oak greeding. How many times have I rubbed my ankles in this bush?

I know, but then we all would have had it.

Although I also learned that I'm no expert on poison ivy. It's an allergy, right? So many people, the oil doesn't do anything to them.

Really? Yeah. Interesting.

And of course it would make sense I have because I have so many allergies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a weak little boy.

Yeah, yeah, fragile. Wow.

Um, so that was my story.

Um, all right, okay, time for facts.

Yes, it's got to be. This is for Chris Young.

What a story.

Oh yeah, wow, what a story.

I know, some people are just so resilient.

I mean, things he has gone through, and the fact that his immediate instinct was, let's start reading. I know, it's so impossible. I, I, I, I aspire to that level of let's make the best of it. Me too. It's very, uh, uh, Man's Search for Meaning.

Yeah. Well, ding, ding, ding. That's a fact. Viktor Frankl book, Man's Search for Meaning. Yeah. Viktor Frankl. Um, yeah. Incredible story. I really hope people listen to this one. Um, sickle cell. We talked a lot about it. I was just gonna give exact definition. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Sickle cell anemia is a severe inherited blood disorder defined by misshapen crescent-shaped red blood cells that cause chronic fatigue, painful blockages, and organ damage. I can't believe he had—

it's like, on top of everything.

I know, I know.

And helps you not die of malaria. It's adaptive.

That's what's crazy. He said the quote, faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain into the sea. He says there's different versions of it. It's from the Bible. Yes, it's Matthew 17:20. Because of your little faith, he told them. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. Oh, I was looking up the different pardons that the different presidents have done and how many and stuff. But are pardons the same? They are, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I too was like, why are they calling this clemency and not a pardon? So I don't really know. I don't know the distinction if there is one. Rob, you want to look it up? Yep. Don't believe the answer if it tells you it's poison ivy.

Pardon's just a specific type of clemency. So clemency can mean shortening the sentence or delaying punishment. A pardon completely forgives the offense.

Got it. Okay. Okay. So FDR had 3,687 pardons.

3,600. How would he even hear the names of all these people? I know, I don't know. You must have trusted somebody to curate that list. I'm sure.

I bet most of them do. Yeah. Truman, 1,913 pardons. Eisenhower, 1,110 pardons. Then we get into more our recent times. Yeah, so Reagan, 393 pardons.

He was stingy with his pardons. Well, you'll—

you're about to see, uh, George H— George H.W. Bush, 74 pardons.

Oh geez, he would clamp down from there. Yep.

Clinton, 396 pardons.

Okay, went back to the Reagan era, back up. Still, we'd like to see it higher. George W.

Bush, 189 pardons. Oh, he's got— does he have the record? No, 189 for the lowest. Oh well, no, H.W. Bush, 74. Yeah. Okay. Obama, 212. Not a lot. Trump, 149. 44. Um, Biden 80. So we're back to not that many. But maybe it's because, like, I think a lot of people don't, in quotes, like pardons. I mean, I do, but you know what I mean? It's like tricky. Like, I think somebody like, you're just letting people out, you're gonna get grilled over it.

Yeah. And there's of course going to be questionable calls. Yeah. You could choose to incorporate the cultural context in which those people were operating. Mhm. Or you could, you could choose to ignore it and just go by what happened.

This whole story, Chris's story, is about taking in context and the whole person and where they are now. And it's important. It's so important.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, is the world better with that guy rotten in a prison or out among us? And in this case, I think he's definitely only better. Exactly. For everyone out among us.

I agree. I think what's so—

I, I like— I really like this. Um, a lot of people don't like these things. I like when something challenges or forces you to acknowledge someone you don't like did something you like.

Oh, I know. With Trump, I know.

So like, like, I've told a handful of people— I happen to find out, and I'm not allowed to say my source because I asked the person if I could repeat it and they said no. Okay. But I've dealt with somebody many times in a kind of customer service capacity, and the person gets tipped. And I asked him— and he— the person deals with a lot of celebrities. And I asked— I've dealt with this person enough. We have like a friendship, this person. And I asked him like, hey, will you— will you tell me the biggest tip you ever got? Yeah. And he said, yeah. And do you want to know from who? And I said, Yes. And he said $5,000 every time I ever dealt with him. Joe Rogan. Yes. And so I've told like 5 or 6 people about that because, A, I love that. I really love that. I just love when people with money fucking showered on other people.

Of course. Right.

And it's the right thing to do. It is. And it's shocking how few of the people I know with money do that. Yeah. And so that's a rad part of Rogan. And so I've told that to a couple of people and they were like, I don't buy it.

Or like, they're skeptical.

Yeah. Or like, he's got some ulterior motive. He's out here trying to clean. And I'm like, dude, he doesn't know any— these dudes just— that's a really cool part of it.

It's a cool part of it.

And the people I've told have had a really hard time accepting that about them. I just think it's funny. So, yeah, this Trump thing is like— I know. Yeah. I think it's really awesome when somebody who you think you despise does something something completely that they didn't need to take their time to do, gets them really no cultural capital in their base, and they did it. Yeah. And you gotta, you gotta, you gotta incorporate that into this multi-dimensional thing that we all are. Yes. And anytime that happens, I just really like it.

I agree, I agree. I was very surprised. Um, and yeah, I think it's hard to give credit to people you hate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like human nature. Yeah. But yeah, in the, in this case, thank God he did that.

Without him, this dude's not on our couch.

Thank God he did That's a fact. Yeah. So, yeah, I agree. Okay. Bryan Stevenson quote: "Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done." That's in Just Mercy. That's exactly what Chris said. He got it right. That's it.

I have some bizarre, like, romantic notion. I think there's something really cool about being self-educated in the manner in which he was, because every— most of us who become really educated educated, adapted to some format that other people decided was the way to study it. It's like you have an intro to this class. Yeah, you're not jumping to whatever book, you know. There's like an order of things, and you have departments and everything else. And I do have a fantasy that learning it all piecemeal like that allows you to kind of come up with your own cohesive through line to knowledge that isn't compartmentalized by humanities or social science or this or that. Mm-hmm. And I'm a little envious of— I kind of wish I acquired my knowledge in that way where it's just like I followed this interest, which led to this interest. And then when I step back from all of it, I'm like, oh, wow, I kind of covered everything that you would in college. And it wasn't prescribed or done or doled out in someone else's idea of what that should be. Yeah. There's something really cool about these people who become extremely educated it in prison for sure.

Just grabbing books out of a library.

Yeah, I agree. I did— I have been thinking lately that like, I am so old school in my beliefs about education, and I like— it's changing. Like, education is changing, and I am very against that, and I'm like aware that I'm on the older end of this. Oh, you should go. Yeah. Because I have real opinions about education and it's veering into a different direction and I'm like, ah, that's so bad. But maybe I'm just old. I don't know.

In a couple of weeks you'll be a little older. It's true. Happy birthday. Not yet.

All right. All right. I love you.