Episode 1075 - Keith Wager
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it happy thanksgiving yes it's here happy thanksgiving how are you are you okay is it is it all right did you get stuck in the snow
Marc:Is everything snowed in?
Marc:Is it cozy at the house?
Marc:Is it horrible at the house?
Marc:Is there chaos at the house?
Marc:Is somebody already drinking?
Marc:Is somebody already drunk?
Marc:Is somebody already yelling?
Marc:Did somebody fuck up the potatoes?
Marc:What's going on there?
Marc:What's going on in there?
Marc:I've got to go outside.
Marc:I've got to get out.
Marc:I recommend this every Thanksgiving.
Marc:Look, this might be the time.
Marc:If you just turn this on and you're in the house and it's after dinner or maybe it's before dinner, whatever's going on for you right now, maybe it's time to take a walk, even if it's snowing.
Marc:Take the dog, put your boots on.
Marc:Did you bring the boots?
Marc:No?
Marc:Is there any at the house?
Marc:No.
Marc:Put the warm sweater, the warm shirt.
Marc:I wish there was part of me.
Marc:I'm in Florida.
Marc:I'm on the 28th floor.
Marc:I'm looking out at the ocean.
Marc:I got an ocean view.
Marc:This is what I need to do for myself now that I can afford to do it.
Marc:As opposed to sleep at my mother's house.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:My point when I got into this was that I kind of wish I was someplace cold so I could wear the hat and the gloves and the scarf and the three shirts and the sweater and the jacket and the boots, maybe some long johns.
Marc:Maybe there's a stove involved.
Marc:All I'm saying, goddammit, for your own sanity, get out of the house.
Marc:Take a walk, take a breath.
Marc:There's nothing you can do.
Marc:There's nothing you can do about them.
Marc:They're not going to change their mind.
Marc:They're fucked up.
Marc:They've brain-fucked themselves on purpose, and the deed is done.
Marc:Just do me a favor.
Marc:No matter how pissed off you are or how frustrated you are or how sad you are or how depressed you are, look, if you're home, if you're alone on Thanksgiving,
Marc:Just be grateful.
Marc:You know, I mean, don't get all, you know, depressed.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Just have an easy, nice meal.
Marc:I mean, the Irishman's on Netflix, I think, as of yesterday.
Marc:And, you know, don't make a phone call.
Marc:Text a friend.
Marc:But don't freak out.
Marc:There's nothing wrong with being alone on Thanksgiving.
Marc:Consider it a reprieve, a gift.
Yeah.
Marc:But look, Keith Wager is on the show.
Marc:Now, Keith Wager, there's no way you would know him.
Marc:He's a guy I know from the Secret Society.
Marc:I've known him for years.
Marc:He's a funny guy, nice guy, deep guy, been through some shit.
Marc:He's got a podcast out.
Marc:And, you know, he wanted me to be on it.
Marc:I have not been on it because I don't think I'm I do not think it got fucked up enough for me to be on it.
Marc:His podcast is called It's All Bad.
Marc:And it's basically these guys.
Marc:Keith's been sober a long time.
Marc:You know, he did jail time, did a lot of crank.
Marc:And now he's actually in show business and he works in wardrobe.
Marc:It's a very weird arc.
Marc:But it was a great story.
Marc:But him and his buddies, a lot of them ex-jail guys, put this podcast together where they just sit around and tell these horrendous dark stories and laugh almost all the way through it.
Marc:It's almost like a celebration of the darkest impulses with a certain amount of humility around it for surviving them.
Marc:And also most of the guys on the show are sober.
Marc:But but Keith, he'd been sort of asking me to to be on.
Marc:And I said, you just come on mine.
Marc:We'll promote it.
Marc:And I haven't been on his because, frankly, I just don't know that I got fucked up enough to be honored with that.
Marc:Anyway, back to the thing.
Marc:Look, there's one thing I think we've got to keep in mind.
Marc:You take a breath, all right?
Marc:Look, I'm at my mother's, you know, and many of you have been down here with me for years.
Marc:We've done this.
Marc:I do all the cooking.
Marc:My brother flew in with his kid.
Marc:So my brother and his kid are here and he's working over at my mom's house.
Marc:I'm here doing this.
Marc:And so we're reconnecting.
Marc:I think that it's important to reconnect with the family members that you don't see very much that you should reconnect with.
Marc:Me and my brother, you sort of made it a point to be closer recently.
Marc:And I think that's important, especially if you're getting old.
Marc:And I'm telling you, the family members that get your goat that are politically wrong-minded, that are, you know, dangerous or evil people, that are active alcoholics, that are fucking active rage-aholics, that are, you know, that the consistency of the misery that unfolds every year, if you're still in it, you know, figure out a way.
Marc:you know, to detach from it.
Marc:And, you know, there's nothing, this is, this is really, uh, this is really the time this, these couple, next couple of days where you're encouraged to eat your feelings.
Marc:I know it's about gratitude and, you know, whatever the history of Thanksgiving is, that's, you know, whatever that is, what, whatever your family does.
Marc:I think one of the reasons why we all sort of get through it is because you go back, you're with family that drives you crazy.
Marc:This is the day you eat your feelings, eat them, eat them all.
Marc:Um,
Marc:Just like, you know, pie yourself to death, stuffing yourself to death.
Marc:You know, or you know what?
Marc:Actually, this year, I'm going to tell you something.
Marc:I encourage actively getting into it with your politically wrong minded family.
Marc:Just get into it.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:Because if you think about it, this might be the death throes between now and next Thanksgiving or just shy next Thanksgiving.
Marc:The Democratic experiment could be over.
Marc:So depending what happens early November next year, next Thanksgiving, we could be in a strongman world and a relatively authoritarian American experiment as that unfolds because of the voluntarily brain fucked people who have chosen to close their minds off to any barometer of truth or fact for team sports in the name of minority rule and almost complete corruption.
Marc:So this might be it.
Marc:This might be the last Thanksgiving in whether it's illusory or not or whether it's partial or not of a relatively tolerant America.
Marc:This might be it.
Marc:Forever.
Marc:So, you know, keep that in mind when you're being grateful for stuff and when you're detaching politically.
Marc:Maybe it might be time to die on that hill this Thanksgiving and just fucking give it to him.
Marc:Give it to him or take a walk.
Marc:Take a walk.
Marc:Either way, either way.
Marc:I don't want to get anyone in trouble.
Marc:So here's what's going on in my world.
Marc:I almost did not leave my house in L.A.
Marc:to come here because Fonda was sick.
Marc:So now I've been really monitoring her.
Marc:My buddy Frank, who works for me, he's going over there.
Marc:He's staying with her.
Marc:making sure she eats and eats and eats.
Marc:And hopefully she'll survive until I get home on Saturday.
Marc:And then I'll start doing the subcutaneous fluids twice a week as sort of a makeshift dialysis and see if I can keep her around for a while.
Marc:But I'm just shy of FaceTiming my cat.
Marc:I'm like, it almost happened.
Marc:My mother said, maybe you should FaceTime LaFonda.
Marc:And I said, maybe that's a good idea.
Marc:But then I'm like, am I going to ask Frank to let me use his phone to FaceTime my cat?
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I might.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So that's happening.
Marc:I'm a little more tolerant.
Marc:I don't know why I'm feeling chipper this Thanksgiving, but I think between us, between me and you, I mean, she'll find out.
Marc:Obviously, she's going to listen to this.
Marc:But so anyways, I don't know.
Marc:You got some of you guys know my relationship with my mother.
Marc:Well, you know, it's a very it's a very difficult one around the issue of food and weight.
Marc:I was brought up by a mother whose most important priority in life is to maintain a weight of 116 pounds for an entire life.
Marc:That's been her goal, and she's achieved it.
Marc:But there's a lot of pressure.
Marc:I was brought up by a functioning anorexic mother, and she'll own that.
Marc:So my body image issues are ridiculous and fucking paralyzing and stupid.
Marc:I happen to be in pretty good shape right now.
Marc:But every time I get down here, I never feel like it's quite good enough.
Marc:But miracles happen, you guys.
Marc:And it's like a cloud is lifted.
Marc:Is that my mother between us apparently put on a few pounds and she's having a hard time losing them.
Marc:Now...
Marc:that means that she can't take the higher ground because she's in it with us now.
Marc:She's like, you know, kind of struggling with the fight.
Marc:You know, there's no condescension.
Marc:There's no judgment because, you know, she's not in her fighting weight.
Marc:And it's weighing on her, but it's giving me and my brother a reprieve.
Marc:Also, my mom's boyfriend seems to...
Marc:become less annoying to me which is nice because like i i assume i'll snap today i started cooking yesterday so i'm ready to go i'm trying a couple new things because there's a couple vegan people i did the mashed potatoes with just olive oil and garlic salt and pepper i made instead of yams i made kabocha squash in pieces with coconut oil and the garam masala and
Marc:roasted Brussels sprouts, no meat, olive oil.
Marc:I might burn some string beans.
Marc:And then the classic stuffing, which is definitely not vegan.
Marc:And the bird, it's all going.
Marc:It's all going.
Marc:I think it's going to work out.
Marc:But...
Marc:My mom's boyfriend, John, maybe it's because it got back to him that I compared him to my father.
Marc:And I think that stuck in his craw.
Marc:So he's strangely kind of chipper and behaving.
Marc:But also they get older, you know, and they I'm telling I brought this up to you last year.
Marc:It gets to a point where they've got about five or six stories that they tell over and over again, or they just react to things for a second, or they just kind of go blank for a little while.
Marc:But he's taken it upon himself to see.
Marc:He tags everything now with the phrase, it was a different time.
Marc:It was a different time, no matter what he's saying.
Marc:We used to go to Patty's in New York, and everybody was there.
Marc:It was a different time.
Marc:On the west side of New York, there used to be a Jewish deli and a Chinese restaurant in every corner.
Marc:It was a different time, but over and over again.
Marc:It was a different time.
Marc:It was a different time.
Marc:Literally, with things like we would walk across the street when the light turned green, but at a different time.
Marc:It was a different time.
Marc:We had a bagel that you toasted.
Marc:You put butter or cream cheese on it.
Marc:But that, you know, it was a different time then.
Marc:It's not like that now.
Marc:We used to go to the toilet.
Marc:You know, you'd sit and you'd go to the bathroom and then you'd use toilet paper.
Marc:But that was then.
Marc:It's a different time.
Marc:It was a different time.
Marc:Everything was a different time.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:As long as he's not driving everybody crazy, I'm good.
Marc:Just remember, this could be the last Thanksgiving in a democratic America, so enjoy it.
Marc:Fucking eat that pie.
Marc:Fucking eat that ice cream.
Marc:Fucking eat that stuffing.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:Fucking give it to your fucking relatives that are fucking brainwashed, angry.
Marc:You know what I'm saying.
Marc:This might be it.
Marc:The last free Thanksgiving.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:Anyway, happy Thanksgiving.
Marc:Love to the kids, to your folks, to your brothers and sisters, to your parents, to your grandparents and to great, great grandma.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Now let's talk to Keith Wager.
Marc:The podcast is called It's All Bad.
Marc:It's a good story.
Marc:It's a good story about jail.
Marc:crystal meth crank and uh show business a little bit it's good it's a good thanksgiving story the jerry that keith and i are referring to a few times is our mutual friend uh jerry stall uh the author of uh permanent midnight and several other books who's a good friend of ours and i just didn't want you to be out of the loop i didn't want you to be out of the loop all right enjoy this is me and keith wager
Marc:See, this is the thing is like, I know you from, you're open about.
Marc:Yeah, a hundred percent.
Marc:I am too.
Marc:And I got one of these, I'm open about the secret society.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got one of these emails the other day about a guy telling me to shut the fuck up because of the tradition.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I'm like, you know, go fuck yourself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's not like the six, like you old timers.
Marc:I called them an originalist.
Marc:I'm like, it's like the constitution.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:I'm glad you're abiding by all that shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But the success rate of AA is not at the level where we can just say like, Hey, you know what I mean?
Marc:Let's not tell people it exists.
Guest:No, it's up for debate.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, what the fuck?
Guest:I have a thing at work all the time I do.
Guest:I won't, I would never do, I mean like, you know, with you or somebody, people I know who are cool with it, like I'm fine, but I'm at work.
Guest:I tell, you know, like people start and I go, listen, you know, I've been fucking sober a long time because I have had several, you know, instances, especially at work where people are like, literally call me and like,
Guest:Hey, remember what we were talking about that day?
Guest:You know, like, my husband's fucking, like, you know, shit in his pants.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Sleeping in the fucking patio.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I'm like, but, like, in a weird way, I'm carrying the message of the shit in his pants, dude.
Guest:Yeah, of course you are.
Guest:So I'm open about it, yeah.
Marc:But that's the thing is, like, I don't talk like I from my understanding of that tradition.
Marc:It's really about, you know, you're not supposed to be a representative.
Marc:Their concern was people would be seen as representatives of the program.
Marc:And if they relapse, then people are going to lose faith in the program.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So let them find it by other means.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'm always very clear.
Marc:Like, I don't represent the program.
Marc:There's many ways to get sober.
Marc:This is how I got sober.
Marc:And the more I talk about it, I get like three, four, five emails a week from people who are literally like, you saved my fucking life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, I found a meeting.
Marc:And it's like, so I started to, here's my fucking alcoholic brain, though.
Marc:Like, that guy who wrote me that letter, I went back and forth with him.
Marc:I'm like, I disagree, man.
Marc:And I explained it.
Marc:And now it's like, I'm so fucking resentful of him.
Yeah.
Marc:You won the war.
Marc:I'm forwarding the emails I get that say, thank you.
Marc:I found AA because of you.
Marc:And I'm just going to keep forwarding them to that guy.
Marc:Does this sound bad to you?
Marc:Because he asked me, like I said, I defended talking about AA publicly.
Marc:And he goes, what if you're wrong?
Marc:And then I'm like, what does that mean?
Marc:Like, and I say, maybe I'll relapse and die, but I still have these things.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, like, how did you, like, I've seen you in meetings for years.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Initially, I was frightened of you, and that passed.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:I think we carried a couple of laughs.
Guest:I think that was, you know, all right.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Totally with me and Jerry as well.
Guest:You know, I'm like, Jerry.
Guest:Your buddy Jerry Stahl.
Guest:Yeah, I saw him last night, yeah.
Guest:Dudes that, or Alan McDonnell, dudes that I can really connect with.
Guest:Because I have like, I'll tell you the thing I find is like, because you're like me, you enjoy laughing a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Alan likes to laugh.
Guest:Alan McDonald?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But like Jerry, for instance, or Mike you've had on the show, but he would like to laugh.
Guest:He's a tough laugh.
Guest:He is, but you can get him, and I can get him.
Guest:And I'm like, and there's a great joy, because I think he's one of the great writers in this town.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:A guy that dark, there's something fucking magical about making him laugh.
Guest:I also think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you and I have an easier time because we laugh our way through it.
Guest:The people that are always serious about it, everything's a fucking dilemma.
Guest:What, the program you mean?
Guest:Yeah, we'll just try not to drink or use.
Guest:Those people are the ones who end up, and I'm like, I know how to be miserable.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's usually with a bag of crank and a dirty Taco Bell bathroom.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But I think that's, yeah.
Marc:But there was a crew there where I was always very intimidated.
Marc:Even Jerry, before we became friends, I'm like, these guys are heavy, man.
Marc:These guys are hardcore dudes.
Marc:You know, there's that other dude that you used to hang around.
Marc:I didn't see him much.
Marc:That guy, what was his name?
Marc:Todd?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like that, you know, he would tell stories about like fucking jailing and I'd be like, what the fuck?
Marc:But I think it's- It took me a while to appreciate it though.
Marc:I just felt like I wasn't, I almost, there was a period there where I'm like, I am not man enough.
Guest:Right, but you have to look at our... What about our side of it?
Guest:Like, this dude's a writer, this dude's a stand-up comic.
Guest:So the difference is, like, you guys had jobs, and we were on the other side going like, holy fuck, like, that dude did that and still fucked it up?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, that guy was writing on these TV shows and still fucked it up, and we all end up in the same place.
Guest:So I think it's all relative, you know?
Guest:It's just these different... Because Todd and I are from...
Guest:pretty far east of Los Angeles.
Guest:And you know, the more deserty it gets, the darker it gets.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:I know like, yeah, like Desert Hot Springs.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:All that shit.
Guest:Where are you from?
Guest:I'm from Covina, which is just on the way out there, but it's also like the home to the Church of the Crystal Methodist.
Guest:It's like when people started making speed, you know all this shit?
Guest:No, I don't know.
Guest:In like 89 or 90 is when people...
Guest:In the 80s, like up into the 80s.
Guest:That's the biker crank days?
Guest:That, yeah, towards the end of the biker.
Guest:Yeah, it is the same thing.
Guest:But a bunch of people started making it as opposed to just the bikers up till about 1990.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So everybody was making it.
Guest:So in turn, you have like, it's really fucked up.
Guest:I mean, it devastated everywhere.
Marc:Out there?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like it devastated it in the same way, like not in the same way dope did or opioids.
Guest:No, no.
Marc:Because people are up and doing things.
Guest:Yeah, people are like, there's a lot of houses getting cleaned and carburetors getting rebuilt.
Guest:And you don't die from speed, you know, unless you like fall asleep at the wheel or something.
Guest:Things start falling out.
Guest:Teeth.
Guest:Your hair.
Guest:One time I was at, I went to this house, I knocked on the, dude,
Guest:Our friend's girlfriend called crying.
Guest:Drugs are fucked up.
Guest:What age is this?
Guest:I was probably 22, and I'm in Covina, and this dude lived in San Dimas next.
Guest:But it's like 3 in the morning, his girlfriend pages us.
Guest:It was that long ago.
Guest:I was like, you gotta come help.
Guest:She's crying and shit.
Guest:I'm thinking like, dude's dying or something.
Guest:So we run out there, and it's 2 or 3 in the morning.
Guest:He's got a lawnmower with mag lights taped to it, and he's trying to start it to mow the lawn in the middle of the night.
Guest:2 or 3.
Guest:And I'm like, what the fuck?
Guest:And finally he gets it started.
Guest:Him and the neighbor, the neighbor came out.
Guest:They're both jacked.
Guest:And helped him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he starts mowing the lawn.
Guest:She's crying because he's blowing it.
Guest:And I start talking to that dude, me and my friend Matt.
Guest:And I swear to you, Mark, he's like, he turns and he starts saying something.
Guest:And just like slow motion, a tooth flies out of his mouth at us.
Guest:And we were like both of us like,
Guest:Whoa, like dodging the tooth, you know?
Guest:And then, you know, the three of us are looking for the tooth.
Guest:He kind of sticks it back in there and then finds like a piece of gum and it was a fucking nightmare.
Guest:I swear.
Marc:Well, this is like, these are the stories on that podcast.
Marc:That's the funny thing about the podcast.
Marc:It's all bad.
Guest:It's all bad, yeah.
Marc:Like I listened to the first few and I'm like, it's like stories in AA without the shame.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or apology or I fucked up part.
Marc:It's just like dudes celebrating the worst fucking stories about jail and drugs without any sort of like, did you do the wrong thing?
Marc:No, man, we didn't get caught.
Marc:We're good.
Marc:It's funny.
Marc:I wonder, because I wonder, like, I didn't know, like, when you were asking me to help you out or promote it, I was like, I don't know how to push it to people, because I don't think it necessarily, I wonder about the kind of humor that we have from being in those rooms.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, we'll translate to regular people.
Marc:Humans.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:To humans.
Marc:You know, the decent people with a fucking full range of ethical behavior.
Guest:I think it does, not to everyone.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, I've told my mom, like, don't listen to it.
Guest:You know, but like, yeah, but I'm like, but I do think, I think it's kind of like what you were talking about the opiates.
Guest:I'm watching, you know, I've been watching so many people die the last few years because of the opiate.
Marc:Like people who, you know, who come in and go out.
Guest:Yeah, come in and go out.
Guest:But I'm like, but so I think the stories are good just because like none of those stories ever end on a high note.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, like I wish it was like, hey, I was smoking speed and I ended up on fucking glow with Marc Maron.
Guest:That didn't fucking happen.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:On a yacht with P. Diddy.
Guest:None of that happened.
Guest:It's not romanticized.
Guest:No, because at the end of every one of those sort of things, I'm like, fuck, we are broke.
Guest:Can't put a down payment on a donut.
Marc:I think I listened to the one where you thought the guy was dead and you left him.
Marc:I don't know who it was.
Guest:Was that you?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And then he didn't die.
Marc:But the fucked up thing is y'all decided it was the right thing to get out.
Yeah.
Guest:to get him out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was fucked up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, I mean, I think that's kind of a lesson learned, like, to these young dudes doing dope.
Guest:Like, it's every man for himself when you go out.
Marc:Well, that's always the, that's the fucking, the scariest thing about knowing, you know, dudes who I've known who have OD'd is, like, you know there was at least two other people in that room when you...
Marc:right it's not funny but it's true yeah it's so true it's true like as soon as someone turns blue people are like how well you know this guy does he have any money yeah i don't know check his pockets life is for the living yeah but but it is like it is great it's great how how you it's like listening to pirates laugh but somehow like how long are you sober now
Marc:21 years.
Marc:Yeah, I got 20.
Marc:But you somehow ended up in show business.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My friends call it Folsom to Fashion.
Guest:Folsom.
Guest:I was like, because I didn't get that drug diversion thing because I was doing speed.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I was getting arrested a lot.
Guest:But you're a wardrobe guy.
Guest:I'm a wardrobe guy, yeah.
Marc:And you're the main wardrobe guy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For films, TV?
Marc:I do almost all commercials.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've done a couple of pilots and stuff like that, but almost all commercials.
Marc:But okay, so let's start at the beginning.
Marc:You're in Covina.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And is your dad involved in the criminal enterprises?
Marc:No.
Marc:Shit, I forgot.
Marc:I should have told you that.
Guest:What?
Guest:I just found out who my dad was about two months ago through that 23andMe thing.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You just...
Guest:I've... What do you mean?
Guest:Who'd you grow up with?
Guest:Well, nobody... Okay.
Guest:The guy that we thought was my dad, I guess we thought, you know, me and my mom.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:He died in 1970, so I was a baby.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I never knew him.
Marc:But your mom thought it was your dad too?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So your mom was... Yeah.
Guest:Well, apparently... Go ahead.
Guest:I don't know what was going on with your mom.
Guest:No.
Guest:So, okay, my mom had this, was dating this dude.
Guest:In the 60s.
Guest:Yeah, in 69.
Marc:Was she a groovy person?
Guest:Yeah, but not like a drug groovy person.
Guest:You know, just like a visual hippie, like Dragnet or some shit.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I don't think they did drugs or anything.
Guest:But apparently they broke up because I think the guy we thought was my dad got sent to Vietnam.
Guest:And then she dated this other dude, a cop, ironically.
Guest:Briefly.
Guest:And then the Vietnam dude came back.
Guest:They got back together.
Guest:He ended up dying in a bar fight.
Guest:the vietnam dude yeah and this is in jacksonville beach florida where i was born but boy it just went from bad to worse yeah jacksonville and then covina you didn't have a shot you were there's no winning no shit yeah dude that's what i was like fuck how do i make it out of anywhere you know like it's not like i went from jacksonville beach to you know fucking you know hollywood california or whatever it's right in the suburbs stop short yeah
Marc:So the Vietnam vet guy dies in a bar fight.
Marc:Dies in a bar fight.
Marc:And I did that 23andMe shit.
Marc:And you thought he was your dad.
Guest:Yeah, but you didn't know.
Guest:I didn't really know him because he died when I was a baby.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I didn't know anybody on his side of the family, which is odd.
Guest:And your mom didn't either?
Guest:No, I don't think so.
Guest:And she's still around.
Guest:She's still around.
Guest:She lives here.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So it was just a bad memory for her.
Guest:Bad memory for her.
Guest:But she didn't know.
Guest:So I'm like, I'm in Vegas doing this.
Guest:I'm doing this commercial.
Guest:It's all with a bunch of like ballplayers like two months ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I get a thing from the 23andMe thing.
Guest:And it's like, hey, this says we're... Hey, this said we have the same dad.
Guest:I'd love to chat about it.
Guest:And I'm like, I sent it to my wife.
Guest:And I'm like...
Guest:I'm like, it's spam or whatever, right?
Guest:This dude's dead.
Guest:So I sent it to my wife and my wife goes, did you call him?
Guest:And I'm like, no.
Guest:And I'm like, so I send my number back.
Guest:And I'm literally still thinking it's spam.
Guest:And then when the phone rings, it's a 904 area code, which is Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
Guest:You know, Jacksonville, Florida.
Guest:And I see it, I'm like, holy shit.
Guest:And meanwhile, like two of the Lakers coming onto the court.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, fuck, I take it.
Guest:And I'm like trying to watch.
Guest:And all of a sudden I start talking to this dude.
Guest:And we're talking, I'm like, where do you live?
Guest:He's like, he's 15 years younger than me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he lives in Jacksonville Beach.
Guest:I'm like, what high school did your dad go to?
Guest:He's like, Fletcher.
Guest:I'm like, fuck, so do my mom, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then we're talking back and forth, and I said, and it's just all kind of lining up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I'm like, what's he like?
Guest:He goes, he's a cop.
Guest:I'm like, is he cool?
Guest:He goes, he's cool, but he's a cop.
Guest:And I'm like, okay.
Guest:So then I'm like...
Guest:I hang up and I call my mom and the whole time I'm trying to keep an eye on.
Marc:Did you fucking cop?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In Jacksonville before you came to Covina?
Marc:You said that?
Guest:That'd be fucking amazing.
Guest:So I call her and I'm like, are you sitting down?
Guest:She goes, yeah.
Guest:This is how fucking random it was, Mark.
Guest:I go, hey, you know a guy named Mitch Kinsey?
Guest:She goes, yeah, I dated him in high school.
Guest:Literally like no big fucking deal.
Guest:I go, well, that's my dad.
Guest:And then she starts crying.
Guest:And then I'm like, well, you know what?
Guest:It's all good, because it kind of did close a lot of doors.
Guest:I've always felt different not having a dad, the whole thing.
Guest:And I'm like, well, shit, okay.
Guest:So I'm 49 years old, and now I have a dad?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I'm like, fuck, all right.
Guest:And he's still around?
Guest:Yeah, I went down and met them.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Dude, it was fucking wild, yeah.
Guest:Do you look like him?
Guest:I do somewhat, he's kind of a bear of a man, though.
Guest:He's big and big hands and shit.
Guest:Dude, get this.
Guest:I'm talking to them about, they're like, yeah, well, he was a motorcycle cop in Jacksonville, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And they go, literally, this is my siblings.
Guest:Matter of factly, they're like,
Guest:Yeah, I go, oh, so I have a brother named Gator.
Guest:It's his nickname.
Guest:The younger one?
Guest:No, that's Mitch.
Guest:I have a brother who's like three years younger named Gator.
Guest:I go, why do they call him Gator?
Guest:I swear, they acted like this was the most normal thing.
Guest:They go, oh, because dad wrestles Gators when they wander into people's yards.
Guest:I'm like, what the fuck are you talking?
Guest:And they start sending me pictures of it.
Guest:And I'm like, what?
Guest:And it's him.
Guest:You're dead.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:We're throwing Gators.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:With your brother?
Guest:No, just him.
Guest:But for some reason that made them name his son.
Marc:And that's your half-brother?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you've got this half-brother and you've got a younger brother?
Marc:Two half-brothers, two half-sisters.
Marc:And they're all younger?
Guest:They're all younger.
Guest:Oh, that's another weird thing.
Guest:The closest in age to me is like a year and a half younger, Celeste, my sister Celeste.
Guest:And nobody in northern Florida had the name Celeste in the 70s.
Guest:But then we realized we both had best friends that were brother and sister, so we played together as kids in the 70s.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, so we knew each other.
Guest:So was your mom just trying to hide this?
Marc:No, I don't think she knew.
Marc:Or she was just focused on... The timing had to be kind of weird.
Marc:That's what I think.
Marc:But was she in high school when she got pregnant?
Marc:That's a good question.
Marc:She was 18 when she got pregnant?
Marc:Yeah, and then she met a dude.
Marc:Right.
Marc:With you in there already.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, I think there was a break in the dude she thought was my dad.
Guest:She had a fling with this dude, ended up pregnant.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:But it's all kind of for debate.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:But the siblings look kind of like you?
Marc:Did you feel like it's, you know?
Guest:Yeah, the oldest sister especially, and she talks more than I do if you can fucking believe that.
Marc:Any drunks, drug addicts?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Really?
Marc:One of them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So now you can track that too?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's crazy, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's fucking, it was fucking.
Guest:Did it make you feel better?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It actually, it, it, it closed a lot of doors for me.
Guest:Cause like, I, like I told, I mean like, you know, I like it could be booze, chocolate chip cookies.
Guest:I'll get addicted to anything with fucking exercise.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I'm trying to do the exercise.
Guest:Yeah, always trying to fill that void.
Guest:I'm not spiritually blind.
Guest:But it did make me feel a lot, brother.
Guest:They're great people.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:We have different political views, but I don't really give a shit.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Well, it's not like you got to go there for Thanksgiving.
Guest:Kind of a one-off.
Marc:Glad we did this.
Guest:I'm out.
Guest:Good luck with everything.
Guest:Dude, we've had, I had some pretty funny conversations with him.
Guest:Because to me, politics are team sports.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Sadly, that's true.
Guest:I'm like, if Dog the Bounty Hunter ran against Donald Trump, I feel like all the Democrats would, you know, wave.
Guest:Gotta be better.
Guest:Gotta be better.
Guest:Alright, we'll back this guy.
Marc:Dog's fine.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We'll take him.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Anything but.
Marc:Yeah, no, it's a weird thing with that.
Marc:I talked to a friend that used to be fairly normal, like a regular kind of, you know, assuming assumed liberal kind of person, woman.
Marc:And now she's just kind of snapped somehow.
Marc:And it was weird because she kept telling me, it's like, it's all game, man.
Marc:It's all game for, you know, it's all about money, both sides.
Marc:And I'm like, yeah, okay.
Marc:But then she's sort of like, but there's no climate change.
Marc:I'm like, you know what?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:If it's all a game, it sounds like you're picking a side.
Marc:Why that side?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Weirdo.
Marc:I think it's a lot of sensitive people who are like victims can go either way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, either they embrace it and they figure out how to, you know, they don't handle it in the way that they they need taken care of or they become fucking like just bullies.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And it's broken people, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:My dad literally, because my dad voted for him, but my dad said it.
Marc:Gator, or it's Gator's dad?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Sorry.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I'm sorry, yeah.
Guest:He voted for him, and I was like, and I kind of just, you know, like I do, I'm like, I'm like, you know, I understand, you know, like you don't want to vote for Demp, but I have a hard time understanding why you would vote for that dude, and he literally goes, and he's a Christian, and everything goes, Keith, I hate him as a person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I go,
Guest:Well, he certainly doesn't bring anything to the fucking table politically.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Outside of taking people's rights away and shit.
Guest:But that's the thing.
Guest:I was talking to a teamster I work with, and he was like, dude, I couldn't even believe.
Guest:And he grew up an actor.
Guest:He was born and raised in Hollywood, Mexican dude.
Guest:And he goes, I just wanted somebody who wasn't a politician.
Guest:I'm like, that dude's been famous for no reason since 1982.
Guest:He's the ultimate fucking politician.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:It's wild.
Guest:It's complete hustle.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:So when do you get to Covina?
Marc:How old do you?
Marc:I own a skateboard shop there.
Marc:Oh, when did I move there in 1982 when I was 12?
Marc:Oh, that's when you left Florida?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, when did the drug start?
Guest:The drug started about 80, well, booze started in 80.
Guest:Booze and weed, I guess, started in 84, 85.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would do, you know, like booger sugar and shit if you had it.
Guest:I was too young to really get it together.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I remember doing like Coke once and then Speed once.
Guest:When you were like 12 or 11?
Guest:no like 14 oh yeah yeah yeah me too yeah when i was 15 i ate beauties yeah yeah yeah i but i took a lot of lsd when i was 50 that's the only drug that never gave me a bad shake what lsd oh yeah it was i've been arrested twice on it and still it was fun you know i'm not like in covena yeah you're tripping you're tripping in covena yeah by yourself or with people
Guest:Well, when I got arrested, I was in a jail with a bunch of people I didn't know.
Marc:But other than that- But really, like tripping balls full on?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:One of them, I only started peeking as we arrived.
Guest:And I was with one of my friends, my friend Jason.
Guest:And he was bummed.
Guest:And I was like, better make the best of it.
Guest:It's about to kick in.
Guest:He was all bummed out.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You better make the best of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, because you know, like, if it goes, my buddy had drank that Morning Glory shit.
Guest:You know how LSD is.
Guest:You've taken it, right?
Guest:So, you know, you take it, and if you've never taken it, it's like, you're always like, this shit's bunk.
Guest:And then what?
Guest:Yeah, and then all of a sudden, my buddy was like, went to take a piss one time, and he's like, this shit's bunk.
Guest:In jail?
Guest:No, at home, in Orange County.
Guest:He went to pee, and when he looked down, it looked like there was a hole in his ball sack, so he started trying to juggle to try to keep the balls from falling out of it.
Guest:And then he came out, and he's like, there's like a Nagel painting, and he said he was trying to cool it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's like staring at the Nagel painting, concentrating, and then the Nagel painting came alive all crazy, and he's like, fuck.
Guest:And he looked away, and there was a ficus tree, and he said the ficus tree just like raises its hands all, I know, that chick's crazy, huh?
Guest:In the Nagel painting?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:like pointing at it and shit and I'm like I just didn't want it to go that route you know where it goes fucking bad oh right right where you don't know you can't quite see the line yeah yeah between what's real and what isn't yeah you're like three feet to the right of yourself yeah yeah and you gotta you gotta sort of hold something together so how did you make it a good trip in the holding cell I just fucking you know I just like because he was bummed Jason was like
Guest:fuck man and i go dude don't be like that we're gonna be stuck here all night you know what i mean yeah and i just tried to like focus on you know what i mean like looking at cool shit or whatever i mean there's not a lot in there but like you know were there other people in there yeah there's other people in the whole there's like probably 15 or 20 of us but i was just trying not to look at the cops you know through that window yeah i'm like if i i'm like and i kept telling him i'm like don't look at them dudes it's gonna bum you out you know like try to look at the other like the cholos and shit or whatever you know what i mean i was like fuck
Marc:So was that the first time you got busted?
Marc:No.
Marc:The first time I got busted.
Marc:You say that like I'm just one of those guys.
Marc:I was seven.
Guest:They just started taking me in.
Guest:I started getting arrested.
Guest:The first thing I had arrested for was ditching school.
Guest:And I was probably 14.
Guest:Because there was a thing in Southern California in the...
Guest:Early 80s, if you weren't in... Truancy?
Guest:Yeah, truancy.
Guest:But they were really enforcing it for a while.
Guest:It was weird.
Guest:And then when I started drinking daily, I'm going to say it was about...
Guest:15 or 16.
Guest:When I started drinking more and less smoke and pot is when I started.
Guest:Alcohol is the one where I really make the wrong decision almost every time.
Guest:I wake up and everybody's mad at me.
Guest:I'm that dude.
Guest:Just sad, frowning faces.
Guest:Disappointed, frowning faces.
Guest:Not once was it different either.
Marc:Just like, fuck.
Marc:One time I went to a wedding.
Marc:And it was out of town.
Marc:We'd have to stay at a bed and breakfast or something.
Marc:And everybody was sort of, it was the night after the wedding, after the party and everything.
Marc:And everyone's gathering at the bed and breakfast at the breakfast table.
Marc:And I'm sitting there and I'm just, everyone's just kind of looking at me with that kind of like, and looking away.
Guest:I'm like, what the fuck happened?
Marc:And then the woman comes in to the room who owns the place and goes,
Marc:Whose car is on the yard?
Marc:But they let me park.
Marc:I had people in the car.
Marc:They let me drive it, and I parked it in the yard.
Marc:But then more things started to unfold.
Marc:I'd set my arm on fire.
Marc:That's amazing, though.
Marc:It was one of those things where I got to the wedding.
Marc:I don't know what the fuck I was thinking.
Marc:I had all these Ativans, and I got to the wedding.
Marc:I just didn't want a deal or something.
Marc:I remember taking shots of scotch, and I took two or three Ativans.
Marc:and I just lost the whole fucking night.
Marc:There's just bits and pieces.
Marc:Then I smoked weed, and it was fucking over.
Marc:I remember seeing my arm on fire at the table where we were eating because I'd stuck it in a candle, but then I don't know really how it happened.
Marc:and the car was in the yard no one was dead no one was dead except your reputation it's just like to know that you were that embarrassing you know like my yeah i was married at the time to my first wife and she was embarrassed and i'm like what the someone should have stopped me i was a bridge burner too i was like i remember one time we were all fucked up at this bar or whatever and we go back to this
Guest:I don't know, well, I was like you are.
Guest:I remembered playing pool at some point, but I woke up and had no fucking idea, kinda like yours.
Guest:I woke up and I didn't know where I was, but this was fucked up because I wake up and I'm on the floor, and there's really long shag carpet.
Guest:And this is in the early 90s, so it's, you know.
Guest:I wake up and I'm like, fuck, this is long carpet.
Guest:So I get up and I'm like, and the bedroom I'm in doesn't look familiar.
Guest:So I look out the back window and I'm like, fuck.
Guest:You know, I'm like, it doesn't, I'm like, where am I?
Guest:I could see like a hillside.
Guest:And so then I open the door and I can hear people talking down the end of the hall.
Guest:But you know, it's like, I'm like, fuck.
Guest:You know, everybody's always mad at me when I'm like this.
Guest:So I'm like, shit, I'm trying to think of who's gonna be mad.
Guest:Am I gonna get yelled at?
Guest:And then I'm like, so I'm waiting it out.
Guest:I mean, for like four, I have a terrible hangover.
Guest:I'm like, fuck.
Guest:Fuck, and then I open the door again and I can hear people talking and then I'm like, fuck it.
Guest:So I start sneaking out and I'm looking at the family photos in the hallway trying to identify.
Guest:You know, like, is that Mark as a kid?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like trying to picture that shit.
Guest:Is it anyone I know?
Guest:Yeah, and I'm like, so finally it wasn't and I'm like, fuck it.
Guest:So I'm like, whew.
Guest:So I just walk down and I'm just thinking somebody's mom or something is gonna, and I'm like in fucking La Habra or somewhere in like Orange County.
Guest:And right when I get to the end of the hallway, it's my friend Lori and this dude just sitting there at the ends of two couches with a dial phone.
Guest:And right when I, they both look up with a giant pupil.
Guest:It's like, you know where to get any blow?
Guest:I'm like, no, but is anybody mad at me?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I'm like, fuck, it's like 8 in the morning.
Marc:I'm like, I gotta get home.
Marc:That is just the worst where people are looking for blow at 8 in the morning.
Marc:It's the worst.
Marc:It's never a good moment.
Marc:No.
Marc:We're still going.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're always, whenever you get in that position, it's always with the dude you like the least.
Marc:Yeah, and then the day is fucked, and you're just kind of holding up this, you're just staying above something that you know you just dip below it, and you're like, oh, my entire week's fucked up.
Marc:Everything is fucked.
Marc:So, okay, so you're getting arrested for truancy, and then, like, because, like, I want to get to this, like, when did you own a surfboard shop?
Guest:Oh, I own a skateboard shop, but I own, it's called the Pawn Shop, and it was called the Outhouse Surf and Skate in the 70s and 80s and 90s.
Guest:In Covina?
Guest:Yeah, and then we opened one about 10 years ago.
Guest:It's still open?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It doesn't make any money, but it's good for the kids and shit.
Guest:Like, it's never profited.
Guest:But when do you get in real trouble?
Guest:When I get in real trouble was when the speed thing came.
Guest:So basically, all right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm no conspiracy theorist, but just hear me out.
Guest:So there's a 7-Eleven where you could drive through.
Guest:This is in the 80s and 90s.
Guest:In Covina.
Guest:Yeah, and buy weed.
Guest:Like anybody could just drive through.
Guest:And some guy came through there one day and asked these two dudes are selling weed.
Guest:He bought weed from me.
Guest:He goes, hey, you guys like speed?
Guest:I'll show you how to make it.
Guest:So this guy, he showed these two dudes how to make it.
Guest:Kids?
Guest:Yeah, well, 19, 20, yeah.
Guest:And the guy was about 35.
Guest:He taught this guy Richie and this guy Nick.
Guest:He taught them how to make it.
Guest:And then they were trying to be secretive about it, you know?
Guest:And he would encourage them, like, no, show fucking your friends.
Guest:It'll take the heat off of us.
Guest:This kind of shit.
Guest:So they show, like, this other two dudes.
Guest:And then these other two dudes.
Marc:How to make bathtub crank.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, like, I'm telling you, Mark, it went...
Guest:To me, it seemed like in six months, everybody was making it.
Guest:It was probably about two or three years.
Guest:There were so many people making it that they raided that house and the house behind it and caught both people making it at the same time.
Guest:What's the conspiracy?
Guest:One day, we were standing in front of there.
Guest:Where?
Guest:The 7-Eleven?
Guest:No, the house where they're making it, and I saw the guy who taught him how to make it, and granted, I was fucking spun like a research monkey, but I was like, I looked at that dude and I looked at a friend of ours, I think you know him too, but I looked at Jimmy and I go, who fucking knows that dude, right?
Guest:And he goes, who, I can't remember, they called him the Mathiah, I'm not even kidding you.
Guest:The Mathiah.
Guest:He goes, the Mathiah?
Guest:He's cool.
Guest:I go, that's not what I'm asking.
Guest:I go, where'd he come from?
Guest:Yeah, we all went to high school and junior high together.
Guest:You know, Rich State's sister, all this.
Guest:I go, where did that motherfucker come from?
Guest:Because he's fucking ruined everything.
Guest:Every mom's like vacuuming at three in the morning.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:The whole fucking neighborhood's awake nine months out of the year.
Guest:It was fucked.
Guest:And that guy caused it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, and it just went from there, you know?
Guest:And did anyone find out?
Guest:Do you know who that guy was?
Guest:I never found out, but.
Marc:He wasn't from there?
Marc:No.
Marc:Wild.
Marc:He just came in like a devil and just undermined the entire social fabric of the town?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:I'm telling you.
Guest:Dude, one time I was in a lucky market.
Guest:It was like a Vons or whatever.
Guest:And the dude, I didn't really know much about it.
Guest:I knew people were doing it.
Guest:But the guy in front of me is buying probably like 60 boxes of Sudafed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the only thing on the fucking conveyor belt is 60 boxes of Sudafed and a motorcycle helmet.
Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Got a bad cold.
Guest:You're gonna ride it out.
Guest:But the whole fuck, everything was like that.
Guest:People trying to buy pills and make that shit.
Guest:You never made it?
Guest:I would help people make it.
Guest:I didn't physically make it, but I would like, I think I've told you this before, but I would have the job of keeping everybody awake.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, because people start like, and my friend Diane would be like in the back bedroom cooking it.
Guest:So she'd have a flask and this shit set up, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then this other guy, after I got out of prison, it was a different thing of distilling it, which is after somebody's done making it, you give it to this person to distill it, which was like another thing with condensers.
Guest:I don't really know much about chemistry, but they were doing that shit, and I would have to go get ice, you know what I mean, and get food or whatever, because we'd be there for days at a time.
Guest:And it would usually be a random house, like in...
Guest:Ontario or fucking, you know, Corona or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this house in particular was in Ontario on a street called Tam O'Shanter.
Guest:That's the name of the street.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The only reason that's because I'm like, who in the fuck names the street Tam O'Shanter?
Guest:But I had been at that house before I went to prison and she picked me up there.
Guest:And then when I got out of prison a year and a half later,
Guest:We're going there, and I don't know shit about Ontario, but she goes, hey, we're gonna go to this house and do it.
Guest:It just looked odd to me.
Guest:I'd only been there once, but I go, please tell me this fucking house isn't on Tam O'Shander.
Guest:She goes, yeah, it is.
Guest:I go, dude, you picked me up from here.
Guest:It was fucking hot then.
Guest:You know, that's a year and a half ago.
Guest:I'm like, we're really gonna be fucked.
Guest:We're there, and my job's keeping her awake and shit, but basically I fell asleep, and the girl who lived there woke me up, right?
Guest:and she's like, Keith, there's a fire or some shit, and I wake up, I'm sleeping on a bed, and when I open my eyes from her waking me up, it just looks like lavender smoke, you know, above me.
Guest:And so I sat up, you know, just out of habit.
Guest:When I sat into it, not only could you not breathe, but it pulled the oxygen out of your lungs.
Guest:So it was like, like you couldn't, and I dropped her to the floor, but now the lady who lives there is fucking crawling, opening the windows, but I'm chasing her, closing the windows.
Guest:We're literally arguing like army crawling through the house.
Guest:Yeah, I don't want to get busted.
Guest:I'm like, turn on the fucking fans in the kitchen and the bathroom.
Guest:It was a fucking nightmare because those houses were close together and it was just thick.
Guest:You couldn't see through the smoke.
Guest:It was a thick lavender smoke, like purple.
Guest:It was awful.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So the Mathiah is ruining the town.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're starting to do it.
Marc:I started doing it and then I started selling it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In town.
Guest:Yeah, but was like everybody selling it?
Guest:A lot of people were selling it, but I would sell it like, I run pretty high octane, so I'm like up all the time, and I just knew everybody in that town.
Guest:Then I started selling it to just a handful of people in Hollywood.
Guest:It was really the same crowd.
Guest:And this is that yellow shit?
Guest:No, this is the glass shit.
Guest:Mostly the yellow shit was around, but that was the thing with Hollywood.
Guest:Hollywood, the only thing you'd find was that yellow shit.
Guest:And where out in the San Gabriel Valley, you would have the glass, which is what everybody wanted.
Guest:I would sell it to this...
Guest:One guy who lived in Beverly Hills and then another guy who lived in, not Beachwood Canyon, but that other one.
Guest:The glass was good because you could smoke it.
Guest:You could smoke it, yeah.
Guest:The yellow shit was useless.
Guest:No, I don't think you could smoke that yellow shit.
Guest:I can't imagine.
Marc:It was like crunchy.
Marc:Yeah, and it smelled.
Marc:Do you remember that?
Marc:Like kerosene or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Kerosene.
Marc:Yeah, you snort gasoline.
Marc:You could take... There was no way to just rationalize it being good in any way.
Marc:No.
Marc:Because you'd snort it and be like, that's like engine shit.
Guest:That stuff makes people weird, too.
Guest:I walked in this house one time.
There's a...
Marc:Really?
Marc:Is there some variables?
Marc:There's a spectrum of behavior on the yellow crank versus the good glass stuff?
Guest:Do you remember how the yellow crank would make you have instant, you remember you'd get sores and shit from it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was what I mean.
Marc:I don't know if I got that far in.
Guest:I didn't do that that often, and that's just a case of it not being clean, but when I did do it, I literally felt like my hair stood up.
Guest:But I walked in the house, this one woman who's like, you know people have their thing, like cleaning the car or fucking paint in the house or whatever.
Guest:Drawing a maze.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:This one lady, her thing, she liked to clean people's ears, and I would never fucking go near her.
Guest:She had like a little kit and shit, and I had done some of that shit, and her boyfriend's this gnarly dude named Nick that we had grown up, he's older than us, but he was fucking gnarly.
Guest:and I walked into this dope house one time, and this fucking dude, I could see it in his face, his head's sideways like this, and she's cleaning his ears out with like, dude, like tweezers and all this shit, and he's so bummed, but he's just so scared of Nick he won't say anything, and for probably two and a half hours, I was just like, fuck, better him than me.
Guest:It was fucking cleaning a man's ears.
Marc:Did he just work in his head for two and a half hours?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Because he was afraid of the dude?
Marc:The boyfriend.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good times.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But so, okay.
Marc:So you're selling it.
Marc:You're selling the glass and you're running down here up all night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I start like, I got into a fight with a guy and he got hurt and I got arrested for that.
Guest:And then I went to the County jail for, well, I was sentenced to a year in the County jail.
Guest:You do about five months at that time.
Guest:And it's like 91 in County, the LA County.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where was that?
Marc:Is that down?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On Boucher street downtown, right by the twin towers.
Guest:But yeah.
Marc:And that was, that was your first real stretch.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was about five months.
Guest:But that jail is like the Terminator.
Guest:It's fucked up.
Guest:It's the worst jail I've ever been to.
Guest:And I've been to a lot of fucked up ones, but that one's worse than any prison I've ever been to.
Guest:Why?
Guest:How?
Guest:It's just fucking dirty.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, it's not taken care of.
Guest:It's like...
Guest:It smells like a 24-hour fitness shower.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's not like an Equinox shower.
Marc:But how did you adjust?
Marc:Being popped a bunch of times when you were a kid and you never went to... What was the longest time?
Marc:Were you in juvenile too?
Guest:Yeah, I was in juvenile hall for about five months one time.
Guest:For what?
Guest:Same thing.
Guest:I got in a fight.
Guest:I was drunk and got in a fight and beat some guy up.
Guest:But that one wasn't a felony or anything.
Guest:It was just getting in a fight.
Guest:Because you were a kid?
Guest:Well, yeah, my mom was like, I fucking can't handle him.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:They probably wouldn't have sent me to jail.
Guest:So you were out of control?
Guest:Out of control, yeah.
Guest:And I started, and I couldn't stop drinking.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:So what do you track that to?
Marc:Do you remember the feelings?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I remember the feelings of I just don't feel comfortable in my own skin.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Unless I'm drinking.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the fighting thing, it was just you just had to fight.
Guest:It's really I think it's really like booze related.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, but it's like I wouldn't like I've never like I don't think I've ever been in a fight when I wasn't drunk.
Guest:Not even when I was on drugs.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:When you drink, that's what you hear.
Guest:You'll be in prison with a dude who looks like fucking Ted Koppel or something.
Guest:You're like, what the fuck are you doing here?
Guest:He's like, I was drunk driving and fucking killed a family.
Guest:Because the booze is where you make the fucking really bad, terrible decisions when somebody ends up dead.
Guest:yeah that's that's true yeah you know but like when you okay so when you get sent for the first time because i didn't never get arrested yeah but when you get sent to like a real jail yeah i mean what's in your head all that all the horror stories like how do you fucking handle yourself day one i get so day one in juvenile hall which i'm not gonna lie i mean i was fucking scared i was like oh shit you know because you just know shit like from that sean penn movie bad boys or whatever you know
Guest:And you're young, so it's weird.
Guest:There's a lot of testosterone when you're 15 to 18.
Guest:And the interesting thing about it is when you're going to juvenile hall and shit, so I get there and it's like, you know, it's like majorities are, you know, there's not a ton of white people in there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In the juvenile system, people gangbang.
Guest:What I mean by that is, if somebody comes in, it's a crip, a dude who's of blood might be like, where are you from, right?
Guest:And they might fight right then, but it's usually over with.
Guest:Same thing with the Hispanic gangs or whatever, right?
Guest:But it's always over after that.
Guest:It's weird, because you are just kids.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's a weird thing.
Guest:everybody kind of lives communally and there's no racism or any of that bullshit.
Guest:Like there is when you're an adult, you know, like you don't have to, it's really when you become, when you're an adult and you start going is really fucked up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's weird.
Guest:There's a lot of camaraderie.
Guest:Like there's no, like, uh, you know, nobody got raped or anything like that.
Guest:And I've been in, you know, Los Padrino central, all the ones in LA County.
Guest:And, um, it was no, you were a regular.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've been, yeah, I was in and out of there for about, you know, I mean,
Guest:I probably did maybe 15.
Guest:Well, you know, I would go to Jimena Hall for a few months and they'd send me to a boys' home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was in a boys' home in Chino called Boys Republic.
Guest:Same one Steve McQueen was in.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And then I was in Boys Republic in Silver Lake, which is on Red Cliff.
Guest:You know where that is?
Guest:Street next to Mitchell Terena?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That one is still there.
Guest:It's a huge property.
Guest:And there we went to public school.
Guest:So we went to school at Marshall.
Guest:This is in 1987.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And the boys' homes were...
Guest:Almost just like group homes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:The one in Chino is like its own city.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the one- Didn't have a jail vibe?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's people from all over the state.
Guest:That would be the difference.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:As opposed to just the county.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then, so once, you know, I'm doing like, I've been to camp and juvenile hall and shit.
Guest:So it's weird.
Guest:Once you're in there for a few days, you're not really scared because you realize like, yeah, you might have to get in a fight or something, but-
Guest:unless you go to like the youth authority, which is like the young prison, nobody's getting stabbed or, you know, fist fights or whatever.
Guest:But when you go to that county jail, the LA county jail, it's like, there's a fucking dorm there, Mark, that is the size of a football field.
Guest:I mean, it's not quite, but it's so fucking big.
Guest:When I say dorm, whatever you're picturing, it's probably fucking 10 times that size.
Guest:It's so big that you can't even see to the back of it.
Guest:So what, it's like cots?
Guest:Yeah, bunk beds.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Three high, like the Three Stooges.
Marc:Three high bunk beds for a full football field?
Guest:Yeah, for probably, honestly, probably a half of a football field.
Guest:It's fucking enormous.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Like half of a high school football field.
Marc:And it's got that weird in jail vibe?
Guest:Yes, 100%.
Marc:All of it?
Marc:Like that weird frenetic kind of horror show?
Guest:Yeah, it's a fucking horror show.
Marc:I just know that because I did a show once at a women's prison.
Marc:And we had to go through security and everything else and do all that and perform for the prisoners.
Marc:And you just feel that whatever the community is in there, it's electric with horror.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like, it's just like, well, I don't know.
Marc:There's a whole different vibe in here, man.
Marc:Yeah, that's...
Guest:That's a good way to explain it.
Marc:It's like a system that you do not want to be part of.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you feel it and you feel the hierarchy and you can feel the weight of it.
Marc:It's like I was like fucking devastated.
Guest:That's a great way to explain it.
Guest:And it's like people don't really.
Guest:But even as a visitor, you want to get the fuck out.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you're like, you know, there's something going on in here and it's really fucking organized and it's really scary.
Guest:It is organized.
Guest:There's.
Guest:When you, like, when you're in the county jail, you know, you're just, to be honest, like, you're just like, fuck it, man, I hope I get to prison soon.
Guest:You know, it's that fucked up.
Guest:I mean, the food's fucking.
Marc:You just want to get out of there.
Guest:It's awful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One time we had spaghetti.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it had, you know, we get the spaghetti, and it's got bones in it.
Guest:I'm like, I look at my friend, I'm like, there's fucking bones in this spaghetti.
Guest:And what had happened is, because the food's all, like, just donated, and I guess they got, I don't know if it was sardines or anchovies, but one of those.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They got a bunch of those, they just fucking threw the whole things in the spaghetti.
Guest:You know, it's made in like, they have pots that look like, almost like hot tubs, these big metal hot tubs, they're huge.
Marc:And then... So that was the, this is a big bad memory from jail, is the spaghetti bone?
Guest:Yeah, having to fucking fight.
Guest:You know, I'm like, I'm a white dude, so we're really outnumbered, you know, but like you have to fight for your shoes, because somebody's, you know what I mean?
Guest:Really?
Guest:If you have decent shoes, you know what I mean?
Guest:Oh really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You mean shoes you come in with?
Guest:Yeah, the ones you wear, because at that, you know, you would wear your own shoes in there.
Marc:And someone would want them.
Guest:A lot of the time.
Guest:Which, to be honest with you, they weren't real nice shoes.
Marc:So you had to fight a lot.
Guest:Yeah, well, you'll have to fight for your shoes.
Guest:They might end up taking them.
Guest:I think I kept mine.
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:They might have taken them.
Guest:But I had to fight for them just to show I'm not a coward or whatever.
Guest:But then you move on.
Guest:Because you're definitely prey in the county jail if you're a white dude.
Guest:Because the numbers are so small.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You're probably...
Guest:6% of the population.
Guest:And there's also a lot of racial tension.
Guest:So blacks and Hispanics.
Guest:And then it's mostly the Hispanics picking on the whites.
Guest:And not all of them, but the majority of them.
Guest:So then when you get to the prison, here's the, ready for this?
Guest:So you can literally be on a bus with a dude who tried to take your shoes going to prison.
Guest:And when you get to that prison, now you're allies with that guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You have a history?
Guest:No, it's just that's the system.
Guest:When you get to the prison system, the southern Mexicans, so Bakersfield to San Diego and the whites run together.
Guest:Northern Mexicans and the blacks run together.
Guest:So anybody above Bakersfield all the way to Crescent City, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this is all shit, Captain, you know, it's how the cops want to keep it segregated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everybody hating.
Guest:It's the only way they can control it, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know if you saw on the news, they did like two years ago, they went on a hunger strike together and they got what the fuck they wanted.
Guest:Because if they merge as a group and every prisoner goes at it, the cops don't have a chance.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But what about the violence and the raping and all that stuff?
Guest:So in prison, I've been to Chino a couple of times, I've been to Delano, I've been to Pelican Bay, which is the worst fucking prison I think.
Marc:Where did you have time to do anything else?
Marc:It sounds like this is a lot of time.
Guest:It wasn't a lot of time.
Guest:I mean, I've only done, my first term I did 14 months.
Guest:The second time I- For the fighting?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, the fighting and when I got caught for violating probation, I had a bunch of speed and a loaded pistol.
Guest:So that was a new charge.
Guest:So I got two years for that and I already had two years for the assault prior.
Marc:So I had to do- They had written you off as just like a garbage person.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, this guy's not leaving the system.
Guest:Yeah, I never got a chance to go to treatment or any of that, because I started with a violent crime.
Guest:If I would have started with a possession or something, maybe everything would have turned out better earlier on.
Marc:Have you been able to make amends to the people that you... I have one left.
Marc:A guy you beat up?
Guest:Yeah, only one.
Marc:It's not happening?
Guest:No, I'm working on it right now.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Just working on finding him.
Marc:At 22 years?
Marc:Oh, working on finding him?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know who it is.
Guest:I can't figure out his last name, but my friend knows his cousin or something.
Guest:It's pretty weird.
Guest:His name's Chris, but I fucking don't know his last name.
Marc:Okay, so you've been to Chino and Pelican Bay's bad, and what were you gonna tell me about the nature of it?
Guest:Oh, well, Pelican Bay's the only one where I got there in the middle of the night, so everybody's asleep, and it's like you're talking about.
Guest:There's nobody awake, right?
Guest:Maybe four people in the whole thing.
Guest:But it's exactly what you're talking about.
Guest:We pulled in, and I literally, I was like, I had goosebumps.
Guest:I was like, it is fucking going down here.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I'm like, I could tell.
Guest:You're like, there's motherfuckers getting killed here.
Guest:You could just feel it.
Guest:And nobody's even awake.
Guest:But you could feel it the minute you pulled in the yard, right?
Guest:So in there it becomes, you know, and it's a very weird, you know, it's a weird, you know, because you have to stick with your own race and I'm not fucking racing.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You just have to?
Guest:Yeah, a lot of people are in that position.
Guest:There's a lot of black dudes, a lot of Mexican dudes.
Guest:None of us want to fucking have to stick to ourselves, but we do.
Guest:It's just the way it is.
Guest:It's been that way, I guess, since the 50s, from my understanding.
Marc:But you don't have to be vocal or get a swastika tattoo.
Guest:No, and I'll tell you the interesting thing is, I've always said, like, you don't hear, like, you know, if you hear somebody, like, dropping N-bombs or, you know, calling somebody a cracker or whatever, from my experience, they've always got something to hide.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, like, like one time, this dude who was like, he had the swastikas and all this shit, and I remember, I was like, this motherfucker ain't right.
Guest:There's something not right about him.
Marc:Because he would talk so much.
Marc:Right on the surface, it's not right, but you're saying, there's a deeper wrong.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:than the swastika detective.
Guest:You know, I'm like, he's hiding something.
Guest:And sure as shit, like, he paroled.
Guest:Everybody, like, had this big meal for him, like, all right, brother, all this bullshit.
Guest:And he left, and the cop had the news on and turned the TV toward, you know, in the tower.
Guest:And it was him, and it was like, convicted pedophile, blah, blah, blah, got out of prison.
Guest:You know, and I'm like, fuck, I knew it.
Marc:So he was hiding that so that he wouldn't get killed in prison.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The swastikas, the whole, you know what I mean?
Guest:Loud mouth.
Guest:Because people, you know, everybody's really respectful of each other in there.
Guest:And nobody, I'm not saying people don't get raped, but of all the, I mean, I probably spent, not that much, like 14 months the first time, 12 months the second time, and six months the third time.
Guest:And then that five months in the county, that's the total time I've done.
Guest:So whatever that is, like about three years.
Guest:But nobody in any of those places I was in ever got raped.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There is a... To your knowledge.
Guest:To my knowledge, yeah.
Guest:I mean, there's a gay culture in there.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:There's quite a few, like...
Guest:you know, trans people or gay people or whatever, and they're in their own group or whatever, you know?
Guest:And they do their own thing, but they're treated with respect as well.
Guest:It's like everybody, you all respect everybody, because when there's a knife in the hand, everybody's a man.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's like, everybody bleeds the same.
Guest:But you learn like,
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:It's a really fucked up system.
Guest:Out of everybody I met, it's definitely thousands of people that I've been in prison with, literally.
Guest:And only two of them didn't drink or do drugs.
Guest:To get in there?
Guest:Alcoholically.
Guest:Only two, yep.
Guest:To get into prison.
Guest:Yeah, you know, either the crime was behind it.
Guest:I mean, it's not like, they're not like a sober dude.
Marc:Well, that's what I used to say when people want to get sober.
Marc:I said, the thing is, is that
Marc:It's not necessarily about the drug or the drink.
Marc:It just increases your odds exponentially of being in some fucked up situation out of your control.
Marc:Whether you're buying the drugs, whether it's who you're hanging out with, whether you're in a car with a fucking weirdo.
Marc:As soon as you start doing that shit, you just add a bunch of possibilities, none of them good, to getting fucked.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I just remember being on the road and being in hotel rooms, just being like, you know, who's the guy with the eye patch?
Marc:Who the fuck are these people, man?
Marc:Is that the guy I bought the drugs from?
Marc:Did he bring people?
Marc:Where's my shit?
Marc:And you're just like, how do you get out?
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:There's always an old guy named Pops involved.
Guest:You're like, who the fuck is Pops?
Marc:He's in the front room.
Marc:And then you walk back to Junior's.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's a fucking family affair.
Marc:Pop's told me to come back.
Marc:Are you junior?
Marc:Yeah, who the fuck are you?
Marc:I'm the guy buying the drugs?
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:So, okay, so how did you decide to get sober, though?
Guest:So, I paroled in the end of 97.
Guest:97?
Guest:Yeah, and I paroled for the last... Well, I paroled, and I was out for about 10 months, and I was...
Guest:I'm gonna say I was doing good in that I was only drinking after work.
Guest:Yeah, where were you working?
Guest:I installed fireplaces, I was a sheet metal worker.
Guest:You installed fireplaces?
Guest:Yeah, but you know the prefab, not the brick one, the prefab ones?
Marc:Yeah, just working.
Guest:Yeah, and I was doing that and I would just drink after work and then on the weekend,
Guest:I would drink quite a bit and I would do coke sometimes with the Cholo next door, this older Cholo lived next door.
Guest:But I was not hanging out with anybody, I was just hanging out with my girlfriend who I live with.
Guest:to my thing, and eventually, you know how it goes.
Guest:It's like, fuck, I was at my buddy's house, and he was doing crank, and I was like, do you have any more of that?
Guest:And he's like, fuck, you shouldn't be doing this.
Guest:And I'm like, and I did that, and then, fucking.
Marc:This is the exponential part of the story?
Guest:I went on a 24-day run, okay, stopped,
Guest:Stopped doing speed and only drank and smoked weed for six days until I had to test so it would be clean.
Guest:Gave the test.
Guest:Started doing speed again for 24 days.
Guest:Stopped.
Guest:Only drank and smoked weed for six days.
Guest:And the morning of the fucking... I made it all six days.
Guest:I was just short a few hours.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I fucked up and started doing the speed.
Guest:And when I went to...
Guest:i didn't go to test i called my parole or my parole officer called me goes i know you're loaded you want to run you want me to catch you or you want to turn yourself in and i was kind of like fuck i'll turn myself in well in the meantime i'd been that's he asked you those questions yeah swear to god he told the minute i got out this is how it works just you know if anybody's list is like when you get out it's not like the parole officer is not like trying to help you out he's like i got there and he goes you know i'd been gone for eight months or something he's like
Guest:All right, just so you know, it takes six days now to get methamphetamine out of your system, not three anymore like cocaine.
Guest:You know, they give you all the shit so you know what you're dealing with.
Guest:And there was also a guy at the Ballman Park.
Marc:Because that's how they want the best for you?
Guest:They're trying to give you a leg up?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Here's your leg up.
Marc:Six days it takes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, if you want it clean, six days.
Guest:But that's what I mean, they don't give a fuck.
Guest:It's a system designed to keep you in there.
Guest:And if you have any kind of drinking or drug problems, you'll go back.
Guest:And then for $110, the guy who picked up the piss test would swap your piss out.
Guest:Some cholo from Azusa told me that.
Guest:So he knew the dude.
Guest:So you could turn it into dirty.
Guest:If you paid this dude $110, he'd swap him out.
Guest:But...
Guest:so i anyway i kept my my friend got out of prison he was a very serious dude i think you might have met him a long time ago with the thing but he had gotten out and you know he had he'd been in prison for 11 years so the speed thing happened while he was in there yeah because you know it was much bigger than the cocaine thing is yeah because cheap yeah it was cheap and it's like and fuck you know like instead of being high for 20 minutes you're high for 24 hours yeah days days yeah
Guest:So he gets out, and he's a fucking hardened criminal.
Guest:And, dude, he literally, I swear to God, he looked at somebody else, like, going by, like, you know, some fucking dude on a three, like an adult on a three-wheeled bicycle, you know, going down the street.
Guest:And he looked at me, and he's like, what the fuck is going on here?
Guest:And I'm like, everybody's doing speed.
Guest:You know, but I'm like, all fucking sweaty.
Guest:Everybody's doing speed.
Guest:And he's like, but I kept...
Guest:I kept robbing people, right?
Guest:Like drug dealers.
Guest:And I didn't... When was this?
Guest:90... Like after you're out?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've been out 10 months.
Marc:While you're doing chimneys?
Marc:You're robbing people?
Guest:Well, I couldn't show up for work anymore.
Guest:You know how that goes.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:And I was just... So I was just in the speed mix.
Marc:Oh, for those 24-day peace periods?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it wasn't that long.
Guest:It was only, like I said, maybe two months that the run lasted.
Guest:But he had told me... Because I was so out of control.
Guest:You know, like scratching my nose and pulling my... Like I look like that...
Guest:If you watch the World Series, like that fucking Houston Astros coach.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like where he's like pinching his nose, pulling his ear, all that.
Guest:I was doing that all the time and sweaty.
Guest:Signaling Satan.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I'm coming in.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Come home, Satan.
Guest:That's exactly what the fuck I was doing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I went to this house to sell these people.
Guest:I've been selling these people drugs.
Guest:I got there, and this guy, Mark, I come in, and he just goes, Jesus Christ, man, you gotta lay off of that shit.
Guest:I mean, I'm selling it to him, and he's like, you are fucked up.
Guest:And I feel like I'm being a service, but he's bumming me out.
Guest:Well, do you to judge me.
Guest:Here's your shit.
Guest:I'm the one with the money, yeah.
Guest:So then my buddy had told me, he goes, hey, you ever thought about going into a program?
Guest:And I, I, I hadn't, you know, we had friends who, when you say you're robbing people, just houses.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, uh, like these, this drug dealer couple had left this safe at this house.
Guest:I cracked into the, not like I'm a safe cracker.
Guest:Let me rephrase that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a pretty shitty, like fireproof safe.
Guest:Like you could do it with a hammer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I wish it was glamorous.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that kind of shit, and then, like, you know, not paying drug dues.
Guest:But I was doing it because I knew people knew how close him and I were.
Guest:Who?
Marc:You and the 11-year hardened criminal?
Guest:Yeah, and everybody in the whole fucking San Diego Valley is scared of him.
Guest:Yeah, for good fucking reason, you know?
Guest:But it was just one of those things, you know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, where they're like, I don't know.
Guest:It's like if I'm thinking like, man, I sure am fucking mad at you, Mark, but you're hanging out with this fucking Navy SEAL all the time.
Guest:It's like the ghetto version of a Navy SEAL.
Marc:Sure, yeah, but the problem with that is as soon as that guy goes back to jail, you're fucked.
Marc:I'm fucked, yeah.
Guest:But you know, I'm on speed, so I'm just fucking winging it.
Guest:But they're complaining to him.
Guest:And he asked me if I want to go to a program.
Guest:And I said no.
Guest:And he goes, you got to quit doing that shit.
Guest:I said I would.
Guest:Speed only.
Guest:He said he didn't care if I drank or smoked weed, but I was too scandalous.
Guest:And he came to my house.
Guest:I told him I quit on a Thursday.
Guest:He came to my house on a Friday.
Guest:I was loaded.
Guest:And then I walked in a dope.
Guest:I knew I was in trouble, but I walked in a dope house later and two guys from his neighborhood, they're cholos.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Two guys from his neighborhood just beat the fuck out of me.
Guest:And like, I mean, I touched every wall of the living room.
Guest:They robbed me.
Guest:I got everything handed back to me.
Guest:And then he showed up.
Guest:Your buddy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He goes, you ready to go into a program?
Guest:So this is the, his intro.
Guest:That was my intervention.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:All fucked up, like fucked up lip, loose teeth and shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went there and I guess the end of 98.
Guest:And then I was just like, that's a very easy place for me because I'm used to doing time and stuff.
Guest:You know, there's a regiment.
Guest:So it's really easy if you've been doing time.
Guest:It's the ideal place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and it worked.
Guest:It worked, because it was like we were talking about earlier.
Guest:I've always got on with you.
Guest:People that laugh a lot, I get on good with.
Guest:I fucking stay dummy free.
Guest:I don't fuck with anybody who's miserable or complaining about fucking shit all the time, because I know where that's going to end up, and I don't want to be like that.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Guest:Where does that end up?
Guest:Loaded.
Guest:Oh, right.
Marc:I see what you're saying.
Marc:I mean, for me, it usually ends up back in prison, but...
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you're saying that that mindset of like, you know, I'm fucked or fuck that guy.
Marc:Like if you don't process the resentments or work the steps enough to where you can't get out from under that shit, you got no options at some point.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think if you're not helping other people, I think you're fucked.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that's just what I've seen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And but that's practical stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Simple stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you were never that guy really in recovery.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I mean, I'll do anything for anybody I can to help them get off drugs or alcohol.
Guest:Anybody.
Guest:But you learned early on that that is the ticket to staying sober.
Guest:Yeah, and I think it's a fairly easy one.
Guest:I mean, I'm sure you have too.
Guest:We always have friends who are like, it's a cult.
Guest:I'm like, that's a cheap fucking cult.
Marc:The best one I heard was that some guy, he told his sponsor that he was being brainwashed.
Marc:And his sponsor says, well, maybe your brain needs washing.
Yeah.
Marc:that's fucking true though it is true you hear shit from new dudes like that like there's these who cares the fucking thing is it's like it is such what i've learned over time is that you know all that shit is really just excuses that when people say that's a disease talking it clearly is it's like fine you're right it's a cult that costs no money at all you can do whatever the fuck you want it yeah you know
Guest:yeah yeah you're right yeah maybe you should find something else well also because they're like it's those dudes you know like you hear like the dudes who are like that you're like and you know you're like fuck man two weeks ago you were sucking dicks for cocaine you know what I mean like now you're mad that you're in a cult yeah of sober people exactly because they pray at the end it's like I never but the fucked up thing the people that really survive it like if they're not too belligerent
Marc:You know, like I thought it's like I know there's a lot of things in the program I don't do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, and I fight it and I push back and I, you know, and I get, you know, for years I was just like, fuck this.
Marc:I don't want to do this.
Marc:But but you also realize eventually it's like, well, the shit here I can use.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's the best advice.
Marc:Take what you can use.
Marc:Leave the rest.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's that.
Marc:You know, you can't work it perfectly or whatever.
Marc:And you know what the fucked up thing is?
Marc:It doesn't work for most people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, most you're right about that.
Marc:Like, that's just like it.
Marc:There's no myth to it.
Marc:And someone called me out on that recently in that, like, you should say that there's other ways to get sober.
Marc:I don't care how you get sober.
Marc:This is happening.
Marc:I just went old school, you know, and that's just the way it worked out for me.
Marc:But there's other ways to do it.
Marc:But the success rate on any of them, who knows long term?
Marc:A lot of people come into AA and they realize that they were just, you know, that they just had a problem for a while.
Marc:Fucking lucky them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, but I'm just not that way.
Marc:Because if I think about it now, it's like there's no reason not to just keep doing whatever it is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you know what I mean?
Marc:It's like, why would I start that if I wasn't going to finish?
Marc:It's still available.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, when you think like that people, well, people like you and I, it's like, you know, like, if something running out, that's not enough reason to stop.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, there is no more.
Guest:Hold on.
Marc:There's gotta be some more somewhere.
Marc:Or a new thing.
Marc:Is there a new thing?
Marc:Is there anything like it?
Marc:Something similar some guy has?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so how does it, so you're sober, and I see you for years, and obviously you're doing the service and doing everything else, but how do you get from prison to wardrobe?
Marc:When I heard you were a wardrobe guy, I'm like, I don't know that guy at all.
Marc:And then I started to notice, like, he does dress pretty snappy.
Guest:I fucking, you know, I started as a production assistant, which you can imagine, like, I mean, and
Guest:Coming where I'm from, if you're from Covina, I made $175 a day on a flat.
Marc:On a flat?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So no overtime.
Guest:This is in 99 or whatever, 2000.
Guest:But I was also fresh in the program, so I was doing anything, whatever's in front of me.
Marc:And you met someone in show business and they told you this is a gig that's there you can do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My friend's sister produced commercials or music videos.
Guest:I started doing that.
Guest:And then I'm like, and I've always been into, well, number one, like in the 80s, I was a punker, so I did a lot of thrift shop.
Guest:And then when I was doing speed, I like to, I've spent more than eight hours at a single yard sale before.
Guest:So I know, literally, I'm not.
Guest:So you were the guy that the people who owned the house were in the house going like, what's he doing?
Guest:Can we get him?
Guest:Dude, one time we, fuck, so we pull up at this house.
Guest:It's a Thursday.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The best I can explain it to you is... It was a yard sale?
Guest:It was a yard sale, but on a Thursday.
Guest:And literally, we pulled up in front of it, me and my friend Simone, and I, Mark, on my mother's eyes, I literally pulled up in front of it, I'm sweaty and high and shit, and I go,
Guest:I literally was like, I am the luckiest man in the world, because this is a Thursday yard sale.
Guest:Nobody knows about it.
Guest:I'm the only one here.
Guest:And they get out, and I start to walk up.
Guest:It's an old lady and a little girl who's probably like 10.
Guest:They're just sitting there chatting.
Guest:Start buying shit.
Guest:And I mean, I am fucking sweaty and high.
Guest:And I look.
Guest:And in the back, I'm always looking for old Hawaiian shirts and shit.
Guest:I look in the back of the garage and there's a pearlator hat, like on a vice, right?
Guest:An old vice, probably from the 50s.
Guest:And I look and the old lady had told me she sold the house and I go, her husband had passed away.
Guest:I go, what about his vice?
Guest:And she goes, I don't know, they'll probably just tear it down.
Guest:I go, what?
Guest:She goes, they'll tear, I go, they can't fucking have this, I just got in that thing.
Guest:I buy like two pairs of pliers from her that are probably from the 60s, two pairs of pliers, and dude, I went back in that garage and I was there for six hours, fucking, with everything I had taking that vase off, with not even a wrench, two pairs of pliers.
Guest:My friend Simone, he's like, can I take the car?
Guest:I'm like, go ahead.
Guest:Dude, he was gone, I had to page him to come back, and I got the whole vice off and just gave it to her and left.
Guest:She was probably like, what the fuck is wrong?
Guest:There's just sweat and sawdust everywhere, you know?
Guest:And you thought you'd like, I helped her out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, look what I did for you.
Guest:Isn't she lucky?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, fuck, she's so lucky I came here.
Guest:You didn't even take the vice.
Guest:No.
Guest:I bought the shirt off a dude's back of the yard so another time.
Marc:So you were kind of, that was your thing?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You like shopping for stuff?
Guest:Yeah, I like costumes and stuff.
Marc:So you started as a PA and then you were wardrobe PA?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was a wardrobe PA, and then I became a wardrobe assistant for probably two years.
Guest:And then I became a costume designer and a stylist probably about a year later.
Guest:But also, it's like a lot of principles.
Guest:I'm just like, I don't complain.
Guest:I'll do whatever they ask.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And when I was an assistant, I think I had a big advantage because there's not that many straight dudes who want to do it.
Guest:And if you're doing something with armor and shit, you can carry a lot of that shit.
Guest:So I worked all the time.
Guest:and then I became the boss, and I've been doing that for probably 17 years, I guess, now.
Marc:You're in the union?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's great?
Marc:It's great.
Marc:You're always working?
Marc:Yeah, I work a lot, yeah.
Marc:I work more than most.
Marc:What gets you excited?
Marc:When you have to do a production, what do you sort of go like, oh, this is going to be fun to buy clothes for?
Guest:Period clothes.
Marc:Which period?
Guest:Any of them?
Guest:60s, 70s.
Guest:I don't mind doing 20s and 30s, but they're not as exciting as the 60s and 70s and early 80s.
Guest:well when you get that stuff are there just like are there places that have that shit you just rent most of it or how does it work yeah we rent uh well like there's a there's a place in the vat there's a place in the valley that has a great like western and period and then western costume itself uh there's western costume united america and they have like all this vintage stuff but i think like you know when you were in the joker because i know mark bridges did that who's pretty phenomenal who's in brooklyn
Guest:Oh, was it in Brooklyn?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I feel like he might have made all your guys' stuff.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:Like, is he a big dude?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I met that guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, he's a sweet guy with a beard, I think.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he's a good guy.
Guest:Yeah, he's very thoughtful.
Guest:But, like, in that case, I think he made all your guys' stuff.
Marc:Oh, he did?
Marc:Well, because, you know, it's like.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I tried on a couple of suits.
Marc:Maybe not for my part.
Marc:You know, maybe for the leads.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I remember there was a couple of options.
Marc:And, you know, I don't know.
Marc:I didn't get the feeling that he made them.
Guest:He definitely made The Joker, obviously, that one.
Guest:But I just assumed he did because it shot in Brooklyn.
Guest:There's not a lot of stuff to rent in New York.
Guest:I mean, you can rent it from here.
Guest:Maybe he did that and took it out there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I just remember there was a few options, and they seemed like fairly classic stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:There's a lot of it around.
Marc:That period, I would think.
Marc:What was that?
Guest:Not for fat dudes, though.
Guest:You know who are real big guys?
Guest:Like if you're like 6'5 or something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's not much at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:For big.
Guest:And then you just got to get it made?
Guest:You have to make it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you like staying in commercials?
Marc:Do you want to do features or what?
Marc:I want to do features and stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How do you get into that thing?
Guest:just I think somebody that you know you're doing a commercial with is ideally doing you know what I mean he goes on to make a feature yeah like working with that guy yeah yeah like my buddy does like a bunch of TV you know Jody does like Eastbound and Down and all that oh yeah I think I'm gonna go do something with him he's great you know oh yeah that's those guys are fun they're fucking great yeah
Marc:Well, I'm glad that our hobbies are different now.
Marc:I think we're better off.
Marc:So the podcast is just sort of a... What is it?
Marc:You like doing it.
Guest:Well, we're always telling stories.
Guest:I mean, you and I have told stories.
Guest:And I love stories.
Guest:And also because I hear shit all the time.
Marc:It sounds like demon fellowship.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I also like that it's like...
Guest:Everybody we've had on and everything, everybody has a story, and they're pretty funny.
Guest:There's a great one you gotta listen to with Blackie from Urge Overkill.
Guest:Did you hear that one?
Guest:No.
Guest:You gotta listen to that one.
Guest:It's the drummer from Urge Overkill.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But he told this fucking pretty heavy ghost story that's insane.
Marc:I moved a chair with my mind on blue.
Guest:No way.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:I'm pretty sure.
Marc:It's a lot of energy coming off of me.
Marc:I remember remembering it.
Guest:Dude, that's amazing.
Guest:They went to Stull, Kansas.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:With the band?
Guest:with urge uh yeah well it was like them and they were touring with nirvana they were opening for nirvana yeah yeah and they were playing in like fuck i can't remember some big town in kansas but it was halloween so they decided to go out there yeah and dude he said it was just it was like a twilight zone movie like the fucking towns people were staring at him and shit and i bet the van move all this crazy shit but um uh
Guest:So I like doing it because I also think I'm hoping, I mean, I hope people get a laugh out of it, but I also hope people fucking, it's a deterrent for, you know, because like me and Danny, like a lot of us, you know, ended up in jail a lot of times behind it.
Guest:And, you know, it's like most of the people that I've been in prison with that are doing life in prison,
Guest:Most of them are fucked up when they do something to get life in prison.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like some guy's hammered and walks in a house and kills everybody or drunk driving and kills, you know, kill somebody doing that.
Guest:It's almost always alcohol.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:Well, I hope that's the way it works.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:If you guys don't make it sound too fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's funny now.
Guest:It wasn't that fun at the time, you know?
Guest:I realize, like, I'm like, there's a lot.
Guest:I'm sure it's the same for you.
Guest:A lot of years, it wasn't that fun, you know?
Guest:I don't know, man.
Marc:Like, it's just, I just remember one time, like, I was...
Marc:I was in the hotel room here, and I was taking, I think I was on some sort of antidepressant.
Marc:I think I was on Wellbutrin or something.
Marc:And I was doing blow, and I was laying in the bed, and there was no way I was sleeping, and I'd taken a few Ambien to try to get to sleep, and my arm started doing that CP thing, like the palsy thing.
Marc:It started curling in, and I couldn't uncurl it.
Marc:And there's that moment where you're like, I'm just gonna ride this out.
Marc:You know, like...
Marc:Because you're a doctor?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's nothing fun about, like, I hope this doesn't stick.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like, in just those moments where you're laying in bed, you know, and you're alone, and you're just about to just die.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's the fucking, it's horrendous.
Guest:And that's, like, most of it.
Guest:That's the majority of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's not, like, I always say it was fun in the beginning, but when you end up with shit like that, you know, when you think that, like,
Guest:I mean, there's no fucking way you or I should give ourselves or anyone else medical advice.
Guest:No.
Guest:And you look at your arm, which could have, I would have thought.
Marc:I was having a seizure or something.
Guest:Yeah, or a stroke or something.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And like, but that's where, you know, you get where you think like, oh, I'll be okay.
Marc:Oh, let's be grateful for a minute.
Marc:We're not living that life anymore.
Marc:So it's called It's All Bad.
Marc:It's All Bad, yeah.
Marc:Well, I'm glad you survived.
Marc:It was great talking to you, and thanks for doing it.
Marc:And people will maybe go listen to the pirates laughing.
Guest:Thank you so much for having me, Mark.
Guest:Yeah, buddy.
Guest:It was awesome.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Keith's podcast.
Marc:It's all bad.
Marc:You can get it wherever you get podcasts.
Marc:All right?
Marc:All right.
Marc:Happy Thanksgiving.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Okay?
Marc:That was a different time.
Marc:It was a different time when I started this episode.
Marc:Remember back then?
Marc:About 20 minutes ago?
Marc:It was a different time then.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Boomer lives!
you