Episode 1555 - Clarence Maclin

Episode 1555 • Released July 11, 2024 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fuck Canadians?

00:00:15Marc:What's happening?

00:00:16Marc:I'm Mark Marin and this is my podcast.

00:00:18Marc:Welcome to it.

00:00:19Marc:How's it going by you?

00:00:21Marc:What's happening?

00:00:22Marc:Is it hot?

00:00:23Marc:Is it fucking hot?

00:00:24Marc:How hot is it where you are?

00:00:27Marc:Is it raining?

00:00:28Marc:Is it blowing apocalyptic wind?

00:00:31Marc:Are buildings falling down?

00:00:33Marc:How's the summer going?

00:00:35Marc:Where are you at right now?

00:00:36Marc:Are you cooking?

00:00:37Marc:Are you driving?

00:00:38Marc:Are you on a bike?

00:00:40Marc:Are you on a treadmill?

00:00:41Marc:I think it might be time to get off the treadmill and actually start running.

00:00:45Marc:Go for it.

00:00:47Marc:Run!

00:00:50Marc:Look, you guys, how's everything going?

00:00:53Marc:I don't know how you're doing.

00:00:54Marc:I'm okay.

00:00:54Marc:I'm in Vancouver.

00:00:56Marc:I'm sitting here looking out a window over the city of Vancouver.

00:00:58Marc:It seems very peaceful.

00:01:00Marc:The weather's been beautiful.

00:01:02Marc:I've been cooking all day for the week.

00:01:06Marc:I'm trying to get the shit done, trying to have a life outside my head.

00:01:16Marc:Do you understand?

00:01:17Marc:Do you understand what it's like when you live in your head?

00:01:20Marc:The acting's helping.

00:01:21Marc:It's kind of interesting, though.

00:01:23Marc:I do have these moments.

00:01:24Marc:Like today, we were on set for all day inside a soundstage where they have a deconstructed RV, which is the RV, the exact RV that we're using to drive across country in this show.

00:01:39Marc:But it's just in the middle of the soundstage.

00:01:41Marc:And you can pull pieces out of it.

00:01:43Marc:You can move walls.

00:01:45Marc:You have complete access and you can shoot without the elements.

00:01:49Marc:And it's kind of fascinating sometimes when you're walking into a big black sound stage, dark, and you kind of walk around and then you just enter this other world.

00:01:58Marc:And I don't know what it is.

00:02:01Marc:Either you can do it or you can't.

00:02:03Marc:Either you can sit in an RV that's missing a side or surrounded by cameras or sitting on an Apple box instead of a chair to be an eyeline for someone else and completely believe you're in the RV.

00:02:18Marc:Not even think about it.

00:02:20Marc:I think that should be probably the first lesson of acting school to see if you can do that.

00:02:25Marc:Can you pretend that you're not where you're doing whatever acting you're doing in the sense of like, it's not a real situation.

00:02:35Marc:Can you pretend that it is?

00:02:37Marc:There you go.

00:02:39Marc:That's the first semester.

00:02:42Marc:What's going on?

00:02:43Marc:I talked to I was working with Owen today, Owen Wilson.

00:02:47Marc:It was funny because I watched I've watched like since I'm up here, I'm watching or rewatching a lot of films.

00:02:53Marc:I've watched two with Owen.

00:02:55Marc:So it's kind of interesting to kind of, you know, casually bring up like, yeah, so Inherent Vice, you know, what was how was that for you?

00:03:03Marc:I rewatched Inherent Vice.

00:03:04Marc:I'm not going to start rambling about that.

00:03:06Marc:Let me talk about I will, but not not right now.

00:03:11Marc:I want to talk about my guest today.

00:03:12Marc:This guy is kind of an amazing guy.

00:03:17Marc:His name's Clarence Macklin.

00:03:19Marc:He's one of the leads in this new film, Sing Sing, with Coleman Domingo.

00:03:25Marc:But he wasn't a professional actor before this.

00:03:28Marc:The acting he did before this movie was in prison.

00:03:31Marc:And the movie is based on the real-life story of Clarence and other incarcerated men at Sing Sing Prison in New York.

00:03:38Marc:And I had no idea the depth of this guy in this program.

00:03:44Marc:I was kind of aware of the organization Rehabilitation Through the Arts because that's where my producer, Brendan's wife works, Dawn.

00:03:54Marc:And I watched the movie Sing Sing.

00:03:57Marc:I knew she worked in the prisons with these guys doing theater, but I didn't know the effect of it or the organization of it.

00:04:05Marc:So I watched the movie and then I also watched a documentary about RTA called dramatic escape, which was filmed leading up to Clarence's release from prison.

00:04:16Marc:But this guy was awesome.

00:04:18Marc:And I watched the movie, not really knowing the backstory.

00:04:22Marc:Like I didn't watch the documentary first.

00:04:25Marc:I watched the movie with Coleman Domingo and there are scenes in the prison yard.

00:04:28Marc:There's scenes with him and Coleman where he shows up and I'm like, who the fuck is this guy?

00:04:34Marc:I've never seen this guy before.

00:04:35Marc:He's nailing this shit.

00:04:37Marc:I mean, he is raw as fuck.

00:04:39Marc:He's like real deal.

00:04:41Marc:And then I find out, yeah, he is the real deal.

00:04:45Marc:But it's a fascinating thing because of the success rate of it.

00:04:48Marc:That if you engage these guys in this process, there's so much that can be...

00:04:54Marc:It has a profound effect on their humanity, their focus, their time in prison, their understanding of empathy.

00:05:04Marc:It's really a kind of a moving thing that makes you believe that...

00:05:11Marc:rehabilitation is possible and real if these people are given an opportunity to engage in a way that allows them to be vulnerable in a safe space and also reflect through art on their own lives and perhaps what they've done.

00:05:29Marc:I also saw some Instagram reel about this program that puts cats in prisons, like cats that would generally be in a shelter.

00:05:39Marc:And it makes total sense.

00:05:41Marc:A cat's like a perfect prison animal.

00:05:45Marc:Because you really have to earn the relationship and the kind of relationship you have is not as demanding as a dog.

00:05:52Marc:And you don't necessarily ever feel completely in the pocket all the time with a cat, which I imagine is kind of how they might feel in reality.

00:06:04Marc:But it's these small things, these small efforts when people give a shit

00:06:11Marc:about what's going on in the prison population to sort of bring some humanity in there or try to engage in some vulnerable humanity for these people in prison that I think it seems can facilitate real change.

00:06:27Marc:So that was a very interesting conversation to have with Clarence.

00:06:31Marc:I'll be in Tucson, Arizona at the Rialto Theater on Friday, September 20th.

00:06:36Marc:I got the note, 20th, not 30th.

00:06:38Marc:I know I've been saying 30th.

00:06:41Marc:Then I'm in Phoenix at the Orpheum Theater on Saturday, September 21st.

00:06:45Marc:That's the day after.

00:06:47Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com for tickets.

00:06:50Marc:Also, if you're in the LA area this weekend, you can check out our recent guest, Alejandro Escovito, who is performing live at the Venice West tomorrow, July 12th, and at the Lodge Room in Highland Park,

00:07:02Marc:on saturday july 13th you can get tickets at aljandroescovito.com he's the real deal it's worth seeing he asked me if i was going to be in town and if i wanted to play a song with him i was like fuck i'm not going to be there and then he was like i told him i was in vancouver so then he's like well i'll be up in vancouver when did he say he was coming up here on july 28th and he's like you want to play with me there and i'm like yeah and

00:07:27Marc:Yes, I'd like to play some rock and roll with Alejandro Escovedo, please.

00:07:31Marc:Thank you.

00:07:32Marc:And I was like, what do you want to do?

00:07:33Marc:You want to do maybe a VU or some Iggy or some Stones?

00:07:38Marc:And then he suggested Hurricane by Neil Young and Beast of Burden by the Stones.

00:07:42Marc:Now I got to learn those.

00:07:43Marc:Now I got to learn those and not panic.

00:07:47Marc:Yeah, so I've been watching these.

00:07:48Marc:I'm going to be honest with you because I just realized it.

00:07:51Marc:You know, as much as I've talked about the movie Michael Clayton,

00:07:56Marc:which is a lot.

00:07:58Marc:I love it.

00:07:59Marc:That's a rewatch.

00:08:01Marc:A lot.

00:08:02Marc:But I've also found there's a new one in the fold.

00:08:06Marc:There's a new rewatch in the fold.

00:08:08Marc:I found myself, I think I've watched the movie Sicario,

00:08:13Marc:probably three or four times in the last six months.

00:08:16Marc:And I just watched it again yesterday.

00:08:18Marc:And then I watched the very end again today.

00:08:21Marc:Uh, it's, it is a beautifully structured movie, beautifully acted, very compelling.

00:08:27Marc:I just fucking love that movie.

00:08:29Marc:And it's one of those movies.

00:08:30Marc:It's a grownup fucking movie.

00:08:32Marc:It's deeper than it comes off to be.

00:08:35Marc:It unfolds.

00:08:36Marc:It,

00:08:36Marc:the plot is spectacular man what a great movie so that's that's i'm finding that i'm re-watching that and on the other side of the spectrum the other thing that i re-watch and some of you know this and i can't explain it but i just paid to watch the devil wears prada again again

00:08:58Marc:So what does that mean?

00:09:01Marc:What does it mean that the two movies that I'm rewatching and that I have rewatched many times in my life outside of Michael Clayton are Sicario and The Devil Wears Prada?

00:09:12Marc:I think that gives me a lot of range.

00:09:14Marc:I think that I got a pretty broad personality, I guess.

00:09:19Marc:Or maybe I need to really take a look inside to see what's going on.

00:09:24Marc:Turn down the dopamine volumes.

00:09:26Marc:Let's fucking turn it down a little bit.

00:09:29Marc:Stop putting nicotine in your goddamn mouth every five minutes.

00:09:33Marc:Take a break.

00:09:34Marc:Kind of breathe.

00:09:36Marc:What is it?

00:09:37Marc:What lives between Sicario and the devil wears Prada?

00:09:41Marc:Mark, who are you in there?

00:09:44Marc:Mark, what's happening?

00:09:48Marc:I did just watch Inherent Vice again.

00:09:51Marc:It was very helpful.

00:09:53Marc:I've watched a couple of movies, but Inherent Vice, it's based on a Thomas Pynchon book, a later Thomas Pynchon book.

00:09:59Marc:It is a very hippie kind of conspiracy, kind of lyrical, satirical examination of the cultural mindset of that turning point in the 70s, early 70s.

00:10:16Marc:of takes place in California.

00:10:19Marc:But I realized watching it this time that it's really taken directly from the book and people don't talk like that.

00:10:29Marc:But it's a great book.

00:10:30Marc:And because I'm working on a screenplay with Sam Lipsight based on the book that he wrote, we're kind of coming into these same sort of questions about what can actors deliver?

00:10:41Marc:What can they sell story-wise?

00:10:43Marc:What can they sell dialogue-wise?

00:10:45Marc:It's also a very convoluted, very funny Paul Thomas Anderson movie.

00:10:51Marc:Underrated.

00:10:52Marc:I will say that now.

00:10:53Marc:If only I could have the same experience with Big Lebowski after watching that fucking 20 times, that the second viewing of Inherent Vice, I'm like, goddamn, this might be one of the best weirdo noir movies and also representation of that late 60s, early 70s kind of crashing of the hippie wave mindset that was kind of taking over the country and the cultural point of view.

00:11:20Marc:It's kind of amazing.

00:11:21Marc:Josh Brolin's amazing.

00:11:24Marc:Joaquin is great.

00:11:26Marc:But Owen is in it.

00:11:28Marc:Owen Wilson, he plays a very kind of important role.

00:11:32Marc:He is what has to be saved at the end of the movie.

00:11:35Marc:His character.

00:11:37Marc:And I was talking to him, and I don't think he didn't seem to... I don't know if he...

00:11:43Marc:I don't know if anyone can have a full grasp of that story, but he was perfect for the role.

00:11:47Marc:It's kind of funny and amazing.

00:11:50Marc:And I re-watched Royal Tenenbaums recently, and he's great in that.

00:11:56Marc:And it's interesting that I can go to work and just kind of like not only act with this dude, but kind of bring up these moments where I'm like, yeah, I watched that in Heron Weiss.

00:12:06Marc:I thought you were great.

00:12:06Marc:And then he'll tell me a story about the movie, which is, it's fun, man.

00:12:13Marc:It's fun.

00:12:15Marc:He's a good guy.

00:12:15Marc:I can't share the stories because there is stories, but I can tell you it's a good time.

00:12:23Marc:Look, okay, so...

00:12:26Marc:I cooked chickpeas and kale for the week.

00:12:30Marc:I'm doing okay, people.

00:12:33Marc:I'm doing the thinking.

00:12:34Marc:I'm starting to realize that...

00:12:38Marc:that a lot of times I can't understand why people don't think the things that I think are bad and think the things that I think are good.

00:12:46Marc:I can't understand why they don't think the same as me.

00:12:51Marc:And I know that that's selfish and self-centered and weird, but there are moments where I'm like, I don't understand why something's popular.

00:13:00Marc:And somehow or another, my brain equates that with like, well, it can't be that popular.

00:13:04Marc:I mean, if I don't like, but I barely like, you know, it's,

00:13:07Marc:It's just a strange thing to kind of reel in those tendrils of self-centeredness to the point where you're like, hey, man, everyone likes different things.

00:13:16Marc:I don't have to understand why they like it.

00:13:18Marc:And maybe I should try to see why they like it.

00:13:20Marc:And that's what I do.

00:13:22Marc:But there is an innate kind of reflex like, who's watching that?

00:13:26Marc:Oh, millions of people.

00:13:27Marc:Oh, well, then they must be wrong.

00:13:31Marc:It's the wrong voice to honor, kind of, isn't it?

00:13:35Marc:I don't know.

00:13:35Marc:Look.

00:13:38Marc:Clarence Macklin is kind of an amazing and inspiring success story.

00:13:45Marc:The movie he's in is called Sing Sing, and it opens in theaters tomorrow, July 12th.

00:13:51Marc:And this is the conversation we had back at the house.

00:14:01¶¶

00:14:04Marc:It's exciting, man.

00:14:05Marc:It's good to meet you.

00:14:06Marc:Good to meet you as well, man.

00:14:09Marc:I'll just start off by saying I love the movie, but your performance was pretty fucking great.

00:14:15Marc:Thank you so much.

00:14:18Marc:Like, I'm watching that movie, and I know the other guy, the lead.

00:14:22Marc:Coleman?

00:14:23Marc:Yeah.

00:14:23Marc:Great guy.

00:14:24Marc:Yeah.

00:14:24Marc:Seems like a good guy.

00:14:25Marc:I'm watching it, and I've seen him in things.

00:14:28Marc:And then you come on, and I'm like, who the fuck is this guy?

00:14:30Ha, ha, ha, ha.

00:14:32Marc:Where'd this guy come from?

00:14:34Marc:Is he like a regular actor?

00:14:35Marc:Where the fuck did he come from?

00:14:37Marc:I've never seen this guy before.

00:14:41Marc:That scene where, you know, before you lock in and he's being too familiar, you know, and you just shut him down with that look in your eye.

00:14:52Marc:I'm like, this guy's got to be real.

00:14:57Marc:That doesn't seem like acting to me.

00:15:02Guest:Yeah, well, there are some elements of me in there.

00:15:06Marc:Yeah, of course.

00:15:08Marc:But the thing is, like, I watch the...

00:15:11Marc:I watched the movie and then I watched the documentary.

00:15:15Marc:Dramatic Escape?

00:15:16Marc:Yeah.

00:15:16Marc:Okay.

00:15:17Marc:So I get the full range of what the RTA is about.

00:15:25Marc:And through the two of them, after watching the documentary and then watching the movie and also doing some acting myself.

00:15:34Marc:Yeah.

00:15:35Marc:I think what it does is that it really shows how important almost any art is.

00:15:43Guest:Right.

00:15:44Guest:Art is encompassing of all forms.

00:15:47Guest:Yeah.

00:15:49Marc:And just the idea that we need it to make us more human.

00:15:54Marc:Yes.

00:15:55Marc:So it kind of blew my mind in terms of how...

00:16:01Marc:When you're in prison and, you know, people get out and a lot of people don't stay out.

00:16:08Marc:But with this program, a lot of people do because they learn something deeply valuable.

00:16:14Guest:Yes.

00:16:15Marc:So and like just in terms of when you think about acting or you think about writing or you think about, you know, you kind of know in your head it's important as good people are doing that.

00:16:25Marc:But when you see guys who have got nothing but time to process the depth of the thing, that it can really change your whole fucking brain.

00:16:36Guest:Right.

00:16:36Guest:It does.

00:16:37Guest:Yeah.

00:16:37Guest:It does because it draws something out of you.

00:16:39Guest:Right.

00:16:39Guest:Something that's already in there.

00:16:41Guest:Yeah.

00:16:42Guest:It's already in all of us.

00:16:43Guest:Yeah.

00:16:44Guest:Art is a tool to draw that thing out.

00:16:46Marc:Yeah.

00:16:47Marc:The humanity.

00:16:47Marc:Right.

00:16:48Marc:Exactly.

00:16:49Marc:Because, and I think that it's sort of like, it's almost like, it's not an experiment, but

00:16:55Marc:But when you got guys in there, you know, just sitting every day with their shame or with their anger.

00:17:01Marc:Right.

00:17:02Marc:And not being able to unlock.

00:17:04Guest:With those different layers of trauma.

00:17:06Guest:Yeah.

00:17:06Guest:That they never get to process from years and years ago.

00:17:09Guest:Yeah.

00:17:10Guest:Art gives you the permission, the blueprint to peel those layers back.

00:17:15Guest:Yeah.

00:17:16Guest:And deal with those.

00:17:17Marc:Right, and also just to experience different lives.

00:17:20Marc:Right.

00:17:21Marc:In the character, right?

00:17:23Marc:Right.

00:17:23Marc:To know you're not the only one that has been through this.

00:17:26Marc:Yeah, and some of those, like I think you did Oedipus, right?

00:17:30Guest:Yeah, I did Oedipus.

00:17:30Guest:Oedipus Rex was one of my favorite roles.

00:17:34Marc:Yeah, and that's not like, it's not everybody that has that experience.

00:17:39Marc:Right.

00:17:40Marc:Right.

00:17:41Marc:But the depth of it, because of the way it's written, shows the humanity.

00:17:46Guest:And it boils down to choices in facing trauma rather than running away from it.

00:17:51Guest:This is what Oedipus really is about.

00:17:53Guest:Because he ran away from a prediction that was predicted to happen.

00:17:57Guest:So he ran from where he thought it was going to happen and ran right to the same thing he was running from.

00:18:05Guest:He ran right into it.

00:18:06Guest:So had you stood your ground, had you stood where you were in life, in your position, in your convictions, stand on it rather than run.

00:18:16Guest:Right.

00:18:17Marc:You know?

00:18:17Marc:Yeah.

00:18:18Marc:Or just do the opposite.

00:18:20Marc:Because, you know, there's so many times because I think about...

00:18:24Marc:The things that hold us back just as people, whatever it is.

00:18:27Marc:There's a whole spectrum of them.

00:18:28Marc:But there's sometimes there's something in you that's going to fuck you from the inside.

00:18:33Marc:More times than not.

00:18:34Marc:Right.

00:18:36Marc:Even when you know it's there.

00:18:38Marc:You know what I mean?

00:18:38Marc:You're like, it's doing it again.

00:18:40Marc:Like you don't have any power over it.

00:18:41Marc:Right, right.

00:18:42Marc:That was the good thing about that character you played in the movie.

00:18:45Marc:You know, because he...

00:18:46Marc:He knew.

00:18:47Marc:And I imagine, you know, as you did that, you know, there was some part of you that was wired in deep and it wasn't correct.

00:18:57Marc:Right.

00:18:58Guest:Right.

00:18:59Guest:It wasn't right.

00:19:00Guest:Something is wrong.

00:19:01Guest:Yeah.

00:19:02Guest:It basically comes from the way you perceive your world around you.

00:19:05Marc:Well, what was your story?

00:19:06Marc:How did you come into it?

00:19:07Marc:Because, you know, I know, you know, my producer, my business partner on this, Brendan McDonald, he's Don's husband.

00:19:14Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:19:14Marc:Great guy, too.

00:19:15Guest:Great guy.

00:19:16Marc:Yeah.

00:19:16Marc:Smart guy.

00:19:17Marc:Yeah.

00:19:17Marc:But Don has been doing this for years.

00:19:19Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:19:19Marc:Working with the.

00:19:23Marc:Yeah.

00:19:23Guest:And you guys did some work together.

00:19:25Guest:Yeah, me and Dawn, we also did a communication through art program on Rikers Island.

00:19:30Guest:Yeah.

00:19:31Guest:Through RTA, of course.

00:19:33Guest:And we got to affect some lives there.

00:19:36Guest:Yeah.

00:19:37Marc:What was that one?

00:19:38Guest:That was about, you know, we took famous portraits from MoMA.

00:19:42Guest:Yeah.

00:19:43Guest:And handed it to individuals who were in our groups.

00:19:47Guest:Yeah.

00:19:47Guest:With no...

00:19:48Guest:no history, anything about these portraits, and ask them to create a story around what they see.

00:19:54Guest:Really?

00:19:55Guest:Really.

00:19:56Guest:And some of the stories that they created, it reflected where they were in life and how they process.

00:20:03Guest:So once we got really, what made you make those choices?

00:20:07Guest:What caused you to, and then we get into their background, history, and their life, and we see what led to these choices that they made.

00:20:14Guest:You know, and we try to just, it's another way of peeling back the layers of trauma.

00:20:18Guest:Right.

00:20:18Guest:The unfortunate part is that we didn't have a long time with the guys.

00:20:22Guest:And that's usually the case.

00:20:24Guest:Like we just become, even though we know that this is necessary, we know that it's needed.

00:20:30Guest:We never get enough time to really, and I learned that with the kids too that I work with.

00:20:35Marc:You work with kids?

00:20:35Guest:Yeah, I work with at-risk teens.

00:20:38Guest:What defines an at-risk teen?

00:20:41Guest:Well, usually environment situations and, you know,

00:20:45Guest:growing up conditions and financial ability to get to where you need to be in life.

00:20:50Guest:And most of the kids we deal with are underdeveloped and underprivileged neighborhoods that don't really get to utilize a lot of the benefits of normal society.

00:21:04Guest:It don't trickle down that far.

00:21:07Guest:So we come in and we offer, I work with outreach teams from Harlem, from inner cities,

00:21:13Guest:in New York and Westchester County, up in Westchester County.

00:21:17Guest:Two particular programs.

00:21:18Guest:One is Successful Steps, and another one is 914 United.

00:21:22Marc:And I have to imagine that, you know, from your own experience and then coming out of your experience and having this wisdom about it, or having at least been able to allow yourself to be open enough

00:21:36Marc:To show hope, right?

00:21:38Marc:Yeah.

00:21:38Marc:You must see pretty dramatic change pretty regularly.

00:21:41Guest:I do.

00:21:42Guest:Yeah.

00:21:42Guest:But I'm really not enough.

00:21:45Guest:We need more.

00:21:46Guest:Yeah.

00:21:47Guest:I'm really not enough.

00:21:48Guest:You can't do it all yourself?

00:21:49Guest:I can't do it all.

00:21:49Guest:I'm sorry.

00:21:52Guest:We're all counting on you.

00:21:55Guest:When I was working in Lincoln Hall, I was working in Lincoln Hall with the at-risk teens, and a lot of these kids that I work with, they go back upstate when they're done with treatment or they're done with their programming.

00:22:07Guest:And I can't continue.

00:22:09Guest:We need other people to get involved in the neighborhood, where they come from.

00:22:16Guest:So when you send them to us and we only have this limited amount of time, they get the benefits of everything we have to offer.

00:22:23Guest:Yeah.

00:22:23Guest:But it's only for a short period of time.

00:22:25Marc:Yeah.

00:22:25Guest:And once they go back, they go right back into the same environments.

00:22:28Marc:Yeah.

00:22:29Marc:Because then there's the pressure.

00:22:31Marc:Yeah.

00:22:31Marc:Peer pressure.

00:22:32Guest:Peer pressure.

00:22:33Guest:Survival.

00:22:33Marc:Different elements.

00:22:34Marc:They got to eat.

00:22:35Marc:They got to do what they got to do.

00:22:37Marc:So when you came, when you got into the program, RTA, was it already existing?

00:22:43Marc:Yes, it was.

00:22:43Marc:It was already existing.

00:22:44Marc:So when did you first start?

00:22:46Marc:I came in probably like 2000, maybe, I think.

00:22:49Marc:And how long had you been in prison at that time?

00:22:51Marc:I came to prison in 1996.

00:22:52Marc:96.

00:22:55Marc:What changed?

00:22:55Marc:How'd you get, I mean, I know I saw the movie and it's kind of about you, no?

00:22:59Marc:Yeah, it's a little bit about me.

00:23:00Marc:Yeah.

00:23:01Marc:So you were just curious?

00:23:04Guest:Actually, what really got me into the program, I had came to the chapel because they closed the yard and I had to make a deal with somebody that was on the other side of the jail.

00:23:13Guest:So the only place we could do it was someplace where both sides of the jail meet.

00:23:17Guest:So we arranged to go to the chapel.

00:23:19Guest:It's a good place for deals.

00:23:20Guest:Yes, at the moment.

00:23:22Guest:It was a good place for deals.

00:23:26Guest:So when I get down here and they're putting on this play,

00:23:30Guest:I believe it was One Flew Over the Cuckoo.

00:23:33Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:34Guest:I believe that was the first one.

00:23:35Guest:That's a good one.

00:23:36Guest:And I'm noticing that a lot of these faces are guys that I see in population.

00:23:41Guest:I was under the impression that everyone on stage was somebody that came in from the outside.

00:23:47Guest:To do the show.

00:23:48Guest:To do the show.

00:23:49Guest:Right.

00:23:49Guest:And how I view things like that, I was, you know, because am I warped?

00:23:53Guest:Because am I justifying what I do?

00:23:55Guest:Yeah.

00:23:55Guest:I view things like that.

00:23:56Guest:Like a lot of these people just come in here and look at us like we're a tax write-off.

00:23:59Guest:Yeah.

00:24:00Guest:Something to make you sleep better at night.

00:24:02Guest:You came to help the poor prisoners.

00:24:04Guest:Yeah.

00:24:04Guest:You know?

00:24:05Guest:So I wasn't really too invested in that.

00:24:09Guest:Just fuckers.

00:24:11Guest:I wasn't really too invested in that.

00:24:13Guest:Yeah.

00:24:13Guest:But once I seen that these guys was up here and they're mingling with the civilians, you got women up there and everything.

00:24:21Guest:I'm in prison all the time.

00:24:22Guest:I wouldn't mind being around some women.

00:24:23Guest:You know what I'm saying?

00:24:25Right.

00:24:25Guest:And I had to take a year without getting any infractions in order to get in the program.

00:24:30Guest:Yeah.

00:24:31Guest:In order to get in, you have to have a clean, no tier three tickets or anything.

00:24:35Guest:What's a tier three ticket?

00:24:36Guest:Tier three is a serious infraction.

00:24:38Guest:Did you have some?

00:24:40Guest:I had a lot.

00:24:40Guest:Yeah.

00:24:41Guest:I had a lot of them.

00:24:41Guest:At the time, I was in trouble a lot.

00:24:43Guest:In prison.

00:24:44Guest:Yeah.

00:24:45Guest:Yeah.

00:24:46Marc:It continues.

00:24:47Marc:The behavior continues.

00:24:48Marc:Well, that was interesting, at least in the documentary series.

00:24:53Marc:The one one guy was talking about how, you know, whatever goes on outside is going to go on inside.

00:24:59Marc:Yeah.

00:24:59Marc:If you're that guy, you're that guy.

00:25:01Marc:That's a fact.

00:25:02Guest:In prison is a microcosm of the macro.

00:25:04Marc:Yeah.

00:25:05Guest:It's just more condensed.

00:25:06Marc:Yeah.

00:25:07Marc:Yeah.

00:25:08Marc:And there was a couple of moments in the movie, the moment in the movie when the big guy was talking about, you know, yeah, yeah.

00:25:16Marc:He's talking about sitting there eating lunch, and that guy gets his throat cut in front of him, and they all just sit there.

00:25:24Guest:With blood squirting on you and everything.

00:25:26Marc:Just wipe it all.

00:25:27Marc:Act like you ain't seen nothing.

00:25:29Marc:Right.

00:25:29Marc:We've been taught to believe that because of the nature of where we are, this is normal.

00:25:34Marc:Right.

00:25:34Marc:This just happens.

00:25:36Marc:It's fucking crazy.

00:25:37Marc:It's crazy, man.

00:25:38Marc:So what got you in there?

00:25:40Marc:What got me into the program?

00:25:41Marc:Into prison.

00:25:42Marc:What got me into prison?

00:25:44Guest:Robbery.

00:25:44Guest:Yeah.

00:25:45Guest:Your whole life?

00:25:46Guest:My whole life is violent.

00:25:47Guest:Yeah.

00:25:48Guest:Where'd you grow up?

00:25:49Guest:I grew up in Mount Vernon, New York.

00:25:50Guest:Yeah.

00:25:51Guest:And what was the situation?

00:25:53Guest:Well, I had a single parent mother.

00:25:54Guest:Yeah.

00:25:55Guest:She's still around?

00:25:56Guest:Yeah, my mom.

00:25:57Guest:She came to that South by Southwest with me.

00:25:59Guest:Yeah, she had a great time.

00:26:00Guest:Everybody treated her good.

00:26:02Guest:She met Coleman.

00:26:03Guest:Yeah.

00:26:03Guest:Everybody, she loved everybody.

00:26:04Guest:Everybody loved my mom.

00:26:06Guest:I can't imagine what it must feel like for her.

00:26:09Guest:Well, for me, it felt like this is like one of the first times I ever got to see my mother cry for something good that I did.

00:26:15Guest:Yeah.

00:26:16Guest:You know, normally when she cries for me, it's something bad that I did.

00:26:19Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:20Guest:And that made me reflect back to, like, I used to be in prison and sitting on my bunk wishing I could change that.

00:26:26Guest:Yeah.

00:26:26Guest:Because I used to envision my mother going into the building.

00:26:29Guest:I grew up in a project, so you know how nosy everybody is in a project.

00:26:32Guest:Yeah.

00:26:33Guest:I visioned my mother walking into the building and people pointing at her saying, yeah, that's his mother right there.

00:26:38Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:26:39Guest:The one.

00:26:40Guest:The bad.

00:26:40Guest:The bad guy.

00:26:41Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:26:42Guest:That's the bad guy's mom.

00:26:43Guest:Yeah.

00:26:43Guest:And that made me feel so bad, man.

00:26:46Guest:A whole life of that.

00:26:47Guest:Yeah.

00:26:48Guest:Made me feel so bad.

00:26:49Guest:So to see my mom cry for something good for me.

00:26:52Marc:And he just, he did such a good job, man.

00:26:54Marc:So when, when you were growing up, you didn't feel like, cause I, I have no real knowledge.

00:27:00Marc:I just had a comedian on, you know, Ali Sadiq.

00:27:04Marc:I heard of him.

00:27:04Marc:He's good, man.

00:27:06Marc:He was in prison for about six or seven years, and his whole act is a series of hour shows about his life before, after, in prison, and where he's at now, and he's just telling these stories.

00:27:19Marc:It's really kind of amazing.

00:27:22Marc:But...

00:27:23Marc:Coming from where I'm coming from, the representation of prison that I understand is only going to come through movies and through hearing things and hearing politics.

00:27:32Marc:I'm not a lefty guy, but the progressive ideas of this and that.

00:27:38Marc:But when you see it for real in the documentary and then in the movie, because it seems like the movie went out of its way to be very specific and not, you know, have a, you know, they wanted to be honest.

00:27:50Marc:Right, right.

00:27:51Marc:And those guys seem to work on that.

00:27:53Marc:But I mean, but what everybody talks about is that, you know, when you grow up a certain way, your choices are very limited.

00:28:00Marc:Yeah.

00:28:01Marc:And that's what you experience.

00:28:02Marc:Yeah.

00:28:02Marc:Limited choices.

00:28:04Yeah.

00:28:04Marc:And negative influences.

00:28:07Marc:Right.

00:28:07Marc:That's what Ali talks about in the special that, you know, the only reason he got into crime was because the guy who was doing the crime on the corner had a nice sweatsuit on.

00:28:16Marc:He's like, how can I get that sweatsuit?

00:28:19Guest:And it could be just that simple.

00:28:21Guest:It could be something just that simple that.

00:28:23Guest:And then you're in.

00:28:24Guest:And you're in.

00:28:25Guest:Yeah.

00:28:26Guest:For me, what got me into it was I fought a lot when I was younger.

00:28:30Guest:When I was younger, I fought a lot, and I fought a lot because of my younger brothers.

00:28:34Guest:Yeah.

00:28:34Guest:Because we was the poor kids on the block.

00:28:36Guest:Yeah.

00:28:36Guest:We didn't have much.

00:28:38Guest:And, you know, in our day, they used to call it cracking, when they crack on you about the things you got.

00:28:43Guest:Now, I'm good with you cracking.

00:28:44Guest:I can laugh with you.

00:28:45Guest:Yeah.

00:28:46Guest:But if you make my little brother cry, it's going to be a problem.

00:28:49Yeah.

00:28:49Guest:It's going to be a problem if my brother starts crying.

00:28:52Marc:And this is when you're what, like 11 or 12?

00:28:54Guest:Maybe 11, 12.

00:28:55Guest:Yeah.

00:28:56Guest:As I got older, I'm known as a fighter now.

00:28:58Guest:Now I'm fighting dudes and I'm taking your stuff now.

00:29:01Guest:Yeah.

00:29:02Guest:If you talk about my brother's sneakers, I'm going to take yours and give them to him.

00:29:06Guest:This is what's going to happen after the fight.

00:29:09You're Robin Hood.

00:29:09Yeah.

00:29:10Guest:And in my mind, I was justified.

00:29:12Guest:Sure.

00:29:13Guest:Yeah.

00:29:13Guest:In my mind, I'm completely 100% in the right.

00:29:17Marc:You learned your lesson.

00:29:19Marc:Now you don't have any sneakers.

00:29:20Yeah.

00:29:21Guest:How many brothers do you have?

00:29:23Guest:I got two younger brothers.

00:29:24Guest:They still good?

00:29:25Guest:Yeah, they're still good.

00:29:26Guest:One lives down south with my mom, and the other lives in New York.

00:29:29Guest:He lives in Harlem.

00:29:30Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:29:31Marc:Yeah.

00:29:31Marc:And did they come to see the movie?

00:29:32Marc:No, they didn't get a chance.

00:29:33Marc:They work a lot.

00:29:34Marc:Yeah?

00:29:35Guest:Maybe they'll get there.

00:29:35Guest:Well, they're going to get there to see it.

00:29:36Guest:They're going to get there.

00:29:38Guest:Yeah.

00:29:38Guest:So it goes from defending your brother to what?

00:29:41Guest:Defending my brother, like I said, I started taking these niggas and stuff like that, just turned into me just robbing people.

00:29:47Guest:Yeah.

00:29:47Guest:Me going to take what I want.

00:29:49Marc:Yeah.

00:29:50Marc:I mean, in the doc, you said you were pretty specific about who you robbed.

00:29:54Marc:Yeah, this is me justifying robbery again.

00:29:56Guest:This is me saying that I'm right.

00:29:59Guest:Because I only want to rob drug dealers.

00:30:02Guest:That's it.

00:30:03Guest:I'm not robbing a working person.

00:30:05Guest:I'm not sticking up the store.

00:30:08Marc:I'm not doing that.

00:30:08Guest:Yeah, this is bad money all around.

00:30:10Guest:I'm saying, my justification was like, if you're out in these streets and you're doing this dirt right here, you need to know it's a wolf out here.

00:30:16Guest:Yeah.

00:30:17Guest:You're going to feed the wolf or pay the wolf.

00:30:19Guest:Right.

00:30:20Guest:What you're going to do.

00:30:21Guest:Right.

00:30:21Guest:Yeah.

00:30:22Guest:You don't just come out here and pick gold off the streets and go home.

00:30:24Guest:Yeah.

00:30:25Guest:It's not what's going on.

00:30:26Guest:Yeah.

00:30:26Guest:You're in that business.

00:30:27Marc:I'm in the business of taking your business.

00:30:30Marc:Yeah.

00:30:30Marc:Right.

00:30:30Marc:So me justifying it again, you know.

00:30:33Marc:Yeah, but there's that there's that I guess there's that code that I think is hard for, you know, people who have not experienced to understand that there is a code to the whole thing.

00:30:43Marc:I mean, how do you not get killed robbing drug dealers?

00:30:46Guest:Because you got to be tough.

00:30:48Guest:The drug dealer ain't the one you got to worry about.

00:30:50Guest:It's the guy he pays to be the shooter.

00:30:52Marc:Yeah.

00:30:52Marc:Oh, right, right.

00:30:53Marc:And that can happen easy.

00:30:56Marc:That can happen easy.

00:30:57Marc:So are you amazed that you didn't get shot?

00:31:00Marc:Amazed that I'm still here.

00:31:01Guest:Amazed that I made it this far.

00:31:03Guest:Because there's been situations where I've been caught with no gun.

00:31:06Guest:And I had to bluff my way out of that.

00:31:08Marc:Well, there you go.

00:31:09Marc:That was your first performance.

00:31:11Guest:Yeah.

00:31:12Marc:I think that was in the movie, too.

00:31:16Marc:I noticed that in how you were able to access, because it turns out, I mean, you're not a killer.

00:31:24Marc:Nah.

00:31:25Marc:But there's that moment where you stand off to him for the first time to set those boundaries.

00:31:30Marc:And I'm like, this guy's a killer.

00:31:36Marc:You know what I mean?

00:31:37Marc:Because you got that look in your eye, that dead look.

00:31:40Guest:But you had to know how to do that.

00:31:42Guest:But see, I grew, I drew from a lot of the experiences that I've seen.

00:31:46Guest:Yeah.

00:31:46Guest:A lot of, I've been around for a long time.

00:31:48Guest:I know a lot of things.

00:31:49Guest:I've seen, I know the behavior.

00:31:51Guest:I know the mannerisms.

00:31:52Guest:From before jail.

00:31:53Guest:Before jail and jail, in prison.

00:31:56Guest:I know the behaviors and mannerisms because I've witnessed a lot.

00:31:59Guest:So I drew from that and my own experiences, you know.

00:32:03Marc:Yeah.

00:32:03Marc:So like when you, in terms of that, in terms of having that hyper vigilant perception, so you can pretty much clock a guy who's bad news pretty quick.

00:32:14Marc:Yes.

00:32:17Guest:You know a killer when you see one.

00:32:18Guest:Wolves know wolves.

00:32:19Guest:It's a reason why tuna fish don't swim with sharks.

00:32:21Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:32:22Guest:They both predators.

00:32:24Guest:But they do have to share the ocean.

00:32:26Guest:Yeah, they got to share the ocean.

00:32:28Guest:That means you know when to leave.

00:32:29Marc:But it's interesting because there's like a spectrum of wolf.

00:32:32Marc:But I guess part of the whole, in terms of like getting evolving as an actor anyways, but just at a survival, you've got to convince the really bad wolf that you're just as bad.

00:32:43Guest:You belong.

00:32:44Guest:Yeah.

00:32:44Guest:And then there's understanding sometimes.

00:32:47Guest:Listen, nobody wants to go where it's going to be a difficult meal, not even a real wolf.

00:32:54Guest:They'd rather take an easy meal.

00:32:55Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:32:57Guest:Opposed to another wolf.

00:32:58Guest:You want to just run up on something that'll eat you too.

00:33:01Guest:Right, right.

00:33:01Guest:That has the capability of eating you too.

00:33:03Guest:So there's understanding.

00:33:05Guest:You go eat over there.

00:33:06Guest:There's a bunch of sheep over there.

00:33:08Guest:Why come over here messing with another wolf?

00:33:11Yeah.

00:33:11Marc:So how long was it, were you robbing?

00:33:17Guest:Robbing like as far as in the streets?

00:33:18Guest:Yeah.

00:33:19Guest:Well, it was a pretty long time, the 80s, probably from the mid-80s.

00:33:24Guest:Yeah.

00:33:25Guest:How old were you when you got busted?

00:33:27Marc:on this round yeah 29 years old I came home 47 oh my god you said one of the that documentary where you got out yeah and it was a great moment you know cause you're just looking around and the filmmaker goes what are you gonna do now get something to eat get something to eat yeah

00:33:49Marc:Of course.

00:33:51Marc:Boy, man, after I saw that prison food and you were your peanut butter and jelly, you were ready to eat.

00:33:58Guest:What'd you eat?

00:33:59Guest:Well, we went to someplace on 14th Street right by the Saboteur film because Nick and Dave are the guys who did the documentary.

00:34:08Guest:Yeah, so we went right around there in the meatpacking district, and I had a really nice steak, bro.

00:34:13Guest:Yeah.

00:34:13Guest:Oh, man.

00:34:15Guest:Best take ever.

00:34:16Guest:They didn't film that?

00:34:18Guest:I don't know.

00:34:19Guest:They may have that somewhere.

00:34:20Guest:I think Nick and Dave may have that because we filmed everything.

00:34:23Marc:So the other thing that when I talked to Ali also was about the humanity of...

00:34:30Marc:Of getting into prison, because when you only see it from movies and TV shows, you just assume that, you know, right away it's going to be like, obviously it's a fucking nightmare on one level, but there's a full spectrum of people in there.

00:34:45Guest:Right.

00:34:45Guest:It's not like that every day, all day long.

00:34:49Guest:I don't even get into prison movies because I can't see me in them.

00:34:53Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:34:54Guest:I was in prison and never watched prison.

00:34:56Marc:Never.

00:34:56Marc:Because I don't see me in them.

00:34:58Marc:But when you went in, I guess on some level, there's an understanding that there was a good chance it was going to happen.

00:35:06Guest:Yeah.

00:35:06Guest:And you know that.

00:35:07Guest:But you made that choice when you picked up the gun the first time.

00:35:10Marc:Yeah, right.

00:35:11Guest:You knew that.

00:35:11Marc:Right.

00:35:12Guest:You knew that this could happen or you was playing games.

00:35:16Marc:Yeah, and so what happens when you get in there for that four years before you find this program?

00:35:23Marc:I mean, what was the adjustment?

00:35:26Marc:Like when you get in there, you know in your head that you got to stay...

00:35:30Marc:A wolf.

00:35:31Guest:Got to.

00:35:33Guest:Yeah.

00:35:34Guest:And that's the adjustment.

00:35:35Guest:Yeah.

00:35:36Guest:Life don't change.

00:35:37Guest:The story don't stop.

00:35:39Marc:There's just more wolves in there.

00:35:41Guest:Yeah.

00:35:41Guest:They're all in there.

00:35:42Marc:And it's a lot more sheep, too.

00:35:44Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:35:46Marc:Is that true?

00:35:47Marc:Yeah.

00:35:48Marc:So you just figure out the dynamic?

00:35:50Marc:Yeah.

00:35:50Marc:So when you got in there, were you...

00:35:53Marc:Because he was he he was talking about, you know, he had this thing where he said you go under the blanket where like, you know, well, it's not I don't think that's a term.

00:36:03Marc:But he said the guys that get in there, it takes them a little while to know that they're in there and that they got to, you know, they got to process it.

00:36:12Marc:And then they got to be like, all right, so now what?

00:36:14Marc:Is that the same experience?

00:36:16Guest:Not for me.

00:36:17Guest:I mean, I went through that knowing I would, I went through trial.

00:36:20Guest:I went to trial.

00:36:21Guest:So during trial, I started.

00:36:22Guest:What is that?

00:36:23Guest:When you go to, before you get sentenced, you go to trial.

00:36:26Guest:Yeah.

00:36:26Guest:Go to a, like John Gotti went to trial first.

00:36:29Guest:Oh, okay.

00:36:29Guest:Like you go to trial with a court, judge, jury.

00:36:32Guest:Oh, trial.

00:36:32Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:34Guest:So I did that first.

00:36:35Guest:And during that part, I realized that this was the reality of my situation.

00:36:39Guest:Yeah.

00:36:40Guest:And you had public defender or how'd you go?

00:36:42Guest:Pretty much public defender, yeah.

00:36:44Guest:And you had to do a deal?

00:36:45Guest:No, I didn't do no deals.

00:36:46Guest:Y'all got to give this to me.

00:36:48Guest:Yeah.

00:36:48Guest:I didn't do this, but y'all got to give it to me.

00:36:50Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:36:51Marc:And so when you get in there, I mean, is there somebody, do you look for allies immediately or do you just try to establish yourself?

00:37:00Guest:I mean, there is no real blueprint that one could give you.

00:37:04Marc:There's no book?

00:37:05Marc:There's no book.

00:37:05Guest:There's no book.

00:37:07Guest:There's no way to navigate that without actually going through it.

00:37:11Guest:You're going to have to know how to day one.

00:37:14Guest:Afraid not.

00:37:16Guest:What was your experience?

00:37:18Guest:My experience was when I first got to the jail, when I got my bedroll in the state shop and on my way to the cell that I was assigned, there was a trail of blood in the hallway that nobody cleaned up.

00:37:29Guest:On purpose?

00:37:30Guest:On walking.

00:37:31Guest:I mean, this is because the incident's fresh.

00:37:33Guest:Oh, right.

00:37:33Guest:It's just happening.

00:37:34Guest:Yeah.

00:37:34Guest:They got to get together to get the blood splatter crew and all that.

00:37:37Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:37:38Guest:You know, it's a whole thing.

00:37:39Guest:Everybody can't just clean blood.

00:37:41Guest:Yeah.

00:37:41Guest:You need a blood splatter crew.

00:37:44Guest:Yeah.

00:37:44Guest:That does that.

00:37:45Guest:Yeah.

00:37:46Guest:And is that a prisoner job?

00:37:48Guest:That's a prisoner's job, yeah.

00:37:50Guest:That's a prisoner's job.

00:37:50Guest:But they're trained in no— Yeah, yeah.

00:37:53Yeah.

00:37:53Guest:So that's your welcome.

00:37:55Guest:That's the welcome.

00:37:56Guest:Now I walk, we're following the trail of blood, we get into the block, open these big gates and there's tears on top of tears.

00:38:05Guest:Noise everywhere.

00:38:07Guest:Everybody moving around.

00:38:08Guest:Sing, sing, yeah.

00:38:09Guest:everybody moving around.

00:38:10Guest:Like, there's no, like, I'm thinking there was some type of police control.

00:38:15Guest:Like, I got the guys in their cells or something.

00:38:19Guest:No such thing.

00:38:20Guest:Everybody's moving everywhere.

00:38:22Guest:The blood's still on the ground.

00:38:24Guest:The blood leads to the cell that I'm going in.

00:38:27Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:38:28Marc:So you're thinking, like, this is not a lucky cell.

00:38:31Marc:This is where it happened at.

00:38:33Marc:This can't be good luck right here.

00:38:35Guest:No way.

00:38:36Yeah.

00:38:36Guest:And I got to wait for them to clean it out and all that.

00:38:40Guest:Then I got to go in and clean it out myself.

00:38:42Guest:Yeah, and set up.

00:38:43Guest:And set my thing up.

00:38:45Guest:And while I'm listening to everything on the gate, all the noise, all the confusion.

00:38:52Marc:And it stinks like hell in here.

00:38:53Marc:And so what locks into your head is just to maintain your composure.

00:38:58Marc:And to, like, you know, hold your ground immediately?

00:39:01Guest:Well, locked into my head is just survival.

00:39:03Guest:Yeah.

00:39:04Guest:Like anytime else.

00:39:05Guest:Yeah.

00:39:05Guest:Anywhere else.

00:39:06Guest:Yeah.

00:39:06Guest:Survival.

00:39:08Guest:I'm going to deal with every situation as they come.

00:39:10Marc:Yeah.

00:39:11Marc:And that's what you did?

00:39:12Guest:That's what I did.

00:39:12Guest:And you got to figure out a hustle for yourself?

00:39:15Guest:Yeah, I had to figure out.

00:39:16Guest:First thing I had to do was stop smoking cigarettes.

00:39:20Guest:Hard, right?

00:39:20Guest:Cigarettes is money.

00:39:21Guest:Yeah.

00:39:22Guest:The more you smoke, the more you lose.

00:39:24Right.

00:39:24Guest:So you haven't smoked since?

00:39:26Guest:Nah, I haven't smoked since.

00:39:28Guest:I love the nicotine, man.

00:39:29Guest:Yeah, I had to stop that because once you open the pack, it's no longer money.

00:39:33Marc:Yeah.

00:39:34Guest:Oh, really?

00:39:34Guest:Dead pack now.

00:39:35Guest:You might as well smoke all 20 of those.

00:39:39Guest:You can't sell singles?

00:39:40Guest:Can't sell them.

00:39:40Guest:No?

00:39:41Guest:Nah, not in there.

00:39:41Guest:They're not selling singles.

00:39:42Guest:They sell roll-ups, but that take the money too long.

00:39:44Marc:Yeah.

00:39:46Marc:So how do you make money in there?

00:39:49Guest:Oh, man.

00:39:50Guest:Sing Sing is anything you want in New York, you could have got it in Sing Sing at the time I was there.

00:39:54Guest:Yeah?

00:39:55Guest:Anything you wanted in New York, you could have got it in Sing Sing.

00:39:59Guest:When I first got there, it was crazy.

00:40:01Marc:Really?

00:40:01Marc:Yeah.

00:40:02Marc:So people just bringing stuff in and then there's an understanding.

00:40:05Marc:How do you get stuff in?

00:40:07Marc:Everybody's getting paid off.

00:40:08Guest:I'm not here to reveal all the secrets of individuals that may be still making a living off this thing here.

00:40:14Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:40:15Marc:But you're just saying that the business was the business.

00:40:17Guest:The business was the business, just like out here, man.

00:40:20Guest:Same thing, man.

00:40:21Marc:Same rules apply.

00:40:22Marc:So when...

00:40:23Marc:When you come upon that scene in the chapel, what was your state of mind like?

00:40:29Guest:Well, my mindset when I seen this was that it turned something on in me.

00:40:34Guest:Because when I was younger, I never was into sports.

00:40:36Guest:I was more into art.

00:40:39Guest:I was more into art.

00:40:40Guest:I liked to draw.

00:40:41Guest:I liked to paint.

00:40:42Guest:I liked things like that.

00:40:44Marc:Where'd you learn how to do that when you were a kid?

00:40:45Guest:This was natural.

00:40:46Guest:I came from I like to read comic books.

00:40:48Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:40:49Guest:I love comic books.

00:40:49Guest:And I began drawing the characters.

00:40:51Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:40:52Guest:And that's when I found out this calms me.

00:40:55Guest:Yeah.

00:40:55Guest:This right here puts me in touch with something different.

00:40:58Guest:Yeah.

00:40:58Guest:You know, and when I seen this, when I seen the guys putting on a play, it activated that in me.

00:41:04Guest:It took me back to that, the art part of me.

00:41:09Guest:But in your mind, you didn't think you were getting out?

00:41:12Guest:I didn't know for sure.

00:41:13Guest:I had 20 years sentence.

00:41:15Guest:Tomorrow is not promised in prison at all.

00:41:17Guest:20 years definitely is not promised in prison.

00:41:20Guest:And I don't got no backup, bend over, or bow down in me.

00:41:24Marc:So you were just going to stay furious.

00:41:27Marc:Right.

00:41:28Marc:Until I found the art.

00:41:29Marc:But when you were in that zone, did you experience—because it seemed like there's a moment there in the character in the movie, too, that you play.

00:41:39Marc:And I imagine in most guys who have to maintain a front to just survive, that vulnerability is a liability.

00:41:50Marc:It is.

00:41:51Marc:Yeah.

00:41:51Guest:Empathy is a liability.

00:41:55Guest:If you are perceived in the wrong light, it could be detrimental.

00:42:00Guest:On a lot of levels.

00:42:01Marc:Right.

00:42:02Marc:Did you feel yourself, though, when you were younger, when you're on the streets, did you have those things?

00:42:09Guest:I knew what they were.

00:42:11Guest:I knew what empathy was, but I didn't know the word for it.

00:42:14Guest:Right.

00:42:15Guest:But you had the feelings, though?

00:42:16Guest:I had the feelings.

00:42:17Guest:Yeah.

00:42:17Guest:And I couldn't explain it, couldn't express it.

00:42:20Guest:But I remember times when, like, let me explain.

00:42:23Guest:One time...

00:42:24Guest:I was in a car with my mom.

00:42:25Guest:I was much younger, and we was driving along, and she hit a raccoon.

00:42:29Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:42:30Guest:And she looked over in the seat.

00:42:32Guest:After she hit the raccoon, we drive still.

00:42:34Guest:She looked over in the seat and said, what are you crying for?

00:42:36Guest:Yeah.

00:42:37Guest:Yeah, it's terrible.

00:42:38Guest:It was terrible for me.

00:42:39Guest:Yeah.

00:42:40Guest:I was like, I got hit by the car.

00:42:42Guest:I can't take it.

00:42:43Guest:The raccoon did nothing.

00:42:44Guest:He just crossed the street and got hit.

00:42:46Marc:On the phone, I get all these cat rescue.

00:42:49Marc:Yeah.

00:42:49Marc:And I'm like, oh, my God.

00:42:51Yeah.

00:42:51Marc:Because they're so innocent, you know?

00:42:54Marc:Yeah.

00:42:55Guest:A guy that could fight anybody.

00:42:57Guest:Yeah.

00:42:57Guest:To hurt an animal, man, that's innocent, then nothing, man.

00:43:01Guest:It tears me up.

00:43:02Guest:Yeah, me too.

00:43:03Guest:It'll tear me up.

00:43:04Guest:That you feel worse for them than you do for people.

00:43:07Marc:Right.

00:43:08Marc:Because people made choices.

00:43:09Marc:Yeah, people got it coming.

00:43:11Yeah.

00:43:11Marc:Raccoon's just trying to get across the street.

00:43:17Marc:So how does it go?

00:43:18Marc:So you see Cuckoo's Nest, you see the women, and then you're like, how do I get in?

00:43:23Marc:Yeah, that's pretty much how it went.

00:43:24Marc:Yeah, and who'd you talk to?

00:43:27Guest:Who was in charge?

00:43:28Guest:Well, it might have been Devon G, the first person I spoke to about getting into the program.

00:43:32Marc:He's in the movie.

00:43:32Guest:Yeah, Devon G, he's represented by Coleman Domingo.

00:43:35Marc:That's who he's playing?

00:43:36Marc:Yes.

00:43:37Marc:And what was his role at that time?

00:43:39Marc:How long had it been around?

00:43:41Guest:At that time, he was the man in RTA.

00:43:43Guest:He's the guy that was writing plays, directing plays, acting in plays.

00:43:49Guest:He's the go-to guy.

00:43:51Guest:Yeah.

00:43:51Guest:Is he still in there?

00:43:52Guest:No, he's out with us.

00:43:53Guest:Oh, he is?

00:43:54Guest:He's been to Southwest with us.

00:43:55Guest:He's been to all the—

00:43:56Guest:And he's got a cameo in the film.

00:43:59Guest:Which one is he?

00:44:00Guest:He's the guy that got his book signed by Coleman Domingo.

00:44:03Guest:Oh, that's nice.

00:44:05Guest:He actually wrote that book.

00:44:07Guest:He wrote 12 or 13 books while he was in prison.

00:44:10Guest:Most of them are published now.

00:44:11Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:44:12Marc:He's doing all right?

00:44:13Marc:He's doing all right.

00:44:14Marc:So when you talked to him, was it similar to what happened in the film?

00:44:20Yeah.

00:44:21Guest:Actually, it was.

00:44:22Guest:Actually, I believe it was him that approached me.

00:44:25Guest:But he didn't know how I already had the feeling that I wanted to be in this thing.

00:44:30Marc:Well, he saw you in the movie.

00:44:31Marc:He sees you running around doing your hustles.

00:44:33Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:44:34Guest:And one part about the movie that's not as accurate as it would be, me and Devon G. already were friends.

00:44:40Guest:We already knew one another.

00:44:42Guest:We already had a healthy, struggling competition with each other that was kind of like a healthy thing.

00:44:48Guest:It wasn't a competition that was detrimental or violent or anything like that.

00:44:52Guest:And that brought out the best in both of us, I think.

00:44:56Marc:So what happens is you get in there and then you got to start doing the exercises and start reading this stuff.

00:45:03Marc:So how hard was it to let go in order to do that?

00:45:08Guest:Well, for me, I believe coming into RTA, I always took a protective stance about the individuals that was in there and the program itself because a lot of the brothers that was in RTA were...

00:45:22Guest:Well, not as strong as I was as far as being able to hold yourself in the yard and stuff like that.

00:45:28Guest:You know what I mean?

00:45:29Guest:Everybody's not wolf material.

00:45:31Guest:You know what I mean?

00:45:33Guest:But I always take a protective stance.

00:45:35Guest:And I think that made me more empathetic and more sympathetic towards my brothers.

00:45:42Guest:And that put me in a position where I was...

00:45:44Guest:I got on the steering committee and began to be a decision-maker for the program, a part of the decision-making process for the program.

00:45:52Guest:And that responsibility that they gave me showed me that they believed in me enough.

00:45:59Guest:And I think that jump-started a certain belief that I had got in myself.

00:46:04Marc:So by the time you got in there, you were okay with being vulnerable.

00:46:10Right.

00:46:11Guest:By the time I got it, I think that's something that gradually grew.

00:46:16Guest:I don't think it just turned on like that as soon as I got in there.

00:46:18Marc:Because even as a performer myself, you know, the feeling of, for some reason, being embarrassed is the worst fucking thing in the world.

00:46:27Marc:Yeah, it is.

00:46:29Guest:Yeah.

00:46:29Guest:Unless it's a purpose for it.

00:46:33Guest:Yeah.

00:46:34Guest:Like in acting on stage, I could trip, fall, make everybody laugh.

00:46:38Guest:Yeah.

00:46:38Guest:But it's a purpose of that trip and fall.

00:46:40Guest:You did on purpose.

00:46:40Guest:In this story.

00:46:41Guest:Yeah.

00:46:42Guest:To complete the story.

00:46:43Guest:Sure.

00:46:43Guest:It has something to do with the whole story.

00:46:46Guest:Right.

00:46:49Guest:that what you would consider being embarrassed wouldn't be an embarrassment.

00:46:53Guest:Sure, because you do it on purpose, you got control.

00:46:56Guest:Right, but just purposely or unconsciously trip and fall and stumble and look crazy in the yard.

00:47:03Guest:No good.

00:47:03Marc:Not good.

00:47:05Guest:Not good.

00:47:06Marc:The other wolves make note.

00:47:09Yeah.

00:47:09Marc:We saw that guy.

00:47:12Marc:We saw him inside.

00:47:13Marc:We saw what he's made out of.

00:47:16Marc:Yeah, there was a guy, Harry Shearer, who's a comic, an actor.

00:47:21Marc:He said, the reason comedians do comedy is so you can control why people laugh at you.

00:47:27Marc:They're going to laugh anyway.

00:47:29Marc:Right.

00:47:30Marc:You want it to be on purpose.

00:47:33Marc:Right.

00:47:33Marc:But I just thought there was that moment where somebody who has a certain posture is reading something or doing an audition and not knowing or having control or being skilled at it.

00:47:46Marc:That's got to make or break some guys.

00:47:48Guest:Listen, there's been times where I was affected by...

00:47:51Guest:The heckles from the crowd.

00:47:54Guest:Yeah.

00:47:55Guest:So much that I had to go holler at the dude that was doing the heckling.

00:47:59Guest:Couldn't let go.

00:47:59Guest:Another time.

00:48:00Guest:In the yard somewhere.

00:48:01Guest:Listen, you got something you want to say to me or something?

00:48:03Guest:Yeah.

00:48:03Guest:You don't like something I said or something?

00:48:06Guest:Another infraction.

00:48:10Guest:Yeah, you gotta let that stuff roll off your back.

00:48:12Guest:But you gotta learn how to do that.

00:48:14Guest:Yeah, because you gotta learn how to do that.

00:48:16Guest:It's hard.

00:48:17Guest:What made it a lot easier for me is realizing that a lot of times they're not laughing at me.

00:48:21Guest:It's something that they're missing.

00:48:23Guest:It's something that...

00:48:24Guest:they're covering up for with this laughter.

00:48:26Guest:This laughter is covering something else.

00:48:29Guest:Yeah, well, yeah.

00:48:30Guest:It's cool to poke your finger at me and point at me, but it's something about you that makes you have that response.

00:48:36Marc:Yeah, and sometimes the laughter can mean a lot of things.

00:48:38Marc:It could be sadness.

00:48:40Marc:It's just a relief thing.

00:48:41Marc:Right.

00:48:42Marc:So when you get in there and you start to feel these feelings, what was the moment, like what was the role of it?

00:48:49Marc:Where you realized that you could, you know, live through these bigger moral issues, you know, through a character.

00:48:57Marc:Where you actually connected and said like, oh, I get this.

00:49:00Marc:I get how, you know, this introduces me to a way of thinking that I did not possess before.

00:49:06Guest:Right, right.

00:49:06Marc:Yeah.

00:49:07Guest:Well, I got into that possibly with Oedipus.

00:49:10Guest:Yeah.

00:49:10Guest:Oedipus did that.

00:49:11Guest:And Booster, when I did Booster for August Wilson's Jitney.

00:49:16Guest:Yeah.

00:49:17Guest:It's like stepping in some shoes that I'm very, very familiar with.

00:49:20Guest:Yeah.

00:49:21Guest:And the power of giving somebody else a more insightful guide to how to navigate themselves through certain situations that I've possibly been through, studied before, or observed, and now I have a better insight on.

00:49:37Guest:Yeah.

00:49:37Guest:To be able to give other people some type of navigation through that.

00:49:41Guest:I think that was the purpose of theater in the first place.

00:49:43Guest:Yeah.

00:49:44Guest:To connect people and show them that you're not the only one going through whatever you're going through.

00:49:49Guest:Right.

00:49:49Marc:And some things are like, you know, these stories reveal, you know, the full range of the emotional experience.

00:49:57Marc:Right.

00:49:57Marc:Or the moral experience.

00:49:59Marc:Right.

00:49:59Marc:So once you start doing it, how is it received, like, on the yard?

00:50:04Marc:I mean, like, do guys say, like, oh, shit, you did that good thing, or do they look— It's mixed emotions.

00:50:09Guest:I done had killers coming to me with tears in their eyes talking about, listen, man, let me know when you're going to do some shit like that again.

00:50:17Guest:I'm supposed to be in here crying like this.

00:50:19LAUGHTER

00:50:20Marc:That's a private meeting.

00:50:26Marc:And now you got a secret.

00:50:30Guest:that's when you realize the power of this thing so you were in that program you were working within the program in some capacity for years I was a part of the steering committee for years too once you know my commitment grew and you know my responsibilities expanded in the program you know I got on the steering committee and you know I'm a decision maker and my decisions are respected and

00:50:59Guest:At least my opinion is valued.

00:51:02Marc:And now you have some sort of sense of how theater works, too.

00:51:05Marc:Right, right.

00:51:07Marc:And you could probably run a theater if you wanted to.

00:51:09Marc:Possibly.

00:51:10Marc:Yes, I probably could.

00:51:12Marc:Because you guys, they do everything, right?

00:51:14Marc:Yeah, we do everything.

00:51:15Marc:To build the sets and you find guys who are going to do that.

00:51:18Marc:It's like real old school theater.

00:51:20Marc:Yeah.

00:51:21Marc:Yeah.

00:51:21Guest:We get the shop to build any set we like.

00:51:24Guest:Yeah.

00:51:25Guest:That gets everybody.

00:51:26Guest:That's what expands the people in RTA program because everybody doesn't want to be on stage.

00:51:31Marc:Right.

00:51:31Guest:However, they do want to contribute.

00:51:32Guest:Right.

00:51:33Guest:Everybody wants.

00:51:34Guest:Everybody's not built for the spotlight.

00:51:35Marc:Yeah.

00:51:35Guest:That's not what they want.

00:51:36Guest:Yeah.

00:51:37Guest:But they want to contribute.

00:51:38Yeah.

00:51:38Marc:Yeah, and there was something in the doc that, you know, just like some guys were like, I don't care what we do.

00:51:44Marc:I just want to be out of these clothes.

00:51:47Marc:Get out of them greens.

00:51:48Guest:Yeah.

00:51:48Guest:For a little while.

00:51:49Guest:Put on some real clothes, man.

00:51:51Guest:It's a big deal.

00:51:52Guest:It's a big, it's a huge deal.

00:51:54Guest:Yeah.

00:51:55Guest:You got a lot coming in.

00:51:58Guest:Yeah, man, I don't understand.

00:52:00Guest:How long have you been out here?

00:52:01Guest:In L.A.?

00:52:02Guest:Yeah.

00:52:02Guest:I got here yesterday.

00:52:03Guest:Have you been out here before a lot?

00:52:05Guest:Nah, never.

00:52:06Guest:Never?

00:52:06Guest:Never been out here before.

00:52:07Marc:So how does it feel to be in show business?

00:52:10Guest:Man, this is crazy.

00:52:11Guest:Really?

00:52:11Guest:I think the huge part of the excitement, everything is just to be received as well as I'm being received.

00:52:21Guest:Yeah?

00:52:21Guest:For the story to be received.

00:52:23Guest:Yeah.

00:52:23Marc:Yeah, and what kind of things are you doing?

00:52:25Marc:Are you meeting with big shots?

00:52:27Marc:Well, I couldn't tell you.

00:52:28Marc:You're a big shot.

00:52:29Marc:This is a meeting.

00:52:34Guest:Yeah, I mean, with a lot of good people, I know that.

00:52:38Guest:If people was to just rely on the stories that they hear about this industry or the people that's involved in the industry, I'm sure they wouldn't see this picture that I'm seeing.

00:52:49Guest:I haven't experienced any of that.

00:52:51Guest:I only experienced a lot of good people so far.

00:52:54Marc:Well, you're in a great project.

00:52:56Marc:It's one of those projects, for whatever reason, there's very few people that are going to be like, fuck that movie.

00:53:01Marc:Yeah.

00:53:03Marc:What kind of asshole?

00:53:08Marc:That's goddamn prisoners doing a good thing.

00:53:10Marc:Who needs that shit?

00:53:14Marc:So you're probably avoiding those guys.

00:53:16Marc:Yeah, yeah, I'm avoiding those guys.

00:53:17Marc:But you're getting well-received as an actor.

00:53:19Marc:Yes, I am.

00:53:21Marc:When you got out, after you had the steak, I guess you went home and you probably saw your brothers and your mom.

00:53:27Guest:Everybody, so we're family, everybody.

00:53:30Guest:What were you thinking?

00:53:31Guest:Like, well, I'm going to do what?

00:53:33Guest:Well, I knew I wanted to act at that moment.

00:53:37Guest:It was still hot off the press at that time.

00:53:39Guest:Yeah.

00:53:39Guest:Just coming down off a dramatic escape.

00:53:42Guest:Yeah, the doc, yeah.

00:53:43Guest:The doc.

00:53:44Guest:So, yeah, my thing is I want to get in front of the camera.

00:53:46Guest:This is when the reality that, you know, bills got to get paid right now.

00:53:50Guest:Right.

00:53:50Marc:And also, like in that last production, were you actually in A Few Good Men?

00:53:55Guest:Yes.

00:53:56Guest:No, I was on the steering committee and I was involved.

00:53:59Guest:I was on my way home.

00:54:01Guest:Right.

00:54:01Guest:So I didn't take a roll because we didn't know exactly what they were doing.

00:54:04Marc:But then you ended up having to stay there.

00:54:05Guest:Then I wound up having to stay anyway.

00:54:07Marc:That was an interesting little story point in the doc where they fucked up the paperwork.

00:54:13Marc:Yeah.

00:54:14Marc:But, you know, I knew what I saw in that moment was like...

00:54:18Marc:You know, if you were a younger man and you hadn't had the experience you had, you might have fucked yourself.

00:54:23Marc:Yeah.

00:54:23Marc:Somehow.

00:54:24Guest:I would have went crazy in there.

00:54:26Guest:Did some crazy shit.

00:54:27Marc:Right.

00:54:27Guest:Locked up again.

00:54:28Marc:Right.

00:54:29Marc:Yeah.

00:54:30Marc:That's a powerful moment because you knew, like, you know, you actualized your full humanity so you weren't going to let the thing that fucks you...

00:54:39Marc:Fuck you.

00:54:40Marc:Right?

00:54:41Guest:It was a good moment.

00:54:43Guest:Right.

00:54:43Guest:And how I seen it was like, at that time, it was a lot of guys, not only in RCA, but a lot of guys in the prison that looked up to me at this point.

00:54:51Guest:And I couldn't.

00:54:53Marc:You had to do the right thing for other people.

00:54:55Guest:I had to do the right thing.

00:54:57Guest:There's also others that would be like, look, look, I told you.

00:55:01Guest:See?

00:55:02Guest:I knew he was going to do that shit.

00:55:05Marc:That was here for a long time.

00:55:06Marc:We get more plays now.

00:55:10Marc:So you had responsibilities when he got out.

00:55:12Marc:Yeah.

00:55:13Guest:And so how did you integrate back into the world?

00:55:16Guest:Well, basically, just, you know, I stayed in contact with individuals that was like-minded and positive and on the track that I'm on.

00:55:22Guest:Who had gotten out.

00:55:23Guest:We had a whole network.

00:55:25Guest:Oh, okay, yeah.

00:55:26Guest:RTA, between RTA, Exodus, Hudson Link.

00:55:30Guest:Yeah.

00:55:30Guest:These are all programs that was in Sing Sing, and all of us, like, leaned on each other.

00:55:34Guest:Yeah.

00:55:35Guest:So there's a whole community of us out here.

00:55:37Guest:Yeah.

00:55:37Guest:And that's where I found a lot of times where I needed employment.

00:55:41Guest:I can go to various places over here.

00:55:43Guest:I can go to Exodus.

00:55:44Guest:I can go to Hudson Link or Rehabilitation of the Arts.

00:55:48Guest:Set up some type of, you know, where I go do some teaching or whatever, do a speaking engagement over here.

00:55:53Guest:Yeah.

00:55:54Guest:Just to help along the way with these financial woes that we all have.

00:55:58Guest:Yeah.

00:55:58Guest:And it worked?

00:55:59Guest:It worked.

00:56:00Guest:It worked.

00:56:00Guest:It kept me sane.

00:56:01Guest:It kept me in between jobs.

00:56:03Guest:I didn't have to worry too much because I had a network that was working with me.

00:56:06Guest:Even Brent Butte, even our volunteers.

00:56:09Guest:You know what I mean?

00:56:10Guest:Yeah.

00:56:10Guest:I could lean on them, too, at that time.

00:56:12Guest:You know what I mean?

00:56:13Marc:Yeah, because you knew them.

00:56:14Guest:And they knew me.

00:56:15Marc:Right.

00:56:16Guest:And we built these bonds, and we trust one another.

00:56:18Marc:And is that how you got hooked up with, you kept doing the workshops and stuff?

00:56:23Marc:Yeah.

00:56:23Guest:Yeah.

00:56:24Guest:Kept doing.

00:56:25Guest:But see, and then I got a job through Exodus.

00:56:29Guest:What's that?

00:56:29Guest:In Harlem.

00:56:30Guest:Exodus is another program that helps brothers that come home from prison.

00:56:34Guest:Yeah.

00:56:34Guest:Find employment, help them get their resumes together.

00:56:37Guest:Yeah.

00:56:37Guest:Even if you need a closer...

00:56:39Guest:a suit of clothing to go and interview.

00:56:41Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:56:43Guest:So I got hooked up with them, and they sent me on a job interview to Lincoln Hall, Boys Haven.

00:56:47Guest:Yeah.

00:56:48Guest:And I got a job there, and I stayed there for like 11 years.

00:56:51Marc:So when you come out, though, like you went in when you were 26, you come out and you're... I went in 29, 47.

00:56:55Marc:47.

00:56:56Marc:So, like, maybe I'm wrong, but I mean, like, no matter how you were feeling about yourself and your prospects when you got out, I would imagine that...

00:57:06Marc:Whatever the streets were, you knew them, long gone.

00:57:09Marc:Not the same.

00:57:10Guest:Yeah.

00:57:11Guest:You got Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on 42nd Street.

00:57:14Guest:What is this?

00:57:17Marc:So there wasn't, like, you didn't walk in, there wasn't a bunch of dudes going, he's back.

00:57:21Marc:Nah, nah.

00:57:22Marc:Because you were young, and they're all gone.

00:57:24Guest:No, they're not all gone.

00:57:25Guest:They're just around.

00:57:26Guest:There was a few of them around.

00:57:28Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:57:29Guest:Yeah.

00:57:29Guest:What'd they say?

00:57:30Guest:They didn't want to say much.

00:57:32Guest:Yeah.

00:57:32Guest:They're hoping I took this route.

00:57:34Guest:Oh, they do.

00:57:35Guest:It's a good thing that everybody, nobody wants or needs me in the street the way I used to be.

00:57:42Guest:Yeah.

00:57:42Guest:That's not good for nobody.

00:57:44Guest:Yeah, especially you.

00:57:45Guest:Especially me.

00:57:46Marc:Yeah.

00:57:46Marc:I don't want it either.

00:57:48Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:57:49Marc:So when you when you start doing this work, like, do you are you like because now, like, it looks like to me, you know, that you might have a career as an actor.

00:58:00Marc:Yeah.

00:58:00Marc:And then hopefully.

00:58:01Marc:Yeah.

00:58:02Marc:But, you know, how does that play against, you know, the the service work?

00:58:06Marc:Well, I still do the service work.

00:58:08Guest:In fact, on Juneteenth, I'm going to Soho and do some readings with some kids in that area.

00:58:15Guest:I still work with 914 United.

00:58:17Guest:We go into different facilities and speak to young men who are justice impacted.

00:58:23Guest:You know, facing some time, you know, because of choices they made.

00:58:27Guest:Yeah.

00:58:28Guest:So I try to get them.

00:58:30Guest:I'm a certified national gang trainer as well.

00:58:32Guest:I get individuals out of gangs.

00:58:34Guest:Really?

00:58:35Guest:How do you get that training?

00:58:36Guest:I got trained.

00:58:36Guest:It's a program that you have to take.

00:58:39Guest:You have to pay for it and get trained by...

00:58:43Guest:Christian Claudio, he's a very good friend of mine.

00:58:46Guest:He's an ex-gang leader.

00:58:48Guest:He's King Smurf from the Latin Kings.

00:58:51Guest:He does non-police officer certificate, non-law enforcement certificate for guys like us who have a particular skill set.

00:59:02Guest:We know

00:59:02Guest:We know these streets.

00:59:04Guest:We know this language.

00:59:05Guest:You know what I'm saying?

00:59:06Guest:Our name still means something on these streets.

00:59:08Guest:Yeah.

00:59:09Guest:So we come to help.

00:59:09Guest:Are the gangs still as powerful as they used to be?

00:59:12Guest:Not as much.

00:59:12Guest:Yeah.

00:59:13Guest:Now they're losing their grip.

00:59:14Guest:Why is that?

00:59:14Guest:I believe.

00:59:15Guest:I believe.

00:59:15Guest:Because I think the younger kids that's coming up behind them are a lot more intelligent than the ones that, you know, fell victim to this.

00:59:23Guest:That's the only way it's going to go away.

00:59:25Guest:It's nothing that... The only way it's going to go away is they choose.

00:59:28Guest:They're going to have to choose to do better.

00:59:29Guest:They're choosing their phones.

00:59:32Yeah.

00:59:32Marc:Not over the streets.

00:59:35Marc:It's one of the benefits of technology.

00:59:37Marc:That's a fact.

00:59:41Marc:So tell me a little bit about that process.

00:59:42Marc:How do you get a guy out of a gang?

00:59:44Marc:Well, they had to want to leave.

00:59:45Marc:They got to want to leave.

00:59:46Marc:And sometimes they can't.

00:59:47Marc:Sometimes they can't.

00:59:48Marc:That's when they need intervention.

00:59:50Marc:But they can't because they owe something or somebody else got something on them?

00:59:55Guest:There's many reasons why.

00:59:56Guest:There's never one solid reason.

00:59:58Marc:Yeah.

00:59:59Guest:You know?

01:00:00Guest:Never know what it is, but they may need intervention.

01:00:04Marc:And when you intervene, though, I mean, there's no witness protection program.

01:00:09Marc:No.

01:00:10Marc:So they've got to sort of suck up whatever's going to come at them and hope for the best, right?

01:00:16Guest:Yeah, that's pretty much what it is.

01:00:18Guest:Yeah.

01:00:18Guest:But once you say you want to be out, you've got to really, really want to be out.

01:00:22Guest:There's no going back and jumping the fence and straddling the fence.

01:00:25Guest:You're on your own.

01:00:27Guest:Yeah.

01:00:27Guest:You do that, you're on your own.

01:00:28Marc:And in general, do...

01:00:30Marc:Is there that thing like you just said before about the guys that you knew when you were younger?

01:00:36Marc:Do you find that a lot of times if somebody is able to get out that the people that can't kind of respect it?

01:00:43Marc:The people that can't get out?

01:00:45Marc:Yeah.

01:00:45Guest:Yeah, yeah, more times than not, because if they was to open the doors and let all of them out, they'll leave.

01:00:50Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:00:51Guest:They'll leave the gang.

01:00:52Marc:If you allow them to leave, they'll leave.

01:00:54Marc:Yeah, so the ones that do leave, it takes a certain amount of balls to do that.

01:00:58Marc:Yeah.

01:00:58Marc:And they've got to be like, all right.

01:01:00Guest:You've got to be serious.

01:01:01Guest:You've got to be dedicated to getting out and living without a gang.

01:01:06Marc:Yeah, but sometimes it's life-threatening, isn't it?

01:01:08Marc:Yes, it is sometimes.

01:01:09Marc:Oh, my God.

01:01:10Marc:It's still your choices, though.

01:01:12Marc:Yeah.

01:01:12Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:01:14Marc:But sometimes there's a choice of doing what you need to do for yourself to save your life, but sometimes that life is going to be looking over your shoulder for the rest.

01:01:23Guest:Sometimes it may involve relocating.

01:01:25Guest:Sometimes it may involve that because their reach of them are not as far and vast as you would believe.

01:01:30Guest:Right.

01:01:30Guest:They're not as connected as you would believe.

01:01:32Guest:Right, right.

01:01:34Guest:One region of the planet may not even know the other region of the planet exists.

01:01:37Guest:That's right.

01:01:38Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:01:38Marc:Yeah, but that's another problem with the phone.

01:01:41Marc:It's like, found him on Instagram.

01:01:44Guest:Yeah, then you got to stay off Instagram.

01:01:46Guest:You might want to stay off of that.

01:01:47Guest:If no, your head is on the chopping block.

01:01:50Marc:You might want to not be on Instagram posting your location.

01:01:53Marc:Yeah, don't be an influencer, an ex-gang influencer.

01:01:57Marc:Yeah, man.

01:01:58Marc:So what do you find is the rate of success with the kids usually?

01:02:04Marc:Well,

01:02:04Guest:It's not as much—it's not as high a rate as I would like.

01:02:08Guest:I mean, in my travels, I have got them out of gangs, and now they're in college.

01:02:13Guest:Yeah.

01:02:13Guest:There's things like that.

01:02:14Guest:There's individuals who have gotten out and went to the military.

01:02:16Guest:Yeah.

01:02:17Guest:There's these individuals who've gotten out and relocated.

01:02:20Guest:But what overshadows that is that the percentage of individuals that fall—

01:02:25Guest:that don't take advantage of opportunities presented to them because of whatever reason, peer pressure or whatever.

01:02:31Guest:Yeah.

01:02:32Guest:And then later on I have to hear that that individual got killed.

01:02:35Guest:Yeah.

01:02:36Guest:Or that individual killed somebody and now he's locked up.

01:02:38Guest:Yeah.

01:02:40Guest:That's hard, right?

01:02:41Guest:It's hard and it'd be sad, especially if you invest.

01:02:43Guest:When you invest a lot of time into a young person and you see the growth and development and you see the potential and then you got to send them right back out to the sharks.

01:02:53Yeah.

01:02:53Marc:But you got to I guess it's I guess that's something else you learn from growing up the way you did and doing time is that you get kind of calloused.

01:03:02Marc:You know, you can feel the feels, but then, you know, you got to.

01:03:05Guest:But that's another thing that that benefit from RTA program, the ability to decompress.

01:03:10Guest:Yeah.

01:03:11Guest:The ability to.

01:03:12Guest:to let your day wash off you.

01:03:15Guest:You know what I'm saying?

01:03:16Guest:Because I can't go to sleep with this every night and wake up tomorrow morning with it on my mind.

01:03:20Guest:Again, I got to be able to decompress and I got to be able to put it into perspective, put everything in perspective, compartmentalize, all of these things I had to learn how to do.

01:03:30Guest:In order to be effective in dealing with these kids.

01:03:34Marc:Well, I guess that's something that because I noticed that, too, in the way the guys were talking in the doc that, you know, I imagine when you're doing time that having a resentment or a beef or a revenge plan, that's that's your brain just has something to do.

01:03:52Marc:Yeah, but there's a lot more to do.

01:03:54Marc:That's what I mean.

01:03:55Marc:So if you're memorizing lines.

01:03:57Marc:Yeah.

01:03:58Marc:And that becomes.

01:03:59Guest:That takes the place of.

01:04:01Guest:Right.

01:04:01Guest:Focusing on negative energy.

01:04:03Guest:Right.

01:04:03Guest:Focus on negative thoughts.

01:04:05Marc:Yeah.

01:04:05Guest:Because if you just go to the yard and back to your cell.

01:04:08Guest:Yard, back to your cell.

01:04:09Guest:Nothing else on your mind but yard stuff.

01:04:11Guest:Yeah.

01:04:12Guest:This is as big as your world is going to be.

01:04:15Guest:Yeah.

01:04:16Marc:It's only how big your world is going to be.

01:04:18Marc:Yeah, right.

01:04:19Marc:And then if you've got to memorize lines, there's a couple things going on.

01:04:22Marc:You want to do it right.

01:04:24Marc:So those guys are memorizing those lines.

01:04:26Marc:Yes.

01:04:27Marc:I noticed that in the scenes from A Few Good Men.

01:04:30Marc:It's like they were on top of it.

01:04:32Marc:Like, they knew all those lines.

01:04:34Marc:Because what else are they going to do?

01:04:37Marc:Right.

01:04:37Marc:But embody the role.

01:04:39Marc:Right.

01:04:40Guest:God, it must be such a relief.

01:04:42Guest:It is.

01:04:43Guest:Because you get to express all the emotions that you really want to express.

01:04:48Marc:And you got permission to do it.

01:04:50Marc:The guy in the doc who played Jessup.

01:04:52Marc:Yeah.

01:04:53Marc:He's working some big shit out, dude.

01:04:55Marc:Yeah.

01:04:56Yeah.

01:04:56Marc:That's my boy Kenyatta.

01:04:58Marc:He's a great guy, too.

01:04:59Marc:Yeah.

01:04:59Marc:I mean, he's like, you know, he's got, you know, he's owning his shit and he's finding a way to be human in that shit and to understand his place.

01:05:10Marc:And that is the reward.

01:05:12Marc:is knowing who you are, what you did, and, you know, what those consequences were and finding a quality of life within that.

01:05:21Marc:That's a fact.

01:05:22Marc:You know, because I guess what happens when you do the acting is all of a sudden you start to look at yourself from a different perspective.

01:05:30Marc:Yeah, you have to.

01:05:31Marc:And, you know, he's talking about, like, you know, either you got religion, but I'm not a religious guy, so you got to find some other thing.

01:05:37Marc:And then also he's struggling.

01:05:38Guest:He found it in the core.

01:05:39Marc:Yeah.

01:05:41Marc:And then, you know, he's struggling with this idea that, like, I know I got this thing I do that's no good, but I can't just stop it, and I got to figure out how to stop it.

01:05:56Marc:That scene in the movie where that guy comes up behind your character, you're like, what are you doing?

01:06:01Yeah.

01:06:02Guest:That's a real thing in prison, man.

01:06:06Guest:Yeah.

01:06:07Guest:Yeah, man.

01:06:08Guest:I don't want nobody behind me.

01:06:09Guest:I see too many people get cut in the face from the back.

01:06:12Marc:Yeah.

01:06:14Marc:But that was like one of those moments where, because all the guys who are prisoners, they know exactly what's going on.

01:06:21Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:06:22Marc:And so you got to have at least a couple of them in there that got to say, like, this is not real.

01:06:28Yeah.

01:06:28Marc:And then you've got to process that.

01:06:30Guest:Yeah.

01:06:30Marc:So that really happens.

01:06:32Marc:Yeah, it really happens.

01:06:33Marc:Oh, my God.

01:06:35Marc:And then once people start getting—well, it's interesting that you drew the idea that, like, a lot of the people that are drawn to the program are not the Wolves.

01:06:43Marc:Right, right.

01:06:44Marc:And they're the guys that, you know, are going to have a hard time anyways.

01:06:47Marc:Right.

01:06:47Marc:And they find some safety.

01:06:49Guest:Yeah, but see, what happens with those guys when they just—what happens, they suppress—

01:06:54Guest:a lot of the good in them that we need because you try to make yourself invisible, not heard, not seen.

01:07:01Marc:So that's the way, if you're not a wolf, you want to disappear.

01:07:04Guest:Right, but they got a lot to offer these guys.

01:07:07Marc:Sensitivity.

01:07:08Marc:Yeah.

01:07:09Marc:Yeah.

01:07:09Marc:And who's the other guy in A Few Good Men in the documentary who no one even heard him talk before?

01:07:16Marc:That guy who was real quiet, and then he's just going at it.

01:07:20Marc:He played the drill sergeant, I think.

01:07:22Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:07:23Guest:Oh, my God.

01:07:25Guest:This was the first role that he ever had.

01:07:28Guest:Yeah.

01:07:30Guest:Man.

01:07:31Guest:And when he came and gave up that performance right there, because all through the jail, we never hear him.

01:07:36Guest:You'll never hear him talk, bro.

01:07:38Guest:Yeah.

01:07:41Guest:So he must have been the rock star.

01:07:42Guest:He was a rock star at that moment, man.

01:07:45Guest:You don't know how many officers wanted his autograph and all of that after that.

01:07:50Marc:Because he was one of the invisible guys.

01:07:53Marc:Yeah.

01:07:54Marc:So what's the plan now?

01:07:55Marc:What are you going to do?

01:07:56Marc:Are you getting offers and stuff?

01:07:59Marc:Yeah, I got a few offers, man.

01:08:00Marc:I want to do a Western, man.

01:08:03Yeah.

01:08:03Guest:yeah man i want to do a western man bad i need a duster two guns and horse riding that's what you want yeah is there any of that available i don't know i mean i got mark looking at some my manager mark from mgmt yes we got a few scripts to look at so have you looked at any of them have you have you seen what they're trying to offer actually i haven't because i actually i'm more focused on promoting this movie right yeah yeah

01:08:26Guest:than actually doing something else right at the moment.

01:08:30Guest:Sure, sure.

01:08:31Guest:But it's exciting, right?

01:08:32Guest:It's exciting to even be offered something.

01:08:34Marc:Well, I think like, what was it like?

01:08:35Marc:These guys who made this movie, it took some time, right?

01:08:38Marc:It took like seven years.

01:08:39Marc:That's crazy.

01:08:40Guest:Seven years, but it took 19 days to film.

01:08:42Guest:Yeah.

01:08:43Guest:What was the seven years?

01:08:44Guest:What were they worried about?

01:08:46Guest:Well, it was you had to run the money up.

01:08:48Guest:And then you got COVID in between.

01:08:51Guest:Right, right, right.

01:08:54Guest:But they knew they wanted to use guys from the inside who were on.

01:08:57Guest:Yeah, that was always on the table because they had a direct link with Brent Buell.

01:09:01Guest:Who's that?

01:09:02Guest:Brent Buell's the guy who wrote Breaking the Mummy's Code.

01:09:05Guest:Okay, yeah, yeah.

01:09:06Guest:He's played by Paul Racey.

01:09:08Guest:Yeah.

01:09:08Guest:So they had a direct link with him, and he has a direct link with all of us.

01:09:15Guest:Yeah.

01:09:15Guest:So it's like, well, how about, can we get in touch with any of the guys?

01:09:18Guest:The first I thought it was that they just only wanted to hear our perspective so that they could write down and create a character somewhere.

01:09:26Guest:Right, right, right.

01:09:27Guest:At first, I didn't know that they were even interested in using us.

01:09:30Guest:Yeah.

01:09:31Guest:But when it came out, it was a no brainer for me.

01:09:34Guest:It was not a question.

01:09:35Guest:Yeah, let's go.

01:09:36Guest:I can't wait.

01:09:38Marc:I know that guy.

01:09:39Marc:I can play that guy.

01:09:41Marc:Well, that was that was what was really interesting to me was to see like as I was talking to Brendan about it, you know, like to see you and Domingo, you know,

01:09:51Marc:using whatever you've learned, like using your acting skills is a whole different thing.

01:09:57Marc:You know, like yours is like organic and he's got to get into it.

01:10:04Marc:And you're like, I was in it.

01:10:07Marc:I did this already.

01:10:10Marc:But was that all your training with that program?

01:10:14Marc:Basically, yeah.

01:10:16Guest:I never thought about acting before anything like that, before the RTA program.

01:10:21Marc:But you never took any classes or nothing after you got out?

01:10:25Marc:No, no, no.

01:10:26Guest:You're just doing it.

01:10:27Guest:During the time of RTA inside, I have a lot of...

01:10:32Guest:volunteers that came through, like Joanna Chan.

01:10:34Guest:She has her own theater troupe in China.

01:10:38Guest:Yeah.

01:10:39Guest:And, like, you know, I learned from, ah, man, Peter Barbiero.

01:10:44Guest:Yeah.

01:10:45Guest:He worked out in Westchester County at the theater.

01:10:48Guest:And there's a lot of theater people from Broadway that were involved in the training.

01:10:53Guest:Yeah.

01:10:53Guest:That came to the prison.

01:10:54Guest:A lot of volunteers.

01:10:55Marc:So you were doing a

01:10:56Marc:a lot of exercises and that kind of stuff?

01:10:57Guest:Yeah, a lot of exercises.

01:10:58Guest:I had a lot of great advice on how to play roles, how to get into character.

01:11:02Guest:Really?

01:11:03Guest:I had a lot of great advice.

01:11:04Marc:I wouldn't say any formal training.

01:11:06Marc:But that's all it is, though.

01:11:08Marc:That is formal training.

01:11:09Marc:Every actor, you know, like, and you know this, like, either you're instinctively going to do it.

01:11:15Right.

01:11:15Marc:If you've got it in you, you're going to do it, and you're going to be good at it, and you just maybe need a few tricks.

01:11:21Marc:Yeah.

01:11:22Marc:I really learned how to listen more.

01:11:26Marc:That's the whole thing, right?

01:11:26Guest:I learned how to listen more and pay attention to, because as I come into acting, I know that I don't have the broad picture in mind.

01:11:36Guest:I only have my bro in mind.

01:11:37Guest:Yeah.

01:11:38Guest:But the director and the producers, these guys, have the vision of the whole thing.

01:11:44Guest:Yeah.

01:11:44Guest:So they got to tell you it's not all about you.

01:11:46Guest:It's not about me.

01:11:47Guest:They don't have to tell me that.

01:11:48Guest:I know already.

01:11:49Guest:I know.

01:11:49Guest:But I want to do my part.

01:11:51Guest:Yeah.

01:11:52Guest:As best I can.

01:11:53Marc:Yeah.

01:11:54Marc:But sometimes I pay attention.

01:11:55Marc:Yeah.

01:11:55Marc:And that.

01:11:56Marc:Right.

01:11:56Marc:Listen.

01:11:57Marc:And also know when when it's you know, you don't have to steal the scene.

01:12:01Marc:Why?

01:12:02Marc:Why?

01:12:02Marc:All that shit.

01:12:03Marc:Right.

01:12:04Marc:So you're getting advice from all of these different, you know, professional people.

01:12:07Marc:Yeah.

01:12:07Marc:Coming in, telling you this or that.

01:12:09Marc:Yeah.

01:12:09Marc:And you kind of integrate it.

01:12:10Marc:It's just me paying attention now.

01:12:12Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:12:12Guest:Me applying now.

01:12:13Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:12:14Guest:That's all on me now.

01:12:15Guest:Yeah.

01:12:15Marc:Well, you did great.

01:12:17Guest:It was great.

01:12:18Guest:And I really appreciate you coming, man.

01:12:19Guest:Yeah, man.

01:12:20Guest:I appreciate it.

01:12:20Guest:Good to talk to you.

01:12:21Guest:Great to meet you, man.

01:12:28Marc:There you go.

01:12:28Marc:Good story, right?

01:12:30Marc:Sing Sing opens in theaters tomorrow, July 12th.

01:12:32Marc:The documentary Dramatic Escape can be streamed on Vimeo.

01:12:37Marc:Hang out for a minute, folks.

01:12:41Marc:Hey, people, we posted another WTF rarity for Full Marin subscribers.

01:12:45Marc:It's a live show from 2010 we called The Night of Many Jews, featuring me, Susie Essman, Jeff Garland, Joe Mandy, and Gary Goleman.

01:12:54Guest:You all right, buddy?

01:12:55Marc:Do we need to get you a special chair?

01:12:56Guest:You know, I should take this out.

01:12:59Marc:Sure, go ahead.

01:13:01Marc:Look at the size of this Jew.

01:13:02Marc:How often does that happen?

01:13:03Marc:And he's...

01:13:07Marc:And he's, like, attractive?

01:13:10Marc:Look at that.

01:13:10Marc:Him and I, we get this mixture between, you know, math Jew and composer Jew, and you're like... You're like sports Jew.

01:13:16Marc:You're like, what are you?

01:13:17Marc:Where the fuck did you come from?

01:13:20Guest:It's like Gaston, a Jewish Gaston.

01:13:28Guest:Yeah, I don't even fit in amongst the Jews.

01:13:30Marc:It's very... But you have that... The quality of your head is Jewish.

01:13:34Yeah.

01:13:34Guest:Yeah, I'm a hook-nosed Jew.

01:13:37Guest:Right, and the whole thing is Jewish.

01:13:39Guest:I've met a couple of tall Jews.

01:13:41Guest:Then I'm 6'6 and ripped.

01:13:43Marc:Do you play sports now?

01:13:47Guest:No, no.

01:13:48Guest:I played football in college.

01:13:50Guest:I was really good in high school, but then I wasn't so good in...

01:13:53Guest:Really?

01:13:54Guest:You see how to let it go?

01:13:56Guest:Did I start off wrong?

01:13:58Guest:No, no, that's fine.

01:14:00Guest:Are you upset about it still?

01:14:01Guest:Did you have dreams of being like the next Sandy Koufax of football?

01:14:06Guest:You can't talk to a Jew about sports for six seconds without Sandy Koufax coming up.

01:14:12Guest:It's so...

01:14:14Guest:Sandy, we have like three go-tos.

01:14:16Guest:Houdini, Koufax, and Jonas Salk.

01:14:19Guest:And that's how we... See?

01:14:21Guest:You need us.

01:14:23Guest:Don't kill us.

01:14:23Guest:We have left-handed pitchers.

01:14:25Guest:They're not easy to find.

01:14:26Guest:And we cured polio.

01:14:30Guest:And we escape things.

01:14:32Guest:And...

01:14:33Guest:Had I known Fonzie was Jewish growing up, I was so much happier.

01:14:38Guest:You need us.

01:14:40Marc:We can hit things and they'll turn on.

01:14:42Marc:To get all the rare WTFs and other bonus episodes we post every week, sign up for the full Marin.

01:14:49Marc:Just go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF+.

01:14:56Marc:And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.

01:15:01Marc:Here's some guitar that I did a while ago.

01:15:27Thank you.

01:15:56do do

01:16:23Guest:Boomer lives.

01:16:39Guest:Monkey and La Fonda.

01:16:41Guest:Cat angels everywhere.

01:16:43Guest:Boomer lives.