May 26, 2025 • 10 mins
In this raw and intimate episode, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano takes us back to his days in the infamous ADX Florence the so-called Alcatraz of the Rockies. Locked down 23 hours a day, surrounded by concrete and silence, a letter from his daughter becomes a lifeline. But it’s a surprise visitor, a moth, that sparks a moment of reflection that still haunts him to this day.What most would swat without a second thought, Sammy saw as a sign... a message that even in the darkest corners of the world, there’s still light, beauty, and something worth holding onto.This isn’t just a prison story. It’s a meditation on survival, sanity, and the small, unexpected moments that remind us we’re still human. Don’t miss this one.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
She says, if they see that I can't get loose
from your grip, they'll come in. They'll kill you, they'll
give you a beating. You you'll never forget. Hey, guys,
you know I was doing stories and sending it to
some of the people who are filming my scripted show
(00:21):
and stuff like that. And the story about when I
was in the ADX Supermax. I did a lot of years,
as is know, in the whole six and a half
years now. In the beginning, the first year or two
I was in the hole. I mean, boredom is something
that could completely drive you crazy. After a long period
(00:45):
of time, I was just reaching out for anything to
keep my sanity. I would walk around. They call it
the ADX strut. I would walk in circles and literally
talk to myself. I was able sometimes to talk to
a guy two cells that were alongside of me. It
(01:06):
was actually hard to do. The places are more soundproof.
It got so bad. At one time there was a nurse.
She's a good looking woman. She came to myself. Now
in my cell, there's a door that opens up. It's
a sliding door. There's a three foot space and then
a row of buzz They called out a safe zone
(01:29):
for how to come in or people to come in.
I can't hurt them or do anything, and they have
a safe space. So she came in and start talking
to me about a letter that my daughter wrote. She
was reading it and herself, and she says, your daughter
is a great writer. So I says, what did she write?
(01:52):
She says, hey, I'll give it to you. I took
the letter and I was reading the letter. I read
the letter, my daughter is a great writer, and I
gave it back. She talked to me for a while
and she was ready to leave. When she put her
hand out, I put my hand right through the bars,
(02:14):
and I wanted to grab her hand for her not
to leave. I was so hungry for conversation. I didn't
want her to leave. I missed her hand and grabbed
her pinky and I held on to it. I didn't
try to hurt her. I didn't try to do anything.
She was sympathetic, telling me, Sammy, what they're doing to
(02:35):
you was so unfair. I know how you feel. I
think I choke up. I think about this whole story.
I choke up a little bit. Her kindness was so
important to me. I let go of her finger. Before
I let go of her fingers, she told me, say,
I look O you my finger. There's cameras all over
the place. She didn't struggle to try to get away
(02:57):
from me. She says, if they see that I can't
get loose from your grip, they'll come in. They'll kill you.
They'll give you a beating. You you'll never forget. And
I let gover she told me, saying I'll be back.
Do meditation, do sit ups, to push ups. You're not
allowed to do push ups and sit ups. They want
(03:19):
to keep you where you're not getting physically stronger. They're
trying to keep you as weak as you could be.
But that kindness for a few minutes was great. Another
thing that happened to me. A season came along, and
all of a sudden this place had moths, not butterflies, moths,
(03:42):
and they were all over the place. Now in my
I had like a thin little plastic mattress and a
plastic and a wool blanket that army surplus. I guess
the prisoners buy it for she and they give you that.
So this morth was flying around me all the time,
(04:05):
and it gave me something to do, something to think.
About Sometimes it would we had a shower in that room,
sell and it would fly into the shower and land
on the wall. The wall is it's a box, and
it's a shower. You hit a button, you get water.
A couple of times I was laying in bed. Did
(04:27):
we have a small twelve inch black and white TV
you can watch And I was laying in my bed
watching it, and this thing landed right on the bed
and I looked at it, and it was crawling around,
and it came up My arms were out, came up
my hand, started crawling up my hand real slowly, and
(04:50):
I watched it crawled up my arm onto my shoulder.
I didn't move a muscle. I'm just watching this thing.
Then I felt it crawl on my neck, up my
neck onto my face. It actually walked around on my chin,
(05:13):
even on my lip, my lip. It tickled me a
little bit, but I didn't want to move. I didn't
want to lose it. I just wanted it to do
whatever I wanted to do. And instead of this, it
broke my sadness whatever you want to call it, into
paying attention to this thing crawling around on me. I
(05:36):
put my hand there, very very gently, and it definitely
didn't want to hurt it. And I put my finger
on my lip. It went onto my finger. I took
it loose, looked at it. It looked like it was
looking right at me. Then I would put it down
on my chest where the blanket was. I know mooths.
I heard they liked to eat wool. People would have
(05:59):
coats in a closet and they eat the wool, and
they wanted to get rid of them. So I put
him on the wool so he could eat or walk around,
and sometimes he'd fly around when I would get up
in the cell. He never left. He stayed in myself
day after day after day, and I would go look
(06:21):
him for him. Whenever I went into the shower to
take a shower, I would always look at all the walls,
open up this little plastic curtain, make sure I could see.
I didn't want to turn on the shower. Maybe he
was sitting in there and he would get wet, their powdery,
their legs and their wings. I didn't want to kill it.
(06:43):
I didn't want to hurt it. It was like my buddy.
I wrote a letter and told my daughter about the mouth.
It was weeks and weeks of being there, maybe even longer.
Because my daughter wrote back and she said that are
(07:05):
you losing it? Bro a Morth? I wrote back, No,
I'm not losing it. I'm okay doing some sit ups.
I'm doing some push ups. I do some meditation. I
read a little bit sometimes I even read the Bible,
little piece of the Bible, not the whole thing, but
a little piece of it sometimes and this morth would
(07:28):
come and land right on the Bible as I'm holding
and I would say myself, this is a gift, this
is a gift from God. They want to break me,
they want me to lose my sanity. Here I know that,
and God is helping me again in my life with
(07:50):
this morth. It went on for months and months and months,
and he was my friend. He was my life, He's
who I talk to. He was alive. Everything else in
(08:13):
myself was dead, including me. I had nothing. Then the
season came and the Morths disappeared. I mean for two days,
three days solid, I turned over anything and everything in myself,
(08:33):
constantly looking and waiting and waiting and waiting. He never
came back. Literally broke my heart. It's amazing how you
could become attached to something when you have nothing. That's
what the ADX Supermax gives you nothing, sloppy, rotten, fucking
(08:58):
food that it's not even cooked there. It's cooked in
another prison and brought there in warmer boxes, sits in
the hallway for a couple hours before you get You
could imagine when it's cooked and comes out of the
ovens or wherever it comes out of before you get
it to stick it in your mouth. It's four or
five hours old. It's slop. So I wanted to tell
(09:24):
you this story. People didn't know that story about the moths.
That's the craziest thing. On occasion, a certain time of
the year, I'll see a morth in my office or somewhere.
Years ago, I would just swat it with a fly
swatter and get rid of it. But I don't do
(09:47):
that now and I never will. There was a season
where the morths come out in that prison, and before
they die off or disappear, they probably lay eggs, and
the eggs lay there until the following year they hatch
(10:07):
and it's a mortzy and they're all over the place.
You could hear the warden explaining it. He don't know
what it is, but he said, it does happen. It
happens every year, so I don't know if they have
changed that. But so that's my Mourth story and a
little bit of the Adax Supermax combined in it and
(10:31):
to give you an idea of what it is and
what it's about. So guys, love you, guys, talk to
you soon. Audios. I'm gonna leave out the motherfuckers, but
but audios.
She says, if they see that I can't get loose
from your grip, they'll come in. They'll kill you, they'll
give you a beating. You you'll never forget. Hey, guys,
you know I was doing stories and sending it to
some of the people who are filming my scripted show
(00:21):
and stuff like that. And the story about when I
was in the ADX Supermax. I did a lot of years,
as is know, in the whole six and a half
years now. In the beginning, the first year or two
I was in the hole. I mean, boredom is something
that could completely drive you crazy. After a long period
(00:45):
of time, I was just reaching out for anything to
keep my sanity. I would walk around. They call it
the ADX strut. I would walk in circles and literally
talk to myself. I was able sometimes to talk to
a guy two cells that were alongside of me. It
(01:06):
was actually hard to do. The places are more soundproof.
It got so bad. At one time there was a nurse.
She's a good looking woman. She came to myself. Now
in my cell, there's a door that opens up. It's
a sliding door. There's a three foot space and then
a row of buzz They called out a safe zone
(01:29):
for how to come in or people to come in.
I can't hurt them or do anything, and they have
a safe space. So she came in and start talking
to me about a letter that my daughter wrote. She
was reading it and herself, and she says, your daughter
is a great writer. So I says, what did she write?
(01:52):
She says, hey, I'll give it to you. I took
the letter and I was reading the letter. I read
the letter, my daughter is a great writer, and I
gave it back. She talked to me for a while
and she was ready to leave. When she put her
hand out, I put my hand right through the bars,
(02:14):
and I wanted to grab her hand for her not
to leave. I was so hungry for conversation. I didn't
want her to leave. I missed her hand and grabbed
her pinky and I held on to it. I didn't
try to hurt her. I didn't try to do anything.
She was sympathetic, telling me, Sammy, what they're doing to
(02:35):
you was so unfair. I know how you feel. I
think I choke up. I think about this whole story.
I choke up a little bit. Her kindness was so
important to me. I let go of her finger. Before
I let go of her fingers, she told me, say,
I look O you my finger. There's cameras all over
the place. She didn't struggle to try to get away
(02:57):
from me. She says, if they see that I can't
get loose from your grip, they'll come in. They'll kill you.
They'll give you a beating. You you'll never forget. And
I let gover she told me, saying I'll be back.
Do meditation, do sit ups, to push ups. You're not
allowed to do push ups and sit ups. They want
(03:19):
to keep you where you're not getting physically stronger. They're
trying to keep you as weak as you could be.
But that kindness for a few minutes was great. Another
thing that happened to me. A season came along, and
all of a sudden this place had moths, not butterflies, moths,
(03:42):
and they were all over the place. Now in my
I had like a thin little plastic mattress and a
plastic and a wool blanket that army surplus. I guess
the prisoners buy it for she and they give you that.
So this morth was flying around me all the time,
(04:05):
and it gave me something to do, something to think.
About Sometimes it would we had a shower in that room,
sell and it would fly into the shower and land
on the wall. The wall is it's a box, and
it's a shower. You hit a button, you get water.
A couple of times I was laying in bed. Did
(04:27):
we have a small twelve inch black and white TV
you can watch And I was laying in my bed
watching it, and this thing landed right on the bed
and I looked at it, and it was crawling around,
and it came up My arms were out, came up
my hand, started crawling up my hand real slowly, and
(04:50):
I watched it crawled up my arm onto my shoulder.
I didn't move a muscle. I'm just watching this thing.
Then I felt it crawl on my neck, up my
neck onto my face. It actually walked around on my chin,
(05:13):
even on my lip, my lip. It tickled me a
little bit, but I didn't want to move. I didn't
want to lose it. I just wanted it to do
whatever I wanted to do. And instead of this, it
broke my sadness whatever you want to call it, into
paying attention to this thing crawling around on me. I
(05:36):
put my hand there, very very gently, and it definitely
didn't want to hurt it. And I put my finger
on my lip. It went onto my finger. I took
it loose, looked at it. It looked like it was
looking right at me. Then I would put it down
on my chest where the blanket was. I know mooths.
I heard they liked to eat wool. People would have
(05:59):
coats in a closet and they eat the wool, and
they wanted to get rid of them. So I put
him on the wool so he could eat or walk around,
and sometimes he'd fly around when I would get up
in the cell. He never left. He stayed in myself
day after day after day, and I would go look
(06:21):
him for him. Whenever I went into the shower to
take a shower, I would always look at all the walls,
open up this little plastic curtain, make sure I could see.
I didn't want to turn on the shower. Maybe he
was sitting in there and he would get wet, their powdery,
their legs and their wings. I didn't want to kill it.
(06:43):
I didn't want to hurt it. It was like my buddy.
I wrote a letter and told my daughter about the mouth.
It was weeks and weeks of being there, maybe even longer.
Because my daughter wrote back and she said that are
(07:05):
you losing it? Bro a Morth? I wrote back, No,
I'm not losing it. I'm okay doing some sit ups.
I'm doing some push ups. I do some meditation. I
read a little bit sometimes I even read the Bible,
little piece of the Bible, not the whole thing, but
a little piece of it sometimes and this morth would
(07:28):
come and land right on the Bible as I'm holding
and I would say myself, this is a gift, this
is a gift from God. They want to break me,
they want me to lose my sanity. Here I know that,
and God is helping me again in my life with
(07:50):
this morth. It went on for months and months and months,
and he was my friend. He was my life, He's
who I talk to. He was alive. Everything else in
(08:13):
myself was dead, including me. I had nothing. Then the
season came and the Morths disappeared. I mean for two days,
three days solid, I turned over anything and everything in myself,
(08:33):
constantly looking and waiting and waiting and waiting. He never
came back. Literally broke my heart. It's amazing how you
could become attached to something when you have nothing. That's
what the ADX Supermax gives you nothing, sloppy, rotten, fucking
(08:58):
food that it's not even cooked there. It's cooked in
another prison and brought there in warmer boxes, sits in
the hallway for a couple hours before you get You
could imagine when it's cooked and comes out of the
ovens or wherever it comes out of before you get
it to stick it in your mouth. It's four or
five hours old. It's slop. So I wanted to tell
(09:24):
you this story. People didn't know that story about the moths.
That's the craziest thing. On occasion, a certain time of
the year, I'll see a morth in my office or somewhere.
Years ago, I would just swat it with a fly
swatter and get rid of it. But I don't do
(09:47):
that now and I never will. There was a season
where the morths come out in that prison, and before
they die off or disappear, they probably lay eggs, and
the eggs lay there until the following year they hatch
(10:07):
and it's a mortzy and they're all over the place.
You could hear the warden explaining it. He don't know
what it is, but he said, it does happen. It
happens every year, so I don't know if they have
changed that. But so that's my Mourth story and a
little bit of the Adax Supermax combined in it and
(10:31):
to give you an idea of what it is and
what it's about. So guys, love you, guys, talk to
you soon. Audios. I'm gonna leave out the motherfuckers, but
but audios.
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