0102 Sir Gene Speaks with Dude named Greg

Episode Transcript
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Gene (00:00):
This is Sir Gene Joining me today is Greg Hoyt.
We're gonna find out all aboutGreg, and he seemed like a very
interesting person.
And that collection of figuresbehind him is not a green screen
image that is actually in theroom he's sitting in.
Is that correct, Greg?

Greg (00:19):
Yes.
Yes.
That is correct.

Gene (00:20):
Yes.
So would you consider yourself abig nerd or just a moderate nerd

Greg (00:26):
I, I guess it's hard to say, because some people, define
it and interpret it

Gene (00:30):
or you collector

Greg (00:32):
I, I, I, I'm more so a collector.
I, I mean, I still

Gene (00:34):
So you buy and sell these things.

Greg (00:37):
Not so much sell.
I'll sell something every nowand then, but, That's more so to
maybe make some room

Gene (00:44):
Mm-hmm.
are you a completionist?
Do you look for every single onereleased in a particular year or
something?

Greg (00:51):
in some cases, like with respect to some of the nineties
toy lines from Toy Biz.
I, I do fancy myself a bit of acompletionist in that regard.
But you know, when, when you'redealing with thousands and
thousands of toys that have beenproduced throughout the years,
you can't be a completionist foreverything.
I, I'd have to get an extra fourbedrooms or something like that.

Gene (01:10):
Yeah.
And that, that looks like quitea few.
Now is that a on a, like customstand or did you just put some
peg boards in the walls?
What are they?
Hang in.

Greg (01:20):
No, they're, they're just hanging on the original pegs
that they have, like the, onsome thumbtacks,

Gene (01:25):
okay.
So those are like stand, likestore displays basically.

Greg (01:30):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, for, for these typesof figures.
I mean, they're, they're,they're, these ones are
relatively lightweight.
They're, they're not as heavy assome of the bulkier plastics
that were used back in the day.
So they're a lot easier tosuspend from, their, their,
their original peg holders.

Gene (01:45):
Hmm.
Yeah.
That's wild.
All right, well let's, let'swe'll get back to that.
Let's go back, well, first ofall, how would you describe
yourself into a couplesentences?

Greg (01:56):
Well, it just depend, depends in, in what regard?

Gene (02:00):
Hi, you just met me.
Who the hell are you?

Greg (02:03):
Oh, hi, my name is Greg White.
I'm now an independentjournalist with a primary focus
on I guess what people wouldcall cult culture war stuff.
Prior to that, I worked for lawenforcement today and Red Voice
Media basically doing the samething, That I'm doing now.
And obviously I'm a toycollector and that's, that's

(02:25):
pretty much long and short ofit.
And I live kind of somewhat offthe grid.

Gene (02:28):
Okay, cool.
So those are all interestingthings we can kinda jump into,
but let's go back further intime.
Where'd you grow up and where'dyou go to college?
Just kind of let's, let's draw apath to kind of how you got to
where you are.

Greg (02:44):
Yeah.
So my father was in themilitary.
He had been in the Air Force forfour years and the Army for 26.
He retired back in 1992.
Roughly, he, he retired roughlywhen, when I was about six years
old.
I was born in Arizona.
I was born in on, on base onFort Chuka which is near Sierra

(03:05):
Vista.
But, Within months after beingborn, we hightailed it over to
Chen, Italy.
And that's where I, I grew upmostly up until 1991, late 91.
We were in Georgia for a fewmonths and.
My dad's last post was at McDillover in Tampa, and he finished

(03:29):
up the, the, the last fewmonths.
And and by late 1992, he wasdone with the military.
And, and so a lot of myformative years were spent over
in the greater Tampa Bay area.

Gene (03:40):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (03:41):
So

Gene (03:43):
So do you, did you learn Italian when you were a kid
then?

Greg (03:47):
no, no, Because a lot of the, a lot of the people that
lived around us, Even though wedidn't live on base in Venza, we
lived in an apartment building,but a lot of people in the
apartment building, Were were USmilitary, folks.
So all our neighbors werespeaking English.
And so it, it really

Gene (04:03):
And you were there up until, how old were you?

Greg (04:06):
Not quite six.
I was there up until I was,until I was, about five.

Gene (04:09):
Got it.
Got it.
Yeah.
I lived in Italy for a littlebit when I was eight years old.

Greg (04:15):
Yeah.
I I mean, my memories of theplaces there was a lot of snow
and a lot of hail duringwintertime.

Gene (04:20):
mm-hmm.

Greg (04:21):
Unfortunately there was this one incident, one of where
one of our neighbors cats hadgotten killed during a hail
storm from the hail coming

Gene (04:28):
Jesus.
It's a big hail.

Greg (04:32):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
There, there would be, like,you, you, you'd find some
baseball size pieces here and.

Gene (04:37):
Yeah.
That's crazy.
All right, and then really sortof after that, you were in
Florida,

Greg (04:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, that's what I say, like,you know, my formative years
were there, I lived in Floridaup until I wanna say around
August of 2002.
At the time my father was movingto Arizona and I would've been
not quite 16, but, I was like amonth or two away from turning
16, and I moved with him toArizona and I, I stayed for a

(05:09):
few months, but my father and Ihad a falling out, which, I
mean, it happens sometimes whenyou're a teenager.
You're rambunctious

Gene (05:14):
Happens all the time.
I don't know a single teenageboy in his late teens and
doesn't have a falling out withhis father.
I think it's pretty damn normal.

Greg (05:25):
so, by October, I wanna say of 2002, I moved to San
Bernardino, California, where myolder sister was living at the
time, and I stayed up in thatarea until around 2006.
That there was a brief period inoh four where I took a job in

(05:45):
Arizona doing a field engineerwork for this company called
Southwest Systems shortly afterI turned 18.
But ironically, I, I took avocational course over at the
local job course center in theInland Empire.
Back in 2003, early 2004 forculinary arts.
Now I, I did it.

(06:05):
I completed it, and I, I havedone nothing with that
vocational certificationwhatsoever.

Gene (06:14):
Do you like to cook though?

Greg (06:15):
oh yeah, no, I, abso I love, I love cooking, I love
baking.
I, it, it is a fun thing.
So it was nice to, to, to learnhow to navigate that stuff a
little bit better.
But yeah, predominantly what gotme into the brief spat into
field engineer work was justhaving a, a working
understanding, Hardware,software, stuff like that.

(06:36):
Cuz I, I grew up with computersin the house, Like the, the, the
old Atari computers.
And then you had the gosh,remember Windows 3.4,

Gene (06:45):
Yeah.

Greg (06:46):
you know,

Gene (06:48):
Yeah, there's I'm trying to think of what the, I think, I
don't think I ever used 1.0, butI, I got a Windows machine at
work shortly, shortly afterWindows was released.
And I, I was, I was mostly a Macguy, so it was all kind of,
Parallel oh, that's crazy.

(07:09):
They're trying to do somethingthe McRay does and not very
well.
That's that kinda attitudeusually for me.
But Yeah.

Greg (07:16):
Yeah.

Gene (07:18):
all right.
So you never went into cookingbut you're like, there's still
no connection to the writingpart, so let's keep going in
your

Greg (07:26):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, because you know, we, we,we've only ventured up until the
point where I was about like 18ish when I was working.
So I wound up leaving SouthwestSystems after working there for
about four months.
And it really had a lot to dowith the fact that there was,
it, it was nonstop travel.
I got hired there one day andapproximately two days after

(07:46):
getting hired, they had me on avan with a coworker, Up over to
like the, the, the New Englandarea because we were the
Southwest Systems had acquired aa contract with Albertsons
because they had Albertsons hadpurchased this grocery store in
the northeast called Shaws.

Gene (08:06):
you, you ended up in the northeast, even though you're
working for Southwest.

Greg (08:10):
Yeah, And I was there for months.
Traveling from store to store,We would, we would basically do
one to two stores a nightdepending on how large the store
was.
And, and we would be setting upthe wireless access points
running and terminating thecable, and then testing to make
sure that, signal was availableeverywhere throughout the store

(08:31):
for the folks using the P D Tguns.

Gene (08:35):
makes sense.

Greg (08:36):
Huh.

Gene (08:37):
Makes sense.
That's there was a lot less easeof deployment back then.
I remember

Greg (08:43):
This is, this is going back to late 2004.
The, and, and these were likethe old Cisco aps that, that we
were putting up at the time.
Obviously things have changeddramatically those things.
I, I mean, I, I understand likethe need for an intranet in, in
these places.
So they're they're stilloperating that to an extent, but
like with the advancements intechnology with like cell phones

(09:06):
and stuff like that, and,offsite storage and, and crap
like that, a lot of that on,on-prem hardware, a lot of it
isn't really necessary anymore.

Gene (09:15):
Yeah.
No, that's true.
And also, how long did you dothe tech stuff or did you move
on to another company doing thesame kind of stuff?

Greg (09:23):
Yeah, no.
What I wound up doing afterthat, I was just, I was 18 and
I, I wanted to kind of act alittle bit, frivolous, I guess,
so I, I asked my sister, I'mlike, Hey, I don't like this
job.
Can I move back in with you, Andso I went back to California and
I stayed there up until 2006before coming back out to
Arizona.

(09:44):
And, and I, a girl and I, we metand we moved in type of thing.
You know how that Suaree goes,While the relationship didn't
work out, at the time I had beenworking for Target for a few
years.
Cuz when I came back toCalifornia, took a job at
Target, doing like a front laneswork and stuff like that, you
know, like guest services, allthat crap.
And when I moved to Arizona withthis gal that I was dating at

(10:08):
the time I took a job as likethe they, they called them
Target protection specialists,but it's basically like the
security guard.
I did that for a couple years,or, or about about 18 months, I
wanna say before getting hiredfor the board of patrol.
And that was, gosh, I was mid2007, something like

Gene (10:27):
In the Arizona,

Greg (10:29):
yeah.
yeah.
Tucson

Gene (10:30):
Now, were you collecting action figures this whole time,
or did that start later?

Greg (10:34):
Yeah.
No, I, I've been collecting thiswhole time, you know?
Yeah.
And it's, and like when I try toexplain it to people because
they think I, I just go ape shitevery time I go to a store and
it's, and it's simply not thecase.
If I go to, to a store and, andpeople don't realize you can go
to a store, what, 4, 5, 6, 7times in a month,

Gene (10:50):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (10:51):
whether you're doing a large grocery trip or just
getting an off and end thing.
And, sometimes I'll see a toy,maybe two that, that I want on
the trip and, it doesn't looknecessarily crazy if you go to
the store and you happen to geta toy or two.
But when you do thatconsistently for years and years
and.

Gene (11:10):
Yeah.

Greg (11:10):
Especially, when you're an adult and you have more
expendable income and, and youdon't necessarily have to, to
beg a parent be like, Hey, comeon, come on mom.
It does add up.
It, it before you know it, likeyou, you, you look and it's oh
crap.
This past year I acquired, 250action pictures or something
like that.
You know what I mean?
It's, it's not uncommon for thatto happen, and that's how you

(11:34):
get to a place where you wind uphaving, thousands of toys.

Gene (11:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I, I kind of can see thatcuz I did that with CDs.
I started collecting CDs orbuying CDs when I was in high
school and then obviously keptup with that as my income grew
up until, I'm trying to rememberwhen did I get rid of'em.
I think I got rid of'em in 2003ish or so, cuz it was a pretty

(12:00):
obvious everything's goingdigital or two mp3.
So, I ended up ripping all myCDs and there was a company that
used to resell'em, kinda like aneBay, but for CDs only.
I forget what they were.
I ended up getting rid of'em,but it was I had thousands and
thousands of CDs.
It was just like, you don't,because you're right, you don't

(12:22):
notice it when you buy two orthree at a time.
And then you notice how manyracks'em you have when you and
CDs are way more compact thanwhat I'm looking here in, in
behind you.
So Yeah.

Greg (12:33):
Yeah.
No, and, and I still have CDsmyself.
I've got, I don't know if I havethousands per se, but I got a
few hundred.
Cuz I, I like music, you know,.Yeah, And, And I still like
physical media too, you know,I'm, I'm a physical media kind
of

Gene (12:47):
God, I, I don't, I try to minimize everything into as
small space as possible.
I, I was a photographer for along time and I just loved going
full digital cuz instead ofscanning film, I could actually
just shoot digital and there wasno film involved.
So cheaper.
Plus the it meant that I couldshoot a lot more without run,

(13:08):
having to count how many shotsI've already taken to save some
for the rest of the trip orwhatever.
So yeah, definitely, definitelya fan of just full, full digital
all the way around.

Greg (13:21):
Yeah.
I guess I gu I guess I can atleast see it from the
perspective with with regard tophotography.
Yeah.
Because that's the, that's thething.
It, it's also one of the thingsthat kind of, I know it
shouldn't irritate me, but itkind of bugs me when I see a lot
of people, giving us a, a selfieevery few hours on their social
media feed.
And, it's, it's I, I kind ofwant to go back to that

(13:41):
gatekeeping era, you know, it'sBack in the day people had to
take pictures of you,

Gene (13:46):
Yeah.
Well, it was definitely a lotmore expensive if you would've
tried to do what you're doing.
And even Polaroid the instantcameras, there was basically a
bucket image.

Greg (13:57):
Yeah.

Gene (13:58):
you're gonna, you're gonna limit how many of those you
take.
And a bucket image when a buckwas a much bigger portion of
your income

Greg (14:07):
when, when, when?
Back when

Gene (14:08):
cars were 10,$12,000 back then.
Yeah.
So it was it was definitely moreexpensive, relatively speaking.
But anyway, so I, I interruptedyou here.
So you were, you were workingfor border patrol, so let's
pick, pick up there.
That sounds like an interestingjob.
I don't, I've never interviewedanybody that's done that.
So tell us a little more aboutwhat that actually entailed

Greg (14:32):
so it's, it's not as

Gene (14:34):
or were you doing it for border patrol?
Cause that would be verydifferent.

Greg (14:38):
no, no, no.
no.
I was, I was a GS five.
I got terminated under myprobationary period Because you
were on probation for about twoyears.
I got fired back in I wanna sayit was like March of 2008 or
something like that.
So I hadn't been there thatlong.
And yeah, so as a GS five,you're basically riding along
with somebody for the first yearand then, Come your second year,
they might let you out on yourown, but you're still under

(15:00):
probation and you're just doinga lot of line watch.
You, you might, if you're at thestation, doing anything, whether
you're assisting with detaineestransports or anything like
that, you might have to do likea nuts and butt sweep or
You, you get a lot of the, thework that nobody else wants to
do when you're not riding

Gene (15:18):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.

Greg (15:19):
But what I can say it's relatively easy to get fired
from from that place when Oh,yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I, I owned up to mymistake I was screwing around on
the nForce database and I knowthis is probably not gonna make
any sense unless, somebody elsewas working with legacy systems,
mid 2000 systems with BorderPatrol, but I was screwing
around on Ed Force making a mockentry and, and joking around

(15:40):
with a pal at the station, andapparently it got accidentally
submitted.
So, It, yeah, so, and that,that's not good because then it,
it distorts numbers, it, itmakes it seem though, as though
an iwi was an apprehended, wasapprehended when they weren't,
all that crap.
I, I got fired within about 24hours after

Gene (16:00):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (16:00):
cuz the supervisory agent caught wind of it.
And he was like, yeah, yeah,and, and, and he, he was
disheartened because he, he knewthat I.
The chops to be a good agent,but he admitted that I got hired
on way too young.

Gene (16:17):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (16:18):
And and I kind of agree.
And he told me, he is Hey man,why don't you reapply in five
years?
That didn't exactly happen.
Cause I went to prison in 2009.

Gene (16:26):
Whoops.

Greg (16:28):
Whoops.

Gene (16:29):
can't, you can't apply right from prison to be a border
patrol.

Greg (16:32):
No, no, no.
They've, yeah, that's, that,that ain't gonna happen,

Gene (16:35):
Ah-huh.
So what'd you do between theprison and the border Patrol
gig?

Greg (16:40):
I, I was depressed, man.
I, I, I like Have you ever hadone of those moments, like the
Homer Simpson moment where youwanna disappear into the grass?

Gene (16:48):
No.

Greg (16:48):
Just Oh, oh, okay.
Well, I was, I was embarrassed.
I felt like I'd let down myfamily.
I felt like I let down my dad,so I did what any rational,
rational person would, would doin that situation.
I left the state and wentsomewhere I hadn't been before.
I, I, I moved to Texas.

Gene (17:04):
makes sense.

Greg (17:05):
Yeah.
Cuz I, I, well, I wasembarrassed.
I, I got, I got fired from a jobthat my folks were all happy
that I'd gotten you, you it wasjust, it was embarrassment at
every turn.
I felt like I couldn't show myface around town.
So, so I moved to Texas and Ilived there for, for about a
year before coming back toArizona.

(17:26):
And the reason why I felt likecoming back is I was never like,
disgustingly obese or anythinglike that, but I was chubby.
And when I was in Texas, I tookan overnight gig with Target.
They, luckily, they hired meback.
I was like, oh, cool, thanksguys.
Well, I didn't leave them on badterms though, ever.
So, I did an overnight gig therefor a year, and all I did was

(17:48):
just do this overnight weartruck unloading stuff.
And then I would spend time atthe gym.
And so I, I, I, I decided tocome back to Arizona.
I'm like, you wanna knowsomething?
I, I can show my face aroundhere, because even though I
screwed up, I looked dead.
Sexy

Gene (18:05):
So where, where in Texas were you?

Greg (18:07):
Flower Mound.

Gene (18:08):
Okay,

Greg (18:09):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I don't know if you'refamiliar with it, near the DFW
area.
Really nice area though.
Flower Mound, Ville not Ville,Louisville.
Gosh.
And, and there was this, therewas this

Gene (18:20):
I lived not too far from there.
I was in Briscoe.

Greg (18:23):
G Grape Grapevine Mills.
That place was cool, butunfortunately a

Gene (18:28):
side of the lake.

Greg (18:29):
were, a lot of the stores were shutting down around that
time too.
Like the Big Virgin records.
They were having their closeoutsales in mid to late 2008, early
2009, because a, as youmentioned earlier, the CD was
kind of going by the wayside,

Gene (18:46):
So you came back to Arizona?

Greg (18:48):
yeah.
Came back to Arizona and I wasdebating on what to do for work,
you know what I mean?
Because I, I had some moneysaved up and I'm like, oh, what
am I gonna do?
What am I'm gonna do?
And this one guy that I'd knownfor a number of years, he, he
told me, and, and, and it feltlike a, a big step down
initially when he suggested it.
He told me, he goes, why don'tyou deliver pizza?
Cuz he was working at doDomino's as a delivery driver.

(19:11):
And I was like, I don't knowman.
I feel I'm not saying that workis beneath me, but it, it almost
feels like, Cuz it, it, it, itfelt very, and, and I don't, I
don't harbor those samesentiments anymore.
I think any work is awesome, tobe quite frank.
But at the time, I was, stillhad a bit of an inflated ish
ego, but I took it once.

(19:33):
He told me how much money he waspulling in since this location
was right next to a militarybase, right next to Port Chuka
it was pretty common to have ona bad night, 80 to$90 worth of
tips for working four or fivehours.
On the weekends, you could pullin 2, 250 bucks in cash tips.

(19:53):
And, everybody at this isDomino's location was on the
same page.
Cash tips don't get reported.

Gene (19:59):
yep.

Greg (20:00):
So I did that for a few months.
But at, while that wastranspiring, I was just kind of
having like still a bit of adownward spiral.
Cause I don't think Inecessarily properly addressed
all the things that had messedwith me, you know, between The
job loss with border patrol,Like there was still like a

(20:21):
lingering issue, maybe you wantto call it depression.
I don't know exactly what tocall it, but whatever it was, it
clouded my judgment and, createdscenarios and circumstances that
made me more prone to, to doirrational things.
And so it all came to a head,one evening in 2009 I hear this

(20:46):
like little bit of a sob storyabout, somebody, somebody's
sister got kicked out by anabusive boyfriend and he kept a
bunch of her crap, and so me anda few other people went to go
reappropriate the property andun unfortunately

Gene (21:00):
the guy was there.

Greg (21:02):
yeah.
Yeah.
And that is against the law.
You you can't do

Gene (21:08):
What?
Getting the posse together to goand round up some stuff that's
against the law.

Greg (21:13):
Yeah.
When it's done by force.
Yeah.
And, and at the same time, Ilook back, I look back at it,
I'm like, dude, dude, that wasso freaking stupid.
And people, somebody could havebeen seriously hurt myself.
The victim, anybody else I waswith, somebody could have been
hurt.
And luckily nobody was.

Gene (21:29):
So why didn't she just have the cops go there with her
and then get her stuff back?
That seems to be the normalcourse of action.

Greg (21:37):
Well, I, I can't really speak with respect to what she
would've done or

Gene (21:42):
Sure.
But does it mean, doesn't thatseem like a,

Greg (21:45):
Oh, yeah, no, that, that's, yeah.
That seems perfectly logical.
And, and, and it would've beenperfectly logical for me at the
time to be like, hearing thatstory and just being like, man,
that sucks.
And then walking away

Gene (21:56):
Yeah.

Greg (21:58):
But, I, I think most people, especially when they're
younger, they, they aresusceptible to getting wrapped
up in and doing dumb things.
It doesn't necessarilycompletely absolve them of their
bad decision making, but, theyare more susceptible.
And so, I got arrested inOctober two 2009 for that.

(22:18):
The original charges werekidnapping, arm robbery, and
burglary.
And,

Gene (22:23):
kidnapping.

Greg (22:25):
yeah, kid kidnapping in the state of Arizona is
whenever.
you vocalize or imply the threatof force to a degree where it
makes feel, where it makessomeone feel like they can't
move.

Gene (22:38):
Oh, okay.
Okay.

Greg (22:39):
Like if you say freeze, don't

Gene (22:41):
So somebody was there when you guys showed up, it wasn't
empty.

Greg (22:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's, and and that's likewhen I explain that to people,
they're like, that's not whatkidnapping is.
Kidnapping is when you takesomebody, I'm like, there's,
there's what people thinkkidnapping is, and there's
whatever the state defines as,And, and other states call it
something completely different.
Some states call that falseimprisonment,

Gene (23:04):
right, right, right.

Greg (23:05):
But it's, that's basically what it was.

Gene (23:07):
Yeah.
So you, you ended up going outthere to help this girl get her
stuff back.
The ex-boyfriend was there, youguys came in with a show of.
and then you got her stuff back.

Greg (23:21):
yeah,

Gene (23:22):
Okay.
You got her stuff back, and thenpolice showed up

Greg (23:25):
yeah, police, police showed up the next day cause
they, they didn't show up rightthen and there on the spot.
But the following day theyapparently arrested the girl's
brother who, who, you know, kindof coaxed everybody.
I don't wanna say coaxed, butyou know, y Yeah.
Arrested him

Gene (23:42):
then he gave everybody up.

Greg (23:43):
yeah.
Yeah.
He, he, he tattled yes.
It's, it's whatever man, youknow.
.I mean, I'm not too mad at himcuz I, I saw what happened to
him when he was in county afterfolks found battled.
So I, I, I don't hold that muchof a grudge, you know?
But yeah, so I got arrestedOctober, 2009.

(24:04):
A plea was offered, and, and itwas, it was a plea offered for
myself and, and everybody elseinvolved.
It was like, Hey, listen,dockets overbooked for 2009,
tell you what, we'll plead itdown.
Attempted armed robbery,attempted burglary, five years.
What do you say?
And it's since there was akidnapping charge on it it, it,

(24:24):
it could have been a scenariowhere if I went to trial, that
could have been like, that couldhave been 20 years.
So I was weighing, you know,consequences and, and I was
like, yeah, five years I did dothis.
So I, I, I, I gotta own up toit.

Gene (24:41):
Hmm.
Yeah, that's a tough choice cuzI think there's, It's, it's all
bargaining, right?
Cuz you're, they're trying tomake you think of the worst case
scenario with a jury versustheir offer without a jury,
which is a guaranteed deal.
And I guess it, it, it alldepended on how connected you

(25:05):
were to a good defense lawyer todecide that question.

Greg (25:09):
Yeah.

Gene (25:09):
cuz the way you, you explain it r right now, I think
that, I would say the averageperson will say, well, he should
do sometime he's guilty ofsomething here.
But I mean, just having somebodythere while you guys show up to
get her stuff back and youyou're not robbing the guy,
you're not, you're technicallyyou might be, I don't know,

(25:30):
legally speaking,

Greg (25:31):
yeah,

Gene (25:31):
but once you explained the rationale behind it, I, I would
have a hard time in seeing a, ajury say that you were actually
kidnapping somebody like thatwould be instantly No, he did
not do that.
And I

Greg (25:43):
yeah.
Yeah.
It was, it was legally, it waslegally robbery.
It was legally burglary.
Because number one, we entereda, a domain that was not ours.

Gene (25:52):
And the girl did not have any she wasn't an lease.
I, I.

Greg (25:57):
yeah, I have no idea whether or not she was on the
lease or anything like that.
You know,

Gene (26:00):
But I mean, if she was on the lease, she couldn't give you
permission to enter even if shewasn't there.

Greg (26:05):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But at the same time, yeah, so Imean, considering she was kicked
out, obviously there, therewere.
Circumstances, maybe, she was orwasn't on the lease.
Not sure.
But yeah.
Yeah, unfortunately, the way,the circumstances, the way that
the way it played out is, yeah,it, it is robbery, it is
burglary because we didn't ownthe property and we're, there,
there's no way we can operate onthe behalf of somebody else type

(26:28):
of thing in that manner,especially when, when force is
being utilized.

Gene (26:32):
Yeah.
And then when you say force,what do you mean by that?

Greg (26:36):
We, we basically forced our way in, in, into the home.

Gene (26:39):
Do you like Jimmy the door?

Greg (26:42):
no, no.
I remember during, during theincident I was the only one with
the vehicle, so I was thedriver.
I stayed in the car and kept itrunning while the my associates
knocked on the door.
Guy opens the door and then, myassociates pushed the door open
on him and then just went

Gene (27:00):
Got it.
Okay.
And the, the girl was not withyou.

Greg (27:04):
correct.

Gene (27:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's that's unfortunate cuz I,I.
Obviously hindsight 2020.
But I and age probably mattershere cuz you were still fairly
young, Vic then.
But I, I would, even if therewas a good reason to commit into
a situation like that, Iwould've never done it without
the actual person being there.

(27:28):
Because like you said, you guyshave no right to be in somebody
else's dwelling, but if she hasa right to be in there, she can
certainly invite you.

Greg (27:38):
Yeah.
That's, that's why I never gooutta my way to try to condone
my actions.
I have no issue

Gene (27:44):
right, right, right.
Yeah.

Greg (27:46):
And it, it's like something that I'm embarrassed
that I did, but you know, there,there's no reason to be
embarrassed to say that I didit.
If I did it, I did it.
That's why I had no

Gene (27:58):
How old, how old were you at the time?

Greg (27:59):
23.

Gene (28:00):
Oh yeah, yeah.
You're still, your, your brain'snot even fully, fully developed
at that point.

Greg (28:07):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, out of the five yearprison sentence I served four
years, three months beforegetting paroled.

Gene (28:15):
Wow, that's quite a bit.
I kind of figured it'd be abouthalf.
So that's, you almost didfull-time.

Greg (28:20):
yeah, no.
In Arizona, they have truth insentencing.
So no matter what crime youcommitted, with the exception of
first time drug offenders,certain drug offenses get a
little bit more leniency, butjust about everything after
that, they have what's calledtruth and sentencing, and you
serve 85% of your time no matterwhat.

Gene (28:41):
Wow.

Greg (28:43):
you could be the most best behave inmate.
You could be completelyrehabilitated in a year, but if
your sentence says you're doingfive years, then you know, you
gotta do your four years, threemonths, some odd days or
whatever.

Gene (28:57):
Yeah.

Greg (28:58):
So yeah, I got out January 9th, 2014.

Gene (29:02):
Okay.
All right.
And then what'd you doimmediately after?
So now all of a sudden you're anexcon.
What do you do?

Greg (29:09):
First thing I did I mean, outside of just en enjoying the,
the, my first day out with myfamily and spending time with
them, and also doing the initialPO visit and all that it was
probably like my second or thirdday out that I secured my first
job, which I, I held for likemaybe a week, week and a half
tops.
And it was installingwindshields and I was just happy
to have a job.

(29:30):
And I was like, And I I wasthinking to myself like, oh,
everybody said I wouldn't get ajob.
Look at me.
I'm installing windshields,Doing one of those mobile
installation type of

Gene (29:37):
Okay.

Greg (29:38):
And after doing that for about a week, week and a half, I
realized, number one, that Ikind of sucked at that job.
And also that I felt like Icould be doing better, even
though I kind of psyched myselfout a bit, saying This is as
good as it gets.
I'm like, no, no, I, I think Ican do better.
And applied to a place inScottsdale Arizona called

(30:00):
Synergy Solutions.
Which they were a hodgepodge ofa inbound outbound call center.
Like the type of entity thattackles multiple clients, or
they might do customer servicefor one company

Gene (30:12):
picturing someplace in India right now, but yeah.

Greg (30:15):
Yeah.
But they also might do outboundsales for

Gene (30:17):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (30:17):
company.
I, I, I applied for a CSRposition over there and I felt
like I had enough.
Yeah, I, I felt like I hadenough experience with it
because when I was working atTarget in, Sierra Vista doing
security, I was working there 30hours a week, and I was also
pulling 40 hours a week atAmerican Express.

(30:39):
They had a, an American Expressoffice open, and I did cs CSR
stuff card member services fortheir high value card members.
So like the people that had likecenturion cards, platinum cards,
stuff like that.
And so, I figured that thatwould be enough to, to do some
CSR work and, and I think theywere paying like 12 bucks an
hour or something like that.

(30:59):
And I'm like, Hey, man, it's airconditioned comes with benefits.
When I when I walked into theinterview I, I remember the two
people who interviewed me.
The first guy with this was thisguy named Mike Berg.
And tall guy, bald goatee.
I had just finished writing out,like the actual, tangible
application and when I handed itback to the, the, the
receptionist, that guy Mikecalls me up, John, on the spot.

(31:23):
He, he didn't even have anopportunity to read it type of
thing.
So he didn't even see that I wasa felon yet.
He takes me into the office and,he goes, Hey man, how's your day
going?
And, he extends his hand for ahandshake and I, I shake his
hand back and I said, man, I, Ijust got outta prison a couple
of weeks ago, so I'm doingpretty good.
That I, I was, I was willing tobe ballsy with it because I

(31:46):
figured it's going to getdiscussed anyway when he sees
it.
So I, I went with the approachof I'm going to make this as big
of a deal as it should be bymaking it not a big

Gene (32:00):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.

Greg (32:01):
And once he saw that I was lighthearted about it, he had a
brief follow up question and,he, he wanted to know what I
went in for and I, I told him, Isaid arm robbery, attempted
burglary.
And I said but I'm on thestraight and narrow.
And that was all we discussedwith regard to the, the felony
conviction.
And after that, he just wentthrough some run of the mill,

(32:23):
interview questions, like, whydo you wanna work here?
What do you know about thecompany?
So on and so forth.
And he immediately gave me asecond interview with another
fella.
And this guy's name was ScottMarshall and another bald guy,
not as tall.
He had a, a, a beard, not, notas big as yours, but you know,
like kind of.
A chin strap kind of beard, youknow, like with the pencil ish

(32:45):
mustache going around.
And I could tell that guy was alittle bit goofier, like a
little bit more, Ladada.
The time I had not seen themovie The Wolf of Wall Street,
so I didn't know he wasreferencing a movie.

Gene (32:59):
so,

Greg (33:00):
He, but he told me, he goes, sell me this pen.
And I was looking, I'm like,excuse me, So I can't remember
exactly what I flung at him atthe time, you know, whatever it
was.
I, I mean, it was the wallgarbage bullshit.
But he thanked me for theinterview and he told me he, he

(33:20):
was candid.
He said, yeah, we we're, we're,we're probably gonna hire you.
I get called into orientationapproximately a week later after
that interview.
And I, I, I'd like to say therewas probably about 40 or 50
people in that orientation.
And I'm guessing it's becausethey had just landed like a big
CSR contract or something, youknow what I mean?
So they had to hire a bunch ofpeople and it was really

(33:43):
uncomfortable because the, theperson leading the orientation
said, if I call your name, gointo this other room.
And my name was the only onethat was called.
And I'm like, oh, I guess I amnot working here anymore.
And it, and it turns out thatwasn't the.
That second guy that interviewedme, that Scott Marshall guy, he

(34:06):
had ran an inside sales teamthat had one opening.
And they were, they had acontract with RS means, which
does like construction costdata.

Gene (34:14):
Mm.

Greg (34:15):
And so I got hired on over there, and so I was already
making more money than Ianticipated.
I think they started me at 12and a half bucks an hour plus
commission.
And the commission wasn't likecrazy, crazy awesome.
I, if my memory serves me right,it was about 5% commission.

(34:38):
And you had to hit like acertain benchmark every month to
even be eligible for thecommission.
But we're talking about likeconstruction cost data, books
that range anywhere in pricefrom$150 to$550 for some of
these books.
And also, like kind of Excelbased software for you know, 12,
1300 bucks.
And, and I wound up knocking itoutta the park while I was over

(34:58):
there.
It got to a point where mycommission checks were usurping.
My, my base rate of pay, youknow, I'd, I'd be getting a, a
couple thousand dollars incommission every month.
And unfortunately there was a, agal, there was a gal, a female
coworker on that same team, andI think she was just, I don't

(35:18):
know, grumpy or a, a hater.
Didn't like the fact that maybeshe thought I was taking money
that could have been hers typeof thing.
She wound up calling RS meanslike the client directly and
gave them a tip that they have acriminal working for

Gene (35:37):
Oh, Jesus Christ.

Greg (35:39):
Yeah.
And I remember that that girlsmugly admitted to doing that,

Gene (35:44):
Wow.

Greg (35:44):
Because, I got pulled in for a, for a meeting with the
call center director, theoutbound operations director.
And RS means, had called upSynergy Solutions and said, you
want something we don't want, wedon't want anybody with a felony
working on our team.
And so they, they, they had tolet me off the team.
But it was a blessing indisguise because, folks a

(36:08):
separate outbound marketing teamhad heard me, on the phone,
doing stuff with RS means, and Iguess they, they, they had
caught wind that I was, somewhatknowledgeable around IT systems
and what have you.
They said the the folks fromthat team a couple of ladies
named Heather Habin and Stacy,Stacy, I can't remember her last
name they said we'd like to hirehim on our team.

(36:31):
We don't care that he's a felon,because apparently both those
ladies were.
like, we don't care.
He as a felon

Gene (36:36):
Uhhuh

Greg (36:38):
And so I wound up getting a raise.
I got relieved, but then I got araise.
And, and, and it was so funnybecause the gal that, that rat
me out to RS means they, theyalso wound up firing her for
pulling that stunt.
They're like, Hey, guess what?
You think that was funny?
You're, you're jobless now,

Gene (36:53):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (36:55):
And, and while I don't necessarily rejoice in people
losing their means or method ofincome, I was, I was totally on
board with that lady gettingfired.
I'm like, all right, screw thatlady.

Gene (37:04):
Yeah.

Greg (37:05):
And so, I I, I wound up going through the ranks through
this it marketing outbound team.
Like we went through variousdifferent names, but we just
primarily operate under theSynergy solutions name cuz like
they, they tried to name theteam, like Star Marketing and,
you know, all, all this stupidstuff.
And I'm like, Let's just, let'sjust operate under Synergy
Solutions.

(37:25):
That sounds just fine too.

Gene (37:26):
So how long were you there?

Greg (37:28):
I started there in late January.
Well, in terms of SynergySolutions in general, I started
there in late January.
I wound up transferring,forcefully, forcibly
transferring to that outboundmar i it marketing department.
I wanna say maybe June or Julyof 2014, give or take.

Gene (37:50):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (37:51):
And I.
There up until September of2015, During, during my time
with that outbound marketingteam, I actually rose for the
ranks really fast starting outas a standard outbound agent,
working on the behalf of anumber of clients a lot of third
party resellers.
Not a lot of directmanufacturers, but you know what

(38:11):
I mean.
Yeah.
I'm pretty sure you're familiarwith third party resellers.
I, I, I did the, the, the, overthe phone email marketing stuff
for a couple months.
Then I got promoted to qualityassurance supervisor.
Then I got promoted to the teamlead of that department after,
the gals that hired me gotpromoted and put elsewhere in
the company.
Then I got promoted to synergySolutions corporate office as a,

(38:33):
a director of businessdevelopment for Synergy
Solutions.
So, I was in charge of actually

Gene (38:39):
So you're looking for new clients?

Greg (38:41):
Yeah.
For, for Synergy

Gene (38:42):
Did you ever go watch Wolfville Wall Street?

Greg (38:45):
after the fact.
Yeah, that's, that's, that'swhy, I, I knew it after fact cuz
that movie came out while I wasin prison.
And so, and, and it was a, amovie that didn't hit network
television before I got out.
So, you know, there were somemovies that hit that came out
while I was in prison and it,they hit network TV and I was
able to watch'em, if they wouldshow on FX or T N T tbs, you

(39:08):
know, you gotta wait a fewyears.

Gene (39:09):
So no premium channels in prison?

Greg (39:12):
I mean about as premium as it gets is like a M C and fx?

Gene (39:16):
No.
No.
HBO or Cinemax?

Greg (39:19):
no, no.

Gene (39:21):
Netflix.
No.
Netflix.

Greg (39:23):
no, no Netflix.
No Netflix.
Although nowadays they do havelike little tablets, like little
seven inch tablets and they canrent movies.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They, they can rent movies oncethey hit video.
Cuz I was talking to my gal paland she had rented the Wakanda
Forever movie a couple weeksago.

(39:44):
And I mean, the rentals aren'tcheap.
They're like$7 to rent a movie.
And again, you're talking likeyou're watching a movie on a, on
a screen like that big, youknow, you're not exactly getting
the theater experience

Gene (39:56):
Yeah.
But so certain bucks to rent themovie and then don't you make 20
cents an hour working in.

Greg (40:04):
it just depends what you do.
She works for a company that Iused to work for ironically
because after, after leavingSynergy I, I left Synergy
Solutions when I was offered acorporate position for a company
called Televerde Televerdeoperates outbound it marketing
campaigns inside women'sprisons.

(40:26):
But obviously they have acorporate office in Phoenix and
I mean, they have the, the who'swho.
Of big name clients.
They're not working with thirdparty, this, that, or the other
thing.
I mean, they, they're workingwith stuff like Evol or, or as
now it's called Carbonite sap,Just Salesforce.
I mean,

Gene (40:44):
And what are they?
What?
What are the gals in prisondoing?

Greg (40:47):
They're, they're doing they're, they're kind of top of
funnel marketing.
So they, they'll work with ahandful of, yeah, they'll,
they'll work with a handful ofaccount executives, For
companies like SAP and, youknow, Comal and, all, all those
crap.
And they'll penetrate companies,you know, like, An account
executive, let's say they have,Midwest, large enterprise, and

(41:10):
they, they have a list of, athousand companies they either
want to get into or they want toexpand the

Gene (41:17):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (41:18):
And so what the gals in prison will do is they'll start
calling into the company,finding out who does what.
They have limited email accesswith, official, like a referees,
whistle signatures brandedemails for their client for the
client they're collaboratingwith.
And the girls who are doingthat, they're making a minimum
wage In there.

Gene (41:36):
In prison.
Cause I'm making way more thanother people.

Greg (41:41):
yeah.
Yeah.
Now, the way minimum wage worksin prison in Arizona is.
,a lot of it goes into aretention fund.
So the most that the woman can,the, the women can keep on their
books is$2 an hour.

Gene (41:56):
Okay.

Greg (41:57):
The rest get, puts, gets put into a retention fund and it
accumulates, and then they canget it on a, a debit card once
they step out.
And, when I was working atcorporate there would be a lot
of girls that would come out ofprison and then get a job at
corporate and you know, they,they, some of them would have
40, 50, 60 K in the bank walkingout of prison because they'd

(42:19):
been working at

Gene (42:20):
I mean, that's great.
That's a great thing to havewhen you're starting at nothing
again.

Greg (42:25):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And, and so that, that's, that'swhere my gal works, but that's,
like that's where I worked andI, and I, I stayed there.

Gene (42:33):
So, okay.
Just to clarify so your, yourgirlfriend's in prison right
now.

Greg (42:38):
yeah.

Gene (42:41):
Are you comfortable talking about how that happened?

Greg (42:43):
That's, that's her story.
You know, that's,

Gene (42:47):
So just sufficient to say that you're, you're waiting for
her to get out?

Greg (42:51):
yeah.
Yeah.
She gets out in August of 2024.

Gene (42:56):
Okay.
So a little over a year.

Greg (42:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
About, About what, 15 months

Gene (43:02):
Okay.
And then I know we're kind ofjumping around timeline here a
little bit.
So where, where did you guysmeet?

Greg (43:10):
Tele Verde.

Gene (43:11):
Okay.
So you did meet there.

Greg (43:13):
Yeah,

Gene (43:15):
Got it.
All right.
Go.
I don't, I don't know.
It could have been some randomthing elsewhere, I guess, too.
All right.
Well, so you're working for thiscompany now.
We still haven't gotten to apoint where you're writing,
you're working for this companybasically as a, a sales.

Greg (43:33):
When I, when I worked, when I went to work for
Televerde, I, I went to work forthem in late 2015.
I stayed up until mid 2017.
With them I, I was kind of likea client liaison, basically
while, while a lot of the womenin prison were really good at
what they did in terms ofnavigating and, and creating

(43:53):
what you would call like a, a anorganizational map, which is
this person reports to thisperson who reports to this
person, They may not necessarilybe very good at talking to the
stakeholders with the currentclients.
And so that's, that's wherepeople like me came in.
Because sometimes, the, the galsin prison, they would, they,

(44:14):
they may say something flippant,you know, my God, just, just
because of their naturalvernacular or what have you, or
I should say they're anenvironmental vernacular.
Yeah.
So I was kind of like a clientliaison type of person, I would
just make sure the clients arehappy.
You know, some people would callit like client success.

Gene (44:35):
Sure, sure.
So you're making good money atthis point.

Greg (44:38):
Yeah, yeah.
No, absolutely.
That I took, I took some timeoff because post 2016 election,
I, I got, I got laid off fromTeleverde in June or July of
2017, and it was, it was shortlyafter they, they hired this new
HR guy and he was blatantlyanti-conservative held a grudge

(45:00):
up against anybody that, was in,five feet distance of somebody
who liked Trump type of thing.
So I could, I could see thewriting was on the wall when
that guy started targeting me,messing with me, pulling me into
the office because of my postson Facebook or LinkedIn, and
it's like, all right, whatever,Jack off.
So after I get laid off fromthere I took a brief, like a, a

(45:22):
hiatus working at, at, at a, atan Amazon facility in Goodyear,
Arizona, which I actually foundthat to be really fun.
I know there's like a lot ofpeople that say Amazon's
terrible and, it's slave labor.
I, I thought it was absolutefun.
I had an absolute blast.
And I, I was in charge of theirb o d department while I was

(45:43):
there.
So I was there, I was there forclose to a year.
And b o d is like box on demand.
Whenever Amazon has a very largeor, or oddly shaped item that
they wouldn't necessarily havea, a stack of boxes readily
manufactured for them, they havethis huge machine that 3D scans

(46:03):
the item and then prints out acustom box for it.

Gene (46:07):
Really?
Wow.
Now, so does it cut really bigpieces of cardboard or how, how
does it make the box?

Greg (46:12):
It, that's, that's what it does.
It, it cuts very, very largepieces of cardboard you know,
Something to the extent of like,when you're loading up the
machine it, it's probably eightfeet wide by six feet pieces and
some, and some of the piecesneed to be glued together.
So there was also a gluing pressmachine, Whenever you had a, a,

(46:33):
a really big box.
And this is like when stuff likemattresses would be getting
shipped or, or absurdly, largestuffed animals, that, that,
that would be the most commonthing that I would see come
through.
There is big old mattresses,absurdly, large stuffed animals
every now and then there'd belike some, like weight set or

(46:53):
But, considering the obesitylevels in the United States,
obviously not a lot of peopleare Yeah.
Anyway so a, after that, afterdoing that for about a year I
started working with an IBMpartner called Change Three.
And then I stayed with them for,I don't know, when did I start
working for them?
I started working with Changethree, I wanna say it was like

(47:15):
in maybe, maybe May or June of2018.
And then in early 2019, I tookan offer from a, a company
called Demand MarketingSolutions, and, and this was all
just the same, same shit.
This is all IT marketing stuff.
Although with Change three, Iwas kind of doing the client

(47:37):
client liaison stuff.
When I went to dms, I was doingmore selling campaigns.
But it's still in the realm ofthe IT stuff, the IT marketing
and sales.

Gene (47:47):
so it's sales and you have it knowledge basically, so you
can talk about the stuff.

Greg (47:53):
Yeah.
And, and, and that's, that's an,it's an extremely important part
for, selling IT campaigns or, ormarketing campaigns, all that

Gene (48:01):
We still haven't gotten to rating.

Greg (48:03):
Yeah.
So that's, that's when ithappened in 2019, In 2019, I
decided to leave the GreaterPhoenix area, come out here to
rural Arizona in the, in theherford pina area, roughly about
a mile away from Mexico.
It was, it was time.
There, there's this large chunkof property that's been in my
family's, name for, for a hotminute.

(48:25):
And so the opportunity presenteditself.
I had or had I still have one ofmy brothers was trying to get
out of a manufactured home thathe didn't want anymore.
And, There was about 10 yearsleft on it to pay on it.
And he just wanted to, dust hishands off of it.

(48:46):
Now, when I came here, I took alook at it.
I took a look at the place and,and the place needed Jesus and
there's still things that I needto repair here.
I just kind of tackle it when Ican, and I'm trying to learn as
I go.
But he wanted, he wanted out ofit.
He, and he tried to charge mefor the equity and I told him, I
said, my brother in Christ, thishouse needs so much done to it.

(49:09):
If you want out from it, cuzit's not like you can sell it to
anybody else cuz he, he, hecouldn't, it's family property
20 acres.
So it can only be sold withinfamily So, I mean, I was kind
of, I was, I was leaning onthat, but you know, at the same
time, I wouldn't give anybodyelse money for the equity
either, because that's how badit was.
I told him, I said, you justgive up the equity and I'll take

(49:32):
the rest of it and you can just,wash your hands at this.
And so we did.
And that's, I I was stillworking at DMS when this
happened.
Demand Marketing Solutions.
So I moved in summer of 2019 inthis area, and by October of

(49:52):
2019, I got a call from the c eo of Demand Marketing Solutions
saying the company has gone titsup bankrupt.
You know, everybody's gettingtheir last check, but there's no
more work to be done.

Gene (50:06):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (50:07):
And so that was, that was like, huh, I was, I was sitting
around, I'm like, well, what amI gonna do?
And so, I, I just happened totext a friend of mine, this guy
Kyle Reyes.
We had known each other for acouple of years.
Had ghost written some stuff forlaw enforcement today.
That, that he would either putunder his name or something like

(50:28):
that, or, he would just have itsigned as former felon, thanks,
X, Y, and Z.
When I texted him that I wasn'tasking him for a job or anything
like that, but he, he hits meup, cuz he was national
spokesman for law enforcementtoday and, and pretty much held
the, the keys to the car onhiring people.
He's Hey man, you want a ridingjob?

(50:50):
And he is I'll give you a Ithink at the time he was.
Paying like 20 bucks an articleor something like that, 20 or 25
bucks an article.
He say, Hey, you, you can I'll,I'll let you write up to eight
article eight articles a day ifyou want.
And so he kind of fucked up whenhe said that, cuz I, I, I went
into workhorse mode, man,

Gene (51:08):
Like hell.

Greg (51:08):
It, it was, it was literally something where I fell
into it by accident or, youknow, circumstantial reasons,
whatever.
And I was with l e t up untilI'm gonna say like October,
November of 2021.
So I, I was with them for twoyears.
And, and like when I told youlike when I wanted to work ho
horse mode, I absolutely did.

(51:29):
Like I, I, of saving up moneywith, with that and getting a, a
decent chunk of money fromDogecoin, I was able to pay off
the, the, the remaining

Gene (51:37):
you, you bought those coin back in the day?

Greg (51:40):
Yeah, yeah.
But between Dogecoin profitsand, money saved up, I was, I
was able to pay off the, the,the 10 years remaining obviously
in less than 10 years

Gene (51:49):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (51:50):
So, during my work with law enforcement today I did
people were noticing me incertain circles, I guess, I did
do a, what do you call those,like a fireside.
With America's FutureFoundation, where I spoke
alongside, and this was, thiswas back in early 2020, I spoke
alongside, Carlos Safaro fromArizona Talks, and Matthew

(52:12):
Charles, one of the firstrecipients of The First Step Act
under the Trump administration.
So that, a discussion aboutcriminal justice reform cuz they
wanted to get my perspective onthat.
And, My work with l e t over theyears red Voice Media, an offer
came from them in late 2021,like around, November, 2021.
And I'm like, Hey, yeah.
Cool offer.

(52:32):
Yeah, I'll absolutely take itbecause with law enforcement
today, even though I would coverlike some politics stuff, I
would only cover politics stuff.
If the politics had a direct,had some sort of direct conduit
with law enforcement.
So I was a little bitconstrained with l e t.
I've got nothing against him,I'm still good friends with,
Kyle over there and, and the CEORobert Greenberg, still good

(52:54):
pals with him, great people.
But, it, it, it is lawenforcement centric and, and it
does kind of get a littleexhausting, it's okay, all
right.
And, and, and, cop did this, or,so and so was arrested, you know
what I mean?
At least with Red Voice mediawas a little bit more of a blank
canvas.
I mean, there were still, therewere still some boundaries with
r b.
But considerably less, or, andyeah, so that's, that's how I

(53:19):
got into journalism.

Gene (53:21):
Okay, cool.
And then so you're still withthese guys?

Greg (53:24):
No, no.
red Voice Media.
I don't know if you, you knewabout it or maybe, maybe you're
just baiting me into talkingabout it.

Gene (53:31):
don't

Greg (53:31):
No.
I was, I was dismissed from RedVoice Media in late January, I
believe it was January 30th ofthis year.
Now, the reason afforded to mewas that there were money issues
with Red Voice Media and theycouldn't afford to keep me.

Gene (53:46):
Okay.

Greg (53:47):
my suspicions that maybe something else influenced it.

Gene (53:52):
Hmm.
you write a nasty hit piss pieceon somebody, or

Greg (53:57):
That time between the days of January 27th, 28, 20 ninth,
something around there I hadco-hosted Twitter spaces
discussing the Eliza Bluescenario.

Gene (54:09):
Hmm

Greg (54:10):
And some of these spaces were listened to by hundreds of
people at any given time.
Four or five, 600 people on someof these spaces.
And at this time in lateJanuary, it was still a bit of a
contentious issue to discussbecause people were still
getting from Twitter.
People were still gettingYouTube videos struck.

(54:31):
Tim Pool was still having usmeltdowns.
And, and what was that gal?
Former gateway, pundit lady?
Fairbanks, Cassandra Fairbanks.
She was still dogging people whowere bringing it up.
It, it was still contentiousand, Eliza Blue had a lot of
conduit within conservativemedia at the time,

Gene (54:54):
Yeah.
Which I completely don'tunderstand because the first
time I saw her on Tim, and Ithink a lot of people still
don't know who the hell she iscuz frankly she was not that
big.
But I remember when she was onTim and I was like, there's
definitely something to offabout her and why are they
platforming her?
Because like this is not an areaI've spent a great deal of time

(55:18):
looking at.
But I've certainly watched cuzI, I, I enjoy documentaries.
So I've certainly seen plenty ofdocumentaries including ones
that deal with people that wereactually trafficked and, and
there, because YouTube has ashit ton of these both from
Europe and from the us.

(55:39):
Any large US major city has atrafficking problem at this
point.
And Eliza did not act likeanybody in these videos.
She acted a lot more like thechurch lady that goes to help
somebody that got traffickedrather than somebody who got

(56:03):
trafficked.
So there was a disconnectbetween the messaging and the
actions and

Greg (56:08):
I, I, I agree.

Gene (56:10):
Yeah, so I saw that way before, the first time she was
on Tim Cast.
I'm like, something's,something's weird here, but
obviously who cares, right?
She was on once, not a big deal.
Then she came back a second timeand immediately proceeded with
accusations of Tate brothers.

Greg (56:27):
Yeah

Gene (56:28):
I'm in contact with women.
These guys raped.
And it's hold up.
There's, they're not, theyhaven't even been charged that.
What we are seeing coming fromRomania is little bits and
pieces that are clearly pr,whether it's for one side or the
other.
We're not getting anything fromthe government itself.

(56:51):
And and she's been talking towomen directly.
It's okay, I'm, I believe thischick even less and because it,
it just doesn't make sense.
I'm a big fan of Occam's razor.
The, the most the explanationwith the least amount of jumps
and hoops and twirls in it.

(57:11):
The thing that's the, thecleanest to explain is the most
likely explanation.
It's not guarantees to be, butit's the most likely.
And in this case, boy was therea lot of jumps and hoops and I
can't talk about it.
And that, that's usually apretty good sign that that
something isn't being portrayedthe way that it actually.

(57:33):
So, but you know, I've certainlynever met her.
I've never met anybody.
She's mad.
To me, this was just a curiositything in observing somebody that
seemed not to be genuine and yetwas getting an awful lot of
people from Elon Musk to TimPoole, completely bending the
need to her and doing whatevershe wants, which is a weird

(57:53):
phenomenon.
And then I'd interviewed a guythat like I'd interviewed a year
previously at Def Fango.
So I, I think I might, myoriginal interview with him was
a little over a year ago, and itwas time for another one.
I figured.
And, and right in that processof, of talking to him, I'm

(58:17):
finding out that he actuallyknew her when she was in their
twenties in Arizona and has, isbasically confirming what my
suspicions are, which is thatshe's full of shit, except he's
doing it firsthand.
I was like, well, that's wilddude.
This is very interesting stuff.

(58:37):
Now I'm, now you're getting meto wanna dig in more into, I'm
finding out about her.
And that was kind of like the,the way I ended up getting on
well really renaming the showwhich was his idea, but I highly
encouraged it.
He said it as a joke.
I'm like, you have to do it.
You, you have to change the nameof the.
To actually be grift cast.

(58:58):
And and he totally did.
He went full on, full in, fullon into that whole image of it.
But anyway, I'm, I'm talking andit's, I'm actually supposed to
be interviewing you here, so

Greg (59:10):
No, I'm, I'm, I'm, all four for you

Gene (59:12):
Yeah.
So, but

Greg (59:13):
dialogue.

Gene (59:14):
well, it's not, it's not, it's an interview dude.
It's not a dialogue.
But I figured this wasinteresting enough for you to
hear sort of, the backstory on,on my side, because this is,
this is how I ended up meetingyou is through Def Fango and
through this whole Eliza Bluething.
So it, it is interesting.
And then, so continue on.

(59:35):
So give me gimme your take orkind of what you started doing.

Greg (59:39):
Oh after, I got turned, because, my, my, me getting
informed of, of my dismissal wasliterally five minutes after
getting off of a Twitter space,

Gene (59:50):
Hmm.

Greg (59:50):
Where the update on the background and into Eliza Blue
was, was being discussed.
And I did notice that a coworkerof mine was on that Twitter
space just listening in.
They weren't participating, justlistening in.
And yeah, five minutes after megetting off that space, boom,
fired.
But once again, like I said,the, the official reason given

(01:00:12):
to me was money.
So, as far as I know, it, it, itcould all, it, it could be a
coincidence, that's, that's whyI'm not necessarily throwing rbm
under the bus and being like fthem.
Because, even, even if it was atall influenced at the time,

Gene (01:00:28):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:00:29):
I wouldn't necessarily blame them either.
Because in the conservativemedia space, access is
everything.
And, who am I?
I, I mean, I've got access tomaybe a handful of people.
I, I, I think one of the reasonswhy they liked me is cuz you
know, I'm, I'm chummy with MindyRobertson.

(01:00:50):
She's an nice lady.
Her, her and her husband.

Gene (01:00:52):
Don't know who that is.

Greg (01:00:53):
She's the, the partner of gosh, why am I having a brain
fart?
She's gonna hate me for thisRandy Couture.
It's Randy Couture's

Gene (01:01:00):
Oh, okay.
Got it.

Greg (01:01:02):
Yeah.
They, they, they have someproperty here in Arizona.
And, and they're just, justnice, nice folks.
Really, really.
Mindy is a very, very sweet gal.
I, I had run positive press onher efforts when she was running
for office in Nevada, cuz sheran for her office in Nevada
twice.
Unfortunately, didn't, didn'tget the party nominations and

(01:01:23):
that, that's fine.
It's still good to, to seeindependent voices running.
I'm all for that, shaking thingsup.
So I think that, like if, if Iget fired, worst case scenario,
what they, they, they get maybenot as much direct conduit with
her, but, then they lose thepossibility of, of maybe being
in cahoots with folks like TimPoole or folks at the Daily

(01:01:45):
Wire.
Cuz cuz again,

Gene (01:01:47):
How big are they?
I don't know how big they're,

Greg (01:01:51):
how, how big or who

Gene (01:01:53):
the company that you were working for,

Greg (01:01:55):
Yeah, they're, they're, they're they're not relatively

Gene (01:01:57):
do they call?
Red?

Greg (01:01:58):
Red Voice media.

Gene (01:01:59):
red Voice?
Yeah.

Greg (01:02:00):
Red, red Voice media

Gene (01:02:01):
So how many, how many employees do you think they
have?

Greg (01:02:04):
Probably less than 10.

Gene (01:02:05):
Oh, okay.
So they're tiny.

Greg (01:02:07):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I mean like, you, you takeinto consideration, you know,

Gene (01:02:12):
Temple's got 30, so they're just size wise?

Greg (01:02:16):
huh?

Gene (01:02:17):
Well, Tim Pool has 30 people, so they're about the
third of that size.

Greg (01:02:20):
Yeah, yeah.
And, I mean, so, like I said,access is everything.
And so, even, even if it was atall influenced or, or fueled by
that situation, I can't blamehim.
You know, I, I, I wouldn't beable to blame him.
I could be pissed off.
Sure.

Gene (01:02:38):
Mm.

Greg (01:02:40):
At, at the same time, business is business.
So I figured like after thatit's I, I didn't even approach
Red Voice Media to write anarticle about Eliza or anything
like that.
Never even brought it up oncebecause I knew it was kind of a
taboo thing at late in lateJanuary.
Cuz keep in mind, around thesame time, this was one Red
State published an article andthen they immediately retracted

(01:03:01):
it.
And the excuse given was, oh,there was too much editorialized
stuff in there.
It's have you not read anythingelse that's on Red State and now
you're complaining that there'stoo much editorialized content
in a, in a Red State article,

Gene (01:03:15):
Yeah.

Greg (01:03:15):
It, the red state is a lot of op-eds.
So I I I, I was kind of blownflabbergasted when I saw that
they retracted that piece.
But again, I understand why,they, they probably got some
heat.
They can say they didn't getheat all day, but let's face it,
they, they probably did.
They got a call from somebody.

Gene (01:03:33):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:03:34):
That being said, I'm like, screw it.
I'll just go independent.
I'll kick off a YouTube channeland I'll talk about Eliza Blue
and anything else I want to talkabout at any given time,

Gene (01:03:44):
So I guess my question is why a YouTube channel versus a
what's that website thateverybody seems to be on where
you write stuff?

Greg (01:03:52):
CK.

Gene (01:03:52):
Yeah, that one.
That's what I was thinking.

Greg (01:03:55):
My, my rationale was I do a bit of reading, but I do a lot
more watching when it comes todigesting information because,
you know, yeah, I, I, I likethat audio visual stimulation.
And I figured it's not thatprint media is dying, okay.

(01:04:17):
It kind of is.
Not a lot of people read stuff,more often than not.
Like you can see a article thatwas shared, 50,000 times on
Twitter, and it's like a reallybig, it's got a really spicy
headline and a, and a coollittle picture.
I've seen, working on the backend of WordPress where law

(01:04:39):
enforcement today has saidarticles like that where it'll
be shared 50,000 times and have,so many thousands likes and all
that, and you look and see howmany people actually viewed the
page.
You, you, you might have maybe aquarter or half of that as
views, but then when you startgetting to the brass tacks of

(01:05:01):
how long somebody actuallystayed on the page, you can tell
a large majority didn't evenread it.

Gene (01:05:07):
Yeah.
That Well there there'sdefinitely something to be said
for that.
but also I think differentpeople have different
preferences.
So you don't, you don't have apreference towards writing,
you're fine with just doingspeaking.

Greg (01:05:18):
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm fine with speaking because I, I was
thinking like, I was wonderingI, I want to be able to reach an
audience that kind of resemblesme in, in a sense folks who are
open to maybe, more nuanced orcritical thinking when it comes
to, to certain topical matters.
And I'm like, well, if I preferto digest my information like
this, I'm, there's no reason whypeople who would be lateral to

(01:05:42):
me in terms of, a, a mindsetwould digest information in a
similar fashion.
And, and, and the numbers don'tlie.
More people are consuming video.
More people are consuming audiopodcasts and, and they are
reading stuff.
It doesn't mean there isn't aplace for, for writing.
And perhaps I'll kick off a subif I want to do something that

(01:06:04):
might be better presented in awritten format, especially if
it's like a dicey topic,

Gene (01:06:10):
Yeah.

Greg (01:06:11):
But you know, for I, in the meantime, no vi video seems
to be where, where, where I'm,I'm happier doing things.

Gene (01:06:19):
Got it.
Okay.
Cool.
And so how often are you doingvideos?

Greg (01:06:23):
So it, it's sporadic.
You know,

Gene (01:06:26):
that's not good.
You need you definitely needregular.

Greg (01:06:29):
on, yeah, on on average, the channel has been up now for
about five weeks,

Gene (01:06:36):
Huh.

Greg (01:06:36):
and I think I'm in excess 20 videos, but also a, a, a, a
handful of them were reloads,like classic enemies.
I think that that was like fourof them.
But, but on average, I'll, I'lldo two videos a week, but
sometimes it may be three orfour.
If, if there is an amalgamationof topics.

Gene (01:06:56):
Yeah.
And it, it's the, the thingwell, one of the recurring
pieces of, of insider advicewhen I did a whole series of
interviews with people that arethat have very large YouTube
channels, like Million Plus, iseverybody talked about their
early days.
And the thing that really madethe biggest difference was

(01:07:18):
sticking to a schedule likeMonday, Wednesday, Friday, every
week, no matter what.
Same time people get used to it,even if it's not at livestream.
Obviously with livestreams thatmatters even more because you're
actually asking people toconsume the content at the exact
same time you're producing it.
But even if it's posted videos,just having that regularity it

(01:07:40):
keeps you from losing people.
So you could still gain peopleif you're not seeking to a
schedule, but they were, it'sgonna be somewhat offset by
losing people.
and by losing, I don't meansubs.
I mean, viewers, there's a bigdifference.
People that don't do YouTube,don't understand too, is the
what, who you have as subsmatters A little bit, but not a

(01:08:02):
whole lot because there areplenty of channels that have 20,
50,000 subs and then have fivecomments per video.
There's zero interaction goingon regardless of the number of
subs they have.
So it's really how many peoplecan you get to consistently
consume the content itself thatmakes the most difference and

Greg (01:08:23):
no, and, and the one thing, That, that I have noticed
with, with the content that I'veproduced particularly the last
couple of videos that I shot outwhich one related to a story
about an autistic boy who I hadhis romantic gestures denied by
a young girl.
And the other one was when I wasjust talking about things that

(01:08:43):
debunking prison myths.
And I noticed the interaction onthere, on, on both of those
were, were very, very healthyand, and they were healthy on a
lot of other videos that I didtoo.
And I, I noticed that.
If I find something interestingor something and, and, and I
think I'm doing the right thing,at least with some of the topics
that I'm covering, I'm like,okay, if I find this interesting

(01:09:05):
in conversation where thechances are other like-minded
people

Gene (01:09:09):
Oh, absolutely.

Greg (01:09:09):
it, and it is showing in the comments, even though I have
a relatively small channel incomparison to, you know, a a
handful of other people, I'm,I'm, I'm slightly past 300 subs
or something like

Gene (01:09:21):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:09:22):
To have, 10, 15, 20 comments on a video with that
many subs,

Gene (01:09:26):
Yeah.
It's a very good ratio.
Absolutely.
Yeah.

Greg (01:09:30):
and and you know, I mean, outside of the Lenny KEMs here
and there most, most of thecomments are, are positive.
So, I I, at least I know I'mdoing some things correctly and
I know there are other things Icould be doing better.

Gene (01:09:44):
Yeah.
Well, so that's kinda your newdirection.
Now, obviously a small videochannel isn't paying the bills,
so you still gotta make money.
What are you doing for that?

Greg (01:09:56):
So I, I took the month of February off, obviously and I
think I'm gonna take this wholemonth off too.
I'm not really worried aboutmoney in the meantime.
I've, got a, I've got an nestegg that I'll be.

Gene (01:10:09):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:10:10):
but I'll, I'll find something to make money.
You know, I, I I joked with myfather about it the other day.
What was it yesterday actually?
Cuz my, my father's older.
He's in his late seventies andthere's a lot of things he can't
do.
Like when he fired up his carthe other day, car battery was
dead.
He's not changing his car,battery, he's not taking So, so

(01:10:31):
I, I took care of that for him.
And I, I was, telling him like,yeah, he was like, so what your
gotta do for a job?
And I'm like, I don't know.
And maybe I'll work at a gasstation.
And he was looking at me like Iwas crazy and I was like, dude,
I, I, I don't need much money,man.
That's the thing.
As, as I, I've, I've kind of hitan age in, in a point in my life

(01:10:52):
where I'm humble and I'm verycontent with, with what I have
because number one, I know I cankeep it, they can't take it away
from me right now.
And sometimes there, there isit, it, it kind of takes me back
to like, when I took that timeoff, so to speak, when I was
working at Amazon, it was busywork.
It was, physically exhaustingyou, you're on your feet.
But there was something justkind of fulfilling about it at

(01:11:15):
the same time to just gosomewhere, do a job for any
number of hours, and then nothave to think at.

Gene (01:11:23):
Yeah.

Greg (01:11:24):
about what you did because you, you did what you were
supposed to do.
It was done.
It's not like sales, it's notlike marketing or

Gene (01:11:31):
Yeah.
Well, that, I think you hit uponthe main difference between blue
collar work and white collarwork is that blue collar work
doesn't have to be physical,even though it often is, but
it's work that you can just sortof, punch out of.
and then come back to,

Greg (01:11:48):
Yeah.

Gene (01:11:49):
white collar work.
And incidentally, blue collarwork can often pay more than
white collar work in the today'ssociety.
I mean, you try getting anelectrician, you you'd see just
how much money they're charging.

Greg (01:12:00):
Oh

Gene (01:12:01):
It's 180 bucks an hour.
So, but white collar work tendsto be work that even when you're
not on the job, you're thinkingabout or you're prepping for,
you're at the very leastworrying about, because there's
always, it's continuous work.
It's work that that is stretchedover long periods of time.

(01:12:22):
And even though you're notphysically necessarily at the
office and of course this allgot screwed up during Covid, but
you're still kind of, it'salways in the back of your mind

Greg (01:12:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, when I was withTeleverde, you know, when I was
with Change three SynergySolutions, especially like in
the midst of sales negotiations.
Yeah.
You're never really truly offthe.

Gene (01:12:47):
Absolutely.
And, and it's a it does end upaffecting the way that you
interact with other people ifyou've had a bad day with your
job again, because you can'tjust sort of punch out and not
think about it until the nextday.
is it, it, it has a propensityto pull other people you're

(01:13:10):
interacting with that havenothing to do with your work
because they're, they'reaffected by your mood, which is
very often because, you're,you're stressed out about
something that you need to do inthe future.
You're not necessarily stressedabout what happened that day,
even though they're, that cancertainly happen too.
But very often the stress comesfrom the anticipation of future
events.

(01:13:31):
Not so much from the current orpast events in white collar
work.

Greg (01:13:36):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Yeah.
And, and you, you are correctinsofar as yeah, there, that
that is one of the mosttantalizing aspects of, blue
collar work, you know, regularservice jobs is Yeah.
You, you go in, pretty muchexactly what you need to do and
you can realistically gaugewhat, what your day is gonna be

(01:13:59):
like.
I mean, of course there aregoing to be, variables, but for
the most, You can alreadyproject whether it's largely
gonna be a good day or a badday, or a busy day, whatever.
But when it's done, it's done.
And you, and you go, you leave

Gene (01:14:11):
Yep.
Exactly.
So, I do wanna go back tosomething that I know a lot of
people are gonna be curiousabout, which is the prison
experience because that's notsomething that most people have
gone through.
So obviously it's gonna.
Interesting to hear about thatfrom people that have I watched

(01:14:32):
a series of interviews, not evenso much interviews, it's just
the guy that was F PS Russia, Idon't know if you know who that
is.

Greg (01:14:40):
Yeah.
I'm, I'm vaguely familiar with'em,

Gene (01:14:42):
so he had the largest YouTube channel on YouTube
during the time that he waspopular.
I can't remember how manymillion viewers it was, but it
was, it, it was the biggest eventhough the, I think there might
have been some people that hadmore subscribers.
He had he, he was making themost money for YouTube, let's

(01:15:03):
put it that way from anadvertising standpoint.
But the events that led up tohim ending up in prison for
basically hamming marijuana Ithink were greatly affected by
the fact that his businesspartner was shot in the back of
the head by somebody that neverwas found.
And that was, I think that kindof placed a dark cloud over him.

(01:15:27):
And then led to the, the, Ithink it was, I, I don't
remember if it was F B I or ATFor one of the agencies clearly
decided that he needed to gettaken off YouTube.
And the best way to do thatwould be to put him in a place
where he couldn't stream from,which should be prison.

(01:15:47):
and again, the threatened withlong duration prison sentences,
blah, blah, blah.
And eventually he, he did a pleawhere he would spend, I can't
remember if it was nine monthsor six months.
It wasn't, it was under a yearfor sure, but still ridiculous
for just possessing marijuana inprison.

(01:16:08):
And he lost all his guns andthat's hundreds of thousands of
dollars of guns that he ended uplosing.
And of course, as a, a felon, hecan't have guns anymore.
But listening to his storiesabout prison, not about the
whole bullshit that led up toprison and how he was railroaded

(01:16:28):
into it, but the actual prisonexperience was fascinating.
So I'm curious to see what haveyou got for prison stories or
what did you find that wastotally different than what you
expected before ever going toprison?
What surprised you or whatshocked you or what, what,
either pleasantly or negatively.

Greg (01:16:46):
So when I, when I went into the system all I really had
was a working knowledge from alaw enforcement perspective in
conjunction with much what mostpeople have, what they see from
TV and movies and, and maybedocumentaries from a and e or,
or whatever, whichever channeldoes the, a lot of those prison

(01:17:08):
documentaries.
Some, some, things are, nail onthe head.
There, there, there is a lot ofamongst inmates and I, I
expected that, There were somethings I, I didn't know exactly
how far reaching it was which iswhy I, I kind of raised my
eyebrows because he sent me alink for an F p s Russia story

(01:17:30):
where he was talking about hisexperience and, I, I kind of
listened to some of the storiesand I'm like, eh, the, that
sounds a bit embellished, or,eh, that doesn't sound right.
Who knows?
What surprised me was just likehow far-reaching the racial
stuff wa would go.
We at least for, for the whiteinmates and the whites have,
it's not just like the whites,theirs.

(01:17:52):
Different segments of differentwhites, different, different
prison gangs in

Gene (01:17:56):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:17:57):
in Arizona.
The Aaron Brotherhood runs I isthe top dog for, for the whites.
And then they have a lateralthing, which is a, a bit smaller
but they're, they're the skinsskinheads, Nazis, whatever you
wanna call'em.
And while people may think AryanBrotherhood and, and skins are
the same thing, no the skins arethe legitimate racists.

(01:18:22):
They don't like black peoplebecause they are black and
Whereas Aryan Brotherhood theyoperate with a self-segregation
mindset for the purposes of,just good political operations.
Because at the end of the day,no matter, and, and, and you

(01:18:43):
really see this in prisonbecause people kind of revert a
bit back to, lizard, brain esquetendencies,

Gene (01:18:48):
would expect?

Greg (01:18:49):
PE people are tribal.
And, There's two types oftribalism people will fall into.
There's interest that interestslash ideological.
It's kinda like when, when kidsgo to school and, the, the, the
jocks sit with the jocks and thenerds, you know, hang out with
each other.
But at the backdrop of ideologyand.

(01:19:10):
There, there is people who looklike me and whether or not
people want to admit that theyhave that tribalistic aspect
resting somewhere in thebackground, they, they do like
it exists.
And when the chips are down andyou're in an environment like

(01:19:32):
that, you do kind of fall backon that.
It doesn't mean that in prisonyou can, if you're white, you
can trust every person who iswhite and Nor if you're black,
you can trust every person isblack.
It's not that, it's just thatyou guys roll together.
So the, there would be certainthings that I wasn't prepared
for.

(01:19:53):
Like, when I first got my TV onthe yard which TV at the time
they were expensive.
And it was, they were stillselling CRTs back in 2009 and I
think it was like 350 bucks forlike a 13 inch c r t tv.
Yeah, yeah, A little bitoverpriced.
But when I got my tv, it waslike, it was probably like a, a
month after I'd hit the yard cuzI had to wait for money to hit

(01:20:15):
my books and then get it orderedand all that crap.
A couple of the white guys cameup and they're like, oh man, you
got a tv?
I said, yeah, and, and they go,here, let me fix it for you.
I said, fix it.
What's wrong with it?
And so they go and they deke.
They Deprogrammed.
B e.
From my television

Gene (01:20:33):
Nice.

Greg (01:20:35):
they're like, all right, now it's better

Gene (01:20:38):
So hold on.
You had a TV in your cell?

Greg (01:20:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Gene (01:20:42):
What the hell, man, that's not the way they portray it on
tv.
There's supposed to be one TVfor everybody, and then there's
big fights that break out overwho gets a change of channel.

Greg (01:20:52):
there, there are certain yards that have community
televisions.
Community televisions, numberone, are more common in jail.
And that's one thing that kindof pisses me off when people
confuse jail and prison.
There are two totally differentthings there are some yards that

Gene (01:21:08):
Jail is, were the people that haven't actually been
sentenced stay from

Greg (01:21:12):
well, yes, but there are also people who are sentenced to
jail.
So jailhouse is one of two typeof inmates.
Those who have not beensentenced, or those who have
been sentenced typically for anon felony that renders less
than 364 days of incarceration.

Gene (01:21:30):
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
I didn't know that.
I thought jail was strictly forpeople that are pre-sentencing.

Greg (01:21:36):
Yeah, no j jail does harbor sentenced inmates.
And those are, those are,typically your convicted
criminals, which is differentfrom a convicted felon.

Gene (01:21:45):
Right.

Greg (01:21:46):
So you,

Gene (01:21:47):
what, what are the levels of prisons?
I know there's supermax is theultimate, what, what are the
different levels and what levelwere you in?

Greg (01:21:53):
So when I first went in I was on a level three yard.
The levels that they have,there's level one, level 2, 3,
4, and five in Arizona, and fiveis basically the equivalent of
the whole, like it's 23 hourlockdown and you are either by
yourself or you have onecellmate.

(01:22:15):
It's, One, one of two things fora level five slash the hole.
They're one and the same levelfour.
It might as well be a levelfive, but for some reason they
felt as though that there needsto be something in between a
level three and a level five.
But, There, there is a littlebit more movement in a level
four yard.
They are still able to havein-person contact visits on the

(01:22:39):
weekend.
So friends, family or whatever.
But outside of that, it's prettymuch a five a level three yard.
It's called controlled movement.
And in those yards you don'thave cells.
What you have are runs, and arun is basically like a long
hallway with some cubes, whichcubes would basically be the

(01:23:00):
equivalent of a cell.
It's a one person living quarterthat is, has cinder blocks that,
that are stacked about.
Waste high, As dividers and eachrun will have about about 10
cubes.
And they're reserved for phasethree inmates, inmates who have
been in the system longer than ayear, and their number came up

(01:23:22):
for an available cube.
And the rest are double bunks,Double bunk beds that, that line
those hallways.
And in a controlled movementyard, you are in the run for a
majority of the day, with theexception of either going to
work, if you have a job on theyard or something.
Or the rec times which rec youwould get two hours of rec per

(01:23:45):
day.
And it would stagger like, likeMondays it would be in the
morning.
Yeah.
Tuesdays afternoon, so on and soforth.
And, and then also you would goto the chow hall, but you know,
it still, it was controlledmovement.
For instance, like when you goto the chow hall or you go to
rec on a three yard, all inmatesare only allowed to walk in a

(01:24:06):
clockwise direction from theirhousing unit to either the chow
hall or the rec field.
And when exiting the chow hallor rec field continue in that
clockwise motion when returningback to the housing unit.
And I mean, it is what it is.
Like the run is not exactlyglorious living you know?

Gene (01:24:27):
I mean, it sounds like the, the actual cells would be
preferable to a living communitylike that,

Greg (01:24:37):
Yeah, yeah.
Because the problem with theruns is now and then something
would happen.
Y Tensions, can rise in therepretty quickly when you have
about 36 to 38 people living ina long hallway, and between
these 36, 38 people, you'resharing two toilets that you can

(01:24:58):
sit on to take a shit.
And these are also completelyopen toilets.
They're, they're, they're infull view of specifically like
the correctional officers whoare in the control tower, in the
center of the room that hostsall the runs.
And then there's also like acouple urinals in there couple
of showers, peop people wouldget into, altercations

(01:25:18):
frequently, maybe somebodysmells bad and like the person
living next to'em is Hey man,you freaking stink.
You need a shower, and it turnsinto a fistfight.
Maybe somebody's trying to workout in the restroom area and
then somebody else is smoking acigarette in there and the
person working out is gettingpissed about the cigarette
smoke.
It, it's really easy to, to getinto an altercation in a run.

(01:25:39):
And, and if you spend any amountof time in there, You will get
into one.
It's inevitable.

Gene (01:25:45):
Now, do you know what a level two or level one, they're
like

Greg (01:25:49):
I, I did go to a level two after I hit a level two in, I
wanna say March of 2012.

Gene (01:25:57):
mm-hmm.

Greg (01:25:58):
And level twos, it's, it's open rec.
And so what that means is no,nothing locks except for the
exterior of, of the prisonitself.
So you're never locked in acell, but you do have a cell.
You're, you're, you're in a, atwo person cell.

Gene (01:26:15):
Mm.

Greg (01:26:16):
And then you have a day room area.
When I, when I first hit theyard, it was, it was called it
was called Eagle Point.
That was the name of the yard.
They did have a community tv,but it was only there for a
couple of months because, a lotof the inmates were like, Hey
man, like we spent all thismoney on these TVs and you're
saying we can't use our TVs cuzwe got these big TVs.
It's no, fuck that.
We want our TVs.

(01:26:37):
And so we got our TVs, that,that's, that's a thing like, I
don't know why the inmates thatwere on that yard prior to
didn't do that.
But as far as I know, I, I thinkthey were protective custody
inmates that were on therebefore.
Cuz they had like a mass, a massmove, a mass move from a bunch
of yards.
And, and I know PC inmates arekind of, they're woos, they I

(01:26:58):
mean, they are, yeah.
They don't, they, they don'tnecessarily know how to
approach, you know, theadministration and be like, Hey,
do what the fuck

Gene (01:27:08):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:27:09):
but

Gene (01:27:10):
do, you know what the level ones are like?
I mean, not from personalexperience, sounds but in

Greg (01:27:14):
kind of, I kind of know.
And the reason why is because inArizona like you remember like
in Harry Potter, where, wherethey put on the sorting hat and
they figure out which, whichhouse you go in.

Gene (01:27:23):
Didn't watch it,

Greg (01:27:24):
Oh, okay.
All right.
Well, basically in Arizona, inArizona, when he gets sentenced
to prison, and it's time for youto hit the big house because,
like the day you get sentencedis not the day you go to prison.
Like you, you actually just goback to jail.
And it might be like a week, twoweeks before they send somebody
from A D O C to, to come pickyou up.
And, and they do the shuffle.
They take you to a sortingcenter called Alhambra here in

(01:27:47):
Arizona.
That is a blend.
It's one part level five, onepart level one.
And the reason why it is, isbecause when they're classifying
inmates that are coming in, theydon't know where they're gonna
put you yet.
So they treat you as a levelfive, basically.

(01:28:07):
And you're in there for about aweek, week and a half, maybe
sometimes, because number one,they're, giving you some shots,
to, to, to make sure you're notgonna get sick or anything like
that.
They also take make you takelike a literacy and
comprehension test.
Which I, I found it to beabsolutely hilarious cuz they

(01:28:29):
asked me like do you have yourhigh school diploma?
I'm like yeah, And they, theywere like, well, you still have
to take the literacy test.
I'm like, oh, okay.
And the reason why if you scorelow on that literacy and
comprehensive test, theyactually make you take like
these educational courses, likefor math and shit like that in
prison.
Also does absolutely nothing togive you a high school diploma,

(01:28:50):
which I think it's an, acomplete fucking waste of time.
Like, they should just letpeople get a G E D, which they
do, but they should justcompletely get rid of those
comprehensive tests and, youknow, forced education that
renders

Gene (01:29:03):
Well, I've heard of people getting their college degrees in
prison as well.

Greg (01:29:08):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
No, people, people, I, I tooksome college classes while I was
in there.
I took enough credits to get a AN C C R electrical
certification.
Yeah.
I'm never gonna use it but Iknow my way around a ground
fault circuit interrupter.
So, that's, that's about it.
But with, with, with, with thatbeing said Alhambra, like I
said, you stay there for a week,week and a half, the level one

(01:29:30):
inmates.
are the ones who are permanentlyhoused at Alhambra that handle
pretty much 99% of the inmateclassification stuff.
They, take down information, allthat crap.
They help out, with servingchow, it's, it's the lowest of
the low yards.

(01:29:51):
Now, I, I honestly wouldn't knowwhy there would be a level one
based upon what I experienced ona level two yard,

Gene (01:29:58):
Mm.

Greg (01:29:59):
because level two felt pretty dang free in and of
itself.
I mean, I, I had cool jobs whileI was on a level two.
At one point, I, I worked atonsite hospital at the prison
complex in the section called L11, which was the retirement
home basically, For the elderlyinmates that are at the point

(01:30:20):
of, shitting themselves.
And so I worked alongside, ahandful of CNAs and, nurses
helping take care of the elderlyinmates.
I did that for the last eightmonths I think that I was in.

Gene (01:30:33):
Hmm.
All right.
What, what?

Greg (01:30:36):
but it's open yard, level two at least, and I'm guessing
level one

Gene (01:30:40):
So what surprised you pleasantly, if anything,
compared to what your thoughtsabout prison were before you
went in?

Greg (01:30:48):
I, I found There are a lot of decent people there, and I, I
don't want my words to getmisconstrued or conflated to,
for, for it to be digested as,These are innocent people or

Gene (01:31:02):
We've all seen Green Mile, dude.
There's, there's always innocentpeople in

Greg (01:31:07):
Yeah.
I, I don't want it to bemisconstrued like that because,
when it comes down to it, I'venever met an innocent person in
prison and I've met thousands ofpeople.
I've never met somebody whodidn't commit their crime or
commit other crimes that theyweren't caught for.
Yeah.
So that's, that's when I kind ofroll my eyes when people bitch
about, there's so many innocentpeople in prison.
I'm like, oh, okay.

(01:31:28):
Yeah.
And yes, I know it's anecdotal,but I think, I think maybe my
anecdotal experience of meetingthousands of people might carry
more weight than, some fatperson on the internet, with
multicolored hair saying there'sa, oh, my prison industrial
complex, the school to prisonpipeline.
It's like, all right, shut thefuck up, But

Gene (01:31:47):
Were there many people with colored hair in prison?

Greg (01:31:51):
No, they don't let you dye your hair in prison.

Gene (01:31:52):
No, but I like do, do they shave your hair when you walk
in, or would you not seesomebody that had purple hair
when they were booked?

Greg (01:32:00):
Yeah, no, that would, that would've been remedied probably
in jail.
And if they did have somethinglike purple hair or something
like that, hitting Alhambra,yeah.
They would be told to shavetheir head, Because you, you
can't have.
any wild hairstyles in there,especially for the men.
No dyed hair, no bleached hair,none of that crap.
You can grow your hair out longand you have to wear wear.

(01:32:24):
But no, it's, you're, you'repretty much constrained to
either growing out your hair ormaybe kind of like

Gene (01:32:30):
How about facial hair?
Do you have to shave or not?

Greg (01:32:33):
So every inmate, yes, they, they have to shave unless
they have a shaving waiver and,shaving waivers I was actually,

Gene (01:32:40):
My religion, man.
I'm a beard.
I'm a beard.
Dietarian, it's my religion.

Greg (01:32:45):
There, there would some, there would be people who would
claim religious exemption andget shaving wager shaving
waiver.
So those would be people whowould make claims about, being
Muslim.
You as some folks claim the, atrue stuff.
And then there would be medicalshaving waivers, and that would
typically go to the blackpeople, that get like the severe
razor bumps.
Yeah.
And, and with that, you were notallowed to style your beard.

(01:33:07):
You just had to let it grow andyou could trim it that, but that
was about it.
But there was no, like stylingor shaping it or

Gene (01:33:14):
Right, right, right.

Greg (01:33:15):
Anybody else, they could either be clean shaven or they
could have a, a military must.

Gene (01:33:19):
Mm-hmm.
Interesting.
Okay.
How about any, any I wassurprised about the person on
tv, anything else like that froma, like a privilege that people
would be kind of surprised thatyou would have In the prison?

Greg (01:33:34):
I mean, at the, at the time that I was in you could get
CD players, you know, And theyhad a limit on the amount of CDs
that you could have.
You were only allowed to have 20CDs.
If you were to get more, youwere supposed to trade'em in at
property, exchange them.
And then the property officerwould hold it like in your
property file, whatever.

Gene (01:33:53):
How about, how about like publications, magazines?

Greg (01:33:56):
Yeah, you can get magazines.
By the time that I got in, theywere getting pornography removed
cuz people used to be able toget stuff like Playboy or
something

Gene (01:34:03):
yeah.
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:34:04):
And this is what I thought was funny because I found out it
was a, it was a, a hostile workenvironment claim from female
correctional officers at thetime in 2009.
And, and they were saying thatthe presence of pornographic
books made it a hostile workenvironment.
I kind of rolled my eyes atthat.
I'm like, you're working in aprison.

Gene (01:34:24):
Yeah.

Greg (01:34:25):
I, I, I don't think you should be allowed to say to make
certain claims of hostile workenvironment.
Now don't, don't get me wrong, Inever had a desire to look at a
pornographic book while I was inthere, cuz I mean, there's,
there's nothing really that'senticing being around a bunch
of.
I, I mean, I guess maybe if, ifyou're, homosexual may, maybe I,

(01:34:47):
I don't know.
But like in, in, in the generalpopulation, we, we ran off the
homos you know, if they wouldhit the yard,

Gene (01:34:52):
yeah.
So that's another question iswhat percentage of the men in
their, over the course of youryears of being in prison did
you, I mean, I don't know ifit's even necessarily directly
or indirectly, but did you get asense that they were screwing
out their.

Greg (01:35:10):
I, I mean there were, there were some admitted homos
that, that hit the yard that,that, that were white boys.

Gene (01:35:14):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:35:15):
and when they hit the yard, the heads came up to him
and said, listen, we're notgonna do anything to you if you
just pack up your bags andleave.
And, and the reason why isbecause, homosexuals caused a
lot of drama on, on, on theyard.
It, that's like a, a tropethat's some crap you see in
movies.
And for all the people thatwanna say, oh, well, I saw a
documentary and they intervieweda gay dude.

(01:35:36):
And I guarantee you that, thatthat was filmed on a protective
custody yard.
Because in gp, the inmates arenot going to let a camera crew
come in in the yard and startinterviewing people.
It's especially not that privateconfessional interview crap,
because Somebody does that,they're, they're gonna be

(01:35:56):
assumed to be some kind of, onetime on the yard or something
like that.
So, so yeah.
The, the, the, the gay stuffdoesn't happen in general
population.

Gene (01:36:07):
So even as a power move, like if

Greg (01:36:11):
Yeah.
No.
If

Gene (01:36:13):
get fucked.

Greg (01:36:14):
No, no.
Yeah.
So, It was something that thisguy, George told me when I, when
when I first hit the yard, hewas, he was one of the heads of
the AB at the time, and hepulled me up and he kind of gave
me the rundown.
And, he asked me, he goes, so,did you see that candy bar
video?
And the candy bar video issomething they show you in Al
Hambra, and it's like a videothat was produced in the
eighties, and it's telling youwhat to do to avoid prison rape

(01:36:36):
and all this crap.
It, and it's if an inmate leavesa candy bar on your pillow,
don't take it.
It could be an invitation forsex.
And it, it's actually a littlebit of a joke in the men's
system.
When Phish hit the yard, peoplewill jokingly throw some
Hershey's bars or Twix on their,on their pillow

Gene (01:36:55):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:36:56):
But when George was giving the, giving me the rundown he,
he explained it to me like this.
He goes, he goes, yeah, yeah.
He goes all that stuff, rapestuff, gay stuff.
He goes, that, that doesn't flyhere.
He goes, if anybody tries tomake a pass at you, says
anything like that, you tell us,we'll get it taken care of.
Because apparently rape was aproblem in the eighties in the

(01:37:18):
prison system.
And from, from my understanding,apparently, like it was, it was
really problematic a amongstblack inmates.
I.
committing sexual violenceagainst each other, but also,
Spreading the love to otherraces too.
And so it got to a point wherepeople got sick and tired, I
guess, of, of being sexuallyassaulted in, in the eighties.

(01:37:40):
So people started gettingstabbed, stabbed up on the yard,
killed for it.
And I'm totally down with that.
It's yeah, if somebody tries tosexually assault somebody, yeah,
screw it.
Kill'em.
Or maybe if you don't kill'em,at least give'em something to
remember it,

Gene (01:37:53):
mm-hmm.

Greg (01:37:54):
So yeah, that, that stuff, even for power plays or anything
like that, that doesn't fly now,now people can get beat up
pretty bad and people can bekilled.
But sexual violence no.
No, absolutely not.

Gene (01:38:08):
How many, how many people get killed while you were in,
in, in that prison?

Greg (01:38:14):
I knew of at least one, Where, where, where I saw it.
I did see people get previouslyinjured.

Gene (01:38:20):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:38:20):
I don't know if they died later,

Gene (01:38:22):
Okay.

Greg (01:38:24):
there's not necessarily a good information wire once
somebody gets helicoptered outof there, you know?
But you know, at least, at leastone person,

Gene (01:38:32):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:38:33):
I did see got killed.

Gene (01:38:35):
And so you mentioned people kinda spread it out by
race into their affiliategroups.
We hear on the outside obviouslythat like it's a crazy high
percentage of black men that getincarcerated when you're
actually in prison.
What does the populationbreakdown by race, like what
percentage are black, white,Asian?

Greg (01:38:54):
every, every yard that I was on it was, I mean, this is
guesstimating.
I'd say it was probably aboutmaybe three to 5% black.
And, you know, the, the, theremaining would be a mix of
whites Chicanos and PIs,

Gene (01:39:15):
and what?

Greg (01:39:16):
pi PIs, Matos, wetbacks, illegals.

Gene (01:39:19):
Oh, illegals.
Okay.
Well, I'm not familiar with thatterm.
Any Asians,

Greg (01:39:25):
I saw one Asian,

Gene (01:39:28):
So that's very stereotypical

Greg (01:39:29):
yeah.
Well, unless, unless youconsider Filipinos.
Cause I, I think I did bump intotwo Filipinos.
Dude.
Do they count as Asian?

Gene (01:39:37):
I, I think so.
I mean, they're basicallyHispanic Asians, cuz Philippines

Greg (01:39:42):
I, I ran into like two Filipinos.
Yeah.
And, and the and I almost forgotto, to mention the chiefs.
Yeah.
It's like I said, three to 5%black and, probably about, to 5%
chiefs, native Americans not,there's not a lot of of natives.

Gene (01:39:56):
In, at least in the Arizona where you were, it's
predominantly white.

Greg (01:40:01):
it's predominantly white in Chicano.

Gene (01:40:03):
And what percentage of the Chicanos versus the whites, do
you think?
What's the breakdown?
There

Greg (01:40:08):
it's, it's pro, it's it's probably one for one,

Gene (01:40:11):
it is.
Okay.
All right.
And so, the, I guess, I'm, I'mtrying to think of the way to
phrase the question is so if youhave somebody that is of a Latin
American ancestry, but they'rewell educated and they got
nabbed for a white collar crime,when they got to prison, would

(01:40:34):
they then still have to, fortheir own safety, kind of get
friendly with the Chicanos?
Or would they be treated morelike a white dude or would you

Greg (01:40:44):
Yeah.
They, they, they, well, thenumber one depending on how they
self-identify when coming intoprison, if they put down, Latin
American or anything like thatunder their racial identifier A
D O C is automatically going toput them.
if they're sharing a bunk bed,which they will.
Cuz when you first hit, you'regonna be on a double bunk for,
you know, at least a year.

(01:41:05):
If you're on there, they'regonna sell you up with somebody
that's your race.
And a d c knows, knows how itgoes.
They, they, they know how itworks

Gene (01:41:14):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:41:17):
they don't want problems.

Gene (01:41:18):
Yeah.

Greg (01:41:19):
Yeah.

Gene (01:41:21):
That makes sense.
And.

Greg (01:41:23):
and their people will come up to'em and, they'll be like,
Hey, I'm so-and-so.
I run the run and, this personruns the yard, for, for the
race.
And they'll be like, Hey, do youhave your paperwork yet?

Gene (01:41:35):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:41:35):
and, and they might have their paperwork on'em, or maybe
it's, like a day or two late andthey're like, all right, well we
need to see your paperwork whenit comes in.
All that stuff.

Gene (01:41:42):
Mm-hmm.
And they want to see it to dowhat?

Greg (01:41:45):
They wanna see what you're in prison for.
They wanna read your courtpaperwork to make sure you
didn't snitch on anybody.
They wanna look at your timecomp to see if you were
imprisoned before for any otherweird crimes, stuff like that.
Cuz they, they, and they'll,they'll scan your paperwork up
and down.
They'll, they'll look at yourcourt docs and they'll see What
did you tell the police all thatcrap.

Gene (01:42:05):
The, it, there's, I think, a, an idea that on the outside
that we have that people inprison will, will do to kind of
take their own justice intotheir own hands when it comes to
pedophiles.
Is that true or is that just amyth that if you're a pedo and

(01:42:27):
you're going in prison, you'reprobably gonna get

Greg (01:42:29):
It depends on what yard you hit.
I, I mean, the, the reality is,if you committed a, an offense
against a

Gene (01:42:35):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:42:36):
at, at a bare minimum, you're gonna go on a three yard
and three yards have lifers andso if you hit a three yard and
you did something weird with akid, you might not make it

Gene (01:42:48):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:42:50):
Or at the very least, you're going to get just a
monumental beating resulting inyou getting shuttled off in a,
in a helicopter or

Gene (01:42:59):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:43:00):
But more often than not, those inmates don't even hit the
general population anymore.
They, they usually seguedirectly into protective
custody.

Gene (01:43:08):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:43:09):
That being said, though, protective custody is a
hodgepodge of different types ofinmates.
It's not just sex offenders overthere.
You've got people who may be,ratted on somebody.
You've got people who may beracked up debt on the yard and
couldn't pay it.
And so they checked in.
Those people, as far as I know,still don't like pedophiles.

(01:43:31):
they, they may not have thecleanest convict record, so to
speak, the cleanest conductscorecard.
But you know, even the pedos, asfar as I understand, they, they
still get, chased off off ofyards,

Gene (01:43:40):
Yeah.

Greg (01:43:42):
in protective custody.

Gene (01:43:44):
And as you said, we kind of revert to more of a lizard
brain function in a situationlike prison.

Greg (01:43:51):
It's, it's the ant farm.

Gene (01:43:53):
yeah.
And it's amazing that we'removing in the opposite direction
societally with pedophilia.
It's like they're trying tonormalize it.
They're.

Greg (01:44:03):
it's, well, yeah, you have to keep in mind, I, I think one
of one of the biggest downfallsof modern society is making
society so livable, soflourishing that the week were
able to survive.

Gene (01:44:17):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:44:18):
Because back in the day, they didn't survive.
They didn't make it.
And things have become socomfortable, so accessible that
the weak survive and theyoutproduce, in terms of
population versus those who aremore conservative minded with
how they start and navigate thenuclear family and so on, so

(01:44:41):
forth.
And so, I, I, I, I mean that's,that's why you're seeing a, an
attempt to normal.
Degenerate acts and variousforms of unhealthy hedonism.
It's, it's because we havereached an age where the, the,

(01:45:01):
the weak can exist

Gene (01:45:03):
Yeah.
And I, and I know you're

Greg (01:45:05):
their existence.

Gene (01:45:06):
trying to say it in a I don't wanna say polite way, but
basically without too infl intoo inflammatory.
But yeah, I've been saying forliterally decades that that we
are as humans in the process ofKilling our own species off
because we're not letting thenatural factors that used to

(01:45:28):
control the population andreally make evolution work.
We're in the process ofarresting evolutionary
development.
And I think we have, for themost part, arrested evolutionary
development to where there's,there is no penalty for
something today that would'vemade you not live long enough to

(01:45:50):
reproduce a hundred, 200, 300years ago.
And in, and the vice versa.
There's no benefit today to stayon the course that you would've
had to stay on two, 300 yearsago if you wanted to propagate
your family.
So we, we've eliminated thosesocietal drivers that have been

(01:46:10):
pushing us as a species, ashumans towards progression in
being the, the successfulspecies on the planet.
We've now said, okay, we'veachieved our goal.
We're now the most prolificsuccessful species here.
And now we're gonna just focuson making sure that we're as
diverse and we survive as muchas many people survive as

(01:46:33):
possible, regardless of whatthat does to us as a species.
And I think that's a problem.
I know it's not a popularviewpoint.
A lot of people really poo pooon, on EU.

Greg (01:46:43):
Well, yeah.
Yeah, because that's exactlywhat it sounds like.
You're, you know, promoting,

Gene (01:46:47):
Well, and I, and I am, the problem with eugenics, I think
is that, is that you don't wanthumans in control of it.
Right?
So if you look at what, what iseugenics?
Well, nature has been doingeugenics through every species
of animal on the planet andplants and everything else.
Eugenics is that not everythingis treated identically, though

(01:47:08):
certain characteristics arepositive and they end up
propagating into futuregenerations.
Other characteristics do not,and I certainly don't trust
humans to be in control of that.
So in the 1920s view ofeugenics, yeah, I'm not for
that, but I think there is avery real problem with just
saying that we don't care whatyour brain does, how you act,

(01:47:32):
what you function, or anythingelse As a human, y'all have
exactly the same ability tosurvive and, great future
generations.
I think that as a species forhumanity is not gonna be good
for us.
Something will end up happeningthat'll take a massive bite out
of the human species becausewe've gotten to a point where

(01:47:54):
we're no longer letting just thestrong survive.

Greg (01:47:59):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and, and yeah.
It's, you, you hit the nail onthe head when he mentioned that.
Yeah.
Eugenic was controlled byunpredictable external

Gene (01:48:09):
Yeah.
It became just a preference ofcertain wealthy elites, like the
ones that started God, I forgetthe woman's name.
Planned planned Parenthood.
She was a major, yeah.
Yeah.

Greg (01:48:18):
Yeah.

Gene (01:48:19):
So,

Greg (01:48:20):
Or, or Sanger, or what was it?

Gene (01:48:21):
Margaret Sanger.
Margaret Sanger, yeah.
So yeah, there, and, andcertainly the Hitler using
eugenics as a, as a means thatwas not particularly good for
eugenics.
But, but the idea is, I think ofit's, you have to consider it,

(01:48:41):
it is a reality.
And even, I don't care whetheryou believe in God or you're an
atheist and you believe pureevolution, but even if you
believe in God, you gotta admitthat evolution happens and that
we, we have in every species outthere, except for modern humans,
there is a competition forresources.
And the generations that surviveto reproduce and the future

(01:49:04):
generations after them are theresult of the winners of the
challenges to survival.
And

Greg (01:49:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, and that's

Gene (01:49:12):
that's not the case with humans.

Greg (01:49:14):
yeah, and, and that's what kind of bugs me today with, with
some of these, you know, trendycommunists, these young trendy
communists, they're the collegeage kids that are always talking
about, wealth gaps, wealthdisparity, and, we are poor and,
and we are in the poverty lineand the breadline, it's number
one, you're not in thebreadline.

(01:49:34):
Nobody's starving to death inthe United States, with the
exception of maybe like aninfant who is being
intentionally not fed by aparent,

Gene (01:49:44):
Right.

Greg (01:49:45):
No, nobody's starving.
We are the only country that hasfat homeless people.

Gene (01:49:51):
That's true.
Yep.

Greg (01:49:53):
You, you, you don't see fat homeless people in India

Gene (01:49:57):
No No, you don't.

Greg (01:49:58):
You certainly don't see it in South America.

Gene (01:50:00):
Yeah.

Greg (01:50:02):
you know, you don't see it in Turkey.
But but in in our country, we,we have such a, a system where
everything is so accessible andthings are doled out or merely
existing.
Know?

Gene (01:50:18):
There's a lot of safety nets for

Greg (01:50:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, like even, even thepoverty line who would be living
in the poverty line and maybe,some Section eight housing or a
crummy apartment and Incomparison, yes, they are living
not as well as somebody thatlives in a mansion or a four
bedroom home or something likethat, but that person, who is
maybe getting, snap cards, E B Dcards, whatever you call'em,
they might be getting wic.

(01:50:41):
They might be getting cashassistance.
Rent assistance.
They probably have a TV or twoin their home.
They probably have a smartphone.
A hundred years ago, you know,it was considered a, a a a a a a
luxury to have air conditioning,and I guarantee they have air
conditioning, people on thepoverty line.
You go back to the early 1980.

(01:51:02):
a VCR was$800.

Gene (01:51:05):
Yep.

Greg (01:51:06):
Laser disc players were a thousand dollars back in the
day.
TVs that were, 15 inches, 17inches, those run you four or
500 bucks.
And going back to the, like thesixties and seventies and,
people who are, in poverty nowthat, that may have access to
some type of of housing they'vegot cvs, they've got a cell

(01:51:27):
phone.
They've, they've got all theseamenities and they, they, they
exist.
They're allowed to exist.
We're not going to let them falloff the proverbial ladder,

Gene (01:51:36):
No, I, I wanted to try and experiment, but I guess I
haven't had the balls toactually do it, but I thought it
was, I always thought it wouldbe hilarious.
Would be to stand on the cornerof an intersection with a sign
that says need, need help.
Something like that, the, theusual kind of homeless guy has
sign.
But then have a Visa MasterCardsticker on the bottom.

(01:51:58):
And say, I, I take credit cards.
I wonder how many people wouldactually do that.
They would be willing to sticktheir card through a, a slider,
a little square slider of ahomeless person taking credit
cards.

Greg (01:52:12):
Yeah, no, I, I wouldn't be surprised if there would be some
people who would do it,

Gene (01:52:15):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (01:52:16):
There, there, there, there probably would.
There was this one guy and Ifound it really inventive

Gene (01:52:19):
especially in Austin where I'm at.

Greg (01:52:21):
Yeah, I, I didn't throw anything at the, at the guy, but
he was wearing a sign that saidthrow your quarters at me, four
tries, gets me a free taco.

Gene (01:52:31):
That's creative.

Greg (01:52:32):
Yeah.
And I didn't actually throwquarters at him, But I did give
him some money, I'm like, dude,if, if you have an inventive
sign, I'll, I'll probably, I'llprobably give

Gene (01:52:42):
Oh yeah.
If you make me laugh, that'sworth something.
Right.
But I've also given away food tohomeless people that they give
me a duty look for and thenthrow away, like I, I'm stopping
at a, a Burger King or somethingand pick up some food, and then
I'm stopped at a stoplight andI've got my little Burger King

(01:53:03):
bag and I'm like, I don't reallyneed to eat those fries, that's
calories that I don't reallyneed.
So I just pull out little thingof fries.
Here you go.
Here's some fries, here's somefree food.
And boy, do you get a dirty lookfor that, because they're
looking for cash,

Greg (01:53:17):
yeah, yeah.
Because by and large, the, thehomeless population in the
United States, They're nothungry.
They're not hungry.
Because at least as it workshere in Arizona, and I also
noticed it worked the same way,pretty much in California.
They could roll in to theirlocal d e s office and they
would just get a, a food stampcard, and then they just get it

(01:53:38):
re-upped every month.
And, and, you know, some ofthese food stamp cards will,
will harbor like four or 500bucks

Gene (01:53:42):
Yeah.

Greg (01:53:43):
and now fast food locations.
Take E B T

Gene (01:53:48):
Oh, really?
I didn't know that.
I, I saw somebody on YouTube.
They, they had a video of peopleusing those cards to buy a whole
bunch of distilled water, or notdistilled, but basically,
basically they're just likebuying water and then they're
dumping the water out on theoutside of the parking lot and

(01:54:10):
then bringing the plastic backin, or the, I don't know, glass,
plastic, whatever it was to getthe the refund back on.
What, what do you call it?
It's a deposit back,

Greg (01:54:20):
Oh yeah,

Gene (01:54:21):
right?
For recycling shit.

Greg (01:54:22):
like a

Gene (01:54:22):
Be because they can't, yeah, because then, then they
can use that, that's refunded ascash.
So they can go buy drugs, butthey obviously can't buy drugs
with the food cards.

Greg (01:54:35):
Oh yeah.
And then some people wouldhustle off their E B T stuff
too, Cuz I, I remember like whenI was living in sketchier parts
of Phoenix and surrounded byfolks, Because when I was
renting in Phoenix, obviouslybeing a felon, the apartments
that I could afford necessarilyweren't going to let me live
there.
And I found that stupid, butwhatever.
It's like, all right, man, youguys don't want my money.
Screw it.
So, I had to live in, in kind oflike the, the hoodish areas, but

(01:54:59):
it was, it was kind of coolbecause one apartment complex
that I, I lived in off of I 17and Thomas one of my neighbors
was actually someti some guy to.
So that was kind of cool, seeinghim again.
So we, we, we also kind of hadeach other's back too in the
area cuz it was a sketchy

Gene (01:55:14):
mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dude, I, I thought that thewhole area was nice until I was
staying in Scottsdale and I, Ihad my car window smashed in at
night.
I was like, what the hell, man,this is bullshit.
This is supposed to not happenhere.

Greg (01:55:30):
and yeah, no, up and down pretty, especially like in, in,
along the I 17, Particularlywhere the I 17 and the 10 meat,
that, that area's, if you gosouth of that, like if you go
south on the I 17, you get intokind of like the, the, part of
Phoenix where it's kind of likethe metropolitan area.
That place ain't bad, likethat's where I went to the

(01:55:51):
Turning Point US USA event.
That's past December.
And I stayed in a very nicehotel.
It was a nice best Western.
I loved their breakfast Ireally, no, I, I was, I get
excited about stuff like thatbecause every morning at that
hotel, like I stayed there for aweek.
Every morning at that hotel theyhad a breakfast bar and it had
biscuits and, and and sausagegravy.

(01:56:11):
And then they had bacon andsausage eggs and they had cereal
bagels, orange juice.
And I remember like the firsttime having that over there when
I was over there, I'm like, man,I hope they served this the next
day.
And one of the guys like, thatwas having breakfast around the
same time.
He goes, they serve it everyday.
I'm like, dude, This is amazingBut yeah.
Yeah, like north, more north onthe I 10.

(01:56:33):
Like once you get past it or on,on the I 17 Past the 10.
Yeah.
Sketchy.
It's sketchy as hell.

Gene (01:56:39):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And I, I've generally, if I'vestayed in Phoenix, I stay right
in downtown.
But I was at an event thing forin Scottsdale, which, I, I
thought would be even more safe,but it turned out not to be the
case.
And I still, I mean, I, I haveno idea.
They didn't nobody stoleanything from my car.

(01:57:01):
It's just my window broke.

Greg (01:57:03):
Yeah.

Gene (01:57:04):
it was, it was, so, I don't, I'm not sure exactly
what, what happened there.
Now, I happen to have dual panelaminated windows in my car, so
it actually cracked the outsideglass, but not the inside glass.
So I had a, a broken window thatdidn't have any glass falling
in, which was good, but stillhad to get it replaced.

(01:57:24):
Had to pay somebody to come outand get that swapped out right
away.
So anyway.
Well, that's interesting.
Look I know we've been chattingfor a while and I, I don't know
how much time you had planned onscheduling for this, but I
certainly appreciate you comingon and talking about your story.
And I I know I'm certainly veryinterested about the prison bit,

(01:57:45):
which I didn't wanna make thewhole interview just tell us
prison stories, man.
But it's still interesting it,because it's a, it's a kind of a
world that I haven't been inthat that I, I recognize isn't
portrayed accurately on showslike oranges and New Black or,
whatever variety of

Greg (01:58:03):
a lot of stuff is embellished, you know,

Gene (01:58:05):
Yeah.
It has to

Greg (01:58:06):
one thing we do that, that, that, that, it was always
like a fun thing was April FoolsDay.
April Fools Day in prison.
We'll, we we would crack jokeson each other

Gene (01:58:15):
really?

Greg (01:58:16):
hardcore.
There was this one guy and hewas like, my, he was my road
dog.
He was my ace deuce, you knowwhat I mean?
This guy London, His real namewas Andrew Martin.
and he was a singer in theeighties band.
He was the lead singer of AndyMartin and Jet Black Machine,
Which they were kind of like arockabilly band from, from the
eighties.
and they and they weirdly had alarge following in Japan.

(01:58:38):
I don't know why, but you know,he, he, he, he sky from the,
from the UK and he got hemmed upfor meth here.
And, and he, he got a, he got araw deal cuz he was, he was on
probation when he got arrestedfor meth.
And so they just, they just gavehim 10 years and it's Hey man,
you screwed up your probation.
He got caught with meth, youknow, 10 years.
But Arizona does not play aroundwith methamphetamine.

(01:58:58):
So I, I kind of get it.
That being said like I I, Ipranked him on a number of
occasions like the, the firsttime cuz we were, we were on a
yard together for a couple ofyears.
First, first, first April FoolsDay, I sewed his towel to his
bed because I noticed hisroutine was every morning he'd
get up, he put on his showershoes and he would kind of

(01:59:18):
zombie walk over to where theshower was and he would, yank
his towel off the end of hisbed.
And it was so fucking funnywatching him fight to get his
towel off.
Yeah.
And, and so the following year Iwanted

Gene (01:59:31):
Wait, You had access to to needle.

Greg (01:59:34):
They weren't like allowed on the yard, but you could get
them,

Gene (01:59:38):
Oh, okay.
So that's a, that's a contrabandthat you would have with sewing
needles.

Greg (01:59:42):
Yeah, because there's a lot of things you can do with
sewing needles.
You can make pillows, you can

Gene (01:59:46):
Well, yeah.
You could poke somebody's eyeout,

Greg (01:59:48):
if, we, we, they, they sold us, disposable razors.
Those things were moredangerous, those weren't
contraband, Like disposablerazors, you can get pens and
pencils.
So it's you know, a sewing

Gene (01:59:58):
a, a, a big pen and a razor, the safety razor, and you
got a weapon right there.

Greg (02:00:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Pretty much.
Yeah.

Gene (02:00:05):
I took a course on of making, I know what I'm talking
about.

Greg (02:00:08):
Well, like the, the, the most common pick that would be
used is somebody would prysomething off of the wreck yard
fence, like pry one of thepieces of metal and then take it
to the concrete inside the runand just kind of sharpen it

Gene (02:00:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Greg (02:00:23):
That being said I went up the, the sewing game the
following April Fools day, I gota hold of a pair of London's
pants, you know, that heintended to wear the next day.
And I j I sewed him into theshape of skinny pants, like
skinny

Gene (02:00:37):
Jesus Christ

Greg (02:00:38):
So that way they really conform to his ass, thighs and
ankles and watching, watchinghim put'em on, cuz you know it,
it was just too much for him todeal with before going to chow
in the morning.
So seeing him walk in his littleskintight pants, you know, and
he comes in, he goes, He comesup to me, he goes, oh God.

(02:00:59):
Gra you're a fucking, you're afucking asshole.
You know that Jesus Christ, andall, all the other woods are
kind of laughing at him.

Gene (02:01:08):
That's hilarious.

Greg (02:01:10):
But no.
Yeah,

Gene (02:01:11):
What, somebody do to you.
What's, what's prank?
Somebody pulling you

Greg (02:01:14):
Well, unfortunately, when, when I was doing that latter
April Fool's Day prank, I, Iinappropriately inspired
somebody else to do one on methat wound up pissing off his
people because it was, it wasthe wrong thing to do.
It, it was a, a Chicano kid,this kid Moses.
But like, he, he was a, hereally liked, you know, talking
to me and shooting the breezewith me and barring music, CDs

(02:01:37):
for me, cuz I had like a bunchof punk and metal and
alternative stuff.
He wanted to play a prank on me.
And number one, you're notsupposed to prank outside your
race.
That's one

Gene (02:01:47):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (02:01:47):
The second thing he did is what?
He took my alarm clock and hesaid it for two o'clock in the
morning.
And what happened was it woundup waking up, me and a couple of
my neighbors, and we have astrict 10 to 10 rule no noise
from 10:00 PM to to 10:00 Andthat's not something enforced by
the institution.
That's the inmate rule.

(02:02:09):
You know, if you start makingnoise before 10 o'clock in the
morning, you're likely to getslapped in the mouth and told to
shut up.
So it wound up waking up me andthis guy Oscar, and, and I'd
known Oscar for years.
And I told him, I said, dude, Idon't know what the fuck
happened.
I said, I didn't set my alarmfor two o'clock in the morning
and I didn't want any problemswith Oscar.
Cuz him and I, we had a goodrapport.
He was one of the heads of theChicano and he was finishing up

(02:02:32):
the last five years of a amurder rap that he had.
But he was still, he still had alot of pull and, and, and I told
him, I said, I think Moses didthis And then so he goes up to
Moses a few hours later it'sprobably like eight, nine
o'clock in the morning.
And I just see them kind oftalking, him talking on, on the
bunk with, with Moses.
And Moses is like, you know,nodding yes.

(02:02:52):
So I'm guessing Moses isadmitting to what he did.
And then Oscar just, cracks himright in the right in the jaw,
just boom.
I, it, it was a punch so hardand so swift, it sounded like an
open hand slap.

Gene (02:03:05):
Hmm,

Greg (02:03:05):
It was a close fist punch, but it sounded like a slap.
And I'm like, man, I never hearda punch Sound like that.

Gene (02:03:12):
hmm.
So, so this Moses guy heard it.
So were you like next to theChicanos.

Greg (02:03:24):
Th this was when I was still on a three yard at the
time and was in between a coupleof Chicano

Gene (02:03:30):
Got it.
Got it.
Because you were telling meearlier that kinda, I'll try to
separate you out by raceinitially.

Greg (02:03:35):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cubes are basically individual

Gene (02:03:38):
maybe you're a Chicano, I don't know.

Greg (02:03:39):
No.

Gene (02:03:40):
You don't look like it, but

Greg (02:03:42):
No, no.
Uh uh.
The cubes basically function asindividual cells.
They, you know, they'reseparated, like I said, by the
waist high center blocks.
Yeah.
Cause I remember on one side it,it was Oscar and what was the
guy's name on, on the other sideof me?
Chino.
He was, he was a character.
He was a funny guy.
He was extremely racist.
He was a Chicano and heabsolutely hated black people.

Gene (02:04:02):
Uhhuh.
Well,

Greg (02:04:05):
he was a

Gene (02:04:06):
yeah.
Yeah.
I guess that's, that's one placewhere kind of going to that
primal kind of brain activitythere's probably a lot less self
filtering going on, I wouldimagine.

Greg (02:04:22):
I, I mean, if you're thinking like there's casual or
aggressive racism hostilelythrown around.
No un unless somebody's tryingto, you know, start something.
So I remember there was this oneguy, it was the only guy, only
black dude, that I called the nword in, in prison.
And, It, it was because, I hadan issue with him and he was

(02:04:44):
running his mouth about me.
He, he was like a middle-agedblack guy.
I think his name was s.
and, he just was repeatedlydisrespecting me.
I heard that he referred to meas a bitch, and that's like a
big no-no word.
And so, I, I started calling himeverything in the book telling
him like, Hey man, come in thebathroom.
We gotta settle this man.
And he is man, I ain't trying todo that.

(02:05:04):
I'm like, come here, punk, comehere, bitch.
And I'm, I'm, I'm calling himLarry Lame, calling him a
faggot, and he's not coming.
And I'm like, all right, I gottasay the word And so when I
dropped that, There was a coupleother black guys in the run, and
they just told him at thatpoint, they're like, you have to

(02:05:24):
fight him now.
Like, You're, you're not gonnatalk your way outta this.
No.
You know,

Gene (02:05:30):
And

Greg (02:05:31):
Yeah.

Gene (02:05:31):
so you end up fighting this guy,

Greg (02:05:34):
huh?

Gene (02:05:34):
you end up fighting this guy.

Greg (02:05:36):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
like

Gene (02:05:38):
did that affect your stay at all?
I mean, what, what happens likewhen you do get into a fight?
Because again, in TV shows it'soh, you just turned another five
years.
It's like they just throw outthese extensions of sentences
automatically.
So what actually

Greg (02:05:53):
it just depends how bad it is.
And it depends on thecircumstances.
Most of the times the cos don'tgive a shit.
If it's something

Gene (02:05:59):
they making bets on which inmates gonna win or are they
doing anything like that?

Greg (02:06:03):
well, number one, the reason why you take it to the
bathroom is that the cos areless likely to.

Gene (02:06:08):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (02:06:09):
And also when a fight goes on, like outside of what happens
like in TV shows and stuff likethat, where like inmates are
rallying around and yeah.
You know, it looks like a screenscene from Street Fighter.

Gene (02:06:20):
yeah.
Yeah.

Greg (02:06:21):
No all the inmates are completely quiet because they're
trying to make it seem likenothing's happening.
They're not looking at it.
If somebody starts to look atit, there are people will go up
to and be like, Hey man, quitlooking.
Quit drawing attention to that.
Let'em handle their business.
So probably 95% of the fightsdon't even register on the CO's
attention, or if a co saw it,they don't give a shit because

(02:06:44):
it, it's usually once, oncehands are laid, it's a debt
issue, you know?

Gene (02:06:49):
Mm-hmm.
And were there any or many forthat matter sort of taking care
of your own kind of fights towhere, you kind of mentioned
that the, your, your Chicanobuddy getting whacked when he
did something wrong with youralarm clock.
Were there other instances ofthat where the blacks had to
take care of the blacks or werethe whites had to beat up a

(02:07:10):
white dude because

Greg (02:07:11):
yeah, yeah.
It's, it's called puttingsomebody in check.
And, and it usually happens tothe newer inmates.
I mean, sometimes, I don'tnecessarily getting it, I don't
necessarily call it getting itput in check if somebody's
getting hands put on'em for adebt issue or something, like
dope debt, gambling debt orsomething like that.
that's not getting checked,that's, that's hands laid, debt
paid.
That's something totallydifferent.
But yeah, usually, usually the,the younger inmates that come in

(02:07:33):
and, they, they are a littlewalking out with their chest a
little bit too high, so tospeak, And stepping on toes or
whatever, they'll, they'll getput in check and, and usually
you get in, put in check iseither a stern talking to
letting'em know that if you doX, y, z again, you're gonna get
beat up.
Or in other cases it, it couldbe just somebody rolls up and,

(02:07:54):
fucking cracks somebody in theface and says, don't do that
again.

Gene (02:07:57):
Mm-hmm.
Interesting.
So we talked about the, the, theracial sort of composition
breakdown, but I didn't ask you,I'm curious, like what was the
breakdown of the, the non-kinhead whites to the skinhead
whites?
Because the really hardcore youguys racist guys, you said?

Greg (02:08:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The skins like, they, they wouldbe a very, very minimal presence
presence on the yard.
Like, I, I think the most I'dseen on any given yard was like,
probably like eight or nineskins.

Gene (02:08:32):
And what is that as a percent?

Greg (02:08:36):
We're, we're talking out of a few hundred inmates, you
know, on any given yard.

Gene (02:08:41):
Okay.
So just a couple percentbasically.

Greg (02:08:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Skins aren't very big, you know,and the skinhead stuff, that's,
that's a lot of Californiapolitics that migrated over to
the AZ systems.
And, and, and skinheads, they,they've got such a weird thing
going on.
They have like internal factionsthat butt heads, cuz you've got
the AZ skins that get irritated,I guess with the NLR people and

(02:09:07):
stuff like that, it's like the,the Aryan Brotherhood just kind
of relegates them to their ownlittle tables in the chow hall
and it's like, all right,there's the table for your heads
and your people, chill outthere.

Gene (02:09:19):
Any,

Greg (02:09:20):
the skin still answer to the ab

Gene (02:09:22):
okay.
Any motorcycle clubs activeinside, or are they just all
kind of dispersed by race?

Greg (02:09:29):
Yeah, yeah.
They, they, they, they disperseby race.
And, and, and typically also,like the, a lot of the MC stuff
you'll see that get assimilatedinto the AB culture.
Because it's not uncommon tofind the folks that are running
the yard also are involved, areeither, casual rider or maybe
they're a part of mc.
Cause I, I remember I rememberbeing that seeing that on, on

(02:09:50):
the arts where, people would bebike rider or associated with
some kind of

Gene (02:09:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, cool.
Look, I could keep talking allday here, but I know we gotta
wrap up at some point here.
Is there anything that I didn'task about that you think would
be interesting for the listenersor viewers to see?

Greg (02:10:10):
Hard to say without knowing for sure, because e
everybody is interested insomething

Gene (02:10:14):
Yeah, I know there's gotta be people looking at your action
figures going, holy shit, howmuch money has he got tied up in
that stuff?
You got a lot of stuff

Greg (02:10:23):
Yeah.

Gene (02:10:24):
and that's, that's just a small percentage of what you
have.
Right.

Greg (02:10:27):
Yeah.

Gene (02:10:27):
What we're seeing in the back, like you're an actual
order collector type with a roomor two full of these things.

Greg (02:10:34):
Yeah, I have,

Gene (02:10:36):
I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but

Greg (02:10:38):
yeah, no, Well, n no I have four bedrooms that are
filled with toys, and then I'vegot my common areas filled with
toys.
The only

Gene (02:10:45):
pretty

Greg (02:10:45):
don't have toys are the bathrooms.

Gene (02:10:47):
Yeah, no, that's definitely hardcore.
All right.
Where can people get ahold ofyou or watch you read your stuff
or anything else?

Greg (02:10:56):
Well, I, I mean, YouTube is gonna be where it's at if, if
they want to, see like theactual video

Gene (02:11:00):
Mm-hmm.

Greg (02:11:01):
And that is the breakdown with Greg Hoyt.
You can also follow me onTwitter.
I'm a little bit active onthere, just, I'll do like some
snarky replies here and there,and I can be followed at Twitter
at Greg Hoy, l e t as in myfirst name, last name, l e t as
in law enforcement today.

(02:11:21):
Cause that's, that's when I

Gene (02:11:23):
that's when you created it.
Got it.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And so probably you're gonnahave more videos coming out on a
variety of these topics.
And what category do you kind ofplace your video channel in?

Greg (02:11:36):
You know, I, I keep it,

Gene (02:11:37):
or culture or tech or

Greg (02:11:40):
you know, yeah, I, I I label it as like a hodgepodge of
news, pop culture, politics, sothat way it kind of keeps it
open field and lets me, whetherI wanna make something evergreen
or topical, I can do either or.
But I have been described as a,a culture war, Player, so to
speak.
And I don't mind beingcharacterized as that because

(02:12:02):
yes, I do find my content kindof addresses some of the culture
war stuff.

Gene (02:12:07):
Yeah.
Very cool.
Well, again, I appreciate youcoming on and I'm sure people
will come out and check out yourvideos directly.
Thanks, Greg.

Greg (02:12:16):
Thank you for having me on Gene.

Gene (02:12:17):
You bet.

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