BRIAN KEITH THOMPSON: Death Sentence to Redemption — My Wildest Story | The BASIC Show EPISODE 2

From Rock Bottom to Red Carpet Ink: Brian Keith Thompson Tells All

In Episode 2 of The BASIC Show, we sit down with the legendary Brian Keith Thompson — celebrity body piercer, tattoo artist, and owner of LA’s iconic Body Electric Tattoo.

Brian opens up about his incredible transformation — from time behind bars to becoming one of the most sought-after names in Hollywood’s beauty scene. With clients from A-list stars to world-class models, Brian shares his raw journey of redemption, resilience, and building an empire, one needle at a time.

See more of Brian on @bodyelectrictattoo on Instagram

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
If you beat me down, I'm going to keep getting up.
Welcome to Hollywood.
Yeah, welcome to Hollywood.
Being a cholo was like, it waskind of sexy.
If you're a gangster, you got tohang out.
You got to be in the street.

SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
You really wanted to test the destiny.

SPEAKER_01 (00:12):
I wanted that power, dude.
Don't do the crime if you can'tdo the time.
Money, money, money.
Like, where does it ever

SPEAKER_00 (00:19):
end?
Another bill, you know?
Another drama.

SPEAKER_01 (00:22):
First time I saw someone killed, it didn't chill
me the way I thought it would.
Masculine toxicity, it's thatpower.
Wow.

SPEAKER_00 (00:30):
I don't know.
In a candy shop.

SPEAKER_01 (00:33):
Guy in my car gets in a fight with a drug dealer.
I said, if anybody calls thecops, I'll fucking kill you.
White people are treated theworst in L.A.
County Jail.
I had to eat on the floor.
Put a gun in your face and takeyour shit.
You have AIDS.

SPEAKER_00 (00:45):
AIDS?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (00:46):
Pick up the phone.
You're like, help, help, help.

SPEAKER_00 (00:48):
If you never ask, you will never get.
The

SPEAKER_01 (00:50):
sun doesn't give a shit about our problems.
The Milky Way don't give a shit.
Dust and bruises and blood andkeeps fucking going.
You are your word and that's Howcan you have success if you've
never failed?
Just keep swimming.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20):
So Brian, thank you for coming to The Basic Show.
My

SPEAKER_01 (01:24):
pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
Thank you for having me.
It's

SPEAKER_01 (01:26):
my first podcast, actually.
Really?
I've never done one of these.

SPEAKER_00 (01:29):
I'm very honored.
I'm very honored.
I wouldn't do

SPEAKER_01 (01:30):
this for anybody.
I've been asked many times, butI've always liked you and
respected you.
So here I

SPEAKER_00 (01:35):
am.
Thank you.
I really, really appreciate it.
I'm really happy to have youbecause when I read your story,
it was so inspiring, but alsoblood chilling at the same time.
And I really wanted you to voiceit and share with us.
The first thing when I read inone of your interviews was
saying that when you came to LAfrom Texas, you were driving a
bicycle and you were stopped byLevi's for a commercial.

SPEAKER_01 (01:57):
Yeah.
So what happened?
Yeah, it was my first encounter.
I came here in 84.
My dad moved here with his wife,his second wife.
And I came to visit him and westayed across the street from
the Universal Studios.
It's now called an Ava or AvaApartments, but it used to be in
Oakwood.

(02:17):
And we lived there and I justfell in love with it instantly.
I was forced to be Christianand, you know, I don't know if
you've been to Texas.
It's a vibe that I wasn't vibingwith as

SPEAKER_00 (02:31):
a kid.
Drug drivers and...
Oh,

SPEAKER_01 (02:32):
you could legally drink and drive there.
Like you could have an opencontainer.

SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
That's something I can relate, but okay.

UNKNOWN (02:39):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (02:39):
And I never really fit in.
I've always been different.
I've never wanted to beat to thedrum of society.
If everybody's going left, Iwant to go right or vice versa.
If everybody's wearing Nikes,I'm going to put on Reebok.
I'm going to do whatevereveryone else isn't doing.
So when I came here, I was like,whoa, this is awesome.

(03:00):
So I convinced my mom to let memove in with my dad.
And I started the seventh gradehere and I had a mountain bike
and I had long blonde hair.
I was, I don't know if you everheard the term Hesher.

SPEAKER_00 (03:12):
No.

SPEAKER_01 (03:13):
So back in the 80s, this is 1985.
So if you're into heavy metalmusic like Iron Maid, Motley
Crue, Def Leppard, you're ahesher.
And we wore Levi's, faded Levi'sand band shirts.
And I was a hesher.
So I'm riding this mountain bikemy dad got me.
And I wanted a nice one, but mydad always took me to like
Target.
Got like this heavy, you know,it was like a tank.

(03:36):
And I'm riding it to school andI have my Levi's jacket on, my
Levi's pants.
And they're setting up.
outside, they have like camerasand all stuff.
And as I'm wearing back then,the bike racks are in this huge,
like gated thing, right?
And all the schools in LA backin the day were surrounded by
chain link fence.
I came from Texas, we didn'thave fences around the school.

(03:59):
So I ride into the fence.
And as I'm riding in, I look tomy side, and they're pulling the
little trolley and filming me.
And I kind of, you know, likeyou do when you're, I don't even
know how old I was, like 13.
I kind of freeze up, you know.
And the guy says, stop.
Hey, come here.
He had this English accent.

(04:19):
He's like, it sounds better as aNew York accent.
He's like, hey, kid, come here.
You know, did you, do you haveyour release form?
They made us all fill out, youknow, if we wanted to, fill out
a release form.
And I gave it to him through thefence and he told me what to do
and I got my bike and I rodeback and forth.
And then I came out in thecommercial.

(04:40):
But the funny thing is theyremoved my head from the shot.
It's just my body in the bike.
Yeah.
Imagine that.
You're like, what?
They're like, we like it all,but his face.
Wow.
And I got paid.
Welcome to Hollywood.
Yeah.
Welcome to Hollywood.
Right away.
Yeah.
Bam.
Little boy.

SPEAKER_00 (05:00):
Yeah.
But at least it got paid, right?

SPEAKER_01 (05:02):
Yeah.
I got, I was in two commercialsand a video.
There used to be a departmentstore in California called
Broadway and I was in some videoin there and they paid me about
$1,500.
And in 85 for a 13-year-old,that was a lot of money.
So I took it and I went andbought a Honda Spree scooter.
That's what I did with it.
And I was cool for like threedays at school after that.

(05:25):
Then I went back to being adorky hesher.

SPEAKER_00 (05:28):
So what happened after that?

SPEAKER_01 (05:30):
After that, I just kept going through school.
I was picked on and abusedpretty badly in school since
elementary school.
not sexual abuse, justphysically, bullies.
I was small, but I had a mouthon me.
And no matter what you did tome, I would be telling you, F
you.
As you're beating me up, thenyou'd start walking away.
I'd get up and be like, F you,whatever.

(05:53):
I just wouldn't shut up.
I'd get beat up more.
And I just never submitted.
I've never been the type ofperson, if you beat me down, I'm
going to keep getting up.
You've got to kill me.
There's just, I'm not going tostop ever.
And...
It just I never got filled withanger being picked on and
abused.
It just made me want to bebetter.

(06:13):
So instead of going, Towardsviolence, like you see kids
doing nowadays in school andbringing guns.
I just would fantasize of beinglike so badass.
Everybody would like bow down,you know, and I just focused on
that.
The more people told me Icouldn't or I was too little or
I was like this little guy.
So at 12, I look like I waseight.

(06:35):
I'm 53 now.
I looked really young and I lookkind of like a girl.
I was, you know, you know, justwhen you're really young as
boys, sometimes you kind of lookfeminine.
That was me.
and had the long hair.
And yeah, it was just torture,torture, torture through school.
I never liked going to schoolbecause of that.
And I never told my parents,though.

(06:56):
I always kept it in.
I just, I don't know.
Back then, everyone told us tobe a man.
There's this one way, and youhad to be that man.
Be a man.
Suck it up.
The only emotion you can have isanger.
You can't have any otheremotion, you know?
Be a man.
And so I just never told anybodyabout it.
And I just dealt with it myself.

(07:17):
And then...
I get a job at Target being acart attendant.
And I meet this guy, Jose.

SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
And

SPEAKER_01 (07:26):
he changed my life.
He became my brother.
And he was this tall Mexicandude, Jose Luis Mendoza.
He was a guy that would takeyour girlfriend if you weren't
careful.
He was that cool.
He just knew what to say, man.
He just was gifted.
He just could talk.
You never saw him drunk or outof his mind.

(07:47):
He was always together.

SPEAKER_00 (07:49):
So what attracted you to Jose?
I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 (07:52):
We just linked up.
So he was in Lawn and Garden,and I would go out to Lawn and
Garden.
And they're like, well, ifyou're going to hang out here,
we got to jump you into Lawn andGarden.
So they beat me up to be able tobe a part of Lawn and Garden.
This is the 80s, man.
It was weird, dude.

SPEAKER_00 (08:05):
Was it like some kind of initiation?
Yeah, it was like some stupid

SPEAKER_01 (08:08):
thing.
Yeah.
So then we became friends and wehung out every day.
And then Jose was in a gangcalled CPA.
And his brother was

SPEAKER_00 (08:18):
in one.
It stood for, I wrote it down,was it like the Canoga Park,
Alabama Street?
Yeah, yeah.
Just

SPEAKER_01 (08:24):
declared.
This is 1988 and I'm this littlewhite kid.
And Jose got me to cut my hairand I slicked it back and got me
to wear baggier clothes andtaught me how to iron my jeans
and my t-shirts.
Like we would put creases in ourshirts, one down the front,
three in the back, crease thearms.
Being a cholo was like, it waskind of sexy.

(08:45):
It was like this care about theway you looked and it was like
this lifestyle.
And it was actually...
really appeasing and attractiveto me.
It was like this community ofoutsiders that society didn't
want.
They were all Mexican.
It was very racist.
And so I felt like an outsider.
So I think that's what reallybonded me to it.

(09:07):
I felt like this community.
I felt seen.
And I just, I love to put myselfinto dangerous situations.
You know, when you don't, I kindof secretly didn't want to live.
So I was flirting with dangerbecause it was a way out of
here.
And I wanted off the ride.
Since I was a little boy, I wasthinking about suicide at nine

(09:29):
years old.
I would think about it.
And I would think, like, if Godis real and there's a heaven,
then why don't I just die rightnow and go there, man?
It seems way better than this.
And it would just perplex me.
I was like, well, why?
You know, when you're a littleboy, you don't, or young, little
boy, little girl, whatever, youdon't understand the
complexities of all that, youknow?
And I was like, well, why?

(09:50):
And, um, so.

SPEAKER_00 (09:52):
So tell us about the life in the gang.
I mean, I can't even imagine.
It was a

SPEAKER_01 (09:57):
slow transition.

SPEAKER_00 (09:58):
So he introduced you and he vouched for you.

SPEAKER_01 (10:01):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (10:02):
To the members of the gang.

SPEAKER_01 (10:04):
And this was a

SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
very.
Did they accept you right away?
No, no, no,

SPEAKER_01 (10:07):
no.
I mean, it was, yeah.
It's like, it's like beingintroduced to a mob family.
You know, everyone's looking atyou at first, but, um, I just, I
don't know, I just fit in.
And slowly over time, I justbecame more and more with him.
And then it just, you know, justbecame a thing.
And then I ran away from home in1989.
And I run to down the street,pick up my friend's phone.

(10:31):
You know, we had to, you know,push dial, landlines, and I call
Jose.
And I was like, hey, I just ranaway from home.
Jose's first question he askedme was, where are you?
Nothing more.
Just, where are you?
Not what happened.
Not anything.
Where are you?
I'll be right there.
He comes and picks me up.
And I lived at his house eversince.
And his family were immigrantsfrom Michoacan, Mexican

(10:53):
Michigan.
And yeah, it was great.
I slept on the floor.
I

SPEAKER_00 (10:59):
didn't have a

SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
bed.
There was 13 of us in thisthree-bedroom house.
But I was happy.
And it was fun.
But there was also this otheraspect of it.
It was this dangerousorganization.
The police were after us.
And I kind of liked that thecops were on us and we'd be
hanging out and they would rollup.
You know, you'd hear

SPEAKER_00 (11:19):
their engine.
So what did you do?
They just get in the car andjust cruise the neighborhood?
Cruise,

SPEAKER_01 (11:22):
hang out, yeah.
We'd be hanging out in theneighborhood at night with the
trunk open, listening to music,drinking beer.
Just hanging, dude.
That's what you do when you're agangster.
You know, they're like, hey, youhaven't been around in a while.
Where you been?
You gotta, if you're a gangster,you gotta hang out.
You gotta be in the street.
You got to check in.
Yeah, you got to be there, youknow?
You can't just be at homekicking it with mom.
You got to be in the street, youknow, or you're not one of them.

(11:46):
And I really liked it.
I liked the clothing.
I liked the...
It was just, when we werewalking to a party, people
would, their eyes would go tothe ground.
Like, it was powerful.
I think that was what attractedme the most as a man.
I...
Wanted that power, dude, right?
Like that's the first thing, youknow, when you're in a toxic

(12:06):
mental environment, masculinetoxicity, it's that power.

SPEAKER_00 (12:11):
Coming from your dad's side, right?
Yeah.
He wanted to be the man.
Yeah, and I wanted

SPEAKER_01 (12:15):
to feel powerful

SPEAKER_00 (12:16):
and

SPEAKER_01 (12:17):
it made me feel that way.
I got beat up a few times, saidthe wrong things or, you know,
not being accepted.
The first time I saw someonekilled, it didn't chill me the
way I thought it would.
Do you

SPEAKER_00 (12:30):
think you were like desensitized?
I don't know.
Emotionally not there?

SPEAKER_01 (12:35):
Yeah, I don't know.
It was weird.
It didn't scare me.
It just, I was like, wow.
You know, it blew, snapped myhead back, but it wasn't like,
oh my gosh, I should not behere.
A normal person would be like,okay, check.
Can I get the check, please?
No, I was like, more.
Give me some more of this.
And it went on for years andyears.

(12:57):
And then I joined the MarineCorps out of high school.
But I still have the gang ties.
So on the weekends, I was aweekend warrior then.

SPEAKER_00 (13:03):
So how did you come up with an idea?
You're in a gang in thisdangerous environment.
Then all of a sudden you decide,okay, you finish school, right?

SPEAKER_01 (13:11):
Yeah, I graduated high school

SPEAKER_00 (13:12):
early.
High school early, uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 (13:14):
I knew that I wasn't going to go to college.
I have a learning disability.
It's really hard for me to readinformation and retain it.
I am a visual speaker.
It's hard for me to writethings.
Okay.
Like I can't.
like emails and stuff or

SPEAKER_00 (13:27):
whatever.
Good for you.
It's hard for me.

SPEAKER_01 (13:31):
You just got to figure out how to make it work
though.
I could sit here and cry aboutit and be like, man, I wish
this.
Or I can just figure it out howto survive here.
And that's what I did.
And depression gets you becauseyou want to be something more
than you are and you're notaccepting who you are.
And freedom comes once you justaccept it and just own what you

(13:53):
are.

SPEAKER_00 (13:54):
And you know, I love it because a lot of people stick
to their childhood trauma andthey use it as an excuse.
And I love it how you've reallytransformed it and became
resilient to it.
That made you stronger, right?
What happened if you just likegave in to all of that, right?
Where have you been?
That

SPEAKER_01 (14:10):
would be true weakness for me.
I don't judge anybody.
Whatever their journey is, istheir journey.
And my journey was mine and Ifigured out what makes me tick.
Everyone has to do that samething.
There's no one way.
It's dynamic.
There's billions of ways tofigure it out, right?
Like being a man, there'sbillions of ways to be a man.
There's not one way.
There's like a woman.

(14:31):
How do you define a woman?
There's you define being awoman.
I define what I am as a man.
And it, I just, you know, it, Itwas hard for a long time.
So school was very hard for me.
If a teacher was lecturing, Iwould just start daydreaming.
My mind just wanders and goes,and I would start thinking of

(14:52):
all these things I want to do.
All the ghosts?
No, just anything.
It just goes and goes.
It's just like this wheel thatdoes not stop turning.
And I always had, back then youwould get your grade and then
they would give you S's or U's,satisfactory or unsatisfactory.
And I would always have U's andthen a comment, talks too much.

(15:13):
And that was every report card.
And it'd be Ds, Cs, and Fs.
And so when I decided I wantedto join the Marines, I wanted to
do something.
There was a war going on, theGulf War.

SPEAKER_00 (15:24):
And

SPEAKER_01 (15:24):
I wanted to go into combat.
I wanted to experience.

SPEAKER_00 (15:27):
You really wanted to test the destiny.
I just wanted to

SPEAKER_01 (15:30):
feel what combat was like.
Like I wanted to taste it, smellit, feel it, see if I could do
it, like go into war.
I wanted to carry a rifle andassault.
You know, I just wanted to doit, you know, as an American and
scream USA while I was doing itwith the red, white, and blue.

SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
Was it like patriotic?
Yes.
Or you really wanted to playwith danger?

SPEAKER_01 (15:50):
Both.
I loved this country.
I wanted to fight for it.
I wanted to defend it.
But I was also young.
I didn't understand what thesewars were.
I wasn't really defending theUnited States.
I was defending the interests ofpoliticians.
I wasn't defending our homeland.
I was defending what theywanted.

(16:11):
But I didn't know that.
But I But still, I would nevertake it back.
I would join the Marine Corpstomorrow if I had to do it
again.
I love the Marine

SPEAKER_00 (16:19):
Corps.
Do you think every guy should gothrough that experience?

SPEAKER_01 (16:22):
I think a lot of people should.
The military is for everybody.
It was for me.
I think that we all have ourplace in this world.
It's like what makes thisproduction company badass.
It's everything and everybodyworking as a unit together.
What's the most important partof your car?
Is it the engine?

(16:42):
Is it the transmission?
Is it the windshield?

SPEAKER_00 (16:44):
For me, it's the mirror.

SPEAKER_01 (16:45):
It's the mirror.
So you can look at it.
But it's everything.
You remove some of those piecesand the car doesn't work.
You may have an engine andtransmission, but you remove the
steering wheel.
How do you drive?
You can't.
It's everything workingtogether.
So you

SPEAKER_00 (17:02):
won the Marines.
I went to the

SPEAKER_01 (17:03):
Marines.

SPEAKER_00 (17:04):
What have you learned there?
What was your time like?

SPEAKER_01 (17:06):
Well, I went in open contract.
I let the Marine Corps pick myjob.
I got talked in.
I scored so low on the ASVAB.
It was like, yeah, they wereprobably like, this guy is dumb.
So they talked me into goingopen contract, meaning after
boot camp in Marine combattraining, the Marine Corps got
to pick my job.

(17:27):
I'm really good at swimming.

SPEAKER_00 (17:29):
So how did they test you?
How did they test you for theMarines?
They ask you to do like 20million push-ups?
No, before you

SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
join the military, they make you do a test called
the ASVAB,

SPEAKER_00 (17:38):
and

SPEAKER_01 (17:39):
it's a placement test to see where your strengths
are.
It's kind of like, I guess, anSAT type thing, but not as
in-depth, I guess.
But yeah, I scored very low.
So either I was going to carry agun or flip pancakes or, you
know what I mean?
I was going to do the more lowerlevel jobs.

(18:00):
But I was really good atswimming in boot camp.
I qualified the highest youcould qualify.
I would never think.
So they put me into amphibioustanks.
So my job was to dive off theback of a naval assault ship in
this tank and attack the beach.
And that was a fun job whenyou're 19, dude.

SPEAKER_00 (18:17):
So you are in the submarine?

SPEAKER_01 (18:19):
No, it's It's a tank that floats.
It's a 28-ton tank that

SPEAKER_00 (18:22):
the

SPEAKER_01 (18:22):
back of the ship opens.
They swing the ship around.
And then we launch out the back,13 of us, with 25 Marines or a
squad of Marines.
You could get up to 20 Marinesin the back.

SPEAKER_00 (18:34):
What kind of uniform did you have?

SPEAKER_01 (18:36):
It was a...
kind of this fireproof jumpsuitthing that I would wear in the
tank, the helmet.
I drove.

SPEAKER_00 (18:44):
Oh, with a

SPEAKER_01 (18:45):
helmet?
Yeah.
Calm helmet.
You have three crew members.
You're one of three.
It was this cool thing becausewe got to drive on these ships.
We'd be on the beach and theship would flash us with the
lights and we would just godriving through the surf motor
and then the ship would lowerthe ramp and we would drive up
and then we'd have dinner on theship and I sailed around the

(19:05):
world.
I've crossed the equator.
I've been to Japan, mainlandJapan, Okinawa, China.
We sailed to Hong Kong in 1993,Malaysia, and then Australia.

SPEAKER_00 (19:18):
But that wasn't a dangerous job, right?
It wasn't like alife-threatening, was it?

SPEAKER_01 (19:21):
Oh, it was very dangerous.
It was?
Dude, we crossed ships.
They told us at night in heavyseas on the equator that we
needed to go from the USSDubuque to the USS San
Bernardino.
Some...
Commander wanted our tanks onanother ship.
And we're at night in the middleof the ocean.

(19:41):
And if someone would have gotlost, you're gone, dude.
And I was the first tank off theship and the first one onto the
LST.
And this is heavy sea.
So the ramp of the LST, the USSSan Bernardino was coming in and
out of the water.
Boom, boom, boom.
Wow.

SPEAKER_00 (19:56):
I can only imagine the feeling, huh?

SPEAKER_01 (19:58):
Yeah, but I never get stressed out on those
things.
I don't know why.
I've always just, it makes me, Ilike it.

SPEAKER_00 (20:05):
Well, you've been prepared since childhood.
Yeah.
You know, you've been trainedfor that.
I don't

SPEAKER_01 (20:09):
freeze up.
I know that about myself.
If something were to go downright now, I'm not going to
freeze up and not know what todo.
I'm going to fight.
I know that.
It's

SPEAKER_00 (20:18):
probably in your instinct already.
I don't know.
Yeah, it's weird.

SPEAKER_01 (20:22):
It doesn't scare me.
But I did it, and then there wasno war.
So...
I get out of school's battalion,the Gulf War ends.
And in 1992, Christmas of 92,they activate us, my platoon, to
go to Somalia to secure the foodshipments.
That's before Black Hawk down.

SPEAKER_00 (20:38):
Secure to what?

SPEAKER_01 (20:39):
The food.
So people were starving inSomalia

SPEAKER_00 (20:42):
in 1992.

SPEAKER_01 (20:43):
So they sent my company in there to secure it.
And we were the advance party inMogadishu.
Nobody was really there yet.
And 20,000 Marines went in.
And...
Two days before going toMogadishu, I get into a fight at
the E-Club and get hit on thetop of the head with brass
knuckles, split my head open.
They don't let me deploy.

(21:04):
Oh,

SPEAKER_00 (21:05):
no.

SPEAKER_01 (21:05):
And it was heartbreaking not being able to
go into that combat

SPEAKER_00 (21:12):
role.
And then you said, okay, now I'mgoing to become a cop.

SPEAKER_01 (21:16):
So then I sat there until my term ran out.
I...
got listed for a Navyachievement medal.
They downgraded it to acertificate of commendation.
And then they tried to get me toreenlist.
And I told them, if I knewSeptember 11th was coming, I

(21:38):
probably would have stayed inbecause I would have known
you're going to be fighting for20 years if you want to.
And I didn't see anythingcoming.
I didn't want to be in the rearwith the gear anymore.
So I got out and then I tried toget on with the LAPD.

SPEAKER_00 (21:52):
And

SPEAKER_01 (21:53):
the LAPD probably laughed.
They're like, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 (21:57):
Good luck with that.

SPEAKER_01 (21:57):
Yeah.
So four guys in my platoon gotshot by snipers in Somalia.
One of them came out and got onwith the LAPD and then he died
in the line of duty as a LAPD.
He got killed.
He made it out of two wars andgets killed here in Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_00 (22:16):
It's like same thing with Schumacher, right?
You're so safe on the track, butthen you go skiing, and then you
get in coma in some completelyunexpected situation.

SPEAKER_01 (22:26):
Yeah, life is dangerous, right?
We don't think about it.
Our city is dangerous.
Sometimes our cities are worse.

SPEAKER_00 (22:32):
Right, right.
So walk me through, then oneday, did you receive a call
from...

SPEAKER_01 (22:37):
So my dad, I'm working at the Burbank Airport
refueling airplanes at thisprivate terminal.

SPEAKER_00 (22:42):
I

SPEAKER_01 (22:43):
met all these stars.
I met Elizabeth Taylor.
I met Janet Jackson, BruceWillis.
I met President Gerald Ford,shook his hand.
Met the Governor Pete Wilson.
I met everybody.
And I was this 23-year-old kid.
Parking Gulf Streams andChallengers and Robert De Niro.
I used to give him directionsor, you know, carry his bags or,

(23:05):
you know, it was crazy.
And it was a fun job, but itmade no money.
I was making$6 an hour.
Can't survive on$6 an hour,dude.
So my dad's like, hey, come backto Texas, you know, get on with
the police department over here.
So I fly and try it.
They don't want me either.
No one was going to hire me.
I was a freaking gang member.
I don't even know what I wasthinking.

(23:26):
I was

SPEAKER_00 (23:27):
like, what?
Do you have a gang tattoo?

SPEAKER_01 (23:29):
Not anymore.

SPEAKER_00 (23:30):
Not anymore?

SPEAKER_01 (23:31):
But, you know, I have a record.
Yes, yes.
I was arrested for armed robbery

SPEAKER_00 (23:35):
in 1993.
So talk me through that.
Yeah, how did that happen?

SPEAKER_01 (23:37):
So during the Marine Corps, I'm hanging out with the
gang still.
Yes.
First time I was ever arrested.
We're coming out of 7-Eleven,and my homie, This drug addict
guy's like, hey, man, you wantto buy these glasses?
And mom, he takes them.
He puts them on.
He's like, thanks.
Gets in my car.
We drive off.
Just took them.
The guy calls the police andsaid that we robbed him at
gunpoint.
So the police find us that nightand get me.

(24:01):
The

SPEAKER_00 (24:02):
whole SWAT team coming in?

SPEAKER_01 (24:03):
No, just like three units.
Find us somewhere in theneighborhood.
Get me, arrest me.
I don't say nothing because, youknow, there's an old saying, you
know, don't do the crime if youcan't do the time.
So you can't, you get bustedwhen you're a gang member.
You better just zip it,

SPEAKER_00 (24:20):
you know,

SPEAKER_01 (24:21):
loose lips sink ships, right?
So I just zipped it and theydropped, the guy didn't come to
court.
So I was what's called a DAreject.

SPEAKER_00 (24:30):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (24:30):
But that was my first thing.
I was charged with armedrobbery, but they couldn't prove
it.
And there was no, the victimwasn't there.
There was, you know.
So let that go in the MarineCorps.
I was in the Marine Corps, andthey were like, hey, dude, what
the hell?
Oh, you still were in theMarine?
Yeah, I didn't get out of theMarine Corps until 95.
So then when I get out of theMarine Corps, I go back to the
neighborhood, all the stuff.
I move to Texas.
I get on with my dad's company,Nortel.

(24:52):
It's a Canadian corporation.
And then I want to come back toL.A.
So I come back to L.A., andthat's when I really start
hanging out with the guys again.
And then in 1997, Jose, mybrother, gets killed by the
LAPD.
He shot him in the head.
And that was the moment itfloored me.

(25:14):
It was tough, dude.
I used to not be able to talkabout it.
Like even this, that sentenceback in the day, I would cry.
It was hard for me, man.
It took 30 years to get overthat, dude.

SPEAKER_00 (25:26):
Wasn't the expression you said, which I
really liked, it was somethingabout your friends, like the
buttons in the elevator?

SPEAKER_01 (25:33):
Well, that was what the cop told me.
So after...
Jose dies, I kind of spiral.
And I stopped giving a shit.
You know, the one guy I lookedup to, the one man that was my
buddy, is my brother, dude.
He was like, we were like, ifyou saw Jose out, you'd be like,
where's Brian?
If you saw me out, not withouthim, you'd be like, where's

(25:53):
Jose?
We were together, dude, all thetime.
So I kind of spiral.
I get really into theneighborhood, hanging out with
him.
And one night...
I go to buy some marijuana in analley, and a guy in my car gets
in a fight with a drug dealerand shoots him.
And they all run.

(26:14):
I take off.
I go home.
I'm pretty close to the scene.
I can hear sirens go.
The next day, the SWAT team camefor me, and they arrested me for
first-degree murder, conspiracyto commit murder.
Three counts of armed robbery,assault with a deadly weapon,
assault with a semi-automatichandgun and the gang allegation.

(26:34):
They said when I left the scene,I pulled a gun out the car and I
said, if anybody calls the cops,I'll fucking kill you.
I didn't say that.
I didn't have a gun.
So when they arrested me, whenthe SWAT team came, I was
getting ready to go see mygirlfriend.
There's like boom, boom, boom.
I opened the door.
There's two guys with shotgunsand they're just screaming at
me, get on the floor.

(26:55):
And yeah, changed my life.
Changed my life.
So they interrogate me.
I'm not giving them theinformation they want.
And the next day, I'm gettingarraigned.
And my lawyer comes into thisholding cell.
I had the phone up glass andhe's like, it doesn't look good,
Brian.
And I'm like, what do you mean?

(27:15):
He goes, they filed specialcircumstances against you.
And I was like, what does thatmean?
He goes, that's the deathpenalty.
And I remember dropping thephone down to my lap and I
looked down at the concretefloor and I just remember
thinking, I can't die in here,man.
I'm 26.
So we go into court.
They say they're going to, youknow, they're Back in the day,

(27:38):
in the 90s, you had to go tomunicipal court and get bound
over to superior court.
They eliminated that.
Now you just go straight tosuperior.
So they have to throw out thecase, and the judge has to say,
this is binding over.
And the DA, Shelly Samuels, islike, you know, we're seeking
the death penalty.
And I remember getting into it.
My dad is...
and his late wife.

(27:58):
She passed away.
They're in the gallery rightthere.
And I walk out and I look atthem.
I'm shackled to my waist and Ilook at them.
I put my head down.
They put me in the elevator.
I just kind of sitting therelooking at the floor of the
elevator and I'm thinking I'mgoing to kill myself tonight.
I was like, I'm not goingthrough this.
I'm just going to kill myself.
I'm going to figure out a way.

(28:19):
And, uh, um, The sheriff, thedeputy sheriff, he's like this.
I don't know his name.
I wish I did, man, because theguy saved my life.
He was like little, you know,belly, you know, wire rimmed
glasses, salt and pepper hair.
He's got like stripes, you know,been around.
And he hits me in the chest.
He's standing like I'm in theback of the elevator.

(28:40):
The doors are here and thebuttons here.
And he hits me in the chest.
He goes, hey, I see these casesevery day.
You're going to beat this man.
But I want you, and he points tomy face, I want you to remember
one thing.
Friends are like buttons in thiselevator.
Some will take you up and somewill take you down.
And then he stopped talking tome.
And what he gave me right therewas hope.
He said I was going to beat it.

(29:01):
He told me I was going to beatit because he saw the despair in
me.
He didn't have to help me, butdid help me.
You know what I mean?
That's beautiful.
And it saved my life.
And I'll never forget that,ever.
And the DA, she actually wasawesome.
And the judge was a woman,Catherine Stoltz.
And they picked me up to take alie detector test.

(29:25):
And they were running latebecause they had a flat tire.
And I'm with, the detectives arewith her.
And the DA was like, you know,like, just, I could tell she was
like starting to believe me.
Because I didn't plan this.
I didn't know where, this wasfrom an old English common law
murder felony back in the day.
If you and I go rob 7-Eleventogether and you stay in the car

(29:45):
and I get out and I killeverybody in there, you could be
charged in the 90s with murdertoo.

SPEAKER_00 (29:50):
Is it considered accessory to

SPEAKER_01 (29:52):
murder?
But it's not accessory tomurder.
You could be charged with murderbecause everybody in the
commission of that felony can becharged with crime.
So...
Yeah, and I fought it for a yearin L.A.
County.
It was in three race riots.
Dude, it was nuts in

SPEAKER_00 (30:08):
the 90s.
So for that year, you were inprison.

SPEAKER_01 (30:10):
Yeah, in L.A.
County Jail, super max.
Like, the most maximum part ofL.A.
County.
It was a whole different world,man.
Like, you walk in that place,dude, it was scary.
So...
White, you have to stick to yourrace, right?
So when I get in there, I'mstill connected to Canoga Park,
you know, mentally.

SPEAKER_00 (30:30):
Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 (30:31):
And they throw me in high power.
They throw me in the jail withinthe jail.
And I don't know why

SPEAKER_00 (30:36):
or

SPEAKER_01 (30:36):
how I ended up in high power.
That's for like inmates that aredangerous

SPEAKER_00 (30:40):
to inmates.
Extremely dangerous.
Yeah, it's

SPEAKER_01 (30:42):
a jail in the jail.
Wow.
So when you're so dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 (30:45):
It's like a confined.
Yeah, it's just an

SPEAKER_01 (30:48):
ultra maximum security part of the jail that
separates the most dangerousindividuals from the inmates.
Wow.
So you're so dangerous.
You need to be in this jail, inthe jail.

SPEAKER_00 (30:58):
But is it kind of good?
So you're not interacting?

SPEAKER_01 (31:01):
No, but check this out.
So they throw this red wristbandon me and they start walking me
in these, I hear these guys inLA County.
It's like, yo man, he's highpower.
And they put me in this highpower thing and they get me to
the cell, right?
You go into this door and it's asmall room.
They search you.
I'm in there up in your Yeah,yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (31:48):
says that.

SPEAKER_01 (31:50):
Yeah, exactly.
Like, shut up.

SPEAKER_00 (31:51):
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (31:52):
yeah.
And he pushes me in there.
And then you have to put yourhands through the bars and they
undo the handcuffs.
So you're, you know, they don'tlet you go handcuff free until
you're locked up.
And the next door to me thatnight, I'm sitting on my bunk,
depressed.
There's this guy namedScarecrow.
That's what he told me his

SPEAKER_00 (32:08):
name was.
Say who?

SPEAKER_01 (32:09):
Scarecrow.

SPEAKER_00 (32:10):
A Scarecrow.

SPEAKER_01 (32:11):
And he was this white boy.
And he's older.
Sounded Kind of badass, dude.
Like intimidating.
But he talked to me all nightand he's like, hey man, you got
to figure out what car you'regoing to be in.
Everything in jail and prison isassociated with driving.
So if you have the keys, you'rerunning the show.
You're the boss of the areayou're in if you're in the car

(32:33):
you're with a group

SPEAKER_00 (32:35):
okay

SPEAKER_01 (32:36):
if you get into a wreck that's getting into a
fight so you don't want to getinto a wreck on the yard that's
starting some shit

SPEAKER_00 (32:43):
let me ask you this is it true like the first day in
prison you have to attacksomebody to show no

SPEAKER_01 (32:48):
no that's just

SPEAKER_00 (32:50):
i would be probably the first thing i do just
freaking pick up this strongestperson person strongest woman
there just go mess her up

SPEAKER_01 (32:57):
no what you want to do is just keep your eyes open
and your mouth shut

SPEAKER_00 (33:01):
and what

SPEAKER_01 (33:02):
Walk with your head high.
So it's all like animalistic inthere.
If you, if I could tell you, ifyou were in jail with me and you
walk in and I look at you andyou instantly look to the
ground, I know you're weak.

SPEAKER_00 (33:13):
That's it.

SPEAKER_01 (33:13):
You're scared.
Why did you look at the ground?

SPEAKER_00 (33:16):
I see.
If you,

SPEAKER_01 (33:16):
if I'm walking past you in jail and you look at me,
I just keep looking at you until

SPEAKER_00 (33:20):
we can't

SPEAKER_01 (33:21):
look anymore.
And then I just keep going.

SPEAKER_00 (33:23):
But obviously you had the skills from the gang,
right?
Yeah.
So that,

SPEAKER_01 (33:26):
that helped me.
You trained.
And the Marine Corps helped mebeing in these male positions.
institutions, right?
It all helped me.
And then just not being a punk,like you just got to stand up
for yourself.
You don't have to be the biggestbaddest, but if somebody calls
you out, you got to fight.
You don't have to win the fight.
You just got to fight.

SPEAKER_00 (33:45):
They just know you're going to- You just can't

SPEAKER_01 (33:48):
not fight.
Like if somebody's like, yo man,let's do this.
You better start swinging.
And if you don't, you're goingto be considered what they call
a bitch in there or something.
And I just don't want to bethat.

SPEAKER_00 (33:59):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (33:59):
And, uh, so I'm in there for three months and I'm
figuring it all out or no, hescarecrow tells me like, Hey
man, tonight, I want you tofigure out who you're with.
Are you rolling with, uh, uh,essays, the Southsiders?
Are you riding with the woods,the white boys?
Cause there's four races inthere back then.
It was Paisas, Southsiders,blacks and woods.

(34:20):
Asians were white.
in their own unit because theyhad the green light on them in
the 90s.
So you had to identify with oneof those groups.

SPEAKER_00 (34:29):
Decisions, decisions,

SPEAKER_01 (34:30):
huh?
Yeah, because it's tough.
It could be life or death, dude.
You can actually get hurt inthere.
You're the most alone you willever be in your life in prison.
There ain't nobody there to helpyou.
You ain't got no family, nofriends.
Everybody there is dangerous insome sort of way.
And you are alone.

SPEAKER_00 (34:48):
Especially if somebody is for life, they have
nothing to lose, right?
I mean,

SPEAKER_01 (34:51):
it's like what

SPEAKER_00 (34:51):
I have to lose.

SPEAKER_01 (34:52):
Yeah.
Those guys are usuallyseparated, but you're in jail
fighting your case with peoplethat are in there for multiple,
like doing some messed up stuff,dude, like dangerous
individuals.
And

SPEAKER_00 (35:04):
what was your mindset?
Were you already calculating,you know, the strategy or you
were just going with the flowand just survival

SPEAKER_01 (35:10):
mode, trying to survive and figure it out.
Cause it's a lot at you atfirst, right?
Right.
When you get in there, man,you're it's a whole, what
cracked me up about jail andprison is that.
You go in there because youcan't follow the rules.
But then you get in there andthere's this whole new set of
rules.
And I was like, why not justfollow the rules out here and go
out with a girl on Friday night?
Like, you know, be able to poopwithout someone watching me.

(35:34):
It's kind of nice.
Yeah, I don't want to pooparound 10 other dudes.
I'd rather just poop on my own.
Like, it's not that fun, dude.
It's not glamorous.
It's not cool to me.
It showed me that I'm reallydumb, that I ended up there.
But we all make mistakes.
It's like getting a DUI.

(35:56):
You can get one DUI.
If you get five of them, go fuckyourself, man.
Come on.
Figure this shit out, dude.
Come on.
Figure it out.
Figure it out.
You give somebody one chance,right?
Not 1,300 chances.
So he kind of squares me awayand tells me, in the morning, I
want you to tell me what caryou're in.
So that night I sit on my bunkand I'm like, if I go with the

(36:18):
Southsiders and make it easy onmyself in here, I'm never going
to get out.
if I make it hard, becausethere's no white boys in there.
And white people are treated theworst in LA County Jail.

SPEAKER_00 (36:29):
Wow.

SPEAKER_01 (36:29):
Because it's reversed.
So out here, back in the 90s,white people controlled
everything.
You go into jail, it flips thatshit on you, dude.
You ain't got no power no more.
You got nothing.
I had to eat on the floor.
White boys weren't allowed toeat at a table when we ate our
meals.
I'd eat on the floor like ananimal.
So it taught me whatdiscrimination feels like.
You can explain to somebodydiscrimination.

(36:51):
I can explain you the principlesand why it's not right.
But until you are inflicted withdiscrimination, you will not
truly know what that feels like,what it tastes like.
Like in the Marine Corps, in theBattle of Khe Sanh in Vietnam,
they found this Sea Rat canafter this battle.
This whole company died in theMarine Corps.
And someone wrote on the can,freedom has a special flavor

(37:16):
that the protected will neverknow.
It's the same way.
You're never going to know whatit is until you experience it,
right?
So

SPEAKER_00 (37:25):
what realizations, being in those extreme
conditions, even though yourprevious life was so extreme,
what realizations, whatthoughts...
went through your mind while youwere

SPEAKER_01 (37:35):
survival and i had to figure out the dynamics of
this game and it is a freakinggame and it's just a giant game
that has consequences anddangers and pitfalls and i mean
everywhere is a booby trap manyou say the wrong thing you
knock into somebody and don'tsay excuse me you step on
somebody a casual you spill yourfood on somebody that can cause

(38:00):
a wreck dude like instant deathjust or getting all proud of
yourself and start talking toomuch you know can cause things
um

SPEAKER_00 (38:08):
are there any skills in prison that you think are
useful

SPEAKER_01 (38:11):
that's a good question no one's ever asked me
that before um yeah being ableto survive on your own like
completely on your own wits, byyourself.
Because it's easy when you havesomething bad happen, you pick
up the phone, you're like, help,help, help, right?
And there, there ain't no help.

(38:33):
There's no help.
You're

SPEAKER_00 (38:34):
totally

SPEAKER_01 (38:35):
on your own.
You are on your own.
You are alone.
And can you survive this?
It taught me a lot about myself.
I can survive it.
And if I can survive that, allthis, this little game we play
out here, this Fucked up realitything we're doing.
It's all human made.
All this drama we have in ourlives, it doesn't matter in a
hundred years.

(38:55):
Nothing we did today will matterin a hundred years.
The sun doesn't give a shitabout our problems.
The Milky Way don't give a shit.
Quasars don't care.
I like this perception becauseevery day was stressed about so
many small little things, whichat the end of the day, not even
relevant, especially for you.

UNKNOWN (39:12):
Like when you went through so much for you, it's
like, okay, another bill, youknow, another drama.

SPEAKER_01 (39:17):
It's like, but you still can get wrapped up when
you get out of prison.
You're like, Oh, nothing's goingto ever fail.
You know, I'm never going to getstressed out again.
You get wrapped back up in it.
We're all playing the game.
Right.
And the people that don't wantto, uh, admit that it's a game
are the ones that suffer themost.
If you're playing Monopoly, butyou're not mentally playing

(39:38):
Monopoly, you're playingcheckers, well, you're not going
to do too good at Monopoly, areyou?
You got to play the game you'replaying.
Now, you don't have to be abastard about it.
You don't have to be a piece ofshit.
Just enough.
Take care of yourself.
I don't want to step on yourhead to get a little higher.
I'm not about just money, dude.
I like money.
Money's great.

(39:59):
But it's not the thing thatmakes me wake up.
It's not getting me out of bedto make money, money, money,
money.
Where does it ever end?
It's just consumption,consumption.
More, more.
That's how people end up inprison.
You just can't get enough.
I'm going to take yours now.
Now I'm going to put a gun inyour face and take your shit
give me what you got or i'llfucking kill you that's not a

(40:21):
good way to live man but it'salso not a good way to live
cowering down to everybody thatwants to show you know shoulder
check you sometimes you gottagrab and be like yo you don't
hit me again i'll slap the shitout of you let them know that
you're not to be played with butyou don't have to be a
motherfucker

SPEAKER_00 (40:37):
you scared me like for a second you know like you
have that something in you thatlittle tiger

SPEAKER_01 (40:42):
huh yeah you got to though

SPEAKER_00 (40:43):
yeah

SPEAKER_01 (40:44):
but also you have to know when to tell that tiger to
sit the hell down.

SPEAKER_00 (40:48):
Chill out,

SPEAKER_01 (40:48):
man.
Not everybody is your enemy.
So

SPEAKER_00 (40:51):
speaking about your looks, so the first tattoos you
got in prison, huh?
I didn't get them

SPEAKER_01 (40:54):
in prison.
I got them out of prison.
Say again?
I got them from a homie

SPEAKER_00 (40:58):
in

SPEAKER_01 (40:59):
the neighborhood.
I used to take this dude aballoon of heroin.

SPEAKER_00 (41:01):
$40

SPEAKER_01 (41:02):
balloon of heroin and he tattooed me for as long
as I wanted.

SPEAKER_00 (41:06):
Do you remember your first one?

SPEAKER_01 (41:07):
Yeah, it was a smile now, cry later face on my chest.
Okay.
Yeah, and then I got a collarthat said confessing and
feeling.
Then I tattooed my back, my lastname Thompson, but the guy
misspelled it.

SPEAKER_00 (41:18):
He

SPEAKER_01 (41:18):
left out the M.
It said Thompson.

SPEAKER_00 (41:22):
And I

SPEAKER_01 (41:22):
hid it in the Marine Corps for a whole year and then
we were on ship and somebody sawit.
And then they write my name onthe board for guard duty and
they put an X on the M.

SPEAKER_00 (41:32):
But because you're on top.
You're always on top.
You made yourself being on top.
And then I

SPEAKER_01 (41:38):
covered that up with this whole gangster mural.
And that's what I went toprison.
So when I was in prison, a lotof guys always thought I'd been
there.
They'd come up to me on the yardand be like, hey, brother, were
you in Soledad in 95?
And I wanted to say, no,dumbass, this is my first time.
I'm not an idiot.
One and done, dude.

SPEAKER_00 (41:57):
Like

SPEAKER_01 (41:57):
it's not a vacation home, you know.
But I was like, no, that's notme.
Are you sure?
I was like, yeah, pretty sure.
Never been to Soledad.

SPEAKER_00 (42:06):
So you spent two years, right, in prison?

SPEAKER_01 (42:09):
Yeah, almost two years.
Almost two years.
It was sentenced to two years.
I got a lot of time served.

SPEAKER_00 (42:13):
So I

SPEAKER_01 (42:13):
got shot from L.A.
County Jail.

SPEAKER_00 (42:15):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (42:16):
After I got the murder dropped, they let me get
a job in L.A.
County Jail.
And I was so...

SPEAKER_00 (42:21):
What did you do?
Were you sewing the aprons?

SPEAKER_01 (42:23):
Well, see, I ended up becoming the leader of the
white boys in jail.
So I had figured it out so welland made so many alliances in
there that the white guys cameup to me and said, you're the,
it was called the rep.
Every race.
The rep?
The rep.
So I was the white rep.
So I got to control thenewspaper, and I negotiated a
table.

(42:43):
So I was one of the only whiteboys in L.A.
County Jail in 1999 that had atable.
And if I did, I had three seats.
There was four chairs, and Iwould pick at night who sat with
me.

SPEAKER_00 (42:54):
So you became the executive in jail?
Yeah, I was

SPEAKER_01 (42:56):
like the CEO.

SPEAKER_00 (42:57):
The CEO.

SPEAKER_01 (42:58):
And one day I'm at the bars on the phone.
I hang up the phone, and thecop, He goes, hey, come here,
Wood, come here.
He goes, how in the fuck did youget a table?
And I was like, I asked for it.
And he's like, you asked for it?
He's like, get the fuck awayfrom me.

SPEAKER_00 (43:12):
That's a good lesson, though, right?
If you never ask, you will neverget.
And that's what I did.
I just went up

SPEAKER_01 (43:16):
to the black guys and I was like, hey, man, I've
been in here a long time withyou.
I help you guys out.
You help me out.
I need a table, dude.
Come on.
And they gave it to me.
Imagine you in a month.
You have a computer.

SPEAKER_00 (43:26):
Cell phone.
You have

SPEAKER_01 (43:27):
a phone, everything.
Keeping it in your butt.
You're like, hold on, let memake

SPEAKER_00 (43:30):
a

SPEAKER_01 (43:30):
call.

SPEAKER_00 (43:31):
Right, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (43:32):
We used to joke in there, like, if you were going
to stab somebody, you'd be like,hold on, and you'd pull the
knife out of your butt.
It was so stupid.
And we had a lot of fun inthere.
Like, I made alcohol in there.
Pruno went down.

SPEAKER_00 (43:42):
You made an alcohol there?
Yeah, we made alcohol.
From what?

SPEAKER_01 (43:46):
Grapefruit juice, Kool-Aid.
So we'd go to the store and buyKool-Aid.
You dump the Kool-Aid in water,the sugar goes to the bottom,
you dump out the Kool-Aid.
You take the little box ofgrapefruit juice, you put it in
the windows.
In three days, they startswelling up.
You take the grapefruit juice,cut up the oranges and the
apples from breakfast, and thenyou add the sugar.

(44:10):
And it creates a kicker.
You take a toothpaste, you cutoff the top and you create a
valve.
So you have to burp it.
So it causes the sugar and thecitric acid cause a chain
reaction.
And it starts a chemicalreaction and it starts to create
gas and it's creating alcohol.

SPEAKER_00 (44:26):
Oh my God, the patients, how long did it take
to make?
A

SPEAKER_01 (44:28):
couple of weeks.
And we had every night when thecops come in to search, someone
else had to take care of thebaby and we would lay on it.
And hoping that person wouldn'tget picked, you know, like you
stand, you know, they would justpick a random person tonight,
toss their bunk.

SPEAKER_00 (44:45):
So how many people were involved in making?
Probably

SPEAKER_01 (44:46):
like four or five.
Four or

SPEAKER_00 (44:48):
five.
And then you guys shared.

SPEAKER_01 (44:49):
Yeah.
Obviously the cops didn't know.
No, no, it's a felony.
Because you can go blind.
You can kill people makingalcohol in jail.
It's not very safe.
In hindsight, probably shouldn'thave done it.
And then I got drunk and I waslike, hold on, I'm drunk in
jail.
This is not really that great,you know?

SPEAKER_00 (45:07):
But I guess, you know, you needed something
because I can't imagine beingfully sane in those conditions.
You have to have some kind of...
Well, your whole job in

SPEAKER_01 (45:16):
there is to get over on the cops and steal anything
that's not bolted to the ground.
So if you see a paperclip, yousee a pencil, you see anything
anywhere, you steal that shit.
Everything gets stolen.
Anything and everything.
I mean, everything.
You manipulate everything youcan because you have a lot of
time.
And I had a lot of fun in therewith guys.
I met a lot of cool people.

(45:36):
I wouldn't hang out with themnow, but in there, they were
cool.

SPEAKER_00 (45:40):
It's so interesting to me because like every day you
wake up, okay, you have to go towork, pick up your kids.
In jail, you don't have any ofthe tasks of the regular life.

SPEAKER_01 (45:50):
You don't have taxes.
Your food comes to you.
Everything is provided.
You don't have to worry aboutanything except for your safety.

SPEAKER_00 (45:58):
So you

SPEAKER_01 (45:58):
have a lot of time to do a lot of things.
And there's a lot of greatartists, a lot of great, I
mean...
innovators in there you knowguys that were coming up with
inventions like lightingcigarettes you take the pencil
out of the lead out of thepencil you hold it with
toothpaste tooth toilet paperand you put it into the light
socket you stick it in the lightsocket it catches the toilet

(46:19):
paper on fire and you light yourcigarette with a plug outlet

SPEAKER_00 (46:22):
a little science class here yeah how did you did
you learn from the inmates yeahyeah yeah yeah just

SPEAKER_01 (46:28):
watch and learn and take it

SPEAKER_00 (46:30):
so okay so you came out of prison

SPEAKER_01 (46:32):
I get I go to There are two prisons.
I get shot from LA County Jailto North Kern State Prison,
which is called Delano.
Wasco, sorry, Wasco.
And that's a level threereception.
So in California, if you're amale, you go to, and you get
sentenced to, you get convictedof a felony, you get sentenced
to prison, you go to one of twoprisons, Delano or Wasco.
And that's where the prisondecides where in the vast

(46:55):
California prison system youwill reside off your threat
level, off your enemies, offwhatever.
You know, they rate you one One,two, three, and four.
Four being the worst.
Four, you don't want to go tothat prison.

SPEAKER_00 (47:08):
I've

SPEAKER_01 (47:08):
never been to a four.
Never want to go to a four.
That is where you get hitstraight up.
Like that's the danger zone.
That's the thunder dome.
You don't want to go there.

SPEAKER_00 (47:18):
So which one did you get?

SPEAKER_01 (47:19):
I went to a level two.
Well, everybody goes to a levelthree for reception.
So you go there and I spent 10weeks there.
And yeah, I got into it with mybunkie.
I threatened to kill him onenight and

SPEAKER_00 (47:31):
Did you make any friends at all?
I

SPEAKER_01 (47:33):
made some friends, but I also got crazy.
So I got shingles in reception.
my skin started bubbling off mybody.
Finally, they keep telling methey're not sending me the
medic.
And I'm laying in my bed onenight and I'm crying and a woman
comes on duty, a guard

SPEAKER_00 (47:50):
woman.

SPEAKER_01 (47:51):
And I was like, oh, I'm going to go up there and
give her the biggest puppy dogface I could do.
Oh, man, I did.
And I got up there and I hadtears in my eyes.
And I was like,

SPEAKER_00 (47:59):
please.
Best performance of your life.
Oh,

SPEAKER_01 (48:00):
my God.
And she sent me to the doctor.
I get to the medical unit andthey're like, Oh, you have AIDS.
And I was like, I have HIV.
And she goes, no, sweetie, youhave full-blown AIDS.
I was like, what?
She goes, you're 26.
No one has shingles and doesn'thave AIDS.
And then they send me back to myhousing unit thinking I have

(48:21):
AIDS.

SPEAKER_00 (48:23):
I can't even imagine prison

SPEAKER_01 (48:24):
and AIDS.
Dude, I spiraled, bro.
It's like, might just go rightnow.
That night, I was like, fuck it,right?
I was like, fuck it.
I'm playing spades the next day,and I take some bags, and this
dude's laughs at me and I standup and I'm like, what the fuck
are you laughing at?
And

SPEAKER_00 (48:40):
he's

SPEAKER_01 (48:41):
like, Brian,

SPEAKER_00 (48:41):
chill.
I started losing it.
But that's kind of good defense,right?
Nobody's just going to

SPEAKER_01 (48:47):
listen to you.
AIDS.
Don't mess with me.
Dude, I was so in shock andscared and emotional and then
two weeks later they send meback.

SPEAKER_00 (48:59):
They

SPEAKER_01 (48:59):
got my blood test and I'm like, oh no, you don't
have AIDS.
You were just probably stressedout.
I was like, shouldn't you guyshave led with that?
No.
Maybe I don't.
Maybe I do.
Maybe I don't.

SPEAKER_00 (49:10):
She was just messing with you.

SPEAKER_01 (49:11):
God, that was a horrible, horrible two weeks,
man.
That was like the longest twoweeks in prison.
And you still think for the twoweeks you have.
And then in reception, you can'tmake phone calls.
You can only write letters.

SPEAKER_00 (49:25):
Letters.
Because they're

SPEAKER_01 (49:26):
getting ready to transfer you into the jail
system, and it's a compromise.
You know, if you're a gangmember or somebody could, like,
try to break you out on the wayto the next prison.
So you can't phone.
So then they send me from Wascoto Avenal.
at like four in the morning onemorning they shackle you to your

(49:47):
feet shotgun guy in the backlike it's this crazy ass bus
they call it the the gray weenie

SPEAKER_00 (49:53):
the great weenie

SPEAKER_01 (49:54):
weenie yeah the great weenie or catching the
chain it's called you'recatching hey you catching the
chain yeah you're catching thechain and they send me this
prison and it was called avenaland it's about 50 miles south of
fresno and it is a level twoprison so it's like disneyland

SPEAKER_00 (50:11):
yeah for you yeah

SPEAKER_01 (50:12):
it's easy to Level two, everybody's going home.
Nobody's released.
If you just act like a normalperson, you're not going to get
into trouble

SPEAKER_00 (50:22):
there.
So you came out.
I get paroled.
My

SPEAKER_01 (50:28):
dad picks me up.
They mess with me when I wasleaving.
I gave my beanie and some stuffaway.
And they said I wasn't going toget to leave.
So they send me back to myhousing unit.
And when I get back to mydorm...
this big black dude namedSweeney.
He sees me and he goes, startslaughing at me.

(50:48):
And then I'm sitting at a tableand he comes up and he's like,
you look like you're going tocry.

SPEAKER_00 (50:52):
And I was like, leave me alone.
You probably would kill themright there.
And then the phone

SPEAKER_01 (50:57):
rings, they send a van and they were just, they
were pretending like I wasn'tgoing to get out.
So then the gate, so this is atrue story.
They give you$200 cash.

SPEAKER_00 (51:06):
Random$200.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (51:07):
Every inmate that gets out of prison gets$200.
Give you$200 cash, put it inyour pocket.
They line you up.
The gate goes, starts goingopening.
There's a tower right there.
This dude leans out and goes,I'll see you assholes next
month.
And I looked up and I said, no,sir, you will never see me
again.
And he goes, yeah, right.

(51:29):
And I walked out.
My dad shook my hand.
Didn't even hug me.
He shook my hand.
We get into the rental car.
We start driving.
And he goes, are you going tolook back?
And I said, no, I'm looking thisway.
Let's get out of here.
Only forward.
We went to In-N-Out Burger.
And had a hamburger in front ofus.

SPEAKER_00 (51:45):
Probably the best feeling ever.
And that night

SPEAKER_01 (51:46):
we stayed in a hotel and I spent an hour in the
bathroom looking.
I hadn't seen my face in amirror in so long.

SPEAKER_00 (51:53):
Oh, that's right.
Because there's no prison.
I mean, no mirrors in prisons,right?

SPEAKER_01 (51:56):
That's why when I first got to prison, I became
the white barber.
I don't even know how to cuthair.
There ain't no mirrors in there.
Nobody can see if you did a badjob or not.
So I was like, yeah, I know howto cut hair.
True story, I

SPEAKER_00 (52:08):
actually did.
They cannot prove it, huh?
No, there's no mirrors.
There's nothing to

SPEAKER_01 (52:12):
see.
And so I stood in the mirror forover an hour and I was just
like...
Looking at myself, how much Ichanged.
And my dad was sleeping.
We had twin beds in the hotelroom.
And I remember extending my armsout to the ceiling while I was
laying in bed.
And I was like, I'm free, Dad.

(52:35):
There's no feeling like that.
A cage open and you walk out.
It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 (52:40):
Something so simple, right?
Just being free, we take forgranted.
And I think we're appreciatedmore after we lose it.
Yeah.
Like you lost it all and now youappreciate like, hey, you can
just freely walk out, right?
Yeah.
Take a breather.
Well, like in

SPEAKER_01 (52:56):
relationships, people take each other for
granted until a person leavesand

SPEAKER_00 (53:00):
they're like, oh, man.
Exactly.
You know, you

SPEAKER_01 (53:02):
don't know what you got until it's gone, right?
It's the old saying.
But yeah, it's just humannature.
We get wrapped up in our livesand I don't even think it's our
own fault.
This world is so crazy, dude.
Look at it.
It's just...
And when you die, it doesn'tstop going.
It just keeps going and goingand going and going and going.

(53:22):
It will never stop.
And you just got to figure out alittle bit of happiness and
figure out what makes you tick.
And that's what I did.
I focused that.
When I got out, I got back homewith my dad's company.
And I just worked and worked.

SPEAKER_00 (53:36):
So you went from Marine Corps to jail to the
corporate world.

SPEAKER_01 (53:39):
Yes, to the corporate world.
I'm on parole.
And the parole kind of kept mebusy.
pretty straight because I hadspecial conditions.
I couldn't drink alcohol and Icouldn't associate with gang
members.
And the DA made me promise ifshe let me off on this, I would
never go in that neighborhoodagain.
And I promised Shelly Samuelsand I lived up to it.
I never went back there.

(54:01):
And she came into my studio twoyears ago.

SPEAKER_00 (54:04):
Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 (54:05):
She's a judge now.
And it was awesome seeing her,dude.

SPEAKER_00 (54:08):
She probably was so proud of you, huh?

SPEAKER_01 (54:10):
Oh, dude, it was one of those moments.
I was like, wow.
Wow.

SPEAKER_00 (54:14):
It's like on the flippity side, right?
She said she was

SPEAKER_01 (54:16):
proud of me and it made me feel good that I was
able to change my life and liveup to my end of the bargain.
Because if someone is going todo something like that, you need
to, you can't just be words.
So many of us just say words andwe don't back them up with
anything.
You know, like you are your wordand that's it.

(54:38):
You know, if you say you'regonna do something, you should
try at least to do it.
Give it your best shot.
You may fail at it, it's okay.
There's no effort without error.
You know, failure is part of thealgorithm of success.
How can you have success ifyou've never failed?
Have you ever read a book aboutthe woman that did everything
perfect and never made amistake?
No, you never want to read.
Why would you read that fuckingbook?

(54:59):
I'm perfect, the end.
Oh, great book.
That made me feel great.
No, you want to read about theperson that stumbles and keeps
going and gets hit and dust andbruises and blood and keeps
fucking going.
That's what you want to readbecause it motivates you in your
life, right?
Because we can do it if wereally want.

(55:21):
It's painful.
Like working out, if you put alot of effort into it, you get a
lot of reward.
Vegas, if you go and bet little,you're going to win little.
You got to be able to risk itall.
Yeah, I don't gamble either.
I don't ever win.
But so I was on parole and Ijust kept going and going.
And then I got off on parole.
I got off.

(55:41):
They changed my parole officerfive times.
And I finally, my parole officercalls me in 2003 and says,
congratulations, you're free.
The weird thing is you wouldthink that would make me so
happy.
I got really depressed.

SPEAKER_00 (55:58):
How come?

SPEAKER_01 (55:59):
Because now you're just like everyone else again.
And you're back in it.

SPEAKER_00 (56:06):
You lost that feeling that you've been chasing
your whole life, the feeling ofdanger, right?
You felt too safe, maybe, no?

SPEAKER_01 (56:12):
Yeah, and then I got...
really depressed, weird.
It's so weird how these thingshappen, these chemical reactions
in your brain.
You can't even understand itsometimes.

SPEAKER_00 (56:22):
Do you think you lost your purpose?
Because your purpose wassurvival, right?
Yes, exactly.
And then you needed something tofight when you needed your
purpose.
And

SPEAKER_01 (56:29):
I lost that fight.
And now I was just like everyoneelse.
Floating like everybody else.
Floating, just going through themotions.
And so I got really depressedand I was going to kill myself.
And I planned it all out.
I was working in Las Vegas.
And I went to this pool supplyplace and I was going to get the
hose and put it on my Mercedesand light up a joint, listen to
some Bob Marley and

SPEAKER_00 (56:50):
say, you thought of everything already, right?
Yeah, I

SPEAKER_01 (56:52):
was planning it out.
You know, I didn't do it.
Vanity.
I didn't want people to say Icouldn't hack it.
I didn't kill myself because Ididn't want people talking shit
that I couldn't hack it.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
What is wrong with me, dude?
Like what?
Vanity

SPEAKER_00 (57:10):
saved my life.
But can you imagine that goingthrough all of that and just
like take your own life afteryou survived and persevered so
many, so many times.
That would be

SPEAKER_01 (57:18):
a shame.
Yeah.
Yes.
And I just wanted off the ride,

SPEAKER_00 (57:22):
dude.

SPEAKER_01 (57:22):
I just was tired of it.
And

SPEAKER_00 (57:25):
then you were in the gym one day.
I

SPEAKER_01 (57:27):
was in the gym working out.
It was the North Hollywood gym.
It was one of those last oldprivate mom-pa gyms.
They're all gone now.
But it was...
I remember going in there and itsmelled like sweat.
It felt like the 70s.
It always does.
And I was like, yeah, this is myplace.
Like girls would peek in and belike, nope, I'm not working out
in here.

(57:48):
No girls would go there.
It was like, it was the, wecalled it the no-ho gym because
no girls went in there.
There were no hoes in that gym.

SPEAKER_00 (57:57):
Which is good.
You can focus on actuallyworking out.
That's the whole point of thegym.
I

SPEAKER_01 (58:01):
meet this guy, Ray, and we become best friends and
And then I meet this guy, Gypsy,and he tells me about Body
Electric.

SPEAKER_00 (58:09):
And

SPEAKER_01 (58:10):
it was on a Saturday, and that night I went
down to Body Electric and madean appointment.

SPEAKER_00 (58:14):
We were like, wow.
I don't know.
At a candy shop.

SPEAKER_01 (58:17):
Yeah.
And I started getting coveredup, this covered up with a
Japanese dragon, because Iwanted to change the guy looking
at me in the mirror.
I didn't want to see the ganganymore.
I stopped listening to rap musicbecause it reminded me of that.
It took me years to embrace rapmusic.

SPEAKER_00 (58:34):
What did you switch to?
Classical?

SPEAKER_01 (58:36):
Yeah.
Susudio.
I love me some Phil Collins.
I started listening to rock androll.

SPEAKER_00 (58:47):
A

SPEAKER_01 (58:47):
lot more rock and roll.
And I started getting my backcovered up.
And then I tattooed this leg.
And then the shop came up forsale.
The

SPEAKER_00 (58:58):
Italian lady, right?
Yeah, the Italian,

SPEAKER_01 (59:00):
Bernadette Fertini.
And I was going to buy it withone of the tattoo artists,
Adrian.
And he decided not to.
And then I met with her.
And

SPEAKER_00 (59:09):
then

SPEAKER_01 (59:10):
within two weeks, I owned two

SPEAKER_00 (59:11):
shops.
It really fascinated me withyour story that...
If I understand correctly, youwere scared, you were hesitant,
right?
Because it's a big decision.
Oh,

SPEAKER_01 (59:20):
dude.

SPEAKER_00 (59:20):
To use like your life savings to invest
something.
The

SPEAKER_01 (59:24):
only thing I knew about tattoo and piercing, I
knew nothing about piercing.
I only knew how to get a tattoo.
And I just knew that I was sohopeless and I was like thinking
of suicide so much.
I was like, why not?
Like risks.
I watched a show.
a documentary about the originalproducer of Survivor, the

(59:48):
reality show, and I forgot hisname.
And he was in this interview,and he's like, if you want to be
wealthy in this country, you'vegot to take chances.
And if you don't, you can behappy.
You have to risk.
You have to risk it.
And that kept playing in myhead.
It came up for sale and I wasliving in a hotel in Buena Park

(01:00:09):
across from Medieval Times.
And Bernie came in and we sat inthe lobby of the courtyard by
Marriott on Marriott stationaryand signed the deal.
And it was the craziest thing.
That night I went back to theroom and I woke up in the middle
of the night and had a panicattack.
I was like, oh my God,

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:28):
what

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:28):
did I do?

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:28):
But do you believe that if you're really scared of
something, you have that fear,it means you're on a good track?

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:34):
Well, what I do is everyone I told I was going to
do this, they told me that I wascrazy.
That's when you know you're ontosomething.
So the hoi polloi, most peoplewill see something so far off in
the future and be like, that'scrazy.
So if you have an idea andeveryone's like, that's a great
idea, don't do that.
That's a horrible idea becausethey can see it and it's not

(01:00:55):
going to manifest anything.
It's not going to do anythingbecause it's like, you know,
whatever.
Like you just– You can'trecreate McDonald's right now.
Like, you need to go above andbeyond.
And nobody was really, you know,I was going to get into piercing
and didn't even know it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:15):
I remember you were saying that the original team
from the Body Electric didn'tlike you, right?
Oh, no, because I was...
Yeah, like, who is this guy,right?
I was...

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:23):
Can I tattoo?
I was a...
I was an outsider.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:28):
They

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:28):
didn't want anything to do with me.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:30):
So if we speak about your artwork...
Didn't you say that youpioneered the curated ear look,
that you're not...
an artist, but you're adecorator.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:41):
Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:42):
yeah.
Can you expand on that?

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:44):
Well, I got kind of forced into being a piercer.
Bernadette, she, Bernie, she oneday was like, Brian, you must,
this is my Bernie impression,you must do something more in
the shop and not just be on it.
Just be pretty.
You must pierce.
She's like, go in the mirror andpierce your nose.
And I was like, I'm not piercingmy nose.

(01:02:04):
She goes, why, are you chicken?
I was like, what?

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:08):
The best ways to challenge yourself.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:09):
I'm not chicken.
Like, never tell a dude.
He's the

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:13):
biggest needle.
Oh,

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:14):
my.
Women, all you got to do is belike, what are you, chicken?

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:17):
I'm

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:17):
not chicken.
We're so easy.
Right, right.
She got me to do it.
She figured you.
Yes.
And that started the process.
So Bernie was very much thecatalyst, the launching pad of
my piercing career because shekind of forced me into it.
And as I started doing it, Istarted getting good at it.
And the more I did it, the moreI loved it, the more I loved it,

(01:02:40):
the more I did it.
And it just, I don't know why, Iwas just good at it.
I always decorated myself, likeclothing, always dressed funky.
But yeah, I just got good at it.
And then one of my clients,Daphne Waynes, had me, she
wanted me to get a publicist.
So in 2014, I hired herpublicist and MWPR and They

(01:03:05):
helped launch me into– they werelike– they were the booster
rockets on my rocket.
Like they helped me get out ofthe gravitational pull.
They launched me into the, youknow, the

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:18):
– Stratosphere.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:19):
Yeah.
Well, all of these– These blogs,these blog writers.
Right, right.
It was just getting really big.
And then Refinery29 and Who,What, Where and all these
different.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:33):
So you work with so many big names like from Adele
and Rihanna and JenniferLawrence, if I'm not mistaken.
So what was the craziestpiercing tattoo you've ever
done?

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:45):
God, that's such a.
Craziest.
Tattoo?
I don't tattoo.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:49):
Sorry, not tattoo.
The craziest piercing.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:51):
I've seen some crazy tattoos done in my shop.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:53):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:54):
But piercing craziest, I assisted one of my
piercers one time to pierce aguy's uvula.
That was really weird.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:02):
The what?

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:03):
The little thing that drops in your throat.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:05):
Inside?
No, the

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:06):
throat.
When you open your, you know,the little punching bag you

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:09):
got back there.
Wow, why would you do that toyourself?

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:11):
Exactly, yeah.
He was like this crazy.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:13):
He's like, let me find the weirdest part of my
body.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:16):
Some people just want to shock people.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:19):
What about the surface piercing?
The anchors?
Yeah.
Is it a painful one to do?
No, it's not very painful.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:26):
I did those on Cardi B's.
I did a couple on her chest onetime for that L cover she was

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:32):
on.
Yeah, that was beautiful.
I did

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:33):
her lip and the two I did.
She had one and I did twounderneath

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:37):
it.
Yes.
What about the buttocks one?

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:39):
Oh God, you saw that one.
Yeah.
That's so funny.
Those girls were from

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:42):
Brazil.
Yeah.
I was so shocked.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:44):
Yeah.
How would you...
I had more comments on thatpicture.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:49):
So tell us about that.
What is it?
It was

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:51):
just funny.
There's some funny...

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:52):
Do you need to get like local anesthesia?

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:54):
No, no, no, no.
I just use a biopsy punch and Ipunch directly in and pop it
under.
It's really easy, real quick.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:01):
Wow.
But the recovery you said isintense.
30 days.
30 days?

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:04):
Mm-hmm.
It's very quick because it's asingle point.
There's no exit.
The body doesn't have to createthis massive fistula.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:12):
Right, right.
So if we talk about currenttrends, and I know you mentioned
before that trends changed formen, especially in piercing and
tattooing.
What's like the current trendthat...

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:22):
Well, men are branching out now.
They're doing more.
They're doing like cartilagestuff, tragus.
They're really getting into it.
Like the tragus, the cartilage.
I've been doing a lot of guysdifferently.
Back in the day, dudes wouldjust do their low That was it.
But now it's changing.
It's starting to open up.
Nobody owns anything.
I pierced my navel a couple oftimes.

(01:05:44):
Women don't own that.
I can do whatever I want, man.
Who gives a shit what

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:49):
people think?
As long as you have enoughcanvas left to do it, you just
go

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:53):
for it.
And I'm still getting tattooedto this day.
I'm trying to finish by the timeI'm 55.
I would like to be done with it.
It hurts a lot now more.
And I heal slower.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:04):
And

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:05):
I kind of just want to get that chapter closed.
I just want to finish my body.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:09):
And the last question is, knowing where you
are right now and looking backat your darkest times, what is
the advice or what would you sayto your younger self back then
from this point of

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:21):
view?
I would say a quote from FindingNemo when Dory says, just keep
swimming.
That's all you got to do.
Just keep swimming.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:31):
Just keep swimming.
Well, thank you so much for thisamazing conversation.
I don't know if I should cry orlaugh.
I'm just so excited.
Thank you for sharing yourstory.
Yeah, I really appreciate it.
Thank you for coming to TheBasic Show.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Cheers.
Well, cheers to that.

UNKNOWN (01:06:47):
Thank you.