John Joseph Returns: The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon, Overcoming Insurmountable Obstacles & The Transformative Power of PMA

Back by popular demand, my good friend, podcast favorite and provacateur-at-large John Joseph returns for an unprecedented 5th appearance on the show to share more of his extraordinary story. A story that lays bare the indelible power of the human spirit to face and transcend unimaginable, seemingly insurmountable obstacles and ultimately transform one's life wholesale. If you're a longtime listener, Johnny Bloodclot needs no introduction. For the uninitiated, John is a sui generis American original. The very definition of hardcore. A survivor. A spiritual warrior spouting straight talk directly from the streets of the Lower East Side with one singular, driving purpose: getting people to wake the f&*k up. Conceived and raised in abuse, deprived of opportunity and left to his own devices, John turned to violence and drugs on the rough and tumble streets of New York's Lower East Side in the 1970’s. It's a path that predictably led to violence, crime, addiction and incarceration. Spending his teens as a drug mule led to a series of unsavory foster care homes, culminating in unimaginably horrific stints in juvenile detention. Then things went downhill. To avoid long-term incarceration, he enlisted in the Navy, only to go AWOL after a fight. Fleeing the law and rudderless, John found redemption in the hardcore punk rock scene flourishing on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the early 1980's. Taken in by the Bad Brains' frontman H. R., John began to explore not just his musicianship, but his spirituality. It's a journey that birthed the Cro-Mags – one of the era's most iconic and influential hardcore punk bands. Later, he found his spiritual salvation living in a Hare Krishna monastery, birthing a life-long love of meditation, yoga, the vegan lifestyle, racing Ironman triathlons, and most importantly, his profound devotion to service. Renown for his straight talk, no BS approach to living and the power of PMA — positive mental attitude — John continues to tour as frontman for both Cro-Mags and his new band Bloodclot. He also just released a 2nd edition of his memoir Evolution of a Cro-Magnon* and is the author of nutrition primer Meat Is For Pussies*, with a foreword by yours truly. A man who truly walks his talk, every conversation with John leaves me better than before. Today's conversation proves that just when I think we’ve covered it all, new layers emerge. So even if you've enjoyed all of John's previous appearances on the podcast, this episode will find you riveted by a stream of mind-blowing, never previously told stories that are certain to incite, provoke, educate and inspire. LANGUAGE ADVISORY: John drops more f-bombs in this conversation than I could count. John is John, and editing was out of the question. So if you're queasy about foul language, consider yourself warned and make sure the kiddos are out of earshot. Enjoy! Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:05John Joseph?

  It wasn't until I wrote the entire story and got it off my chest to the world that I was really able to heal. And that's why I wrote that book, because I've gotten thousands and thousands of letters. I correspond with people, emails, and I just got one today. This dude on Twitter was like, "Your book helped save my life practically by your example." And example's better than precept. We have to live. Everyone talks the talk. Who's walking the walk? That's who I look to. I'm looking to see how are people living their lives? And that's the example. And that's what I try to do, too, is lead a positive life and show people, you know, no matter what, you can climb out of any hole, you know?

• 1:48John Joseph?

  No matter how far in the depths of hell you are. And I've been down there, but I was willing to climb out of that and surround myself by positive people. That's the other thing, is the association we keep.

• 2:03Rich Roll?

  That's the one and only John Joseph, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:19Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody. How you guys doing? What is happening? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Welcome to the podcast, the show where each week I sit down and convene long form with the best and the brightest, the most interesting change makers and paradigm breaking minds and personalities across all categories of health, fitness, diet, nutrition, sports, entertainment, business, spirituality, and so much more. I've got one goal in mind, that is to help you self-actualize, to help you manifest your best, most authentic self. And today I've got a great show for you today. I sit down once again with my main man, John Joseph. He is a podcast favorite and provocateur at large.

• 3:04Rich Roll?

  And this is a really amazing exchange that is sure to incite, provoke, educate, and inspire you. And I've got all kinds of things I want to say about John prior to launching into this conversation, but first, let's do a little housekeeping.

• 3:28Rich Roll?

  Okay, we did it. Thanks for sticking with me. John Joseph. If you're a longtime listener of this show, then my man Johnny Bloodclot needs no introduction. He's really one of my most popular guests to date. And I think he's been on the podcast more than any other guest. He's been on four previous times, episode 41, 66, 223, and he also appeared with Mishka Shubali in episode 95. If you're new to the show, I urge you to check out his first appearance on the podcast. It's one of my most powerful episodes that I've ever published, RRPE 41, a really beautiful documentation of an extraordinary life.

• 4:09Rich Roll?

  And we kind of pick it up today with a little bit more about his life. If you're new to the show, for the uninitiated, John is a true American original. He is a New York hardcore punk icon and the frontman for the legendary and influential punk band, The Cro-Mags, a survivor of the rough streets of New York's Lower East Side in the 1970s. This is a guy whose youth was marked by Unbelievable abuse, foster care, drugs, crime, incarceration. And John is a guy who has endured and overcome all of this obstacles. Most of us really just can't even imagine. His salvation began with finding solace in the New York hardcore punk scene. He was taken in by the Bad Brains, one of the most influential bands of that era.

• 4:54Rich Roll?

  And that's a journey that birthed the Crowmags, which also became one of the era's most iconic and influential hardcore punk bands, and later led to a life in a Hare Krishna monastery, where he found his spiritual salvation and developed a lifelong love of meditation, yoga, the vegan lifestyle, racing Ironman triathlons, and most importantly, his profound devotion to service, all of which falls under this umbrella that John calls PMA, Positive Mental Attitude. John's got a new band. It's called Bloodclot and a new album that comes out July 14th. And he also just released a second edition printing of his memoir, Evolution of a Crow Magnet. It's an unbelievable book, so please pick that up.

• 5:37Rich Roll?

  And in case you missed it, he's also the author of a book called Meat is for Pussies. It's a fun, easy read intended to introduce the principles of living a plant-based lifestyle to the average everyman. And I'm really proud to have contributed the foreword to that book. I'll put links to all of these products in the show notes of this episode on the episode page. In any event, I love this guy. If John has anything, he is no BS. This is a guy who walks his talk and I just adore him. I love him and I love my conversations with him. And just when I think we've covered everything, we've covered it all, I discover these new layers to explore with him. And this conversation definitely does not disappoint.

• 6:19Rich Roll?

  It brims over with mind blowing stories about his life. I had never previously heard him tell, so even if you have listened to all those other episodes, those four other episodes with him, you're going to be delighted at some of the new stories he tells today. And like I said at the outset, this episode is certain to incite and educate and provoke and definitely inspire you. And I think that's all I'm going to say. So let's let JJ say the rest.

• 6:53Rich Roll?

  We're recording, we're live, JJ in the house.

• 6:55John Joseph?

  Hey Rich Bo. Freaking, uh.

• 6:59Rich Roll?

  In the container.

• 7:00John Joseph?

  The container.

• 7:01Rich Roll?

  The container studio. This is your fourth or fifth time on the podcast.

• 7:05John Joseph?

  Uh, I think it's the fourth time.

• 7:09Rich Roll?

  Third, three times. Well, you did one, remember we did it with Mishka. That's right.

• 7:12John Joseph?

  This would be maybe five.

• 7:13Rich Roll?

  I think this is number five. And the first time in Los Angeles, though.

• 7:17John Joseph?

  No, first time was in New York.

• 7:19Rich Roll?

  Right. I'm saying this is the first time that we've done it in LA. And the last time that we did it, it was still like a year and a half ago, I think. So it's been a little, it's been a minute, right? So welcome to LA.

• 7:29John Joseph?

  Wow.

• 7:30Rich Roll?

  And I had the, uh, pleasure of going to your book event. Uh, you're on the precipice of releasing the new edition of Evolution of a Crow Magnet. And you did a reading the other night. Super awesome, man. And that was the first that, I mean, we, like, the first time you're on the podcast, you kind of walked through your whole story. Uh, and if people are listening now and they haven't heard that, you should definitely go back and listen. I don't remember what episode number it is, but I'll put it in the show notes. But I heard aspects and elements of your story that I hadn't heard before. And it's just, you know, it's really intense what you have faced and battled with and overcome to be sitting here right now. It's just, it's, it's a fucking miracle, man. It is a miracle.

• 8:13John Joseph?

  It really is. And, you know, like lately, I've been speaking at a lot of prisons and, uh, like this guy came to our show in Long Beach and he did 18 years in like maximum security prisons. And he, you know, what I try to even tell these people that I'm, I try to pay it forward all the time. So when they, anytime anybody asks me to speak at a gang high school or a high school or prison or whatever, I just spoke at this, uh, prison in New York called, uh, Goshen. And it's a maximum security prison. And the thing about this prison is they've already been sentenced. So they're going to do serious time.

• 8:56John Joseph?

  And I, and I tell them, listen, you gotta keep hope. You can't give up. There's always, uh, you know, there's always, uh, room to change. There's always, you know, you're at the place where I was.

• 9:11John Joseph?

  And uh.

• 9:13Rich Roll?

  Sorry, I'm just adjusting your mic.

• 9:14John Joseph?

  Yeah, that's alright.

• 9:15Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 9:17John Joseph?

  So I tried to just give him that PMA, that positive mental attitude that it's never too late to change. And even while, like this brother who did 18 years, he's a fan of the Cro-Mags. And he's like, I needed to do that prison time because I would not be alive right now. And I kinda feel that for myself too, it was the same thing. I was going on autopilot, marching toward death because, you know, the shit I was doing was just

• 9:50John Joseph?

  craziness on the streets, you know?

• 9:52Rich Roll?

  So if somebody's listening to this and they're hearing you for the first time, they haven't heard the other episodes. It's probably, you know, for context, at least like lay a little foundation, you know? The thumbnail like.

• 10:02John Joseph?

  Right.

• 10:03Rich Roll?

  Version of your story.

• 10:04John Joseph?

  Well, uh, my father was a professional fighter and was very violent towards my mother. His career started falling apart. He wanted to be a gangster. Like my brother ran into like these professional boxers, Alexis Agüero and all these guys. He went to a fundraiser and uh, they said, you know, what are you, what are you doing here? And my brother was like, well, I want to donate money because there's no, you know, when boxers get older, they, they have, uh, it's not, there's not this retirement plan. So it was a fundraiser for that. And they, he said, my, my father was a fighter and they said, who's your father? And he said, John Shorty McGowan.

• 10:48John Joseph?

  And then he was like, yo, he started calling all the boxers over. And one of the fighters, professional, said to my, your father could have possibly been world champion.

• 11:00Rich Roll?

  He realized he was that good.

• 11:02John Joseph?

  Oh yeah, he was knocking everybody the fuck out. He was, and he was a tough Irish scrapper.

• 11:07Rich Roll?

  So he was like a great white hope kinda?

• 11:09John Joseph?

  Yeah, he was, I mean, you know.

• 11:10Rich Roll?

  Who's that, like a Cooney? Wasn't like a Cooney type?

• 11:14John Joseph?

  Jerry Cooney. No, but he was, he was a welterweight. But, but the, uh, the point is when his career started falling apart, uh, and he got into the booze and wanting to be a tough guy, he took it out on my mother and uh. You know, putting out the book, The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon, I learned a lot more even from my mother. Uh, like, he would pay the child support and then come to the house, break her jaw, take all the money, so the court couldn't put him in jail, cause he paid. You know, so it was that type of thing and, you know, I didn't even find out till I was forty-five, uh, or four, yeah, forty-five years old, that he actually raped my mother and that's how I was conceived.

• 11:58John Joseph?

  And I, uh, you know, it was, it, you know, so we got taken out of the house. My mother was, um,

• 12:05Rich Roll?

  we are brothers.

• 12:06John Joseph?

  I have two brothers, two siblings, I'm the middle, and, uh,

• 12:11John Joseph?

  the lady who was, my mother had to keep, we had to keep running from him and hiding, then he would find out where we were and break in or whatever, beat her down, take her money. So finally, my mother's got so much into depression and having to take medic pills and, you know, there was even, uh, a suicide attempt. And then the lady, the, um, lady, no, it was the, it was the landlord. This old Irish landlord lady, found me and my two brothers out in the snow in our underwear in a filthy apartment and my mother passed out on the couch on pills and she called, uh, child services and

• 12:52John Joseph?

  that was it, you know, and, uh, we got put in an abusive foster home for seven, almost seven years, you know, separated first.

• 13:01Rich Roll?

  You told some crazy stories the other night about what went on, you know, in one of these homes. And the level of sort of, you know, corruption that existed, at least in the seventies. I mean, I don't know what it's like now, but...

• 13:14John Joseph?

  They're still doing it today. I just saw a report in New York, child services closed down a house. Because, uh, if you get foster kids, they have to give you money and back then they were getting three hundred dollars a month. I mean, in sixty-nine, nineteen seventy, whatever, per kid. And they had six foster kids in the home. So they're getting... Eighteen, eighteen hundred dollars a month. And, you know, we're having to steal the dogs' dog food and they treated us like slaves. All we did was clean the house. We were never allowed to go into the refrigerator the entire

• 13:52John Joseph?

  time we were there. Um, we got the shit beat out of us. Uh, we all had to bathe. One time, we all had to bathe in the same water, all the kids. So I went in there. I was the last kid and I pulled the plug on the tub. Cause you were the youngest, or why were you last? No, no, just whatever, whatever they said. Who, you know, you had to line up to take a bath and then I pulled the plug, cause the tub was nasty and he just came in and like hit me with a right hand. I mean, the, the foster father was a fucking brutal piece of shit, you know? He, the stuff he did, you know, to terrorize us, to not say anything.

• 14:36John Joseph?

  And they wonder how these kids don't say anything, but they put the fear of God. I mean, he took me to an insane asylum, pilgrim state and smashed. I had said something at um, school and he took me to pilgrim state mental institution and I didn't even know where I was going. He didn't even say anything. Uh, he just pulled me out of the car by my hair and s- s- you know, started smacking me and smashed my fa- face against the fence and the mental patients were like ripping, you know, put stick in their fingers and, and he said that if I say anything ever again, he was gonna put me and my two brothers in there and no one would ever find us. Right. And I'm like seven, eight years, seven years old. Oh, that young.

• 15:20John Joseph?

  Yeah, it's when I first got there. And he had hit me and then I showed the bruises at, to the nurse and then I had the later say, oh yeah, we were playing tackle football. I was like seven or eight years old. So, uh, that went on and then the older foster kids who were seventeen and eighteen, because you stayed in foster care till you were twenty-one back then. You know, them guys were like doing shit to me and my brothers, molesting us. And I couldn't, they threatened to kick, kick our asses and all this. They were just wankers, man. You know, and, uh, you know, so it was a bad situation. And, uh, we went home on one visit and my mother had a nervous breakdown and, uh,

• 16:05John Joseph?

  tried to slit her wrists and, and take a bunch of pills. And we were grabbing her, I mean, and we had to call my uncle to come over. And then we didn't go home for a while, but we knew we couldn't say anything to her because if she got upset. Yeah, we just, we just kept, our thing was we had to hustle. We, you know, and I, I say that to this day, hustlers are, are, are not born that way. They're created out of, you know, the circumstances they're put into. We had to steal just to eat. I mean, they never bought us clothes. The entire time we were there, we wore shit till it fell off and then went to, um, to the dumpster.

• 16:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 16:48John Joseph?

  To the Salvation Army and, and to get new clothes, you know?

• 16:51Rich Roll?

  And, and then when you would be able to get, you know, a couple pennies to rub together, whether you stole it or made it or whatever, you'd go out and buy stuff for your mom. Because you were trying to get back home.

• 17:02John Joseph?

  We would, we thought if we just kept buying her stuff that she wanted. She said she liked these paintings, so we, we, we found out where they were keeping the money. They stashed it because they couldn't put it in the bank. So they got the cash, cashed the checks. And, um, and they had this, uh, in the basement, a closet. And that's where they kept the money. And then we found out where the money was. So we just kept going there every day and we would take five, ten dollars and save it up. And we would buy my mother paintings or a piece of jewelry or whatever, anything she wanted. And, uh, we bought her this Christhead necklace.

• 17:44John Joseph?

  And that was when we thought, it was right before Christmas and we thought, you know, okay, we're gonna come. We stole, I stole a fish tank one time, like just crazy.

• 17:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 17:54John Joseph?

  We were like buck wild.

• 17:57John Joseph?

  Kids, you know, and I really wanna try to write it like a, like a wonder years, but just for these three fucking brothers surviving in this foster home and what we had to go through for that seven years. It was, it was insane, man.

• 18:13Rich Roll?

  Right, like seven to fifteen for you.

• 18:16John Joseph?

  Yeah.

• 18:16Rich Roll?

  And you have that, that moment where finally you're facing a, a term up at Spofford, right? And you have, you gotta split.

• 18:25John Joseph?

  Well, I got put in St. John's Home for Boys after that. And then I got, I started wilding out. It was seventy-six, bicentennial, and I started wilding out. I sold weed to an undercover. I broke into a supermarket because we wanted to rob the pharmacy. So I had two charges and then they were like, the next thing you do, we're gonna send you, you're going upstate. And the fir-, I took acid with this kid in there who got his mother's boyfriend set him on fire as a kid. And it was just total scar tissue from the neck down.

• 19:01Rich Roll?

  She, as you told it, she filled a bathtub with lighter fluid?

• 19:05John Joseph?

  No, he did. The mother's boyfriend, uh, he had a hangover and, um, this is what Bobby, Bobby Kay told me back then. He, he was just playing. He was like five, six years old. And the mother's boyfriend had a hangover and dragged him to the bathtub and threw lighter fluid on him and set him on fire.

• 19:27Rich Roll?

  I, I just, I can't even fathom that.

• 19:29John Joseph?

  I mean, insane shit what this kid had to go through.

• 19:32Rich Roll?

  And he survived that?

• 19:33John Joseph?

  And he survived it. He, he, he was in, uh, they put him in, um, like a mental institution for a little while. Homes, he was sexually abused in, in this other home. Like, the shit that happens to the kids that, I mean, he ended up going to prison for, uh, for killing two people.

• 19:51Rich Roll?

  Is he still alive now?

• 19:52John Joseph?

  Uh, I don't know. I don't know. Um, I don't know if he's still alive. I, I know because when I went back to St. John's, they said that he was arrested for murdering two people. But, uh, he tried, the first time we took LSD, he tried to murder me with a knife. He had a bad trip.

• 20:08Rich Roll?

  Right, he had a bad trip.

• 20:09John Joseph?

  So then I split and I knew.

• 20:11Rich Roll?

  But you were like, he was a kind of a weird awkward kid, right? And you, you were able to like be friends with him though?

• 20:17John Joseph?

  No, I was really good friends with him, but he would snap. Like you'd be sitting with him and we had this other friend Wolfie and, and he was Puerto Rican. And Bobby Kay, we would be huffing Vandal X, Carbone, whatever.

• 20:31Rich Roll?

  I don't even know what that is.

• 20:32John Joseph?

  Like in the seventies, everybody was huffing and, and Bobby Kay would just all of a sudden snap and just start beating people up. And he was maybe like five nine, five ten, two hundred and forty pounds of solid muscle. They called him the thing, you know, the thing that caught Marvel. I mean, that's what he was built like. He was just built like, and he was an animal and he would, he would snap. So then I went out onto the streets and hustling heroin, carrying, I was a drug mule. And then they robbed the dealer and then we ended up, ended up in Forest Park selling

• 21:16John Joseph?

  dust and got shot in the leg with a twenty-two. We sold this guy's sister angel dust and she jumped out of the family's second story window and he came in there like, hey, who got dust? And when we, I was like, yo, right here. You know, he just opened up the side of the van, pop, pop, pop, pop. So, and that's a crazy story in itself.

• 21:39Rich Roll?

  You got shot in the calf, right? You still got the scar there?

• 21:41John Joseph?

  Yeah, yeah, I got a hole in my, in the back of my left calf. But the thing was, we, we, it was, I was selling for this dude's computer and then the guy that worked for him was this guy Disco Mike and he looked like John Travolta on steroids. And I didn't know it at the time, but he used to take all the kids from Forest Park to his house and slip them a Mickey and raped them. He was, he raped like, like over a dozen kids or whatever they said, like he did it to all these kids. So after I got shot, we went back to his house and he had this little protege kid that looked like a little John Travolta kid, fifteen years old and.

• 22:22John Joseph?

  You know, he pulled the bullet out of my leg and made this these drinks and then all of a sudden I'm like, yo, what the fuck was in that? And he's like, oh, I gave you something to take the edge off and relax. So I blacked out and then I woke up with this big motherfucker carrying me to the bedroom. And I'm like, yo, what the fuck are you doing? Cause you know, that's one thing, nobody ever put their hands on me. When I left that home, I was like, alright. You know.

• 22:47Rich Roll?

  And you're like fifteen, sixteen?

• 22:49John Joseph?

  I was fifteen years old. Um, yeah, cause it was right before my sixteenth birthday. My sweet sixteen, I spent in um, in in lockup. But he um, so he dropped me and then I just blacked back out. I woke up hearing like these screaming from hell. And I walked toward the back room and when I opened the door, he was he was raping that kid. And uh, I've just, he had a bat, right? And his uh, you know, he's a Guido, so he had a baseball bat. All the Guidos had baseball bats in their bedroom and he had guns and shit, but he was a coward.

• 23:29John Joseph?

  So I just picked up the bat and started teeing off on him. And then I left, uh, as I was leaving the house. Uh, he had a big Ziploc full of angel dust bags, the aluminum foil packets, and I just grabbed it and went to Forest Park. And Forest Park was hot, cause the shooting just happened, so all the fucking cops, undercovers were there.

• 23:53Rich Roll?

  You're so out of your mind, you decide that's the place that you're supposed to go.

• 23:57John Joseph?

  It was kinda like, subconsciously, I wanted to go to prison. I needed, I I knew bad shit was gonna happen. I don't know, uh, like. So I went back to the dome in Forest Park, had my pipe, and I just started. Filling up my pipe and smoking dust and then I heard, "Get on the ground!" And I look around and there was like fucking six cops, guns to my head, put me down, took, took me to central booking, got me for, uh, distribution, uh, uh, distribution and possession of, uh, a felony narcotic, cause angel dust was, you know, a felony.

• 24:39Rich Roll?

  And so what are you looking at?

• 24:41John Joseph?

  Uh, well, they wanted me to snitch on the dude that I was getting the shit from and I know back, you don't ever snitch on nobody, you know, like Beretta said, you do the crime, you do the time, you don't go fucking snitching on people. And, uh, yeah, they were, you know, trying to scare me with, "You're gonna do six years," you know, all this type shit and, um, I said, "Look, the guy just, you know, they played the good cop, bad cop shit," all the, you know, and I said, "Look, the guy just brought it to me in the park." I knew right where he lived, everything, you know, but I wasn't gonna snitch on him. And, uh, so then they took me.

• 25:21Rich Roll?

  On the John Travolta guy?

• 25:24John Joseph?

  No, the guy that he was making it for was.

• 25:27Rich Roll?

  Computer, you're talking about computer.

• 25:29John Joseph?

  Computer. This guy was just the muscle for him.

• 25:32Rich Roll?

  Gotcha.

• 25:33John Joseph?

  And he would control, I got the job, cause the last kid split with like all these bags of dust, so that's how I got the job. So I would hold the dust, sell the dust, and then this guy Disco would be there with his gun and make sure, you know, he was kinda like the muscle at the dome. And, uh, yeah, but they wanted me to snitch on the dude that, uh, that was making the dust.

• 25:57Rich Roll?

  Did you tell them about Disco though and what he was doing?

• 25:59John Joseph?

  No, I didn't say nothing. I just kept my mouth shut.

• 26:02Rich Roll?

  So how did that guy end up?

• 26:03John Joseph?

  I don't even know. Oh, I found out, cause before, when I went back to, uh, Forest Park, there was a couple of people there at first and I said, "Yo, this guy is fucking raping kids." And then I found out, like, earlier in the eighties, after, like, eighty-two, eighty-three, I, I, I saw some of those guys, uh, that hung out at the dome and they say, "Yeah, man." Like I found out later on that he had done that to like a lot of kids that that was his MO. And then he had people wanting to fucking kill him. So he had to see he split and went wherever the fuck he went. I don't know. And so explain the significance of the dome. The dome.

• 26:48John Joseph?

  That was like the place. Yeah. So you would pull in, the dome was, it was a band show in Forest Park. So bands played in there. That's in Queens. The Ramones played there. Yeah. So you're like half hour outside of Manhattan. Yeah, it's like off Woodhaven Boulevard and um, and then the way the whole system operated, you would pull in and drive along the tree line. Uh, and then come up to the staircase and then you'd be in your car and you'd be like, yo, who got two E's, you know, two and all's, who got Quaaludes, who got Dust, who got this, who got acid, who got doses? And then the dealers would come down the stairs.

• 27:29John Joseph?

  And there was benches all there and everybody hung out and stashed their shit all over that area. And then whatever you wanted, they would, they would bring it down the stairs. It's a famous place like. I ended up meeting through a cop friend of mine in New York. From the 104 precinct, I was trying to find a cop to write this Angel Dust pilot, which got me representation from ICM. They read it. Uh, and I couldn't find any cops around and then just one day my friend was in Long Island wearing his Sergeant 75. He was in the 75 out of Brooklyn. Mm hmm. And he, and the old guy comes up and goes, hey, you on the job? And uh, my friend, Bill Hall, Sergeant Bill Hall goes,

• 28:13John Joseph?

  yeah, I'm in the 75. He's like, oh, I'm retired out of the 104. And he's like, the 104? That's where the dust was. Forest Park, that whole area. And uh, he's like, let me ask you something. Do you have any experience, uh, you know, back then with the Angel Dust in the seventies and eighties? Cause my buddy's writing a pilot. He needs to talk to some cops to do research. And the guy smiles and goes, "I was the head of the Angel Dust Task Force from seventy-six to eighty-two."

• 28:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:44John Joseph?

  And he's like-

• 28:45Rich Roll?

  So he's gonna know every single-

• 28:45John Joseph?

  And I met with the guy, he's a legend in the NYPD, his name is Detective John Wildman Wild. And the cops named him Wildman.

• 28:57Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 28:57John Joseph?

  Because he was one of these Dirty Harry, like when he found out bikers were selling dust at a bar, he would just roll up, take a baseball bat, go in and just start cracking their heads, till somebody fucking told him something.

• 29:09Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 29:09John Joseph?

  Pure maniac. I mean, the guy's in his seventies and he's sitting in this Irish pub. I went all the way out to Long Island to interview him and he's fucking just still jacked. Like, you know, you don't wanna fuck with the guy.

• 29:22Rich Roll?

  So what did he, uh, what did he have to say about that era? Like, cause you had your perspective from through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old kid who was on, you know, the negative end of the equation, so-

• 29:33John Joseph?

  Well, he knew the people I was selling for. And he said, "Oh, I busted a lot of them guys."

• 29:38Rich Roll?

  Computer, what happened to computer?

• 29:40John Joseph?

  He, he didn't know, I guess he didn't know that what his name was or whatever. I heard he had an explosion in his house, I've, I've heard several things, but he, uh, there was two places, the Dome and the Carbines, which was in Ridgewood by Grover Cleveland Park. That was the two big dust areas. So, anyway, the bottom line was, I wasn't gonna snitch.

• 30:12Rich Roll?

  So you get busted, your back is up against the wall.

• 30:15John Joseph?

  And they were trying to scare the shit out of me and, uh, I said, "Hey, man, like, you know, just whatever's gonna happen, I, I, I, I'm, you know, I'm going this alone." So the cops were driving, and, and one of the things they always told you in St. John's was, "If you fuck up, they're gonna send you to Spofford." And if you saw Mike Tyson's undisputed thing, he showed a picture of Spofford.

• 30:42Rich Roll?

  How many years was he there?

• 30:44John Joseph?

  Uh, he was in and out of there. It's not a long-term facility, it's, it's where you go to wait to go to court. So like, you could, you could get remanded.

• 30:56John Joseph?

  In other words, I spent three months there, so I would go to court once a month and they would be like, "Remand means you're going back to Spofford." But when you got up there, it was in um, the, the, one of the worst parts of the Bronx. And the Irish cops that drove me up there, uh, you know, they were like, "Yo, listen, and I'm gonna tell you this straight up," and they were dead serious, like, uh, and they said, you know, "I'm gonna speak word for word, verbatim, exactly what they told me," 'cause I'll never forget it. They were like, "The last white kid that was in here, uh, they stabbed him to death, and they said, 'The first nigger or spic that fucks with you in there,

• 31:42John Joseph?

  you better take him out.'" And I said, "I'm not prejudiced," and they were like, they just started laughing, and they go, "Remember what I said," you know, the one cop driving, and um, yeah, so the minute I got in there was on, man. I was like, just fighting from day one, just hitting, hit this big black dude with a chair, you know, just, and I had to keep going to court. I wrote about it in the book, Evolution of a Cro-Magnon, it's like, even being inside, you know, it's a whole culture of prison culture and lockup culture, it's like this whole fucking different set of rules you have to live by.

• 32:24John Joseph?

  You know, what it, what, the rules out in the world ain't the rules when you're locked up.

• 32:29Rich Roll?

  And you don't have the rulebook going in. You gotta learn it quick, right?

• 32:33John Joseph?

  'Cause this black dude, we were in Indoc where they strip search you and all that shit, and he's like, "Motherfucker, you're gonna be my Maytag." And I was like, "Nah, you're gonna be my Maytag," and everybody started laughing. And uh, and I said to this Puerto Rican cat, I was like, "Yo, what the, what the fuck's a Maytag?" Like, you know, and he's like, "Yo, you just told that big motherfucker that he's gonna have to wash your fucking drawers and suck your dick," you know, like, it, it means you're gonna be his bitch.

• 33:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 33:02John Joseph?

  You know, when you call somebody a Maytag, it's like, "Yo, you're my bitch." So, and then the minute I got to the wing, he just fucked with me. And I banged him out with a chair and then I I knocked out his friend. I lost, that's how I lost that knuckle. That knuckle, it got so infected. So they put me in the cells, which was like this padded room, because I broke. That's what they call it. Yo, that motherfucker broke. It means I just went buck wild. Like, staff tried to restrain me, I was fighting staff. So they kept.

• 33:35Rich Roll?

  But you knew you had to, you had to, you had to go in swinging from the start. Otherwise, you were gonna be a target and you were gonna go down.

• 33:43John Joseph?

  Well, the thing was, he, this guy, uh, made, did some bullshit to me. He pulled out his fucking dick and tried to like hump the back of my head. And then touch, you know. So, actually, he got the worst end of the deal, because for doing that in there, that's like a crime. I didn't want to press charges against him, but.

• 34:04Rich Roll?

  It's like sexual assault.

• 34:05John Joseph?

  Yeah, it's like sexual assault, what he did. So I didn't press no charges, I just, I just rolled with it. But they nicknamed me, when I came out, I went back to, to, uh, to B3, which was the intermediate wing. And they nicknamed me like Mighty Whitey and fucking, I had respect the rest of, rest of the time. I was good in sports. So I was playing ball with the brothers, playing handball with the Spanish kids. You know, and then anyway.

• 34:33Rich Roll?

  So how long were you in Spofford?

• 34:34John Joseph?

  I was there for three months.

• 34:36Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 34:37John Joseph?

  And, uh, and then they finally sent me up eighteen months upstate in a, in a facility called Lincoln Hall Reformatory. Which was, you know, you had everything from attempted murder, rape on down. So, uh, and a lot, they, then a lot of kids with serious emotional issues and fucking. I had to see a psychiatrist the whole time I was there. Um, you know, and my brother was there too. So I got respect because I was in an intermediate. We were the first people to go into Rawway State Prison for scared straight. Uh, this was in seventy-eight. I spent my sweet sixteen, I spent in Spofford.

• 35:22John Joseph?

  And then, uh, you know, they took us to Fish Gill State Prison, maximum security prison. And, uh, you know, they scare you straight, but that's what I said, that shit don't work. Because if, if they don't give you something to. Get you out of the life that you're in, then you're just gonna go back to what you knew when you got out. And that's what they do with all these people now is just warehousing.

• 35:47John Joseph?

  You know, they don't, there's no, there, it's correctional. It means you're supposed to rehabilitate the people and they don't do that. They just warehouse for beds. There's money in it. So that's, you know.

• 35:59Rich Roll?

  You're not getting rehabilitated. You're getting trained into how to become a professional.

• 36:04John Joseph?

  Criminal.

• 36:05Rich Roll?

  Right? And you're gonna go out and you're gonna reoffend. And, you know, you've had your, you know, roller coaster ride through this system. We haven't even gotten like a quarter of the way like through your story. But essentially, you know, like you get out of this system that you're, you know, you have this.

• 36:22John Joseph?

  Back out on the streets, reoffended, sold drugs.

• 36:25Rich Roll?

  Ultimately, you're, then your back's really against the wall and you end up signing up for the Navy, basically, to get out of it.

• 36:32John Joseph?

  Alternative. My mother was dating, uh, whatever, had a friend that was, I don't know what their relationship was, but I wasn't tight with her and she tried to take me home. Somebody has to sign you out of lockup. You have to have someplace to go. They just can't release you onto the street. And, uh, she signed the paperwork, but then I had nothing in common with her because I, she'd never raised me. I was never there. Uh, I was just doing crazy shit. I was going out and getting hammered.

• 37:06Rich Roll?

  Where's mom now?

• 37:07John Joseph?

  Now, she lives in Queens in Astoria.

• 37:10Rich Roll?

  And how's, how's she doing and how's your relationship with her?

• 37:13John Joseph?

  Beautiful. She's, doesn't eat meat anymore. I mean, this, this book brought us.

• 37:18Rich Roll?

  But you were, you've been able to like mend that.

• 37:22John Joseph?

  Well, if, I, I'm gonna tell you something. Writing this book, it was therapy for me and it cleared a lot of.

• 37:33John Joseph?

  You know, stuff off the table between me and her. There was a reason she never took us back and she had a boyfriend who didn't want us around. So she chose the boyfriend over us. And I was, even when I was writing this book, I'm like, how the fuck am I gonna end this book? Like, and I li- I was, I actually lived the ending of the book. It was playing out in front of me. My brother was about to die from addiction, right? The day before nine eleven, I did an intervention on him. Fucking got him a bed in Saint Thomas in a rehab that my friend ran. Fucking planes hit the building, boom! He ain't getting out of New York. He detoxed on my couch.

• 38:16John Joseph?

  And my mother, um, her husband had, um,

• 38:22John Joseph?

  gambled away the house at the time. So she was homeless. And at this time, I had record deals and stuff and, and I had quite a bit of money that I had accumulated, so I turned around and got her an apartment. And furniture and everything. She lost everything. She was penniless, homeless, no furniture, and I got her an apartment. And, um, so like a month, uh...

• 38:49Rich Roll?

  And you were able to have a, uh, have closure with the foster family, right?

• 38:55John Joseph?

  Well, I'm gonna get to that first, but dig this. So the guy that didn't want us around, her name, his name was Carl. Back in the seventies when we were kids, he didn't like us. And then after a couple of months, my, my, my mother calls me up and she's like, I have something to tell you. I was like, what? And she's like, I, I let Carl move in to the house that I got her. I'm like, how the fuck could you do that to me?

• 39:24Rich Roll?

  Oh my god.

• 39:25John Joseph?

  And then I was like, you never fucking loved us. You, we had this huge brawl on the phone. And then she's like, I started saying really mean stuff to her and she's like, stop saying that, stop. It came, it was like this climactic situation and then she just blurted out, your father raped me. And he raped, he raped me, um, for your younger brother to be born too. I only planned to have Eugene, so I was 21 years old with three kids. He was beating me down every day. What was I supposed, and then me and her just sat on the, literally on the phone for five minutes, sobbing uncontrollably.

• 40:06John Joseph?

  And then like, we just have been best friends since that, uh, you know, and then, and then I had to confront their foster family, because when the first precedent, this book came out, and I needed to have closure. It's the five parts of story design. The last one is, is, uh, the resolution, you know? Uh, you know, inciting incident, progressive complications, crisis, climax, resolution. So I had my climax, I needed the resolution, and I was doing a reading in the town over from them. And I said, I got, I told the lady from Simon and Schuster who was driving me,

• 40:47John Joseph?

  she rented a minivan, and I said, I, I gotta fucking go see this house. And I just rolled up and, uh, I'm just looking at it and all the fucking bad shit's coming back, you know? And I'm just sat there in the, in the car, looking at the house, like, and then this old man was like watering his lawn, and I was like, I gotta ask him, you know? Thinking they moved out. And I get out and, and I, you know, I remembered him, cause he was from Italy. He's like, yeah, I said, who lives in that house? I said, who's in that house now? He's like, oh, yeah, it's a Fran and, and Rose. I said, Rose Valenti still lives there? And he goes, yeah.

• 41:32John Joseph?

  Rose and, and Fran, the daughter. And I said to him- And Fran's like about your age? No, Fran's older than me. She's about, I would say, she's a good 10 years older than me. But she was living in the house when you were a kid? She was the real kid. So the real kids got everything. Fran and Vito, they got everything, whatever the fuck they wanted. And then we had to watch them have Christmas and Tor- and all, and you know, and money and all kinds of shit and food and we, you know, we had to stay out on the patio, sleep in the garage, that was, you know? And then, uh- And I said, well, I was one of the foster kids that got that house shut down. And the man just looked in my eyes and then he was like,

• 42:18John Joseph?

  you know, he remembered who the fuck I was and he dropped a garden hose and ran into his house and wouldn't come out. And then I was like, I told Stephanie, I was like, yo, they fucking still live there. And she's like, you know, what are you gonna do? And I said, I'm gonna go bang on that fucking door and confront them. What do you think? She's like, you want me to come with you? And I was like, nah, I gotta do this by myself. And um, I needed closure, you know, and uh, so I went up and I rang the bell. All the shades were drawn. It looked like nobody was home, you know, but the cars were in the driveway. And um, and then I just started banging on the fucking door. I opened up the screen door and I'm like boom, boom.

• 43:03John Joseph?

  So this lady comes to the door, pulls it open. She's like, what the fuck are you knocking on my door like that for? And the first thing I did was look, because she had this real big black, it looked like a black bean with hair coming out of it back in the day. Like a mole under her nose. A mole under her nose and that's the first thing I looked for. And I was like, that's her. And she was this miserable old woman. And I was like, is your name Rose Valenti? She's like, who are you? What the fuck are you doing at my door? And I just made her say her name and I was like, is your, I, I said it like five times and she wouldn't answer. I go, are you Rose Valenti? And she goes, yeah, who the hell are you? Finally.

• 43:45John Joseph?

  And then I said, I'm John McGowan. I was one of the foster kids in here. And she clutched her chest and there was like a wall, maybe two, three feet, you know, behind her. And she just went back against the wall and was just like, stood there, like fucking stunned. And then Fran came and opened up the door and she's like, oh my God, John McGowan. We were just talking about you. How are you and your brothers come in? And I said, you know, I was like, what the fuck makes you think I wanna come in that house? Do you think I have good memories of what you people did to us? And then, and then she was like, oh, and for effect, I had a wife beat her on with my Terminator shades.

• 44:30John Joseph?

  I look like a fucking total like, like maniac kinda looking dude. And then she's like, how's your brothers Eugene and Frank? And I go, we're all right now that we all got out of prison and like, just trying to put the fear of uh, God into them a little bit. And all Rose kept saying was, take off your glasses. And uh, finally I did. And then she looked in my eyes and she just said, you're Marie's son. Like she was just in another fucking galaxy. Like never in a million years did she think that day, that Saturday, I was gonna roll up.

• 45:06Rich Roll?

  But what do you make of that? Like, what do you think was going through her mind? I mean, I presume not too many of the kids were dropping by to reconnect with her. So this is a unique situation, but was she afraid? Or was she sort of realizing like the, the ills of her ways?

• 45:23John Joseph?

  No, I, I don't, I think them people are so twisted. They were probably like, we gave them every, you know, you know, who knows what their version? You know, the fact of the matter is, we kept a diary for almost seven years. And we gave it to the social worker and that man broke down in tears for the shit they were doing to us.

• 45:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it shut them down, right?

• 45:44John Joseph?

  And then they pulled all the kids out of the home. So let them say whatever the fuck they want, how nice they were to us. That's fucking bullshit. And you know, uh, the state said it too, you know? I, I don't think she was, I think she was just so fucking stoned that, uh, stunned that she just was

• 46:06John Joseph?

  bugging, man. And then Fran, uh, you could see she was very uneasy. Cause I think they knew we were coming back at some point. And then, uh, that's why the old man took off.

• 46:20Rich Roll?

  So how did you wrap that up?

• 46:22John Joseph?

  Well, what happened was Fran looks and tries to change the subject. When I said, oh yeah, we're good now that we all got out of prison and all this shit. And then she was like, oh, who's that over in the minivan? Is that, is that your wife? I said, nah.

• 46:38John Joseph?

  She works, you know, with the publishing company that put out my book. And Fran goes, oh, you wrote a book, so you're gonna be famous? And I go, no, but you are. I swear to God. And then I said to her, I go, I go.

• 46:55Rich Roll?

  What was the look on her face when you said that?

• 46:57John Joseph?

  That's when it just hit her, like, what the fuck? Like, she didn't have nothing else to say at that point. I shut her the fuck down. And, uh, you know, the thing is, she didn't do anything other than, you know, was complicit in what the fuck those people did to us. It's not like,

• 47:16John Joseph?

  Vito was just on drugs. He didn't give a shit.

• 47:19Rich Roll?

  Her husband?

• 47:21John Joseph?

  No, Vito was the son. So the two real children were Vito and Fran.

• 47:25Rich Roll?

  I see.

• 47:25John Joseph?

  So Vito was their son and he, I mean, I remember his friend, he sold drugs.

• 47:30Rich Roll?

  Rose's husband, was he gone at this point?

• 47:32John Joseph?

  He died. That was one of the first things I said. I go, where's Nick? And she goes, oh, he died like forty years ago from lung cancer. And I said, yeah, I know. Cause I did know that he, he passed away. My mother told me. And, um, and then the last thing that I said to them was, I just wanted you fucking people to know that you didn't win. I, I was like, you tried to break our spirit and make me, make us feel like shit that we didn't exist. Nobody wanted us. That's the kind of shit they would say to us. You're lucky to be here. Nobody else, not even your own fucking mother wanted you. You're fucking pieces of shit. Like, like making us feel like garbage.

• 48:14John Joseph?

  I was like, I turned out a good person and I just wanted you to know you didn't fucking win. So fuck you. To both of them. And I just turned around and walked to the van and didn't look back. And then I was like, you know, I was just looking ahead. I'm like, Stephanie, what are they doing? And she's like, their fucking jaws are hanging down to the ground. And we just went and did probably one of the best readings. I said, you know, I, I went and it was the town over. I said, you know where I just was? I went to that fucking foster home and they were like, what? Like the crowd that was in

• 48:50Rich Roll?

  Right, so when you think about that, I mean, obviously, that was a cathartic experience and it brought closure to you, which was important to you. But as somebody who kind of, you know, walks this spiritual path now, uh, and those, there, there are certain principles that you adhere to, those sort of rules for how you live. Um, you know, how do you reflect back on that? Like, can you say that you are in a place of forgiveness? Or how do you reconcile like these and these other things that have happened to you? Uh, and the people behind them in terms of like giving you peace of mind and kind of, you know, walking, uh, you know, trying to like sort of live your life engaged in your higher consciousness?

• 49:30John Joseph?

  You know what? It, it's, uh, it's let go, let God. I can't never forgive them for what they did to me, but it just doesn't. It doesn't have pushed me to the point of violence anymore. And I had a lot of shit going on it through the eighties and nineties. I was very violent. I never admitted to anyone up until I was almost whatever, you know, forty something years old that I was molested. Like, and I, I woke up in a bad dream that these guys. And it was like, it was, it was a metaphor because these kids used to, we used to sleep in the freezing garage and they would come in and just pull the blankets off of us.

• 50:12John Joseph?

  And then I would have to like sleep, they would take our, our blankets so they had extra blankets and I had a recurring dream of that. And I had been working on a film based on all this shit that was happening to the main character was based on me, but I never told my writing part. And then I just woke up sobbing uncontrollably and it was just that him pulling them to standing over me and they ripped the blankets off me and I was like, and I just, I was like, why the fuck did they do that to me? Why did, you know, I just lost my shit. And, um, you know, like, thank God those dudes wasn't there that day because like I heard they still come and visit them. And if they, if, I like, that's the two people that.

• 50:56John Joseph?

  I can honestly say, uh, I'm not sure how I'll react if I ever see them. I'm probably going to fucking punch them. And, uh, I just can't excuse them for the way that they, uh, put fear into me every day, just like my father called me in ninety-nine. And he found out, you know, my brother said, oh yeah, this guy in a bar knows him. And then my brother, you know, gave him my number. They wanted to have a dinner and meet me and he called me up. I was like, bro, you don't wanna meet me. I said, trust me, I'm not letting go what you did to my mother.

• 51:37John Joseph?

  What you did to me, whatever, what you did to my mother, you thought you were a tough guy? And he still was, this was twenty years ago, he thought, you know, whatever. He's still thinking he's a fucking tough guy, fifty years old. I said, I'm gonna fucking bang you out, dude. So when they met, uh, my brother.

• 51:55Rich Roll?

  They, your brother, your dad meeting your brothers?

• 51:57John Joseph?

  Yeah, my, my dad met my two brothers and we have a half sister. And he sent her in to make sure that I wasn't there. And she said, oh no, it's just Eugene and Frank. And then he came in, like all nervous looking around and they, they're like, yeah. Uh, John is the wild, uh, you know.

• 52:17Rich Roll?

  He's since passed, though.

• 52:18John Joseph?

  No, man, crazy fucking story. My brothers and, my younger brother's an addict and almost died, uh, three or four times already. So they had to detox my brother to do the next surgery on him, heart surgery. And, uh, they, they sent him to the VA up at the Five Finger Lakes, up way upstate. So dig this, this is how there's never no fucking coincidences in life. And, um, Frank called me up and told me this story. So he's in there and the nurse comes in and they're, he's detoxing off pharmaceuticals and all this shit. Cause they can't, you know, he's got, uh, Mercer.

• 53:00John Joseph?

  So they, they have to keep taking bone away from his chest and fucking giving him another heart surgery. And all this, he's almost died like three or four times already. And the nurse looks at him and goes, oh, McGowan, are you any relation to John McGowan? And he's like, yeah, John Joseph McGowan, that's my brother. And the nurse goes, no, John Emel McGowan. Don't get no more Irish than Emel, does it? And he's like, Frank goes, that's my father. And she's like, John Emel McGowan is your father? And Frank goes, yeah. And she goes, I'm gonna be right back.

• 53:43John Joseph?

  He was in the fucking next room to my brother.

• 53:46Rich Roll?

  And this is way north of New York City.

• 53:47John Joseph?

  This is way north of New York City. In a fucking, in a, in a fucking, uh, in, in, in, uh, like, uh, VA assisted facility, like, a lot of them guys are getting ready to die or whatever. They didn't, they gave my, they sent my brother there to die. They said, he's not gonna make it. They gave him, he, they told him later, they gave him a 10% chance, less than 10% chance of living. So my father was in the next fucking room. And she goes over there and she comes back and she's like, do you have two brothers? What are their names? And he's like, yeah, John, John Jay and Eugene Michael.

• 54:28John Joseph?

  Goes back in, you, and then, and back and forth like that. And then she's like, your father's in the next room. And the priest wants to come over and ask for your forgiveness for what he did to you guys, cause your father's dying. And my brother goes, tell that motherfucker to go to hell. I'm not fucking forgiving him. Fuck him. And then they went back over there. And he's like, he don't wanna, you know, mom told him, he, he don't want nothing to do with you. And then Frank called me up and then they sent him to another part of the facility. And then they were having to go to the same specialist. My father pulled through. And so did Frank. So they ended up having to go to the same doctor.

• 55:12John Joseph?

  And they wheel my brother in in a wheelchair and she's like, oh, yeah, that's John McGowan over there too. And Frank goes, yeah, that's my father. And he goes, I ain't his fucking father. We just got the same last name. And then Frank gets up out of the wheelchair and he's like, you're damn straight, you ain't my father, you piece of shit. Tried to go at him. And then they moved my father out of that facility.

• 55:36Rich Roll?

  That is so heavy.

• 55:37John Joseph?

  Dude, I swear to God.

• 55:39Rich Roll?

  But listen, you said like, there's no coincidences. It's like, God is compelling this situation. Like, let's take these two guys that on some level, you know, need some kind of reconciliation, and get them out of New York City, throw them upstate into this environment where they're gonna have to wrestle with each other.

• 55:56John Joseph?

  And here's the thing is like, you know, from what my, like, my brother was never, my brother, he threw my mother down the stairs when she was holding Frank. So Frank always had...

• 56:10Rich Roll?

  Hard to let go of that.

• 56:12John Joseph?

  You know, some brain issues or whatever, like, fucking.

• 56:15Rich Roll?

  Oh, your brother landed on his head.

• 56:18John Joseph?

  There was something a little off with him. And, and me and E were always the tough ones. Like, we were like, you know, my brother E, even to this day, cuz he won't... Like, I worked on my shit through spirituality, but he refused to do that. So he walks around with the anger that I had in the 80s and 90s. And he just flies off the fucking handle. My mother keeps... You know, the thing is, is like, when this shit book came out, and my mother was like, "I had no idea that they were fucking molesting you in there and doing all this shit." I was like, "Mom, we never, you think I'm gonna go out and fucking tell people?" I didn't even tell anybody that that... I did it as, as, as therapy. I needed, I would keep coming to that part of the book and just break down crying for

• 57:03John Joseph?

  two hours and, and not wanna put it in there. And then, you know, and I was like, my writing teacher was like, "You have to write the truth."

• 57:12Rich Roll?

  That's the most important thing for you to...

• 57:14John Joseph?

  But when she told my brother, fucking, my older brother denied it. He goes, "That never happened." He's in denial. My younger brother goes, "Yeah, they were doing that shit to us." And then she went back and said, "Both your brothers said that that happened." And he was like, "I don't wanna talk about it." And he still won't talk about it to this day. And he always, you know...

• 57:47John Joseph?

  It's heavy stuff.

• 57:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's heavy and I want to get to kind of the solution part of it. But to get there, we gotta leapfrog a little bit through. I mean, you go to the Navy. That's when you, and you start getting interested in the punk rock scene.

• 58:00John Joseph?

  Well, I was already into the punk rock.

• 58:02Rich Roll?

  Right, but you find this club in Norfolk and you kind of tap into it. And, you know, you're exposed to some of the acts of the time, the Untouchables and et cetera. And, and then, and then there's like one, one big night that ultimately ends up kind of shifting your whole life.

• 58:18John Joseph?

  Yeah, well, to, to, to, uh, to set it up properly. Even when I went in the Navy, I went to boot camp high on Angel Dust. I was like, I didn't change one single thing about it.

• 58:29Rich Roll?

  You didn't want to go into the Navy. You just, that was the choice you had to make.

• 58:33John Joseph?

  They gave me a choice between the Navy or going back to jail. And I said, yo, fuck it, the state didn't raise no fools, send me to the Navy. So we were shipping out of Fort Hamilton and my brother, he was like, yo, I got 40 hours, they sell fucking dust down the street. So we went with this other dude and bought four bags of dust and, and I'd never been on an airplane. And then I went to Great Lakes Naval Station, dusted, and got out of boot camp. Fucking was smuggling drugs, selling drugs.

• 59:05Rich Roll?

  Show up, day one.

• 59:07John Joseph?

  Day one.

• 59:08Rich Roll?

  Lit up.

• 59:09John Joseph?

  But I came out of jail, I was cocked, diesel. Like, they say in prison, you know, when you're locked up, you gotta get your weight up. I put on 35 pounds of muscle. And this one guy, when I lived on the streets, he always picked on me in Rockaway. And the first thing I did, I saw him, before I got arrested, I was hustling drugs again in Rockaway. And this guy, Philip Beggy, he's like, wow, you got big, dude. And I just walked up and fucking knocked him out. And then I was like, he's like, what'd you do that for, like, later? And I was like, because you fucking picked on me every fucking day, dude. Damn, now you got yours, how's it feel? So I went into the Navy, got out of boot camp, smuggling drugs on my ship, from weed from Jamaica, fucking pills, uh, selling LSD.

• 59:58John Joseph?

  And just a wild punk rock dude in Norfolk. I was the only fucking squid that the punkers in Norfolk let hang out because I fought these rednecks that were fucking with everybody in the bar and they didn't know how to fight and I just fucking and I was like even if they wanted to get rid of me, they couldn't.

• 1:00:16Rich Roll?

  But you'd be in uniform and then you'd pull up to the club and like changing your punk rock clothes.

• 1:00:20John Joseph?

  Yeah, I'd be on duty going to happy hour, you know, fucking getting, just illegally and just going there and watching the band's sound check and drinking and doing whatever. And then one day I pull up, the guy runs out, he's like, "You have to see this fucking man." And he's like, the guy's name was Doug, that owned the club. It's still there, Taj Mahal in Norfolk. And, and I was like, "All right." And I'm walking in, he's like, "No, no, you don't understand. Dude, they're black." And I go up and it was the Bad Brains and they were doing a sound check and I seem to think to this day that it was this song,

• 1:01:01John Joseph?

  "Super Touch Shit Fit" and they just clicked that shit off and I was like, "What the fuck is this? Next level." So I was hanging out with them before they went on. I sold their manager LSD and then saw the show and HR, the singer was talking. They had just started to get into Rastafarian but still dressed punk rock and no dreads or nothing yet. And I just had this deep talk with the dude and he's like-

• 1:01:35Rich Roll?

  With HR?

• 1:01:36John Joseph?

  Yeah, with the singer. And about PMA, positive mental attitude. And he's like, "Oh, we're gonna run into each other again and all this." And, you know, I, there was one, you know, my, my ship went out to sea and there was this one fucking redneck on my ship that kept fucking with me. And everybody else knew to leave me the fuck alone. I was wearing Sex Pistols destroy Bondi shirts with the swat stickers like just fucking, you know, the old Sex Pistol shit the way, you know, punk rock was for shock value. I'm not a Nazi, just you wore shit

• 1:02:16John Joseph?

  that fucking pissed people off. So, everybody on the ship knew to leave me the fuck alone. They had me seen a psychiatrist. That's why I got that time bomb on my hand, cuz the psychiatrist said that I was a time bomb waiting to go off. And I was beating people up in town, but I, I kinda wouldn't do that shit on my command. Like, the first class boatswain mate, uh, was an intense dude. He trained in martial arts. He taught the SEALs in, in San Clemente. I mean, he was a fucking intense dude. And, um...

• 1:02:56Rich Roll?

  That's alright. That Instagram Live just went weak.

• 1:03:00John Joseph?

  Yeah, so, uh, I, I was training with him and he kinda liked me. Uh, and he let me slide on a lot of shit. He caught me smoking weed. I was up at like the O6 level out at sea where the fucking radars are. I climbed all the way up to superstructure. And this guy was a fucking ninja, man. He got, his last command, he like, they tried to hit him in the head and throw him overboard. Cuz he caught smugglers on the ship and he fucking, they, he fucked them up and killed one of them and like, it just...

• 1:03:36Rich Roll?

  But you get in a fight with this dude.

• 1:03:38John Joseph?

  No, I didn't get in a, the, but the first class liked me, so he let me go on a lot of shit. And I told him, I said, "Man, tell that fucking dude, he needs to leave me the fuck alone, man." And he warned him. And, uh, right before I left, we were going to South America for shell backers when you cross the equator. We were going past Brazil all the way to Antarctica, like, down.

• 1:04:03Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:04John Joseph?

  To Argentina.

• 1:04:06John Joseph?

  And I had gotten my wisdom teeth pulled, so I had unbeknownst to me, I had an infection. So I was in a really bad mood and I had gotten popped for a drug case right before this. So I was restricted to the ship. They wouldn't let me off the ship. So everybody's going off the ship in Bermuda and partying. I'm fucking like prisoner status pretty much because I had a civilian case. I pled not guilty, but they were like, you know, I was fucking up on the ship, so they restricted me to the ship, took all my pay, everything. Uh, they busted me down to the low pay grade, E1, the whole shit.

• 1:04:49John Joseph?

  And, uh, I just was in severe pain and the dude just fucked with me. And I just walked into the paint locker because that's where the boats and mates mixed all the paint. And I, it's called dogging down the, I, I dogged down two of these latches so nobody could open the door from the inside. I picked up a paint can and I beat the living shit out of him. He shit himself. I, I just beat him in like the soft tissue, the arms. And then I just went to my rack and laid there and then the master of arms came and got me, put brig, you know, and, uh, so I'm in there and then my fucking mouth gets so infected.

• 1:05:30John Joseph?

  After we left Puerto Rico, they had to medevac me back from a, oh, a helo back to fucking Puerto Rico. And then they forgot to tell them that I was prisoner status. And so they had me hooked up to an IV for like a week and then my, they said, well, your ship's gone. We're not gonna fly you back out to your ship. You're gonna have to go back to Norfolk, but they kept me till I could get a military hop and they forgot to say I was restricted. So then, um.

• 1:06:04John Joseph?

  Went back to Norfolk, still didn't say I was restricted. Then the guy, after like two months was like, uh, McGowan, uh, I just got a call, your ship's coming in today. Like wink wink, like the master, master ship's police called him and said I'm supposed to be restricted. And they're on the way to get me. Ship already docked. So I fucking pack up, few clothes, had some money.

• 1:06:30Rich Roll?

  What, what would you have been facing?

• 1:06:32John Joseph?

  Oh, they would have sent me to Leavenworth for beating that guy down and then the drug case. So, uh, I got on the bus that ran down Hampton Boulevard through the gate. And then it does the whole naval base and then goes back out. So I took the city bus. And as I'm pulling out of the gate, I'm stopped at the light and there goes the two master at arms, the ship's police with the fucking guns.

• 1:07:01Rich Roll?

  From your ship?

• 1:07:02John Joseph?

  Yeah, crossed across the, the master at arms, the chief master at arms and the other, and in the first class were walking over to Nimitz Hall to get me. And I fucking was like, I just shrunk down in my seat a little bit and just was like, like if they would have just looked to the left, they would have just pulled out their guns and been like, dragged me off the bus. And I rolled out the gate and I went to stay in, uh, DC with, uh, Henry Rollins and I stayed in Norfolk a little bit, then when made my way to DC for some reason, I just thought, I, I was like, I didn't know where I was going, but I was like, I'm done with all of this.

• 1:07:41Rich Roll?

  And you knew Henry from the punk scene?

• 1:07:43John Joseph?

  I knew Henry from the punk scene.

• 1:07:45Rich Roll?

  Ian McKay?

• 1:07:45John Joseph?

  And Ian McKay. So they, they had an apartment together and then I was just like, yo, I split from the military. They're like, well, you can stay with us for a little bit and.

• 1:07:53Rich Roll?

  But you, so, so you basically are, you go, you go AWOL and like what is, yeah, like, so you, you have warrants out for you. Like is there a statute of limitations on that? Like, how does that work?

• 1:08:06John Joseph?

  They've brought people back. I think I had the second longest AWOL history in Norfolk Naval Base. And the one guy beat me. He, I had 15 years when my band members snitched on me.

• 1:08:18Rich Roll?

  But when you become like a well-known musician, how do they not?

• 1:08:22John Joseph?

  I always had a fake name. And it was weird because like everybody on the scene knew that I split from the military, but nobody snitched on me. It took my own two band members to snitch on me to fucking get me caught. But I had-

• 1:08:37Rich Roll?

  And you've like ironed it out now? Or is it still like a pending thing?

• 1:08:41John Joseph?

  No, I got a general upgraded to an honorable discharge because my lawyer argued like, yo, this guy came out of this traumatic childhood. He was fucked up on drugs when he went in. He should have never been in the Navy to begin with. They offered me my, my, my, uh, my, uh, benefits and everything and I wouldn't take it. I didn't feel, I said, I don't deserve that. I didn't, you know, I, I, I, you know, there was a time when I went in when I, where I tried to do the right thing and, you know, fucking, uh, it just coming out of where I was coming out of. I, I hadn't dealt with any of that shit yet. So it was like, you know, like, uh, yeah, my, my, uh, and then I was a Hare Krishna. I lived as a monk for two years.

• 1:09:23John Joseph?

  So he said, oh, conscientious objector. I didn't split during wartime. And, um, and with all the other stuff and the fact that I never got arrested under my name. That's how they catch you. They catch you by you fucking up. You get pulled over for fucking running a red light, whatever. Filing to get a new social security card, anything you do. That's why everybody gets caught.

• 1:09:47Rich Roll?

  That's why you didn't, you never got a driver's license.

• 1:09:50John Joseph?

  Never got a driver's license, worked off the book, you know, like crazy shit and- I even talk about the story uh in uh eighty uh you know, a bunch of shit happened. And um I ended up leaving the Chrome Eggs in eighty eight. I had almost two years of a hardcore crack pill drinking addiction. I had.

• 1:10:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we talked about that.

• 1:10:13John Joseph?

  Strong arm drug dealers and I got pulled over like we me and the girl. We were gonna sell her car. I'm flying through the desert at a hundred miles an hour. No license, AWOL, fucking crack in the car, everything. And I get whoop whoop pulled over on the way to Palm Springs. I said, that's it. We're getting fucking seven. That's it. It's over. Our run is over. And uh the cop comes up. He's like license and registration. And I just I just sat there. He's like, sir, license and registration. And he had his arm on the, you know, you know how they put their arm on the door and he's looking in there and I see DD two fucking twenty five, whatever.

• 1:10:57John Joseph?

  Boats and mate shell back. He's got all these Navy tattoos. And I was like, so when did you cross the equator on that tin can boats? And I just hit him with everything he was. He was a boats and mate. He was on a destroyer and he's a shell back. And he's like, what? You were in the Navy? I said, yeah, man, I'm I'm I'm a shell back. I fucking beat them polywogs down and all of this. And he's like, he's like, man, I can't give no Navy man boats and made a ticket. And he was like, listen, keep keep it under seventy five out here or or you next time they're gonna give you a ticket. And he let me go. And then and then when we got there, we found out, I mean, all this is in the book, evolution of a chrome magnet. Like, the story is insane.

• 1:11:42John Joseph?

  You would think there's no way that this shit happened. We got on this fucking plane. The parents had hired. They're some big Hollywood big shots. And uh they hired like FBI.

• 1:11:55Rich Roll?

  They're just terrified their daughters hanging out with you.

• 1:11:58John Joseph?

  They reported that I kidnapped her and I was part of a cult, stole the car. Cause we went to sell it to her friend when he ran the VIN number. That's how they wanted to get us. They put warrants on.

• 1:12:08Rich Roll?

  The level of like chaos though is insane.

• 1:12:11John Joseph?

  Listen, we were cracked up for fucking days and we went to, that's how the whole shit started. We went to a car dealership in LA. And then he's like, goes to run the, he's like, being a real dickhead to us. And then he's like, look, I'm only gonna offer you, we wanted like ten thousand. And he's like, I'm only gonna give you five thousand for the car. Goes back, runs the thing. And then, uh, you know, he's back there for a while. And I go back by his door and I hear, alright, Mrs., you know, whatever, I won't say her name, but, you know, I'm gonna hold him here on stall till you get here with the police. I go outside, I'm like, this motherfucker just called your mother,

• 1:12:51John Joseph?

  and the cops are on the way. And she's like, you're always, so he comes out and he's like, we're gonna give you the ten thousand dollars. I just have to go fill the paperwork out. Goes in the back. And we had been hiding out with the Red Hot Chili Peppers merch girl, which I fucking, we took her money, like, you know, she sold crystal meth and crazy shit. We ended up robbing her and, but like, and then, and then, and then I said, Kate, you know, we gotta go. This guy's setting us up. And then we had this like junkie moment. You always think you fucking know everything. We're like, I'm like grabbing her like, listen, we have to fucking go.

• 1:13:34John Joseph?

  And I walked back to the room, cause he had the title. And then I walked into his office and it was one of these moments, and he was this big fat obese dude. And it was one of these moments, I walk in the office and he's leaning back in the chair and we both looked at the title at the same time. And I just snatched it, fucking punched him. And fucking he fell over in his chair. I said, let's go. We fucking run out of the dealership. We get in the car just as her motherfucking parents are rolling up with the cops. High speed, we fucking got the fuck out of there.

• 1:14:07Rich Roll?

  Like, what part of LA are you in?

• 1:14:10John Joseph?

  We went up into the hills. And- I lost them. We went all up into the fucking hills and all these turns and then I ended up. She was telling me which way to go and we got back to the house and then we were like, okay, now the shit's on, but we still didn't know that they reported that I was, they said I was this cult, in this cult and kidnapped their daughter. It was when we went to the car dealership in Palm Springs and the guy ran the VIN number and he was like, you guys, that just red, red alerted the cops, they're on their way, you guys need to get the fuck out of here. It was Kate's childhood friend. He's like, he told me the deal, like, there's warrants, fucking all this shit.

• 1:14:52John Joseph?

  So then we get, sold the car for like two ounces of blow, two thousand dollars in plane tickets, to get back to New York and she told her friend what flight we were on. And then I was like, she didn't tell me that. So we had one ounce in the overhead and one ounce underneath checked in. So the fir-, she's like, I was like, you didn't tell nobody what flight, right? She's like, no, no, not really. I was like, what do you mean, not really? She lived next door to the Posts, Post cereal. Santa Monica Pacific Coast Highway mansion stuff. And I was like, she hates me, she's gonna fucking snitch on you. We had, and the first thing I said was, we have to do all the blow in the overhead.

• 1:15:36John Joseph?

  And I just started going into the bathroom.

• 1:15:37Rich Roll?

  Of course, like addict, like that's the first thing you think of.

• 1:15:40John Joseph?

  And I was just sniffing shit up, standing in the middle of the aisles, reading from the Bhagavad Gita, all you motherfuckers are going to hell for eating meat and all this shit, like, out of my mind.

• 1:15:51Rich Roll?

  You're just insane.

• 1:15:52John Joseph?

  Yeah, insane. The stewardesses were like, you need to sit down, or we're gonna land this plane and call the police and have you removed, like, you know, and then, I got away at Kennedy Airport and fucking went, they never thought I would have went to pick up my checked bag, but I had an ounce in there, so I went and got that. And they went outside first to get me while I'm getting my bag, then when I went out with the bag, they went in. Like, we don't know where he is, you know?

• 1:16:22Rich Roll?

  You just slipped past.

• 1:16:24John Joseph?

  And I got out and I went to this, uh... Crack burnt out building where everybody freebased. And I was freebasing and then these dudes just came up behind me. And fucking slammed me in the head with a pipe, woke up, head split open, all my money, everything, the weed, the fucking coke gone. So I just went to Tompkins Square Park and it was pouring rain. I lost my girlfriend. I lost everything I had. I had burned bridges. Nobody would hang out with me because I robbed all these coke dealers that were drug gang members looking to kill me.

• 1:16:59John Joseph?

  And I just broke down crying. I went to the Hare Krishna temple and I said, I went in front of the deedees and I just started crying uncontrollably. And I said, if you don't let me stay here, I'm gonna die. And they let me move in and then I stayed there and started getting back into my physical health, training, cycling. I got a job as a bike messenger and then just I climbed out of hell, man.

• 1:17:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's, you know, what part of what we kind of skipped over is the whole chapter of you sort of falling under the wing of the bad brains. You know, post, post Navy and all of that and, and how, you know, really HR and that crew. You know, taught you a lot about life and straightened you out, but then you kind of go on, you backslide again into this crazy, you know, LA experience. Well, that then you had to kind of atone for, right? And have your second kind of bottom with this whole thing. And, you know, we only have like 15 minutes because we gotta wrap it up. So we can't do like a three hour exploration of all of this. But I mean, the point is pretty made bluntly clear that you're, you know, not only are you a survivor, you're somebody who has,

• 1:18:08Rich Roll?

  you know, weathered and experienced, you know, more trauma and abuse and neglect. And, you know, everything that gets baked into that, the chaos and the drugs and the alcohol.

• 1:18:18John Joseph?

  And abusing myself, self abuse.

• 1:18:20Rich Roll?

  And all of that, right?

• 1:18:21John Joseph?

  You know what's up with the addiction, man. We're not dealing with our shit. We're self medicating.

• 1:18:27Rich Roll?

  You know, you, you, you were able to have enough awareness to understand that when lightning struck a couple of times in your life. You, you kind of grabbed the handles of that. And I think that was the first sort of step in pulling you out of your circumstances, but. You know, it wouldn't take a huge leap of faith to see you leading the life that, you know, one of your brothers is leading.

• 1:18:48John Joseph?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:48Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? And so when you look back on how you've been able to climb out of this and, you know, change your life and develop, you know, PMA, positive mental attitude and achieve all the things that you've been able to achieve, you know, despite circumstances that, you know, by all accounts should have you six feet under by now or locked up in a cage. Like, how do you, you know, articulate that? Like, what is it and how, you know, what is the message that you're trying to communicate to people out there when you speak at jails or you talk to kids or just anybody who feels stuck or feels like they can't stop drinking or they can't stop doing drugs or their elevator is going down or they're swirling

• 1:19:29Rich Roll?

  in their version of the chaos that, you know, was the, you know, sort of defining aspect of your everyday existence?

• 1:19:39John Joseph?

  I mean, I think the thing that I, you have to, what I call day one. Day one has to come and day one has to be, like, even after all the crack and everything else, I was still getting high and then like, you know, started smoking weed again and then it would turn into doing ecstasy pills and the ninety and all this shit. And then I finally said, you know what? I had to face the truth and the hard truth was that I'm an addict. And I, you know, I have an, I have addiction issues and I needed to have a day one where I could say from this point on, I'm never gonna fucking touch any drugs. I'm gonna work

• 1:20:22John Joseph?

  on myself every day. You know, the bad brains in HR, they were surrounded by a lot of very positive people who were into a lot of metaphysical yoga, philosophy and all. So I had a good foundation and I had to fall back on that and just, and from my time living as a Hare Krishna and meditating and getting up, I just had to have that day one where you say, this is the day I'm not gonna fucking get high anymore. And then it's every day. You have, and I said that to somebody recently and I go, hey, man, I'm an addict. I'm just choosing not to fucking get high today. I'm gonna train for this Ironman. I'm gonna, I'm

• 1:21:04John Joseph?

  gonna write. I'm gonna do everything I need to do. So that today, one day at a time. I choose not to get high. I choose to do the right thing. Everything in life is is based upon, it's the choices we make under pressure define character. That's the whole thing what McKee says in Story Two. Anybody could act like they got their whole shit together when there's no pressure. When the pressure comes, then you see true character is revealed. And, you know, what kind of story do you want to leave for the world about how, you know, like, my whole thing and and what I've seen, and I'm writing this book on PMA now, I mean,

• 1:21:45John Joseph?

  you know, uh, is, is I hope that my story, like I said at the end of the book reading, I go, look, man, I didn't write this book to get pats on the back, sympathy, oh, you're so strong, none of that shit. I said, I wrote the book and I put my whole story in, what McKee wrote in my storybook from him, that I had him sign it after class, he goes, always write the truth. And that's what I did.

• 1:22:15Rich Roll?

  For people that don't know, Robert McKee wrote a book called Story. He's the guy who's sort of known as the king of, you know, how to structure a screenplay, and he does these seminars.

• 1:22:24John Joseph?

  Seminars, three days, I've, I did it twice, I took his workshops.

• 1:22:28Rich Roll?

  He was depicted in the movie adaptation, quite, quite comically.

• 1:22:31John Joseph?

  But I had a defining moment with him because I've been utilizing, uh, what happened to me a- as a kid for the main character. And then I walked up to him after class, and he had his little bantering going back and forth, yeah, true character, you know, characterization, you see these guys with all the fucking tattoos to their eyeballs, really, they're just marshmallows. And he was talking about me, you know, he's picking on me, dude.

• 1:22:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:22:56John Joseph?

  So after like, I was like, the second day, I walked up and I was like, you know, I said, Mr. McKee is, you know, everyone's allowed to ask questions. I go as far as like... You know, a kid that was abused as a chi- he stopped me right there and he goes, "Child abuse is the cliche of the fucking day." It's like writers use it to try to gain sympathy and empathy for characters that are weak. They're thin and we can give two shits about them. It's not the abuse, it's what we do as a result of it. That's the fucking story. And I was just like, that was when I was like, I have to put everything into this story to-

• 1:23:38John Joseph?

  I can't leave out, as embarrassing as it was, that these motherfuckers put their hands on me like that. I had to tell that story and um, and, and I said at the end of the meeting-

• 1:23:50Rich Roll?

  Ultimately, that's, that's the path towards you healing it for yourself.

• 1:23:53John Joseph?

  Yeah, it was, because that's why I always had addiction issues and everything else. It was like these old scars, every time somebody did some really grimy shit to me that would- whether it was a relationship ending or my band members robbing me, ratting me out, doing fucking grimy shit, these two clowns in the Chromeags, Harley and fucking Paris. And, and I considered Harley especially my friend and he just kept stabbing me in the fucking back and I would spiral out of control because it was just ripping those wounds open. And it wasn't until I wrote the entire story and got it off my chest to the world, that I was really able to heal. And that's why I wrote that book,

• 1:24:34John Joseph?

  because I've gotten thousands and thousands of letters, I correspond with people, emails and fucking all kinds of shit. I just got one today, this dude on Twitter was like, "Your book helped, save my life practically by your example." And example's better than precept, we have to live. It, it, it, these days, everybody talks shit, everyone talks the talk. Who's walking the walk? That's who I look to. Guys like you, guys that, you know, overcame stuff in their own lives and pushed on to, to achieve uh, uh tremendous things in, in, in the world. I'm not, I don't care, everybody talks shit out of their ass these days. You know, I'm, I'm like, I'm looking to see, you know- What actions, how are people living their lives?

• 1:25:19John Joseph?

  And that's the example. And that's, that's what I try to do too is, is lead a positive life and show people, you know, no matter what, you can climb out of any hole. You know, no matter how far in the depths of hell you are. And I've been down there. I seen crazy shit, mad people murdering in front of me. I mean shit, nobody should ever have to see. But I was willing to like climb out of that and, and surround myself by positive people. That's the other thing is the association we keep.

• 1:25:54Rich Roll?

  Who are you hanging out with?

• 1:25:55John Joseph?

  That's it, man. If you hang out with rogues and thieves, you're gonna be a rogue and a thief or a fucking junkie or whatever. It's people, places and things. I never went to the programs, but a lot of the stuff they say is stuff that I just know to follow. People, places and things, you know, uh, you know, just, I'm an addict. I'm choosing not to get high today, you know, and the higher power and all that. I, I utilize all the stuff except, you know, it's like we're training. I do it, that's part of my therapy too. I'm not a great Iron Man, uh, but I don't do it to, to, to, you know, to brag or anything else.

• 1:26:35John Joseph?

  I just do it because it's part of my discipline in my life that, and you know, I raised.

• 1:26:41Rich Roll?

  It's a practice.

• 1:26:42John Joseph?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:43Rich Roll?

  It's not something to check, check a box on.

• 1:26:45John Joseph?

  And, and, and just so people know, uh, a portion of the proceeds of the books is going to help Alexander Owens this year, uh, too. I'm racing Kona for him again this year.

• 1:26:58Rich Roll?

  You're doing it again?

• 1:26:59John Joseph?

  Yeah, because they, you know, unfortunately they found two tumors, uh, one in his back and it's, you know, it's upsetting to me because I've developed such a love for this, for this kid and his mother is just in runner's world now, Diane Owens. Um, because she's been under such stress, she had this autoimmune disease that left her on a ventilator paralyzed. It just, it was some freak shit. And then 10 months later, she ran a fucking marathon from learning how to walk and talk. She couldn't even take two steps. Complete. So this family

• 1:27:38Rich Roll?

  And Alexander is her son.

• 1:27:40John Joseph?

  Is four years old now, so I want to try to help them again. So a lot of the proceeds from, I'm turning over whatever, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm gonna raise $25,000. I did $50,000 last year for them.

• 1:27:54Rich Roll?

  So if people are listening and they want to help out, where do they go?

• 1:27:56John Joseph?

  Just go on my Instagram page at

• 1:28:00Rich Roll?

  At John Joseph.

• 1:28:01John Joseph?

  Yeah, John Joseph Cromag. And there's the link to buy the book or the bundle. You'll see that a portion of those proceeds. And then I'm gonna be posting a link, uh, if they want to just donate straight and not buy the book, uh, to the family. The money doesn't go for any research or anything like that. It's going right to the family, uh, to help with their expenses, because it is a lot of expenses involved and

• 1:28:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:28:30John Joseph?

  You know.

• 1:28:31Rich Roll?

  All right, well, Erica just, uh, came by and, and, and we gotta wrap, we gotta close this down. Cause dude, I feel like I could, I could go for like four more hours. Like we only tapped the surface of so many of the things I, I, you know, wanted to continue to have the opportunity to talk to you. So to be continued.

• 1:28:47John Joseph?

  Yeah, but you know what?

• 1:28:48Rich Roll?

  Anytime we're together, we should do it.

• 1:28:50John Joseph?

  Really take the book home. You could buy the audio book.

• 1:28:54Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna get into it. I was gonna pimp it for you, dude. So you don't have to pimp it for yourself.

• 1:28:58John Joseph?

  I know. Shameless self-promotion.

• 1:29:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:29:02John Joseph?

  Sorry.

• 1:29:02Rich Roll?

  So, listen, man, you are a triumph of the human spirit. I love you like a brother. It just warms my heart.

• 1:29:09John Joseph?

  Like a brother, though. We was brothers.

• 1:29:11Rich Roll?

  Brother from another mother. You know, I was, after the book event, Julie and I were driving home from downtown. And we were talking about, you know, the experience and, you know, I was moved by it. And I, I just thought, it's so crazy that your life experience couldn't be more dramatically different than mine. But I feel so close to you as a friend. Like you're one of my best friends. Like I connect with you on a very deep intimate level. And yet your life experience, like, we don't intersect. Like our Venn diagrams, like, don't cross until, you know, we're like in our

• 1:29:47John Joseph?

  But here we are, see?

• 1:29:49Rich Roll?

  I know. And so that's a beautiful thing. And you know, you, you carry a very, uh, very heavy and very powerful, uh, positive vibration. Uh, you impact a lot of people with your message and you are a true example of selfless service in the world. And the, uh, and a testimony to the incredible power of the human spirit to overcome, you know, any obstacle, like you say, and it's beautiful to always spend time with you.

• 1:30:17John Joseph?

  Cool, man. I love it, man.

• 1:30:19Rich Roll?

  Girl Erica, we're gonna go eat now.

• 1:30:21John Joseph?

  Yeah, Erica. Oh, man. Julie prepared a whole meal for us.

• 1:30:24Rich Roll?

  She blew up the, the kitchen for us and we're gonna go eat right now. But, uh, Evolution of a Cro-Mag, it's the new edition.

• 1:30:31John Joseph?

  Second edition.

• 1:30:32Rich Roll?

  Second edition. Prior to that, there was only, it was a limited run. So there weren't very many copies of this book out in the world.

• 1:30:39John Joseph?

  And then people started selling it for 500, $1,000.

• 1:30:41Rich Roll?

  So it's out now and you can buy, you can get it on your site.

• 1:30:46John Joseph?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:46Rich Roll?

  And on Amazon or where do you?

• 1:30:48John Joseph?

  I would say the best place to buy it is not, you know, you can go to Amazon too, but johnjoseph dot merchnow dot com. And if you get it at that site, then a portion of those proceeds will go to benefit Alexander Owens and Children's Tumor Foundation. So that's where I try to send everybody to so that Amazon ain't giving up a dime, but

• 1:31:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:31:11John Joseph?

  these guys, my publishers, gonna match whatever I give. So that's kind of a cool thing. You know, you can get some great New York stories and.

• 1:31:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the stories are insane. And we only, you know, basically tap the surface of, the stories go on and on and on. And like, as somebody who's spent hundreds of hours with you, I can tell, I could tell everybody who's listening, like, it just, it just doesn't end. Like, just when you think, like, there's no way it could get crazier, like it gets crazier. So you will be entertained, you will be moved and, uh, and, and like I said, you will be inspired.

• 1:31:43John Joseph?

  Thank you for having me again and inviting me to your house. Now we're gonna shout out on some organic, plant-based greatness.

• 1:31:51Rich Roll?

  You know it, dude.

• 1:31:52John Joseph?

  Peace, PMA.

• 1:31:55John Joseph?

  Hardy Bo. You know, I love your wife. She's the only one that calls me Jai Ananda Das.

• 1:32:00Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:32:00John Joseph?

  That's my spiritual name. And Erica said, why does she, I said, because she's supposed to. That's why I call her Shrimati.

• 1:32:07Rich Roll?

  That's right.

• 1:32:08John Joseph?

  Supposed to remind people of their spiritual path, and she always does. Keeps me on the right path. See, you gotta surround yourself by good people.

• 1:32:15Rich Roll?

  She does that for me, too.

• 1:32:16John Joseph?

  Hell, yeah. I thought we were saying that today. She's like the sadhu of this, of this family, man. She's an incredible woman. Thank you for having me.

• 1:32:26Rich Roll?

  All right, man. Love you, buddy.

• 1:32:27John Joseph?

  Peace. Love you.

• 1:32:29Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable, right? My man, JJ, he just never disappoints. I love that conversation. I hope you enjoyed it. In fact, I just talked to John on the phone today, like an hour ago. He's currently in Australia, in Cairns, and he's getting ready to race an Ironman this weekend. So please give him a shout out on Twitter, at JJ Cromag, or on Facebook, or on Instagram. He's at John Joseph Cromag on Instagram. And wish him luck. And while you're at it, pick up his books, Evolution of a Cro-Magnon, and Meet Us for Pussies. A couple of announcements before I let you go. Julie and I are going to be in Miami next week. We're throwing a party for the release of her new book, This Cheese Is Nuts. And we're doing a live podcast. Super exciting. That's going to be Wednesday,

• 1:33:15Rich Roll?

  June 14th, at Sacred Space Miami, from 6:30 to 10:00. If you're in Miami and you would like to attend, there are still tickets available. Go to ConsciousCityGuide.com/ThisCheeseIsNutsBookLaunch. And I'll put a link up to that in the show notes. While you're at it, pick up This Cheese Is Nuts on preorder. It comes out June 13th. Those preorders are important. It means a lot to us if you would click that button and have it delivered on release day. We have a thunderclap campaign for those who want to help support our book launch. It's basically an online platform that allows you to pledge a social media post. And we sort of crowdsourced these, and all those posts go live on release day, on June 13th.

• 1:34:00Rich Roll?

  So there's a link up to that as well in the show notes on this episode page. Plant Power Ireland is coming up July 24 through 31. We're going to this beautiful manor called Ballyvallan, I think that's how you say it, Ballyvallan, on 90 acres in the Irish countryside. We're going to take a group of 35 to 40 people through this extraordinary seven day process of transformation. We have a menu designed by Julie, all plant-based, of course. We're going to have intense workshops on nutrition, cooking, relationships, creativity. We're going to eat, we're going to run, we're going to meditate, we're going to do Ayurvedic treatments. It's going to be intense, it's going to be super fun. Really looking forward

• 1:34:45Rich Roll?

  to it. There's a couple of spots still available. So if this sounds like something you would be into, please go to ourplantpowerworld.com for all the information and to sign up. Also, if you go to shrimati.com, you can enter to win a free slot on this retreat when you purchase three copies, when you preorder three copies of this Jesus knots. All the details about that are on shrimati.com. If you haven't checked it out yet, please check out our Plant Power Meal Planner. We just launched it. We're really proud of it. It is an online service that avails you of thousands of plant-based recipes, unlimited meal plans and grocery lists. Everything's totally personalized and customized based on your goals and your food preferences and your allergies and your time constraints.

• 1:35:29Rich Roll?

  We have amazing customer support, grocery delivery in 22 metropolitan areas via Instacart. We're getting great feedback on it. People who have signed up are really enjoying it. All of this is available to you for just $1.90 per week. Really affordable. If you're interested in that, go to richroll.com and just click on Meal Planner. You'll see it up there at the top, or go to meals.richroll.com. If you would like to support this show and my work, easiest way is to share it with your friends and on social media. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or definitely, or and, I should say, and please, if anything, subscribe to the show on Apple. It used to be called iTunes, now they're calling it

• 1:36:14Rich Roll?

  Podcast for whatever reason, they're doing a rebranding. So I'm supposed to say Apple Podcasts. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts. And also, we have a Patreon set up for those of you who would like to support my work financially. And to those of you who have already done that and are continuing to do that, my heart goes out to you. I really greatly appreciate that. If you would like to receive a free, short, weekly email from me, I send one out every Thursday. It's called Roll Call. It's basically five or six things I came across over the course of the week, products, articles, podcasts, documentaries, a book that I'm reading, things I've enjoyed, things that are inspiring me, or things that are educating me in some certain way. And a lot of times, these are not things I

• 1:36:59Rich Roll?

  share on social media. So if you want in on that, again, it's free. You can subscribe to that by just entering your email address on my website. There's plenty of spots for you to do that. I'm not going to spam you. If you sign up for it, basically, you're going to get a, in addition to the Roll Call, you'll get podcast updates, and then you'll get occasional product offers, etc. But I'm not going to spam you with any kind of nonsense. Also, while you're at richroll.com, we have signed copies of Finding Ultra, of Plant Power Way, of This Cheese Is Nuts. If you want a signed copy of that, we've got t-shirts, tech tees, all kinds of cool merch, and swag. I want to thank today's sponsors. 22 Days Nutrition, my man Marco. 22 Days is

• 1:37:42Rich Roll?

  the 100% plant-based, 100% USDA-certified, organic nutrition solution for you, including products and meal delivery designed to meet the needs of your healthy, active life. For 10% off all products, including the meal delivery and free shipping, visit 22dayssnutrition.com/richroll and use the promo code RICHROLL. At checkout. Again, you can also get these products at Target, target.com, and the Rich Roll coupon code also works there as well. And Quip, your one-stop solution for oral health. Buy a Quip toothbrush for $25 and get up to $5 off your first refill pack by visiting

• 1:38:22Rich Roll?

  getquip, Q-U-I-P, dot com forward slash roll and using promo code ROLL during checkout. Thank you to everybody who helped produce today's show. Jason Camiello for audio engineering and production and show notes and helping me with the script and the WordPress page and all of that. Shawn Patterson for all his graphic wizardry and theme music, as always, by Analemma. Thanks for the love, you guys. I'll be back here in a couple days with another episode. I'm really enjoying trying to move up, trying to boost up into this two-episode-a-week routine. We're getting there. It's not going to be every week, but I'm trying to make this a more regular thing. Let me know if you're enjoying that. Is it too much?

• 1:39:04Rich Roll?

  Are you enjoying the additional content? Hit me up on Twitter, Facebook, or on Instagram, and I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace. Plants.