The Basement: Nerdrotic | From Folsom Prison to Millions of Subscribers

Before YouTube. Before millions of subscribers. Before Friday Night Tights — Gary Buechler had a story almost nobody knew. It starts at Folsom Prison, a neighbor's jar of pennies, and a double-murderer cellmate who wouldn't leave him alone. His memoir is called Waiting For. That title alone should tell you something. He sat down with AJ in The Basement and held nothing back. Watch to the end. NERDROTIC LINKS https://www.youtube.com/@nerdrotic https://x.com/nerdrotics https://www.instagram.com/nerdrotic 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:00AJ Gentile?

  Today I'm talking with Gary Beekler. You probably know him as Nerd Roddick. Gary has built a media empire around pop culture commentary, Friday Night Tights, Forbidden Frontier and a YouTube channel at Hollywood Studios now quietly track.

• 1:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, so Hollywood finally figured out how to read the room. And the room says, "We hate everything you make." Nice.

• 1:21AJ Gentile?

  But before any of this existed, Gary grew up in San Diego in the 80s. He spent years running from a trauma that he never shared with anyone.

• 1:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, 80s San Diego has Top Gun, beach volleyball, and endless amounts of potty powder. He's running from it, but I'm running to it. I feel the need. I feel the need. Do it or else they can take my breath away.

• 1:48AJ Gentile?

  I'm not doing it.

• 1:48Speaker 04

  I feel the need.

• 1:50AJ Gentile?

  Fine. The need for speed.

• 1:54Speaker 04

  The need for speed.

• 1:57AJ Gentile?

  Gary eventually ended up at Old Folsom State Prison. Not new Folsom, old Folsom. Johnny Cash Folsom. I didn't know there were two Folsoms. You're not gonna like it. Well, today we cover all of it. The second grade teacher who changed his life, what it's like to share a cell with a double murderer, and how he went from sleeping in his car to building a YouTube empire. Let's go down to the basement.

• 2:29AJ Gentile?

  Gary, welcome to the basement.

• 2:30Speaker 05

  Why, thank you. That's embarrassing.

• 2:35AJ Gentile?

  It's all good. Before we get started, I ask everyone this question. Sure. UFO experience researchers, physicists, same question. Hypothetical, desert island, you get one choice. What flavor toilet wine?

• 2:50Speaker 05

  Toilet wine? What flavor? I would say.

• 2:53AJ Gentile?

  Pruno.

• 2:53Speaker 05

  Pruno. It would have to be Pruno, which is made from oranges.

• 2:58AJ Gentile?

  You go orange?

• 2:59Speaker 05

  Well, I have to. I mean, like, I would have to break my sobriety because, like, I'm dead, right?

• 3:04AJ Gentile?

  Right. No, this is totally hypothetical.

• 3:07Speaker 05

  I would rather grow cocoa plants. If I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna go out good. But, uh, yeah, orange, uh, that's, that's the one I'm the most familiar with. I never touched the stuff, but I certainly helped people make it and helped people hide it.

• 3:21AJ Gentile?

  I read about that.

• 3:22Speaker 05

  So, yes, it's, uh, it's oranges. I believe it's yeast and you let it ferment for a little while.

• 3:28AJ Gentile?

  Why do they call it toilet wine?

• 3:29Speaker 05

  Uh, oh, well, um, sometimes you need to get your water from places other. They mostly get it from the sink. But I think that's just the term they use. Plus, it's usually hidden around the toilet or under a bunk. It can only last for so long because, uh, they, uh, they, they search the cells pretty regularly and randomly. So it has to be, I, honestly, I don't know how they do it. They were able to switch cells and probably a guard tipped them off at some point, you know? Some bribery, but like, it's in, like, bags. It's in trash bags.

• 4:07AJ Gentile?

  It was the weirdest thing to learn about, uh, people making wine in the joint.

• 4:13Speaker 05

  And apparently it's really strong.

• 4:15AJ Gentile?

  Really?

• 4:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like really, really strong wine.

• 4:18AJ Gentile?

  Strong for wine. It's not like booze, though.

• 4:20Speaker 05

  No, no. But when you're, you got a bunch of guys who haven't drank or anything for months, it'll probably hit them pretty hard.

• 4:28AJ Gentile?

  I bet it would. And you've had, you've had alcohol before.

• 4:32Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 4:34AJ Gentile?

  Uh, before we go into the origin story, I know you've told it a million times. It's such a good story.

• 4:40AJ Gentile?

  When I was reading it, I cried at the end and I felt myself getting angry at you during it, especially because I know you and you're a friend. I love you, so I know how it ends.

• 4:50Speaker 05

  Love you too, man.

• 4:51AJ Gentile?

  And I just want to smack you in the head every, every step of the way, which we're going to get into. Um, before we do the origin story, let's kick it off positive. What's on TV or whatever movie that you're liking right now?

• 5:06Speaker 05

  Uh, three things have come out this year.

• 5:08AJ Gentile?

  What do you got?

• 5:09Speaker 05

  Uh, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was damn near 10 out of 10. Just a great adaptation of a great novella by George R. Martin, who needs to finish his other books. It is a really simple tale of, of heroism and what it means to be a knight and chivalry. And while it still has some of the Game of Thrones aspects of it, it's very, it's very linear. Uh, and you can't help but root for both Dunk and Egg. It was a short series and it built momentum as time went on and I just absolutely loved every minute of it.

• 5:47AJ Gentile?

  I did too. Um, I didn't start Knights until it was like episode three and I started like this, just arms folded because of just angry at everybody, angry at, at, at

• 5:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:58AJ Gentile?

  Season six, fought all that Dark Knight, angry at George. I don't know how many days we are waiting for the last book.

• 6:05Speaker 05

  Over 5,000.

• 6:05AJ Gentile?

  5,000.

• 6:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:07AJ Gentile?

  And of course he's executive producer. So I watched, I don't know, it was maybe 10 minutes into the first episode and I was like, okay, they did it. If this is, this is really true to the books as I've, I've read those and I loved it. Number two.

• 6:21Speaker 05

  Uh, One Piece, season two. Absolutely loved it.

• 6:25AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 6:25Speaker 05

  Never thought I would like this show. I'm not like the biggest anime fan in the world. When I saw the trailer for season one, it looked like the worst thing I've ever seen. I love season one and I love season two.

• 6:36AJ Gentile?

  Really? Cause I'm not an anime guy. That's interesting.

• 6:40Speaker 05

  In the same vein of the three things I like are Night of the Seven Kingdoms, Project Hail Mary and One Piece. And the one thing they have in common is a positive look at the world. I'm so sick to death. I liked nihilism. I did. I liked all that subversion stuff back in the 2010s when it was cool. It is so overdone. I am, it's just, it's cooked at this point, as the kids say. Gen Z thinks they came up with that.

• 7:07AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, I know.

• 7:07Speaker 05

  It's been around for a hundred years. Okay. Just want to let you know. Um, no, but seeing heroes with a positive outlook, seeing something hopeful is nice. It's just really nice. And I loved all three of those things. And I'm, you know, it makes you, makes you wonder if they can turn things around. Probably not, but you know.

• 7:27AJ Gentile?

  Was your number three Hail Mary?

• 7:29Speaker 05

  Hail Mary. Love Project Hail Mary.

• 7:31AJ Gentile?

  I, that could, that could save Hollywood, at least for a while. Uh, cause that brought everybody back to the theaters.

• 7:39Speaker 05

  Um. It did. Top Gun Maverick did the same thing.

• 7:42AJ Gentile?

  That's what I was about to say.

• 7:43Speaker 05

  Uh, uh, three years ago, and they learned nothing from it. And they thought it was just this jingoistic patriotic movie. It's like, no, it was just a feel-good heroic story that, and the, the reason we go to the theater or, you have to make this distinction for, for popcorn movies, for tent pole movies is to escape. Right. I don't need to be lectured to. There are certainly spaces and times for those movies. Uh, you can make them all day long as independent films, but when it comes to, I want to take my family or I want to just go and have a good time and turn off the rest of the world. Uh, that, that's when Hollywood is doing their best. And that's when they actually put good in the world.

• 8:24Speaker 05

  They, they really love to think that they're changing the world and what they, they're not providing entertainment. They're a platform for influence, AJ. And, uh, we're going to teach those plebs out in a middle America how to think. You know, instead of just going, you know, let's just entertain them. And it brings people together. And we've lost that with the division. Um, I think some in Hollywood are starting to recognize that. The problem is. It's uh, it's like Twitter before Elon took over. The cancer was there and you have to cut it out root and stem. And it's, I don't think it's possible in Hollywood. I think there will be some change. But uh, I think the lesson we can learn from Project Hail Mary is this is what people want.

• 9:08Speaker 05

  That, I mean, it's just a nice hopeful story with a really dark, you know, the world is ending.

• 9:13AJ Gentile?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:13Speaker 05

  And it, uh, and it like, it made me want to watch all the space movies. So I've, I've watched 2001, which is amazing. Uh, Interstellar, Contact. Contact's 10 out of 10. Contact's still the best.

• 9:25AJ Gentile?

  Contact's the best. The ending, it's okay. Arrival, I thought was solid. Let me push back on one thing.

• 9:31Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 9:32AJ Gentile?

  Um, and this is not going to be a political show because people are going to be surprised. You're not a political guy.

• 9:37Speaker 05

  No.

• 9:38AJ Gentile?

  Uh, Gene Roddenberry put his politics in his shows and we love the original series. So his politics are in there. Why do they work?

• 9:48Speaker 05

  They worked, um, because they weren't that heavy handed. And when they approached the audience, it was in a way, if you want to change somebody's mind, I, I, I would, I would discourage you going, hey bigot, listen to me, you know, that's, that's not how you change people's mind. The defenses automatically go up. So what they do is they present to you the idea and it, and they leave it kind of up to you. Uh, in a lot of Star Trek, they leave, in a lot of X-Files, they leave it up to you to kind of see that stuff. And uh, that's, that's the mark of a good writer. And we certainly know where Gene Roddenberry's, uh, you know, politics come from, but we also have to consider the time he grew up, uh, the time he,

• 10:32Speaker 05

  you know, he went to, not grew up, but you know, he went to World War II. He, he, he's a writer who lived the life. We have right, none of the writers, not, most of the writers in current Hollywood have not lived the lives of the writers of even 10 or 20 years ago, who were veterans or had careers before writing. Uh, now they're just, their, their knowledge of the world is other TV shows and riffing other TV shows.

• 10:58AJ Gentile?

  Right. And I think Roddenberry.

• 11:01AJ Gentile?

  Was always story first. Mm hmm. So his politics were there. He wanted, his politics were just, let's all get along, make the world a better place. But it was always about the story.

• 11:15Speaker 02

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• 11:42AJ Gentile?

  And that's flipped a little bit with some properties.

• 11:46Speaker 05

  Particularly with Star Trek.

• 11:47AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 11:47Speaker 05

  Uh, Star Trek lost its way and that's why right now, for the first time in 10 years, there's no Star Trek in production. In my humble opinion, there hasn't been any Star Trek in production in that time, except for Picard, season three. I like it, but.

• 12:01AJ Gentile?

  Hashtag bring back Patalis.

• 12:03Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 12:04AJ Gentile?

  Um, I was, I was the same way and I was all in on Star Trek, all of it. I'm a Niner, DS9, that's, that's my favorite.

• 12:11Speaker 05

  It's good.

• 12:12AJ Gentile?

  Um, so I stuck with Discovery for a long time. Eventually I was just, I was just out. I was so disappointed and, um, and I never came back, except I heard you talking about Picard, which I started and it was, I was terrible. And season three was that, it was like that, they finally figured it out. Now, how did that, how did it happen that we got the story that we wanted as Star Trek fans?

• 12:41Speaker 05

  Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman, Akiva Goldsman's won an Academy Award, right? Um, but he's not really, and, and he wrote Constantine, which is actually a good movie, not really good as Star Trek, in my opinion, at all. And Picard, season one or two are the like last jet I have Star Trek. They're so just, Picard is a broken old man. Um, so. It got better because Kurtzman went off to go do uh the man who fell to earth.

• 13:12Speaker 05

  And it was obligatory that they have they they owed Patrick Stewart a third season. So they gave him no money. Basically, the entire series is a bottle series. And but he had no supervision and he was able to do whatever he wanted. Um, word on the street is he was able to fire everybody he wanted to except for one person. He made that one person work. I won't say who it is, but he made that one person work and he brought back the crew and he just. It was a bunch of fan service and he had to do mental gymnastics to to bring back the Enterprise D and the like. And it worked. It was and the funniest bit.

• 13:51Speaker 05

  At the end, well, they gave Star Trek fans something Star Star Wars fans didn't get. They we had the crew of the Enterprise on the Enterprise D. At the end of an episode, just together, the carpet, the lighting, everything. It's all we wanted. It's all we wanted. All we wanted and you know, logic be damned. Uh, and uh, the best part at the end was there was a virus from the Borg that affected only young people. It was a mind virus. So that's how they worked it out where the old people had to come in and save the young people. It was great.

• 14:26AJ Gentile?

  Right. Are you like, are you getting it? Uh, when when Worf showed up, did you how I was screaming when Worf showed up?

• 14:32Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 14:33AJ Gentile?

  Michael Dorn's just still bringing it.

• 14:35Speaker 05

  It's my favorite. Uh, my outside of the original series, that is my favorite modern Star Trek character. He would he ruled.

• 14:42AJ Gentile?

  He was the best.

• 14:43Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 14:44AJ Gentile?

  Uh, the best moment in Picard season three for me was when, oh, such fan service. It was so gratuitous. I loved it.

• 14:50Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 14:50AJ Gentile?

  Is when they were at the shipyard, look, going through all the ships and you just hear the theme song of woe and through.

• 14:56Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 14:57AJ Gentile?

  And I was at the tears are coming down. I was just, I was a mess.

• 15:01Speaker 05

  Like I I didn't know I needed this.

• 15:04AJ Gentile?

  I knew I did. I knew I did, but I didn't know it would be executed so perfectly. Oh, it was. It was just such.

• 15:10Speaker 05

  And it came from somebody who like Terry Metalas.

• 15:14Speaker 05

  You can't deny the man loves Star Trek, like loves Star Trek and probably, I don't know, David Ellison, if you're out there, because of course you watch the Y-Files, um, that's probably the guy you should hire.

• 15:25AJ Gentile?

  That's the guy you should hire.

• 15:26Speaker 05

  To run Star Trek right now. Be my, my suggestion.

• 15:30AJ Gentile?

  I think he might do it. I don't know if, um, if Kurtzman's gonna get another project after Starfleet Academy.

• 15:36Speaker 05

  I, if he does Paramount Warner Brothers are done. They're done. They're done as a company, but because that really tells you what the path is. I don't think he's coming back. I, I, I think.

• 15:49AJ Gentile?

  I don't think so either. And whenever I hear you or drinker or people saying Star Trek is over, I know you don't mean it. I know that if it comes back and they give you what you want, you're coming right back. Of course, of course.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  Of course. I'm a fan. I, I love Star Trek is part of your life, part of my life. We didn't have a lot of TV, not to age us too much, but we had what, three channels to choose from?

• 16:15AJ Gentile?

  Three.

• 16:15Speaker 05

  I was lucky because I was in San Diego, so I had six because we had the San Diego and we got the LA stations.

• 16:21AJ Gentile?

  Oh, okay.

• 16:22Speaker 05

  So, but they all played the same stuff. You know, but it was just Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, um, Gilligan's Island, like on heavy rotation.

• 16:33AJ Gentile?

  It's so weird you say Gilligan's Island because I was just thinking that as you said, what we watched, we watched Gilligan's Island all the time.

• 16:40Speaker 05

  All the time.

• 16:41AJ Gentile?

  And the original Batman was always on.

• 16:44Speaker 05

  Oh, that, uh, the first superhero shows I watched were, uh, uh, George Reeves Superman and, and Adam West Batman.

• 16:52AJ Gentile?

  Yes, same.

• 16:53Speaker 05

  And I thought it was, you know, I was a kid, so I'm like, this is totally a serious show. This is an earnest show.

• 16:59AJ Gentile?

  I forget the name of it. Uh, the book is around here somewhere. It's a story about George Reeves and the terror and the horrible life that he had. It's really worth reading. Um, he's a tragedy, but he was a great Superman. Um.

• 17:12AJ Gentile?

  So we've been friends for a long time and I've been, I've been a fan of yours. I probably, probably during COVID, so a long time. And I know you've told your origin story a million times. You've had a lot of fans here at the studio. And I was talking to one of them just the other day and I said, oh man, Gary's gonna tell his prison story again. And she goes, what? He was in prison? So apparently people don't know, some, some people don't know that you did real time.

• 17:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:42AJ Gentile?

  And uh,

• 17:43Speaker 05

  Comparatively, yeah.

• 17:44AJ Gentile?

  Well, uh, reading, reading your memoir, there were times where I was actually scared because you're so honest in it. About, you're really honest in it, uh, which we'll get into, really surprisingly honest. So when you establish that honesty very early on, like with what happened when you were a kid.

• 18:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:03AJ Gentile?

  Now I never know it's gonna, like, it's like a Georgia Martin novel, right? You never know who's gonna die next because, so it's established. So when you're in prison, I'm just waiting for the tragedy and eventually things do happen. Um, so I want to hear about the beginning, even before. Talk about, you're adopted.

• 18:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, uh, I was, um, my, uh, my birth mom, who I am in contact with this very day, who's a lovely woman. Um, uh, got pregnant with me when she was 16. Uh, she was a partier, uh, back in the sixties, you know, as the, and I don't hold this against her at all. She's, again, she's a wonderful Catholic, good Catholic woman now. Um, and, uh, my, my sperm donor dad, who I've never met, don't know what he looks like, don't care.

• 18:58AJ Gentile?

  Are you angry about him?

• 18:59Speaker 05

  Not, not at all.

• 19:00AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 19:00Speaker 05

  No, I mean, I, I understand he was young too, but I figured if, um, if he wanted to find me, he, he could find me. Right, uh, I had a dad though, so I, in the dad department, totally taken care of. Uh, so I was adopted.

• 19:16AJ Gentile?

  So wait, hang on.

• 19:16Speaker 05

  Very young.

• 19:17AJ Gentile?

  If you met your birth mom, you didn't ask about your father?

• 19:20Speaker 05

  I've asked about him, but I've never really,

• 19:22AJ Gentile?

  What did she say?

• 19:23Speaker 05

  She, she doesn't know. She like, once he was gone, he was gone. So he promised to, to stay with her. He was, the only thing I know about him is his name and he was a Seventh Day Adventist. So, um,

• 19:37AJ Gentile?

  Okay. Okay.

• 19:38Speaker 05

  Wasn't practicing very well, I guess.

• 19:40AJ Gentile?

  Was he good to her?

• 19:43Speaker 05

  Up until the end, yes.

• 19:45AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 19:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, up until the end and he said he'd stay. Uh, and this would be a quick, she doesn't really talk about it a bunch and I don't push, but he had promised to stay and then he took off.

• 19:55AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 19:56Speaker 05

  Uh, and he was at the time, I think 18. So it's like.

• 20:00AJ Gentile?

  Uh, I kinda get it.

• 20:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:02AJ Gentile?

  That's why it's okay.

• 20:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:04AJ Gentile?

  You know, I kinda get it.

• 20:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm not, um, was I angry about it when I was younger? Absolutely, but I'm not now, um.

• 20:10AJ Gentile?

  When did you find out you were adopted?

• 20:12Speaker 05

  Very early, um. I think my parents told me when I was seven.

• 20:19AJ Gentile?

  When you were seven.

• 20:20Speaker 05

  Six or seven, yeah.

• 20:22AJ Gentile?

  How did that conversation start?

• 20:24Speaker 05

  Oh, uh. What little I remember of it, uh, my mom and dad both just wanted to like. They sat down and go. We love you. The same as Terry, you know, but we have to tell you this. That's, it's foggy. That conversation, but, uh, I remember it tripping me out. Oh, for a, listen, if you're adopted, it, it. It, I'm sure it affects people differently, but it affects you. It does. It's like I, you, you, you don't feel wanted. Um, and you're always thinking about. That person who like.

• 21:02AJ Gentile?

  Who just dumped you.

• 21:02Speaker 05

  What does she look like?

• 21:03AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 21:04Speaker 05

  Why did she? Do this, you know, um.

• 21:07AJ Gentile?

  Why did, why were you rejected?

• 21:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, and you're trying to deal with stuff like that when you're like seven years old. So. Uh, I used to, uh, yeah, I used to. Like have a little fantasies about it when I was a kid, but like honestly, I never got mad at my parents about it and other than feeling. The abandonment, um.

• 21:26AJ Gentile?

  When is a good age to tell an adoptee?

• 21:28Speaker 05

  I don't know if there's ever a good, I think early as possible is the best way to do it.

• 21:32AJ Gentile?

  Seven feels really hard.

• 21:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, but if you wait too long.

• 21:37AJ Gentile?

  True.

• 21:38Speaker 05

  I.

• 21:38AJ Gentile?

  It's true. I don't know.

• 21:40Speaker 05

  Honestly, I don't know a good answer to that question, but it softened the blow with me because again, it's going to affect you no matter what. So do you affect them early or late? That's on the parent to do that. I don't have a good suggestion for that, but for me it wasn't terrible.

• 21:58AJ Gentile?

  Well, you were kind of a little asshole.

• 21:59Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 22:00AJ Gentile?

  For a long time.

• 22:01Speaker 05

  Long time.

• 22:01AJ Gentile?

  Do you think?

• 22:02Speaker 05

  Some might argue I still am.

• 22:04AJ Gentile?

  Some might. I wouldn't. But you're kind of an asshole. Your poor parents, man.

• 22:11AJ Gentile?

  Reading the book, I'm like, they're still sticking with this kid. Um, if they had told you a little later, do you think you would have been a little more chill?

• 22:25Speaker 05

  Maybe.

• 22:26AJ Gentile?

  I'm just because there's an undercurrent of anger in your origin story.

• 22:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:32AJ Gentile?

  Railing against the man, authority, all of that. The anger is coming from somewhere because when you're 11 or 12, you don't really know anything. So what are you angry about? So if they waited.

• 22:44Speaker 05

  If they waited, I don't think it would have helped my anger. Uh, maybe a more mature 12 because I wasn't super mature, but that was because of the things that had I if if anything that made me angry, we can talk about like what happened to me in school.

• 22:59AJ Gentile?

  Let's do it.

• 23:00Speaker 05

  This is way worse than finding out, uh, I was adopted was I was, uh, molested by a teacher, by a school teacher. So.

• 23:08AJ Gentile?

  How old?

• 23:09Speaker 05

  Uh, I was in second grade. So whatever age second grade is.

• 23:13AJ Gentile?

  Six or seven.

• 23:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. So right around the same time.

• 23:17Speaker 05

  Right around the same time.

• 23:18AJ Gentile?

  That's a busy year.

• 23:19Speaker 05

  That's a.

• 23:19AJ Gentile?

  Were you singled out by that teacher?

• 23:21Speaker 05

  Um, I don't know. It felt like I was, but I honestly don't know. Um, and he was brazen about it like he would. Uh, like during, uh, we were watching a Disney movie. Maybe this is why I hate Disney. Um, we were watching a Disney movie and he pulled me in the back. And while the kids are watching and did stuff, right?

• 23:48Speaker 05

  Um, I, I was about to say nothing horrible, but no, it was horrible.

• 23:52AJ Gentile?

  Of course it was.

• 23:52Speaker 05

  It was all horrible. Right? So this, I, I, if you want to like, put a finger on my deep distrust of the government, the system, uh, my, I don't like teachers unions because they protect. This is not AJ, this is me. Um, they protect people like this.

• 24:10AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 24:10Speaker 05

  And it's been proven that they do this, uh, and they don't do anything about it. Uh, so it really set me up to completely fail in school, not trust any adult, not trust any authority.

• 24:26AJ Gentile?

  So there's definitely anger there that you're carrying. You didn't, you didn't tell anyone about what the teacher was doing, right?

• 24:31Speaker 05

  No, no, no, didn't tell, uh, as a matter of fact, I got, um, when one day was particularly bad, I bailed on, on school. I just walked out of school.

• 24:42AJ Gentile?

  Second grade?

• 24:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. In second grade. So there's a little second grader walking home on this busy, uh, La Costa Avenue. If you're familiar with Southern California, little second grader and people started noticing that they called the school. Bus driver came and got me.

• 24:59Speaker 05

  And, uh, I got in trouble. I got in huge trouble for it.

• 25:03AJ Gentile?

  That's interesting.

• 25:04Speaker 05

  And I couldn't say what, what I was, you know, they're all, why'd you leave?

• 25:08AJ Gentile?

  That would make any kid angry.

• 25:10Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 25:11AJ Gentile?

  Cause I hear you are taking the heat for it and you have no idea what I've been through. Um, I was angry at that teacher the whole way through your book. Uh, I know you were through your sobriety. We'll get to that.

• 25:21Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:21AJ Gentile?

  But, um, how, how you got through that is, is amazing. I don't know if I could. So, uh,

• 25:31AJ Gentile?

  second grade. When did you start becoming a delinquent?

• 25:37Speaker 05

  Not far after that, uh, I broke, I wanted a toy.

• 25:43AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 25:43Speaker 05

  And, uh, knew where the spare key was and broke into my friend's house, got caught by his dad. You know, like all this, this is at a, you know, single digit.

• 25:54AJ Gentile?

  Single digit.

• 25:55Speaker 05

  Broke into my first house.

• 25:57AJ Gentile?

  I mean, a theme.

• 25:57Speaker 05

  Just cause I wanted something.

• 25:59AJ Gentile?

  Throughout your book, you're just the worst criminal ever. You're just not good at it, Gary.

• 26:03Speaker 05

  No, I'm stupid as hell. Still am, by the way. Uh, but yeah, I just, you know, I just like, I, I remember, I remember getting caught.

• 26:15AJ Gentile?

  Of course.

• 26:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, uh, you know, I went home and, uh, they told my dad and I got in a huge amount of trouble, but it, it never discouraged me.

• 26:25AJ Gentile?

  No, it didn't. You kept going back.

• 26:27Speaker 05

  I kept doing it.

• 26:29AJ Gentile?

  What about substances, booze and stuff? When did that start?

• 26:32Speaker 05

  That started, uh, oh God, 11, 10, 11, 12. Um.

• 26:37AJ Gentile?

  How is that even around an 11 year old?

• 26:39Speaker 05

  Well, pot was around.

• 26:41AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 26:42Speaker 05

  Pot was around, but, um, first time I, I really got drunk was at, uh, Roscoe, South Dakota. They had a centennial or, yeah, a centennial. And there was like half drinking beers laying around and I'm like, oh, I just want to try this because my dad would let me sip a beer.

• 27:00AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 27:00Speaker 05

  So I saw everybody else getting drunk. I'm like, ah, let's try it. And I loved it. I was like, oh, so I'm drinking like people. I don't know what the hell's in this can. I just, I didn't care.

• 27:11AJ Gentile?

  You love the drink or you love the feeling?

• 27:12Speaker 05

  I love the feeling. Drink tasted like crap.

• 27:16AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 27:16Speaker 05

  Yep. I've never liked the taste of alcohol.

• 27:18AJ Gentile?

  But the escape is pretty good.

• 27:19Speaker 05

  Yep. That's where it all started. I'm like, oh, this is for me. This is for me. And then it went to pot and, uh, not, uh, not too far after that. Um, a friend of mine like laid out a, a line of, of, of crystal meth, which is a lot, I guess, a lot different now than it was back then. It was called crank back then.

• 27:41AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm. How old are you now? When the?

• 27:44Speaker 05

  Uh, this is junior high.

• 27:47AJ Gentile?

  Are you holding now? You have anything decent? Anything good?

• 27:49Speaker 05

  No, nothing, nothing. No, no. I've got some nicotine things that, there you go. There you go. Um, yeah, I, I have one bad habit still. I, I vape.

• 28:02AJ Gentile?

  That is not your only bad habit, but that's fine.

• 28:05Speaker 05

  Well, right now. No. So, okay. So I'm.

• 28:09AJ Gentile?

  So where's your crank? Who are you hanging out with? I didn't see, I didn't, I hardly saw pot growing up and it's not like.

• 28:15Speaker 05

  Oh, this was just my friends in junior high and it, and I was a jock early on, so I was hanging out with the jocks.

• 28:22AJ Gentile?

  Football.

• 28:23Speaker 05

  Football, basketball. So I played tight end. I played linebacker. I was also punter. I was backup quarterback. So I was pretty good.

• 28:30AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 28:30Speaker 05

  You know, for, for a white boy in like all white boy county.

• 28:34AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 28:34Speaker 05

  But, um. Yeah, so he lays out a line for me and I did it and then I'm like, what's it do? I had no idea what it did. He's all, ah, you get your homework done today.

• 28:46Speaker 05

  And I got my homework done. I'm like, this is great. It, it makes me excited about everything I hate. Cause I, school never really worked for me and I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who feel the same way. Um, it just, I was, uh, I think the best, at best, I was a C student when I paid attention, but it never captured my attention. This is before drugs. It just never interested me.

• 29:12AJ Gentile?

  This is basically Adderall.

• 29:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, it, it's, I mean, people, they called it hyperactive back then. I was considered a hyperactive child.

• 29:20AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 29:20Speaker 05

  And, uh, it did, I mean, it did focus me for a little while. It, it, it did, but, uh,

• 29:28AJ Gentile?

  Look, I'm on that stuff. I've used that stuff. I struggle with drinking too much. I go sober on and off. I struggle with it on and off. I totally feel all of this. You just went, you went harder, but I totally get all of it. And that feeling of just clarity of all the chaos and your, and the ADHD mind is very, very intriguing. Of just like, oh my goodness, I could be productive.

• 29:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, and it's, it was the first time, like, maybe there's something wrong with me. Like, I've heard that before, but that was the first time I'm like, wow. If this stuff works on me, that can't be good. I even knew that.

• 30:05AJ Gentile?

  You knew that.

• 30:05Speaker 05

  Then, yeah. Uh, but the fact is, it works and it makes, it makes me focused for the first time. The thing is though, that's not exactly true because I would focus like crazy on stuff I was interested in. Like I would focus on comics and entertainment and all this stuff my dad and my mom said wasn't important. And they were wrong, you know? They said it wasn't important, uh, and I wouldn't pay attention to anything I was supposed to. And it, it eventually got me out of like the things I did love sports. It got me out of those and then I started hanging around with all the bad kids. Cause once I started doing the drugs, I'm like, well, I need to hang around the people who are doing the drugs.

• 30:47AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, who have the drugs and you're not really going to school anymore, right?

• 30:50Speaker 05

  No, no. I started ditching in freshman year and I managed to squeak out sophomore year. But then that was it. I got kicked out of San Gito High School.

• 31:03AJ Gentile?

  Hang on one second. Hey Haley, get Jen in here.

• 31:11AJ Gentile?

  Started using, when the Mets started when you were what, about 13?

• 31:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:16AJ Gentile?

  14?

• 31:18AJ Gentile?

  How were you getting the money for that?

• 31:20Speaker 05

  How am I getting the money for that? Well, at first, it was

• 31:27Speaker 05

  friends had the money and they shared it and it was kind of like normal. Um, I had a paper route, um, but

• 31:36AJ Gentile?

  Did you get the paper route saying I need drug money?

• 31:38Speaker 05

  No, no, no, that was, that was normal. That was normal, but, um, mm, right away stealing? Like, right away. I would get jobs. The jobs came later, like when I was 16. Uh, my first job was at Burger King.

• 31:54AJ Gentile?

  Come sit on my lap.

• 31:56Speaker 05

  Oh, boy.

• 31:57AJ Gentile?

  Stage directions. Gary bounces around a couple of high schools. He's not, he's not doing, he's not doing well.

• 32:04Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 32:05AJ Gentile?

  He goes to, I guess, the high school for bad kids, right?

• 32:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:10AJ Gentile?

  This is, this is just a, just a quick scene. Have a seat from Gary's memoir.

• 32:14Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 32:14AJ Gentile?

  Uh, your, your stage direction. I'm the teacher.

• 32:17Speaker 06

  All right.

• 32:18AJ Gentile?

  And Gary's Gary. We'll start with stage direction, interior Sunset High School.

• 32:23Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 32:23Speaker 05

  Oh, God, Sunset.

• 32:25Speaker 06

  Interior Sunset High School, classroom day. The last bell rings. Students file out. Gary Beekler, 17, wiry, restless, stays seated at his desk, but not by choice. He watches the other kids leave with the dead eyed patience of someone who's been through this before. The teacher, mid 40s, waits behind his desk jaw tight until the room empties, a long beat of silence. Then he stands, walks slowly to Gary's desk and looks him dead in the eye.

• 32:49AJ Gentile?

  Beekler, I've had enough of you.

• 32:51Speaker 06

  Gary doesn't flinch. He looks right back.

• 32:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, is that right?

• 32:55AJ Gentile?

  It absolutely is. I've had more than my fill of you, way more.

• 32:59Speaker 05

  You don't say.

• 32:59AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, I do. I do say, you're wasting my time, Beekler. You're wasting everyone's time here. We both know you don't belong here at Sunset. You're never going to amount to anything ever. And as far as I'm concerned, I want you out of here.

• 33:10Speaker 06

  Gary stands up slowly. No fear, no hesitation.

• 33:12Speaker 05

  Really?

• 33:13AJ Gentile?

  Really.

• 33:17Speaker 05

  I've got the most amazing coincidence to share with you. I, I want the same goddamn thing. So here's my idea. What if you go fuck yourself?

• 33:28Speaker 06

  The teacher's face goes red. He starts screaming. A full-blown unhinged adult meltdown. Gary's never seen anything like it.

• 33:34AJ Gentile?

  Beekler! You cannot talk to a teacher like that, you useless piece of shit!

• 33:40Speaker 06

  They stir each other down. A long, electric beat. Gary thinks for a couple of seconds, then he makes his decision. He punches the teacher square in the mouth, hard. The teacher goes down fast. He doesn't come back up. Gary looks at him on the floor, looks at the door, he walks out.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:55Speaker 06

  Fade to black.

• 33:56Speaker 05

  Fade to black. That was the end of my school career.

• 34:00AJ Gentile?

  Wow.

• 34:02AJ Gentile?

  Punched him right in the mouth.

• 34:03Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 34:04AJ Gentile?

  That was a tense scene because I'm, I was waiting for him to punch you. I was ho- I wanted him to. I wanted him to punch you. And that was the end of your school career?

• 34:12Speaker 05

  That was it.

• 34:13AJ Gentile?

  Press charges?

• 34:14Speaker 05

  Um, no. Nope, no, not, not the, I mean-

• 34:17AJ Gentile?

  Dodged another bullet?

• 34:19Speaker 05

  Uh, and I was partying so hard. If they could, they could have pressed charges or told my parents, wouldn't have mattered. Like, I was pretty much gone at that point.

• 34:28AJ Gentile?

  What are they, what are your parents trying to do? Are they trying to intervene? Or are they just-

• 34:31Speaker 05

  My parents have given up at that point.

• 34:33AJ Gentile?

  How did, what do you mean given up? They're still letting you stay?

• 34:35Speaker 05

  Uh, no, they, they booted me. So, right, yeah, they booted me. No, it was the greatest act of love my father ever showed me. Uh, my father, Arvin Beekler, I passed away in, in the early 2000s from cancer and, uh, was a great man. And, uh, I didn't recognize that.

• 34:51AJ Gentile?

  He was a great man.

• 34:52Speaker 05

  Yep, yep. And, uh, greatest act of love he ever showed me was to give me the boot. And I'm, I'm, and not look back. And I'm sure it killed him inside. Uh, at the time, I thought he was a complete asshole and couldn't care less if he lived or died. Uh, my mom would, would enable, I was able to manipulate my mom and enable at times when I needed to, but mostly I was, I was on my own.

• 35:20Speaker 05

  On the streets.

• 35:21AJ Gentile?

  We'll keep it chronological, but just a sidebar. Your story about your dad, I had the same story with the cancer and it sucks. It sucks to watch it. My dad was a superhero to watch him get cancer, just kick his ass. Did dad ever forgive you?

• 35:38Speaker 05

  Yes. Yes, we, we reconciled and we actually got really close. Towards the last, right when I got out of, uh, we won't get too far ahead, but after prison, we were the best of friends. Absolute the best of friends.

• 35:53AJ Gentile?

  I was so happy to hear that.

• 35:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:55AJ Gentile?

  Because I couldn't believe they stuck with you.

• 35:58Speaker 05

  I couldn't either.

• 35:59AJ Gentile?

  All right. So you're, you punched the teacher in the mouth. No charges. What happens next? What do you say? 16?

• 36:08Speaker 05

  16 and it's just pure chaos. Um, staying, uh, mostly staying at my friend's house. I mean, all the names were changed to protect the innocent and guilty.

• 36:18AJ Gentile?

  Right. So this is Bobby.

• 36:19Speaker 05

  Yes. And we stayed at, uh, it was called the Crystal Palace. People from Encinitas will know it. Uh, so you'll know who I'm talking about. At the time in the eighties and it was just a party house. It was, it was not unlike the Crass House. In the UK, if you're familiar with the story of the Crass House, except there's no creativity. Well, there was some creativity going on, but it was mostly just drugs. His dad was a bartender and would be gone all day. And when he came back, he was just checked out and didn't care. So.

• 36:51AJ Gentile?

  Drunk?

• 36:52Speaker 05

  Drunk, completely drunk, complete alcoholic.

• 36:55AJ Gentile?

  So this is perfect.

• 36:56Speaker 05

  Yeah. Perfect. We had run, we had girls over all the time and we were not like the coolest kids in school.

• 37:03AJ Gentile?

  You weren't.

• 37:05Speaker 05

  But we became that because we threw the parties and it was for a while, it was like lots of fun. And that was my like found family for a little while. Of course it all went to shit. Pretty quick.

• 37:19AJ Gentile?

  You you seem to know pretty early on that you are making bad decisions that you're gonna have to pay for one day.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 37:26AJ Gentile?

  How early, how young, did you realize this is bad as I'm doing it anyway, but this is not gonna end well?

• 37:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, um, I I never thought I'd live to thirty. So I'm like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna ride this out. Now, I was not ever like suicidal. Uh, but I'm like, ah, you know, this, uh, but I never really gave it a ton of thought about the con. I knew the consequences were there, but I'm like, that's tomorrow.

• 37:51AJ Gentile?

  That's tomorrow.

• 37:52Speaker 05

  That's tomorrow. I'm gonna get, see, cuz when you know.

• 37:54AJ Gentile?

  The worst one day at a time ever.

• 37:55Speaker 05

  It is. That's why they teach you one day at a time because that's pretty much how the addict goes about. It is just today. I need to, I either have my drugs when I, if I wake up in the morning, if I'm not up all night. Or, um, I gotta find my drugs and it's, it's, it's like feeding. It's like a shark feeding you. You have to have that. And then everything else can happen in jobs and fringe relationships, friends, girlfriends. None of that matters because the drugs are your god. Uh, and that's where the disease portion comes in. I think a lot of people fight back on this and, uh, and I get it. I get it. It's not a disease in the sense of, you know, like Parkinson's or, or cancer. It's, it's a disease.

• 38:39AJ Gentile?

  It's way worse.

• 38:40Speaker 05

  It it's a disease that requires a conscious decision. So, um, I think if anybody ever used the disease part as an excuse to, you know, to relieve them of any responsibility, that's, that's not, that's not what it means. It just means that our brain chemistry is different. Um, and not necessarily good. So we have an addictive personality to where, you know, there's just some people who can drink half a beer and leave it on the counter. I was never that person. And I don't think any addict is, uh, and.

• 39:15AJ Gentile?

  I drink till it's, till it's, till it's dark black, it's gone.

• 39:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. But I was like that with my, my Halloween candy. Like I couldn't, I, I ate it all one night.

• 39:27AJ Gentile?

  You were instructed not to do that.

• 39:29Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 39:31AJ Gentile?

  So, Crystal Palace, sixteen seventeen, I guess we can fast forward to Bobby's in the backseat, what, weighing out baggies? Cause you're, cause you're dealing a little bit, right?

• 39:43Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 39:44AJ Gentile?

  Mostly using, but dealing a little bit to make some cash.

• 39:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was dealing to pretty much my friends or a couple of older people. Uh, but I knew everybody. I was dealing, I was never dealing to, to strangers or, uh, it was usually just my fellow teenagers.

• 40:00AJ Gentile?

  Just part of the party?

• 40:01Speaker 05

  Yep. I was terrible at it. I was awful.

• 40:05AJ Gentile?

  So Bobby's in the back, you're driving, you're, is you, I think you, this is your Oldsmobile?

• 40:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, sixty-seven Oldsmobile.

• 40:13Speaker 05

  It was sweet, twenty-two thousand miles on it. It was a sweet car. Got it from a little old lady, who was a neighbor of my grandma.

• 40:21AJ Gentile?

  Always the little old ladies where the good cars come from.

• 40:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:24AJ Gentile?

  Uh, didn't end well for the olds either. So you're driving the olds, Bobby's in the back weighing out baggies. Whoop, whoop, here we go. And.

• 40:34Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 40:36AJ Gentile?

  You didn't get into it too much, but you knew this lady cop?

• 40:39Speaker 05

  Uh, yes.

• 40:40AJ Gentile?

  How did you know her?

• 40:41Speaker 05

  Uh, she had busted us on enough times for like curfew, uh, and, and just little minor stuff, but, uh, little scraps here and there. But we used to hang out at a, a pinball plus. It was a arcade. It was in a, there was not much to do in Southern California in the eighties, in San Diego. It is suburbia. So if there is an arcade, that's where every kid's gonna go. And that's what we did.

• 41:08AJ Gentile?

  Same.

• 41:08Speaker 05

  So, uh, they started enforcing a curfew. So that's how we, we, we knew each other and she really hated me, but I had, uh.

• 41:15AJ Gentile?

  She hated you because of your attitude?

• 41:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, my attitude was shit. Like she had a good reason too. It's not like she didn't.

• 41:20AJ Gentile?

  Cause this anti-authority thing is, goes through all this, right?

• 41:22Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 41:22AJ Gentile?

  She's, and she's the man. So she knocks on the windows, ah, hey Gary.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 41:30AJ Gentile?

  And you were.

• 41:32Speaker 04

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• 42:01AJ Gentile?

  Hi, officer.

• 42:02Speaker 05

  Hello. And well, there's the Batman handcuffs, right? So, uh,

• 42:07AJ Gentile?

  That's right. Is that why you got pulled over?

• 42:09Speaker 05

  I got pulled over for Batman handcuffs hanging off my rear view mirror as an obstruction.

• 42:14AJ Gentile?

  Obstruction?

• 42:15Speaker 05

  She saw me and found an excuse. And yeah, so we got busted. Um,

• 42:21AJ Gentile?

  Now, hang on. She tossed the car.

• 42:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, tossed it.

• 42:24AJ Gentile?

  You said she looked, she found that, it's found the meth and it was like she hit the lottery.

• 42:30Speaker 05

  It was the greatest day of her life.

• 42:31AJ Gentile?

  Abs- absolutely. Been waiting for this all summer long. Scale.

• 42:37Speaker 05

  Scale.

• 42:38AJ Gentile?

  Intense distribute?

• 42:39Speaker 05

  Yep. Scale. I told him to keep it fucking home, but he didn't. And, uh, that was the first time I really went to jail. No, that, that's it. Yeah, that was, I went for a, you know, a couple of weeks, a couple, three weeks, couple of months.

• 42:53AJ Gentile?

  Hold on a second. You go in, you get booked. I come from a cop family. I had this first.

• 42:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:57AJ Gentile?

  You get booked, you get separated and, and they want to know the story when they're, when they're writing you up.

• 43:02Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 43:04AJ Gentile?

  Bobby fingered you, yeah?

• 43:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, he did.

• 43:07AJ Gentile?

  Cause you were just driving.

• 43:09Speaker 05

  I, that's, I told the truth. I was just driving. I, but nobody's going to believe that it wasn't mine. But it really wasn't. But he's all, no, it was his.

• 43:19AJ Gentile?

  So.

• 43:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:20AJ Gentile?

  You didn't snitch?

• 43:22Speaker 05

  I didn't. Bobby did.

• 43:24AJ Gentile?

  And this, and you go to jail?

• 43:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, uh, this is the first time. So we're in San Diego County jail and it's, uh, it's down, uh, near Union Street downtown.

• 43:36AJ Gentile?

  Are you, are you nervous? You frightened?

• 43:39Speaker 05

  Oh, totally, totally. Like this is like, what the hell is going on? And then we're, you know,

• 43:43AJ Gentile?

  Do you show it? Or you try to? Be tough.

• 43:47Speaker 05

  I tried to be tough. Don't know how much I pulled it off. Luckily, the chaos of the place probably kind of hid that. Because it was just a big dorm, right? And it was a big receiving dorm.

• 43:59AJ Gentile?

  You didn't know at this point that this is nothing.

• 44:02Speaker 05

  Oh, no clue.

• 44:03AJ Gentile?

  Nothing.

• 44:04Speaker 05

  No clue. Uh, got, got out of that one.

• 44:08AJ Gentile?

  Well, how did mom and dad handle that?

• 44:11Speaker 05

  Uh, not very well, but my dad got a lawyer and said, this is the one time I'll help you.

• 44:16AJ Gentile?

  If I'm, if I remember correctly, you technically got the lawyer, right?

• 44:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, yeah.

• 44:23AJ Gentile?

  What'd he say through the glass?

• 44:25Speaker 05

  Oh, the, the lawyer?

• 44:27AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 05

  Well, I, do you know what I had to give up to get this lawyer, right?

• 44:31AJ Gentile?

  I do, they don't.

• 44:32Speaker 05

  Okay. Uh, I had to give up, uh, an Oldsmobile.

• 44:37AJ Gentile?

  The Oldsmobile, the sixty seven Old, because your dad said, I'm gonna get you this lawyer, but you're gonna pay for it.

• 44:42Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 44:43AJ Gentile?

  And you said, yes, sir.

• 44:45Speaker 05

  Yes, sir, of course.

• 44:46AJ Gentile?

  Of course. For freedom.

• 44:47Speaker 05

  I didn't even think twice about it. I mean, it hurts now. Because I'm like, maybe I could have stayed in an extra week. But I had to give up that, and, uh, like, the engine was, it was spotless, dude. Like, um, the painting on the, you know, I'm having to go off memory, but it said spitfire engine on it. It was painted in red and it was all original and was all still there.

• 45:10AJ Gentile?

  What was it, three fifty?

• 45:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:12AJ Gentile?

  Oh, yeah. Three fifty. So your dad must have been so proud. His, his baby boy found his way. All problems are solved.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  Uh, no, dad was not happy, uh, about any of this and they, uh, you know, you got to get clean. They did all that stuff. And I just kept partying. I just, you know, once, once, once I was out.

• 45:33AJ Gentile?

  And still booze and meth, right?

• 45:35Speaker 05

  Booze, booze and meth. It became more meth. I was way more into speed because like, I don't know, I, I,

• 45:43Speaker 05

  I smoked pot, I, I, I drank, but anything that kind of makes you feel tired, I was never really into. What's funny is like, well, it's not funny.

• 45:51AJ Gentile?

  You and I would have got along so well. I would have been a great customer.

• 45:54Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. When, when, when I can find like alternatives, I never like in the early days, maybe did coke a couple of times. That, that's later. But, uh, we found like Dexedream and the diet pills and stuff like, oh, yeah.

• 46:08AJ Gentile?

  I'm familiar.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Love that stuff.

• 46:13AJ Gentile?

  Me too.

• 46:16AJ Gentile?

  So now you start breaking into houses, right?

• 46:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, pretty regularly. Cars and houses.

• 46:24AJ Gentile?

  Cars and houses. And there was one that was so stupid. So stupid, it was so heavy. Can you, can you tell that story?

• 46:35Speaker 05

  Well, is this, okay, well, there's a lot of them are still the one with the pennies. Okay. So this is.

• 46:44Speaker 05

  This is so retarded. Um, okay. This is, this shows you the insanity of drugs. I can't remember who I was with now. We, um, some guy looked like he was in the Allman Brothers. Right?

• 46:58AJ Gentile?

  You guys all look like that.

• 46:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I'm half the people I'm hanging with at this point, I don't even know. Uh, so I get this great idea that we need, uh, money. Uh, I had none, but I know for a fact that my neighbor has this, the water bottles when they were glass. I think some of them still are. And one filled full of pennies and I'm like, well, there's gotta be a hundred bucks in there, a couple hundred bucks, maybe, you know? Um, didn't think very much about like how heavy it would be. Right?

• 47:29AJ Gentile?

  Right?

• 47:30Speaker 05

  So I, I, I knew how to get in their house and I'm a genius. I cut a hole in the chain like fence to thinking.

• 47:41AJ Gentile?

  You're just providing a trail of evidence?

• 47:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, providing a trail. I might as well have just like left breadcrumbs out and said, this is Gary.

• 47:49AJ Gentile?

  I wish I could see your face when you go to grab the penny and you go.

• 47:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I'm like, oh shit. This is really heavy. And I wasn't like in the best shape of the world. Um, so I, yeah, I get away with it for a, a little while, but then eventually I get caught. Yeah, but I got, I went and lost a year of my life.

• 48:09AJ Gentile?

  You did a year for the pennies?

• 48:10Speaker 05

  For the pennies.

• 48:13Speaker 05

  A water bottle full of pennies.

• 48:14AJ Gentile?

  Still county?

• 48:15Speaker 05

  Still county at this point. So we, yeah, you, I went to.

• 48:20AJ Gentile?

  Is this before the Porsche incident?

• 48:22Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 48:23AJ Gentile?

  Oh, God. Okay.

• 48:24Speaker 05

  So, so it was, um, yeah, I, I, I did county jail and this is the fire camp and all that. So.

• 48:32AJ Gentile?

  So you were, you're like almost a volunteer fireman while you were in there?

• 48:36Speaker 05

  Yep. Yep.

• 48:37AJ Gentile?

  Serving the community, getting exercise outside and you still screwed it up?

• 48:43Speaker 05

  Absolutely screwed up almost immediately. I was in the best shape of my life. Uh, I got hurt. So, uh, I was able to manipulate that, that injury.

• 48:53AJ Gentile?

  Is this, how did you get hurt?

• 48:54Speaker 05

  I broke my tailbone. Yeah. Yeah. I broke my tailbone.

• 48:58AJ Gentile?

  How?

• 48:58Speaker 05

  Uh, fucking around. Um, I was walking down a, a mountain and I was like pretending I was skiing. I was and I slipped and busted my tailbone, but I was able to like manipulate that into getting into a halfway house. Right? Uh, so, you know, the last little bit of my sentence wasn't too bad. Right? I got to, you know, go out once in a while.

• 49:23AJ Gentile?

  So you, you get out, we'll fast forward a little bit. You go back to using, dealing all that. And I forget how the chapter started, but it may, the chapter started something like,

• 49:33AJ Gentile?

  you thought it would be a good idea to get a gun and I've got an idea how to get one.

• 49:38Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 49:38AJ Gentile?

  And I went, oh no.

• 49:41Speaker 05

  I never had a gun and, uh, I was like this, ah, this is how stupid it is. So I didn't need to do anything.

• 49:51AJ Gentile?

  You didn't care for your life?

• 49:53Speaker 05

  Uh, no, no, I, I, I, I had a bunch of money.

• 49:56AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 49:56Speaker 05

  I had a bunch of drugs.

• 49:58AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 49:58Speaker 05

  Alls I had to do was get high and have fun. I'm like, you know, I know a good way to screw this up.

• 50:04AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 50:05Speaker 05

  I need a gun. So I'm going to go to an ex-girlfriend's house to her dad's. Got a gun collection. I'm gonna break in while they're there. Some bored, you know, whatever. Um, was behind that. It wasn't, it wasn't like suicide or it's like, I'm gonna off myself. No, it was just like, I want a gun.

• 50:24AJ Gentile?

  Never rob a gun guy's house.

• 50:25Speaker 05

  No, um, that's really.

• 50:27AJ Gentile?

  Go on.

• 50:28Speaker 05

  It's really dumb. So I get in.

• 50:32AJ Gentile?

  You get into the garage, right?

• 50:33Speaker 05

  I get into the garage on the side door and go into the house and there's a little dog. So little dogs. Are the absolute best security. Big dogs, you can feed them or pet them and like some of them, not all, but. Little dogs will just bark and bark and bark and bark. This, this little shit dog was barking like crazy. So I'm like, okay, I gotta. I gotta pull the eject on this one. I gotta get out of here.

• 50:56AJ Gentile?

  But hold on just a quick second. A little bit of real Gary shows through here because in your book, you say you thought for a second about killing the dog.

• 51:03Speaker 05

  Yes. I could, I could have just like strangled the dog and uh. At that point, it wouldn't have mattered. Uh, cause you could, I could have probably strangled it and he would have stopped barking. Uh, but there's no way I'm gonna kill a dog. There's just no way in hell. I was gonna kill a dog.

• 51:19AJ Gentile?

  So.

• 51:20Speaker 05

  So it's like, okay, time to go. And uh, went through the garage door and this is where like. You start thinking about higher power and. And uh, fate. The, the door I just used to get in the side door for the garage, the door handle falls off. It falls off.

• 51:41AJ Gentile?

  It's so cinematic. This, this story. Go on. So you're stuck in there.

• 51:46Speaker 05

  And I hide under a Porsche. There's not a lot of room to hide under.

• 51:52Speaker 05

  And uh, her dad has got a gun to my, you know, pulls me out.

• 51:57AJ Gentile?

  So you, but you see the feet, right?

• 51:59Speaker 05

  I see the feet.

• 51:59AJ Gentile?

  This is like in, in a movie.

• 52:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then, well, he can see me too. So.

• 52:03AJ Gentile?

  Of course. He knows what's going on.

• 52:05Speaker 05

  So I get out, I see the feet. I'm like, I'm just waiting to get, I'm like, oh, I guess I'm not getting out of this one. Right. And then I've got a gun to my face.

• 52:12AJ Gentile?

  Did he say, did he recognize you? No.

• 52:15Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 52:17AJ Gentile?

  So, hey, Gary, now there's a gun on your face.

• 52:18Speaker 05

  Now there's a gun on my face and he's mad as hell and his hand is shaking. You can see the bullets in the chamber and I'm like, oh.

• 52:26AJ Gentile?

  Shit.

• 52:27Speaker 05

  Um, and I got my life saved by a cop, you know, a cop, they called the cops and I didn't get shot in the face. Uh, and I'm sure you, you know, the cop's like, you know, he's on the Navy pistol team. Like I could have shot you from 50 yards right between the eyes.

• 52:42AJ Gentile?

  He probably wanted to.

• 52:44Speaker 05

  Probably wanted to. And, uh, I ended up writing him a letter like later on, so.

• 52:50AJ Gentile?

  During your recovery?

• 52:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, during my recovery.

• 52:51AJ Gentile?

  That was like a make amends type of thing?

• 52:53Speaker 05

  Never heard back, but I'm sure he got it.

• 52:56AJ Gentile?

  That's, that's important.

• 52:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. But that was when I went in for a long, cause I had the prior.

• 53:02AJ Gentile?

  Now you've got priors and now I guess it's a, it's a hot prow. So B and E.

• 53:09Speaker 05

  That's a hot, it's a first degree burglary.

• 53:10AJ Gentile?

  First degree burglary, yeah. So I guess you go to county for booking, but you were not going to stay in county.

• 53:18Speaker 05

  No, no, this was a, I go into county, uh, until we, you know, sentencing and everything, and then it's off to prison. Uh, you get a little bit of time served from your time in county, off to prison.

• 53:32AJ Gentile?

  Before you go to prison, you're in county and, um, just talk a little bit about that because I remember there was a, there was a dude in there who gave you advice that was kind of interesting. Cause there's also, there's the fear of prison and you're going through all these places, but there's also a weird brotherhood and camaraderie and kind of looking out for each other sometimes.

• 53:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:53AJ Gentile?

  And this guy gave you advice was, I thought was very strange, but it worked out.

• 53:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, maybe I was, I mean, I was 22 at the time, so I, I looked like a pup.

• 54:07AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 54:07Speaker 05

  And, uh, yeah, somebody took sympathy on me and, and just like, hey, you're going to go to prison. Here's, here's some rules. You know, they're pretty basic rules and I'll paraphrase what's in the book. I'll try to keep it. You know, politically correct, but it was, well, you know, don't mess with gambling. Uh, don't mess with the gays. That's not the word he used.

• 54:32AJ Gentile?

  Now, hold on a second. I think that advice is before you go into Folsom. I'm talking about the guy who said you're gonna get a plea deal. Take it.

• 54:39Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. Sorry, sorry. So, yes, um, I'm gonna get a plea deal. Absolutely. Take it. Don't fight it because if you don't, you will do end up doing a lot more time.

• 54:51AJ Gentile?

  Um, so he says, go in there, be cool.

• 54:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:54AJ Gentile?

  And you'll get out.

• 54:55Speaker 05

  Yep. Just take, take your time. There's no way of fighting this. You're, you're going to prison like, and you know, I knew that. Uh, and we were looking at it. I got the mid sentence. So I got everything he said I was gonna get.

• 55:10AJ Gentile?

  What'd you get?

• 55:11Speaker 05

  I got, I got four years, but you do too.

• 55:13AJ Gentile?

  How did you feel when you turned around at that courthouse and saw mom and dad sitting there?

• 55:17Speaker 05

  Horrible. It was the worst feeling of my life.

• 55:21Speaker 05

  Looking at your parents, uh, in the face after you get sentenced to, uh, four years in prison and, uh, they adopted you. They raised you.

• 55:31AJ Gentile?

  Did your father look at you?

• 55:32Speaker 05

  Uh,

• 55:35Speaker 05

  yeah. It was, it was pretty shameful. They look crushed. They look crushed.

• 55:43AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, cuz they stood by you through all of this.

• 55:46Speaker 05

  But it was, uh, yeah, that was tough, man. That was, uh, not, not good. And, uh, then getting in that bus and, uh,

• 55:57AJ Gentile?

  You're on the bus for hours and hours.

• 55:59Speaker 05

  Hours and like shackled up.

• 56:03AJ Gentile?

  It's just like what you think is in the movie is how this is just as bad as you think it is, is how this is. And when did you find out you were going to, going to Old Folsom? You're going to the Johnny Cash Folsom.

• 56:17Speaker 05

  I got ahead of that. Sorry. Um, it was,

• 56:20AJ Gentile?

  Cuz you're not supposed to go there, I don't think.

• 56:22Speaker 05

  No, no, no. Um, they were doing something they shouldn't have been doing, but it's due to overcrowding. So I stayed. Donovan was a receiving facility in San Diego. I got stuck there for four months. You usually stay there for like a month and they farm you out. Um, I was a level two. So not considered, even though.

• 56:42Speaker 05

  Um, first degree burglary is considered a violent crime. I was not considered violent in the sense of armed robber or murder or rape or any of the horrible ones. Uh, those are level three, level four. So I find out I'm going to Folsom and there's two Folsoms. There's New Folsom at the time and it still is.

• 57:02AJ Gentile?

  Is that first facility is that El Cajon?

• 57:04Speaker 05

  Uh, Donovan. So it's, uh, it's east of El Cajon. It's like in Ota Mesa.

• 57:08AJ Gentile?

  No, but El Cajon was a facility you ran, right?

• 57:10Speaker 05

  So El Cajon was a county jail.

• 57:12AJ Gentile?

  Oh, okay. Right.

• 57:14Speaker 05

  El Cajon was, that's the one where there was the breakout.

• 57:17AJ Gentile?

  Oh, yeah. You were there for the breakout.

• 57:18Speaker 05

  Quick, quick little side story here. So out there's a, the biggest building in El Cajon, California, which is the box, which, uh, which, I mean, that's what, you know, uh, and it's, and it's in the eastern part of, of San Diego. So it's not, well, probably all the houses are, are million dollar houses that are now, but at the time wasn't looked at as the nicest place in the world. So the toss building was the jail. And apparently the contractor like cut a little, cut some corners and didn't reinforce the walls with whatever they're supposed to reinforce with concrete or steel or whatever. So it was just stucco and framing.

• 57:53AJ Gentile?

  Oh, no.

• 57:54Speaker 05

  And somebody figured it out.

• 57:55AJ Gentile?

  Someone just knocked on it and said, that feels pretty hollow.

• 57:57Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Pretty hollow. So let's, let's break off the bottom of our bunk and just punch a hole in it. And you can look it up. It was in the eighties, the big breakout that got it closed. And I was there.

• 58:07AJ Gentile?

  You saw, and you saw them escaping, right?

• 58:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:09AJ Gentile?

  Did you think, hey, I'm going to get in on that?

• 58:11Speaker 05

  Uh, I thought about it for a second and I'm like, well, for one, that's a long way down.

• 58:17AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 58:17Speaker 05

  Uh, and I'm like, no, I'm just gonna, gonna do my thing. That was, that was first time around. So I'm glad I did that. You know, I'm glad I did, I, uh, listen.

• 58:27AJ Gentile?

  They caught everybody, didn't they?

• 58:28Speaker 05

  They caught everybody and one of the guys busted his leg because they did the whole tying the sheets together crap.

• 58:33AJ Gentile?

  Really?

• 58:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, they did. Cause it was up there.

• 58:35AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 58:36Speaker 05

  You know, it was like, I can't remember the exact amount of stories, but it was at least five, right? And they caught everybody.

• 58:43Speaker 05

  And then they shut down the jail. The problem was they locked us down after that for for two weeks. And they weren't feeding us all the time.

• 58:49AJ Gentile?

  So what does lockdown really mean?

• 58:51Speaker 05

  Locked lockdown is you are in your cell. You don't get out.

• 58:55AJ Gentile?

  Without with with one cellie?

• 58:57Speaker 05

  Uh, no, with like six.

• 58:59AJ Gentile?

  So you're there with six guys for weeks being fed through the bars.

• 59:03Speaker 05

  Through the bars.

• 59:04AJ Gentile?

  One toilet.

• 59:05Speaker 05

  Supervised shower like once we I think we got two, right? Supervised shower.

• 59:09AJ Gentile?

  Oh, it's just rank.

• 59:10Speaker 05

  It was rank. So we I was I remember eating ketchup packets because that's all I had to eat. And we had Uno.

• 59:18AJ Gentile?

  You just played Uno?

• 59:19Speaker 05

  Just played Uno. And had one book. I think one book between it us. It was like, it was terrible. It was terrible.

• 59:26AJ Gentile?

  At least it wasn't magic. You don't.

• 59:27Speaker 05

  Right?

• 59:29AJ Gentile?

  It's always be worse.

• 59:30Speaker 05

  Uh, but yeah, so, uh, the on the prison side.

• 59:33AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 59:35Speaker 05

  Uh, go to Folsom and we find out that they're doing this transition thing. So they're turning old Folsom into a level two. And they're removing all the level four guys and they're putting them up to Pelican Bay.

• 59:49AJ Gentile?

  And it's level four guys are the hardcore.

• 59:51Speaker 05

  They're murderers, rapists.

• 59:54AJ Gentile?

  And they're gonna throw you pups in with them.

• 59:56Speaker 05

  Worst of the worst, and they did. And they did. Yeah. So we had level twos in with level fours, which is you're just not supposed to do that. Um, because the the last thing a guy with a life sentence wants to hear is, uh, the the stories from a guy who's gonna get out in a couple of years. That's a recipe for disaster.

• 1:00:15AJ Gentile?

  Well, you're walking in, um, shackles, chains. And what you you've got your long hair.

• 1:00:21Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:00:21AJ Gentile?

  And I guess, is that your first prison taunt?

• 1:00:25Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 1:00:26AJ Gentile?

  This is just like movies, man.

• 1:00:27Speaker 05

  And and Donovan never really got any shit. I think everybody in the receiving part is just kind of like pins and needles waiting to figure out where to go. So, uh, and it's way more supervised. Um, it's like max, max, max there because because you are mixing in all the levels because but it's it's, you know, you spend most of your time in your cell. It's not a ton of yard time. Uh, and I never spent much time in the yard. But well, yeah, when I walk into Folsom, got my beautiful, long blonde hair. And, uh, shows you how much I've aged. And, uh, yeah, guy goes, uh, hey, Goldilocks, you want my sack lunch?

• 1:01:09Speaker 05

  I'm like, I need to cut my hair, you know, uh, and it was right when I walked. So I knew it was to me, by the way. Like I'm, I

• 1:01:17AJ Gentile?

  Of course.

• 1:01:18Speaker 05

  They were, they had us in a line and then we're feeding them in and like, there's this big just wall of cells.

• 1:01:24AJ Gentile?

  Eh, how, you're terrified and now you go up to 11?

• 1:01:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, uh, 12.

• 1:01:31AJ Gentile?

  Because

• 1:01:31Speaker 05

  Beyond terrified and like

• 1:01:33AJ Gentile?

  I don't know what sack lunch is, but it doesn't sound

• 1:01:35Speaker 05

  Oh, it's balls, your balls.

• 1:01:37AJ Gentile?

  No, I, okay. Um, so now you're going through the rules that you're, that someone told you here. You're go, you go, uh, Gladiator school, as he called it.

• 1:01:45Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:01:45AJ Gentile?

  Oh, God, which he was. Uh, so now you're going through the rules, right? And you gotta get rid of the hair.

• 1:01:52Speaker 05

  Gotta get rid of the hair. Uh,

• 1:01:54AJ Gentile?

  And what are some of the rules you're thinking as you're, as you're?

• 1:01:56Speaker 05

  So the rules I was told, that I was referring to earlier are do not gamble, do not mess with gays. No problem. I had no interest in, in those.

• 1:02:07AJ Gentile?

  Just be polite and leave them alone.

• 1:02:08Speaker 05

  Do not do drugs, do not mess with any drugs. Um, and at that point in my life, I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to mess with any drugs. I do, I've, I had already decided like, if I survive this, I'm done. I cannot do this. And then, um, do not snitch, no matter what. And if you're going to fight.

• 1:02:29Speaker 04

  Thank you for calling 1-800-GOT-JUNK. We make room for possibilities.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  We've loaded the moving van and we're leaving a ton of stuff at our old address. Can you make it disappear?

• 1:02:38Speaker 04

  All you have to do is point.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  Can you come right now?

• 1:02:41Speaker 04

  We're on our way. We make space for hope. We make space for dreams. We make space for what matters. We are 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Let us make room for your possibilities. We can make your house happier.

• 1:02:54Speaker 05

  And your future brighter.

• 1:02:55Speaker 04

  Call 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

• 1:02:57Speaker 05

  Or visit 1-800-GOT-JUNK.COM. Fight. You have to fight. You can't back down from a fight.

• 1:03:03AJ Gentile?

  Right. Don't, don't start trouble.

• 1:03:04Speaker 05

  Don't start trouble. But don't take it. Yep. But the most important one of them all is don't snitch. Or you will die.

• 1:03:12AJ Gentile?

  Bobby.

• 1:03:13Speaker 05

  Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:03:15AJ Gentile?

  So, um,

• 1:03:19AJ Gentile?

  I don't mean to drag it out, but it's fascinating.

• 1:03:21Speaker 05

  It's okay.

• 1:03:21AJ Gentile?

  So sack lunch.

• 1:03:24AJ Gentile?

  How do you, how do you get it? You have to get your hair cut in like 30 yard. You have 30 yards to solve this problem.

• 1:03:30Speaker 05

  Immediately. It was for a pack of smokes. It was a terrible haircut, but it did the job. It's like.

• 1:03:35AJ Gentile?

  Didn't a guard help you?

• 1:03:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:37AJ Gentile?

  Help you grab scissors or something?

• 1:03:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's, I mean, they, there is some humanity in there, right? Like they see this little pup and it's like, this guy's gonna get shredded in here. So that's, that's my best guess, but I got, I got my haircut. I got help.

• 1:04:00Speaker 05

  Guards aren't always helpful though. Okay. Just keep that in mind. They're, they're, they're humans. So there's some good ones and there's some pieces of crap in there. And I spend the next, I'm, I'm behind the wall. For a good year, right? So, um, I'm.

• 1:04:18AJ Gentile?

  Well, one of the rules was don't go to the R, don't go to the gym.

• 1:04:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Which I did not do.

• 1:04:24AJ Gentile?

  But there were some times that you had to get away from your first cellmate. Cause he, I mean, when you land in the room with him, how, how's that? Go down?

• 1:04:33Speaker 05

  Oh, it's bad. It's bad.

• 1:04:35AJ Gentile?

  With Kyle?

• 1:04:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. He's, he's double murderer. He's a piece of crap. Um.

• 1:04:40AJ Gentile?

  What did he look like?

• 1:04:40Speaker 05

  Um.

• 1:04:43Speaker 05

  He was, uh, just a, like a kind of a flabby, but big white dude. Uh, it's, um, brown hair, little grayish. Uh, but he was not old. He was not that old.

• 1:04:55AJ Gentile?

  I'm just trying to see, feel how imposing he is for.

• 1:04:57Speaker 05

  He's bigger than me. He's bigger than me for sure.

• 1:05:01AJ Gentile?

  So how's that first meeting go?

• 1:05:02Speaker 05

  Uh, scared to death, you know, and he's, he just gives me the rules and pretty much tells me, you know, I don't want to hear from you, you know? Um, he has his TV and, and I'm like, well, maybe I could just, uh, wait this one out. Uh, but it just, it didn't work out.

• 1:05:21AJ Gentile?

  Well, he, he didn't like, he's a level four, this guy.

• 1:05:23Speaker 05

  He's a level four.

• 1:05:24AJ Gentile?

  And he doesn't want to hear about you getting out in two.

• 1:05:26Speaker 05

  Nope. Nope. So I was really good at being quiet when I needed to be.

• 1:05:31AJ Gentile?

  What were you doing to kill time?

• 1:05:32Speaker 05

  Uh, to kill, mostly reading books.

• 1:05:35AJ Gentile?

  Cause there was another rule about staying sane, wasn't there?

• 1:05:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38AJ Gentile?

  What was that?

• 1:05:38Speaker 05

  Oh, the, uh.

• 1:05:40AJ Gentile?

  Find a routine.

• 1:05:41Speaker 05

  Yes. Fine. Okay. Yes. Sorry. So the thing about.

• 1:05:48Speaker 05

  The best advice I heard is, and like, people do this in prison all the time, so I didn't invent it. This is just passed down, is find a routine. You get up at the same time, you kind of do the same things every day. And what it does is it helps you feel accomplished, because we as humans need to feel some accomplishment. So I, I found a little routine that worked in behind the wall, and then when I, when I went on. And it really helps the time go faster. It keeps you busy, so you're not sitting there, you need to have that routine, so you're not sitting there just tripping all the time.

• 1:06:22AJ Gentile?

  You talk about how Kyle was like mentally torturing you this whole time?

• 1:06:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:27AJ Gentile?

  What was he doing? Because he wasn't physically abusing you.

• 1:06:30Speaker 05

  No, he was just always.

• 1:06:32AJ Gentile?

  What was he, because you write about how it was just constant, he was just always just messing with you.

• 1:06:38Speaker 05

  Always messing with my head, always.

• 1:06:43Speaker 05

  He would, uh,

• 1:06:46Speaker 05

  he would always question, uh, like, everything I was doing, like, what are you reading? What's your problem? He would never let me have peace, right? Because I would try to mind my own business and stay there. And he'd always try to start some weird conversation that would go to a weird place and ask me weird questions. And then bring up like his crimes, you know, and what he did.

• 1:07:08AJ Gentile?

  And you knew he was just trying to torture you?

• 1:07:10Speaker 05

  Yep, trying to fuck with me all the time. Uh, and, and then he'd be nice a little while, and then it would flip, you know? Uh, but we, you bring up the Pruno, right? We can talk about, uh, when.

• 1:07:24AJ Gentile?

  Go ahead.

• 1:07:24Speaker 05

  I don't want to get too far ahead, but.

• 1:07:26AJ Gentile?

  No, I know when we're gonna take our break.

• 1:07:28Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, so.

• 1:07:29AJ Gentile?

  Keep going.

• 1:07:31Speaker 05

  Uh, the, he's, he was making some Pruno and hiding it, and he was gone. And the guard is, the guards are coming in to do, uh, to do an inspection. And I'm, I'm there because I don't go out very much.

• 1:07:44AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 1:07:46Speaker 05

  So I dumped it.

• 1:07:48AJ Gentile?

  You dumped his Pruno?

• 1:07:50Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:07:51AJ Gentile?

  Did you know that decision? You did you? How long? You know what you're doing. You know, you're gonna have to deal with this.

• 1:07:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:00AJ Gentile?

  But you figure what you're saving him?

• 1:08:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:03AJ Gentile?

  Or are you like, I'm gonna, this is gonna go sideways?

• 1:08:05Speaker 05

  This is this at my decision making at the time was not really even a cover. It was cover both of our asses, right? But it was.

• 1:08:13AJ Gentile?

  Because you were going.

• 1:08:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, because I'm there, so I'm gonna get caught with it. And he's the cellmate, so he's gonna get busted too. And there's all this stuff going through my head where, oh, you know, you think about the snitching thing.

• 1:08:25AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 1:08:25Speaker 05

  It's gonna make me either way look like a snitch.

• 1:08:29AJ Gentile?

  And you're watching them toss cells getting closer as you're doing this.

• 1:08:32Speaker 05

  So I'm like, ah, I'm gonna dump this stuff.

• 1:08:34AJ Gentile?

  And Kyle, by the way, is out in the yard lifting weights.

• 1:08:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, lifting weights, lifting weights. So I got rid of it and it's it's gone by the time the guards are, I saved his ass. My, well, his ass.

• 1:08:47AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:47Speaker 05

  His ass. Wasn't exactly grateful about that at all. Um, and wanted me to repay whatever it was owed, whatever that value of that Pruno was. Um, and and did not let me forget it.

• 1:09:05AJ Gentile?

  So.

• 1:09:06Speaker 05

  Ever.

• 1:09:07AJ Gentile?

  He wanted you to put money in his account, right?

• 1:09:10Speaker 05

  Money on his books.

• 1:09:11AJ Gentile?

  Money on his books. 20 bucks for the Pruno. I won it. Uh, you did it.

• 1:09:18Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:09:18AJ Gentile?

  And thought it was good. And I don't know how soon after that, but he said, I need 20 bucks.

• 1:09:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's it's it's it just became the, you know, I need 20 more. And then, once you capitulate a little bit, you know, that's just the way it is. And that's that's, this is part of like, don't be a bitch.

• 1:09:37AJ Gentile?

  That's right.

• 1:09:38Speaker 05

  Right? This is part of don't be a bitch. And I, I should have said, fuck you. You know, at that point and probably fought at that point.

• 1:09:47AJ Gentile?

  Well, you didn't give him 20 more, right?

• 1:09:48Speaker 05

  No, no, and it and it got worse.

• 1:09:50AJ Gentile?

  It gets worse and um.

• 1:09:54AJ Gentile?

  You get back to the cell and he's going through your stuff.

• 1:09:59Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:10:00AJ Gentile?

  What's he doing?

• 1:10:01Speaker 05

  Going through mom's, uh, my letters. He's going through my letters.

• 1:10:06AJ Gentile?

  And this whole time, parents are supporting you. They're putting money on your books. You're covered.

• 1:10:10Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:10:10AJ Gentile?

  You have support from the family. This guy's got nothing. He hates you.

• 1:10:14Speaker 05

  He hates everything about me. He hates the books I read. I mean, like he's giving, he gave me shit for books I read.

• 1:10:20AJ Gentile?

  He wanted you to fight.

• 1:10:22Speaker 05

  Oh, he's been trying to top me to fight the whole time. And, um, well, he finally got what he wanted. So, uh, he, he's going through my letters. Uh, my, my parents and I, by the way, are contacting and they're, you know, they're sending me like little care packages and making sure I'm okay. They're worried to death because they know I'm in this Folsom prison. So they're trying to work outside with a couple of other people, trying to figure out what the fuck's going on, right? Um, to no avail, by the way, right?

• 1:10:54Speaker 05

  And, uh, yeah, he's like, I, I like your mom's hot handwriting.

• 1:11:00Speaker 05

  I like your mom's handwriting. Like I want to write your mom and I just fucking lost my shit. Absolutely lost my shit.

• 1:11:07AJ Gentile?

  Right. He, he demands you to tell your mom to start writing him as well.

• 1:11:11Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:12AJ Gentile?

  And now, um, you feel it. You feel, all men feel this. Things go quiet. You hear the boom, boom in your ears. And you're not gonna take it anymore.

• 1:11:26Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:11:28Speaker 05

  To hell with that, whatever happens after this, like this is, and, and it had been building up, like you said, like just with the constant like poking. And some of it would just, you know, in isolation, it wouldn't be that bad. But when you're living, think of the worst roommate you've ever had, but he's also a murderer.

• 1:11:46AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 1:11:48Speaker 05

  That's what it is. A guy who like steals your food or, you know, like, or I don't want to get too crass in there. Just when you're in a cell with somebody and they're going to the back, it's just the worst. It's the worst. And, uh,

• 1:12:04AJ Gentile?

  So you, the blood's in your ears and

• 1:12:06Speaker 05

  Everything's going.

• 1:12:07AJ Gentile?

  And it's gonna go down. So we're gonna take a quick break.

• 1:12:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:09AJ Gentile?

  We'll find out how you handled it.

• 1:12:11Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:12:11AJ Gentile?

  Be right back.

• 1:12:13AJ Gentile?

  It's, it's a standoff now.

• 1:12:15Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:12:15AJ Gentile?

  Not gonna take anymore. He's going. Mama's not gonna write him a letter, right?

• 1:12:20Speaker 05

  No, no, over my dead body.

• 1:12:21AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:22Speaker 05

  So, and that's where where I was at. Had a little Walkman.

• 1:12:27AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 1:12:28Speaker 05

  Yep, cuz we were you were allowed like, uh, believe it or not, even in Max's prison, you can have a TV. You can have a Walkman, you know, um.

• 1:12:37AJ Gentile?

  You were getting comics and stuff.

• 1:12:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, you can get comics and books, uh, and and cigarettes and stuff. They didn't allow people to smoke in prison anymore. I don't even, that sounds terrible.

• 1:12:47AJ Gentile?

  I don't know why would they would do that.

• 1:12:49Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 1:12:50AJ Gentile?

  Smoke.

• 1:12:52Speaker 05

  For the safety of the guards.

• 1:12:53AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 1:12:54Speaker 05

  God, uh, so, yeah, I I go hysterically off on that. So it's not like some heroic moment, you know. Avengers assemble.

• 1:13:05AJ Gentile?

  It wasn't?

• 1:13:05Speaker 05

  No, no, it was.

• 1:13:07AJ Gentile?

  This this was fight or flight panic.

• 1:13:09Speaker 05

  Fight or flight panic, spazzy fighting, uh, think, um, uh, Ralphie and a Christmas story, you know, like, uh.

• 1:13:20AJ Gentile?

  Toe to toe, could you take this guy?

• 1:13:22Speaker 05

  Um.

• 1:13:25Speaker 05

  I mean, I did, so.

• 1:13:27AJ Gentile?

  Well, how did you, I mean?

• 1:13:29Speaker 05

  I had, well, I I I had a Walkman in my hand and I bashed his face in, so.

• 1:13:36AJ Gentile?

  It's a very Gen X, with the Sony products, very Gen X.

• 1:13:39Speaker 05

  Well, it was what was in my hand at the time.

• 1:13:41AJ Gentile?

  You bashed his face in?

• 1:13:42Speaker 05

  I bashed his face in and bashed it in pretty good and.

• 1:13:46AJ Gentile?

  He go down?

• 1:13:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, he went down.

• 1:13:48AJ Gentile?

  Down and out.

• 1:13:48Speaker 05

  Down and out, um, blood everywhere and I'm like, I'm going to the hole.

• 1:13:54AJ Gentile?

  I was just gonna ask, the adrenaline comes down and you know you're going to the hole.

• 1:13:57Speaker 05

  Screwed, going to the hole, gonna get more time, but on my.

• 1:14:02AJ Gentile?

  Just what he wanted.

• 1:14:03Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:14:05Speaker 05

  And, uh, that didn't happen, which is insane, right? So, uh, I would, I did a little time, but as far as, uh, getting extra time added to my sentence, doesn't happen.

• 1:14:18AJ Gentile?

  Why not?

• 1:14:19Speaker 05

  Doesn't happen.

• 1:14:20AJ Gentile?

  We, why not the hole? Where'd you go?

• 1:14:21Speaker 05

  It's a mist, it's a, well, it's a mystery. Why? Uh, cuz my biggest concern at the time was it's, uh.

• 1:14:32Speaker 05

  Am I, are they gonna think I snitched? That was, that was my biggest concern. Um, so, uh, my guess is a, the guards knew what was going on or another, and I never knew the answer to this at all. But it just kinda got a new cellmate, you know? Got a new cellmate, little crazy still, but not as.

• 1:14:54AJ Gentile?

  But not violent, not messing with you?

• 1:14:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:57AJ Gentile?

  Uh, did you ever run into that guy again?

• 1:15:00Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:15:03Speaker 05

  Never did.

• 1:15:03AJ Gentile?

  It probably was, someone was like, we gotta get these tier twos out of here, man.

• 1:15:08Speaker 05

  No, and he was supposed to go to Pelican Bay anyway, like he was, like all the level fours were supposed to go to, to Pelican Bay.

• 1:15:14AJ Gentile?

  Right, they're still kind of going through that transition?

• 1:15:16Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:15:16AJ Gentile?

  So you get placed with, with a new cellmate and he's tier two, right?

• 1:15:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:21AJ Gentile?

  Okay, so are you able to relax?

• 1:15:23Speaker 05

  Relax a little bit and then, um, you know, I took a, a printing class in there and I never really went to the art or did anything after that. And then it was finally over, uh, when I went to, uh, the minimum security part of.

• 1:15:39AJ Gentile?

  Well, hang on a second.

• 1:15:40Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:15:40AJ Gentile?

  He, this guy was a big part of your recovery.

• 1:15:44Speaker 05

  I'm getting way ahead of myself. So before I go.

• 1:15:47AJ Gentile?

  Who was he?

• 1:15:48Speaker 05

  Uh.

• 1:15:49AJ Gentile?

  He's violent, what, what was he? What was he like?

• 1:15:52Speaker 05

  Uh, he was actually a really, like a nice guy. He was a nice guy. There are nice guys in there, believe it or not.

• 1:15:59AJ Gentile?

  Of course there are. I believe it.

• 1:16:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, just made a bunch of mistakes in his life like I did.

• 1:16:05AJ Gentile?

  They only put the ones that get caught in there.

• 1:16:06Speaker 05

  And, uh, me needing to get out of the, of the, of the cell, like, and I didn't really want to go to church. I tried it a couple of times, but it really didn't do it.

• 1:16:15AJ Gentile?

  Where church come from? Why, why were you even thinking about church suddenly?

• 1:16:19Speaker 05

  I, I needed to get out of the cell for one, but I also needed to not come back here, like.

• 1:16:26AJ Gentile?

  Well.

• 1:16:26Speaker 05

  And, and I was.

• 1:16:27AJ Gentile?

  Didn't he tell you?

• 1:16:28Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:16:29AJ Gentile?

  Here are, here are some things you can do to make this go a little easier for yourself. Two options, right? Church and meetings.

• 1:16:36Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:16:37AJ Gentile?

  So what happens?

• 1:16:38Speaker 05

  Uh, church doesn't work for me. Um.

• 1:16:41AJ Gentile?

  And he was a church, he was a religious guy?

• 1:16:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. He was a religious, religious guy and I, um, started going to the meetings, uh, and it wasn't like.

• 1:16:50AJ Gentile?

  This is A.

• 1:16:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, this is AA.

• 1:16:53Speaker 05

  They did do NA ones in there, but I just gravitated to the AA. And the reason, and it's the same reason I gravitated to it outside is there's just more time in AA. You could still, the principles are still the same. People are talking about alcohol. I could just, I could just apply it to drugs and it's fine. So it starts kicking in. I go to these meetings.

• 1:17:16AJ Gentile?

  And it kicks in for the first time, right? Cause you've been through crash. You've been through meetings. It didn't take you, it didn't take. Now it finally starts to take, cause you didn't go to those meetings initially for any other reason than to just make it easier in inside, right? Or you said, I'm going to get clean now. I'm gonna share.

• 1:17:36Speaker 05

  It was just.

• 1:17:38AJ Gentile?

  Self preservation.

• 1:17:39Speaker 05

  Self preservation. I wish it was something bigger than that, but it started, that's when it started kicking in like, oh, and you know, when you're in the meeting and you're hearing people tell the stories and like half the people in those meetings were there just to get out of their cell. But the guy leading the meeting, you know, from H and I hospitals and institutions from AA. They're there because they're serious, right? And especially to volunteer. Takes a special kind of person to volunteer for H and I to want to go inside a prison.

• 1:18:12AJ Gentile?

  Takes a very good person to do that, better than I am.

• 1:18:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:16AJ Gentile?

  When did it click? What was the, what was the conversation? What was going around the circle? When it suddenly switched?

• 1:18:23Speaker 05

  It started clicking. It was just through time, but just hearing over and over again, the like, life can get better. Like it's not necessarily over, you know? I don't know if I fully believed it at the time, but it started clicking.

• 1:18:38Speaker 05

  Really just over time and, and it stayed with me. I'm not going to say I was like ready to be a sober warrior at that point, but I had decided like I told you earlier on, like I do not want to come back here. This is horrifying. So the best way to describe prison is,

• 1:18:58Speaker 05

  it is really, it is boredom, occasionally interrupted by moments of terror.

• 1:19:06Speaker 05

  Just complete terror, but there's always an underlying like you sleep with one eye open. You gotta worry about absolutely everything. If somebody gives you a dirty look in there, it means something and that's probably gonna, you know, cause you are trapped with these people. And that will probably come into a head at some point and that's always rolling around in the back of your head.

• 1:19:28AJ Gentile?

  But once again, some people looking out for you always have a routine. So you don't go crazy. And then this new cellmate says, you need a plan.

• 1:19:39Speaker 05

  You need a plan.

• 1:19:41AJ Gentile?

  What does he mean by that?

• 1:19:42Speaker 05

  Um, you need a plan for life. Like you can't just get out and think everything's gonna be okay. And this is something like a father would tell a kid, right? You need to have a plan and

• 1:19:56AJ Gentile?

  What's your, what's your plan?

• 1:19:57Speaker 05

  And my plan was really simple, uh, to get sober, to get a job. Uh, and then implement, uh, I don't think I've verbally said this, but the, the, or, or implement the routine in, in life. So that routine I was learning in prison, I actually applied it afterwards.

• 1:20:20AJ Gentile?

  You did.

• 1:20:21Speaker 05

  Really fucking helpful. It was really helpful.

• 1:20:24AJ Gentile?

  Um, what kind of routine was it? It was just the day to day that

• 1:20:27Speaker 05

  So the day to day, this carried on from, from when I went on, uh, to, to, uh, to the minimum security.

• 1:20:35AJ Gentile?

  Right. You got moved finally.

• 1:20:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, moved finally. And in minimum security, I would, uh, I was doing a lot of working out. Uh, I was either playing racquetball because we had racket, handball. Uh, we had this big track. You can walk or run laps on. And it, uh, and I also had a job. I had this crazy job that taught me how to work and it like, this is where the rehabilitation of prison actually worked on one person. Um, so I had this, this gig at procurement in the procurement office.

• 1:21:10AJ Gentile?

  What does that mean?

• 1:21:11Speaker 05

  Uh, basically we did all the purchasing.

• 1:21:14AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 1:21:15Speaker 05

  For, uh, the prison, particularly in my area was just writing up all the drug orders.

• 1:21:22Speaker 05

  Which is funny.

• 1:21:23AJ Gentile?

  Right. You're dealing drugs again?

• 1:21:25Speaker 05

  So I'm writing up all the drug orders because the new Folsom wing had a psychiatric wing.

• 1:21:30AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 1:21:30Speaker 05

  So I was doing all the drug orders for them. And I worked for a lady, I should say her real name.

• 1:21:37AJ Gentile?

  No, no, no.

• 1:21:38Speaker 05

  It's funny. She was, she always wore purple. She always wore frickin' purple. And I was her little boy toy, by the way. Like she, she's like, oops, I dropped something, you know?

• 1:21:50AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 1:21:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, stuff like that. Uh, I, I used to be young and pretty, but um, yeah, it was, it was get up. Get up 5:30 in the morning, get my breakfast, uh, either walk a lap before I go to work. Or walk two laps before I go to work, go to work, come back, go play some racquetball or handball with the guys. And it was just do that every day.

• 1:22:14AJ Gentile?

  Were you behaving at your job and all that?

• 1:22:17Speaker 05

  You were.

• 1:22:17AJ Gentile?

  Yeah. Getting along with everybody?

• 1:22:18Speaker 05

  Getting along with everybody.

• 1:22:20AJ Gentile?

  Are you counting down the days now?

• 1:22:21Speaker 05

  Counting down the days. They're still long. I mean, you know, they're still like a year out.

• 1:22:26AJ Gentile?

  This is why you're so good at counting George Martin's days to the.

• 1:22:29Speaker 05

  Uh huh. Yeah.

• 1:22:30AJ Gentile?

  You're, you're, you're counting days. That's what you do.

• 1:22:32Speaker 05

  I do. That's what I do. I keep track, George.

• 1:22:37Speaker 05

  So yeah.

• 1:22:38AJ Gentile?

  What are the last few days like? Isn't it?

• 1:22:42Speaker 06

  You have a tiny computer in your pocket, putting a world of information at your fingertips, but it's hard to decipher what information is worth consuming when getting lost in the scroll. I'm Elise Hu and on my podcast, TED Talks Daily, you can count on hearing ideas from experts that feed your brain, not slop that rots it. Neuroscientists, technologists, world renowned artists and more unveil complex ideas to help you make sense of the world. From breakthrough mental health research to advice on navigating tricky relationships to the latest AI innovation. It's a trusted place to get your daily curiosity fix. Listen to TED Talks Daily. Daily with new episodes every day, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:23:23AJ Gentile?

  You know, sixty, fifty-nine, fifty, I mean, is torture?

• 1:23:27Speaker 05

  It's torture, dude. It's absolute torture and the anxiety of, am I gonna fuck up again?

• 1:23:34AJ Gentile?

  Right. Is it, am I really getting out?

• 1:23:37Speaker 05

  Yep. Is something, is there gonna-

• 1:23:39AJ Gentile?

  What's gonna happen?

• 1:23:39Speaker 05

  What's gonna happen? You know, that, that, and that really starts messing with you towards the end.

• 1:23:45AJ Gentile?

  I bet it does.

• 1:23:46Speaker 05

  Like, what if some charges found, you know, because, listen, I didn't get caught for everything I did.

• 1:23:51AJ Gentile?

  Of course not.

• 1:23:52Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:23:53AJ Gentile?

  Eight, seven, six, you still, parents are still supporting you?

• 1:23:56Speaker 05

  Parents are still supporting me. I'm on my routine. I'm starting to like lose it a little bit towards the end, though. I'm starting to-

• 1:24:02AJ Gentile?

  In what way?

• 1:24:02Speaker 05

  And just anxiety, just pure anxiety.

• 1:24:05AJ Gentile?

  How did you cope?

• 1:24:05Speaker 05

  Um, not well. I, uh, I, I didn't sleep very much, uh, but I tried to work out more. So, and by workout, I mean just exercise, do some sort of like, uh, you know, but it was obsessive, right? It got really obsessive. But it was like, you know, running laps or, or playing racquetball or playing it by myself.

• 1:24:26AJ Gentile?

  So this is a very different facility than you're coming from. It had to feel like vacation.

• 1:24:31Speaker 05

  It, it, it did. Like, we'd, um, yeah, we, there was like a little garden where we grew chili peppers. Um, we were, we'd sit out in tan. It's, it's, it's near Sacramento. It's right near Folsom Lake.

• 1:24:45AJ Gentile?

  You were supposed to be there the whole time.

• 1:24:48Speaker 05

  Yes. I was not supposed to be behind the wall at all, ever. And, uh, or maybe for a couple of weeks.

• 1:24:56AJ Gentile?

  Did you run into other tier twos at, at-

• 1:24:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they were like, what the hell? That was terrible. That sucked. Um, but for the, for the level twos, I, I had a- Usually had more time than they did. So they were all getting out before me, which kinda sucked, but watching them, hey, have fun, buddy. But yeah, like we-

• 1:25:17AJ Gentile?

  But you weren't a dick about it? You already saw what how that works.

• 1:25:20Speaker 05

  No, no, not at all.

• 1:25:21AJ Gentile?

  Just leave him alone.

• 1:25:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. But then we, uh, yeah, we, I mean, we'd, we'd have this thing called spreads where you're, we'd make a bunch of food. We'd steal some food out of the kitchen or the, the cook would just give us some food. And we'd make these big things of ramen and chop every piece of meat we could figure out. And it was just this gobbledygook of, of stew with top ramen that we, and that was our like party night. We watched football and yeah, it was kinda smoked cigarettes and it, you know.

• 1:25:54AJ Gentile?

  When you heard like bowl of brown at King's Landing, you're like, oh.

• 1:25:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.

• 1:25:57AJ Gentile?

  Bowl of brown.

• 1:25:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. Singer stew.

• 1:25:59AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:02AJ Gentile?

  So the day finally comes.

• 1:26:04Speaker 05

  Day finally comes. And my parents picked me up. And they, I, so I go out the main gate of Folsom.

• 1:26:10AJ Gentile?

  There was a beat I liked in your book about the guard who, who came to get you because he was the same guarded. The badass guard who let you in.

• 1:26:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:18AJ Gentile?

  He was still there.

• 1:26:19Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:26:20AJ Gentile?

  Little smiling in his eyes.

• 1:26:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:23AJ Gentile?

  You did it, kid.

• 1:26:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, you made it.

• 1:26:25AJ Gentile?

  You made it.

• 1:26:25Speaker 05

  You made it. And, um, it was, I wish I could bottle like the feeling I had that day because I wanted for nothing, no material thing had any of value to me. It was, it was pure freedom. So that was the first day I, I understood what like liberty and freedom is. It's something I completely took for granted and never thought about as a kid.

• 1:26:51AJ Gentile?

  How soon, how soon did it kick in?

• 1:26:53Speaker 05

  Uh, like the minute I walked out.

• 1:26:55AJ Gentile?

  And just open sky, no walls.

• 1:26:57Speaker 05

  Sky, no walls. My mom and dad smiling to see me. And, uh, you know, you just, you don't have to sign very much paperwork. You just sign a couple of things and get your stuff back. Got my, got my clothes back. That I went in on and I'm like, wow, I actually lost weight in here. I'm, you know, so.

• 1:27:18AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, you weren't doing well for a while in there.

• 1:27:20Speaker 05

  No, no, I was not, not doing well. And I got out pretty much in shape. But yeah, so back to that feeling of gratitude, just pure gratitude of like, I am free. My life isn't over because I was convinced for the longest time, even before I went into prison, we talked about it earlier, that my life was just over.

• 1:27:41AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 1:27:42Speaker 05

  Just, it's done. Like, we're gonna play it out. It's gonna be a sad, pathetic ending.

• 1:27:46AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:47Speaker 05

  Um, and I'm like, wow, I have a chance to do this. And I don't want for a bunch. I don't have any lofty goals.

• 1:27:56AJ Gentile?

  Just one, don't go back in there.

• 1:27:57Speaker 05

  Don't go back in.

• 1:28:00Speaker 05

  And.

• 1:28:01AJ Gentile?

  Don't go back in.

• 1:28:02Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I had the best meal of my life, which was, uh, you know, an omelet at Denny's.

• 1:28:07AJ Gentile?

  Denny's, I mean, you're home.

• 1:28:10Speaker 05

  It was.

• 1:28:10AJ Gentile?

  It's America.

• 1:28:11Speaker 05

  Greatest food, greatest meal I've ever had. And yeah, and.

• 1:28:16AJ Gentile?

  But what's the conversation like at that breakfast? Are we, are we laughing? We're crying?

• 1:28:21Speaker 05

  We're laughing. Uh, we're talking about just what's ahead. You know, my dad was not like a real sentimental guy. So we were just like, yeah, we talked about the Chargers, Padres.

• 1:28:32AJ Gentile?

  And how crappy they were.

• 1:28:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, and it's funny because it's right before they, they went for their first Super Bowl.

• 1:28:40AJ Gentile?

  Oh, that's right, early nineties.

• 1:28:41Speaker 05

  But there was that, like Bobby Ross had come around and they've been to the playoffs for the first time in a long time. So we had stuff to talk about, but it was really light, right? Um, and you know, they're, they're pretty, uh, matter of factly, like you gotta find a job. You can't like stay with us forever. I'm like, okay. Fair.

• 1:28:58AJ Gentile?

  No talking back, no attitude.

• 1:29:00Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 1:29:02Speaker 05

  Just, I was being a, a good kid, right? And, uh, with, with a new lease on life and a new attitude towards life and, uh, waking up every morning was fricking great. I, like, I could just, and I do things like just take a walk and ride my bike to the beach. You know, uh, in between looking for a job, but yeah, I didn't need any money. Didn't need any of that stuff. I had a place to stay, but eventually I would, I would need that money.

• 1:29:28AJ Gentile?

  Were you craving drugs?

• 1:29:30Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:29:30AJ Gentile?

  Booze, anything?

• 1:29:31Speaker 05

  No, went to, started going to meetings immediately.

• 1:29:33AJ Gentile?

  You did?

• 1:29:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, immediately. Uh, there was no, none of that and wasn't seeking out my old friends. That, that's, that's usually what gets any addict in trouble, especially after they get out of a rehab or anything. And that's what I got in trouble is like, I immediately sought out my old friends, which means let's party. I did not. I, I didn't let anybody know I was back. Didn't know if anybody knew I was back or gone or anything. And just kind of did my own thing, hung out with my parents and, uh, eventually contacted a couple of friends, but I knew who were outside of the, like an old childhood friend.

• 1:30:16Speaker 05

  And he eventually gave me a job.

• 1:30:18AJ Gentile?

  Well, before that, you said, don't run into old friends, but you did.

• 1:30:21Speaker 05

  I did.

• 1:30:22AJ Gentile?

  What happened?

• 1:30:23Speaker 05

  Um, it was sad. Uh, but, uh, I, I, um,

• 1:30:29AJ Gentile?

  I'm also talking about that meeting.

• 1:30:31Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 1:30:32AJ Gentile?

  With people from the neighborhood were there.

• 1:30:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, that was kind of surprising to, when we ran into each other.

• 1:30:39AJ Gentile?

  What happened? Who was there?

• 1:30:41Speaker 05

  Um, I'm trying not to use, uh, I had a couple of older friends.

• 1:30:45AJ Gentile?

  Ballsack and Don Juan. That's cool.

• 1:30:48Speaker 05

  Um, seeing Ballsack there.

• 1:30:50AJ Gentile?

  So these are all guys you, these, you partied with, drugs?

• 1:30:54Speaker 05

  It was a shock, but I'm sure they were just a shock to see me.

• 1:30:58AJ Gentile?

  Were you frightened a little bit? Like, oh no, relapse. Here we go.

• 1:31:02Speaker 05

  Um, at that meeting, yeah, that's always, that, I mean, the fear is always in there. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. But, um, it was also, now that I look back on it, a little inspiring to see some of the old,

• 1:31:17AJ Gentile?

  Of course.

• 1:31:18Speaker 05

  Old people come through and, and make it. And we, you know, there's, there's some I ended up staying friends with forever, you know, and, uh, to this day, uh, some who didn't make it. But, uh, yeah, that like, seeing that, that was like, I guess the first test. I guess, you know, um,

• 1:31:36AJ Gentile?

  And one of those, he, one of those guys became your first sponsor?

• 1:31:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:31:41AJ Gentile?

  Did you know about sponsorship at that time?

• 1:31:43Speaker 05

  I did. I just never like really took it seriously. Right?

• 1:31:47AJ Gentile?

  Eventually you learn how important it is.

• 1:31:49Speaker 05

  And then you learn how absolutely necessary it is.

• 1:31:53AJ Gentile?

  So he was clean a while. Tell me about that conversation.

• 1:31:56Speaker 05

  Um, it was, uh, I mean, it, he, he's knew what I've been through, right? And then like more than anybody else. I, I honestly don't know if it was the best, the best choice for sponsor, to be honest with you.

• 1:32:09AJ Gentile?

  Maybe not.

• 1:32:10Speaker 05

  Maybe not, but, um, it's, I just didn't want to go back. It was, it was really simple, you know, um, I was, I, I didn't want to die.

• 1:32:24Speaker 05

  I didn't want to die.

• 1:32:28AJ Gentile?

  So he asked you to make a commitment?

• 1:32:31Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:32:32AJ Gentile?

  And you agreed to it?

• 1:32:33Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:32:33AJ Gentile?

  Did you just keep your word?

• 1:32:35Speaker 05

  Uh, to my commitments of

• 1:32:37AJ Gentile?

  To him.

• 1:32:37Speaker 05

  Uh,

• 1:32:38AJ Gentile?

  I, I mean, I know how it works. You, you're there for each other.

• 1:32:42Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:32:43AJ Gentile?

  Pick up the phone. You show up. You do the work. You come back tomorrow. You call. Did you do all that stuff?

• 1:32:50Speaker 05

  Uh, I did all that stuff in the beginning and, uh, I did it when I relapsed too. Uh, the thing in,

• 1:32:59Speaker 05

  like, I don't want to get ahead with the relapse, but, uh, there's, there's a commitment you need to make, uh, that

• 1:33:04AJ Gentile?

  I'm just trying to stress what a big decision it is. Once you take on, become a sponsor. It's, it's a big deal.

• 1:33:12Speaker 05

  It is. Um, usually it's 90 meetings in 90 days. Um, and you have to write gratitude lists, like both sponsors maybe do it. One was way more hardcore than the other. So, um, you have to do a ton of homework. You have to meet. You have to, uh, basically do your own book study with you. So we sit down and we go over chapters of the book. And this is on top of going to meetings that are, that are booked, because there are book specific meetings.

• 1:33:43AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 1:33:44Speaker 05

  Where you just go through the chapters.

• 1:33:45AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 1:33:47AJ Gentile?

  And you're now like working the steps and doing

• 1:33:49Speaker 05

  Working the steps and it's not just once. So I thought it was just once you did the steps. Now you just recycle and keep going through and through until it really gets ingrained.

• 1:34:01AJ Gentile?

  Well, step four is never over, is it?

• 1:34:02Speaker 05

  Never over.

• 1:34:03AJ Gentile?

  That's uh inventory.

• 1:34:06Speaker 05

  Yes, the personal inventory and uh we're always making new mistakes, right? And uh it's it's work that's never done.

• 1:34:15AJ Gentile?

  That's a very important step. That's self-awareness.

• 1:34:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:34:20AJ Gentile?

  So you're working the program, things going good, you get a job.

• 1:34:24Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:34:25AJ Gentile?

  At the warehouse.

• 1:34:26Speaker 05

  At the warehouse.

• 1:34:27AJ Gentile?

  How's that? How's that first day feel?

• 1:34:29Speaker 05

  Um, it's crazy. Uh.

• 1:34:32AJ Gentile?

  Warehouse is um what music, videos. That's a west coast. I'm from New York. I'd have never heard of it.

• 1:34:39Speaker 05

  Okay, so yeah, the warehouse is, yeah, it's um it's a record store.

• 1:34:43AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:43Speaker 05

  Uh, that's also a video store.

• 1:34:45AJ Gentile?

  This is perfect for you. Cause you're a pop culture junkie going in, right?

• 1:34:49Speaker 05

  Yes, so.

• 1:34:50AJ Gentile?

  So are you like, this is, this is perfect?

• 1:34:52Speaker 05

  It's heaven.

• 1:34:52AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:53Speaker 05

  It's absolute heaven and I've always wanted, well, I've worked at the warehouse before in the past.

• 1:34:58AJ Gentile?

  Oh, you did?

• 1:34:58Speaker 05

  I did, but for like, I never worked very anywhere long because I was a drug addict. So this was like, well, now that I know how to have this thing called a work ethic from prison, I I learned that from prison. I go in, getting up at five in the morning every day, going to work. Uh, it was, it was amazing working there. Uh, it was a great, who cares? It was enough.

• 1:35:19AJ Gentile?

  Your parents had to be so proud.

• 1:35:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:22AJ Gentile?

  That you were going in every day.

• 1:35:24Speaker 05

  I I think they were probably always waiting for.

• 1:35:27AJ Gentile?

  Always waiting.

• 1:35:28Speaker 05

  Always waiting and uh it it it didn't happen. Like I I went to work, uh took extra shifts, had tons of fun, met a bunch of friends there, uh had had some rough times, you know, like there there's still the adapting I had to get used to.

• 1:35:43AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, there is that story.

• 1:35:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:45AJ Gentile?

  So um the altercation.

• 1:35:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, I just some old guy uh and I got into it and.

• 1:35:54AJ Gentile?

  Well, tease it out. He walks in, he's waving the thing around.

• 1:35:57Speaker 05

  He's waving a video around.

• 1:35:58AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 1:35:59Speaker 05

  And uh I, he's giving me a bunch of attitude.

• 1:36:03AJ Gentile?

  Like what?

• 1:36:03Speaker 05

  Uh, it was over uh.

• 1:36:08Speaker 05

  A return and it was late or something. It was some violation of whatever. Um, and, and once he started getting disrespectful to me and he was angry at me.

• 1:36:21AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 1:36:21Speaker 05

  I, I've the, the, the prison defense mechanism comes in.

• 1:36:26AJ Gentile?

  You felt that.

• 1:36:26Speaker 05

  So I feel like I'm being disrespected. So this is like, you know, still early on. This took me years to get rid of this stuff. So I was, uh, I wasn't, it wasn't like I was floating on cloud nine. The whole time I was out. I was, there was, there's certain things that would, you know, I guess triggers.

• 1:36:44AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 1:36:44Speaker 05

  Lack of a better word, uh, trigger the defense mechanisms from prison. Uh, I definitely had, uh, I, I had trouble sleeping for, if you want to call it PTSD. Sure. I mean, for a decade I had trouble sleeping.

• 1:36:57AJ Gentile?

  No, it is PTSD. It's not, it is PTSD. That's a thing that ex-cons have. You come out of war, you come out of prison, you have PTSD and you did. And so you felt you're disrespected.

• 1:37:10Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:37:10AJ Gentile?

  What happened with the guy?

• 1:37:11Speaker 05

  Uh, I, I shouted him down and, uh, I had to get, uh, I must, I, I got written up and my friend had to, you know, the friend who gave me the job.

• 1:37:22AJ Gentile?

  You didn't put hands on, right?

• 1:37:23Speaker 05

  No, no, no hands off. But we were just yelling. We were yelling at each other. Pretty good.

• 1:37:28AJ Gentile?

  This is terrible customer service.

• 1:37:29Speaker 05

  It's horrible customer service. Cause like it's retail, customers come in and yell. You just go, yes, sir. I will, it was really easy. Alls I had to do.

• 1:37:39AJ Gentile?

  Who cares? Just give him the tape.

• 1:37:41Speaker 05

  Just give him what he wanted and walk away. But I took it as a personal. So I get, uh, written up and, you know.

• 1:37:50AJ Gentile?

  But I love the conversation you have with Don in the back room.

• 1:37:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:37:53AJ Gentile?

  Because he asked you what happened, but it wasn't a casual thing. Cause he's like, no, seriously, what's going on?

• 1:38:00Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't like what happened with the, uh,

• 1:38:03AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 1:38:03Speaker 05

  With the situation. It's like what's going, it was like an actual caring.

• 1:38:07AJ Gentile?

  Cause he's in the program.

• 1:38:08Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. And, uh, yeah.

• 1:38:10AJ Gentile?

  What'd you say?

• 1:38:11Speaker 05

  Oh, I just, I just told him exactly. I felt disrespected and it just, everything just clicked. You know, um, my defense mechanism, I just lost my shit, you know, and it's just. And I it was it was understood, but it was also said that like you this cannot go on like you gotta.

• 1:38:31AJ Gentile?

  Did you get fired?

• 1:38:31Speaker 05

  Uh, no, I got written up.

• 1:38:33AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 1:38:35Speaker 05

  I got written up, which was I should have brought, I should have been fired.

• 1:38:39AJ Gentile?

  Ah, maybe. I don't know.

• 1:38:42Speaker 05

  Ah, he was gonna fire me. He wasn't gonna do it, but like it I felt terrible.

• 1:38:46AJ Gentile?

  If you did it again, maybe.

• 1:38:47Speaker 05

  And the thing is, like later on, like me and that old guy got along famously after.

• 1:38:53AJ Gentile?

  Of course, of course.

• 1:38:55Speaker 05

  So I like, I just treated him nice.

• 1:38:58AJ Gentile?

  Prison rules are actual.

• 1:39:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:00AJ Gentile?

  Rules of life.

• 1:39:01Speaker 05

  So and then he, we actually got to the point where like he'd come over and we'd chit chat for twenty, thirty minutes while he's at. So it's like, that's the cool part of the story is, uh, we became like buds after that.

• 1:39:13AJ Gentile?

  Mutual respect.

• 1:39:14Speaker 05

  Yeah. And like, it was way down the line. So I'm like, you know what? I'm really sorry I yelled at you that day. I was having a bad day. He's like, don't worry.

• 1:39:21AJ Gentile?

  Of course.

• 1:39:23Speaker 05

  He was a sweet, sweet old guy. So, yeah, um, it was, but that's, that's where I also recognized like, this might not be that easy. Like it was like, you know, you, once you get past your cloud nine and you're, you're, you're euphoria, you know, there's, there's the work that has to be done. And, uh, I was, I was super angry, like, and resentful.

• 1:39:49AJ Gentile?

  Are you feeling the calling to go back to drinking or drugs?

• 1:39:53Speaker 05

  Um, not, not at that time, but it, it, that eventually does come.

• 1:40:01Speaker 05

  But I think that's just being fresh, being out of prison, right? And you just, you know, you got your guard up all the time.

• 1:40:06AJ Gentile?

  Of course.

• 1:40:07Speaker 05

  You don't need to have your guard up. Plus, you know, prison rules aren't real life rules. So if somebody disrespects you, you don't like punch them in the face.

• 1:40:15AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 1:40:16Speaker 05

  You know, it's simple stuff like that.

• 1:40:19AJ Gentile?

  So what happened next after warehouse?

• 1:40:22Speaker 05

  After warehouse? Um, well, okay. So I meet, uh, first wife.

• 1:40:28AJ Gentile?

  Meet the first wife.

• 1:40:29Speaker 05

  Meet the first wife. Yeah. Uh, yeah.

• 1:40:33AJ Gentile?

  And?

• 1:40:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, she's, so when you, um, when you meet somebody in recovery, right?

• 1:40:40AJ Gentile?

  She was in the program.

• 1:40:41Speaker 05

  She was in the program. Uh, it's.

• 1:40:45Speaker 05

  It's cool.

• 1:40:46AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:40:47Speaker 05

  Uh, but you.

• 1:40:48AJ Gentile?

  Understand each other.

• 1:40:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, understand each other on that level, but you also have to have like more in common beyond that. And, uh, we, we never really did. So.

• 1:40:57AJ Gentile?

  When did the fight start and why?

• 1:40:59Speaker 05

  Uh, I mean, it was, it, it. It was just later on and it was, it wasn't like a ton of them, you know, it was just. I always.

• 1:41:12Speaker 05

  She, I don't want it. She's a nice person. So.

• 1:41:15AJ Gentile?

  She is.

• 1:41:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. She's a nice person.

• 1:41:17AJ Gentile?

  There's always two sides to a story.

• 1:41:18Speaker 05

  Yeah. And she had to put up with me, right? And, uh, long story short, I, I was like, I was. I was still kind of a magpie. Um, I was still collecting stuff that she didn't like.

• 1:41:32AJ Gentile?

  Like what comics?

• 1:41:33Speaker 05

  Oh, comics. Yeah. She just didn't like the comics and toy collecting like at all. And, uh, yeah, yeah. And, and it just wasn't going to work out.

• 1:41:43AJ Gentile?

  You guys are not getting along.

• 1:41:44Speaker 05

  Not getting along.

• 1:41:45AJ Gentile?

  Um, dad gets sick.

• 1:41:47Speaker 05

  Dad gets sick. Dad, um, gets cancer.

• 1:41:52Speaker 05

  And, uh.

• 1:41:55Speaker 05

  We kind of, we kind of like, everything is kind of, kind of put to the side. We're dealing with dad's cancer.

• 1:41:59AJ Gentile?

  How are you guys dealing with it?

• 1:42:00Speaker 05

  Um.

• 1:42:01AJ Gentile?

  How's mom taking it?

• 1:42:03Speaker 05

  Mom's being a caregiver and trying to be the strong caregiver. And at the time we, I, you know, we thought there's a possibility he could fight it off, right?

• 1:42:13AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:42:13Speaker 05

  Um, and but mom's, my mom had just been a caregiver for her mom who died. And then she had to be immediately a caregiver for my dad. Uh, long story short on this one, he, um, got colon cancer. It, uh, it went away. Uh, full remission and then it comes back immediately and it's. He's got, uh, weeks to live, weeks to live. Um, gets into a stomach and.

• 1:42:45AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 1:42:45Speaker 05

  All this and, uh.

• 1:42:49Speaker 05

  We have a last, our last like conversation where he's like not just on morphine.

• 1:42:55AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 1:42:55Speaker 05

  Um, our last real conversation and he sits me down, he's in the hospital. And uh, the last thing he wants to talk to me about is my relationship with my wife.

• 1:43:07AJ Gentile?

  Cause he sensed it a long time.

• 1:43:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:43:09AJ Gentile?

  That it's, that you're not happy, it's not.

• 1:43:11Speaker 05

  You're not happy, it's not working.

• 1:43:12AJ Gentile?

  So what did he tell you?

• 1:43:13Speaker 05

  Life is too short to be uh, to be with somebody you're not happy with. Right? And you know, you deserve happiness and, and we were like really tight and we rarely talked about like relationships. So those are such a, it was like, whoa, why is he bringing this up? But he was right. He was right. And again, no fault to hers, right? I, I was a massive pain in the ass.

• 1:43:36AJ Gentile?

  Of course.

• 1:43:37Speaker 05

  Yeah. And uh, so dad passes away. And that is just a huge change in my life. That's like an anchor gone.

• 1:43:47AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:47Speaker 05

  Uh, and

• 1:43:50Speaker 05

  at that point, I see that like as a, as like, you know what? It's just, I need it. I need a change in life. Um, I don't even know if it's the best decision in the world or not. And um, uh, I've reconnected with some friends, including Melissa and.

• 1:44:06AJ Gentile?

  Cause you knew Melissa from back in the day.

• 1:44:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've, Melissa, I've, my uh, uh, my wife Melissa, I've known for forty one years. So we, so she was at that Crystal Palace. She was partying there.

• 1:44:19AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:44:20Speaker 05

  So she's seen it all. She's seen it all. So we're friends. Uh, reconnected through classmates.com.

• 1:44:27AJ Gentile?

  Oh yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:29Speaker 05

  So um, we, we, I get a, I get a divorce.

• 1:44:32AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:33Speaker 05

  And moved to San Francisco, move away from, never thought I'd leave San Diego. I love San Diego. Uh, move up to San Francisco.

• 1:44:39AJ Gentile?

  What attracted you to San Francisco?

• 1:44:42Speaker 05

  Um, it was just, for back then it was cool. And I needed, I needed a change. I just needed a change of scenery. I didn't want to leave the state of California and I didn't want to live in LA.

• 1:44:54Speaker 05

  So San Francisco was the next best choice.

• 1:44:56AJ Gentile?

  Well, I mean, you were weird in San Diego and San Francisco, your home. Everybody's weird.

• 1:45:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, everybody's that's that's part of it, you know, it's certainly changed for San Diego now, but San Diego back then. It was pretty, pretty much a normal town. Um, and San Francisco back then was a different city than it is now. Uh, but yeah, I was, I was up there and, you know, I just, I was, uh, selling auto parts. So I went from,

• 1:45:23Speaker 05

  from working at the warehouse to selling auto parts. And, uh, I thought, the reason I bring that up is I like, well, this is my life now and I'm totally happy with it. Like, I like this job. Uh, I never, so when you, when you have realistic expectations of, well, I was going to go nowhere in life and die, but now I've got this job because I had no skills. When I walked out of prison, my, one of my biggest fears is I have no skills.

• 1:45:47AJ Gentile?

  Yes, you did. Yes, you did.

• 1:45:49Speaker 05

  Well, I mean,

• 1:45:50AJ Gentile?

  You were organized. You, you learned a lot in prison. So, auto parts, but you're still collecting comics and doing your,

• 1:45:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, still doing all that stuff, right?

• 1:45:59AJ Gentile?

  Melissa's cool with it.

• 1:46:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, like totally cool with it. Oh yeah. She has to be. No, I know. She's as much of a collector as I am. So there you go. So yeah, I got the normal job and I'm super happy with it. And I'm like, if this is the job I work on at the rest of my life, I'm totally cool. Like it makes enough money. I like it enough. Um, but I always kept on like finding something more, right? That's when the comic shop comes up. We're in San, I'm in San Francisco and this is before Melissa and I are married. Um, we, uh,

• 1:46:34AJ Gentile?

  Were you living together?

• 1:46:35Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, we were living together and like within a year I, I bought the comic story. It was just, it just landed in my lap.

• 1:46:40AJ Gentile?

  But how, how did you make that decision?

• 1:46:42Speaker 05

  It was really quick and probably not smart.

• 1:46:46AJ Gentile?

  I mean, just suddenly it's available. You have the money?

• 1:46:49Speaker 05

  Well, I'm working at Oakland Acura.

• 1:46:52AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 1:46:53Speaker 05

  And I hate working in Oakland. Like I, I hate Oakland, like. Hate Oakland like a lot. So and hate going over that Bay Bridge every day. So I'm looking for something and I'm at lunch and I open the paper and there is an ad for some comics for sale. I answer the ad because I'm like, well, I'm going to buy this big chunk of comics. It was it was affordable and I'm going to save it for when I open a store someday in retirement. So that was my plan.

• 1:47:24AJ Gentile?

  You when you retire would open a store.

• 1:47:26Speaker 05

  When I retire.

• 1:47:27AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 1:47:28Speaker 05

  So when I'm making this deal with the guy, the guy's all well, I mean, there's a comic shop for sale right now. You want to buy it? And it's just so happened to be the shop I shopped at the comic outpost. So it was my comic store. I'm like, I'll just talk to the guy. I never thought any of this would go down. We talk, we agree on a price. We go to a pizza place, make a handshake deal.

• 1:47:51AJ Gentile?

  You guys had the money?

• 1:47:52Speaker 05

  Uh, I had the money.

• 1:47:53AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 1:47:54Speaker 05

  Had the money. Um, I post, uh, yeah, post divorce, um,

• 1:48:02Speaker 05

  made a lot of money off the condo. We, we bought a condo for like next to nothing and the housing market went crazy.

• 1:48:07AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:08Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:48:08AJ Gentile?

  So the money was there.

• 1:48:09Speaker 05

  Money was there.

• 1:48:10AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 1:48:10Speaker 05

  So I bought the store and, uh, and, uh, it was just like that. It was within two weeks. I had to quick read, half read, um, small business for dummies. And then, uh, I was owning a comic store, which would was kind of was like a lifelong dream.

• 1:48:28AJ Gentile?

  Did you, do you feel like this is a dream come true?

• 1:48:31Speaker 05

  Yes, at first.

• 1:48:32AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:33Speaker 05

  And, uh, and it always was. It was always a really fun job. But then, you know, I always said to myself that this thing becomes a job. Like if it starts feeling like work, I'm out. Uh, and it didn't for a long time.

• 1:48:45AJ Gentile?

  Well, you got into the, to comic books as an entrepreneur at a very good time in, in our culture. Very good time. Very lucky because this is MCU is getting hot, right? Spider-Man's rebooted and it's good.

• 1:49:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, so right.

• 1:49:02AJ Gentile?

  Nolan is reboots Batman and it's great.

• 1:49:06Speaker 05

  It's all, yeah, it's kind of weird how the timing worked out. So I took it over in 2003.

• 1:49:10AJ Gentile?

  Kind of weird. You're the luckiest dude I know.

• 1:49:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I, um, X-Men had come out in 99, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, uh, came out the year before I opened my store.

• 1:49:21AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 1:49:22Speaker 05

  Uh, and it's, yeah, we're just a couple of years before Nolan starting Batman and, uh, the MCU starting. Uh, you know, in the meantime, there was like, Sin City came out and, you know, Hellboy. And it's just creeping up. It's doing better and better. It's when I, when I got there, it was still like recovering from post nine 11, post, uh, 90's stuff.

• 1:49:43AJ Gentile?

  Yeah. Not a lot of it. It was very specific.

• 1:49:46Speaker 05

  Batman Hush was the best-selling comic.

• 1:49:48AJ Gentile?

  Oof.

• 1:49:49Speaker 05

  So it was out right when I started my store. Uh, and then it just started revving up. The competition between Marvel and DC got a lot more serious.

• 1:49:58AJ Gentile?

  That's good for you.

• 1:50:00Speaker 05

  Oh, it was great. In the, in the beginning, it was, it was absolutely great. And it was kind of a renaissance time for comic books, for independent books too. Uh, and it was kind of the last hurrah of American comics. Now that I look back on it, which is kind of sad.

• 1:50:15AJ Gentile?

  It was.

• 1:50:16Speaker 05

  Uh, but, uh, the storytelling was getting much better. The art was getting better. The comic book sales were going up.

• 1:50:23AJ Gentile?

  What were the people like coming in and out?

• 1:50:25Speaker 05

  It was normies. So like we got, it, it was a, Hollywood was bringing in a lot of normies. But what helped was the comic books were story-driven. So we still had great writers like Mark Miller, uh, who were, who were out there working with, you know, either Wildstorm in the early days, but then they like Marvel plucked him and, you know, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, and, uh, Grant Morrison, you know, all these old Judge Dredd people, uh, coming in and writing American comics and kind of turning it on their, turning it upside down. Uh,

• 1:51:01AJ Gentile?

  You won Best of the Bay.

• 1:51:02Speaker 05

  I did, 2009.

• 1:51:04AJ Gentile?

  Why? Why? Why? How did you differentiate yourself?

• 1:51:07Speaker 05

  I, oh, so my, this San Francisco is very San Francisco, right? So, uh, most of the comic shops are going to be, um, independent book oriented, you know, because it's such a hippie, independent town. I'm like, I am going to be the normie superhero family store. Cause that's the one thing that isn't here.

• 1:51:29AJ Gentile?

  Weren't you drawing your own comic? Comics back in the day?

• 1:51:31Speaker 05

  Oh, God, yeah. I don't. Yes, I was.

• 1:51:34AJ Gentile?

  Art school?

• 1:51:35Speaker 05

  Uh, I, I, I drew, um, we did what kind of became the precursor of the book. Uh, we did a comic called Horror Show and I did another comic superhero comic book.

• 1:51:49AJ Gentile?

  People don't know that you write and draw.

• 1:51:51Speaker 05

  Uh, no, they don't. And I, and I'm gonna keep it that way. Well, not anymore, but, uh, yes.

• 1:51:57AJ Gentile?

  Not anymore.

• 1:51:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. I, I did a superhero comic book that I might revisit like after YouTube. But yeah, I was, I was drawing and writing just for fun, like no expectations and I don't consider myself anything.

• 1:52:10AJ Gentile?

  And the store is growing and then.

• 1:52:12Speaker 05

  Store's growing.

• 1:52:13AJ Gentile?

  Then you get a certificate for video production?

• 1:52:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, um, when, uh, we went Best of the Bay in 2009, but this is like 2008, 2009.

• 1:52:22AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:23Speaker 05

  Economy's going to crap. So the store is breaking even.

• 1:52:26AJ Gentile?

  Oh, right.

• 1:52:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's just breaking even. So I need, I'm like, I'm gonna, I want to do something fun. Uh, possibly to, to make some more money. I don't want to, but we need to like figure this out. So I take a video intensive course. Uh, it's called a new media intensive course or digital video intensive at San Francisco State University. Uh, it was four months, uh, 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week.

• 1:52:54AJ Gentile?

  Wow.

• 1:52:55Speaker 05

  And it's like basically film school with no theory put into four months.

• 1:52:58AJ Gentile?

  That sounds awesome.

• 1:52:59Speaker 05

  Like all, it was great. Great. First day, we had cameras in our hands. Second day, we're editing. Uh, we learn how to light a scene. Um, we, we learn how to write a script, you know?

• 1:53:11AJ Gentile?

  This comes in handy.

• 1:53:12Speaker 05

  We used a Matlock script and I'll never forget. Yeah. Uh, and yeah, and it was people who all worked in the industry. And it's all practical. It was all practical. So by the end, all of us had shot like four little short films.

• 1:53:26AJ Gentile?

  And how did this apply to the comic book store?

• 1:53:28Speaker 05

  Um, we were able to, I was able to like.

• 1:53:32Speaker 05

  Shoot podcasts, do podcasts, do, do ads, uh, but it was always gonna be like, I want to do a podcast and I want to do some kind of live show. And I was thinking, we live streamed, uh, God, what was, what did Joe Rogan used to use to live stream on?

• 1:53:48AJ Gentile?

  Ustream.

• 1:53:48Speaker 05

  Ustream. We used Ustream.

• 1:53:50AJ Gentile?

  The tiniest window.

• 1:53:52Speaker 05

  The tiniest window. So we live streamed in our store way back when, uh, during free comic book day and 24 hour comic book day where people were, you, you make a comic in 24 hours.

• 1:54:03AJ Gentile?

  So the store starts doing good again and you kind of become hot shit. You come, become a, become the mayor, mayor of the nerds.

• 1:54:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:54:11AJ Gentile?

  And, um, Ego Gary comes back.

• 1:54:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, big time. All goes to my head.

• 1:54:16AJ Gentile?

  Why? What happened?

• 1:54:18Speaker 05

  Um,

• 1:54:22Speaker 05

  stopped going to meetings.

• 1:54:24AJ Gentile?

  Why?

• 1:54:25Speaker 05

  Uh,

• 1:54:25AJ Gentile?

  You were cured?

• 1:54:26Speaker 05

  I was cured. No, I was, I mean,

• 1:54:28AJ Gentile?

  I mean, what do you, what's your rational, and what is my rational say?

• 1:54:32Speaker 05

  I was too busy.

• 1:54:33AJ Gentile?

  You're too busy for me?

• 1:54:34Speaker 05

  At work. Too busy.

• 1:54:36AJ Gentile?

  You know how that goes?

• 1:54:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:54:37AJ Gentile?

  And what's the wife thinking? Doesn't?

• 1:54:40Speaker 05

  She was busy too.

• 1:54:41AJ Gentile?

  So she doesn't know you're missing meetings or?

• 1:54:43Speaker 05

  Doesn't, doesn't necessarily know. She's, she's like, we both, we had the two kids, right? So,

• 1:54:49AJ Gentile?

  And you're learning to get pretty good at lying at this point.

• 1:54:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, very good.

• 1:54:52AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:52Speaker 05

  Very good. So, uh, say I'm going to meetings when I'm not, you know? So that was just a recipe for destruction.

• 1:54:59AJ Gentile?

  So it's going to your head and, um, what's going down?

• 1:55:03Speaker 05

  Well, uh, no sponsor, no meetings, going to my head. Uh, things are going really well at the store so that can mask a lot of stuff. Uh, putting up a banner one day. Uh, yeah. Superman returns banner. I still own, I will never get rid of it now.

• 1:55:21AJ Gentile?

  What happened?

• 1:55:21Speaker 05

  Uh, uh, a ladder, a folding ladder, um, flattens my thumb.

• 1:55:28Speaker 05

  Stupid injury. My thumb was like this thin, flattens my thumb. They have to like drill a hole in the nail and the, and the blood comes up like Monty Python. Uh, but the, um, the, at the emergency room, cause I had to drive myself there because my employee didn't know how to drive.

• 1:55:45AJ Gentile?

  San Francisco.

• 1:55:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, San Francisco. Uh, they, they gave me some Vicodin.

• 1:55:50AJ Gentile?

  Oh, daddy likey vikey.

• 1:55:52Speaker 05

  Yep. And it was pretty much off to the races to that point.

• 1:55:56AJ Gentile?

  Yeah. Suddenly in a great mood and don't feel any pain.

• 1:55:58Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:55:59AJ Gentile?

  So you just get a script?

• 1:56:01Speaker 05

  Get a script.

• 1:56:02AJ Gentile?

  And you're just taken as prescribed?

• 1:56:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. But it's normal at first. Then

• 1:56:09Speaker 05

  the thing is when you, when you have a comic store, a lot of people offer you stuff, you know, and

• 1:56:14AJ Gentile?

  Like what? Advice?

• 1:56:16Speaker 05

  Advice. That's it. Um, it just through time, through, I, I mean, basically the, the addict mind kicked in again, like absolutely kicked in.

• 1:56:26AJ Gentile?

  They're coming in with coke is what they're doing.

• 1:56:27Speaker 05

  They're coming in with coke. So it jumps really quick. So it goes from like, um, getting prescriptions and at that time it was the, the Vicodin opiate epidemic.

• 1:56:38AJ Gentile?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:56:39Speaker 05

  It was really easy to get scripts. You just make, you could just say, I sprained my ankle and

• 1:56:43AJ Gentile?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:56:43Speaker 05

  My back hurt. Uh, and yeah, and then, uh,

• 1:56:49Speaker 05

  you know, we, I've always been offered weed, you know, in the store for trade or whatever. And a guy just like one day just, yeah, comes in, talk, offer some coke. I'm like, sure.

• 1:57:00AJ Gentile?

  So you go from saying no, though?

• 1:57:03Speaker 05

  Going from no.

• 1:57:04AJ Gentile?

  To let's go in the back and get dusty.

• 1:57:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:57:07AJ Gentile?

  What's the, what shifted?

• 1:57:08Speaker 05

  Um, I, the, the relapse just kicked, the, the disease just kicked in at that point. Um, the shifting point was probably, I mean, obviously the not going to meetings, not having a sponsor and realizing that I had already relapsed. Cause for a minute I had it in my head that I hadn't relapsed when I was, when I was taking the pills.

• 1:57:32AJ Gentile?

  What were your, oh, cause it was just doctor.

• 1:57:35Speaker 05

  It was doc, the doctor gave, I was just doing, but I mean, I had stopped doing the prescribed amount. So I just said, fuck it.

• 1:57:42AJ Gentile?

  And you weren't talking to your sponsor at all?

• 1:57:44Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 1:57:45AJ Gentile?

  Did you feel ashamed?

• 1:57:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, totally, totally. And that's what, that's what fed the addiction was the shame behind it. And the, the difference this time was I was doing all of this in solitude. Right?

• 1:58:00AJ Gentile?

  She didn't know what was going on?

• 1:58:02Speaker 05

  She didn't know what was going on.

• 1:58:03AJ Gentile?

  Are you sure she didn't know?

• 1:58:04Speaker 05

  Well, I thought she didn't know.

• 1:58:05AJ Gentile?

  Cause I think they always know.

• 1:58:07Speaker 05

  They always know.

• 1:58:10AJ Gentile?

  We can, um, fast forward to the Melissa method.

• 1:58:16Speaker 05

  Oh, the Melissa method, yeah.

• 1:58:18AJ Gentile?

  Cause you, you're really, you're on and off. There's this story of you going down to Comic Con.

• 1:58:23Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:58:24AJ Gentile?

  If you want to tell that, cool.

• 1:58:26Speaker 05

  So Comic Con.

• 1:58:27AJ Gentile?

  But you're basically out of control.

• 1:58:28Speaker 05

  Completely. So it goes, it goes, well.

• 1:58:30AJ Gentile?

  Cause a coke habit is pricey.

• 1:58:32Speaker 05

  It's, it's very pricey and it's a progressive disease.

• 1:58:37AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:58:38Speaker 05

  So when you, when I quit, I'll use my statements here. When I quit.

• 1:58:44Speaker 05

  It's like you kept, I've kept doing drugs to the point where I picked them up again. So if that doesn't make any sense to anybody at home.

• 1:58:53AJ Gentile?

  It makes sense to addicts.

• 1:58:54Speaker 05

  If I was doing rails this big back in nine, or 89, when I quit.

• 1:59:00AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:59:00Speaker 05

  It will mean I'm doing rails this big when I pick up within weeks.

• 1:59:05AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 1:59:06Speaker 05

  Within days.

• 1:59:07AJ Gentile?

  Yep. Same with booze, same everything.

• 1:59:08Speaker 05

  Yep. And the thing is, your tolerance is not the same as it was then. So it's very dangerous.

• 1:59:15AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:59:15Speaker 05

  But yeah, in a very short amount of time, I was doing big old rails, like huge rails.

• 1:59:22AJ Gentile?

  How are things going at, at work?

• 1:59:24Speaker 05

  Uh, insane. I was going, slowly going insane. My employees are like, what the hell's going on? My wife's like, what the hell's going on?

• 1:59:32AJ Gentile?

  You have your son and a stepson at this point?

• 1:59:36Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:59:37AJ Gentile?

  You're a good dad?

• 1:59:39Speaker 05

  Um, I mean, I was never bad to them, but I wasn't a good dad when I was high. No, it's terrible dad. Just getting high, yeah.

• 1:59:48AJ Gentile?

  You're thinking about them at all when you, when you're doing your rails?

• 1:59:52Speaker 05

  All the time.

• 1:59:56Speaker 05

  All the time and it just made me want to get more high and not think about it about how much I was failing them like constantly and maybe I had it in the back of my head that oh I can I can get around this but then there was a point that kicked in is like now that is probably it.

• 2:00:17AJ Gentile?

  I did it once I can do it again and then you probably can't.

• 2:00:21Speaker 05

  No but um just through the grace of God nothing bad happened to him now I didn't take any unnecessary risks with them or do any drugs in front of them or or drive them anywhere completely incapacitated or anything crazy like that I still had enough I guess humanity left in me to not do that.

• 2:00:39AJ Gentile?

  That's why coke is very tricky.

• 2:00:41Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:00:42AJ Gentile?

  Because it's not like you're all cloudy and slurry you feel like I can control this I got this.

• 2:00:50Speaker 05

  Till you're up for like four or five days and it gets a little crazy.

• 2:00:54AJ Gentile?

  That was when you you I couldn't believe that you didn't crash on the way back from San Diego so just quickly what happened?

• 2:00:59Speaker 05

  Okay go to San Diego I'm like just completely out of it uh on coke and there's video of it somewhere.

• 2:01:07AJ Gentile?

  There is?

• 2:01:08Speaker 05

  There is.

• 2:01:08AJ Gentile?

  Oh my goodness.

• 2:01:09Speaker 05

  I'll find it uh it's it's bad.

• 2:01:11AJ Gentile?

  Do we have the coked up podcasts?

• 2:01:13Speaker 05

  Coked up yeah we were doing it um I wasn't involved I had hired somebody to do some interviews but we had like my plan my coked up was actually sounded like a good plan at the time but it was very hard to get internet there was to use the booth to sell stuff and also as a as like an interview like podcasting interview on the floor.

• 2:01:32AJ Gentile?

  Great idea.

• 2:01:33Speaker 05

  A con this was back in 2013 so it wasn't easy to do that but we did it and we got you know Dave Gibson and like we got some big names uh to come in and uh and yeah but I was like losing my fucking mind so I get home uh Melissa finds out what the hell's going on and uh I mean she finds the biggest rock.

• 2:01:57AJ Gentile?

  She does. And uh and how do you how what is she how does she confront you on the oh my goodness?

• 2:02:04Speaker 05

  Um she while I'm gone she's planning uh an intervention.

• 2:02:10AJ Gentile?

  Oh no.

• 2:02:11Speaker 05

  So she just plays it cool and then. All of a sudden, there's a bunch of people coming to my house. I'm like,

• 2:02:17AJ Gentile?

  Empty chair?

• 2:02:18Speaker 05

  Uh huh. I'm like, oh shit.

• 2:02:20AJ Gentile?

  You know exactly what it is.

• 2:02:21Speaker 05

  I know what's going on.

• 2:02:22AJ Gentile?

  Now, this is where people make a choice.

• 2:02:24Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:02:25AJ Gentile?

  To sit or, or to be an asshole.

• 2:02:27Speaker 05

  Yep. And I decided to not be an asshole. I, uh, I mean, I still love my wife, of course, and I still love my kids. It's not like that ever changed. Uh, I just, I was sick. I didn't like myself very much and I made a lot of mistakes.

• 2:02:46AJ Gentile?

  That's a, that's a very important decision that you made. That's, that's kind of like the real Gary coming through is I'm gonna sit. Cause you didn't have to. Cause you, you were ver- verbally abusive to Melissa?

• 2:02:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:02:58AJ Gentile?

  I mean, some of the stuff you said to her is out of hand.

• 2:03:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 2:03:02AJ Gentile?

  Um, she very easily could have left you anytime.

• 2:03:06Speaker 05

  She should have.

• 2:03:07AJ Gentile?

  And probably should have.

• 2:03:07Speaker 05

  Should have. I, I, I,

• 2:03:10AJ Gentile?

  I can't even imagine speaking to anybody that way.

• 2:03:12Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:03:13AJ Gentile?

  Not someone who, who loves you.

• 2:03:14Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:03:15AJ Gentile?

  She's saying, call your sponsor, go to meetings and you're telling her to go fuck herself.

• 2:03:19Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:03:21Speaker 05

  So this time I didn't and we, we sat down, a good friend of mine is there, you know, who was a customer at the store. But he was also instrumental in bringing me back to recovery. Uh, he's kind of a, a recovery guru. Um, and we sit down, we have the specialist there for the rehab and he's like, we gotta go right now. And at that point I could have said, no, um, but I was done. I was like, you know what?

• 2:03:57Speaker 05

  Let's go. So we go to rehab. And, you know, I get cleaned up for 30 days and it's really nice. One of the best things about it was they took away your, my phone too. And this is like 2013, so it's not as bad as it was.

• 2:04:11AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:12Speaker 05

  And it was so nice to not be around for 30 days.

• 2:04:17AJ Gentile?

  Try it now, Gary. It's still nice.

• 2:04:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:04:19AJ Gentile?

  Try it now.

• 2:04:22Speaker 05

  I, I, not, maybe not for 30. I don't know if I can for 30 days, but for a week, that'd be nice.

• 2:04:26AJ Gentile?

  Everyone should put it away for a bit.

• 2:04:27Speaker 05

  For a bit.

• 2:04:28AJ Gentile?

  Yep, sure. So how did it go in, in rehab?

• 2:04:30Speaker 05

  Uh, the rehab was, was good because it got me. Reconnected with AA, but I wasn't ready yet, right? So get out of rehab, nice and healthy, get out of rehab and just immediately go.

• 2:04:43AJ Gentile?

  Right back in.

• 2:04:44Speaker 05

  Right back at it.

• 2:04:46AJ Gentile?

  Did you have the store still?

• 2:04:48Speaker 05

  Store is still around, yes.

• 2:04:49AJ Gentile?

  Running it while you're inside?

• 2:04:50Speaker 05

  Uh, we have, I have a, I have a partial business partner. And then I have, uh, the employees and they're holding it together. And the store was like, kind of doing its own thing, didn't really need me there at that point.

• 2:05:04AJ Gentile?

  Might've been even better without you.

• 2:05:05Speaker 05

  It probably would have been.

• 2:05:08AJ Gentile?

  Give him a break.

• 2:05:10Speaker 05

  So I get back, go right back to the store, store's doing pretty good. But then things go downhill for me like fast. So like we're in, uh, we're in rehab in August, so we're in September of 2013. And the store went from doing okay to like absolutely done by the end of the year.

• 2:05:31AJ Gentile?

  That fast?

• 2:05:32Speaker 05

  That fast. It was like, it just fell off a cliff. And it was my, my, like the store could have survived, but I was, I went back out again.

• 2:05:40AJ Gentile?

  You were back on doing the coke?

• 2:05:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. And just like burning through money.

• 2:05:43AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 2:05:44Speaker 05

  Absolutely burning through money. So I have to make the decision to close it, but before I close it, somebody else comes in and says like, I'll give you a song to buy it. And I'm like, ah, fuck, you know, you, the customers still have it. I was like, ah, fine, whatever, you know? I, I need, I need to.

• 2:06:01AJ Gentile?

  And all this time you're selling collectibles to feed your pabbi.

• 2:06:05Speaker 05

  Oh God, yeah.

• 2:06:06AJ Gentile?

  Stuff that's one of a kind.

• 2:06:08Speaker 05

  I laugh, I laugh so I don't cry. Um, John Byrne had, uh, I can send you the copy. It's still out there. It, you can find it on the internet, but John Byrne had, uh, done a, a commission for me.

• 2:06:23AJ Gentile?

  Hmm.

• 2:06:24Speaker 05

  Of Batman and Spider-Man on a double date with Catwoman.

• 2:06:28AJ Gentile?

  Oh.

• 2:06:28Speaker 05

  And Black Cat and Alfred's like barbecuing on the top.

• 2:06:31AJ Gentile?

  So good.

• 2:06:32Speaker 05

  It's so good. It's like he drew it for a comic book. Like the guy took so much time with this commission. One of a kind. I'll never see it again.

• 2:06:41AJ Gentile?

  For two days worth of coke.

• 2:06:43Speaker 05

  Maybe two days worth of coke and, uh, I had. Frank Miller, original art from Amazing Spider-Man 100, a spread page where Spider-Man's meeting the Fantastic Four.

• 2:06:54AJ Gentile?

  What's going through your mind when you're letting it go? Are you thinking about, this is gonna hurt?

• 2:06:59Speaker 05

  It's gonna hurt, but um, you know, that's, I need to get high.

• 2:07:02AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:03Speaker 05

  Yeah. And it hurts, like, there's a couple of things, like, some stuff I've sold, it's like, whatever. But like, there's a couple, it's like, oh, those were.

• 2:07:12AJ Gentile?

  Those.

• 2:07:12Speaker 05

  Do you know how much that Frank Miller spread would be worth right now? It's like, oh. And considering how much I sold it for, it's like, oh, but.

• 2:07:23AJ Gentile?

  So you have to, you have to, you have to sell the store, or you want to?

• 2:07:28Speaker 05

  Um, we have to, cuz I'm, I'm bankrupt, I'm going bankrupt at this point.

• 2:07:34AJ Gentile?

  She's carrying you guys?

• 2:07:35Speaker 05

  And Melissa's not gonna carry me, like, this, the shop has to carry itself, or it's done. And it could have, but I burned through all the money. So, it, it just got tiresome. Um, I had to have a check ready when the shipment came, and it just like, it, it just wasn't sustainable at that point. And it was a choice of, do I continue to, to keep the store? Or do I try to fight to get my sobriety and my family back? And it was, it was an easy decision, so it was shut it down, then it gets sold. So it stayed around for a little while. And I, Melissa kicked me out of the house.

• 2:08:18AJ Gentile?

  What do you mean?

• 2:08:19Speaker 05

  Uh, so she, um, right around, uh, right around Christmas, she found some more pills, and she's like, you're out. Yeah. So. And initially, it was, I went to Sober Living. So, um, at first, nowhere, and then it, we, we set up Sober Living.

• 2:08:37AJ Gentile?

  Sober Living's urine tests, though.

• 2:08:38Speaker 05

  Urine tests, oh, yeah.

• 2:08:40AJ Gentile?

  How'd that go?

• 2:08:40Speaker 05

  Oh, I did so much, see, the thing is, though, I didn't do coke. I could tell, I could tell you the truth right now. I didn't do coke, but I had done so much coke, that it was still in my system like, days after. So I failed the test, and I'm like, I for real didn't do any coke, dude. But they're like.

• 2:08:59AJ Gentile?

  Right, they all say that.

• 2:09:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, they all say that, so they, they, they're like, the deal is, you gotta just go, you get kicked out for a day, and then you go to a, like, a different house.

• 2:09:08AJ Gentile?

  You still gotta pay for that day.

• 2:09:10Speaker 05

  Still gotta pay for that day. So um, that's what happened. And I'm like, alright.

• 2:09:18AJ Gentile?

  Cause you can't go home?

• 2:09:19Speaker 05

  I can't go home. So I slept in the car.

• 2:09:21AJ Gentile?

  Slept in the car.

• 2:09:22Speaker 05

  Slept in the effing car.

• 2:09:23AJ Gentile?

  Hoping for tomorrow.

• 2:09:25Speaker 05

  Hoping for tomorrow. So this is 2013. I am a 43. Uh, just lost everything and I am sleeping in my effing car. Right? So uh, I get into the, the next um, the sobriety house. It's off a, off a slope. In San Francisco, if you're familiar with that area. And I'm like, I'm gonna give it another go.

• 2:09:54Speaker 05

  I gotta find a job. First, I just wanted to get, like I had enough, enough money set aside and didn't need a lot. It's just like, let's just get the sober thing going right now. Let's go to meetings.

• 2:10:04AJ Gentile?

  Meetings?

• 2:10:04Speaker 05

  Meetings. Yeah. And uh, there's meetings in the house and the people in the house, it was a nice house. People were pretty cool.

• 2:10:11AJ Gentile?

  You're still in touch with Melissa at this time?

• 2:10:13Speaker 05

  Um, a little bit. Yeah.

• 2:10:15AJ Gentile?

  A little bit is enough.

• 2:10:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, a little bit, which is like, I'm alive. Uh, I went to a meeting just checking in. But she's not being like.

• 2:10:22AJ Gentile?

  You know, at the time that you're risking more than you were at Folsom? Like it's a more dangerous situation now?

• 2:10:29Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:10:30AJ Gentile?

  You knew that?

• 2:10:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, like this is way more dangerous than when I was younger.

• 2:10:33AJ Gentile?

  You got boys at home, no dad?

• 2:10:35Speaker 05

  I got kids I've abandoned, basically. I have let down and that like that sticks the most, right? Is uh, what really motivated me to, to turn my shit? Cause I didn't know if she was gonna get, I figured she wouldn't. And uh, I'm like, oh my God.

• 2:10:56Speaker 05

  Is itation with my kids? And I know other people have to go through, there's people out there going through it right now and it's not to look down on them. This is a completely different situation, but with. What motivated me was like, I don't wanna have, I don't wanna, I don't wanna be that dad. I don't wanna be that dad. There's so many dads out there that have done that. It's like, I don't want to be that dad.

• 2:11:19AJ Gentile?

  You sit in circles with that dad every time you're at a meeting?

• 2:11:22Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:11:22AJ Gentile?

  There's one of those guys is there?

• 2:11:23Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:11:25AJ Gentile?

  Can't be that guy.

• 2:11:26Speaker 05

  I can't. And, and you know, it sucks to be in that position as that guy and like if I had to be in it, that's fine, but that my main motivation was I am not going to be that guy. Not going to let my kids down. Period. So whatever I'm feeling, I have to, I have to deal with it. So I did. I, I, that was it. That was the thing that clicked for me and passed my next piss test. No problem.

• 2:11:54AJ Gentile?

  Nice.

• 2:11:55Speaker 05

  And well, they were, listen, yeah, it was quite, they were all like, this, this is the guy who failed. So I think they were ready to like boot me out and I passed. They're like, okay, we can move a, you could, you could feel kind of like a tension leave and we can move on and, and.

• 2:12:12AJ Gentile?

  That guy who technically threw you out that first night, which he should have. I don't know what the quote was, but it was a great moment in your story where you were kind of negotiating, almost fighting with the guy to stay.

• 2:12:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:12:24AJ Gentile?

  And whatever the quote was, he said, what you're doing right now is you're angry at external forces trying to get someone else to make a decision for you. We're not doing that here.

• 2:12:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta do this on your own, buddy.

• 2:12:34AJ Gentile?

  This is on you.

• 2:12:35Speaker 05

  This is on you.

• 2:12:35AJ Gentile?

  Come back tomorrow.

• 2:12:36Speaker 05

  These are rules, you know, and, and he was right.

• 2:12:40AJ Gentile?

  He was right. It's a great.

• 2:12:41Speaker 05

  A hundred percent. It sucks to hear at the time though. You're like.

• 2:12:44AJ Gentile?

  It does, but it's, but I make, had me thinking about my own life. Everyone should think about that. When you're angry at external things, you're looking for someone else to make your decision for you.

• 2:12:54Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:12:55AJ Gentile?

  Don't do that. Man up. Make the call.

• 2:12:58Speaker 05

  Man up. And, and I did. And, uh, yeah. So

• 2:13:06Speaker 05

  through this, uh, through the sober living, it starts to come together and I have to go through like just swallowing a lot of pride along the way. This is, you know, uh, is going back to auto parts jobs, but not to the, like I was a, I'm a journeyman in that field. I had to go work at O'Reilly for $12 an hour. That's where I started, but that's, that's what you have to do. And I wasn't super happy about it. I was bitter, but it's like, I understood that like this is me getting a job. And in the meantime, Um, I started podcast. I just because I miss the store and uh, I'm like, I need a hobby because I know how important. One of the things about recovery is going to the gym is really important.

• 2:13:51Speaker 05

  And it's not to, it's more, it's for this.

• 2:13:54AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 2:13:55Speaker 05

  More than anything, it's part of that routine, right? And having a hobby, like having a hobby you enjoy. So I'm like, well, I like, uh, we did the podcasting thing at the store. Let's just do one for shits and giggles and uh, me and my, uh, me and a friend.

• 2:14:11AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 2:14:11Speaker 05

  And um, we did our first show in a Starbucks at West Portal in San Francisco.

• 2:14:17AJ Gentile?

  What'd you name the show?

• 2:14:18Speaker 05

  Uh, well, the, the show was named, uh, Sutro Watchtower in the, uh, originally, which is a terrible name, but it was just a place or name, right? Uh, cause we were like, literally, cause the shop, the, the Starbucks is under Sutro Tower.

• 2:14:32AJ Gentile?

  Oh, that's why.

• 2:14:33Speaker 05

  Giant antenna, uh, in, in San Francisco.

• 2:14:37AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 2:14:38Speaker 05

  And we thought watchtower, like, you know, watchtower. So it's terrible. It's a terrible name.

• 2:14:44AJ Gentile?

  All creators have a terrible name for their first channel.

• 2:14:47Speaker 05

  But it was just a placeholder.

• 2:14:48AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 2:14:49Speaker 05

  Right? Uh, and yeah, we do this show. I think we talked about Batman versus Superman and like the Arrowverse and you know?

• 2:14:57AJ Gentile?

  And how are you handling being away from the comic book store and going to job day to day? How are you just hit the drudgery, the regret?

• 2:15:06Speaker 05

  Uh, it, it, I'm handling it by, um, going to meetings and talking about it and get myself a sponsor and temporary sponsors and whoever would have my ear, but it, I'm, it's tough. It was really hard.

• 2:15:21AJ Gentile?

  How long does it take Melissa to, to trust you again?

• 2:15:23Speaker 05

  Hmm. Uh, a while, a while. Uh, we.

• 2:15:30Speaker 05

  Once I got, I think I moved on, we were just about to move on. I went through a bunch of jobs. So I started at Riley and then I just, whatever would pay me more, I was gone, you know?

• 2:15:42AJ Gentile?

  Tesla?

• 2:15:43Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, and ended up at Tesla eventually, but between that I worked at a German car place and uh,

• 2:15:50AJ Gentile?

  A few Acuras, right?

• 2:15:51Speaker 05

  Uh, Acura and Dodge, uh, and eventually ended up at Tesla, but I'm, I'm back home within a few months. I'm back home and uh, it, yeah, we're, so I'm doing the podcast thing, going to work every day. Uh, and especially when it's up, you know, in Marin. So I'm going to Tesla. I worked for Tesla. I finally get a job at Tesla. I worked my way up. And

• 2:16:17AJ Gentile?

  What are you doing there?

• 2:16:18Speaker 05

  Oh, well Tesla found me for someone on fricking LinkedIn of all things. Like I'm actually, I'm the one person on earth who got a job on LinkedIn. Uh, they sent me a message and they were in the process of trying to not be a tech company and be an automotive company. Cause they have service centers, right? And they were treating them like tech centers. And it's like, you can't do that. So they needed to bring in automotive people and this was in 2017. So they found me and they offered me like all the money in the world. And I'm like, okay, well I, they, they're like, what would it take? And I'm like, I'm going to give them a stupid like,

• 2:16:56AJ Gentile?

  How did you become talented and, and wanted? Why are you being recruited?

• 2:17:01Speaker 05

  Uh, what skills? I think they were, um, I was on, on LinkedIn already, but I just had a lot of experience in, in auto parts. That's it. And, and it, it's probably just as hard now, but it was hard to find people. It's a generational thing, but it was hard to find people who, who were,

• 2:17:20AJ Gentile?

  My boy can't change an alternator.

• 2:17:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:17:22AJ Gentile?

  Doesn't even know what it is.

• 2:17:23Speaker 05

  Yeah. So it's like finding people who had skills, uh, in that field was getting tough, was getting tough. And they had the money and they were just kind of flinging, I think it everywhere to see. Uh, but the fact that they found me is so weird. And I found that email when I was at work at Toyota. And I'm like, I'll just answer it. And then like they shot me back and I'm like, okay.

• 2:17:48Speaker 05

  I'll just show them, I'll just tell them how much money I want. And they said, yes. And I'm like, okay, I guess I'm working there now. Uh, it was fine. It like if for, for big corporations, they're actually probably the best I've ever worked for the.

• 2:18:01AJ Gentile?

  Were you turning wrenches?

• 2:18:02Speaker 05

  Uh, no, I was working in parts. So I was setting up a part. I was helping with the parts department. That had no focus whatsoever. And when I left, it didn't have any either. That's the problem. Um, but like, yeah, working at a Tesla parts, I won't bore anybody. It's just really different than working at a regular car because Tesla's, you're pretty much just changing tires. That's about it. Door handles, tires and screens.

• 2:18:27AJ Gentile?

  And that's where you discovered YouTube can kill some time?

• 2:18:30Speaker 05

  Uh, YouTube could kill a lot of time. So I was watching a lot of YouTube and I was still doing my podcast. And doing like a little, a little bit here on YouTube. Um, I was telling you earlier. We got kind of inspired by, uh, Talking Dead. But we were going to talk about Walking Dead. I would, we would find about.

• 2:18:51AJ Gentile?

  The great Chris Hardwood.

• 2:18:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, we, we, we cover Ash versus Evil Dead, Westworld, um, Counterpart, just any weird show. And we just do a live stream afterwards and, uh, American Gods, you know, and we get a little traction there. And it was through Expanse. We started getting a bunch of traction, which was great, which was great. Before any culture nonsense started going on, right? So this is all going on in the background while I'm working at these parts jobs. And yeah, I'm, uh, people I'm friends with now, I'm all watching. Uh, I'm at Tesla and I've got my phone down here.

• 2:19:24AJ Gentile?

  Who are you watching?

• 2:19:24Speaker 05

  Uh, Jeremy from Geeks and Gamers.

• 2:19:27AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:27Speaker 05

  Yep. So Jeremy from Geeks and Gamers and in the early days drinker.

• 2:19:32AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 2:19:32Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I was watching Eric July, Young Ripa.

• 2:19:35AJ Gentile?

  Can we give a shout out to Yellow Flash?

• 2:19:37Speaker 05

  Uh, Yellow Flash. Hell yeah. Yellow Flash. Uh, well, I was in his streams a lot back in the early days. Yeah, it was, uh, And eventually, you know, a couple of videos took off, right?

• 2:19:53Speaker 05

  The first one that took off for me like big time was like 30,000 views was the expanse getting canceled. I did a video on that.

• 2:20:03AJ Gentile?

  Let's take, let's take a break.

• 2:20:04Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:20:05AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, take a break because now we're getting into nerdronic. Before we take the break, um, how's Melissa doing with this podcast thing? She's watching you do it. You're having a wall.

• 2:20:19AJ Gentile?

  She thinks it's stupid.

• 2:20:20Speaker 05

  Uh, no, she actually, she, um,

• 2:20:25Speaker 05

  she really, she's, she's part of the operation now. She's the brains of the operation. This thing doesn't happen without her.

• 2:20:31AJ Gentile?

  I know.

• 2:20:31Speaker 05

  Does she think I'm stupid all the time?

• 2:20:36Speaker 05

  No, um, no, she's really supportive. Uh, and we could definitely get to like the, the part of the story where, you know, she was freed up to have all that time, but I think she's, she's, she's proud. She's proud of me.

• 2:20:51AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 2:20:52Speaker 05

  In, in her way.

• 2:20:54AJ Gentile?

  Yeah. So you have a video that takes off, right?

• 2:20:59Speaker 05

  Yes, relatively speaking.

• 2:21:00AJ Gentile?

  Oh, no, I get it. 30,000 views took me two years.

• 2:21:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:21:04AJ Gentile?

  To get to. So that's a lot.

• 2:21:06Speaker 05

  Years to get to that. And when I saw it happen, I was just like, it was, it was awesome. I was like, wow, 30,000 people, like a baseball stadium.

• 2:21:17AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 2:21:17Speaker 05

  Watched my video.

• 2:21:18AJ Gentile?

  What video was it?

• 2:21:19Speaker 05

  It was the expanse, uh, getting canceled. It was for a bummer. It was a complete bummer, but I was, it was just reporting that it was canceled and I had never really done a video. I was a live stream channel. Purely not thinking, I did everything wrong.

• 2:21:35Speaker 05

  Right. When I started live streaming, it was just to back up podcasts. It was just to record the podcasts. So I had no idea people were watching. So I'll never forget one of my first, I consider my first sub because he was the first one I contacted. Brian Smart, I love you. He emails me is all I have been trying to talk to you for the last three weeks. There's a chat right below your, that you're not paying attention to. I'm like, there's a chat.

• 2:22:01AJ Gentile?

  You didn't know?

• 2:22:02Speaker 05

  No, I had no idea.

• 2:22:03AJ Gentile?

  Your fans are there.

• 2:22:05Speaker 05

  So I, we start doing, I'm like, oh my God, there's four people in here. So it was total, I'm like, success. Total success. This is all I ever wanted was just to talk nerdy stuff. And I had another co-host, it's a friend of mine. He's a good guy. He used to work for Netflix, helped build Disney plus. He's kind of a brilliant guy.

• 2:22:26AJ Gentile?

  It's not his fault. What happened over there?

• 2:22:28Speaker 05

  No, it's not his fault. But he's the one who's all, you know, we can make money off this. I'm like, get, shut up. Can't make money off YouTube. I'm not going to make any money. I'm not doing this for money. I'm happy. I like it. And

• 2:22:43AJ Gentile?

  Were you aware of like monetization and all of that?

• 2:22:46Speaker 05

  Not super aware. And at the time I wasn't even monetized. So I'm like, that's not going to happen.

• 2:22:52AJ Gentile?

  So you were making zero money.

• 2:22:53Speaker 05

  Zero. For years, just doing it for fun. Doing this exact same thing I do now, but just, I just did it as a hobby because it was a chance to hang out with my friends and it kept me out of trouble.

• 2:23:10AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 2:23:10Speaker 05

  And it was doing something I truly loved. Every morning when I get up, since before the comic shop, I get up and go to entertainment websites. So back 20 years ago was the force.net, the onering.net, you know, just looking at all my nerdy stuff. It made me happy. That's it. So why not make a show around that? And then once something hits 30,000 views and actors from the show contacted me and they're like, hey, thanks for the support. And my, hey, thanks for the great show. You know, like, it was really a great show. Um, seeing it get picked up by Amazon was awesome.

• 2:23:51AJ Gentile?

  So big.

• 2:23:51Speaker 05

  It was huge. Uh, and then, you know, we kind of kept doing, I, I never thought to make videos still.

• 2:24:00AJ Gentile?

  So you're still not thinking about, I can make money this.

• 2:24:02Speaker 05

  Yeah. So the first video that took off was technically a live stream. I did it live. But then once it hit VOD.

• 2:24:09AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 2:24:09Speaker 05

  It took off. And it didn't really click right away.

• 2:24:14AJ Gentile?

  Totally understand.

• 2:24:15Speaker 05

  And, um, eventually I just started making videos because I was told, well, that helps you get subscribers. I'm like, well, I can do a video. I can edit a video real quick. And what I'll do is I'll just riff off my last live stream. You know, cause, uh, cause I, I mean, even to this day, my channel has more live streams than it does videos. I think I've only done.

• 2:24:38AJ Gentile?

  Wow.

• 2:24:39Speaker 05

  Uh, 600 videos, cause it says 1700 on my channel. 600 of those are videos. The rest are live streams. I, I live stream way more. Uh, and I didn't think about it because now I think of myself more as a somebody who makes videos, but I honestly live.

• 2:24:55AJ Gentile?

  You live stream all, all the time, everywhere.

• 2:24:57Speaker 05

  I love it.

• 2:24:59AJ Gentile?

  What were the, uh, the monetization requirements when you were getting close?

• 2:25:04Speaker 05

  Oh, it, those were back in the days of you got a thousand subs.

• 2:25:09AJ Gentile?

  A thousand subs and that was it?

• 2:25:11Speaker 05

  I didn't even think it was a thousand subs.

• 2:25:13AJ Gentile?

  That's before me. You needed like 4,000 watch hours.

• 2:25:16Speaker 05

  It was 4,000 watch hours and 500. I can't even remember. It's not the requirements that you have today.

• 2:25:23AJ Gentile?

  No. Do you remember when you hit it?

• 2:25:25Speaker 05

  I remember when I hit it and somebody gave me $5 in a super chat. I'm like, oh, that's awesome. Thanks.

• 2:25:31AJ Gentile?

  You made money.

• 2:25:32Speaker 05

  I made money. I remember cash, like transferring the first fifty dollars out of, out of my account, just going, right on. That's like

• 2:25:43AJ Gentile?

  Absolutely.

• 2:25:43Speaker 05

  easy money right there. And I was happy with it. And I didn't need anymore. And to this day, I haven't asked for a super chat. I've never asked for a super chat.

• 2:25:53AJ Gentile?

  You have it.

• 2:25:54Speaker 05

  No, no. And it's, it's been brilliant. The support has been brilliant. But yeah, once, once that took off, Doctor Who happened, right? And that was the first time.

• 2:26:07AJ Gentile?

  What do you mean, Doctor Who happened? Doctor Who's been happening for a long time.

• 2:26:11Speaker 05

  All right. So I guess I gotta frame that.

• 2:26:14AJ Gentile?

  Well, something, things were happening within this particular segment of pop culture.

• 2:26:19Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:26:20AJ Gentile?

  That made you angry.

• 2:26:21Speaker 05

  Yes. That I couldn't believe what was happening. Because if you like, well, okay, so let's go to The Expanse. You love The Expanse. I love The Expanse. The Expanse kind of showed where entertainment was going at the time. It was prestige television. It was done right. The Expanse season one and the first two seasons are ten out of ten.

• 2:26:44AJ Gentile?

  Ten out of ten.

• 2:26:45Speaker 05

  Science fiction, really a great take on the world, a pretty even take on the world.

• 2:26:51AJ Gentile?

  It was.

• 2:26:51Speaker 05

  And it was a diverse show that never said, we're a diverse show. It was going that way naturally. It was kind of matching the demographics of America and the UK. And nobody was making an issue out of it.

• 2:27:04AJ Gentile?

  Well, it felt like this is where things would go.

• 2:27:07Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:27:08AJ Gentile?

  And it's hard science fiction. Like, this is how things would happen.

• 2:27:11Speaker 05

  Yep. Especially.

• 2:27:13AJ Gentile?

  So we're talking about going to Mars, the Belters, and they're, they have a unique culture and a language.

• 2:27:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, the Belters were the Teamsters.

• 2:27:21AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:27:22Speaker 05

  Mars was military.

• 2:27:23AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 2:27:24Speaker 05

  And Earth.

• 2:27:26AJ Gentile?

  Was the welfare state.

• 2:27:27Speaker 05

  Was the welfare state that was run by the United Nations. And I thought it was a really accurate look at the United Nations. And everybody was on basic income. And everybody on basic income sat around their house and did nothing.

• 2:27:44AJ Gentile?

  Right. They got high.

• 2:27:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:27:45AJ Gentile?

  And then you had the wealth gap.

• 2:27:47Speaker 05

  Giant wealth gap. And it was a problem. And that's why people were leaving. That's why people would leave to Mars. You know, and Mars was militaristic, but they were goal oriented and they were. It's it's complex, but there was a lot of people, a lot of Martians were just good people. You know, and then they had like the space Mormons, which was funny. Uh, but I thought it was a relatively objective look at life for the most part, kind of changes later in the books, but uh.

• 2:28:18AJ Gentile?

  It does. I stuck with them. I have the books memorized.

• 2:28:20Speaker 05

  I did too. I I did too. I think they rallied at the end. The books rallied at the end. I there's a couple of books I don't like, uh, but um.

• 2:28:27AJ Gentile?

  What parts of the story they expands bother you?

• 2:28:30Speaker 05

  Um, Michio Pa.

• 2:28:32AJ Gentile?

  You don't like Pa, huh?

• 2:28:33Speaker 05

  I hate Pa. I hate Pa. Pa was um instrumental in destroying the earth and faced no consequences for it.

• 2:28:43AJ Gentile?

  Totally agree, and I would skip her scenes. No offense to the actress, skip her scenes in the book.

• 2:28:48Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:28:49AJ Gentile?

  Uh, but I was okay with drummer.

• 2:28:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, drummer was fine. Drummer was fine.

• 2:28:54AJ Gentile?

  With Bull being kind of in there.

• 2:28:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:28:57AJ Gentile?

  All right. I I see where you're coming from.

• 2:28:59Speaker 05

  And then they went away from Holden in the later books.

• 2:29:02AJ Gentile?

  That is definitely.

• 2:29:02Speaker 05

  Completely. I'm like, what are we doing? Uh, but it rallied at the end. It it and really and ants unlike the show answers the proto molecule like tells you what's going on.

• 2:29:14AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 2:29:15Speaker 05

  So if you watch the show and not read the books, there's.

• 2:29:19AJ Gentile?

  You just got started.

• 2:29:20Speaker 05

  You just got started. It's basically Game of Thrones, you know, like ending at at a dance with dragons or a Song of Ice and Fire and except you can read the books and find out what's going on.

• 2:29:32AJ Gentile?

  I forget which run, whether it's Ty, I don't forget, but he was in this George's assistant for a while.

• 2:29:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So both Ty Frank and Dan Abraham are were are like uh, proteges.

• 2:29:45AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 2:29:46Speaker 05

  They're like the two people who could probably go and finish a Song of Ice and Fire on the planet.

• 2:29:53AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, so they they were making like a an RPG some and said this be a good novel.

• 2:29:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Yes, it started out as as a game. Um, I wish they hadn't gotten super political, uh, a few years ago. They haven't said, well, not that I've seen since, but, uh, I was, yeah, I was a huge supporter of the show and I still say, still watch it. I still think it's pretty good.

• 2:30:17AJ Gentile?

  So what how how's that track with Doctor Who and and what you were doing?

• 2:30:20Speaker 05

  So Hollywood drastically changed, uh, post, well, it was a couple of things. Uh, the first Trump administration and me too, kind of coincided.

• 2:30:32AJ Gentile?

  Twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen.

• 2:30:33Speaker 05

  Fifteen, twenty sixteen, something radically changed in Hollywood. What are the origins of that? I can get really in the weeds with that. Um, I think a lot of it was dictated from the Obama administration and on.

• 2:30:50AJ Gentile?

  You don't have to get into the weeds on that because that's an opinion, but.

• 2:30:54Speaker 05

  It's my opinion. It is. Yes, my opinion.

• 2:30:56AJ Gentile?

  But what happened to the storytelling is kind of fact.

• 2:31:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, whatever the origins were.

• 2:31:02AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 2:31:02Speaker 05

  Right. And I have my, I have my suspicions, which I've gone over a lot of my channel. It did change and we saw characters like Luke Skywalker turned into broken men who try to kill their nephew because they had a bad dream and sit on an island drinking, uh, the the booby milk from a giant space manatee and while they were trying to introduce new characters in a Star Wars franchise that everybody would have been fine with. It was the treatment of Han Solo. It was the treatment of Luke Skywalker and it was clearly.

• 2:31:46Speaker 05

  Not creatively driven, all of, all of that was not creatively driven. It was social and political motivations behind these decisions. Um, a lot of channels were born with, uh, with the Last Jedi and the Force Awakens and, um, and the Rise of Skywalker. I got into the mix.

• 2:32:08AJ Gentile?

  So are those bad movies because it's a female lead?

• 2:32:12Speaker 05

  No. No, they're bad movies because they weren't planned. They were poorly written and the female lead was propped up, uh, basically she was propped up by degrading the legacy characters. So that's where the frustration comes in. Now, you will hear the excuse from the access media and even people who work on the show and Lucasfilm, that people just hate women. Uh, every Star Wars fan would have been completely fine with a female lead and a female Jedi. And Finn, who was actually the more interesting character out of all of them.

• 2:32:51AJ Gentile?

  He was.

• 2:32:52Speaker 05

  Uh, who they made a clown, not the fans. Uh, the fans were mad at them for the treatment of Luke. What we have been waiting for is to see full powered, full Jedi Luke, who could, uh, like in Dark Empire, who could bring down a, a Star Destroyer with the Force. We just wanted to see that. That's all we wanted to see.

• 2:33:11AJ Gentile?

  I, I heard that even Mark Hamill

• 2:33:13Speaker 05

  He was.

• 2:33:14AJ Gentile?

  Didn't love the way that character wrapped up.

• 2:33:17Speaker 05

  Uh, he was not happy. He was clearly not happy and he was showing that throughout the press. Now they told him to finally shut up. I don't think he ever fully did. And you can, uh, get mad at Mark for other things he said.

• 2:33:29AJ Gentile?

  You can, but I don't care about what he said. I don't care about his political positions. I care about the story.

• 2:33:33Speaker 05

  It, it, as far as the story of Star Wars, he was clearly not happy about it and neither with fans.

• 2:33:39AJ Gentile?

  You mentioned a phrase, access media. You coined that. That's, but that's a term that is used now in media. What does that mean?

• 2:33:46Speaker 05

  Uh, access media is the corporate media that essentially, and not all corporate media. It's also some independent media that will.

• 2:33:58Speaker 05

  Basically throw softballs as far as interviews go and be talk so toxic negativity. There's also toxic positivity and they will gas up, gaslight, um, things that aren't very good so they can maintain their access and it is not for money at all. I mean, I've said it before, I'd almost respect that more if you did that for money because that's, that's something of value. No, it's just to maintain your access and what they get is screen, they get early access to movies or TV shows. They get screeners. Um, and when you're watching them, they've got like some giant watermark thing over them.

• 2:34:40AJ Gentile?

  It's annoying.

• 2:34:41Speaker 05

  Um, and, uh, instead of being authentic and honest all the time, uh, they pretty much, they're really soft on their criticism and really crazy and it's absolutely unbelievable with their over praise with things like Ironheart or the marvels, which are just objectively bad.

• 2:35:04AJ Gentile?

  So they have to review these positively or they don't get the next interview?

• 2:35:07Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:35:08AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 2:35:08Speaker 05

  Or at least think that way. Now it's not.

• 2:35:10AJ Gentile?

  This is not your opinion. This is a, this is how it works.

• 2:35:13Speaker 05

  This is how it works and it's not like the studios tell them that. The studios don't tell them that. They, they do it on their own.

• 2:35:19AJ Gentile?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:35:20Speaker 05

  And what happened is people like yours truly, or anybody else who went to them normally, like I used to go to a CBR or Screen Rant for my news all the time, right? Or Ain't It Cool News? Um, and honestly, Ain't It Cool News back in the day was the most real. They were absolutely the most real, especially Moriarty. Um, he was like a drinker prototype.

• 2:35:48AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 2:35:48Speaker 05

  Yeah. He would shred stuff and that's why I love the guy because I knew, well, this guy's honest, you know, and I didn't agree with them all the time. But you started seeing, uh, these, these giant sites and these critics who, uh,

• 2:36:06Speaker 05

  Really. They went out of their way to, I mean, to just to call movies that are obviously like, you can like, we can have a difference of opinion of like Shang Chi, right?

• 2:36:20AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 2:36:20Speaker 05

  Uh, I, some people could think it's good. I think it's terrible, but it's not the worst thing Marvel's ever done.

• 2:36:26AJ Gentile?

  I think it made money. Yeah.

• 2:36:27Speaker 05

  Yeah. Uh, no, it didn't. It didn't.

• 2:36:30AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 2:36:30Speaker 05

  Uh, yes, I, I got called out.

• 2:36:32AJ Gentile?

  They should decide.

• 2:36:33Speaker 05

  That, that's how they should decide, but that, what were they're gaslighting people as saying these things are making money when they're not. Um, the, the year that Shang Chi came out and the Eternals, and I think it was Black Widow, uh, Marvel wrote down 65 million dollars, the studio. So they didn't make money. If you're writing down money, you're not making any money.

• 2:36:53AJ Gentile?

  So if a movie makes, we hear the numbers all the time. A movie makes 300 million dollars. That's not really the number, is it?

• 2:36:59Speaker 05

  It, no.

• 2:37:00AJ Gentile?

  It does box office 300 million. That's.

• 2:37:02Speaker 05

  That's the money it, it, okay. So if a movie makes, if they announce it.

• 2:37:06AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 2:37:07Speaker 05

  Right. That is the movie, that is the money it generated at the box office.

• 2:37:11AJ Gentile?

  So that's free split.

• 2:37:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:37:13AJ Gentile?

  And that's not including the marketing budget.

• 2:37:14Speaker 05

  It's not including marketing budget. That's not including anything. You're paying the actors afterwards. That's not including the theaters take.

• 2:37:22AJ Gentile?

  Right. Which is about half.

• 2:37:23Speaker 05

  Which is about half. It averages out half internationally. It's, uh, it's a little more. They get, you know, China gets a huge amount of the money and then it evens out here, uh, particularly with Disney, which can kind of strong arm the theaters and have been for a long time. So Disney gets 60% of the domestic.

• 2:37:41AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 2:37:42Speaker 05

  In a lot of cases. So, uh, it's just, it's, we're just, um, it's semantics, it's parsing words and it's bullshit. And then they're not calling out. So the press is supposed to call this stuff out. So we started calling it out and listen, I didn't know anything about it. So I just researched it and I talked to people. I talked to people who work in Hollywood. I talked to people who had knowledge of the box office and just learned what they, what they taught me. And it's pretty easy. Like theaters don't show movies for free. Right, so when we're, so when I, when I went out and called Shane Chia flop, it was a flop. It did not profit.

• 2:38:22Speaker 05

  And I got called out by Simulu, which is fun, it's fine. Um, but.

• 2:38:28AJ Gentile?

  Called out for what? For criticizing?

• 2:38:30Speaker 05

  Calling it a flop when, and he said it wasn't a flop, but it was a flop. It, it was, it did not, it was the technical term of a flop. The technical definition, which is it did not profit at the box office. We had the same battle over Superman. Now I wouldn't go out and call Superman a flop. But it certainly didn't perform as well as it should have, but that, that's where the access media comes from. It is just this divide and this disconnection. And they are just became a PR firm for the studios. So independent people like myself and others, Jeremy from Geeks of Gamers, Yellow Flash, Drinker, Mahler. They started do their, doing their own thing, right?

• 2:39:11Speaker 05

  And, and none of us have ever said like, our opinion is the be all end all. It is just an opinion. But people started gravitating towards it because it was the truth. You know, and, you know, sometimes I get things wrong and sometimes they get things wrong. And, and the, the cool thing is we can go, I got that one wrong.

• 2:39:32AJ Gentile?

  Is, are there any, um, movies or TV shows that you've criticized that later on, you're like, actually is okay?

• 2:39:38Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 2:39:41Speaker 05

  Uh, if we go way back, there's movies I was way hard on and like Thor Dark World. Uh, I, I think I was a little too hard on that movie. I actually, it's not that, everybody calls it bad. It's not that bad.

• 2:39:58AJ Gentile?

  It's not.

• 2:39:59Speaker 05

  But when you can see other, like, ah, the Star Wars prequels, have they not benefited the most from the Disney trilogy? I.

• 2:40:08AJ Gentile?

  Those aren't that bad. Is that a hot take? I don't mind those movies.

• 2:40:11Speaker 05

  I hated them when they came out.

• 2:40:14AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 2:40:14Speaker 05

  I have very much softened my opinion on them. I don't think they're great.

• 2:40:19AJ Gentile?

  We could do without Jar Jar.

• 2:40:20Speaker 05

  The Hobbit trilogy, I hated it when it came out and I, and I watch it all the time now.

• 2:40:25AJ Gentile?

  I say, it won me back.

• 2:40:27Speaker 05

  It won me back. So anything recent that I, uh, I can't say,

• 2:40:35Speaker 05

  I can't say, um.

• 2:40:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, nothing, yeah, like, it's not like I've gone back to Doctor Who. If we want to get back to uh, and Doctor Who going, ah, it wasn't that bad.

• 2:40:46AJ Gentile?

  I want to know what attracted attention to you.

• 2:40:49Speaker 05

  So.

• 2:40:49AJ Gentile?

  What you, why you're.

• 2:40:50Speaker 05

  Oh, I just came out and said, the doctor's not a woman. So when they, when they the changes of Doctor Who were happening even before Jodie Whittaker came along and it was getting, um, it was getting filled with just, uh, political nonsense. Uh, beforehand, even with Capaldi, who did a great job. I mean, like, it's, I wish he would have gotten better scripts because he's one of the better doctors and one of the better actors to play it. And I have a lot of respect for that guy. But when they.

• 2:41:19AJ Gentile?

  You have a lot of respect for Jodie Whittaker. She's a brilliant actress. And a lot of this is not the talent's fault.

• 2:41:24Speaker 05

  It's not. The only thing, like, as far as her taking a job, I don't criticize her for that. It's when she took, took the job and what she said. Then I'll criticize her.

• 2:41:35AJ Gentile?

  Fair enough.

• 2:41:35Speaker 05

  Then I'll criticize her because if she had just gone,

• 2:41:41Speaker 05

  I'm gonna do the best I can as a doctor, like to come out with. Um, that's fine. I'm gonna, I'll, I'll criticize the show, but I'm not really gonna get on her. And I use the term, the first female doctor played by Jodie Whittaker, because that's how the access media referred to her, like, all the time. So that's why I used it in all of my videos.

• 2:42:00AJ Gentile?

  It became a label culture.

• 2:42:01Speaker 05

  It, it did. It did. And when she, when, when they showed the, the transition from, uh, uh, you know, that she was gonna be the next doctor. Um, I kinda knew it was Doctor Who pressing the panic button a little bit, something Stephen Moffat even said prior to, he said, if, oh, if we, if they change the doctor into a female, they're, they're pressing the panic button. Well, they did. Too soon, in my opinion.

• 2:42:29Speaker 05

  And my opinion was at the time and still is that the doctor's a male character. And the only reason you changed the doctor into a female character, it was not a creative decision. It was one to grab headlines and it was one motivated by social and political, uh, it was had had social and political motivations. It was not a creative one. They don't know where to go with this. And if they're going to do a female doctor, are you going to really? Are you going to explore the, the real differences between a male doctor and a female doctor? Um, and they didn't.

• 2:43:03AJ Gentile?

  They didn't.

• 2:43:03Speaker 05

  They didn't. They just treated it the same. Her first episode, record breaking, but I was, I was there reviewing it and I just said, the doctor's not a woman. And it was at that time, that could get you, um, suspended on Twitter.

• 2:43:19AJ Gentile?

  I remember.

• 2:43:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was crazy. So that's all I said. It wasn't anything crazy. Um.

• 2:43:24AJ Gentile?

  Why do you think you're labeled far right? Are you far right?

• 2:43:28Speaker 05

  No. No. Um, I think I'm labeled far right for the same reasons. A lot of people get labeled far right is you don't agree with one extreme political sect on a hundred percent of everything. I mean, look at how they treat. J K Rowling is, is progressive as they get. She's, uh, she goes off the reservation for one issue. And look at, look at like what she goes through. So, I don't know. I, I, I'm not a hyper political person. But as far as, uh, I mean, we've had the discussions about it. As far as like whatever

• 2:44:11Speaker 05

  uh, criticisms were flung at me, I, I'm on the internet. I understand them on the internet and I don't really care what people think.

• 2:44:17AJ Gentile?

  I'm glad you don't care. I, I don't think they know you support Amnesty International, gay rights.

• 2:44:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:44:23AJ Gentile?

  Gay children at risk, all that. They don't think they know, they're aware of that.

• 2:44:27Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 2:44:28AJ Gentile?

  Do you think, uh, by changing the, this beloved IP, are the intentions good? Are they trying to do something good for?

• 2:44:39AJ Gentile?

  Society.

• 2:44:41Speaker 05

  Hmm. Uh, yes, I think some of them have that in their mind that the intentions are good, but we all know. What gets, uh, what gets paved with, uh, good intentions.

• 2:44:53AJ Gentile?

  We do.

• 2:44:54Speaker 05

  We do. Um, I think there are some true believers in there that feel like you're, you're getting to a modern audience and you're, uh, accessing children with certain messaging. The problem is I, I disagree with a lot of that, but beyond that it's, there's no such thing as a modern audience. That's the thing they're always chasing. It's just, it doesn't exist. Well, okay, I'm going to reframe that. It does, but there's not enough of them. What you want, there's always the audience. You want, if you're making Doctor Who or Star Trek or Star Wars, you want that to have the most mass appeal as possible.

• 2:45:33AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 2:45:34Speaker 05

  And as I said earlier, if you have a message you want to get across to get people to think about, don't answer the question for them, present it to them with respect, which is not, not spoon feeding it to them. And, and that's what a talented writer does. A talented, like even Alan Moore, we know where Alan Moore comes from politically, uh, thinks he's a wizard. He's a, he's a brilliant writer, but even he can write a really good Superman story. Like whatever happened to the man of tomorrow? You know, he doesn't let that get in the way of telling a good story. You know, J. Michael Straczynski, you know, I, I loved Babylon five.

• 2:46:17Speaker 05

  And yeah, and I think Babylon five actually goes into some stuff that he, sometimes a story can go beyond the writer. And I think it really, a lot of stuff that happened during COVID, you can look at some Babylon five episodes that, you know, there was no intention there, but they really say a lot about it. So that's, that's what good storytelling does. And, and it doesn't, it doesn't drive people away because if you are, if your intention is like, I want people to think about this. Well, you want the most people to think about it as possible. So you don't talk down to them. You don't, uh, like I said earlier, you don't like start a story going, listen up bigots.

• 2:46:54AJ Gentile?

  That's not the way to convince.

• 2:46:55Speaker 05

  The way to go, it's not the way to convince somebody and it's really.

• 2:47:01Speaker 05

  It really divided fandom in a way that I've never seen in my life. Now fandom has always been crazy and critical. Um, and they're like, you thought you could change the doctor into a woman and people wouldn't speak up. That's kinda crazy. Uh, thinking about it now.

• 2:47:18AJ Gentile?

  How many arguments did you see at the comic book store about this comic verse? That one, this character.

• 2:47:22Speaker 05

  Every day.

• 2:47:23AJ Gentile?

  Every day.

• 2:47:23Speaker 05

  It was great. I loved them because they were good spirited debates. And, uh, like, and I'm an idiot, so I'm sitting there arguing with customers. And we're like yelling at each other, but we're cool afterwards. But, um, yeah, and I had to hear some crazy stuff, but I, you know what? I listened to him. I sat there, uh, Art, Art Bell, greatest interviewer ever.

• 2:47:48AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 2:47:48Speaker 05

  Um, non-confrontational, I keep kick back a little bit, but I listened to a lot of art. And he will let people have their say with respect, right? And part of, uh, I think being on a, on a live stream in particular is you're, you are kinda running some customer service. And you gotta kinda let people talk, let people do their thing and listen to it. And if it's insane, you can kick back a little bit, but there's still a way to kick back without, you know, calling the guy an a-hole.

• 2:48:17AJ Gentile?

  Why do you think, um, nerd culture, geek culture, which I come from?

• 2:48:22Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:48:23AJ Gentile?

  You know, reading your book, it's almost like reading autobiography at some places. The way I came to Tolkien is the same way through the, the seventies cartoons and Star Wars. I remember waiting online as a kid, changes me. Why do you think Hollywood went after these, this particular beloved IP with hardcore fans? And wanna change it? Why, why, why is that the target?

• 2:48:45Speaker 05

  Uh, the, well, I mean, my opinion on the matter is Hollywood went after it because they wanted to, they felt they were gonna force the change that was needed. Uh, consequences be damned, because this is what we, we know better. So we're gonna, I mean, with Doctor Who, we're going to take something away. That was the whole, because with Doctor Who, you can make a separate series with a female, they're time ladies, they were called. You could've done that, uh, and Doctor Who fans would've watched it. You could've had a Doctor Who show and, and a time lady show.

• 2:49:24AJ Gentile?

  You could've.

• 2:49:25Speaker 05

  You could've done that and they didn't do it. Because they wanted, they felt like somehow you're being inclusive by taking something away. And we still see it to this very day, right? And it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't add to anything.

• 2:49:41AJ Gentile?

  Has it worked with any of these?

• 2:49:43Speaker 05

  Um, no.

• 2:49:44AJ Gentile?

  Honestly, none, none of these worked?

• 2:49:46Speaker 05

  You could have some like, uh, side characters where it works and like, I'm not militant when it comes to race or gender swaps when it's with a side character like in Harry Potter, if you make Susan Bones black, I don't care. Uh, but

• 2:50:02AJ Gentile?

  But Snape is a problem.

• 2:50:03Speaker 05

  Snape is a problem. Snape is a problem and Doctor Who was just as big of a problem. It fundamentally changes the show. It fun, it changes the past. So, and then what they did, knowing with Doctor Who, like what a problem it would be. Uh, instead of just having the female doctor show up and leave, which they could have done, they're like, no, we need to reinforce her in the story. So we need to change the origin. So when they went back and changed the origin, and I heard way in advance, I, I, I had a friend who was working with, uh, with Doctor Who, who I knew from the comic shop days was telling me what's going on. I'm like, you, you gotta be kidding me. He's all, no, no, they're gonna change the origin of Doctor Who.

• 2:50:48AJ Gentile?

  I learned a lot of this stuff from your videos and I would say the same thing, you know, Gary said this is gonna happen. I'm like, there's no way they're gonna do that. It's been 40 years. They're not gonna do that. They're not gonna retcon the 40 year, they, but they did.

• 2:51:00Speaker 05

  They did it. And they did it to reinforce the female doctor. And they thought it was, uh, they thought it was going to get to the new, modern audience.

• 2:51:10AJ Gentile?

  Did any of this bring in women? Did it bring in any of these?

• 2:51:13Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:51:14AJ Gentile?

  It didn't?

• 2:51:14Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:51:15AJ Gentile?

  So it's still the same people watching this, this IP in generally.

• 2:51:21Speaker 05

  It's the hardcore Doctor Who fans who are hanging on. And what Hollywood has failed to learn that is, you know, you buy a really expensive IP for that built in audience, that built in audience are the ones who are, they shepherd new fans in, they are the custodians. They, you, the company own it, but Star Trek fans are the ones who make more Star Trek fans.

• 2:51:47AJ Gentile?

  My wife loves the MCU. My wife loves Star Trek because she would sit there, I would watch it. As, you know, as the nerd who knows everything, she doesn't know anything. She just knows it's a fun, good story.

• 2:52:00Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:52:01AJ Gentile?

  She doesn't really watch any of that anymore.

• 2:52:02Speaker 05

  No, because they're not fu- they're not fun.

• 2:52:05AJ Gentile?

  Doctor Who, she became a fanatic. But back to Eccleston, she became a fanatic and when, when Tena came on, that's it. We were done. We were in. But we're out.

• 2:52:17Speaker 05

  It's, oh God, it's such a shame. You know, I was just, uh, I'm going through some classic Who now, right now. And it's like, it's a show, it was made for nothing and it's, and it's, it really is just carried with its acting and its storytelling. Cause you've got, you know, Tom Baker talking to a paper mache dude, like it's tinfoil. It's terrible.

• 2:52:41AJ Gentile?

  I loved it when, Tom Baker, I loved him when I was a kid. I didn't notice.

• 2:52:45Speaker 05

  Some of the themes are really like really dark and like, and magnificent. And I know that there was a lot of criticism in the UK about that, but I loved it as a kid.

• 2:52:56AJ Gentile?

  You think things are coming back? The pendulum always swings.

• 2:53:01Speaker 05

  I think so, but I think it's because, I wish it was because, you know, we see the error of our ways. We are villainizing and demonizing.

• 2:53:13Speaker 05

  The paying customer, our audience, the people who got us here. And constantly saying, we don't need you by, we're hunting for a modern audience. We're looking for a newer, newer audience, right? And it's like.

• 2:53:27Speaker 05

  You know, word of mouth is still the best marketing there is.

• 2:53:31AJ Gentile?

  Telling a story is still a pretty good idea.

• 2:53:32Speaker 05

  It's a good idea. And you you forego that because you're searching for potential. Right? I've never understood that. There's nothing that there's no. There's no data out there that says, uh, Gen Z was gonna get into Doctor Who if you change. Change it to a woman.

• 2:53:54AJ Gentile?

  There's no data.

• 2:53:55Speaker 05

  None. There's zero.

• 2:53:57AJ Gentile?

  But there is, but they'll show up for a good story because they will. The audience is still the audience. So you went from being ignored to being attacked and now you have influence.

• 2:54:07Speaker 05

  Oof. Um, I got attacked, uh, and it was.

• 2:54:14AJ Gentile?

  Well, you're still being attacked. You're gonna be attacked for this, as will I.

• 2:54:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, you will.

• 2:54:19AJ Gentile?

  I will.

• 2:54:19Speaker 05

  Sorry.

• 2:54:20AJ Gentile?

  I care so much.

• 2:54:22Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 2:54:22AJ Gentile?

  Um, Gary's my friend. If that's a problem, bye Felicia. I don't care.

• 2:54:29Speaker 05

  Thanks, brother.

• 2:54:30AJ Gentile?

  I mean, I feel like I'm in a coma somewhere. I don't want to wake up. This is, we do this for a living. So who cares?

• 2:54:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, it's really kind of the greatest gig in the world.

• 2:54:41AJ Gentile?

  Isn't it?

• 2:54:41Speaker 05

  So when, uh, when you get attacked on the internet, like not everybody's gonna, and this is no judgment on, nobody wants to get. The emails I get or you get or nobody wants to get that stuff, but. You know, if you keep it in mind, like, I don't know, I've got the grading curve of life or the stuff I've been through. I'm like, this is nothing. Like, I'm not worried about it.

• 2:55:05AJ Gentile?

  That's why I spent so much time with your story. Because, um, a lot of the hate you get really isn't warranted. Cause there's no, you, there's no misogyny in you. There's no racism. There's really no political leaning. You just want your stories told properly.

• 2:55:20Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 2:55:20AJ Gentile?

  And, and beloved IP just left alone.

• 2:55:25AJ Gentile?

  I think that's okay.

• 2:55:26Speaker 05

  I, I think it's okay to adapt something properly and it doesn't mean you, they have plenty of room in original material to do whatever messaging they want.

• 2:55:36AJ Gentile?

  Well, you're influencing studios now. Do you feel that's, that power is earned?

• 2:55:40Speaker 05

  Of?

• 2:55:41AJ Gentile?

  Of having influence in Hollywood because they know who you are. I know that for a fact.

• 2:55:47Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 2:55:47AJ Gentile?

  I talked to studio execs of all the big studios and they know who Gary is and Will and everybody.

• 2:55:53Speaker 05

  Um.

• 2:55:54AJ Gentile?

  And they're making decisions based on you guys.

• 2:55:56Speaker 05

  Oh, wow. That I, that doesn't hit my mind very much at all. I try not like, because of, uh, where the relapse came in last time.

• 2:56:08AJ Gentile?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:56:09Speaker 05

  So I try to keep things very much in check.

• 2:56:11AJ Gentile?

  I think that's smart.

• 2:56:12Speaker 05

  An idiot with a microphone and.

• 2:56:15AJ Gentile?

  Cause you're back where you are at the comic, you're hot shit again. You can't let ego Gary come back.

• 2:56:22Speaker 05

  No, no.

• 2:56:22AJ Gentile?

  Cause you'll lose it all.

• 2:56:23Speaker 05

  No. I hope they listen to the people in the comment section and the people in the chat. I hope they, you know, take a good look at that. And see what people, cause um, you know, during a live stream, we'll have people rewrite, uh, The Last Jedi. Or the last episode of, uh, Starfleet Academy, or we'll have a Robert Mar Burnett on Friday Night Tights who pitched a better Starfleet Academy than the one they, like one I would watch, you know, so they're, they're, it's not all, um, them slinging, you know, whatever they're slinging.

• 2:56:57AJ Gentile?

  So tell me about Friday Night Tights because that's, uh, you're at what hundreds of episodes of that. How did that start?

• 2:57:02Speaker 05

  Uh, 400 episodes.

• 2:57:05AJ Gentile?

  And what is FNT?

• 2:57:06Speaker 05

  FNT is a shit show. It is, um, it's, uh, it's a live stream that we do every Friday. And it is climbed up to nine co-hosts.

• 2:57:19Speaker 05

  And we talk about pop culture every, every Friday. We've been doing it for, uh, this version of it for six years. I've been doing a Friday show for eight years.

• 2:57:29AJ Gentile?

  And it's true. You've never had, uh, anyone black or female on there. That's true.

• 2:57:32Speaker 05

  Never, not once. No, not, nobody gay. Uh, no, never.

• 2:57:37AJ Gentile?

  You're being sarcastic because you have.

• 2:57:39Speaker 05

  Yes, a lot.

• 2:57:40AJ Gentile?

  You have.

• 2:57:41Speaker 05

  A lot. And, um,

• 2:57:43AJ Gentile?

  And what we learn is fans are fans and the labels don't even matter.

• 2:57:47Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 2:57:48AJ Gentile?

  So what makes F and T different? Because I, there's a zillion of these shows.

• 2:57:53Speaker 05

  There is. Um, I think it's the good mix, the chemistry of personalities and no filter at all. And what we really try to lean on, like making you laugh. That's the whole point is of the show is to make you laugh. And it's, it's just a bunch of people who like each other genuinely, um, shooting the shit for three or four hours. And it's, it's no different than any other conversation of fans anywhere else that you have with your family or at a diner. Um, and there's no plan to it at all. We kind of throw, we bullet point some subjects. We get to about three of them. We go off on tangents. Uh, so there isn't any real structure.

• 2:58:36AJ Gentile?

  Please don't, don't create any, just leave, just leave it chaos.

• 2:58:41Speaker 05

  I don't even think we know how. I don't know how.

• 2:58:43AJ Gentile?

  I, I don't know what I'm doing either. So what, Forbidden Frontier is something I came across accidentally and didn't know that Gary did this. What is that show?

• 2:58:51Speaker 05

  It is, uh, another passion of mine, like you, I like, I listen to Art Bell.

• 2:58:56AJ Gentile?

  Have you ever heard of Art Bell and Dr. Demento?

• 2:58:59Speaker 05

  Oh yeah. Doc, Dr. Demento is, uh, I listened to Dr. Demento before Art Bell, like years and years.

• 2:59:06AJ Gentile?

  Same.

• 2:59:07Speaker 05

  Um,

• 2:59:08AJ Gentile?

  Seventies.

• 2:59:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. Back in the seventies and this, this is how I grew up. But, um, yeah, with UFOs and Bigfoot and ancient civilizations, Eric Von Daniken, uh, Charles, Charles Berlitz was like the gateway.

• 2:59:22AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 2:59:22Speaker 05

  Drug for a lot of people with, um, the Bermuda Triangle. Um,

• 2:59:26AJ Gentile?

  For me, it might've been Graham Hancock in the nineties was the gateway to that kind of stuff. The uh, the pre-flood society, the fingerprints of the gods.

• 2:59:37Speaker 05

  Graham, I think graduated the subject to something way more legit.

• 2:59:43AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 2:59:44Speaker 05

  Like, I always, like, all respect to the late Eric Von Daniken, cherries of the gods. And we go back to Villacoski, who honestly, I didn't know about till later.

• 2:59:53AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 2:59:54Speaker 05

  Where all of this, uh, where all of this comes from and in search of, I watched In Search Of all the time.

• 3:00:01AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 3:00:02Speaker 05

  And X-Files and remember the show Sightings?

• 3:00:05AJ Gentile?

  Of course.

• 3:00:06Speaker 05

  That was the, uh, so I've always been into this all my life and listened to art, but when, yeah, when Graham came around, he took the subject of ancient civilizations and made it more palatable, right? And, and did it honestly, uh, and

• 3:00:21AJ Gentile?

  As a real journalist.

• 3:00:22Speaker 05

  As a real journalist who actually goes places and looks at these things and, and paid for it with his own money.

• 3:00:29AJ Gentile?

  Cause Art Bell was the best to ever do it, but some, a lot of it was wacky, man. He was always very respectful, but a lot of it was just wacky. But you read Graham's work and he's, this is serious stuff. And, you know, Robert Shock and even Randall, Randall Carlson, these are real scientists. This is real stuff.

• 3:00:46Speaker 05

  It's real stuff and I mean, you can't undersell when Randall and, and Graham and Randall were doing them separately, but when they got together and did that on Joe Rogan, that really launched.

• 3:00:56AJ Gentile?

  It launched it.

• 3:00:57Speaker 05

  And that's why we have, um, uh, a lot more legitimacy, uh, in this, including a, in a Netflix special with two seasons for Graham Hancock, which I never thought I'd see.

• 3:01:11AJ Gentile?

  Nope.

• 3:01:11Speaker 05

  Um, and

• 3:01:12AJ Gentile?

  They tried to cancel that.

• 3:01:14Speaker 05

  They did, Ancient Apocalypse.

• 3:01:17AJ Gentile?

  Yep. I defended him hard on the channel when he was attacked for being a racist.

• 3:01:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:01:23AJ Gentile?

  It's like

• 3:01:24Speaker 05

  That is the most ridiculous thing. I, I like

• 3:01:26AJ Gentile?

  It's like, you don't know anything about this man.

• 3:01:28Speaker 05

  You, you obviously haven't seen his wife.

• 3:01:30AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 3:01:30Speaker 05

  So, it was very nice.

• 3:01:33AJ Gentile?

  Right. So it was, here we go again, but I'm always frightened. Like I was just getting started. I'm not really controversial, but I am a, I, I go pretty hard against government and all of that. Um. So when, when, when Joe Rogan, when they, when CNN tried to cancel him and they were going after Spotify, I was terrified because I was, I was making a few bucks.

• 3:01:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:01:56AJ Gentile?

  And it was like, if they cancel Joe, this all goes away.

• 3:01:59Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:02:00AJ Gentile?

  And Spotify stuck by him. And then everything started to relax. It's like, everything started to change. I think it was that moment.

• 3:02:09Speaker 05

  That was surprising.

• 3:02:12AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 3:02:12Speaker 05

  That they stuck by him because I know a lot of employees in there didn't want to stick by him.

• 3:02:17AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 3:02:18Speaker 05

  But I think they saw the investment and saw that, that Joe isn't what, what CNN was trying to make him out to, which is just ridiculous.

• 3:02:28AJ Gentile?

  He's not.

• 3:02:30Speaker 05

  No, no, he's just a regular guy.

• 3:02:32AJ Gentile?

  Like just a guy.

• 3:02:34Speaker 05

  He's just a dude and he looks at things from a very dude perspective. Uh, and I think that, that, that, I think it's really endearing and that's why he's the best podcaster out there.

• 3:02:45AJ Gentile?

  And all the things he criticized back in those days, you criticized, I did. Turns out we were right.

• 3:02:50Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:02:51AJ Gentile?

  Which I knew the whole time. We were right and now we're allowed to be right. And, uh, he, Joe kicked that door in.

• 3:02:57Speaker 05

  Yes, he did.

• 3:02:58AJ Gentile?

  By sticking to his guns.

• 3:02:59Speaker 05

  Spotify sticking with it. Um, Elon coming in and buying Twitter and changing that, which absolutely changed YouTube.

• 3:03:06AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 3:03:07Speaker 05

  I mean, and, and Facebook and everybody, everything else. Um, YouTube is, uh, it ain't perfect, but it's way. I'm, I haven't been, I'm gonna break the streak. We haven't been demonetized on F and T in, in a long time.

• 3:03:24AJ Gentile?

  Well, knock on wood. Yeah. I, I don't dodge that bullet every week, but, but I try.

• 3:03:29Speaker 05

  Uh, I'm used to not doing, I like, I was fine with it, but it's just, it, what you can get away with now on YouTube, aside from a couple of things.

• 3:03:36AJ Gentile?

  What do you think happened?

• 3:03:37Speaker 05

  What? I think when when Elon exposed through the Twitter files, when they exposed all the government interference, because if they were interfering with Twitter, they're they're at Google right now. They're they're they're everywhere right now. They are. They still are. But that had to get loosened up. And I also think advertisers, we can't we can't discount the money factor in. Nope. So advertisers were losing it by by acting, you know, clutching their pearls and saying, we cannot show ads on this stuff. And they saw how much they were losing, how much money they were losing, because you could advertise on all this YouTube stuff. And

• 3:04:22AJ Gentile?

  Joe was demonetized the whole time. And then woke up one morning and it was just on.

• 3:04:26Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:04:27AJ Gentile?

  They didn't say anything, just quiet.

• 3:04:29Speaker 05

  No, just because the advertisers loosened up a little bit.

• 3:04:32AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, they I would like to have 30 million people look at my ad.

• 3:04:35Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:04:36AJ Gentile?

  It's the same story. It's just about people and audience. It's not about point of view, really.

• 3:04:42Speaker 05

  No. And it and it's not like it was, we look back on it and go, that was really common sense. And that was considered highly controversial. That's that's how we get we get caught up in this stuff.

• 3:04:53AJ Gentile?

  It's one of the darkest times in our history. I'll never forget the day Jen walked in and said, they're going to lock down the city. We were in LA at the time, where they're going to lock down the city, close all businesses. And I laughed at her. I said, they can't do that. And they said, they're going to do it for two weeks. I couldn't believe it. I stayed open. I

• 3:05:12Speaker 05

  Good for you.

• 3:05:12AJ Gentile?

  Bro curfew stayed open, had in the studio, just went to hell. No one would come in, no masks, they wouldn't come in. And we're out of business during the riots. That was the end of that.

• 3:05:23Speaker 05

  The riots. Lovely riots.

• 3:05:26AJ Gentile?

  Which weren't really covered on the news, but LA burned. I've never seen police cars on upside down on fire before. But I did. I did that week. And then that's where we left LA. So Forbidden Frontier is a great success.

• 3:05:41AJ Gentile?

  You guys really know your stuff. Like I look to you, because I don't know anything. I'm just an entertainer. I look to you guys, you're the, you're the, like, the reporters kicking in the doors, following the stuff.

• 3:05:54AJ Gentile?

  I watched you livestream a congressional hearing, I think.

• 3:05:58Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:05:59AJ Gentile?

  What do you think's going on with disclosure?

• 3:06:02Speaker 05

  Oh, God. Uh, I think we're in a worse shape now than, than we ever have been. So, um, and it's just because I've been following this as a hobby. So I know lots of bits and pieces, but you'd have to definitely go to the Richard Dolan's of the world.

• 3:06:21AJ Gentile?

  Sure.

• 3:06:22Speaker 05

  For the expertise.

• 3:06:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, we, we covered that one and that was frustrating, just all the stuff that has to go on in the SCIF. And I do believe, and it took me a while to get to this. I believe there is a faction in the government that really wants to let us know. Um, why? I don't know. I, I, I think there is some danger involved. Uh, I know there's the, the Stephen Greer point of view where this, that, that, that all the aliens, if they're out there, if they're us, whatever they are.

• 3:06:58AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 3:06:59Speaker 05

  They're nice. I, I don't know if I can buy that. Maybe it's a possibility. They could, if they could have, if they had the power to wipe us out, they could have wiped us out already. There's certainly that.

• 3:07:10AJ Gentile?

  You think they're out, you think it's extraterrestrials, aliens from other worlds? Or is it interdimensional? Is it future time traveling humans?

• 3:07:19Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 3:07:21AJ Gentile?

  Yes, to all.

• 3:07:21Speaker 05

  I think it's yes to all of those. I, I haven't decided yet. I go back and forth. Um, it's definitely something. I just.

• 3:07:31Speaker 05

  I think interdimensional maybe is what I'm falling on now. That they've been here for a long time, that they're in the water, that they're in the ocean.

• 3:07:39AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 3:07:39Speaker 05

  That's where I'm leaning. Uh, but I could change. That can change.

• 3:07:45Speaker 05

  But with that last government hearing where we just heard nothing and the same stuff over and over again, it just, it was discouraging. So if we, I don't know where the UFO topic goes now. I always thought if we get disclosure, it won't be from a government. And even if a government came out, if. Trump or whatever president of another party came out and said, yep, we talked to, we talked to Zorg from the Palatians and we have a, like, half of the country's not going to believe it.

• 3:08:14AJ Gentile?

  They're not.

• 3:08:15Speaker 05

  Just because of the politics of it. So it'll have to be something insane like, uh, the Phoenix Lights, a UFO flying slowly over a big city where we can get multiple camera angles and then still half the population will think it's AI.

• 3:08:34AJ Gentile?

  Yes, they will.

• 3:08:34Speaker 05

  It's, it's, it's in a bad place right now.

• 3:08:38Speaker 05

  They don't know where you go.

• 3:08:40AJ Gentile?

  You've been, you're into the ancient stuff. You've actually gone into the field.

• 3:08:45Speaker 05

  Hmm, yes.

• 3:08:46AJ Gentile?

  Where have you been?

• 3:08:48Speaker 05

  Been to Peru and Egypt so far, and we're gonna go to Japan. We're gonna go check out megalithic Japan.

• 3:08:54AJ Gentile?

  What, Yanaguni?

• 3:08:55Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah. Well, no, not, I'm not gonna be diving, uh, but no, uh, we're basically where the, where the palace is, you know, just so the polygonal stones, we're gonna, we're gonna look at, uh, at, there's, there's quarries, there's giant stuff on there, but going to, uh, Saxon for the first time, I don't know if you've ever been there, it is mind blowing, utterly mind blowing. And, uh, it really, you know, I can hear all this stuff all day long and I can read all the Graham Hancock, but when I, when you go there and you see, like, how in the hell did they do this? And, you know, I don't think it was aliens. I always think it was humans. We were pretty industrious.

• 3:09:39Speaker 05

  I don't think it's that crazy to think that there was a civilization that was maybe as advanced, let's say, as the Romans were, you know, uh, 10,000 years before the Romans, or 8,000 years before the Romans, that got wiped out during a, uh, apocalypse, basically during a cataclysm that's looking like actually happened.

• 3:10:04AJ Gentile?

  It is looking like that.

• 3:10:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:10:05AJ Gentile?

  With Gobekli Tepe and Mancukutarla, it looks like they were here. Um, Great Pyramid, Egyptians, built or found?

• 3:10:23Speaker 05

  I think built

• 3:10:28Speaker 05

  from direction, from um plans, for lack of a better term, from uh blueprints from a previous culture.

• 3:10:38AJ Gentile?

  Interesting.

• 3:10:41AJ Gentile?

  Previous culture.

• 3:10:42Speaker 05

  So maybe there was a foundation there already that they uh I I think the pyramids have been have been rebuilt.

• 3:10:51AJ Gentile?

  There's some evidence.

• 3:10:51Speaker 05

  Probably multiple times.

• 3:10:52AJ Gentile?

  There's some evidence.

• 3:10:53Speaker 05

  Kind of like, well, the Sphinx for sure. The Sphinx has been put back together. Uh, we were just there in Egypt and we saw um, you know, the the erosion evidence that Robert Shock and John Anthony West had uh exposed many, many years ago. Yeah, they're putting a wall over it.

• 3:11:10AJ Gentile?

  They're putting a wall over that?

• 3:11:11Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:11:13AJ Gentile?

  So you went hard after Zahi Hawass after he was on Joe's show?

• 3:11:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, he was ridiculous.

• 3:11:19AJ Gentile?

  Um, do you think he's gatekeeping or do you think he's protecting his culture?

• 3:11:26Speaker 05

  Um.

• 3:11:27AJ Gentile?

  There's a national identity to Egypt, to Egyptians, that's that they're proud of and should be.

• 3:11:33Speaker 05

  Yes, I think that that is the, I think that is the motivation behind some of the the the road blocking we're seeing on some of the archaeology is they're trying to protect uh Peru. Peru's a lot cooler about it than than Egypt is. Um, I gotta be care, I I don't, I I don't trust the things Zahi Hawass says. I think he's a complete.

• 3:12:00Speaker 05

  I think he's shady as hell.

• 3:12:01AJ Gentile?

  It wasn't a good look for him on that show.

• 3:12:03Speaker 05

  And no, he he did, he did more, uh, he did more good for Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson and

• 3:12:09AJ Gentile?

  He really did.

• 3:12:09Speaker 05

  Robert Shock than anybody could have dreamt after that appearance. Uh, always talking about his book, taking credit for stuff that he didn't discover. Uh, and and some people who've met him said he's a complete nice guy, but uh I just the impression I get is he is stopping progress there. And maybe, you know, tell us why. I think the most exciting thing is the labyrinth, the labyrinth in Egypt. Uh, Ben Van Kirkwick.

• 3:12:39AJ Gentile?

  This is the Huara labyrinth.

• 3:12:42Speaker 05

  Uh, has done some great work on this. Not that he discovered it, but he's done some great work. Uncharted X has done some great work and great videos on these. And I think that would be the most exciting discovery of the 21st century. Uh, we need, and, and there's some politics behind it. Uh, it's getting flooded out and there is because of the water is being diverted because they need to help agriculture.

• 3:13:05AJ Gentile?

  Which they do.

• 3:13:06Speaker 05

  Which they do. They need to find a way to divert that water so we can drain it and figure out what's down there.

• 3:13:13AJ Gentile?

  And we don't have much time for that.

• 3:13:14Speaker 05

  No, we don't.

• 3:13:15AJ Gentile?

  And Lydarr has shown that there are, we know there's structures down there. And that labyrinth has been discussed by Ovid, Pliny the Elder, all these greatest orients. Strabo, all visited and said it goes, they saw 3,500 rooms. It goes down three stories. It's there. Some have said there's a giant oval ring made of metal.

• 3:13:40Speaker 05

  Something, yeah.

• 3:13:41AJ Gentile?

  In the center of it.

• 3:13:42Speaker 05

  The exact same size, well, not exact, but close to the same size as the Tic Tac.

• 3:13:47AJ Gentile?

  That's right.

• 3:13:47Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's, it's wild and I would love to know and why not? But, you know, Zahi seems to stop a lot of that stuff and, um, you would think, you know, Egypt relies a lot on tourism. That would, that would be a.

• 3:14:08AJ Gentile?

  I'd love to see that.

• 3:14:10Speaker 05

  I would. I'd go back. I'd go back. Um, it was definitely worth going for sure. It was amazing seeing some of that stuff. Uh, Egypt's an interesting country.

• 3:14:23AJ Gentile?

  You've got your media empire. What do we have?

• 3:14:25Speaker 05

  Oh, boy.

• 3:14:26AJ Gentile?

  We've got FNT, Forbidden Frontier. You've got your videos, Neurotic Daily.

• 3:14:31Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:14:32AJ Gentile?

  What else are you doing?

• 3:14:34Speaker 05

  Oh my God, I think that's pretty much wraps that that's it.

• 3:14:38AJ Gentile?

  That's a lot.

• 3:14:39Speaker 05

  That's a lot. That keeps me busy. I've got a couple editors, um, X-ray girl, you know, Court Black, Perry Chan, uh, and well, we, we, uh, we do tours once in a while with Michael Collins from Wandering Wolf.

• 3:14:54AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 3:14:55Speaker 05

  So we'll be doing the Japan thing. Uh, that takes up all my time.

• 3:15:00AJ Gentile?

  And you know, you're living the dream now.

• 3:15:01Speaker 05

  Absolutely. This is the greatest gig in the world.

• 3:15:04AJ Gentile?

  Uh, you said daily practice gratitude daily.

• 3:15:07Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:15:09AJ Gentile?

  What's that? What's the mechanics of that? Because some days are shitty, man.

• 3:15:13Speaker 05

  That's when it's the most important. So.

• 3:15:15AJ Gentile?

  What do I do? How do you do it?

• 3:15:18Speaker 05

  Oh, you catch yourself. Okay. I catch myself in a bad mood or feeling

• 3:15:25Speaker 05

  excessively negative about just like really mundane stuff in life. And, uh, I just, it's, it's a mindset of turning it around by thinking of three, three things that you're thankful for. And the first one could be, wow, I've got, uh, there's a wife out there who loves me for some reason. I don't know why, but she does. Um, my kids like me. That's awesome. Not every, not every kid loves their father. Uh, and with, you know, and we have this amazing job like that, that thanks to the support of so many brilliant people out there.

• 3:16:04Speaker 05

  Uh, it's definitely something we, we work at, right? But it's like, I've said it before. It's like winning a lottery that you work really hard to get to.

• 3:16:16AJ Gentile?

  That's a great way of describing it. You go into meetings?

• 3:16:19Speaker 05

  Yes. Go to meetings.

• 3:16:21AJ Gentile?

  So and we'll wrap up with this.

• 3:16:26AJ Gentile?

  There are people listening now, cause I know they're out there that are addicted, that are struggling, depression, they're in booze and drugs to cope. Can you tell them who the most important person in their life is?

• 3:16:39Speaker 05

  Oh, they are.

• 3:16:41AJ Gentile?

  They are.

• 3:16:42Speaker 05

  They are. They're the most important person in their life and, and, um, people love them. People care about them and.

• 3:16:53Speaker 05

  The world can still benefit from them turning stuff around. It's never too late. It's never, ever too late. And if you try sobriety, I can promise you, it will not be easy, but I can also promise you, it will get better way faster. Your life will get better way faster than you think. And just give it a try. You know, people can try rehab. I don't want to discourage anybody from getting sober any way they want, but definitely, whatever you do, make sure you go to meetings too. Really, they're free and you'll find some of the most welcoming, forgiving people on earth in there. And just make some friends, see what happens.

• 3:17:38AJ Gentile?

  You're an inspiration. You're the proof that it works. Gary, thanks for coming in. It's been a joy.

• 3:17:42Speaker 05

  Cheers. It's been awesome. Thanks.

• 3:17:44AJ Gentile?

  Bye, everybody. That was Gary Beekler. I know his name is spelled wrong. Everyone calls him Buchler. Gary Beekler, The Prison Story, The Comic Shop, The Relapse, The Comeback, Doctor Who, The Axis Media. We covered a lot. Gary's book covers the old fulsome story in full, and it's a different kind of read than you'd expect for a pop culture guy. If you only know him from Nerd Rottik, buckle up. The book is wild. I was gonna say in graphic, it's not that graphic, but it's, it's pretty intense. So there's not much to analyze about what we talked about here, because Gary is my friend. But here's a few nuggets. The Doctor Who situation he described tracks with what actually happened. Series 11 opened huge,

• 3:18:28AJ Gentile?

  over nine million viewers in the UK. Then the new showrunner retconned The Doctor's origin in series 12, rewriting 55 years of canon in a single episode. Ratings collapsed. The BBC eventually replaced everyone and brought the original showrunner back. We'll see how it goes, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Gary mentioned Disney was racking up some serious losses. Well, Disney did report roughly 1.5 to 2.5 billion dollars in content write downs in 2023. Gary's math is correct. Gary is controversial.

• 3:19:03AJ Gentile?

  But he probably shouldn't be. His grievances aligned with what a lot of people were already feeling. He was just one of the first people to call it out. The pattern he identified, putting politics ahead of story, showed up in Doctor Who, and Star Trek, and Marvel, and Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings, and now in Harry Potter. He called it every time, before most people were even paying attention. Gary's memoir is waiting, From Prison to YouTube, on Amazon, and it's a great read. His channel is Nerd Ratic. Friday Night Tights goes live every Friday. Forbidden Frontier is where he covers ancient mysteries, UAPs, and W files kind of stuff. It's probably better than the W files. The links are down below. Until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated.

• 3:19:48AJ Gentile?

  I was a little mumbly. Do another take? Leave it in.

• 3:20:07Speaker 05

  I played for Libya in Area 51. A secret code inside the Bible said I was. I love my UFOs and paranormal fun as well as music. Songs singin' like I should. But then another conspiracy theory becomes the truth, my friends. And it never ends, no it never ends.

• 3:20:45Speaker 05

  I fear the crap cat and got stuck inside mail's hole with them kale trucks. I'm being only two aware. Did Stanley Cup, read fake the moon landing alone on a film set? Were the shadows people there? The Roswell aliens just fought the smiling man. And I'm told, and his name was Cold. And I can't believe, I'm dancing with the fish. Head to fish on Thursday nights with AJ. And one more love will be all through the night. All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth.

• 3:21:29Speaker 05

  So one more love will be all through the night.

• 3:21:51Speaker 05

  The Mothman sightings and the solar storms still come To have got the secret city underground. Mysterious number stations, planets circle to Project Starkate and what the Dark Watchers found. In a simulation, don't you worry though. The Black Knight's had a lot of toll to me so. I can't believe, I'm dancing with the fish. Head to fish on Thursday nights with AJ. And one more love will be all through the night. All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth.

• 3:22:34Speaker 05

  So one more love will be all through the night. Head to fish on Thursday nights with AJ. And one more love will be all through the night. All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth. So one more love will be all through the night.

• 3:23:45Speaker 04

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