Ep 538 - LSD Supermax (feat. Joel Blaeser)

Support the D. A. W. G. Z. @ patreon.com/MSsecretpod Support Joel @ https://lettersfrommarion.com/ Go See Matt Live @ mattmccusker.com/dates Go See Shane Live @ shanemgillis.com yo0o0o. Matt's joined by the OG Joel Blaeser this week. Hot cast. Sit back, relax, and have a Merry Xmas everyone. ttyl. Please Enjoy. God Bless. 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

  Wow, wow, Wes.

• 0:01Matt McCusker?

  And we're live. Joel Blazer, what the fuck is going on?

• 0:04Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 0:06Matt McCusker?

  Thank you for coming. Doesn't it feel good?

• 0:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 0:08Matt McCusker?

  Feels good, dude. Every now and again, just to jump in hot. Get the juices flowing. So Joel Blazer, I, I, so we met in Milwaukee. I saw you on Soft White Underbelly. And I was taken by it. I was like, dude, this is, this is crazy. I think, honestly, I think you're one of their best guests. You know, they've done some.

• 0:23Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 0:24Matt McCusker?

  They've done, they've interviewed a lot of people, but you know, I just, it kind of struck me, bro. I saw you and I said, damn, this guy is the man. And we talked, and then eventually we met in Milwaukee.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  I didn't, it was pure accident. I, because you, I had this fucked up post on Instagram. My phone's off. It's like, you're talking right to me. You didn't even see me. And I'm like, man, I gotta, and I grabbed my phone during, and I'm like, okay, no, they're gonna kick me out. You can't turn the phone on, because I wanted to erase it. It was just some fucking negative bullshit. Like, because at the show, you can't turn your phone on.

• 0:56Matt McCusker?

  Right, right, right, right, right.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  So then I go out. And then you, and I wouldn't even have turned my phone on had I not had that thought, which is that you inspired me from the thing. And then you're like, dude, I saw you come back to the green room.

• 1:07Matt McCusker?

  I couldn't miss you, bro. I couldn't miss you. I'm obviously sealing your grip right now. Couldn't miss you.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  That was fucking rad as fuck, dude.

• 1:14Matt McCusker?

  My, uh, my friend, I think Nate, you met Nate?

• 1:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:17Matt McCusker?

  Nate comes, oh no, I think it was AJ. AJ comes back and, uh, he's like, yeah, there's a guy looking all white, the front row. And I was like, I know who that is. That's Joel Blazer. I was like, dude, hell yeah.

• 1:29Matt McCusker?

  So, yeah, we talked a little bit and, um, then we met, dude, I, you, dude, you're the fucking man. We met in Milwaukee. You gave the signed copies to Nate and AJ of your book.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I gave him a little note.

• 1:40Matt McCusker?

  Letters from Arian. The notes were, I thought, beautiful, man. They, they were, I was, uh, I gave them their books and we were reading them. I'm like, they're, they're just beautiful notes. You're the man, dude. You're an absolute beast. But we went to the steakhouse. Five o'clock steakhouse?

• 1:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:52Matt McCusker?

  Might have been the best steak I've ever had in my life, dude. I'm not lying.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  It was good.

• 1:56Matt McCusker?

  It was so good. And then I, the, the thing that really killed me was. I've never seen this happen before. When you showed up, you had had an incident with gasoline.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Oh my god, dude. That was, dude.

• 2:08Matt McCusker?

  You smelled like gasoline. You showed up. I like, we were all sitting there eating. I'm like, I thought you were working with power tools all day. So I'm like, maybe he was like chainsawing all day or something. He come in like, I don't want to be rude to him. What the fuck? Why do you smell like gas?

• 2:20Speaker 02

  The motherfucker clicked. I'm sitting in the car. The thing's full. It clicked. I pull it out, dude. And it just was squirting and it just squirted on the car and splashed.

• 2:32Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, you got drenched with gasoline.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Like, that is wicked.

• 2:35Matt McCusker?

  Bro, you, I swear to god, I've never, it was such a pungent smell.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  I'm like, what am I gonna do?

• 2:39Matt McCusker?

  You had to show up. It was a beast move.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  You could have lit me on fire if you were smoking cigarettes.

• 2:46Matt McCusker?

  I seriously was concerned. I was worried someone was gonna order like a flambé or something and you would have went up. Cause it was a thick gasoline smell. Although that's kind of the most manly, like, cologne.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Maybe we could start it. Letters from Mary and gasoline.

• 3:03Matt McCusker?

  But yeah, so, okay, so you're, and this is what kind of got my interest. I watched you on Soft White Underbelly and you had the story basically about going to a supermax prison for selling, you know, LSD. And the case was crazy. Like, you know, we talked about it. It was just, you sent, you know, LSD in the mail, Western Union. Some guy got caught. He never got even caught with it, right?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  No, his friend got caught. And then his friend just told on him. They showed up at his front door and he just like told him this crazy story. Like, so they didn't, wasn't indicted. He would just, they didn't.

• 3:34Matt McCusker?

  He just completely.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  Right on his front step.

• 3:36Matt McCusker?

  Jesus Christ. And then he gave you up and then you got on some bullshit trial where it was like, you'd never got caught with drugs. But there was enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that you had used a fake name to Western Union money and LSD around. And they sentenced you to, you said they.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  Hundred and fifty-one months, twelve years, seven months, which I jumped for joy. That was short.

• 3:55Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  When I was facing forty and I get a hundred and fifty-one, I looked at my mom and I just went like this, like.

• 4:01Matt McCusker?

  Really? You turned around?

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Yes. Cause I'm like, it's a hundred and fifty-one. Like, I'm at least that, you know, forty when you're twenty-three.

• 4:08Matt McCusker?

  Your whole life. You're done.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  You're like, how do you look down that hallway? Hundred and fifty-one? It's like, okay, I can file some appeals. Maybe I'll get lucky. And I did. But.

• 4:19Matt McCusker?

  And that was nineteen ninety-two. So that's, this is like, it's crazy to think about the drug laws back then. There's even like weed back then. You could go to jail for like four or five years for selling weed if you had enough.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  When we drove through Texas or Vegas, Nevada, like the, the older dad has, like the shit was hid. You couldn't do anything. Ponytails back. Like you just had to get through the state, especially Texas. They said, if we get pulled over and they find weed, we are all going to prison.

• 4:46Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  And now look, and so we paved the way. I should put a collection bucket out.

• 4:52Matt McCusker?

  You should, you should.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  The young people have no fucking clue, man.

• 4:57Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, even, even the early two thousands, it was like, you could go to jail for like, like little bullshit like weed and stuff. I guess they softened, obviously softened.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  There's still some, there's twenty-five states where it's illegal, right?

• 5:08Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, Texas is, Texas is still illegal. Like if you, Austin, you're fine. If you have weed in Austin, they don't care. If you leave Austin, you can still, they'll like throw you in the.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Cause in front of the hotel, everybody.

• 5:18Matt McCusker?

  They don't care in Austin, but if you, is that, isn't that right, Josh? I think if you leave Austin and you get caught with weed, like I knew someone who.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  So it's decriminalizing Austin proper?

• 5:26Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, pretty mu- I, I mean, they, at least they don't, they don't prosecute it at all.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  It's the lib side?

• 5:32Matt McCusker?

  It's a lib, this is a lib haven. Yeah. They actually have like decent food here, but uh, you gotta deal with all that stuff. But, but yeah, man, you can, in Austin, I think, I knew someone who got pulled over with a vape cartridge and got like held overnight.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  In Austin?

• 5:44Matt McCusker?

  No, outside Austin. So Austin's a safe haven.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  So they, where, do, do they sell it here?

• 5:50Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it's like now we have that weird stuff where it's like the hemp.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  It's one little.

• 5:55Matt McCusker?

  The hemp bill, no, the hemp bill.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, the farm bill. Cause if you get it from hemp, you can, it's like.

• 6:00Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, or the big thing's THCA. Cause THC is what's illegal, THCA. Now you have to, you know, like heat up, uh, weed, make brownies.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Carb, carb.

• 6:09Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, de- from oxalate or whatever.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 6:11Matt McCusker?

  So now if you, if you have that extra carbon molecule that heat removes from literally of a lighter, it's technically legal. Cause you could be like, well, this is hemp. It's yeah, it's weed's legal now, by the way.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  But is it medically legal here?

• 6:23Matt McCusker?

  No. No, Texas is like, I, I, I think it's, yeah, I don't think they even have a medical program.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  I think all drugs should be legal and the world would be way different. That's really one of the driving forces behind the book is to be part of that wave.

• 6:36Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, dude, it's like.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  It hasn't worked. The, the, I mean, look at the prisons.

• 6:42Matt McCusker?

  Well, what, what happened with Portugal? Didn't Portugal? Yeah. I mean, obviously locking people up for years.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  They did. It was much smaller. The Cato Institute did a big study. I wrote a couple op-eds for that. I don't remember all the statistics, but they, they would track it all the way to like, when kids first tried drugs, like it just had a positive impact on all the metrics of drug use, amount of drug use, when they stop. And then when you go in to do it, they say if you get addicted or you want help, here it is. But there's a lot of moms whose young daughters and sons have OD'd and died that if it was legal, if they were at one of those places, they wouldn't have died. And, and you take the, the Mexican cartel would go out of business like that. Think of that. So.

• 7:25Matt McCusker?

  That's the big one. Yeah. Well, that, that's the, uh, but here's the thing. I, I was, I read the book Chasing the Scream by.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:31Matt McCusker?

  Great book. They talk about that, how like in, in London, they would give people heroin. And then, uh, if you, if you had someone, if they had to go to a center and the heroin was clean, like there were way more, way less deaths. But now the critique in America is like the, um.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Well, it's a cesspool. America did it wrong. Like Oregon and Seattle are just like a whole area of.

• 7:50Matt McCusker?

  Exactly. And it does give the harm reduction stuff a bad name because it's like, if you just let people lay on the street and you're like, oh, here's fucking, here's needles. And then my, my friend, Jared Clickstein was actually living in Skid Row for a while. And he said the problem was you like, throw these guys in like an apartment, like, oh, here, we're going to give you housing. And then they OD and die and nobody finds them because they're by themselves rather if they're outside.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  But if.

• 8:10Matt McCusker?

  People can at least discover them.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  If both metrics were the same, legal and illegal, the, there's still the metric of the criminal elements out of it. And we get the money that we can bring back in.

• 8:21Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's true. And it's also, it loses a lot of the allure. It's like, you know, if you're telling me if I gotta go to like in a professional office building. To like go do heroin. I'm gonna be like.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  You're gonna start to question it. You're gonna think, what am I doing? Where's my life going?

• 8:35Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, what is it? What the fuck am I doing? It's not the thrill of like, you know, you're getting it. It takes the rock and roll element out of it. I think good work and it it always is a personal choice. It is like, you know, it comes down to personal choice.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  What I do with my head is my business. Can a government really tell me?

• 8:49Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, well, apparently they told you. They sent you to jail for fucking 15 years.

• 8:55Matt McCusker?

  So dude, so you have a book. It's called Letters from Marion. I read it. I loved the book, dude. I thought it was great. Book was fantastic. It kind of.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  You gave me that shout out about the jack rag on another podcast.

• 9:05Matt McCusker?

  I did. I did. I did. Actually.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  I parted it too.

• 9:11Matt McCusker?

  Dude, that's, I'm glad. It's gotta cross a weird threshold though for other prisoners to be like, yo, here's how you jerk off. Cause I know in jail, it's like.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Nicky at the third place. Yeah, Nicky told me, he started to tell me and I thought he was fucking with me.

• 9:25Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  And I'm like, but he's not gay. Spark, you already got me stoned with all this weed. And then I'm like, all right, I'm gonna try it. And I did, and it was wicked.

• 9:35Matt McCusker?

  And it was, what was the technique again? You rolled the socks inside out?

• 9:37Speaker 02

  So it's smooth. And then you're not actually like going up and down on the shaft. And it's hard, it's hard when you get a really big hard on, but you grab the shaft. And then that heat.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  And then right at climax, boom, right on top and underneath.

• 9:55Matt McCusker?

  Put some pressure on it.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  It has an effect, man.

• 9:58Matt McCusker?

  That's crazy.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  You mean like most, don't guys know that?

• 10:02Matt McCusker?

  Oh, man, I don't know. I've never tried this sock in the fucking pressure play at the end.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  So you turn it inside out and then you fold it over. So it's a little tight, right? And you gotta get a big sock, but no, it works. And then it's all contained. No, no spill, no fuss, no muss. You don't have to buy a cowboy hat home in the morning.

• 10:19Matt McCusker?

  Gotta wash the sock, yeah. Gotta wash the sock.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Throw that fucker out.

• 10:23Matt McCusker?

  Throw it out.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  After like six or eight uses.

• 10:26Matt McCusker?

  What? Oh, she's still washing between.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Or I'll rinse it, but not, I don't wanna put it in the machine.

• 10:33Matt McCusker?

  Ah, true, you need to keep it pure, yeah. You need to keep it pure, I get that, true. You don't want all those chemicals on you. The funny, so you were telling me, this made me laugh a lot, so you get, you go to trial, you took your case to trial. You fight it yourself, which you know, that is honorable. You go take your case to trial. And then you were sentenced, like you said, what was the first thing you did upon sentencing? You go back to the cell, what was your play?

• 10:54Speaker 02

  So it was a...

• 10:55Matt McCusker?

  You're 23 years old.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Sober experience, sobering experience. I went to that cell and I just started to think, what do I wanna do? What am I gonna do when I get out? Surfing, sushi, and then I'm like, somehow I got aroused.

• 11:10Matt McCusker?

  Right on.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  You know, and the, the marshals were out of the office there, there's bars, and I just fucking hit it, and I made myself cum hard, dude. And then I'm like, get used to it, motherfucker, cuz that's all you got. And I think that's actually pretty good, like, to realization and just accepting, this is what it is.

• 11:30Matt McCusker?

  Dude, I mean...

• 11:31Speaker 02

  And then who knows, maybe if I spent 151 months in there, I mean, I might have been getting my dick sucked. I don't fucking know, I don't think so, but after a certain amount of time, like, say if you're there for 30 fucking years, man.

• 11:44Matt McCusker?

  I hear you.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  You gotta be touched, like, what the fuck?

• 11:46Matt McCusker?

  Something's gotta happen.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, or a guard, you get lucky with the female prison guard.

• 11:52Matt McCusker?

  That'd be huge, that'd be very lucky.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  So I don't know, I've never had to deal with that, but um...

• 11:57Matt McCusker?

  You never had it, that was, that was your primary concern, you said, going in, you didn't wanna have to...

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Get raped, get my asshole filled with cum, can I say that?

• 12:05Matt McCusker?

  You can say that, yeah. It's your journey.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  No, man, um...

• 12:08Matt McCusker?

  Ah dude, that's a real fucking fear, I'd be terrified, man, cuz you were down where, in like Kentucky?

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Yes, that trial was in Covington, Kentucky, 6th District. The first prison was like really low and normal, but you know, as it progressed. And the thing is, the face of the medium security prisons at that time changed. So, normal medium security in the 80s, you might have bank robbers, couple drug dealers. The average sentence was maybe 8, 6, 8, 10 years. But now, there was every other fucking guy at 30, 35 years and they're young. So, it was like, that was like a penitentiary in a medium. Cause like, you know, if a dude's got 35 or 40 years and he's 25 and he's disrespected, like what the fuck does he have to lose?

• 12:52Matt McCusker?

  Exactly.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  It's not like you have 8 or 10 and you got an out date and you're close, right? So, like the tensions were different.

• 12:59Matt McCusker?

  And also, I did like that, I have to say, like, so you're there, you know, just being like, "Look, I've never tried sushi, I'm gonna get that when I get out. I'm gonna surf around the world when I get out." And then, just like, you know, and it is funny to like just jerk off. But it is something, there's something serious about that level of acceptance to be like, "This is my situation." Cause I feel like people in and out of jail struggle with that, of like just accepting your lot in life and just kind of like getting with the program rather than just constantly spinning yourself out.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Acceptance.

• 13:26Matt McCusker?

  It's a big thing.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  It was luck. I don't know how I, like I look back, what the fuck?

• 13:32Matt McCusker?

  And why, you were wise. You were definitely at 20, for 22 to be like, "Alright, this is what it is," is pretty crazy. I don't, I wouldn't have been able to take it. I would have been like, "This is bullshit, there's no way." I would have been in total denial, I think.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  When they arrested me, I thought to myself, as they're driving me in the car, like I had the thought, I'm like, "I know a motherfucker who's got a kilo of coke." I'm thinking in my head and I'm, and I'm like, "No." And they brought me to the courthouse in this room with Christopher Bick and a couple other agents. And they said, you're gonna spend the rest of your, you're gonna spend all of your fucking twenties and probably most of your thirties in prison. This is the best part of your life. And they said, just we, you don't even, we won't even process you. Just tell us you'll cooperate and help us. And you, and it can stop right now. And I said, take me to my cell. Fuck you. Which was the hardest fucking thing, dude. Cause I knew it was not, I'm not going to jail then.

• 14:29Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  They threw the 18 count indictment on my lap when they arrested me, which I thought, holy fuck. That means they convened a grand jury. They've been fucking following me, trying to catch me with shit. Which they were. So, yeah, man, that was a, that was a wicked, a wicked situation. Then I got out on bail for like four months and then when out on bail, I got in trouble. So they arrested me. I don't know if I put this in the book. And then I had to go back to Kentucky through the federal prison system. And then once I got to Kentucky, they, there was a mix up with getting the car and then I got out again.

• 15:07Matt McCusker?

  You did talk about this, yeah.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  But I went through six or seven prisons, cause the way the marshal services like transfers you through. And then I went to this one in Oklahoma. Now they built a different one. But you actually went into a prison with like six tiers. And so I'm only have been arrested, I'm formally charged, but I have, I have not been convicted or sentenced. So I saw, in that point, I saw what prison was.

• 15:33Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, well, okay.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Like really what prison was.

• 15:35Matt McCusker?

  Cause you got to get your shuffle. So I, I remember that in the book. You were, you had to get yourself down to Kentucky to get like arraigned or whatever.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Cause they arrested me in Milwaukee, but the indictment was out of Kentucky. So they arraigned me here. They gave me pre-trial probation. They said, you gotta show up in three weeks.

• 15:49Matt McCusker?

  And Kentucky, and you couldn't get to Kentucky.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Right. And then like two days before I called the marshals. They said, you gotta get there. You gotta get there. We're gonna come arrest you. And then there was an issue with my getting a rental car and then my brother wasn't gonna let me use his car. And I, I mean, I fucked up.

• 16:02Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. So they were pissed. So they had to literally transport you from Milwaukee down to.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  But they don't go straight. You just get in the system and you just, you go, you go around. And then it took me like 31 days. Couple county jails, but the, it was the one in, um, Oklahoma, Oklahoma city.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  I can't remember the name of the federal prison, but like you would go to the chow hall and you'd mix with the prisoners, like the wick, you know, and it's just like, I remember Gene Gotti was there, I believe at the time, but it was like, holy fuck, man. Then I get to Kentucky, they give me, he gives me the bail, he's like, you can't fuck up, we're gonna piss you, all that. He's like, but I'll see you. I don't know, the trial was in four or five months after that. Um, but that, that, no, I went back to Milwaukee.

• 16:49Matt McCusker?

  Okay.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  If that, that could have made anybody rat.

• 16:53Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Cause you see like this is the gonna be home.

• 16:56Matt McCusker?

  Oh, you weren't, I see what you're saying. You weren't even like a fully sentenced yet. And the thing that struck, I didn't know this.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't even have the trial.

• 17:03Matt McCusker?

  Exactly. So you got like a taste and you could have totally been like, bro, fuck this, I'm out. I did like the thing in the book where you talked about how they gave some people what was called diesel therapy. And they would just keep prisoners traveling just in perpetuity that like.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  The diesel therapy.

• 17:17Matt McCusker?

  Dude, that's fucking terrible.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Cause you don't, you maybe shower every two days, you're constantly in chains, belly chains and the leg irons. And then like if you file complaints. And I'm sure they do it to people that they wanna break, like maybe secret service people they think are selling secrets or whatever, like some sort of thing. And then it's also a threat. Like you know, like if you go on diesel therapy, you're basically on a bus like seven days a week and stopping off only every couple of days. And like in the big tanks with people, you're eating bologna sandwiches.

• 17:51Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. You don't know anyone, so you're just getting shuffled or you're a stranger everywhere.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  No phone calls, no mail.

• 17:56Matt McCusker?

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• 17:59Speaker 02

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• 18:00Matt McCusker?

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• 18:06Speaker 02

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• 18:30Speaker 02

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• 18:52Matt McCusker?

  I never, I even, I never heard of that before. You always hear about the hole. That's the big one. You get sent to the hole, but I've never-

• 18:56Speaker 02

  The hole's the jail within the jail. Like it's crazy, right?

• 18:59Matt McCusker?

  It's super jail.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. The hole is pretty wicked. The thing is like on the commissary slips, they sold, every single federal prison, they sold raw garlic. And when you went to the hole, there were certain things on the commissary, they wouldn't let you buy. But you could buy, always buy raw garlic.

• 19:16Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Cloves. And like for the whole entire time, every single day, I'd eat two to four cloves every day. I just wanted to do it.

• 19:25Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Did a kid, probably kept like infections at bay and you know, getting sick in jail would fuck. You never, no one ever thinks about getting sick in jail.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  It's, it's the thing, the light sicknesses are, you're gonna kind of get poo-pooed, but like if something's real serious, they take, cause it's the feds. They will take you right out to the hospital.

• 19:41Matt McCusker?

  That's cool.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  But, um, the, uh, um.

• 19:46Matt McCusker?

  Well, my, my friend was in a county jail and that's the thing people don't know too. Apparently county jails are worse.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Exactly. That's what I've heard. Sesspool wickedness.

• 19:54Matt McCusker?

  It sucks. My friend was there and he was, he was an older guy and, uh, he was in the county jail, um.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Dirty. There's no regulation.

• 20:01Matt McCusker?

  He was there during COVID and he said, the guards were so like whacked out about interacting with the prisoners that, you know, he was like, if you, they didn't come check on you at all. And the heaters were fucked up. So he was like, it was freezing cold.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  It always is. And the air is recirculated. So you're getting dandruff.

• 20:15Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. He was like, it's freezing cold. And he was like, I'm, I'm an older guy. He had, you know, he had health issues. He's like, if I had a health complication, I would have died. Cause like we would, there was like a bell or a button they could ring to like get people to come. And he's like, they would all ring it. Nobody would like for, you know, eight hours a night that people just wouldn't show up. Cause they were like, we don't want, the guards were like, we don't want to be around the fucking prison.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Right. Cause even if you're federal holdover in a county jail, you don't get the federal, like if you were in a federal prison. There's just like, you're in the county. That's it.

• 20:44Matt McCusker?

  You would think the county would be the nicer one because it's lesser. Well, at least you're, you can be waiting to trial, but it's like, usually if you get like a DUI, you think that conditions would be nicer to go serve a DUI sentence than like.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  It's gotta be the worst place.

• 20:56Matt McCusker?

  Running a pyramid scheme.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  It's a pyramid scheme.

• 20:59Matt McCusker?

  No, I'm saying like run it you if you did like a high level crime, you get better jail conditions, basically.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Oh, no, well. Once you get there.

• 21:08Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it's true. But it was that always that just shocked me because my friend went and I was always kind of like, oh, I you would think like federal prisons like worse than the county, but it's like he was like, no, it's actually way better.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:21Matt McCusker?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:22Matt McCusker?

  But either way, so you got so you got a so once you were there and in the book, you move around a lot and also there there was.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Doesn't it come together at the end, though?

• 21:30Matt McCusker?

  I like it. Yeah, I like you did it. You did a good. You did a good job of like chronological leaps because it's like, you know, you're talking about your one time period, like, you know, I'm waiting trial. And then like you're jumping to like being released and the stuff you were doing after that and then back and I thought it yeah, that's you pulled it off, the chronological jumps.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 21:48Matt McCusker?

  Pulled off the letters were. So what was your thought because it within the book?

• 21:51Speaker 02

  It was too many.

• 21:53Matt McCusker?

  Uh, well, here's the thing, I I think they were fine, but they really you gave a pretty um the a pretty serious glimpse into like the psyche of a incarcerated, you know, young.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Some of it was a little too deep.

• 22:04Matt McCusker?

  I loved it. I thought it was great, but like the the best is when you send a letter to your brother being like, I'm gonna fucking destroy you when I get out of here. I'm so jacked. I was I was that made me literally laugh out loud in my bed. I was reading that. I'm like, what a funny fucking thing just to be in jail, but like, I'm gonna fucking beat your ass when I get out of here. I'll be so strong, which I'm sure you're fucking around with your brother, but it was like yeah, the the the the letters did like the the story. You know, it was flowing the letters like it. They really gave it some kind of like grab some weight to it, man. It was like some of those letters were like

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 22:36Matt McCusker?

  Kind of dark and a good. I thought it was cool because it was you didn't. Here's my thing. You didn't have to put those in there. And you did and you really you really showed, uh, you know, kind of an unfiltered like view of how you were and it was cool. It was kind of cool.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wanted to do the envelopes to prove I was there and then the Hillary wanted me to type the letter out, but then I'm like that means it could be edited. If this letter, this is it like you can't change that.

• 22:59Matt McCusker?

  So with the letters, there was I I couldn't. I didn't know what you were talking about. You were asking um your mom for photos. What what was the photo?

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Oh, she for Playboy.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  My parents met at Playboy and she pulled.

• 23:14Matt McCusker?

  That I heard. Yeah, that I knew. So what did you want the photo for?

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Just to have, I don't know. No, so she, there's, we would see the photos like when we were little and so they weren't all

• 23:26Matt McCusker?

  They're not nude, yeah, obviously, yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Not all nude, but she has a couple and then on the back it says Playboy Studios. But I think I had a bet or something with someone or some reason ulterior. I can't remember what it was.

• 23:42Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  But I got the picture and I showed it. I said, "Look Playboy Studio."

• 23:46Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that was the one.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  I think it was a bet.

• 23:48Matt McCusker?

  That was the letter I saw in there. There's no context on the letter. So I like, kinda like looked it up and I was like, "Okay, that's, that's what I thought it was. You wanted the Playboy photos for a bet." You never said that in the book.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  No.

• 23:58Matt McCusker?

  When you're reading it, you're going, "This is a freaky ass bull dude."

• 24:02Speaker 02

  In prison, I'm gonna be jacking off to my mother.

• 24:05Matt McCusker?

  I would never say that. I would never say that.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  No, but you're right. That's a reasonable thought. How fucked up does this dude get? He's jacking off to his mother? Oh my god.

• 24:14Matt McCusker?

  I didn't, I never say so. God damn, it just made me laugh. Cause I was reading the book and I'm like, "What the fuck is he talking about, these photos?" And that, that makes sense. You had a bet with somebody. They didn't believe you.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  No. Gary, I'm pretty sure it was Gary.

• 24:27Matt McCusker?

  He didn't believe you.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  It might not have been a bet. It might have just been, "Look, I want like, hey, my parents met at Playboy. Check this out."

• 24:32Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that was an interesting story too. That was, uh, so how did that go down?

• 24:37Speaker 02

  I think it happened on Lake Parkway at the mansion, U. Heffner's mansion. My dad collected money. He worked in the credit department. My mom worked in some area where like you're just kinda the traditional whatever. And then, um, they met at the party and then that, they married, I think, they married in 63, November 22nd, the day John Kennedy was shot. And, uh, they, I think they met in 61, but they both worked at Playboy. And then Pompeo Posar was a big staff photographer, just hounded the shit out of my mother until she, um, relented to pose. So, but the, the rest of the story, which I've never told anyone, probably never happened in the history of Playboy.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  So she posed, they picked her for centerfold.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Everything was set, typeset and everything, and she fucking freaked out.

• 25:29Matt McCusker?

  And she was like, take it out. I don't want to do it.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  She's like, no. And but she still stayed working there for another year and a half, but they said, no one's ever done this. Like said, no.

• 25:39Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  And so she's like, I can't do it. She was sort of traditional Italian, uh.

• 25:44Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it's a big deal.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Catholic.

• 25:46Matt McCusker?

  Especially back then.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Sixty.

• 25:48Matt McCusker?

  Especially back then. Like people now wouldn't care. Cause everyone, people have like OnlyFans and shit, but like, yeah, back then that was a big deal.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  She was old fashioned like that. Pull the chair out, like just.

• 26:00Matt McCusker?

  So what was the thinking though? Why, I guess, yeah, I guess if you're in the environment, you get kind of, they do that at strip clubs a lot too. They'll take the bartenders and they'll be like, Yeah, you should get up there. Just, it's just when you're in that environment, they're probably just kind of pushing you.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Well, she was super fine.

• 26:15Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 26:15Speaker 02

  She was extremely fine. Yeah. No, unbelievable. Like, okay, I had a party at the Lake Estate.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  The, the Super Bowl was February 4th and my friend was there and my mom came into the kitchen. And, um, so I'm, I don't know, 40. My mom's 65 probably.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Now, she's my mom. So like I, you know, but petite and perfect.

• 26:42Matt McCusker?

  You were cursed with a hot mom.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  So she leaves the kitchen and Bob's there. It's probably five years my elders like, dude, your sister is so fine. Can I get her, can I call her? And I said, it's my mom. And he's just like, oh, lady walked out.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  You know, like that's who she was, but she wasn't like, uh, what's the word? Like she didn't act like she was. But she was.

• 27:07Matt McCusker?

  Really?

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:08Matt McCusker?

  What was it like growing up with like a, like a hot mom, basically?

• 27:12Speaker 02

  I, how could I know the difference?

• 27:14Matt McCusker?

  What do you mean? Oh, yeah. You know what I mean?

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Say, yeah.

• 27:17Matt McCusker?

  I always wondered what that was like.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Looking back, like the way people reacted to her and would talk to her, like when we would travel, like they were very. Attracted to her. I don't know, it probably helped me. I mean, if I'm, am I ugly?

• 27:32Matt McCusker?

  No, yeah, no, not a good looking guy, dude.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  I think she might have been able to do a lot better than my dad, though, right?

• 27:39Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, so what was, in the book, you include some stuff, like you guys had a rocky relationship. And then he just died.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 27:46Matt McCusker?

  How was that? Because you go into, it's kind of jarring, because I read it, it's like you guys have this like-

• 27:50Speaker 02

  It's almost unbelievable.

• 27:52Matt McCusker?

  Altercation, and then he dies that day.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  The week before he died, maybe two weeks, we were at the dining room table, and I'm like, dude, I think something's wrong with you. I think you're gonna die, I've been having these dreams. It happened with my grandmother. He said, I'm fine, I had the cholesterol check, everything's good. Then the day before, so what was it, October 15th? 1989?

• 28:15Speaker 02

  1988? Because the first time I took LSD was a year later on that date, unbeknownst to me. And so we got in a fight over something. The cakes went flying.

• 28:27Matt McCusker?

  It was like a birthday.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Someone's cakes, was it my mother's? Someone had a birthday coming, and uh... And then that, so we had the fight, and I ran out of the house, and I was kind of a fuck up. I got this new job, and then at the job, I started to panic and freak out. They'd trained me, and I said, I gotta go home, something's wrong. And then he died right in my arms.

• 28:47Matt McCusker?

  Damn, that's crazy.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Which is fucked up.

• 28:50Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's, and you were, you know, early twenties? It's gotta be a pretty heavy experience.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Uh, 20.

• 28:57Matt McCusker?

  Or, yeah, 20 years old.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  19.

• 28:59Matt McCusker?

  Okay.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Eight, no, maybe I was 21. 69, 89, 88, 719.

• 29:03Matt McCusker?

  Okay. Damn, that's pretty wild. Yeah, that was just like a quick thing mentioned in the book, but I was like, that was, that's kind of-

• 29:09Speaker 02

  But then what happened in Marion, like, so like, you know, like, uh, in his, in world, like, in nature, there's no wasted energy. And if you live to be 80, you've had six years of dreams.

• 29:23Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it's kind of crazy.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  Right? And so like, once I got to Marion, from this very first date to the day I left, every single night, I'd dream, and we'd meet, and we'd talk, and we'd get it out.

• 29:34Matt McCusker?

  That's cool.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  Every fucking day, so like, I made peace with it, somehow, like, but, yeah, there was a rocky relationship. I mean, my dad suffered from PTSD, he fought in a war, um, and like, I mean, I don't know if I was-

• 29:52Speaker 02

  I don't like, cause you mentioned it when you did your thing about hitting a kid.

• 29:56Matt McCusker?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Is that really the way? So five or six year old boy, like that's a it didn't happen all the time, but it happened enough to where it's like it's significant.

• 30:08Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  But it doesn't have to define who I am today.

• 30:10Matt McCusker?

  For sure. Yeah.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  So I don't know. Does that answer your question?

• 30:13Matt McCusker?

  No, yeah, that does. That was a, it was like a heavier moment and the, and this was, I thought this was kind of interesting too. In the book, the, I mean, this was kind of like the crux of the tale was like, you're in jail, you know, you're kind of having a good time here, you know, selling a little black tar heroin.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  This is finance my weed.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  Oh my God, that's just the hypocrisy of it, right? Like we're gonna keep this shit illegal?

• 30:36Matt McCusker?

  I know.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  What the fuck?

• 30:37Matt McCusker?

  It is crazy, but it, for me, it was crazy that you just tried heroin and were like, man.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. I said the whole thing with drawing the needle back and the blood coming in.

• 30:47Matt McCusker?

  Was that, was that like creepy as fuck doing that? Like I, I don't like needles at all. That's why.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  No, it was creepy as fuck. And the thing is, it just felt like I was really stoned. So I'm like, I'm not, why would I want to do this? Other than smoke pot?

• 31:00Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Cause then I'm getting physically addicted. I'll be sucking dick to get more or whatever.

• 31:04Matt McCusker?

  For sure. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't, it wasn't this like other worldly.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  Oh, that's the thing. That's it. That's the other thing. When I went to the, when I jacked off in this thing. That's the third thing. So when I was out, that was very significant. So when I was there, I said sushi surfing. And when I was out selling LSD, if you, they thought you were an alcoholic or doing coke or heroin, you could not get the good LSD. You were done. And they always trained you for safety first. And it's like, they knew they could see in my soul, this motherfucker will not rat. Somehow they saw that. And when I jacked off, I said, I'm gonna fucking try once. I wanna just try it. I want to stick a needle in my arm and I'm gonna try heroin.

• 31:48Matt McCusker?

  Was that because of Jerry Garcia having, was he like into heroin then? Or that was until like the nineties?

• 31:54Speaker 02

  It's, I don't know the whole history. He was in it. I mean, probably from the beginning, but when he got addicted, it was definitely in the nineties, bad, really bad. And then he went to the forest Knowles or Serenity Knowles and then he died. I don't know if it's because of the, that, but it was the rea, no, it wasn't because of that. Cause the people that do heroin and coke and are alcoholic, they're not thinking safety first.

• 32:18Matt McCusker?

  Right.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  And then they bring that heat on. People because the, you know, like they're, they're in the circles of the, the heavier drugs where LSD was very clandestine.

• 32:28Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  So.

• 32:30Matt McCusker?

  That makes sense. So that was part of your thing. Like I'm, I'm going to try heroin too. Once.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Once.

• 32:33Matt McCusker?

  Now I can do it.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. That was the three things I promised myself.

• 32:37Matt McCusker?

  You were getting crushed by the corporate lifestyle of selling LSD. So you're like.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  I was not, I was always to get to the next show like, cause if you went broke, you could sell grilled cheese and beer and make six or eight hundred bucks. Buy 20 to 30 sheets, go to some city for two weeks with someone that you just met, or they know the city and then make four or 5,000 and you're good for like the whole tour.

• 32:58Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  I mean, two or three grand in the eighties on tour was like, you're set.

• 33:02Matt McCusker?

  True.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  You got three or four guys in the car, but like, there's always was the juxtaposition. It's like, I'm risking my fucking life for a little bit of money, even though I believe in it. Like, so that was the dichotomy of wickedness.

• 33:16Matt McCusker?

  I mean, how fun was that? Just being, uh, you know, a younger.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  That was amazing.

• 33:21Matt McCusker?

  Basically just following around the.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  It was beautiful. Cause like those people accepted me. It was like a family and it was just like love. The, the scene in the parking lot, when I went to the first show was unbelievable. Like it just was what was missing at home.

• 33:36Matt McCusker?

  That makes sense.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  And it was beautiful, but no, it wasn't like I was in fear because I've sold very little drugs at a show. I would meet people and like make things happen, but it wasn't like I was out there doses, mushrooms.

• 33:48Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. You weren't, you weren't really getting after it like that.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  And you didn't have to because you could do grill and you could grill, grill cheese and beer and do fine and make money. And then you know, the acid connects. And then like these people who did the LSD, like, we'll just say rainbow. You know, the Suvian man, the Vesuvian man?

• 34:07Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  So one side had that, and then the one side was surfing hippie ladies. And then a sheet is a thousand hits, which is like maybe a seven by 10. And then 10 of those is like accordion. So that's, that's one gram of LSD, which looks just like a gram of cocaine. And then they would pay someone to boutique those sheets with each square of a hundred hits would have the, that Vesuvian, the Vitruvian man from what's his name? Uh, astronaut.

• 34:32Matt McCusker?

  Da Vinci.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Da Vinci. And the other side would be the surfing hippie ladies, but that piece of paper was like artwork. You could not. You cannot counterfeit that.

• 34:44Matt McCusker?

  That makes sense, yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  If I saw one of those sheets on the lot, I'm like, alright, Rainbow is here.

• 34:48Matt McCusker?

  Gotcha.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  I'm gonna search them out, like, I know I can get, and then they would front me anything.

• 34:52Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  But I would never, they would front me 10 grams, which is 100,000 hits. But I can, I would like, what am I gonna do with it? And they would train me, like, if you ever think there's heat around the corner, like, throw that shit away. You just have to stay safe. Like, one time, we did a 10 strip, and like, they were just with me when they met me.

• 35:11Matt McCusker?

  You took 10 hits, you're saying?

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they could tell, somewhat, however they told, they could tell, but like, I was in.

• 35:19Matt McCusker?

  Damn.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  You know, I was in.

• 35:20Matt McCusker?

  What was that like, when you, like, that was your first experience, was that your first experience with LSD?

• 35:24Speaker 02

  No, no, the first one was the year, the year anniversary of my dad's death. I was with a friends, new friends that I met, and we were in the show, they were blue unicorns, and there were lights like this on the ceiling, and we just kept eating the LSD. Cause we're like, I'm like, I don't think it's real, I don't think it's real. It was her second time, and then, I don't know, I probably got to eight or nine, and then all of a sudden, we're like, this is real. But then, we just spent the next 15 hours together, we were at the show, it was the most beautiful, lovely experience. Like, you could see, you could just, you were just in the moment. It's hard to explain in words, but that was a beautiful trip.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  But the time I took the 10 was Northern California, and like, you could sleep. I mean, pure, good LSD is not, I don't think it's really harmful unless you have a very, something psychologically that's really

• 36:24Matt McCusker?

  Okay.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  impending you. And/or the precursor to the trip, like, if you just got in a wicked fight with your ex-wife, and she's taking the kids, and you gotta double the alimony, and then, then that might be bad.

• 36:36Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that makes sense. And you were saying in the book, you, these people who were like, there was only a few people who were able to somehow secure the ingredients necessary to make LSD, cause it is hard. It's, I knew a guy in a lab, and he could, he could make almost anything, but he's like, I can't make LSD.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  They're got amintartate, no, it's a substantial amount of glassware, and it's not just some bathtub shit to get pure LSD 25. It took some time. And so the other thing is like, and you're not just gonna make, you're gonna end up with millions and millions a hit with a batch, you know? So it's like, you're gonna have a lot. But those people that I met, they never were about bling bling. They were specific to safety first and wanting to bring about radical social change. And when I was in prison, I met people from Caracas and all down South America, these big, huge coke dealers. And this one dude remembers face, I can't think of his name. And he sort of made me start to think even more about it because he said, like, when the LSD came,

• 37:34Speaker 02

  and he knew about Ozzy, he knew all this stuff about like the scene, but he was like this wicked cocaine dealer. But he was so smart. And he said, when that LSD came in, it's when people were rioting and the government and we wanted to overthrow things. And he's like, that stuff brought about radical social change. So it makes, it makes sense that the government wanted it illegal, but who knows why? Maybe, you know, maybe they found some true serum way to like make people, they didn't want Russia to get it. But it did, they did a lot of stuff with alcoholism, too.

• 38:04Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that was a big thing for AA. I think LSD.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Bill wanted it everywhere.

• 38:09Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  And then there's the, at the Jefferson in the 50s, they did. When I was in prison, they had a show with Barbara Walter on LSD. And the whole was sentencing and everything. And so in the 50s, they did this thing where they would take alcoholics, non AA, they take them on one bad trip, seriously bad, and show them everything they did wrong and they filmed it. And then on Barbara Walters Inside Federal Prison, they had like the dude's daughters or sons, and they're like 70 or 80. And they said, the LSD saved our lives like our dad or mom never took another drink. They completely changed them.

• 38:46Matt McCusker?

  Damn.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  So that was a small study.

• 38:49Matt McCusker?

  How much, do you think how much they were giving them? They were probably back then.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  I think it was, they, they showed, it was a thousand mics. They showed that it's, it was from Santos. They called it Dyson, Dyson or something like that. And they would give them a thousand mics, but they literally would take them on a horrendously negative trip the whole entire time in a thing with doctors and like.

• 39:10Matt McCusker?

  Well, it's weird too, because.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  And then it would infect them forever till they died.

• 39:14Matt McCusker?

  I mean, imagine in the, and again, in the fifties, like LSD, like, you know, I, I grew up hearing about it. You have like a context for what it is. Like, oh, it's like, you know, it's like hippie stuff and.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  Jumping out the window, you're gonna die.

• 39:25Matt McCusker?

  Or even, even being like, you know, say I was following like fish and I, if I was a kid, I would have been like, yeah, it's like, it's like weed. It's like you get high, but in the fifties, if someone just hit you with 10 hits of LSD in a lab and like, get your fucking life together. I'd be like.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  I always thought it was gonna make you go crazy. I mean, I didn't take LSD till I was

• 39:45Speaker 02

  1990, 1989, 20 was the first time. And so I had a few times at shows I would buy a sheet or two from someone I didn't know. And I just would sell it at high school. I'd say, is this real? And I did mushrooms a couple of times, but like, even though I thought I was a free thinker, there was like, you know, you're gonna take it and you're gonna wanna fly and jump out a window. Like somewhere that got started, cause that was always in my head. But it wasn't that dangerous, but I don't know if it's for everyone.

• 40:14Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, makes sense.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  But I think that if a, if a big slice, like if you go to Gaza, right? Then Terrence McKenna would go all the way to group sex, but he's like, you get both sides, Palestine, the Jews, and let's all take some LSD and sit in a room. I guarantee you they're gonna fucking figure it out. And they might start fucking each other.

• 40:33Matt McCusker?

  That'd be sick.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Right? I mean, the peace on earth, man, you know?

• 40:39Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. I mean, it does seem like it could, you know, do that. It is, it is unfortunate, cause I, like you were saying, it's not for everybody. And I have seen people who will, who abuse it, kind of lose it, like.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  LSD?

• 40:49Matt McCusker?

  Yes.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  So I've never seen that. I believe it, but like.

• 40:51Matt McCusker?

  But I think you have to have underlying stuff already kinda kicking around.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Abused it like daily?

• 40:55Matt McCusker?

  They were just, no, there was like every weekend is boom, like, and like constantly, as you said in your book, you didn't take it.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Less than a dozen times, cause it's so profound. What do you need?

• 41:04Matt McCusker?

  These guys were every weekend, that, the nitrous, they were just partying with it. And they, I remember.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 41:10Matt McCusker?

  I see the one guy, I was in a grocery store and I'm like, oh, hey, what's up, man? He was working there. I'm like, how you doing? Dude, he was, he cornered me, he's like, I'm fighting a battle against light and darkness. And I was like, oh boy, I was like, alright, bro. I was like, you know, I'm gonna grab my, my stuff and get out of here. But it was, uh, yeah, I remember this guy, but again, it could have been just like underlying stuff, cause that is like, you know, if you take a person who already has, even if like, you know, they could have like had a job and just been a little weird or whatever, but it's like, if you've really kind of ramped that shit up, and it's like, you don't give them any kind of like way to work through all that stuff, it's like, yeah, it kind of makes sense, you would lose your fucking mind.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  Cause you have psych now, what is that?

• 41:44Matt McCusker?

  That was a, I'm, I'm still trying to figure out how to do it. I, I have an idea with what I want to do, but I got obsessed, uh, so I've always liked psychology, so I, I've always liked psychology, and then I went to school for social work to get my masters.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:55Matt McCusker?

  I wanted to start something like AA, that's just not centered around drugs, where you can, you can kind of get people.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Anything.

• 42:03Matt McCusker?

  Yes, who are like, you, you, I could talk to people who are, you know, like, uh, PhDs or whatever, and have them help me come up with some sort of program that could be peer-led around like, just mental health stuff in general. That way, like, you can't afford a ther- if you can't afford a therapist, you could still have like a group that's like, it's not like therapy per se, but it would be using, um,

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Sharing?

• 42:23Matt McCusker?

  The tools, yeah, like that, these people, like these PhD level people make up, and like, how do you kind of disseminate them in a way that like, that could be done in like a peer-to-peer thing? That's my goal, and I'm, I'm still now, looking for therapists now, cause I, I want to just salary a couple therapists now, that I can, to just kind of like run groups and like, kind of like,

• 42:39Speaker 02

  See where?

• 42:40Matt McCusker?

  curate the whole like, online space.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 42:43Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, and it'd be, it's for-

• 42:44Speaker 02

  How did you get that name?

• 42:45Matt McCusker?

  I made it up, psych now, I don't know, it sounded funny, cause you know, but, um, but yes, that, that is my goal, cause that, you know, we, we do need to figure something out collectively, cause this isn't, you know, it's clearly not working, dude, it's like, the fact that we're immune to like, kids shooting kids in school now, it's like, it happens enough to where it's like, alright dude, there's some, we need to organize ourselves mentally a different way, we're organized around, you know, one thing right now, and it's not really,

• 43:08Speaker 02

  Money?

• 43:08Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, pretty much, and it's like, it's, it's good, I don't hate, I don't hate money, but it's like, it's clearly, something's getting fucked up, and it's like, we're, I, I really feel like as human beings, you know, we're organisms, and like, we're not- It's it's hard for people to wrap their head around the fact for everybody that they're not like the most important person in the world because as an organism if you you know if you think about organisms.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  The cells, we're all a cell, right?

• 43:31Matt McCusker?

  If you're an organism and you sense an organism that's bigger than you, that's a threat to your life. You know what I mean? Because if you're if you're an animal, just say you're an animal, if you're an animal and you see if you're a wolf and you see a bigger wolf. That wolf is could very well kill you and that sets off a chain of reactions, but human beings are sense of like largeness is kind of abstract. So if you perceive somebody's bigger than you in some sense, it can set off like a very real chain of biological events that can color your thinking and behavior. And it's like, no one really thinks about that, but it's like something people have to come to grips with. But whatever, but the um, but yeah, so that's, I don't know, man. I think we could we could have a good time up here on earth, but it's, you know, it sucks for everybody. It's kind of shitty.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  Is it the human condition?

• 44:13Matt McCusker?

  I think so.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  We're stuck, the iPhone?

• 44:16Matt McCusker?

  Uh, yeah.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  I got an iPhone in April or May. I had a flip phone from 2013. I shut off my iPhone too. Dude, that motherfucker is worse than bad cocaine.

• 44:30Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, dude, I'm coming to grips with how addicted I am to my phone and it's like, it's bad, man. I got my screen time down to like, I think like three hours and I think this week I should be hitting two, but it's like, dude, it's such an addiction.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  But you need it for your business, right?

• 44:43Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I do, but it's like I could use it in a way where I'm not like pulling it out, being like, let me see if anyone.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Every two hours, they're just.

• 44:50Matt McCusker?

  Well, the worst part is with social media, you're addicted to is yourself. You're like, you've commodified your personality.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  How many likes?

• 44:57Matt McCusker?

  You're checking your numbers. Yeah, now you have like, it's it's like very real, uh, you know, quantitative data on like your personality. And so of course you're there's an addictive component to the phone, but like nothing's more addictive addictive than yourself and like, you know, your insecurities and checking on all that. And I think that's what ties a lot of people to it.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  And the kids, now that they're like, if I don't have likes, this whole idea of.

• 45:18Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. It sucks.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  Shootings.

• 45:22Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, so that's, you know, but either way. So yeah, I kind of agree. You know, something needs to happen, but you know, it's one of those things where it's like when people try to push the pedal, like I got the solution to push the pedal. Usually it's just 10 times worse. So I don't know. I'll be curious to see what happens with people. But either way, um, so dude.

• 45:40Matt McCusker?

  Okay, so you're, I, this is, what else did I want to ask you about? So you, oh, this is the thing that was, I thought was crazy. So you're in, you're just, you're kicking around different, uh, you know, prisons.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  Six.

• 45:49Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, you're six different prisons.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  I didn't adjust well.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Who does, right?

• 45:54Matt McCusker?

  True, but you're kicking around, things are going well, you know, you're, you're, you know, you've got some, you've got some hustles going on. And then you have the altercation with the guard. And this was the thing I thought the craziest part of the book. You have the altercation with the guard.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  If you said that name in a disrespectful way, the Aryan Brotherhood would have killed you.

• 46:13Matt McCusker?

  What do you mean?

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Wait, which guard you're talking about?

• 46:16Matt McCusker?

  The guard who sent you to Marion.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Oh, that guy, the lieutenant, okay, no.

• 46:19Matt McCusker?

  What guard are you talking about?

• 46:20Speaker 02

  And when I, in Marion, when I said, I'll do you like Tommy Silverstein, that's like ridiculous. Oh, no, the black lieutenant, though. That really was the chain of events to get me there.

• 46:30Matt McCusker?

  This was a kind of, I thought it was kind of nuts. So you're, you're in jail, things are going well, whatever, this black lieutenant takes your bag. You guys get into an altercation, so then...

• 46:37Speaker 02

  He called me a hippie rat.

• 46:39Matt McCusker?

  He did.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  He threw me down. He called me a hippie rat, and I called him a really fucked up name. I don't want to say it.

• 46:45Matt McCusker?

  You don't have to.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  So, and then, but the whole yard saw that.

• 46:48Matt McCusker?

  Yes, and he had to do something.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  And I never ratted, but he knew that. He knew I was good.

• 46:52Matt McCusker?

  Oh, I didn't realize that. He said that to you in front of all the other prisoners, which is kind of a death sentence.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  He's like, well, because when I came to that prison, he wanted the bag. He's like, I'm gonna get that bag. I know you faked that property slip.

• 47:02Matt McCusker?

  And your friend stitched it for you. It was like a nice, yeah, it was like, it was like your prized possession.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Uh, James Irving, yeah, and so it was in, that was the third prison I was in with it. And then, I'm coming out of Chao to go to the yard, and he's, give me that bag, you hippie rat. And I yanked it back, just out of reaction. He body slammed me. He's like 6'4", 6'5", 250, 260, huge lieutenant. I mean, he's running it. And he's like, you fucking hippie rat. And I'm like, oh, fuck. But he knew, when you come in, they know who's ratted, who didn't rat, who might have to be in PC or not. So he knew that he was pushing my buttons, but anyway.

• 47:41Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, so the thing I thought that was wild was like, that incident, uh, kind of aligned itself with the, uh, the crack laws. Where it was like, they reduced the sentences on powder cocaine, didn't reduce the sentences on crack cocaine. So then there were these like racial riots in the jail, and then that, the...

• 47:58Speaker 02

  That was the first one out of 12 to riot. That's really significant.

• 48:00Matt McCusker?

  12 prisons around the country, like, and like, dude, the extent of the damage was crazy, like, you were saying, it was just...

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Did you see the report?

• 48:07Matt McCusker?

  What was the report?

• 48:08Speaker 02

  I have the whole riot report. Well, now I gotta re-put it back up on my new website. But it's a report from the Justice Department. It shows like all the prisons that rioted, what was burnt down to the ground. And they said that the instigator was Talladega, Alabama. And they charged me with leading it, which was the lieutenant.

• 48:26Matt McCusker?

  That was a crazy thing.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:28Matt McCusker?

  Well, it was really like a racially inspired riot. Cause it was like, black guys were going to jail for crack. Like, for the most part, white guys are going to jail for coke.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  And methamphetamine and LSD, they changed all those three.

• 48:40Matt McCusker?

  Okay.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  It was three.

• 48:41Matt McCusker?

  So the black guys were understandably kinda pissed. So they rioted.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  It's the same drug.

• 48:45Matt McCusker?

  I know. And then they, but then that lieutenant was like, oh yeah, this guy instigated the riot. So you went to from just like, you know, prison, to then having to go to supermax prison based on really just a beef you had with the lieutenant, which is fucking crazy.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Crazy. Yeah. There's 22 or 23 black guys than me. And then after the riot, when they did the hearings, everybody in the prison got in wicked trouble. But no one got sent to Marion, but just us 23.

• 49:12Matt McCusker?

  And Marion, you just explain what Marion is? Cause I didn't know what it was before I read the book.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  Supermax Federal Prison opened up in 63 after Alcatraz closed. There was a control unit. And then in 1983, Tommy Silverstein and Clayton Fontaine killed two prison guards in the control unit, which was the supermax of supermaxes. And then as a result of that, they made all of Marion the control unit. And they called it the Marion model. So that was the most secure, heinous 23 hour lockdown ever fucking conceived. And man. And then like 2006, they decommissioned it. And then the ADX opened. But in the 1990s was like 385 of the most sophisticated, prodigious motherfuckers on planet earth, man and me. What the fuck?

• 49:59Matt McCusker?

  And it was 23 hour lockdown, one hour outside a day?

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you had bars. So that's actually was a saving grace. Cause if you're laying in your cell, single cells, you're looking out and you see the big tall windows where if you imagined it was like a door, like in the ADX. And some days they might give us 90 minutes.

• 50:17Matt McCusker?

  Damn, and you were saying in the, sorry, and the thing that really kind of like I thought was nuts in the other prison during the riots, you were like about to go to the yard to work out and you were like,

• 50:27Speaker 02

  It was weird.

• 50:28Matt McCusker?

  Let me go back to my room and you were saying the yard itself was just like an apocalyptic battle of like dudes getting raped, people getting their heads smashed.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  When I went to Marion, my neighbor told me a story of Dean who went out on the yard because he said that they, after the riots, they both got transferred to this other prison, then T came to Marion and then, and he just, he didn't know that what you just said that I put in the book, but he told me what happened out on the yard. And he said Dean was almost dead, like he was beat so bad, like his head caved in, like he was alive, but just like not doing really good, even after like months of, like he was that fucked up. But then in the unit, you walk in and it was just a jungle, but like we were all together, they were breaking the machines. We were trying to break down the door to where all the records were.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Cause that all the official records were still like physical. These guys, we had all the crack law guys wanted to burn them.

• 51:29Matt McCusker?

  Understandable.

• 51:29Speaker 02

  No, I only have a year. No, they would have said.

• 51:33Matt McCusker?

  I know, I know that. I'm saying, I know that'd been crazy taking that down. And that book I taught, and in the book, um, You Can't Win by Jack Black, that he's like a burglar or whatever in the early 1900s. He ends up finally in a jail in California. I think in, uh, was it Folsom? Maybe it was Folsom. I don't know where it was, but he, uh, either way he got, there was an earthquake and all of the records for all the prisoners got destroyed in like a fire or something. And he ended up getting stuck because he couldn't get out, you couldn't go in or out because he was already there. So he couldn't prove like he did enough time, but he eventually did get out. But yeah, that's, damn, if only those guys had grabbed the records, that'd have been so sweet.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  When I, when they toured us out of the, because I didn't see everything that happened. Once they locked us down, we were in that unit for eight, nine, 10, 12, 13 days before we left for Marion. But when they took us all out to go to Marion, the one building was burnt to the ground and another building was halfway burnt down. And then when we were in there, we could hear bulldozers and shit, but you didn't really know what's happened. But I'm like, where all housing unit was, it was gone. It's like, fuck. I mean, you could smell smoke, but you just didn't know how bad it was.

• 52:41Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. You got to see the damage.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  Before they took our radios, we would hear on like, uh, that one dude. I can't remember that guy who would always come on in the morning, his national radio show, but he had started to say about all these other prisons that rioted.

• 52:55Matt McCusker?

  Hmm. He always said all the other ones and they kind of tried to suppress that. Yeah, I remember reading that, how they were trying to act like, nah, we're good. And then other, didn't other ones like, say there was stuff just so that they could clamp down and get overtime and all that?

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Exactly. That was in the report too.

• 53:10Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  There were some that did that. And the funny thing is, the ones that, here's the thing, what I, what I talked about earlier. The medium security prisons were the ones where the most violence and buildings being burnt happened. Cause these guys that, it's a, it's a consensual crime. I sell you something. I know it's illegal. All right. I didn't do the crime, do the time, but it's like, I could have raped, I could have robbed you. I could have stolen so much more money and gotten less time. Like it's not fair and equal justice.

• 53:40Matt McCusker?

  That was always my thing. It's like, the, the prison law should be according to who would you rather have as your neighbor? Right?

• 53:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:46Matt McCusker?

  Would I rather have a guy who sold coke or a pedophile? It's like, all right, a pedophile should be a longer time than a guy who sells coke because it's like, that's who I'd rather live next to if, if I had to choose. Or if I didn't have a choice, it would be like, you know, it should be, people should be sentenced accordingly.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Did you ever look at when you moved to a new neighborhood, the federal, uh, sex offender registry?

• 54:04Matt McCusker?

  I check it all the time.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  It's unbelievable. Map and you could just hover, you see who they are, what their crime is, are they on probation?

• 54:10Matt McCusker?

  And there's a lot of them.

• 54:11Speaker 02

  What a tool. They're everywhere.

• 54:12Matt McCusker?

  And there's a lot of them, man. I did it when I lived in Philly and there, I was shocked. There was like a, there was a decent amount. I think they had them all in one house. They were all in like this one house, uh, like four blocks away. And I don't know if they just like some landlord.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  That might be my next play. Uh, you know, free prison.

• 54:29Matt McCusker?

  What do you mean?

• 54:29Speaker 02

  Like, you know, like, cause the state, there's a demand. Where are you going to put them when they come out?

• 54:36Matt McCusker?

  Right, yeah.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  And maybe like, there's just, I don't know, like the greed makes me think about it. But like, if you could find a place for them to live, you're going to have a, you know, you'll be able to rent the unit out every time.

• 54:49Matt McCusker?

  Oh, you're talking about like pedophiles specifically or just prisons?

• 54:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, pedophiles, pedophiles.

• 54:53Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, there, there's, there's.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  What are we going to do with them? Where are we going to put them? And the thing is, I don't know if it's an addiction, I want to think it is, but like those guys should never come out, ever.

• 55:06Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, they should have to, you should, like you said.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  Ever.

• 55:09Matt McCusker?

  They should be, there's a documentary to watch where they, it's called Pervert Park, it's a really rough watch, but they, they have like a trailer park in Florida and they're just like gated community, it's like, they just all live in here and people just fucking,

• 55:21Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 55:21Matt McCusker?

  beer bottles over at them.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  No, okay, so they're contained then, at least they know where they are.

• 55:26Matt McCusker?

  But dude, not like, so I used to get housing for people, when I went to school for social work, one of my jobs was,

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Oh yeah.

• 55:31Matt McCusker?

  get housing for prisoners, so you get out of jail, I would do a little interview, like, hey, you know, I'd have to get like, what is the nature of your crime? But it was like, it was just like selling drugs and stuff, and then the lady who ran it didn't tell me she had opened up to pedophiles, because that was one of my, I would like, you know, the crack, break the ice, because I didn't like being like, hey, what'd you go to jail for? So I'd be like, hey, I have to ask you this, as long as you're not like a pedophile, whatever, don't worry, and they'd always be like, motherfucker, I'm not a fucking pedophile, I'm like, ah, you know? And then one day, the guy was like, well, I actually am, and I was like, what? And then they were like, yeah, and I talked to my boss, I'm like, what the fuck? And she was like, yeah, I decided to start taking pedophiles, we gotta find them housing too, and I was like, uh, okay, but like,

• 56:06Speaker 02

  What year?

• 56:07Matt McCusker?

  This was only like, this would have been 2019, 2019, 2018, around then. My thing was like, I didn't want to, and I would call their probation officers, because I would be like, I don't, isn't there laws, these guys can't be, I can't like throw this guy into Best Buy, like, there's kids around there.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  There's the thousand feet or whatever, by school and all that, I think there is.

• 56:26Matt McCusker?

  That's what I thought, dude.

• 56:29Matt McCusker?

  That's what I thought it was, man, but this, this person, it was kind of like, you know, leading the thing, you know, as far as I remember, it was kind of like, no, no, no, they're fine, they have rights, and I like, I called the guy's probation officer, I'm like, this guy can't work here, Kenny? The probation officer was like, fuck no, and I was like, yeah, I didn't think so. So it was weird, I remember I ended up telling the lady, I was like, I don't,

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Don't ask, don't tell, we gotta get rid of them.

• 56:49Matt McCusker?

  I was like, bro, I'm not sending this guy, you know, into apartment buildings, I don't know, so it was, I just told her, like, I don't, you know?

• 56:55Speaker 02

  The stigma seems less now for ex-drug dealers.

• 56:59Matt McCusker?

  It does.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  Is pot's legal, I mean, if you went to jail for weed, like, is, how could that even?

• 57:05Matt McCusker?

  I got those, I got those guys' houses pretty easily, because I would just cold call landlords and be like, hey, I got this great deal, six month upfront, paid rent, and they'd be like, well, what is it, what is it, and I'd be like, here's the catch, and then they would go, Oh, come on, man. I'd be like, dude, they're not like fucking pedophiles. They're just, they just sold drugs. Like, come on. Six months is paid up.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  People pay their rent. Who cares?

• 57:22Matt McCusker?

  And then, so they were cool about that, but once she tried to have me find like the pedophile, and I had to tell her, like, look, I'm not the guy to help these guys.

• 57:28Speaker 02

  Cause now they're gonna, you, you don't have.

• 57:30Matt McCusker?

  Well, not even, yeah, then you're gonna fuck up all these other guys housing. And it's also like, like, I remember the one dude would call me, the guy who was on my caseload who had that kind of stuff. And he would just be like, hey, I'm outside in my head, like, you know, I wouldn't even be there. And I'd be like, I don't give a fuck. He's like, it's raining. And I'd be like, tough. So I'm like, there's gotta be someone who can help that guy. So they do need help from somebody, but it was like, I'm not, I can't do it, man. I just, I couldn't do it.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  Like you just build like a, you know, a 600 unit spot, like, and you just, they're all there. Where are they gonna go?

• 57:59Matt McCusker?

  Dude, it's a weird thing to do. And they just kind of like hush the, yeah, and quietly tuck them in a neighborhood like, hey, you know, here's the guys here. And it's like, fucked up, man. It's really fucked up.

• 58:08Speaker 02

  And then when you do the real estate transaction, you gotta say, you know about the sex offender registry, like you have to check that box.

• 58:14Matt McCusker?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  Cause it's like no one, if someone moved into your neighborhood and they were that, it's gonna devalue everything.

• 58:21Matt McCusker?

  Yep. It's that. Those guys have a hard time.

• 58:23Speaker 02

  They never seem to be able to break free.

• 58:26Matt McCusker?

  No.

• 58:26Speaker 02

  It's not like you sold LSD, you went to prison, you never sold it again.

• 58:31Matt McCusker?

  Exactly. Even if you did, whatever.

• 58:32Speaker 02

  Well, I did flood Marion with it.

• 58:33Matt McCusker?

  Did you really?

• 58:34Speaker 02

  This time.

• 58:34Matt McCusker?

  What? How'd you do that? So, yeah, you were in the super, you're in the super max.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  No, I did. I set it up. I don't, I don't wanna say his name.

• 58:41Matt McCusker?

  Oh, I remember this when you, cause you were pissed when you got, was that, was that correct?

• 58:45Speaker 02

  I don't think I put it in the book, but maybe I put it in the book. I don't think it's 2015 I got out. No, that would have been after the statute of limitations. So I set it up. I set it up. I said to my friend, I said, listen, I don't know if I'm gonna do this, but if you get a letter that's like this, from this place, this is where the LSD will be.

• 59:06Speaker 02

  So I drove, I mean, I was on federal, all this shit's past its five years statute limitations. The only way that they can extend it is if they ask a court and then they have to notify you.

• 59:17Matt McCusker?

  It's just all entertainment anyway, dude.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  So, right, and um, so I got it, I got the liquid, I, I put it on the paper, I wrote this letter with gloves on, with my right, left hand, you know, the envelope, and I drove, actually drove past Marion, way down south through Illinois and then into some, that state that's right to the east, either Tennessee or Kentucky, and then just went to a mailbox with a stamp and just put it in. So then it had that

• 59:47Matt McCusker?

  Right.

• 59:48Speaker 02

  thing, right, and then um, he acknowledged it, in a very, with a future letter. He didn't say

• 59:58Matt McCusker?

  Anything, yeah.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  But then I never wrote him back again.

• 1:00:01Matt McCusker?

  That's cool.

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  I had to do it as one last act of defiance, like, just, I had to do it. And the thing is, like, they could have come to me and said, he said, he got caught with it, you sent it, there was no fucking trace. I didn't have a cell phone, it's not like they knew I drove, that I didn't get pulled over, there was no, like, there's no way.

• 1:00:20Matt McCusker?

  And it just got, it just ran right through there. That must have been wild, dude.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  The thing is, like, I did a line of coke one time in prison, and like, smoking weed, it took, it was hard to get used to, that when James first got me stoned, I was crying in my bunk, because it's just the horror of what, dude.

• 1:00:35Matt McCusker?

  That must have, that must have been terrible, getting that high in jail.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Twice there was acid and I didn't take it, but one time this guy gave me this line of coke, ether base, just wicked, just so high, but then coming down off that, dude, was like, not that you want, you wanted more, but you're like, I'm in fucking prison.

• 1:00:52Matt McCusker?

  Ah.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  Dude, that's a hard fucking reality.

• 1:00:56Matt McCusker?

  What was it like?

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  Taking acid.

• 1:00:57Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  Herb got four or five hits, each was 200 mics, and he asked me for like a week, not to push me, but he said, because he's like, we're all gonna take this, but there's one for you. And then he kept coming to the child and saying, are you sure? Cause he's like, I'll probably never get this again. And then I remember when they took it, they had a great time, but I just thought if I took that in jail, like

• 1:01:23Speaker 02

  eight or 10 hours of tripping in prison. I don't know, man. I couldn't.

• 1:01:27Matt McCusker?

  I have a friend who smoked K2 in jail, like the synthetic weed.

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:01:30Matt McCusker?

  And he said he, and this guy, you know, this guy was doing.

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  Isn't it just like weed?

• 1:01:34Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, but apparently it's like, it's like kind of harsh from what I've heard. It's like, it can be like, cause it's just a chemical. So like weed, the plant can only get so strong, but K2.

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 1:01:43Matt McCusker?

  They're spraying these synthetic cannabinoids. Like, you know, it could be fucking.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  Who knows?

• 1:01:46Matt McCusker?

  Exactly. So he said, and this guy, he had, you know, he had done like.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  Tripping.

• 1:01:50Matt McCusker?

  All the drugs you could possibly do. And he was like, dude, fuck that shit. He said he was in there. He kept hearing people come in, checking on, and it like, it wasn't happening. It was him and a dude in there just in terror the whole time.

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  Did you like the way we made pipes?

• 1:02:03Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  It worked perfectly. And the thing is, and if you blow the smoke out with another tube of bounce, you, you see smoke, but you cannot smell it.

• 1:02:12Matt McCusker?

  That's, that was the old college, that's the old college trick too.

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  You gotta suck the whole hit down though. So there's no little smoke left.

• 1:02:18Matt McCusker?

  That was the, that was the college trick. You would put the Fabreeze, uh, fabric, fabric softener sheet in a paper towel thing and blow it out.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  Cause spots so smell so strong to people that don't.

• 1:02:28Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Speaker 02

  Smoke it.

• 1:02:30Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. Smoking weed in jail does seem like a lot of trouble. Seems like you'd have to be really kind of careful. I guess you could go outside.

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  Sparky took me out and we just kept hitting this joint, kept hitting this joint during the move. Right? When I arrived and when I got back, I swear to God, it was like I took 10 hits of acid.

• 1:02:45Matt McCusker?

  Freaked out.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  I was so fucking stoned, like dude, and I'm like 151 months. I hadn't won an appeal. It was just this wickedness.

• 1:02:54Matt McCusker?

  It really set in. That weed does that to you where like the reality of stuff sets in.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Every day he took me twice a day and after about a week, it was like, yeah, let's go. Fuck it. You gotta do your time, right? And then they taught me how to beat the piss test.

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  You drink.

• 1:03:11Matt McCusker?

  Oh, yeah, I read about that.

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  You drink a gallon of water and then the lieutenants give you two hours because they can't just grab you and say pee. They say you got two hours to report to the lieutenant's office. You gotta drink a full gallon in 15 minutes. They taught me this and then they said by the sixth or seventh piss, they said, you want to wait to seven. If you can wait till eight, it's just pure water.

• 1:03:33Matt McCusker?

  Don't you get a dilute though? I heard you the drug test now they can hit you with it was too diluted where they.

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  This was the nineties. And the thing is whenever they would take the, the, they take it, you'd go back to lieutenant's office. They would make it look like they're putting it in a mailer, but then they would always ask you if you admit to us. You did, you did drugs, we'll give you, we'll only give you 30 days. I mean, I never would, but nothing ever came back dirty. Today, the test might be different.

• 1:03:57Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  The hole, whatever, but if you didn't piss, you would get it dirty. Then it's 90 days in the hole and you'd probably get transferred.

• 1:04:04Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, it sucks.

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  Which is the fucking worst.

• 1:04:06Matt McCusker?

  And you also, if they, you know, even if it was diluted, you'd have the time because it'd have to get mailed out, ran through a lab. And by then it's like, hey.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  I don't know. Did they do that in the nineties, the dilution?

• 1:04:15Matt McCusker?

  I've just heard about it. I don't know. I was so young in the nineties. I was, I was a wee boy, but the, I remember hearing about that move. Like just slam a bunch of fucking water, but then it would, the test would come back as like inconclusive because it was just too diluted.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  I don't think, I think that eighth piss, because you're talking now, maybe at 45, 50 minute mark. If you slam that, it looks like water, it smells like water.

• 1:04:38Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:39Speaker 02

  It's probably barely 98 degrees warm.

• 1:04:42Matt McCusker?

  No, it makes sense back then that they would have been like.

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  But today I think they probably could detect it.

• 1:04:46Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  On anything.

• 1:04:48Matt McCusker?

  I had to do a drug test when I was working for my dad. They, he does demolition. We were like working in like a, on the hospital kind of, or was it a hospital? It was a school. It was a school. So they like, everyone had to get drug tested. So I remember we had to do, we, you know, we had all day and it wasn't like you had somebody watching you. So we just had like, I filled up a latex glove of pee from somebody I knew. And then you just keep a hand warmer on it. So it keeps it at like 98 degrees.

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  How did you know he was clean? You just hoped?

• 1:05:13Matt McCusker?

  I just knew he was, I asked him, he didn't, I knew so he didn't smoke weed or do anything. So I was like, let me get pee in this glove for me or pee in a thing and then I just dumped it.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  And it worked?

• 1:05:21Matt McCusker?

  Kept it on hand warmer, but then I got there, my friend needed some too. So we had to split it and then we both, I didn't realize there was a minimum amount, so we both gave like that.

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  Did they take it?

• 1:05:31Matt McCusker?

  The nurse was cool, she was really, but they, they hit you with the temperature, that was a big thing, they temp check it.

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Cause then they see if it's cold, it's not ninety eight point six.

• 1:05:39Matt McCusker?

  So the hand warmers, I'd asked for hand warmers in like July, I was, you guys have hand warmers back here? And they're like, yeah, but why? I was like, I don't know, man, I just need them, I'm going somewhere. So, but yeah, that is a, that's pretty crazy. So then that, that story too about getting.

• 1:05:52Speaker 02

  What about the duffel bag?

• 1:05:55Matt McCusker?

  What about it?

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  What do you think happened to it?

• 1:05:57Matt McCusker?

  What, the duffel bag you got taken from you? Didn't you get it, did you get it back?

• 1:06:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:01Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that was the end of the book, man. You got the, that was, it all came together, that guy.

• 1:06:04Speaker 02

  What the fuck? So that motherf-

• 1:06:06Matt McCusker?

  He probably felt fucking bad.

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  He held, no, he, that lieutenant sent it to me after I got home from Marion, which means he held it the whole time I was in Marion.

• 1:06:17Matt McCusker?

  What the hell was it, what was that about? Why did he give it back to you?

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  It was the fuck you.

• 1:06:21Matt McCusker?

  You think that was his fuck you to you?

• 1:06:22Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 1:06:23Matt McCusker?

  What, you don't think that was, I thought, I took that as the guy was like, had a nice moment where he was just like, yeah, let me give this guy his bag back.

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  No way.

• 1:06:31Matt McCusker?

  Why did he do that? Just to be a dickhead?

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  I think so. I burned it in a fifty five gallon drum that day. I had a ceremony to let it all go.

• 1:06:39Matt McCusker?

  That's pretty, that's cool, that makes sense.

• 1:06:41Speaker 02

  I did, and maybe it wa, I never thought that. I mean, I wasn't in a bad, it just struck me, like, this motherfucker sent it back now?

• 1:06:50Matt McCusker?

  Ah, it is weird. Also, is it normal to keep, like, how would he even get an alert that you were out?

• 1:06:56Speaker 02

  He was following and he had to be.

• 1:06:58Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that's kinda weird.

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like, but it represented so much. I had to like the phoenix, like just let this go and I had a ceremony.

• 1:07:08Matt McCusker?

  That's pretty cool, yeah.

• 1:07:09Speaker 02

  No one was there and I just like, this is going.

• 1:07:12Matt McCusker?

  This thing's out of here. That, that makes sense, just.

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  I don't regret it, but it would have been kinda cool to say, hey, here's the green duffel bag, but. I had to let it go. I had to just get rid of it. It symbolized so much.

• 1:07:24Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, and just to move on.

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  Was that bad psychologically? What do you think?

• 1:07:27Matt McCusker?

  No, I think that's, you know, feel good doing that. Get rid of it. Just to, you know, that way you're, you're out. That's like a chapter that's totally done with.

• 1:07:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:33Matt McCusker?

  And there's, there's something kinda cool and ceremonial about being like, alright, I'm done with this part of my life.

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  I can let go.

• 1:07:38Matt McCusker?

  Especially if you think the guy was fucking with you. I'd be like, fuck you, dude.

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know that. It shocked me, though.

• 1:07:44Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, I'd be freaked out, dude.

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  It was shocking.

• 1:07:47Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that would have freaked me out. Like, first of all, it's like, dude, you're keeping tabs on me.

• 1:07:51Speaker 02

  I'm staying with my brother, which the probation officer would have known, but like, all my other stuff I had.

• 1:07:57Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  Like, cause when I left Marion, there's that stuff that got sent. Like, this is maybe weeks or months later. It just was weird.

• 1:08:06Matt McCusker?

  It is weird. And then the, the one thing I did want to ask you about, cause this is in the book as well, you got out and you started a pretty successful real estate.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  Dude, I was so focused. I gotta come back. No, I was, like, uh, by accident. The house.

• 1:08:20Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  There was a bust. They've took the, they showed coke. I was going to my job. There's an arcane law that was like, you can make an unsolicited bid with the marshal service if they take, if they seize assets. And I knew all this from jail.

• 1:08:36Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  And so then I actually dated the marshal.

• 1:08:39Matt McCusker?

  That helps.

• 1:08:40Speaker 02

  Um, a little. She probably would deny it, but. So, I bought that house.

• 1:08:45Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  I bought that house, uh, probably 18 months later for like 25,000. And then I just like, felt like changing the design. My mom would always take me to these Frank Lloyd Wright homes. And so I just started doing it. And then some people helped me in the neighborhood. They saw sympathetic to the architecture, but I needed help, like, with the design and just people and contractors. And then that just started the evolution and, uh, I was hyper focused, monster, just like going after it, like not worried about a Rolex, but just loving what I do. And I was good at it. The best that I've ever been at anything, probably in the world of commerce and making money, that's legit, paying taxes. I mean,

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  2005, I paid 175,000 in federal tax. I mean, where the fuck did that money go, man? A fucking tank tread? Like, goddamn. But yeah, so that just focused me and I just would buy buildings, restore them, or buy apartment buildings, restore them, rent them and sell them.

• 1:09:43Matt McCusker?

  That's cool. Yeah. And you, and you got into like, just kind of, I remember the book.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  I did addresses and everything. And then my lake house, I, this massive lake estate,

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  S109W35190, Jack's Bay Road, Eagle, Wisconsin, 53149. Dude, fucking unbelievable.

• 1:10:01Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  That spot was unbelievable.

• 1:10:04Matt McCusker?

  And you got hit with a subprime mortgage crisis.

• 1:10:06Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 1:10:07Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, man.

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  I was told.

• 1:10:09Matt McCusker?

  That's wild, dude.

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  I was told not to. Yeah. I mean, I don't blame them. I was, I wanted to get to 3 million and then get 3 million in T bills. And then still what I did, still do what I do, but that was my goal. And I had nine years at a million 10. I bought that lake estate and two other houses, 6429 North Santa Monica, and 1525 North Marshall. And then just, it went, man. And I paid all the mortgages till I had like 11,000 left. And then a bankruptcy lawyer came to me and said, if you file bankruptcy, you could stay in that lake house for another 18 months. I said, dude, I'm giving the keys back. Like, it's done. I'm not just gonna

• 1:10:50Speaker 02

  stay. And I flew to Hawaii and I started to caretake a farm. But that took me 10 years, mentally, like now, like you, being on here, like, that focus and drive, like, it's there, I have it. But I, I still do it today. And I have a little, not where I was, but I'm not driven like I was and I wanna be.

• 1:11:10Matt McCusker?

  Right.

• 1:11:11Speaker 02

  I wanna be.

• 1:11:12Matt McCusker?

  You're still doing the properties?

• 1:11:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:11:13Matt McCusker?

  That's cool. Rehabbing and fixing up.

• 1:11:15Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:11:15Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, that was.

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  I guess I'm an artist and buildings are my medium. I'm not a contractor, because I can't do it for someone else. Because then it's their vision and I can't just do what I do with the people, you know?

• 1:11:25Matt McCusker?

  That's true.

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  So kids, that's what I know. Like I can't, you know, like I'm not a painter.

• 1:11:32Matt McCusker?

  For sure.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  That's kind of like what the hand I was dealt.

• 1:11:35Matt McCusker?

  Yeah, no, that's.

• 1:11:35Speaker 02

  And I love working out.

• 1:11:37Matt McCusker?

  It's like a physical, it's a nice physical job.

• 1:11:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:40Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. So what is, so what's, uh, what's the plan now? What are you up to now? And what's your, what's your plan to do?

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  Well, you've, you've inspired me. I'm, I'm going to do an audible on the book. I'm going to do a second edition. I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep the name. And then the whole social media thing is like all new to me, but like you can get paid for views.

• 1:11:58Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:58Speaker 02

  Like you can go on a show and drink Liquid Death and show it. And like, you're going to get 10 fucking grand. Like I see it. I understand marketing. Like holy fuck, man.

• 1:12:08Matt McCusker?

  You owe that Liquid Death money.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  Fuck yeah, man. Why not? Like it's cool. The, the fame part is weird to me, but I guess like that's part of it, you know, like.

• 1:12:18Matt McCusker?

  So what are you going to start a podcast or something?

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  I don't think I could compete.

• 1:12:22Matt McCusker?

  Right. But you, you just want to do the real estate.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  I want, love to sell the book, the movie rights. I had started a cream play. That would be really cool.

• 1:12:29Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. But the book, it was funny because you sold, you did what? 5,000 copies?

• 1:12:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:12:34Matt McCusker?

  Sold them. And now the only books are on Amazon. And I was like.

• 1:12:38Speaker 02

  People, I'm not, I'm not selling them for $200. Those are other people.

• 1:12:42Matt McCusker?

  We looked up his book. Me and Nate were there. Nate Marshall were looking up your book.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  You thought it was me.

• 1:12:46Matt McCusker?

  I was like, damn, this guy's selling his books for fucking $200?

• 1:12:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:12:49Matt McCusker?

  And that's all their secondhand sellers that you sold all your ones. Yeah.

• 1:12:52Speaker 02

  From the soft white underbelly. It's like within a couple of months, I'm like, Mark, what the fuck? People are selling my book for 250. He's like, yeah, that's part of the deal.

• 1:13:01Matt McCusker?

  You gotta print more, dude.

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  I could print more and, or do a second edition. Cause what I want to do is a chapter, every other, every other, a letter, every other chapter. And then add Marion. I took a bunch of stuff out about Marion.

• 1:13:14Matt McCusker?

  Yeah. The book was, I did, I'm telling you, the book was great. I couldn't stop reading it. So.

• 1:13:17Speaker 02

  But they, they do a feature film on a guy who invented the delay on a windshield wiper, $80 million. Like they'll do it on anything, but I, the story. This, not my story. I mean, my story is there, but just the story of the history of Marion.

• 1:13:31Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:31Speaker 02

  And the, um.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  The drug laws and like the riots.

• 1:13:39Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:40Speaker 02

  What the fuck, man?

• 1:13:41Matt McCusker?

  And it was fascinating.

• 1:13:42Speaker 02

  It's crazy after this many years, like you have me on this podcast, it makes it relevant again, like unfucking believable. Like, how the fuck, like, you saw that show and you're like, I gotta get this guy, like?

• 1:13:53Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Speaker 02

  What, what, and then I took 21 days to respond. I'm like, oh my God, this motherfucker's gonna think.

• 1:13:58Matt McCusker?

  Not a big deal.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  I'm like, what the fuck?

• 1:14:01Matt McCusker?

  Well, I, I didn't think it was crazy how you were in there and you were describing like the people, especially in Marion, like these guys would kill you, like without hesitating. And you, you have to form friendships with these guys and hang with them.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  Bruce Pierce.

• 1:14:13Matt McCusker?

  And you knew.

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  Doc Holliday.

• 1:14:14Matt McCusker?

  And the fact, yeah, the fact that you did tell.

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  Big Mike McElhenney.

• 1:14:17Matt McCusker?

  We didn't get, I'll, I'll leave that in the book. But yeah, that is funny that you just really beefed with the guards on that level and threaten them that you're gonna kill them.

• 1:14:25Speaker 02

  Well, I thought about it on the plane coming here. There was a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood who's now in the ADX, Mike McElhenney. He never overtly, I thought, danger of him, but I knew he was a wicked dude. Like you had, like the big wolf, but like he gave me a respect. And it had to be, cause who the fuck would, he also probably thought I was fucking idiot, cause the guards could have killed me, but like, who would have ever said that?

• 1:14:53Matt McCusker?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  I'm gonna do you like Tommy Silverstein. Like, what the fuck, man? That's insane. I mean, I'm not bragging. I'm like at all, like, how could that have even come out of my mouth? It shows you the, I don't know, the naivety I still have probably this day in some form.

• 1:15:10Matt McCusker?

  But no, that was, that was pretty sick. But, well dude, um, yeah, man, fucking pumped. Thank you for coming on.

• 1:15:17Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:15:18Matt McCusker?

  Perfect. Thanks, bro.

• 1:15:19Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:15:20Matt McCusker?

  See you, man.

• 1:15:20Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:15:32Speaker 04

  Honey, that flu keeping you up?

• 1:15:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't got this.

• 1:15:35Speaker 04

  You need NyQuil Intense Flu.

• 1:15:38Speaker 06

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