← Danny Jones Podcast
Danny Jones Podcast
#369 - Printing $10M In Fake Cash, Satan’s Disciples & Chicago Gang Wars | Art Williams Jr
03:36:58
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This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace.
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Last year, I went through many different life changes.
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I needed to take a pause and.
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A
You are the world's number one most notorious money counterfeiter.
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B
I was. Yeah. Yeah, I was. Arthur J. You were.
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A
Not anymore.
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B
Not anymore. I still make money, but just on canvas, you know, and, but no, I, I, I was the, I was known to be the first to break the 1990 $600 note. So, yeah, so it's when they came out with all the new security features like the watermark and the strip and marking with the pen and, and so. But my story started before that. You know, I, I grew up on south side of Chicago in the projects with single mom. She, she dealt with mental illness, bipolar, schizophrenia, all that. She, and it was real spiritual her, her mental illness in the sense that, you know, and I learned because I've been around a lot, it was just, she would see demons and angels, she would talk to stuff and she would see things that other people didn't see, you know, and, and it would, it would drive her into, you know, into to the hospital pretty much almost once a year. You know, I seen my mom run out the house butt naked screaming, God's coming back. You know, like.
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A
How old were you when this happened?
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B
I was like 11. Yeah, no, I mean, the mental illness was intense with my mom. You know, one time she packed the car up and drove to New York saying that she was meeting Jesus. I think I was about 10 then. Yeah. So, yeah, it was heavy, heavy, heavy, you know, but, you know, my mom was great too though, right? When she was, when she was good, she, she rocked, she worked at a little diner in Chicago. And she. You know, I'd go up there every. Every day almost and get a shake, get a burger, you know, and she would take us to church every Sunday. We would. You know, we went to Lutheran church, right? Every morning we would have to say, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. You know, we'd have to say our prayers every morning before we could leave the house. And it's so funny, because I used to get mad because even my friends would come over and she had them praying with us, you know? Right? And I'd feel so embarrassed, like, man, come on, my man. I don't want to do this right now, you know, but they would, right? And my neighborhood was dangerous. We probably should have been praying. I had. You know, I had six of my friends murdered by the time I was 18.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah. I've been shot, you know. Yeah. Gangs. There was my neighborhood, it was Satan Disciples. And in the next.
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A
Satan what?
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B
Satan Disciples.
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A
Satan Disciples, yeah.
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B
And they don't worship Satan. And I know it probably sounds like it, but it was just. It was Spanish gangster Disciples that came off that. So you had two forms of. Of gangs in Chicago. You had people and you had folks, right? People were like Latin Kings, Vice Lords, you know, and then the folks were like the Disciples, Simon City Royals, right. Ambrose going on, right? So in each. In each one, you probably had 20 or 30 different variations of gangs, right? With the people, because you had the Latin counts, right? You had. I mean, you could go on probably 20 or 30 gangs there, and 20. And. But when he went to prison or jail, they would all be one, right? So the Satan Disciples were with, like, the Maniac Latin Disciples. Larasa.
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A
Why'd they call them the Satan Disciples?
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B
You know, I think it was just kind of like when. When. When it was first organized, it sounded cool, right?
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A
That sounds pretty cool.
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B
Yeah, I think it was. I think it was, like, in the 70s came out, and that's when, like, AC DC and all that was rocking, you know? And so, you know, that's how I think maybe that came about. But it. It took on its own. I mean, it grew. They white, not Latin white. Hispanic and white. Okay. Mostly. Right. It started, I think, on Taylor and Racine, and I. You know, I used to walk up and down Taylor street, man, a million times, you know, and that was a crazy place. We got into it with the Black Disciples, man, and we just tore the whole street up like it was bad. They killed one of our guys and. Yeah, man, it didn't turn out too well, but yeah. So, you know, growing up in, in, in the projects, you know, you had to deal with the gangs. And, and, and so for me, you know, I actually it quit the gang when I went to. I ended up going to jail when I was like 21 for some bullshit. And they tried to get me to go to church because they made me like one of the, the jefe's of, of the, the section I was in, in the jail. So in the county jail, you got, you got all these different divisions. I think Cook county holds like 32,000. It's like a little city in that damn jail, right? And, and man, it gets real political in there with the gangs. Yeah, right. Oh, especially back then, like that was what, like late 90s, man, it was intense, man. You know, and, and so they tried, you know, they would, you would have to give these reports of how many members you had in your pod, you know, how much you had in the commissary. Like when people come in, you'd give them gift packages, you know, as soon as they come in, give them soap, toothpaste, you know, all that good stuff. Deodorant, right? And so we would have to do reports. So I would do. And they'd be cryptic, right? You had this little cryptic thing that you would have to write everything in, right? It was really trippy how they, how they did this. And so I would write the reports every week. And then we'd go to church, the church service, and you turn the reports to the, to the main, right? So when you go to church, because there'd be what, 12 divisions, 30 pods, man. It'd be like 30 different leaders at church. And this was crazy because you'd have 30 over here and then, you know, 30 over here from the people, 30 over here from the folks. And then you'd have the priest giving the sermon. It was the craziest thing I had ever seen. Wild. Oh, well, that's how I ended up quitting, because they, they wanted me to keep going, right. I would be the one doing the reports. And, and I, and, and I started feeling guilty about it, like I wasn't feeling right, you know, Especially given how my mom took. You know, I went to church a lot, prayed a lot. And even though I was a. A rough kid, I still had a certain morality in me because of that. I believe and still do to this day. You know, I, I really do check myself whenever I feel that I'm getting off track on something. Even when I was counterfeiting, you know, I. I would help people. But my point being is it was making me feel guilty, right? Going down to church, turning in these. These reports, and then being a part of this gang meeting at church while he's preaching. And it was weird because he would preach through the whole thing. The guards wouldn't come and break it up, which you would think they would, right? But all the guards were paid off, and they were part of the gang, too, you know, And. And so, like, the third time, the guy that I was sending with the report, he came back, he said, hey, man, they said, you gotta be there next week. I'm like, I gotta be there. I'm like, nah, man, I. I can't do that, man. And I sent him again. He comes back that time. He said, hey, if you don't come next week, you know, they're gonna take this position from you, and they're gonna have a problem with you. And I still couldn't go, right? Following week came. I didn't go. He came back, and they wanted to give me six matches as a violation, right? A match back then, that's what's violation. You remember the old wooden matches? Yeah, yeah. They'd light the match and let it burn while three dudes are just pounding on you. Oh, three matches could. Could kill you. They wanted to give me six. They were so pissed that I. I told them I was.
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A
Because that's how long they would hold them on you. That people beating you for that long.
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B
They just so. So if they gave you a match. A match was the usual typical violation. Two matches. You really did some. Three matches. They're trying to just get you out of it. These. They gave me six. Six. That was like the complete dead sentence. It was done.
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A
Double life sentence.
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B
Oh, it's terrible, man. And dude had a bad. He had a real bad look on his face. And then the. They. They gave it to a different dude. This maniac D act, it was his name, Real cool cat. And. And so he's like, hey, listen, man, we're going to take. You got to go to your cell, we're going to do a little. Little meeting, and we got to decide how we're going to handle this with this. This match situation, right? And just like three days before that, man, the GDS gave a dude a match violation, and it killed him. All right? So that's just literally three days before this. How many people die? Oh, back then, man, with the gang.
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A
Stuff in prison, I mean, who.
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B
I don't even know, you know?
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A
I mean, a lot.
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B
I'm sure. Back then, I mean, not as much.
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A
You ever see anybody die?
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B
No.
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A
In prison?
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B
Not in prison, no. No, no, No. I seen someone get stabbed. That's not. That's not a good look. Right? But no. Yeah. So anyway, they. They. They did their little thing. They. You know, I. I literally. I went to my cell. They took the. Told me to go to cell. I literally got on my knees. I said, man, if this is the way I got to go, then just let it be quick, you know? Let this just happen right away. Let me get the hell out of here, you know? And they came, got me, and they said, man, we all talked about it, and we like you too much. You can't do this. Because I was. I was. I had. I was good. We had. I had a good time with them, actually. Most of them. I was in there for, like, probably like five months, you know, so we had. Anyway, so gave me one match and let me pick the dudes and swore the room to secrecy. It was crazy. And I wasn't allowed to leave the dorm because then they would know I wasn't all beat up and, you know, and so I had. I had to stay in the dorm. I was, like, on dorm lockdown, you know, and. But it was cool. I. That was how I quit, you know, I was done, you know, but growing up in the project suit that the gangs were intense and your dad left.
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A
Your life early, right?
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B
Yeah, yeah. He took off when he was. When I was, you know. Well, he. He. The first time he took off when I was, like, nine, came back and got us kidnapped us. Took us to Oregon, and then for some reason, unbeknownst to me, about a year later, he took us back to my mom, but my mom was homeless. She was living in a Salvation army shelter. And, yeah, he just dropped us off and left, you know, so. Wow.
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A
So you lived with him for a.
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B
Year in Oregon, and then he came Lobster Valley.
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A
Did he explain anything. Anything to you, like, why he was doing what he was doing?
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B
Well, I mean, at that point, no. No, Right. I ended up finding him, like, 22 years later, you know.
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A
Wow.
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B
Up in Alaska. Right. What.
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A
What was it like? Did that. Did it consciously. Did it affect you consciously at the time when he, like, came and dropped you back off and then left again? Did you think about it a lot at that age? Do you think it had, like, a. A residual effect on you? Did you have any feelings towards him, like anger?
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B
Oh, yeah. I mean, a lot. A lot of feelings, right? I mean, he. He just. He just abandoned us, you Know, and, you know, I, I didn't, I didn't at that time. Well, I mean, I didn't know what we were going to go through. Right. We ended up going into the, you know, from the Salvation Army. We ended up in, in the projects on the south side. Right. And I'm just a little, a little boy.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I was 84. I never forget because this year, the, the Bears won Super bowl, right?
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A
No way.
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B
Yeah. It was like in the, it was like right after they won it, the, the charity van from the, the Salvation army, they dropped us off at the projects and it was like snowing and cold. Going to an empty project apartment with nothing when we were like, sleeping on crates with mattresses for probably three to six months. I don't even know how long. Right. Yeah, that, that was, that was the tough time, as, as, you know, those are tough moments, man.
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A
And I'm sure you remember a lot of every bit of that.
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B
Yeah, I remember it all. I remember it all. I thought I was Bruce Lee, I swear, because I wouldn't go outside at first because I was nervous. It just looks so dark out there.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Plus, you know, that's in the winter time, so. Chicago, it's dark and cloudy all the time anyway, so it's just gloomy. And then you're in this dirty brick project, you know. Right. And I used to like to, you know, I was always into jeet kune do and martial arts and working out, you know, and, and I used to love taking like a broomstick and using it like a staff. Yeah.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And so I remember we, I would sit upstairs, you know, looking out and just kind of playing with my stick. Imagine me just being able to get through the shit, you know? And even I even ran away, you know, I was, I didn't want to be there in the Sears Tower. It was, it was, it just looked so cool to me, you know? And so I ended up running away to the Sears Tower. My little brother. Yeah. That was the first thing I did that was just like, I'm gonna be free. Right? And we ended up falling asleep in the, in the lobby. And the cops were called and they took us back to the projects. And I, I, I remember when they brought us back, I knew that we weren't leaving, like, this is it, this. And I remember telling the cops, man, I don't want to live here. I don't want to live here, you know? And he said, man, this is just where you're gonna have to be, you know? And, and he was right. It was Where I had to be, you know, and from that moment on, you know, it was just, you know, dealing with a lot of poverty stuff. Right. Poverty's rough, right? Yeah. It creates all kinds of things, but it could also. What I'm learning now is it could create greatness, too.
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A
Totally. Some of the greatest people, some of the most interesting, most accomplished people from that.
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B
Nothing. Yeah. And. And those are the ones that I find because now that I'm an artist, I've. I've been able to meet all kinds of people from congressmen, I hung out. Congressman McCarthy, speaker of the House, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Right. He's. He gave me my first shot with my art, like, almost nine years ago.
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A
No.
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B
Had a show at Arnold Schwarzenegger's house. It was awesome, man. I sold 500,000. It was just insane. Right. So my art has allowed me to be around so much. I. Rolls Royce. I did a Rolls Royce show in 19. Just. It was just unbelievable.
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A
Really?
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B
Yeah. Rolls Royce gave me a Rolls Royce. They were.
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A
That's incredible.
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B
Yeah. Here's a guy out of prison. I was driving a Rolls Royce around.
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A
Some kid starting from 11 years old getting thrown around in the projects.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Okay. So how old were you when you got introduced to counterfeiting?
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B
I was 15 when that happened. My mom was working up at the diner. I. I got in trouble for stealing a car. Were stealing cars at this time, and one of my mom's friends, he's. Was just an old tin dude from the neighborhood. She couldn't leave work, so he came up to the police station, signed me out, brought me. Brought me around, and he signed me out of. Out of the. He signed me out of jail, and we were walking back to the restaurant where my mom was at, and he was just giving me this, like. Cause I was a roofie and I had already been in some shit at that point. You know, I've been. I've been in juvie hall a couple times. 1100 South Hamilton. I visit that place many times, you know, And. And so I was at that point going down a road of just like, it was not going to be good, you know, gang banging, you know, just. Just doing a lot of dumb, man. And. And so he told me when we were walking back, he's like, listen, you know, you're a smart kid, and I've heard that a lot of times throughout my life. You're a smart kid, but just do dumb. Right? And he says, you know, I. I need some help. He said, if you can calm down. You know, I hate seeing Your mom all uptight about you. And. And so he brought me in, you know, and he, he was an old printer, but he printed the old way. And it was the old. The. The old hundred with the little face, Right? So it was. You remember the little. Do you even remember the little face? Hundreds.
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A
It's been so long since. Pull up an image. What year?
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B
85. 85. Just look at the 85 Honda.
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A
85 Honda.
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B
Yeah. So. So he, he printed those, right? This is how. This is how long we're talking. Yeah, I mean, it was like. I mean, it was. It. That was like. So that would have been like 89. Right. They didn't come out with the new note till 96. There you go.
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A
This guy.
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B
You remember these? No. You don't remember? Hell no. Oh, damn, I feel old now.
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A
I mean, I'm sure I've seen them.
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B
I was a little kid when those were around anyway. Right. Well, they changed them in 96. So. So this note here, this is what he printed, right? These. You know.
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A
Do you still ever see any of these floating around? No, no, never.
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B
No, no, no, no. Those are gone. Him. So soon there'll be no money. But anyway, what happens when they come.
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A
Out with a new bill?
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B
They. They will. They slowly take these out of. And how do they do that? Through the banks? Right. So, so, so hundreds. There's a reason why there's serial numbers on the money. Yeah, right. Actually, the way that the currency. Paper. Currency work was pretty fascinating how they would move it, right? So there's different reserves, 12 federal reserves, right. And how they used to do it is, is if there was a shortage of cash in one of those sectors, right. They would pull from another Federal Reserve, they had a little surplus, and ship it to this Federal Reserve. Now how they would do that is when. When you say, say you go to McDonald's and you, you. You pay for your food with $100 bill, right? When McDonald's is going to do the drop right at their bank, right? Their bank is going to run that through a counter machine, right. Once it comes out of the counter machine, all hundreds. And I think it's all for sure, it's hundreds. And it might be 50s. They put them in a different stack, right? Now this stack will eventually go back to the Federal Reserve that's in that sector, right? And then when it gets to the Federal Reserve, then it goes through a different point system. So I would get my money in the. When, when. When nobody knew what I was doing. So I was the first. Literally, I was the first, that broke the 9,600. So when this thing.
- [19:00]
A
What do you mean when you say broke the 9,600?
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B
All security features, right? You hacked it? Yeah.
- [19:05]
A
Right.
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B
Yeah. Just. Yeah. So when this. When they. When they. When they. When it was time to. To replace this, they came with the new bill and it was to. To. To. To get rid of all the counterfeiters. And the new bill had a big.
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A
Face on the 96, 100.
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B
It had a watermark in it. There you go. Boom. Right? So. So this color shifting ink security thread, the security thread would glow red, right? So like if. If you go to, like a strip club or whatever.
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A
Yeah.
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B
The UV lights are everywhere, and that's the. The UV would glow red. Right?
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A
Right.
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B
I think a 50 was green, a 20 or 50 was blue. Anyway, so I was the one who broke all these. I broke. I even. I even at one time. And the money evolved always. It always got a little better, right? I'd figure something else out, you know? Like one time I was using a certain glue and I gave some money to my boy. One of my friends, Tommy, goes down to Jamaica with it, and the money falls apart on him. While he was spending it down there, I gave it to. He said he was going to Jamaica, and I had. I said, or take 10.
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A
Yeah.
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B
He's like, bro, this is great. Thank you. He goes down there, him and my. Him and my boy Scotty, they get. They rent a big bus, they go over to the club, they fill it up with girls. They're buying liquor. They're having a great time. After, like, the second day, one of the girls comes to his hotel and says, hey, you know that money that you were. That you gave us, it's starting to fall apart. I said. I said. He goes. He goes, what? He's like, yeah, it's starting to fall apart. We don't really understand why. So he runs back. He runs back and tells scotty, Scotty, we gotta leave now. Wow. We gotta get off Jamaica right now. Because they were spending it at places that probably weren't too nice about finding out that it was fake money. Jamaica. Yeah, they were partying, they were having fun. So you just. Let's use the imagination on that. So they ended up getting off. So when he came back, I'm like, that's terrible. Right? So then I go back into the. The lab and I started testing different sprays, right? Different adhesives. So the money always got better. And I actually, the. The adhesive I found, it was so strong I could wash my money. Damn right. You go put that in the washer, and it'll come out good, right? So. So that's what would happen by. By making the money and using it. I. If I would. The. The world was my testing ground, right? Like, for certain thing. Like in the gas stations, the Arabs, they like to feel, right? So they'll. They'll know right away if they got that touch. They out of touch, man. And that. That's who I used to tell. To see how good the feel was. I would purposely go, yeah, for sure. Purposely go, wow.
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A
Do a test drive with the arrows.
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B
For sure. They were the best.
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A
That's incredible.
- [22:00]
B
They were the best. Yeah. If I needed to know. Because the thing is, is. Is. Is I. I was a cautious cat, you know, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't go out like, this is what I'm doing. Yeah. You know, And. And. And then I was a. I'm a perfectionist. I want. I wanted to be right, you know? I mean, my. My. My. My. My bill eventually been called, was called the hybrid, Right. It was because I combined the old technology and the new technology. So when. When. When. When I. When I was being mentored by the old time, I. I turned him Da Vinci because he would tell me crazy stories about Da Vinci. Yeah.
- [22:37]
A
I was going to ask you to walk me through that, like, the first time he introduced you to this stuff.
- [22:40]
B
Yeah. So when it was. I was an apprentice, right? I didn't even get to use the press. I got to move ink buckets and paper and like that and, you know, just help him because he was old, and. And. And so he. And he. And he trusted me because my mom.
- [22:54]
A
Where was he doing all this?
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B
It was in. In an old warehouse, you know, just in Chicago.
- [22:58]
A
And you were a young kid. He brought you there. He's just like, yo, come check this out.
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B
It was awesome.
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A
You want an internship?
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B
I loved it. And. But. And I watched. Right. I mean, I'm. That's. That's one of my superpowers, man. If I see something, I know it, you know? That's how I turned into an artist.
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A
How much money was this guy printing?
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B
Oh, a lot. A lot. A lot. Yeah, he was. He was getting down. I mean, that's what he was doing. And in my neighborhood, Bridgeport, which is. Is a South side borough. Right? Right. It's called the Low End. It's right by White Sox Park. I'm a White Sox fan, you know, and so you got Chinatown, which is from 22nd to, like, 26th. And you got, got the Bridgeport 26 crew. So if you ever, if you ever look up, like Chicago outfit, there were. There were three, like main places. You had, you had Taylor street, you had Ogden and then you had 26th street, right? Ogden. They were more like the real upper class cats, you know, mafia guys. And then Taylor street was more like the bookies and the, the loan sharks and stuff. And then 26th street, where I was from, they were the killers. Oh, they were the ones that they went to when they wanted someone taken care of, Right. And that's the neighborhood I grew up with. That was the cats I grew up with. Eventually, I love my neighborhood. I mean, I'm going, right? It's still.
- [24:16]
A
So. Okay, so. So you meet with this Da Vinci guy, this Italian dude named Da Vinci, right?
- [24:20]
B
So I spent some time with him. He ended up dis.
- [24:22]
A
How old was he?
- [24:23]
B
He's probably like 60, 62, in his 60s.
- [24:26]
A
And he brings you to his warehouse where he has this massive operation printing money.
- [24:30]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [24:31]
A
And what was like, what like, what was your react. Initial reaction? Did you ask him any questions like who he was doing it for or anything like that? What were you doing for.
- [24:40]
B
My first thing was just that he. It was money, right? This is money. You're printing money. Like it was an excitement because I was so poor, right? And now I'm seeing a guy that's literally printing money that could change my life, Right. It was, it was a shock, right? But more important, most, I think mainly it was just excitement, just being really excited that I'm going to learn how to. How to create something that I'll be able to take care of my mom. And I mean, I started thinking about all the I could buy. Like, you know, you're a kid, right? So you, you're thinking about all these different things. And with him, what I loved about him is he brought me in to help him, but not help him, right. Like, he would never let me go near the press, right. I could watch him. I could watch him burn the plates. But there were certain things, you know, that I just wasn't allowed to do, Right. I didn't know who he was selling it to, and I didn't really. And you know, he told me, ask as least don't ask questions, right? Don't. It wasn't for me to really inquire and that was my neighborhood. And even, even now I don't ask someone, you know, what's your. What. What's your job or how much money you make? I mean, it's still. I Think it's. It's just kind of like, you know. Sure. Stay away from it. Yeah, yeah.
- [25:56]
A
Especially in that world.
- [25:57]
B
Yeah. Yeah. And so in that world, it's. It's. I even have been in meetings where like, hey, I don't want to hear this. I'm out of here. No, for real, I'm telling you. Right? I've been in stuff where I'm like, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me just walk out this room right now. I do not want to hear this. Right. Right. So he. But he. He taught me how to be. You know, he was a street guy, too. You know, I said my neighborhood was rough. It wasn't. You know, it was. We had the gangs, you know, like, the poverty side was Halston Street. That's where I was. Right. But then where the Italian neighborhood was, you know, they had money, right? There are big houses over there. It's like. It's. It's kind of a trip because you're so close to downtown. You had projects over here, and you had projects over here, but then you had this little area that was super, super clean, super, super safe. Right. Like, the Italians kept it, like, you know, in a way that, you know, it just. It felt. It felt very cozy. It's the only way I could really explain my neighborhood, man.
- [26:56]
A
So what happened to this guy Da Vinci?
- [26:58]
B
Well, he ended up disappearing after about a year.
- [27:01]
A
One year. You working for him?
- [27:02]
B
I was nine months a year, you know, and he ended up disappearing and.
- [27:07]
A
One day, stopped showing up.
- [27:09]
B
Just gone. Didn't show up to the diner, didn't show up to nowhere.
- [27:12]
A
What do you think happened to him?
- [27:14]
B
I mean, he could have took off. He could have got killed. I mean, you know, the thing about my neighborhood, too, is people found the trunks and, you know, mob hits and, you know, I mean, it's. It was a part of reality, right. You know, I mean, in dealing with that type of money, right. You know, who knows? Who knows what happened, you know, I mean, and it was painful for me because, you know, my dad left and. And so I was. I already had, you know, issues with older men. Right. Because it was like. It just felt like it was always being abandoned. Yeah. You know, I got some real good older men in my life now. I love them. I love him. Kevin Murphy. Unbelievable, man. I mean, I got some great people in my life now, man. Unbelievable. Mentors and. But there was a time where I wouldn't let no one get near me. Yeah. Emotionally. Right, Right. I was locked down. I was locked on like solitaire, you know? I mean like I wasn't, you know, and I went back to the streets after he, after he left. Yeah, I started going back into the gang.
- [28:18]
A
You didn't try to like take that money forging process, try to replicate it?
- [28:23]
B
Well, I, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't have the knowledge. Right. Like I didn't really know what the. And, and I, and even when I first did try, I turned the shit purple. Like, but that was down the road, right. Like I still, it took me a minute to figure it out. Right. So even though that I got, I was able to spend some time with him and see what he, what, what I took from him mostly was the offset pressing press. Right. I knew when I, when I Revisited Breaking the 1990 600, I knew that it couldn't just be done with, with printers. Inkjet printers. When I, when I started to do it, Inkjet was just coming out. Lasers were just coming out. Photoshop was like Photoshop 3.0, right?
- [29:05]
A
Yeah.
- [29:06]
B
We're talking about way, way back, right?
- [29:08]
A
Right. I remember that.
- [29:09]
B
Yeah, yeah. It was a long time ago and so they, they were good. They were. Now they got, now they have all kinds of security features in them so you can't use them. I'm sure that's probably because of me. Like I, I probably had. Oh for sure, man. I, I probably changed a lot of things for, for what, what I was doing because I, I was able to take, I was able to take things that you can acquire easily. Right. And produce something that the Fed spent hundreds of millions on.
- [29:39]
A
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- [32:29]
B
My, my, my, my money wasn't just ran through an inkjet printer. You know, it went through some really intense stuff. Right?
- [32:36]
A
How did you make it?
- [32:37]
B
Well, you want to hear that?
- [32:38]
A
Yeah.
- [32:39]
B
Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean we would use the old technology like I said, which would be the offset press, right. So the first phase would would be the imaging, right? Get all the files Right, right.
- [32:49]
A
So we saw in Photoshop.
- [32:51]
B
Yeah, some of it would be in Photoshop, some of it would be burning it. Like we, we had a camera, we'd put the, we'd put the. It'd be a newer camera. You'd put the bill up, you take a picture of it, you develop the film, right. And then you burn the film onto a metal plate. It's really fascinating.
- [33:07]
A
Metal plate.
- [33:08]
B
Oh, okay. Yeah. You know, you could read it out. You got this little red tape. You put on the numbers. Get rid of all.
- [33:13]
A
How do you burn the image onto a metal.
- [33:15]
B
Well, it's, it's a light. It light burner, right. So you'll have your negative and then you'll have your metal plate. And the light burns through the negative and it burns it onto the plate. That plate allows whatever is burnt onto it is what'll print onto the paper. It's really awesome, man. It's really.
- [33:30]
A
Do you have any photos of this stuff we can see? Like, is there any, like, photos, like.
- [33:33]
B
Look up an AB Dick360, you know? Yeah, look up that. You could look up some old photo equipment, old printing photo equipment Newark used to have. So you can't even get stuff now, right? It's all scrapped. It's all dead. Yeah. You know, I actually, I'm like, man, if digital goes out, we're screwed. No one will have anything to print with.
- [33:50]
A
The paper is super unique. How did you, how did you duplicate the paper?
- [33:56]
B
Look at that. I love that machine. I make love for that machine. Oh boy. The sound of it.
- [34:04]
A
How much was that thing?
- [34:06]
B
Oh, that thing weighs 700 pounds. I made a piece of art out of one, man.
- [34:10]
A
How did you, how much did it cost?
- [34:11]
B
Oh, well, back then, I mean, these, these were one color. So what. So what was really cool with the way I made my money is they, they never could have imagined that I would use a one color to print money, right? And usually the old counterfeiters, the old counterfeiters, when they would print, they would try to run the bill all the way through. And what I mean by that is all the colors on it, right? So you would need like a two color, right? Or a four color. Heidi. Right? Heidelberg, right. To, to get your, your, your border, your face, your numbers, your seals, right. Your back. Your back is usually one color with shades, right? So. So for me, what I did is, is I used the machine and I would run it through a couple times. So I would have a plate that would just have the border in the face. That's it, right? And it would have. Be three of them. Right. And I was, the first thing I would do is, is I would color the money, right? So, so the background of, of money is a real, like a light cream green, I would call it. Yeah, it's very, very, very. And it changes in different colors. The inkjet could never replicate it. Right. So people that used inkjet printers, they call them P notes.
- [35:27]
A
Do we have any cash in here? Be nice to have one to look.
- [35:32]
B
At while we talk. Yeah, it would be kind of cool. Sorry, continue. So, so, so, so when you, when you, when you print money with an inkjet printer, which a lot of cats started doing after me, don't. They were called P Notes, right. And with the neat jet, you're relying solely on the Photoshop and, and for it to match the colors, right. And it couldn't, it can't do every single shade variation at that time, right. You would get. The background would be a little bit off. You would get the border in the face would be a little bit different gray. Right. You would get the serial numbers. It would be a more of a forest green. Right. I mean, I could go on and on what would happen, right? And so if you have, and I say this, if you have little things can screw up a big thing, right. If you have a bunch of little things that aren't right, right. Then the big picture looks like shit.
- [36:29]
A
Yes.
- [36:30]
B
And that happens with anything in life, right? Yeah, you better. I've learned even as an artist, man, everything has to be point on, right? So with the money is the same way. And that's why a lot of people would get popped with them because they, the banks would pick them up quick, right. As soon as it would come through, the banks would stop it. Secret Service come in, watch the cameras. Bam. They got you, right? So they were able to kill it pretty quickly. But with me, it would be a little bit more difficult because with the, with the offset press, I'm not relying on, on the inkjet or the computer to give me my color. I'm mixing my own colors, right. So my first process would be just to get the, the color of money, right. That tent, which was real difficult because you had to use like a clear and then just a little bit of color. So you'd have, you know. So I mean, when I say a little, I mean super tiny. You'd weigh it, right? I'd weigh it like, like weighing drugs. But it's, it's weighing the color. Yeah. Weighing inks, right? So you have a little bit, you, you know so even with my art, I'm the same way. I have a little book anytime because I mix my own colors for everything. I do be really hard to counterfeit my art sometimes. I've used 13 different shades, man. I do some real intense, man. But you have a little book. So if I'm using a little bit of forest green, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, I'll mark it down. How much I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna weigh it. So I could always make it the same way. That's why you mark down. So I'm going to use. So say I want to, say I want to make, you know, an ounce of ink, right. And it's going to take, you know, 0.02 of this,.02 of that and.02 of that and then the rest of it is going to be the clear. Right. I want to be able to do that every single time. I need, I need to have it to be perfect recipe every time, right? Yeah. And so I would have these different colors wrote down. Right. That was how I would figure that out. Wow. And so I could always go back to it. And, and so if I ever had to get rid of the equipment, which I've done many times, the one thing that I always kept was my, my, my recipe.
- [38:37]
A
Your recipe book.
- [38:37]
B
I had to. Right. And that would be the thing that could have really, you know, screwed me, you know, which they never got.
- [38:43]
A
But how did you find the paper?
- [38:45]
B
Well, it was, you know, that wasn't nothing brilliant, just that wasn't hard. Well, it was hard, yeah. But it was, it was an accident. Right. And that's usually how most inventions happen, right? Accidentally. Yeah, I guess they do. I mean, Velcro I like going on was the accidental inventions. Well, so we, we were, that was our big hang up. Right. So when, when me and, me and my ex wife Natalie were looking to, to do this, we were able to get the files for the printing down. Right. And that way we're going to use the old offset technology to do the color of the money, the border and the face. Right. But then we would use the inkjet for the numbers and the seals, right. And that little 100 on the bottom. So I would combine the two because we could change the serial numbers with the inkjet, whereas with the press, it was a pain in the ass. You could only do three at a time. And then you have to change the plate every time. It's just a real mess. Right. So for that though, and I, I, I was Told I was the first one to ever change all the serial numbers, right?
- [39:45]
A
Really?
- [39:46]
B
So, yeah, I got to the point where I was changing every single serial number that was, had never done been done before, man. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I, I was a scientist with that, man. You know, I mean, I wanted even, even the shift in color, you know, I, I, I, he was the Walter.
- [40:01]
A
White of printing money.
- [40:02]
B
Oh, yeah. I loved it, man. It was great. And you know, but it, it, for me, it was more of the, you know, even like how I, I just felt recently finishing this mural I told you about that I'm down here for in Fort Lauderdale. It's 20, it's, it's, it's 30ft by 22ft. I've never painted anything this big. Hand painted it, right? And I remember walking up to it when I came down and I'm like, man, can you really do this? Like, do, do you really think that you can do what you're about to do, right? And I, and I started to wonder because I had, I hadn't ever done it, you know, where was I going to start? How is it going to do this? How's it going to mix colors? How is it going to do the blending? You know, I had, I really didn't have any idea, you know, but I believed I could, right? I believed I could do it, and I believed I could figure out however long it would take, right? And when I was finished with it, which I just finished with it on Friday, it got me emotional thinking like, wow, man, you figured it out, right? Same thing with the money, right? Keep, keep trying, keep trying. And that's what we did. We literally ordered paper from everywhere, like. And back then you had the Yellow Pages. Remember the Yellow Pages? Yeah, Little walking fingers, right? There was no, there was no Internet back then. I mean, they had the Internet, but it was mostly in, in like the colleges and the libraries and stuff like that. People didn't have it at their house yet, you know. And so, and I did use the Internet for some stuff out. That's how I learned how to layer the money, right? So like I said, most counterfeiters would try to print the whole part of the bill at one time.
- [41:45]
A
Right, right, right.
- [41:46]
B
I went to the Treasury Department website, which was online.orggov whatever, right? And they literally showed you in videos how they printed it. First we printed this, then we print this, then we print that. And I said, hey, wait a minute, I could do the same thing. I'll just print each thing by itself, make sure I get that perfect that way I ain't trying to get the whole bill perfect, because trying to get the whole bill perfect wasn't working. Little bits would come out different. This would be a little darker. I'd be a little. I couldn't get those. So I said, let me do it like that. And so I just broke each piece down and would get the registration perfect and run it. It took a little longer.
- [42:28]
A
And then each bill would have its own. You. Then you do a. An inkjet printer for the serial number.
- [42:34]
B
Serial numbers in the seals. Yeah, the seals. The serial numbers seals. And that little hundred. This little hundred. I would. I would end up spraying over with the. With the House of Color, shifting ink. Right. I got that from walking through a parking lot, seeing a car. It color shifted. Right. And then I come to find out when I went to go look into the company, they were the same one that made the ink for the. For the reserve. Right. It was crazy.
- [43:00]
A
You're talking about, like the chameleon looking color cars.
- [43:03]
B
Yeah, yeah. House of Color was the one who came out with that.
- [43:05]
A
So you called the company that was painting the cars as chameleon color and you said, let me get some paint.
- [43:09]
B
I got it. It is crazy. And I figured out how to use it on how. How to get it on the paper. I'm not going to say how, but I figured out how to get it on there. It was awesome.
- [43:16]
A
Why. Why can't you say how? That'd be illegal.
- [43:18]
B
I don't want someone else to try.
- [43:19]
A
Oh, okay.
- [43:20]
B
There's a lot of things I left out, you know.
- [43:22]
A
Oh, okay.
- [43:23]
B
Like, even when I, you know, there's a book about me, the Last Counterfeiter. Uhhuh. And there's. There's. Because I've heard of people reading my book.
- [43:32]
A
Is that your book or someone else wrote it?
- [43:34]
B
Someone else wrote it. Jason Kirsten. It's called Last Conference. Really cool. Good book. And even in there, there's a lot left out. And I'm glad I did because I've learned of other people reading that book and then trying to copy it, Right. Copy the recipe that they saw in there. And it didn't work for them. And there was a reason.
- [43:56]
A
Well, we had a dude on the podcast, like four years ago, this was before you, Steve, that he was inspired by you. And he was a huge counterfeiter. He literally said, like, Art Williams, that's. I read his book, and that got.
- [44:08]
B
Me saying, you know, but I left stuff out, right? I left stuff out. A lot of stuff. Right? Yeah. And it would Almost been impossible for anyone to replicate printing with an offset, right? Because there's not too much equipment left of that. It's really hard to get, you know, and, and so anyway, you know, it's. So what happens? We, we order all this paper. We're ordering paper from everywhere.
- [44:30]
A
Just trying to test it.
- [44:31]
B
Just try and test it. Test it, test it.
- [44:34]
A
Hold that thought. I'm gonna, I have a hundred dollar bill out there. I'm gonna go grab it real quick.
- [44:37]
B
Well, let's check it out, bro.
- [44:39]
A
I never paid this one. I never looked this close at a bill before. There is so much on here.
- [44:45]
B
Well, here's what's fascinating. So, so this bill, this is the new one. This is the, this is the one. Even newer than the one I, I cracked.
- [44:54]
A
What year did this one come out?
- [44:56]
B
This came out in 2013. Well, I think it was 2013. Yeah, 2013 was the year I got out. So here a funny story about this bill. So I'm getting released in 2013 and I, I collect old money, okay? I got, I got money books that get sent to me. I got one of the dopest paper money collections. Silver coins, gold coins. I got, I got a badass collection of World War II money. I mean, I collect really Roman. I got some Roman coins. So I'm money guy, man. I was like, I take it. I really love money, you know? So when I was, I was reading and I think in Forbes, I was in prison, and they were creating a new bill, right? And they were talking about this new technology called visual physics. All right? So me, like I am, right, I start just going crazy trying to figure out what this visual physics is. And, and this, this is what it is. This purple strip down the middle. That's visual physics. So this bill was supposed to come out before 2013, but they were having issues with putting this into the, into the paper, embedding the purple, the purple strip. Because what happens is if you, if it gets folded right here it comes.
- [46:13]
A
It starts to, like, it starts to break.
- [46:15]
B
So it was a defect. So they weren't going to release this, right? They weren't going to release this bill because of that, right? This. So usually in the old currency, I could do something like that. And these, these, these will come out, right? If you crumple it up, the creases won't stay right. You'll see them, but they'll loosen up, right? Right. This, though, this will never come out. This, this break right here, It'll always be there for now on, right? And then it Starts to fall apart and they break in half. So there was a big thing about them not releasing this because they dumped a bunch of money into making this bill, right? So how could they not release it? Right. Kind of like in that. In that place. Right. The funny thing is, as I later, down the road, I found out that the reason this was created was to stop what I had started, which was taking two pieces of paper and binding them together. Right? So we go back to how I found the paper, right? When. So here we are ordering this paper. Going crazy, right? Can't. We're marking everything. Nothing's working. And I even tried crazy man, because I knew it was the ph, right? It was the ph and the paper that was reacting with the pen, right? It was a ph situation.
- [47:29]
A
Oh. So when the. When they did draw on it.
- [47:31]
B
When they draw on it, the ph in the paper reacts with the.
- [47:34]
A
With the ink, makes it go yellow.
- [47:35]
B
Makes it go yellow, yeah. If it's fake, it goes black. Right. So there was a certain level, the ph in the paper was, like, neutral, right? It was like. And so there's acidic papers. There's all kinds of papers. Holy man. I mean, I didn't realize how much type of papers out there. There's a lot of paper, right? And now I'm a paper fiend, right now. Yeah. Even I make art out of some crazy man. But anyway, so here we are ordering, and she. She's my. My girl Natalie. She's. She opens up the. The yellow pages we've ordered from everyone, and she marks it, the paper, the yellow pages, and she's saying, nothing works. And she marks it, and it marked yellow. It freaked us out, right? So now we're like, okay, how do we get directory paper? I mean, we're jumping up and down. We're freaking out. We've been on this Holy Grail for a second now, okay? Like, it just was about. We were about to give up. We were about to say no more, right? And then this happened. And so the first thing we did is we go to RR Donnelly, and we asked him if we could get some extra paper. We come to find out they're called butt rows, right? A. But row is a. A roll of paper come. It comes to the printer at, like, it's tons, like a ton of paper on this big roll. And they run it through these web machine. The web presses, they call them. It's what they print newspapers and stuff like that on. It's much different than the press I used. And so she went and said, hey, listen, I'm a teacher at a school, and we're doing a big project for the. With the kids, and we need some paper for them to draw on, and they just started giving us these butt rolls. It was great, right? The problem was, is it was newsprint, right? And newsprint was a little thicker than directory paper, right. And that thickness when you put them together. Because I'm like, okay, let's put them together. Because I wanted to do the watermark in the strip, right? So when we found out that the directory paper printed, I pulled the sheet out, right? I think there were some. Some blank ones in the back of the book, right? And I pulled. I cut them out real nice. And so I had just a couple, right? And I'm like, wow, this stuff is thin. I bet you we could put something in between it, which was the watermark in the strip, right. I said, man, if this paper is so thin, we could put. We can make the watermarks and make the strips, lay them down, and then put another paper, you know? So we would make fronts and backs, watermarks and strips, right. And then we would just press them together, right?
- [50:06]
A
So it would have the front in the back with a piece in the middle.
- [50:08]
B
Yeah. And what. We tried the piece in the middle, but would make it. Made it too thick. Yeah, Couldn't do that. So you literally.
- [50:14]
A
This is the 1996 bill.
- [50:15]
B
We're talking about. 1996. Yeah. So what we did is we would cut. We. For one, I had to find a thin enough paper that I could print on that. If you put it in between two pieces of paper, it wouldn't lump up. It was real difficult, really, really difficult to find that paper. I ended up finding it, and then we had to put it on carrier papers because you couldn't run it through a printer or a press because it would tear it up because it was so thin. So we would take eight and a half. Eight and a half by 11 sheets of, you know, like, copy paper, and then we would cut all our paper a half inch smaller so it would fit right in the middle of the. The carrier paper, I ended up calling it, right. And we would tape it, and then we would run it through, and then it would print. Right. Then we would cut those out. You know, we'd sit there. My money was handmade, so everyone's like, oh, you must print millions. Yeah, I printed a lot. I printed a lot over because I had a long run, right?
- [51:11]
A
How much total?
- [51:12]
B
I mean, I. I don't know, man. It could. 10. 10 million 15. I mean, I probably burned 3 million, you know, because if it didn't come out right, I'd burn it. Right. And that, that happened quite a few times, you know, where we'd be burning money, man. Crazy, you know. But anyway, so with, with the, with, with making it the. We would cut these watermarks out. So you'd have, you'd have them printed five across, I think seven down. So you'd have 30, right. Cut them out pretty quick. And then I would have a light table with light. I'd have Plexiglas with lights underneath it. And I would throw a drop cloth, plastic like you use when you paint. And we would have the money. It would be on. There would be 1, 2, 3, right? Three fronts on a sheet of paper. And then we'd have three backs on a sheet of paper, right? And we would have little marking lines on each to where. When this was laying down on, on, on the plastic, I would, there, there would be three of them too, right. I would spray and then we, then she'd be there and she'd hand me the watermarks and the strips and I'd lay them. I'd always put super glue on my fingers, right? Man, my fingertips, man, are tore to. Right? Because I would super glue them all the time. I always had super glue on my fingers. It would kill the fingerprints, you know. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Super glue is the best.
- [52:37]
A
But you did that to destroy your fingerprints.
- [52:39]
B
Yeah, well, to make it, you know, to where they were covered, super glue would go in there and it would, it messed up the print. So they couldn't get a print off the bill because that's one of the ways that they would get you.
- [52:49]
A
What gave you that idea?
- [52:51]
B
Well, I read that it was one of the ways that they got you, and I was like, man, we got to figure this out. And you couldn't wear gloves because the gloves would get all tore up.
- [52:58]
A
You do it like Men in Black where they just sear your fingerprints off.
- [53:01]
B
Well, I'd really love that one, man. You know what I'm saying? But I figured out how to do it, though. That's all I needed, man. You know? And so I, like I said, man, I, I, I'm a thinker, man, where I'm always just trying to figure something out. Yeah, you know, it's, it's, that's what, that's what gives. Even like being an artist, that's what gives me joy, man. I was just talking about the other day that I'm always doing something different, you know, so, so you would have this down. We would spray it with the glue, and then I would lay the watermarks down and then lay the strip. Then I would grab the backs and. And those little markers I'd have as long as I lined them up perfect. I could just lay it down, right? And then go to the next one and to the next one, to the next one. Once all those were done, I'd peel them up and we would have another stack of copy paper, and we would take the. The. The. The. The printed paper that has the strips and the watermarks, and we would lay it down on the white paper and then put another piece of white paper over it, and that's how we'd stack them. You had to do that because they'd stick together because glue. So you had to have a separator, right? Yeah. Then we would put them in a metal press, right? Like really press them down. Metal. Metal plates that we put in and. And then let it dry for, like two or three days, you know, crack the press. And, man, this. This is one of my favorite parts, actually. Right. Because when you. When you would peel that white paper off, you could just feel. You could just see that they were just really tight, you know, from being pressed for all that time. And we would peel them off and. And then we would cut them out, right? Each one we would cut out. And then I. I built like a. A clothesline hang. I call it a money hanger, right? It was a, you know, just a big U with. With metal lines through it that were far enough to put a bill on, right? We have little clips, you know, little clips from your IDs. It would hold the bills on there. And so I'd have a row of hundreds. A row of hundreds. A row of hundreds. I think one thing, I had, like, five rows of hundreds. And then I would come and I would spray it with this special spray that would, like, tighten the cotton and give it the money. Feel that. That was the. That was the last part that that made the bill real was when I'd spray it. I never talk about what it was I sprayed it with. You know, there's people that have done it with, you know, hairspray and all that shit. This was an actual chemical that tightened the cotton that made it like a real bill where I could take it to the air at the gas station, and he could feel it and say, yeah, that's good.
- [55:39]
A
What about the smell of it? Because money has a very distinct.
- [55:41]
B
It does have smell. And we would play around with different sprays, you know, I mean, Never. Never really. Never really like, did anything to. To acquire a smell. I think one time I bought some. I went into one of those Santeria shops and they had like a money spell, smell spray. And I tried to get. It didn't work, man. I didn't. I could have used that, man. But the money, you know what? The money, it kind of like. It's funny, man. I. Whenever I. I believe in transfer of energy, okay? There's this thing I call. It's where energy moves through the universe, man, and it can go from life and death. It could go from seed to plant. It could. Energy transfers constantly, man. Right. I've always looked at money as just an energy, a tool to allow me to do the things I want, right? Whether it's eat, take care of things, right? I don't. I don't lust after it. I don't greet after it. It's just my tool. And whatever amount of energy I put out into something, I believe that energy will return through that tool, right? And so for me, when I was making my money and because it was. Had so many different processes, I believe that was one of the reasons why it was so good and it worked because it literally took the energy that I had that I was pushing into it, and it was becoming almost alive, right? And so it was. And the reason I say that is because sometimes when I'd be printing some, not all print runs would come out the same. You know, if I did a 100,000 print run or I did a 500,000 print one, I didn't ever do anything more than that, right? I would always only just kill it at around 500,000. When we first figured out how to make it, I was actually scared, man. Right? I'm. Because I'm a thinker. I'm like, man, what if these people find out I'm making this, like this. This good to where you could get it through a bank, you could use it at a casino, right? Like in the early days, you could put it through the machines before they even knew that anyone was breaking the 9,600, right? It's. It was dangerous to me in my mind, right? Like, not just from who would want this recipe or who would want to know how to do it, but what about the government, man, that might get pissed and say, nah, you ain't doing that pie, you know, like, there's so much deeper with how I was thinking on it, man. So I was real. Like, I wasn't trying to print 100 million or 50 million or I wanted. I wanted what was what I felt could I could move comfortably. Yeah. And I love to travel. You know, I wasn't really into a lot of you were trying to be modest. Modest man. I was a modest counterfeiter. But, but, but, but I love doing it. I mean it was more of of like one of the most one of the things that I love the most when we were doing this is, is when we would help people.
- [58:35]
A
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- [61:02]
B
All right. For me, I grew up real poor in the projects. Nothing. We didn't even have tv. My mom wouldn't even let us have it. So it was devil, right? We had to read books all the time. I probably read 5, 000 books in my life, man. I agree with her.
- [61:14]
A
It is the devil.
- [61:15]
B
Yeah. And even now, we're the same with my kids. Right now, he's working on a project. You know, we keep their minds busy, man. That's what you have to do, right? And so my mom had. So even though she was meant to live, she just. She inherently did things for us that made us better, made me better matter, right? And so with. With the money, it's. It's like when. When. When. When we would take it off and. I'm going to go back to the hanging, right?
- [61:41]
A
Yeah.
- [61:41]
B
When we would take it off and. And we would let it just kind of. I called it the crackle, right? Because when we would spray it, it would start moving, it would come alive. That's where I was going with this whole thing. That's when I knew the money was ready. When I would see it, like, and it would make a noise, man, it had, like, a little crackle sound from the paper, man. When it would move, it was just so. Yeah, man, I wish I could still hear it without going to jail, you know? Right. But it was. It was. It was energy, man. You know, and we would take that down. And at first, like I said, I was super paranoid. Like, damn, I don't want to show this to no one, right? I don't. I don't want. No. I grew up in the streets. I've seen people get killed. I mean, I've had friends murdered, man. You know, one of my boys, Mike Tightman, man, broke into a car, found something he shouldn't have found. He's gone. Okay? This happened in my neighborhood. That was real. You know, my friend Peter Frigo, man, got shot in Head one shot, you heard, boom, he's gone, right? Brain out the side. That's real. That happened. Even my gallery, that when I. When I became an artist through the whole Arnold Schwarzenegy thing I told you about, I went back and opened up a gallery in my old neighborhood in the rival Gang Street. 33rd Morgan, man. And if you looked up 33rd and Morgan, how many murders were on the corner of 33rd Morgan? Probably 20. I had gun point at me twice. I'm an artist. I was coming out one night, had my shoes and my. My shirt off, and the larasa's pulled up. King killer pointed a gun right at me. I threw up my shirt in my shoes, said, I'm an artist fan. I'm not a game, you know? And he started laughing. They took off. Whoa. Oh, it was wild, dude. Wow. Wow. So, I mean, you know, Chicago, this South side is real. It's real. This shit will get you. You. You know, even if you're not looking. Chirac, it has that ability. Yeah. You know, and, you know, and I don't live there now. I mean, I got a gallery there still. It's in League of Park, though, Right? But I had a gallery on the south side for years. Right, but so with the money, man, you know, when we. When we decided to start spending it, the first thing was just like, okay, let's just kind of hit and miss, see where we're at, you know? And then it got really intense where we were just. We old ran McNally map ran, you know, and driving to different towns, finding the malls, and she would just run through the malls, cash it out, cash it out, cash it out. And before long, what was happening?
- [64:10]
A
So explain that. So you go buy stuff.
- [64:12]
B
Go buy stuff and get changed. Get changed.
- [64:14]
A
So you'd buy. So you'd use a hundred dollar. What was like the best thing to buy? Like something that was like five bucks.
- [64:20]
B
Or five, $10, $15, right. You don't want to make it too conspicuous, you know, like, you. Because it's 100, right? So.
- [64:26]
A
And you could only do it, like, you could use 100 at one store, right? You wouldn't always.
- [64:30]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, she. She got a little frisky with it, though. She's a little frisky. Yeah, with the money, right. She got frisky with the money. She'd spend two or three or sometimes she wanted something, you know. But I was always like. So for me, there was rules to it, right? Don't spend it in your own area. Don't don't use it for rent, cars, credit cards, gift cards, anything that. Where you're getting something that you're going to have to use, Right, Right. Because I've heard people say, oh, I've got travelers checks. I got. I got gift cards. That's how you're going to get caught, right? That's how you're going to get caught. For me, it was always, you know, break the money and. And use the real money for the real world, right? I wasn't trying to use fake money for everything, right? I was trying to get my. My real money, you know? And so when we first started, we. We did the malls. We pull up into a mall, I'd act like a bored husband, right? Sitting in the mall. What the. You know, why are we doing this again? She would just hit, and I'd watch. I became really good at watching people. Like, I could tell things about people. I mean, I always been really good because I grew up on the streets. But this really trained me. Like, I could pick out if a couple was arguing. I could see. I mean, it was. I got really good at it, man. Still good at it, right? That's how I sell my art. I could. I could feel it, you know, the person, you know, and she just go from store to store to store, you know, in a mall. There might be 100 stores in the mall. And she. And she'd probably hit maybe like 80 of them, right? She wouldn't go back. She might go this one and skip one and go that one. Then she'd hand off the stuff to me, right? Once she had about three or four bags, she'd come sit down and boom, she'd get up and she'd go back. And what was happening is, is I started getting concerned with having all this in the trunk, right? And then having all this change, 20s, fives, tens, ones. You know, I'm like, man, if we get pulled over, they'll be like, what the hell are you doing? Right? Right? You got all this in the back and you got all this money. So a few factors went into, like, what we started doing. One of them was at first, we were buying everything for us, right? You're buying jeans, T shirts, handbill, whatever. Before long, you just got too much shit, right? I mean, what are you gonna do, right? 100 pairs of jeans? You know, like, right now you just get to the point where you're like, man, can I buy myself anymore? You know, Then we started buying for like, our. You know, maybe we'd go out, we'd buy stuff for our family or stuff, you know, and then that got a little weird because then people started like, you know, for one, they'd be like, how you got so much money? And then they started expecting it, like, well, you got money, man? You know, What'd you get me this time, right? You know, like, man, so it was kind of like you started seeing. You know, anytime you give stuff away for free, it usually don't turn out well.
- [67:13]
A
What about, like, finding people who knew the money was fake and you could sell them?
- [67:19]
B
Like, well, that eventually happened, right? So. So eventually we. We. We progressed there, right? And that's when, hey, we'll give you.
- [67:26]
A
We'll sell you $10,000 in fake money, and we'll charge you five grand.
- [67:30]
B
Why's charge 30 cents on a dollar?
- [67:32]
A
30 cents on the dollar.
- [67:33]
B
So if I. Every hunter was 30 bucks, man.
- [67:35]
A
Okay.
- [67:36]
B
And I usually tried to stay in between, like, you know, 10 to 100,000. I didn't like to really go too high on the number when I sold because I didn't want to get robbed. It was a big thing in my. In my town, right? You know, someone will kill you for 20 grand. They'll kill you for 10,000, they'll kill you for 50. And it could be someone, you know, I've. I've seen the most insane, man dudes getting. Well, I got robbed. I got robbed. Yeah. I'll never forget, man. Dude, I was working a deal with someone, man. He goes, hey, man, I got this dude. He's in. He's gonna take this and that. And I'm like, all right. We picked him up. I'm sitting in the passenger seat. He's there, my friend who's been my friend, and he knows who he is. If he sees this for a long time. He set the whole thing up, Pulled the gun out on me, took my bag, took my keys. That was the worst thing. Took my car keys. And I was just trying not to say the F word because my son's out there.
- [68:34]
A
Yeah.
- [68:34]
B
But he took my car keys so that I would have just given my car keys back, you know, So I couldn't. When he let me, I couldn't even do. Not me. I was completely screwed. Come to find out it was him. They just set the whole thing up, you know? So, I mean, it just, you know, this happened, man. So I was. I'm not going to say paranoid, you know, Even though I had every detection device you could have, Like, I had all kinds of, you know, back then, you could get. You still get them, but I don't know if they're like. They were but like bug detectors, you know, if someone got a bug on it, it would vibrate. I had this little box I always carried with me, and someone came up to me, and then they were frequency out that things start vibrating. It only happened to me one time. Only went off once. But. Yeah, no, man, it was a lot of, man.
- [69:19]
A
How much money could you print in one day?
- [69:21]
B
Well, it wouldn't be a day. Yeah, it took the process. There was like. There was a bunch of steps to it. Around 12, right? It was like a puzzle from. From the carrier papers to the. To mixing the inks to making the plates to using the ink jets. Like, I mean, there was a lot of steps that it went through. And I would do a whole run, right, at one time. So I'd say, okay, I'm gonna make 250,000. Right? And so I would have everything ready for that, and I would go in and I wouldn't leave until it was done. Sleep there, eat there. Because I didn't want to leave it open like that, Right. I didn't want to leave paper hanging out, you know? Yeah, I want to go in there, I want to make the. Sometimes take a week, 10 days, you know, about a week, though, usually for 250. Yeah, I could get it done, you know, and. But I was leaving with a briefcase, you know, I was leaving with a briefcase. And then. And then I started burying my money. You know, I would. I would roll it up real tight, seal it, put it in PVC pipes so the metal detectors couldn't hit it. Go out to the forest preserve, bury it. Yeah, because I. Because, you know, I've seen so many. I've seen so many people, man, get busted with so much money. I'd be laughing. I'm like, what is wrong with you? You, man, why did you have a million dollars in your wall? You know what I'm saying? Like, what are you doing? You don't think they're gonna find it? You hear? They find it all the time. They got machines to find that. So I. I kept it as far away from me as possible, man. I probably still got money buried, you know what I'm saying? Like. But. Yeah, no, so, I mean, I was like, man, I was damn near like a James Bond of that because I. I was real, man. I'd had some, you know, if I was doing a meeting with someone in the early days before I had that, I'd have. I'd take your shirt, man, take your shirt off. I had no problem telling you, take your shirt off. Let me see what's underneath you, man.
- [71:15]
A
And these are people that were buying the fake.
- [71:17]
B
Yeah. When I. When we. When we graduated to that level, right? Because we stayed in the small level for a while, right? Because I. I had. So after I got shot. So I got shot when I was around 17, 18. I. I ended up going back to Texas. My. So my mom was from Gainesville, Texas. My dad was from Chicago, right? So we would go back and forth because I got family in. Down in Dallas, you know, and so we would go back and forth all the time. So when I got shot, my mom was like, man, you gotta get out of here. You gotta go. You got. You need to go down Texas, man. And where did you get shot? Right here in my side. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah, they done me, man. Yeah. Gang, right? Yeah. Walking through a playground. Two cats walking up behind me, you know, they had bandanas on. I thought they were my boys, because I just left a party with them, you know, And I told me, man, pull the bandanas down. And they were like, bandanas. And they pulled out the pistols and just unloaded. I turned around. They shoot you, huh?
- [72:16]
A
Why did they shoot you?
- [72:17]
B
Because I was in that gang's area where I was in Disciples area. They were Latin Kings. So for them, they were killing a rival gang member, you know? Oh, yeah. So I was a rival gang member to them, all right? So they were trying to take me out. And. And that. That. That was a. That was a tough one because for me, you know, when you get shot, man, it does something to you. It. You know, it. For a long time, fireworks would freak me out, you know, like, it just really kind of jacked me up. But I made through it. But anyway, after I got shot, my mom was like, listen, you need to get out of here. So I ended up going back to Texas, staying with some family down there. Then I would come back, whatever. And after I got into a little trouble, and my. My baby's mom at that time, she was dating a cop. She became a cop. So my son's mom's Chicago police officer. Right. She's awesome, though. She's really awesome. She's the best. She's a great mom, great friend, you know, she's still really cool, but she became a cop, you know, so that kind of ended that situation, you know, And. But yeah, I went back to Texas. That's when I met my wife. And then I went to. Went to prison for some and then got out. And that's how the whole 96 started. She bought a book for me. We went to a Barnes and Noble, and I wanted her to get a book. Book. She bought it with a hundred, and they marked it, and I'm like, whoa. That's all they do. They didn't even look at it, right? And she's like, yeah, that's. You know, and that's when I first said, okay, I'm gonna break this. I'm gonna figure out how to break this. And then we went on our journey, right? You know, it's wild, you know, but, you know, Texas. So when I came. So when I came back from Texas, it had been almost, what, nine years? So I had been gone for a minute, right? I hadn't been to Chicago in a long time. I was down in Texas, man, hanging out the cowboys, you know, literally hanging out with them, right? I was arm wrestling. I. He was the world champion bull rider iron wrestling. I thought I was a badass because I was all big, and he damn near ripped my arm off. He did, you think? A little. Bull riders, man, because they got to hold on to that. They're probably strong as hell. Oh, I couldn't believe it, you know, because I. I'm. I'm. I've always been pretty strong, you know, working out that boy, when I grabbed his hand, I was like, what the hell, man? You know, he had. He let me know, too.
- [74:44]
A
So how long. How long did that last for? With printing the money and selling it and getting. Exchanging it and all this stuff. How long did they.
- [74:53]
B
Did you ride? I did that for a couple years, you know, maybe. Maybe three years. And then. And then when I went back to Chicago, now I'm going back into my neighborhood, right? In my neighborhood. So all the guys that I grew up with, now, they're like, doing major organized crime type, you know? And so I had. And because. And because I, I. I knew a lot of people from different things. So when. When. When I was young, before I left, I liked to play basketball. Still do. I love basketball. And we used to go to different parts of Chicago cyc, and we would play. We would play in Brownsville, which was all the brothers. We'd go to Pilsen, play against the, you know, the Latinos. You know, we. We would. We. We would go all over and play, and I would befriend them, right? I wasn't on that. You're this, you're that, you know, like, they sometimes, you know, there'd be a little racism going on, but I wasn't on that, man. You Know, so I made friends with cats from Brownsville. I made friends with the cats from Pilsen, and when I went back, they were still there, but they were doing some crazy. Yeah, cartel this that, you know, like, on some real things, you know? And so when I went back, I went and seen my guy out there, you know, in. In a little village, which is like the Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago, and went see my boy in Brownsville, right? So I'm reconnecting with some of the old characters and. And started pushing, right? And we were even on Taylor street running the money through the bookies. And that didn't turn out too well. Yeah, no.
- [76:34]
A
What happened with the bookies?
- [76:36]
B
They just shut us down, you know, like, what, are you crazy? Right? Because they would pay. My boy was paying out with the. With the. With the money. So if you. If you won, right? If you. If you played with him and. And you won, he. He'd pay you with the fake money. No. Oh, it was crazy. It was crazy. We got in trouble for that. Not by the police, by the street.
- [76:55]
A
What happened?
- [76:56]
B
They just shut us down.
- [76:57]
A
They just stopped and threatened you.
- [76:59]
B
Yeah, well, because I. So the cats that I knew, my. My one really good friend. I ain't gonna say his name, but he. His. His grandfather was. Was a top dog, you know what I'm saying? And. And then my other friend, he. He collected a little for him, right? He'd go around and bang some heads, you know, for. For, like, loans and, you know, so. So the guys I was already around were kind of some tough cats, you know? So, like, so they. It was. It was weird, you know? Like, the old timers, they love. They loved me because I was quiet, not flashy, you know, did what I said I was gonna do, right, Right. You know, didn't. Didn't. Didn't talk about things I shouldn't, you know, leave the room when I need to, you know, that type of. Right. See you later. I'm out of here. Right? I've always been that way. That's how I move, you know? And so I've always had really good respect for them. One. One of the. The old timers, he from my neighborhood. He's he's like a. An icon, right? He stole the marble diamond, right? The marble diamond. 52 karat. Look up Jerry Scalise. Yeah.
- [78:08]
A
Marble.
- [78:09]
B
The marble.
- [78:09]
A
Yeah, the marble diamond, man.
- [78:11]
B
I learned a lot from him, right? You know, he. He was a philosopher, I would say. Wow. Oh, yeah. So I used to. I used to trip out on some of the mob Movies where they make the gangsters look really stupid. I've had some of the most insane philosophical conversations with some mob guys that would blow your mind, really. Oh, Jerry was out this world. He was predicting Facebook before Facebook was even invented. I remember when he came up and when he was talking shit about that shit, there's gonna be a device where you could find this person. He was brilliant, you know? Brilliant. You know, he. He robbed banks. He. He worked with Johnny Depp on. On that John Dillinger movie. And while he was helping John. While he was helping Johnny Depp make the movie, he was robbing a bank at 78 or 72. Insane. He was done, you would think. And we would talk about, like. Like, why would. Why would he. He has everything. Beautiful house. Why would he go do that, you know? Because that's what he does. All right? Sometimes that's just what people do, you know? Yeah.
- [79:18]
A
Sometimes people are just so brilliant. They're crazy.
- [79:22]
B
They're crazy. I know. I. I have touch on that sometimes.
- [79:27]
A
This is the diamond necklace he. He got.
- [79:29]
B
No, Is that. That's the marble? Yeah, that's marble. He told me too. He said, you know, so they never found it. They never found it. He did nine years in English prison.
- [79:41]
A
In an English prison?
- [79:42]
B
Yeah. Yeah. They never found it. Yeah.
- [79:45]
A
What do you do with it?
- [79:46]
B
Who knows? They. Well, that's what he went back to prison for. They said that he was trying to. So they're. So actually right where I live.
- [79:52]
A
What's the story about this, with this necklace?
- [79:55]
B
It's wild. This. This is the last photo I could find. It's like this. And then this is like an.
- [80:00]
A
I guess, an earlier version of it. And then at some point, it pops up without those bottom frills.
- [80:06]
B
But these are the only photos I could find of it. Yeah, well, they. They don't even know where it's at because they. They. They never got it back. But if Jerry's. Yeah. So anyway, Jerry was a great guy. He. He. He. We even joked. He. He said. I said, you know, I asked him about the marble, and he asked me about how to make the money. Like, where is it at? They never found it. And he tried to break into the. So there was a mob boss in my neighborhood, actually lived right across the street from me. I live on. On 29th in Princeton. And the. The mob guy, he's dead now. Right. But he has this big fortress on the corner. It's crazy, like some Godfather. Wow. Big old wall around it. Just nuts. And he was called the. The Hook. Lepitra he used to hang people on hooks. He was crazy, right? The Hook. Look up the mobster. The Hook.
- [80:55]
A
Well, look him up.
- [80:56]
B
Yeah. So what happened is, is Jerry thought apparently the marble diamond was in that house and he had been staking it out, and he was gonna go in there. The Hook was dead already. Huh. But it's still an icon house. You. You know, you got to be out of your mind to try to break into that house.
- [81:14]
A
Right?
- [81:14]
B
You know what I'm saying? Like, right. You're gonna break it to the mob's house? Like, are you out of your mind? Harry Oliver. Now, he was a. He was. Harry was a. A shooter from Taylor Street.
- [81:25]
A
Harry the Hook Almond.
- [81:27]
B
Yeah, he's a Taylor street guy.
- [81:30]
A
Wow. Died in 2010. How'd he die?
- [81:35]
B
Who knows? Probably in jail. I'm sure he. He was. He was a hitman. But anyway, so these are guys are from.
- [81:41]
A
So he hung his enemies from hooks.
- [81:43]
B
Well, this. This is Alabin. He was. He. He was a one shot shooter. Look up the Hook. Lepitria. That's his.
- [81:51]
A
Yeah, there he is down there.
- [81:52]
B
He's right there. Angelo. Yeah. Yeah. That's. That's. That's. Yeah, that's the Hook. The petria.
- [81:56]
A
Huh?
- [81:57]
B
He lives across the street for me. Or he did, anyway. He was a heavy cat, man. He was a heavy cat.
- [82:03]
A
But anyway, he was okay. So he got the nickname the Hook due to his way he murdered his victims.
- [82:08]
B
Yeah. Hang him on a meat hook in his house.
- [82:10]
A
Those who could not pay, it was said that he would take his victims bound and gagged, hang them on a meat hook, piercing the victim's rib cage with the meat hook, and then torture him to death with a blowtorch.
- [82:20]
B
It was brutal. Whoa. And so my friend was breaking into his house. Go figure. To get the Marvel Dies Wild. It's a crazy story.
- [82:28]
A
What a psycho.
- [82:30]
B
Oh, he was a psycho. He says, look out his window.
- [82:32]
A
Find some pictures of this cat.
- [82:33]
B
Dude, he was intense. So remember I told you my neighborhood was called the 26th Street Crew? These were the guys, right? This is.
- [82:43]
A
Yeah, look at that one. No, the top left one, bro.
- [82:46]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was brutal. He was a brutal one.
- [82:50]
A
Look at those.
- [82:51]
B
But that's the neighborhood I come from. You know, my neighborhood's interesting because you see a lot of mob movies and you see a New York and this, but they never talk about Chicago. My especially my neighborhood. And they were probably. They were like one of the most. But. But I think they have always had a. A level of silence amongst Them, Right. Very, very moved. Very under the radar. Yeah. You know, and I mean, it's all gone now, right? It's not really. It's not. It still has its. Whatever. Remnants of it, but most of them, they were able to build pretty big empires that lasted. Right.
- [83:29]
A
And they worked with the CIA and the FBI.
- [83:32]
B
Oh, yeah. And they built. You know, they build concrete companies, and there's companies that are still around, garbage companies they still run, and they don't have to do no more. Right. Because they figured it out. I mean. But that's where I was going with it, man. Most of them I grew up were brilliant. Brilliant. You know, and. And they. They always kind of make them seem like they're a little dumb and drug addicts and all up. But I'd never seen that, you know, they didn't like drugs. Not the ones from Chicago anyway. Right, right. They didn't like that, man. They looked down on you even if you smoked a. A cigarette, man.
- [84:06]
A
Really?
- [84:07]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. That's. That was how me and Jerry got real close, because I smoked cigarettes at that time. I'm talking about how that was. I was so young, 20 something, whatever. And he challenged me. He said, what? The cigarette's stronger than your will. You got to have a strong will to be out here. If something like that could break your will, then what. Anything else can. And it hit me so hard, Mike.
- [84:27]
A
Back a little bit.
- [84:28]
B
And it hit me so hard that he said that. That the cigarette was stronger than me, and I quit, and he noticed I quit it, you know, he said something later on. He's like, man, that. I really, really like to see that, what you just did. Yeah. But it's true, right? You know, habits, totally a form of weakness. Right. I think, you know, so. But yeah, so with the money, though, when there was. We. A lot of had happened after we. We stopped. So when we were going out spending it, we started doing where we were only buying things for kids. Right. It was getting to the point to where I didn't want nothing in the car, and I wanted to be able to take this cash and really seal it up and stash it. If we got pulled over, they want to find it. Yeah, right. I didn't want to just sit and change, you know, hundreds hanging out of the glove compartment or $100. Right, right. So we started buying stuff for kids, and then we would give it to the charities. Right. The Salvation army charity, because that's where. Well, for one, there's a box in every town in a parking lot somewhere, right? And for two, that's the shelter that, you know, I was in when I was a kid. You know, we. We would even go. We would even go into churches and on a Sunday, and I'd. I just dropped 10 of whatever I made right. Of real money. I never put fake money in. Offering maybe once. I might have slipped. I might have slipped once, man. But anyway, I always. I always made sure it was real. No, whatever we made, you know, I would. I would count it and I'd take 10 out and I'd. We'd go to church and I'd throw it in an offering, you know, just kickstack and then leave.
- [86:04]
A
Clearly conscience, right?
- [86:05]
B
A little bit, yeah. It makes you feel good. Well, I mean, for me, it really did, you know, I felt kind of. Yeah, it does. Yeah. The biggest thing was the kids. That was the thing that I. I enjoyed the most was when we would have new clothes, new bodies, diapers this, and then we would drop that off. That would be like the coolest feeling for me because I remember growing up so poor where we didn't have, you know, like, I. I wore the same shoes with holes in them for years. You know, like, it was just terrible. I didn't. One year for. We. We'd have. We didn't have heat for two years. We didn't have hot water for two years. Wow.
- [86:44]
A
In Chicago.
- [86:45]
B
In Chicago, in the projects, right? Taking cold showers.
- [86:49]
A
Ice cold showers.
- [86:50]
B
Oh, ice cold. It was brutal, man. You know, I think it's what made me smarter, right? Probably brain. Yeah. But, yeah, no, man, it was tough, right? So for me, even now, right, like, that's how even my art career started, right, I. I started donating paintings to charities. That. That, that means something, that do something, right? Arnold Schwarzeneg's charity, it's After School All Stars. You know, they legitimately go in there and create programs for kids, right? Yeah. After school. We never had no after school programs, right? So when I seen that, yeah, I want to be a part of that. You know, Maestro Cares with Mark Anthony, they build orphanages all over the south, you know, Latin America, Right. You know, so. So I donate, you know, I just found out that a piece I donated sold for 14 grand, right? And I don't take nothing. A lot of artists, they'll use the charities because a certain time of the year, they'll use charities to make some money because they get 50%, right? I learned my lesson. I did that a couple times with Arnold and with a few others, and then it turned out bad because I didn't get what I thought I was going to get, right. And I said, okay, wait a minute. If this is going to make me feel that way, you just need to give it to him, you know? But I just found out that this, this painting that I, that that was auctioned off, the woman told me that the 14,000 built another addition for like 25 more kids. Wow. In the Dominican, that my painting allowed 25 kids to get off the street like that. That is real. Yeah, that, that feels good. Right? So, so yeah, it started like you said, maybe trying to make myself feel better, you know. Right. But inherently I think it was just the goodness in me trying to find a way to, to find goodness. Right. Because my. At times, you know, excuse my language, Di, he's out there right now really trying to be good with that one, man. But yeah, so, you know, the money, when we, when we would spend it, that was the, the, the, the coolest part of it was like the give back.
- [88:50]
A
Yes.
- [88:51]
B
You know?
- [88:51]
A
Yeah, totally.
- [88:52]
B
And then I go back to Chicago, I start getting back into. And that's when got crazy. Cuz now I'm. You know, when you're selling $100,000 of paper that cost you 50 bucks to make, maybe a hundred, maybe a hundred dollars, it would cost me, you know, like the. I was like a million times over on my money, right. I mean, a hundred dollars I'm making, you know, so when you're, when you have that type of money, you know, you start spending, you start going out, you start taking your friends, you start acting a little bit, you know, like you feel like a God, really. Free, right? You're free from everything. You're free from. From any constraint that society could throw on you.
- [89:38]
A
Yeah.
- [89:38]
B
You know, I tell people there was a time where I felt freer than probably any man could ever. Right. I wasn't attached to a bank. I wasn't attached to, to anything. But I had everything, right. And, and so, but, but it, it, it started bad, right? Started doing, you know, I got into partying, got into this, got into a lot of things that warped my brain and, and led me down into a place where I ended up going to prison, right. And, and it happened a couple times. The first time was with my dad, right. I get jammed up in the House of Blues. Secret, you know, Secret Service come in. They. I got caught with 80,000 in. In fake money. I ended up. I ended up beating the case on, on illegal search and seizure. The, the police, when they said they came into my room that they seen some weed on the table, which they couldn't because there was a hallway in my suite to where they. Unless they were Superman with X ray vision, they weren't seeing nothing, you know, and so they put that in their police report. So I challenged that and had photos taken. And then we depositioned the security guard that was with them. We threatened them with perjury. And he just told the truth, that we, they just barged in. And so the judge threw out the 80,000. I was insane. I couldn't believe I was walked out. Right. I was in there for three weeks when my attorney came and he said, hey, he read the police report.
- [91:01]
A
I said, wait, that's off the hook for 80,000.
- [91:03]
B
Fake thousand. I got, I got off and. But you're paranoid now. I'm paranoid? Yeah. Right. Because they even told me. So we've been looking for you, for you for a while, right? And so now I'm like freaked out. What am I gonna do? And I watched over the Top with Sylvester Stallone. The arm wrestling movie about the boy and son reuniting.
- [91:23]
A
Yeah.
- [91:24]
B
And man, I just started thinking about my dad for some reason. I don't know, I just was missing my dad, you know, and, and, and I went and did a search at the time. The, the again. The Internet's early in these days, right?
- [91:37]
A
What year are we talking?
- [91:38]
B
That had to be like 2003, 2002. Maybe somewhere in that, that range. Maybe even early 2000. Maybe 90. Yeah, maybe it was even. Not even 2000 99. But it was early in the, in the Internet years. Right. And I went through the post office, I think, punch his name, and it gave me an address up in Wick. Chickaloon, Alaska. Right. It's like 45 minutes east of Anchorage. Right. And so I write, I write a letter, say, you know, I don't just. My name's Art Williams, you know, I'm looking for my dad. If, if this is Art Williams from Chicago, can you please give me a call? And I gave him my wife's mom's number and, and about a week and a half goes by and he called, Couldn't believe it. Yeah, he called.
- [92:30]
A
How old are.
- [92:30]
B
22 years? 22 years had passed. How old were you? It's probably like 29, 28. Yeah, something like that.
- [92:40]
A
What happened after?
- [92:41]
B
So he called, we talked, man, for like an hour. And, and I told him I wanted to see him. And he's like, well, why don't you come up here? And, and, and so I ended up making my way, went to Seattle, ended up Making my way to Anchorage, me and, me and Natalie, she was pregnant. And I remember when he picked us up and it was, you know, he was still with the woman that he took off on us with. Right? Anise. Real, real dark woman. And, and you know, I, it was for the first two days we just stayed up talking, man. He apologized, you know, he's said, man, I'm sorry. He wanted to hear everything that happened to us. I said, you know, well, your daughter, she jumped out of a window and she's, she's missing a leg now. They had to cut her leg off.
- [93:25]
A
What, your sister?
- [93:26]
B
Yeah, she tried to kill herself. Yeah, yeah. And my brother, I lost a mental illness. Yeah. So, you know, I, I'm fortunate, right, that I was able to overcome some of the things that I went through, but my siblings did it right, you know, and, and so, you know, so I had to let him know all this. I had to let him know, you know, Jason, he had no clue about any of nothing. Wow. He had been gone 22 years. So, you know, so we, we, we, we, we slowly man, you know, started to, to unite. I started to learn about him. You know, he was super mechanically. He had old cars everywhere. He had that, he had a Firebird, you know, Camaro. He had the Mustang from gone in 60 seconds. What was that? Eleanor? But I mean, all beat up and you know, like something he wanted to rebuild. But then he had some beautiful ones that he did rebuild. So he, he was really good with just building stuff, you know, mechanically inclined. And, and I, and so I started to see a lot of things that, who he was that I was. And it really started to like, okay, now I'm starting to really understand who I am, right? Because a lot of times you wonder, man, why do I do this or what? Where does this come from? You know, and, and, and, and that's. That. That was the, the best thing I got out of being around my dad for the short time, you know, was that I was starting to understand a lot more about myself. And we had some good times and we had some rough times. You know, one of them, he, he did the Iditarod, right? He had a whole sleigh dog team. You know, he was, he liked to do the slaves, you know, and, and, and so here he is. Got like 40 dogs, right, that he's feeding, right, every day. And I go into town with them to get dog food, right? And I'm helping him load the dog, dog food, 50 pound bags. And he dropped like 900 bucks, right, for all this Dog food to feed these dogs. And we're driving back into town and, you know, he's the. The sewer highway runs along the Chickaloon River. Big badass river. Comes off a glacier. Right. If you ain't never seen a glacier, go see when they're beautiful, they got a beautiful blue color, right? I walked in one. But anyway, so we're driving around, we're driving down the highway, and, man, I just can't get it out of my mind that he just dropped nine. And so I say, how long have you had been doing this, man? He's like, oh, I've been doing it for like 15 years now. And I'm like, 15 years?
- [96:01]
A
The dog thing?
- [96:02]
B
Yeah, yeah, he's been gone 22, right? Yeah, you know, been doing it. He's like, yeah, it was a hobby, man. Come.
- [96:07]
A
Expensive ass hobby, right?
- [96:08]
B
Well, that's where my brain was, Right, right. I said, 15 years. I said, man, you. And you spend that much every month? And he's like, well, I mean, it wasn't that much, but yeah, no, it's. It's kind of expensive. I said, me and my brother and sister were fucking eating beans, man. Living in the projects and didn't have hot water. You were feeding dogs. And, man, I started to get real, you know, real frustrated and just start crying. I told him, stop the car. He stopped the car, got out. He got out. I grabbed him. I started strangling him. No, I wanted him dead. My sister lost her leg. I mean, I. I've told you, like a inkling of the. That we went through an inkling of it, you know, and here you've been feeding these dogs. So we were less than a dog. That's how I was feeling. I. I let him go. I finally let him go. And, you know, he just kept apologizing, kept apologizing. So I want to make it up to you. I'm here now. Boom, boom, boom, you know, trying. Trying to call me. And I did. I. It took a minute. It took a couple days for me to finally come down out of it. And then we started, you know, getting back, you know, start talking again. And. And I showed him the money that I made right now. We were starting like, okay, let's be father and son then, right? We got past that. It's over. Let's try to do this now. And, you know, he. He. He asked me what I had been doing in life, and. And I pulled out that bill, man. It's like gold fever, man. Right? I call it gold fever because anytime anyone ever and not too many people knew back then, but when you. Someone did find out, that's what I did. They thought it was like gold. Like, oh, my God, we got printed money here, right? And. And you just. It's a change in the eyes. It's kind of trippy, man gleam, you know? And it happened. He did. He changed. Like, wow. You got to. And then he wanted to show me what he did. And so we went way out into the bush. And he had an underground grow room. He had two big semi trucks buried on the ground with some crazy Kevlar that blocked the heat.
- [98:21]
A
Whoa.
- [98:22]
B
Oh, it was nuts. He tapped into the two semi trucks, two semi trailers, trailers buried underground. Hooked up. My dad was jeans too.
- [98:30]
A
How the.
- [98:31]
B
Listen this, though. Wanna hear what's even crazier, though? Because I didn't know where he got his electricity. Well, along the Seward highway, they got an underground cable. He tapped into the cable.
- [98:42]
A
Oh, my God.
- [98:44]
B
He tapped into the cable. He was nuts, man. So he was just as nuts as me, right? Which I thought was kind of awesome. Yeah, this is great, man. You know, but, you know, he. You know, he. He showed me that. And. And so now we're like, bonding through criminal fraternity type shit, you know? You know, hey, you. I did this. Oh, I do this, you know, in. And then he, you know, I. I had. I didn't have much. I only had a little bit because I was paranoid because of what happened. And so I gave it to him. And unbeknownst to, you know, he gave it to his wife, who hated that I was there.
- [99:20]
A
Really?
- [99:20]
B
Oh, she hated it. She was the one. She was just a hateful woman, man. She's the one that kept him from us, Right? Yeah, it was terrible. Right? She had a. A son and a daughter that. She wanted him to be a father to them, not us. He told me what happened. He told me about a bunch of stuff, you know, she.
- [99:37]
A
It.
- [99:37]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [99:38]
A
How long do they stay together?
- [99:39]
B
They were together. Then when I came up, there they were. So. Yeah.
- [99:42]
A
So, I mean, how long after that?
- [99:43]
B
Well, that's the crazy thing. So I. I gave some money and she starts spending it with her friends. And I told him, specific, man, don't spend this stuff here, man. We're way the hell up here.
- [99:56]
A
Don't where you eat.
- [99:57]
B
Yeah, man, are you out of your mind? And. And, you know, he said, oh, I'm just putting it away, so, you know, so it's safe. Well, no, he wasn't doing that. He was. They were. She was spending it and Me and my dad ended up going back to the lower 50. We came back to the lower states. We were going to Chicago because I. I told him, because I gave him the stuff. We're bonding. And he asked me if I could make more. And I said, man, I don't know if I could do it because I got jammed up, and I would have to remake the whole recipe. Yeah, I can't use the same recipe. They're gonna come at you. They're gonna know it's me.
- [100:29]
A
You hadn't done it since you got. Went to prison?
- [100:31]
B
No, since that time where I got out. Right, right. So he's like, well, let's change the recipe. Can you do it? I said, I'm sure I could. You know, we could try other things. I said, but I have to go to Chicago and start collecting all supplies. Like, there ain't no way.
- [100:44]
A
What year are we talking now?
- [100:46]
B
It was like 2000. Because it was. Right, right, right. Yeah, it was like 2000. So we flew into Seattle, drove across country to Chicago. It was great. Father and son jamming. Listen, audio slave smoked a little bud. It was great. Bonding. He was gonna see my sister for the first time. Wow. Yeah. Which was heavy. My sisters snapped on him, I bet. Screamed and yelled at him. It was terrible. It was a rough moment. Rough moment, you know, and. But she actually went back with him, so.
- [101:20]
A
Really?
- [101:21]
B
Yeah. So when we got there, it was a real mess. When we got there, you know, finally calmed down. Kind of like my little moment where I wanted to kill him, you know, And. And then the woman he was with, her daughter was getting married and was having a wedding, and so my dad had to get back. Right. We. We drove across. It was great, but he had to get back. So he was. He asked my sister to come with, and he wanted me to go with, but I hadn't got everything I needed. I didn't. I didn't have everything I needed. I needed to go to Dallas to get some stuff. So I was.
- [101:57]
A
You were gonna make it up there in Alaska.
- [101:59]
B
Right. I was shipping everything back there. Right. And so I needed some more stuff, but there was something in Dallas I had to go get. So I told my dad, I said, hey, listen, you. I'll meet you up there. You. You. And, you know, when go up there, I got to go to Dallas. And so they flew back, I went to Dallas, and I started getting these funny feelings, like something wasn't right. I don't know how to explain it, really, you know, And I left my pregnant wife up in In. In Alaska. Oh, wow. This whole time, right? And she's like. When I told her I wasn't flying back with him, oh, you better get back here. Are you out of your mind? You know, like one of those. Right? She had the. Right. Yeah. So I was trying to get her to fly back. I didn't want to go back. And she says, I am not getting on a plane pregnant with all the baggage. And. And we had. She said, you got to come back here. It's your sister's wedding. I said, well, she's not my sister, man. Well, you. She loves you. You need to come here.
- [103:00]
A
You guys, stop being, like, the dad's girlfriend's daughter.
- [103:03]
B
Yeah. And I was cool with Chrissy. She was cool, you know? I mean, but it just. There was something. I just didn't feel like going back, you know? I think after the thing with my sister, what I had seen, I was just feeling a certain way, you know? And so I ended up going back. I went back, and Natalie had the baby, like, right after I got back. Thank God I did come back in Alaska. In Alaska. Yeah. Had the baby in Alaska. And we decided to stay at Chrissy's house because she lived in Anchorage, because we didn't want to live. We didn't want to have the baby way out in Chickaloon in the bush, you know?
- [103:39]
A
Yeah.
- [103:39]
B
We wanted the baby to be in the city. Natalie wanted to be in the city. She was tired of being out there, Right. She wanted to go to stores. She wanted to do. So. So we go stay with Chrissy. And my dad has been acting funny, right? And I'm telling. I'm telling Natalie. I'm saying, as soon as we can fly, we're out of here. I want to go. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to get out of here. Oh, that's the reason why, because he ended up taking me to a party. So I get back, Natalie has the baby. The things are starting to come in. The things that I shipped up from. From Chicago, and supplies, they're starting to pop in.
- [104:23]
A
Dark supplies.
- [104:24]
B
Dark supplies. Yeah. Yeah, they're starting to pop in. And so me and my dad are kind of. But I'm still feeling weird, man. You know? And so he's like, hey, why don't you come out here? We need to hang out. We. You know, he's trying to break Dice. He could see that I was a little tense, you know? He was. I got something to show you, some really good news. You're gonna be really excited about this. Man, I'm like, okay, you know, I'll try. So I go out there, and I get in his truck, and we start going out deep into the bush, right? We get. Get down this gravel road, and as soon as we come over this hill, man, there's this massive bonfire, man. I mean, big. I don't know, 50ft. It was just massive. Bikers everywhere, guys over here shooting machine guns on the cars, right? It was a Hell's Angels campsite. Yeah. My dad was real good friends with the president of the house. Oh. I'm like, where the. Where am I, man? You know, I'm a city boy, dog. I'm in the middle of Alaska, man. The Hell's Angel. Like, this is insane to me, man. So we go down. We walk in the dude's tent. The. The big dude, Real nice guy, man. You know, Real big, right? He was. He was the dude that was, you know, I guess the president of that chapter. He introduces me, and then my dad tells me that, you know, we're gonna start selling to him in front of him. Oh, my God.
- [105:44]
A
Forever even saying anything to you about it.
- [105:47]
B
Never said nothing to me. And. And I freak. I say, man, we need to talk outside, right? I say, man, all due respect, I need to talk to my pops right now. I walk him out. I'm like, man, what is wrong with you, man? Even if you wanted to do this, why would you bring me and let him know it's from your son? I said, I want to leave right now. He said, man, you need to calm down. We got to do this. He's good people, man. I said, whether he's good people or not, I don't want to be here. I want to leave now. Take me home now. So we. He took me back to his house. I jumped in the car, went back to Anchorage, and at that time, I think the baby was, like, almost three weeks a month old. I said, get tickets right now. We're out of here. I don't care. We're out. We're gone. So I was like, she was ready to. She was ready to get back to Dallas, you know, go back to Texas. So I. We. We get the flight, and I ended up chain. We were going to fly into Dallas, and I. I, for whatever reason, changed it and wanted to go to Houston and have my boy pick me up in Houston and then drive me again. I do things that. If. When the feds watch me, they probably wonder. They probably wonder, how the hell did he know to do that? Because I've done things that have Shook them. Right, Right.
- [107:06]
A
Yeah.
- [107:06]
B
Yeah. I got jammed up one time at a hotel and completely disappeared with the helicopters. And I'm sure they're still wondering how that happened. Happened. But it's not anything I do that's special. I just move in this, you know. You do.
- [107:19]
A
Unconventional.
- [107:20]
B
Unconventional all the time.
- [107:21]
A
Yeah.
- [107:22]
B
It would even be hard for AI to track me, man. They'd be like, this cat is wild. You know, I. I could shift in a. In a second, man. Right. And won't even think about it. You know, it's not like I second guess very much. I'm gonna. If I feel something, I'll go with.
- [107:39]
A
You've been doing it for so long. It's just become just an instinctual thing to you.
- [107:42]
B
Yeah.
- [107:42]
A
Let's do something that's. We're going home, going to fly into a different airport, and we're going to take this road home or whatever.
- [107:48]
B
And that's exactly what we did. And thank God I did that because Secret Service were sitting in Dallas waiting for me get off the plane. Unbeknownst to me, you hadn't even done anything. So the money I had gave him, his wife, Anise, the crazy lady that hated us. Her and her friends had been around Anchorage spending. It took a while for it to catch. Right. They caught. They ended up coming back to the gym. And Vicki, they gave up her. She gave up me, the feds. So when Jim and Vicki gave up her on the very day. This is what's insane.
- [108:19]
A
Jim and Vicky.
- [108:20]
B
So they were the friends that were spending for her.
- [108:23]
A
Okay.
- [108:23]
B
So she. So. So my dad gave the money to his wife, the evil lady, the dark woman, I call her. And then she had a couple of her friends going out there with her, spending it. Right. After all said done. The Secret Service cameras and stuff came back to them and they said, oh, I got it from her. They came and raided. They found guns. My dad caught a gun case. Felon in possession. Right. They arrested her on the money and she gave up me right away. Well, guess what. I had just got jammed up in Chicago at the House of Blues, so my name was right there on their lips, and they didn't know where I was.
- [109:01]
A
And did this happen before your dad took you out to meet the Hell's Angels? After this happened. After. So this happened after you left?
- [109:11]
B
After I left.
- [109:12]
A
Okay.
- [109:12]
B
Yeah. So went out there, then I said, okay, we're out of here. And this is what's.
- [109:17]
A
Because the moment you landed in Texas, they were waiting for you. So there wasn't much time.
- [109:21]
B
There wasn't much time at all. I've come to find out the morning. The day we left on the plane was the day they kicked in my dad. No, the same day. The same day. Wow. I ended up getting arrested at that night in Dallas, though, right? But that morning, they kicked in my dad. That's why I'm saying sometimes things you seem very matrixy, you know, like, how. How is this forming, you know? But anyway, so we get to. And the reason why I. I changed it because I was feeling something, right? I didn't know what it was. And I had my files on me, right? And when I told you the files were the most important thing, right?
- [109:57]
A
The recipe book.
- [109:57]
B
Yeah, the recipe book, man. That. That is the thing that, like, I have to keep near me no matter what and take the chance of walking through security or whatever. And so I said, okay, let me switch, because, you know, I do have something that, you know, I didn't have no money on me. I didn't know equipment. I didn't have nothing. But I had this man, you know. And so my boy picks me up in Houston. He drives me, because we were going to stay at Natalie's mom's house. We get there, I. I swear, I said, you know, when you walk into house, there's a closet. Got the coats and all in the shoes, you know, in the entryway, you got the lower area where you put, you know, shoes. So I put my. My little briefcase. I slid it in there, not really, like, hiding it. I just was walking in and I put it right there. And I didn't take, I don't know, 50 steps to the bathroom. And Secret Service came in, came in, and, you know, they said, we're looking. You know, they. They sat us down. They arrested everyone. It was really terrible. I felt so bad for her mom. Oh, God, it was terrible. Oh, it was so terrible. And. But they never found the bag. They didn't even look. I was literally. I'm not kidding. I'm sitting in the living room handcuffed, trying not to look at the closet, right? You know, saying, like, I'm trying not to look at it, because I know once I look at it, I'm done. And you know how hard it is to keep yourself from doing something, right? It was terrible. It was torture. And they said, ah, we, you know, we know you were in Alaska and this and that, and they're telling me this, we need this. I said, man, I don't know what you're talking about. Know what you're talking about. Know what you're talking about? They arrested me, took me to the station, went through the whole extradition. They actually. So. So I got stuck in. I got stuck in in Oklahoma City for a second. Then they transferred me to Seattle. Then they put me on a little two. Two propeller plane all the way to Anchorage. It was brutal. Conair was the worst for me on that one.
- [111:55]
A
It took you back to Anchorage?
- [111:57]
B
It took me back to Anchorage, yeah. All the way, yeah. And. And then stayed there, you know, for about nine months. My dad was fighting his case for the. For the. For the guns. She was. Was fighting the case for the. For the. For the money. But, you know, she. In her mind, they were offering her probation because she gave me up, right? Yeah. They gave my dad 5 years for felon in possession. Right. And my dad got more time than me, Right. I ended up getting 36 months for it. She ended up getting six years.
- [112:32]
A
And they never found your dad's underground semi truck?
- [112:35]
B
Never found none of that stuff. But what's wild is. Is that when my. I tried to see my dad in Seattle, and Seatac is. It's the federal holdover, and they wouldn't let me. And I didn't understand why. Right. At least let me have a visit, you know, and come to find out. His. His. His wife, Denise, the dark woman, she was trying to take it to trial. She was trying to say that she didn't do nothing with the money. Wow. It was wild. She completely went. And then she started saying that she was mentally ill and all kinds of stuff. The judge didn't buy it. Gave her six years. Six. She was only gonna get probation, but she decided, offered her probation. Yeah. A year's probation.
- [113:22]
A
Wow.
- [113:23]
B
And she. On her sentencing day, where she was to plead not guilty, and the judge asked her, are you not guilty? Did anyone coerce you into saying you're guilty? You know all that, right?
- [113:32]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [113:33]
B
She said, oh, your honor, I'm not guilty. And everyone in the courtroom's like, what? That we're here for a plea. And the judge said, are you sure that you're. We're here for your plea agreement. You've agreed to plead guilty to this. Oh, your honor, I'm not guilty. I didn't do this. And so then they sent her to eval. She. They were found competent. Came back, just says, you know, you were going to get this, but now I'm giving you six years.
- [114:02]
A
Ugh.
- [114:03]
B
She's like, you know, 60 years old. Right. My dad got five. I got less than everyone. It was wild. I Don't know how I walked out of it like that. Right. I get to Waseca. I do my time. They start letting me and my dad write, and he. On the day I. I was released, the very day he was in Sheridan, Oregon, I was in the halfway house in Chicago for my release date. And, you know, I'm all excited, packing, my man. I'm going home. I'm gonna be free. You know, there's a certain feeling you get when you get freedom back.
- [114:42]
A
Yeah.
- [114:42]
B
Yeah. It's just. It's hard to explain, man, but when you've been confined and in prison and when you. When you get that freedom back, it's just a. One of the greatest feelings ever, you know, Right up there with sex. Right. You know, maybe even better. What? Oh, it's a feeling. It's something going on in the brain, you know, because you've been locked. Right? Yeah. So I'm getting, you know, getting all excited. I'm going home. I get out. My sister calls me. She's crying. Like, why are you crying, man? I'm home. I'm free. She says, no, you don't get it. I said, what do you mean? What. What don't I get? She said, I just got a call from prison. Sheridan. Dad died this morning of a heart attack. I said, what? Yeah, he's dead, all right. I'm sorry. He's gone. And, I mean, it was. It was like, this is. Can't. I almost started to believe, man, that, like, reality wasn't real.
- [115:40]
A
No. Yeah.
- [115:41]
B
It was off an illusion. And somehow, somewhere, man, there's some sort of intellectual consciousness that's shifting things to. To create drama.
- [115:54]
A
He died the day you got out?
- [115:56]
B
Yeah. Yeah, the day I got out. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. He died the day I got out.
- [116:04]
A
How did that make you feel?
- [116:06]
B
I mean, I was. I was. I didn't get to close. I didn't. I didn't have no closure. The last time I seen him, I was pissed off at him because he took me to some Hell's angel party, you know, I didn't even get to. Yeah. You know, and then she got out and died immediately.
- [116:22]
A
His wife.
- [116:23]
B
Yeah. Like, literally. I mean, think about that type of karma. The creation makes you do your whole six years and then pops you off, you know? I mean, like, whoa, Lord. Right. So, you know, those. Those are the types of things that happen in life that you just. Just make you really, like. Like wonder about it. Right? Like, the. The intricacies of it.
- [116:47]
A
Yeah.
- [116:48]
B
No, like, where you end up, how you end up, how things Seem scripted, right? It does seem scripted. That's what I was saying, you know, at times it seems scripted to me, you know, And I've tried to. I've tried to, because I'm an intellectual man. So I try to understand how. What is this fabric of reality, man? It's all light, really, when you think about it. It. Everything is made of atoms that are made of light, that nothing is real. Nothing is. It's all light. It's all. It's just a big. Just holographic universe. It was a great book. I don't know if you ever read it, but yeah, it's a great book. It's about string theory. And I'm really into a lot. I've read like 5, 000 books, no exaggeration. Probably read a hundred thousand magazines. I was into Wired as. I mean, I. In prison, that's all you can do, really, is reading. Right. And so I had every, Every magazine subscription you could have, from Popular Mechanics to Popular Science to Wired. Like, I'm into. I'm really into it, you know, like understanding, just everything. Energy, man, you know? Yeah. And so. But, yeah, he died, man. You know, and so after that, I ended up getting my son. My, my. He was 13 at the time, and, you know, me and him were trying to bond and it just got, you know, he. Me and him ended up in prison together, father and son. Yeah. So he.
- [118:10]
A
He was trying to break that chain.
- [118:12]
B
It is now. He's doing great. He's. He's just bought his first house, you know. So, you know, when. When I got out, he, He. He was. His mom was a Chicago police officer. So here I'm in the halfway house getting out for counterfeit, and he thinks I'm the coolest dad in the world. Come to find out, he's printing 20 bills at his mom's house on her little printer. His mom's screaming at me, you gotta take care of this boy. I can't handle it no more. He's printing money in my house. There's no way. Art. I'm a Chicago police officer. I'm like, okay, okay, okay, I'll take him when I get out of here. And I took him and. And we had some rough moments, I'll tell you. He was a rough little street Hooga man, you know, and we actually bonded through his music. So come to find out, he loved to be. He loved rap, you know, music, and he knew how to make beats and all that stuff. And I knew some pretty heavy people in the music, you know? You ever Hear disturbed Fallout Boys. So. So Johnny Cade, their. Their producers, it was a friend of mine. He had groove sounds. It was a studio up in Chicago, and so I asked him if I could bring my son in there. So me and my son started bonding, you know, through the music and. But it was pricey. It was getting expensive, you know, I was working out at the marina, you know, doing crazy out there, you know, and. And I ended up getting. I came back to the money, you know, but this time I wanted to break the euro, right? So I. I had some of the old money buried. So I had tried to work, right? I worked at this marina. It was like river rats, the tugboats that pushed oil up and down the canal and. But it didn't pay nothing, right? Didn't pay none. I couldn't support myself off it, you know, So I started dealing a little blow out there and then. And then I had to stop that. Almost got in trouble for that one, you know. And then I went back to the money. I mean, the thing about money, one of the hardest things. And they say counterfeiting is harder to quit than heroin, right? There's. You can even look that up. It does. It says it.
- [120:14]
A
Well, it's like you found a. A cheat in the system, right? Like you found a. You found a way underneath the map, right? Yeah. A way to like, get out of the rigid framework of society and. And create your own little path. And your life up to that point had been wild.
- [120:37]
B
Wow.
- [120:37]
A
You'd been through so much. Like, how do you suddenly integrate into society? Waking up every morning, having it, packing your lunch, going to a nine to five.
- [120:47]
B
Yeah.
- [120:48]
A
Making your. Getting your paycheck every two weeks and.
- [120:50]
B
Yeah, that's why I'm an artist now. I couldn't do it. I tried it, man, but I couldn't print no more. Our saved me, man. Really. Art saved me, dude. Art's so amazing.
- [121:02]
A
Not to, by the way, not to like disparage that kind of work.
- [121:04]
B
Work, like, that's.
- [121:05]
A
That's great. I'm not talking. I'm just saying, like, coming from what your life was to that point, it had to have been driving you crazy.
- [121:13]
B
Yeah, yeah. Did you know the work? But, yeah. And that's. And for me, it was like, even when I got on it in this one. So I ended up with my son. I tried to get him into his music. And it was expensive back then. It wasn't like you had studios you do these days, right? You had to go into the studios. And it was big money for engineers and this, that, right? So here I am trying to pay for this off making no money. And that's how I got back into making money. I had some money buried. I went and pulled it up. Dreaming of buying your first car or a new home? Knowing your FICO score is the first step in making it real. With MyFico, you can check your score for free and it won't hurt your credit. You'll get your FICO score, full credit reports and real time alerts all in one simple app. Your credit score is more than just numbers. It's the key to building the future you've been working towards. Visit myfico.com free or download the MyFico app and take the mystery out of your FICO score. On the Dani Jones podcast. There is always a search for new ideas and ways to get smarter. That same curiosity is at the heart of the Goddard school. At Goddard, learning is not one size fits all. Every child gets to explore at their own pace, guided by teachers who help them grow confident and independent. The focus is on the whole child, supporting social and emotional growth along with early academics. Parents trust Goddard for its safe, caring environment and experienced teachers. Kids are encouraged to ask questions, try new things and discover what makes them unique. If you want your child to feel known, celebrated and ready for the world, Goddard is here to help. Visit goddardschool.com to explore programs near you. Try to sell it to some of my, my Russian friends. So it would go overseas, so it wouldn't even be in America, Right. It was just, it wasn't a much like.
- [123:03]
A
Yeah, I was, I was thinking about that. I was like, why not just like travel to another country and go to the currency exchange thing?
- [123:11]
B
Well, I wasn't into traveling to another country, but I had other people that would take it, right?
- [123:15]
A
And they go, could you, could you get through the currency exchange?
- [123:18]
B
I don't know how that, you know, I think at that time there was still a big underground cash like banking system in Europe, right? So when I, I used to sell quite a bit of money to some guys that were European and they still, there was used cash, you know, especially the underworld did, right? But there was still like this weird like underground river economy going on in Europe, right? Because everything was so taxed, so hard, right?
- [123:46]
A
Yeah.
- [123:47]
B
So, so they, they found a way to, to move cash. Now it's really bad. You spent 500. It's a felony. Right? Like the Europeans are like, they're completely.
- [123:55]
A
If you do what?
- [123:56]
B
Oh, they, they're making it against the law to buy stuff with Cash anymore in Europe.
- [124:01]
A
Are they?
- [124:02]
B
Yes. Yeah, I can look it up, man.
- [124:04]
A
It's against the law to buy a certain amount.
- [124:06]
B
Yeah.
- [124:07]
A
To spend a certain amount.
- [124:08]
B
Yeah, they will. Yeah. It's. It's bad. It's almost kind of like civil forfeiture here.
- [124:12]
A
So how would it be against like if the. So it's against the law to, to, to try to do it well or to like it let people buy stuff.
- [124:20]
B
From you if you buy something. If you.
- [124:23]
A
Europe is implementing limits on large cash payments.
- [124:28]
B
€500 limit. Look at that. It's insane.
- [124:31]
A
So okay. With a EU wide €10,000 cap for business transactions starting in 2027.
- [124:38]
B
Yeah.
- [124:39]
A
Part of anti money laundering efforts. But this doesn't ban all cash and individual countries have stricter rules like belgium is a $3,000. Greece is a $5,500 limit.
- [124:52]
B
Yeah. It's insane. And this, this is going to get worse. What people don't understand about is it.
- [124:56]
A
Really to fight crime.
- [124:58]
B
No, it's to control and to watch people, man. Listen, what's the show more what's happening right now with the cash with this whole digital currency. It's probably one of the most scariest thing people are scared of AI it's terrifying. You know what I'm scared of? I'm scared. Scared of Denmark is 20,000.
- [125:14]
A
Oh yeah, totally. Because becomes a digital police state.
- [125:17]
B
Digital police state. You had. Listen, this would be the first time in human history that for barter, you know, bar everything comes to barter. He.
- [125:24]
A
He's a huge fan of Steve is a major proponent and fan of robot police.
- [125:30]
B
Robot police.
- [125:31]
A
He thinks robot police are just going to make the world better.
- [125:33]
B
I mean it'll probably make less mistakes.
- [125:35]
A
Yeah.
- [125:35]
B
But whoever's controlling the robot controls the people.
- [125:38]
A
Yeah. And I always argue with him about it. And then the other day the ICE guy shot and killed that shot like girl in the face twice.
- [125:44]
B
Well here's the problem.
- [125:45]
A
He's like robot police wouldn't have done that.
- [125:46]
B
Well unless their leader said to do it if it's right. Trump saying robot killer. See this is a problem with people understand with, with what. Where, where humanity is going to really take a really just off the cliff with this whole AI and robotics. What I think is going to be is that. That we're so short sighted thinking. Right. And from, from my experience from being in the feds and being in prison and going through court systems in this there's, there's people that truly don't care about you that don't even look at you. Like a human. There really is. There is an elite world. I was around them. Right. Where they think 99 of the world are stupid.
- [126:28]
A
Like, who. What type of people?
- [126:29]
B
I just. Just people that have, say over 100 million. Okay. Let's say that. Okay. I've been around people who really look at society like they're like lambs, sheep slaves. Right. We think that we've evolved quite a bit from the slave days and from the. Look at Rome, the Romans were doing slavery. Right. Slavery's existed forever. Just a different face.
- [126:57]
A
Yeah.
- [126:57]
B
Okay. It's a part of the human, like, almost like characteristic where people feel they need to have power over other people. This has been going on for thousands of years. It's not today or.
- [127:10]
A
Yep.
- [127:10]
B
What.
- [127:10]
A
Since the beginning.
- [127:11]
B
And so to think that it's going to change because there's a better technology. Right. I'll give you an example. Right now, a cop could pull up behind you and their car will automatically run your plate. Technically, that's against the Constitution. Okay.
- [127:29]
A
Is that true?
- [127:29]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [127:30]
A
The cop cars behind you automatically run.
- [127:32]
B
Your plate on your plate. Automatically. There's a system in it. Yeah. They could pull it up and. And so they used to have to manually do it if they saw you do something wrong. Right. Now the system and it could pull up plates, man. And they even have like, alerts from cameras that are on the highway. Right. One of my friends just got in trouble in Nebraska. Sadly, it was a guy I was locked up with, seemed to be doing Seth Ferrani. You got his book.
- [127:59]
A
Oh, Seth Ferrani.
- [128:00]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [128:01]
A
He was on the podcast. On this podcast years ago.
- [128:03]
B
Yeah. Well, he's got locked up for running weed across Nebraska. And they got him because as he was driving a highway, camera picked up his plate, informed the system that there was a felon driving across the country, former drug guy. And they came and got him. Kind of like how they grabbed Maduro. So. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So the. And this is stuff people don't understand. So. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm cool with, you know, a robot cop. Right. But what. I'm not cool with who's programming it and who's running it and who. Because.
- [128:38]
A
Because so far, human nature does not change.
- [128:41]
B
So far, humans have not shown that they are adult to be adults.
- [128:47]
A
Right, right.
- [128:48]
B
Like kids.
- [128:48]
A
Y.
- [128:49]
B
You know, and so to give someone this type of power will completely. There will be no revolutions. There will be no over. If, if, if, if it gets to. I mean, look at right now, Europe is losing their speech, they're losing their money. Yeah. And they can't do nothing. And that's without robots. Imagine with them, they're.
- [129:08]
A
They're getting arrested for post. Just making Facebook.
- [129:11]
B
Making Facebook page. It's just in veterans. Yeah. See that?
- [129:14]
A
Some girl got arrested for. For praying outside of an abortion clinic.
- [129:17]
B
Abortion clinic. Yeah. And she didn't even pray loud. It was a thought.
- [129:20]
A
Thought she was just sitting there. She wasn't even talking.
- [129:22]
B
Right. Thought crime was right. So to give. We haven't. I don't, I don't feel like humans have earned the right to have that sort of technology to rule the world. No. Because we're all screwed up. You got Iran fighting. You got Russia fighting Ukraine. Everyone's fighting Nigeria. So you want to give these leaders. You think they're smart enough, these cats that have robbed us of 38 trillion. I mean, I, I see protests right now because they shot the chick. Right. Which is terrible.
- [129:49]
A
Yeah.
- [129:49]
B
Right. But what about robbing the country for 38 trillion? Right? 38 trillion. Man. We should have bullet plane, bullet trains across this country. We should have insane. This country. If, if, if our politicians and government would have really focused on strengthening and empowering the people instead of themselves, this country would be so insanely awesome. You wouldn't have people sleeping at the beach in Fort Lauderdale. I took my kids the other day. It broke my heart. Right. It's, it's that. It's greed and power, man have corrupted, you know, and, and, and, and, and there's almost. I don't. That maybe, maybe he's right. That's the only way it'll be fixed. That AI becomes so powerful. Super intelligence AGI, when it transfers and.
- [130:41]
A
Then it says overrides human.
- [130:42]
B
It overrides human behavior that keeps killing us.
- [130:47]
A
Well, then that becomes our God.
- [130:49]
B
And that becomes our God. Exactly. But, but can we do it? Can we. Can we become.
- [130:54]
A
Let, Let the machines take the wheel.
- [130:57]
B
I, I would hate not to. I don't want to. Right. I want to believe in humanity that we can. Right. We can actually figure this out. Right.
- [131:05]
A
What you said about revolutions is true too. Like that's.
- [131:08]
B
Yeah, that's.
- [131:08]
A
You know, there's a famous Thomas Jefferson quote about revolutions. I, I don't know what it was verbatim, but he said something like every 150 to 200 years it has to be. There has to be a violent revolution and you need to spill the blood.
- [131:23]
B
Yeah.
- [131:24]
A
Of the politicians on the tree of liberty or something. Something along those lines.
- [131:28]
B
Well, the, the thing is, is. Because what happens is like it's what's that. What's that quote where it's like, strong men create.
- [131:37]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times, and then bad times, bad times create strong men.
- [131:47]
B
Yeah.
- [131:48]
A
Right.
- [131:48]
B
And that's kind of like what we've been in. And. And we've probably. I mean, we've. We've probably had 3, 4, 5 civilizations fall because of this. Right. Yeah. Like, humans have been on this planet for a minute. Right. There's probably other beings in the ocean that we don't know about. I mean, everyone's thinking about the timeline.
- [132:04]
A
Keeps going back farther and farther and farther.
- [132:06]
B
Yeah. Everything. So, you know, but we really got off, didn't we start getting off in some.
- [132:12]
A
What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of the patriots and tyrants. Yeah. Spill the blood of the tyrants on the tree of liberty.
- [132:24]
B
Yeah. So, you know, I mean. But yeah, no, this is a really interesting.
- [132:30]
A
Those guys. Those guys were on to something. The Founding Fathers, they. It's amazing that they were able to be able to predict the future the way they did.
- [132:45]
B
Right.
- [132:46]
A
Like, they really had some deep ancient knowledge, like, to be able to come up with that constitution.
- [132:51]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [132:51]
A
Even.
- [132:52]
B
Even the pentagon in Washington, D.C. how.
- [132:54]
A
It'S like they predicted all the things that could go wrong.
- [132:56]
B
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they're going wrong. Right.
- [132:59]
A
Yeah.
- [133:00]
B
You know, and, you know, I mean, hopefully that. Hopefully, Right. Right now that, for me, it, like, it's what saddens me the most because I really love this country. I've traveled every road, spending money anyway. Like, I've been on every road in this country, damn near. I can really say that I would hit every town, everything, drive everywhere, and I felt. I fell in love with this country. It's beautiful. I mean, there's waterfalls, there's cliffs, there's mountains or skiing, there's animals. I mean, it's so beautiful. And the people are beautiful. Right. But what I also saw through my time, because even now I drive because I don't fly. Right. I'm watching if it just crumbles right when you. When I'm driving and sometimes I'll get off on the back. You're seeing these towns that probably looked really awesome one day, and they're ghost towns and they're. And everything's boarded up and everything's decrepit and everything's rusted, and it's like, wow, man, this shouldn't be like this. Yeah. We're supposed to be, you know, America. Right. But what's happened is we're 38 trillion robbed. That's what I call it. We've been robbed. American people have been been hijacked and you know, you got the Nancy Pelosi's who make a hundred million. Yeah. Going to Congress, like, how is that not corrupt? You, you make what, 200000 a year? But you crazy. And, and listen, you know, I mean I, I usually try to stay away from the whole politics stuff, you know, but it's, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking.
- [134:31]
A
You know, I just had a friend on the podcast a couple weeks ago and he was explaining how he just got back from. You want another one?
- [134:36]
B
Yeah, could I see.
- [134:37]
A
You want to grab another white rabbit? Oh yeah, he's getting fired up. I just had a buddy who went to Japan and he bought a apartment in Japan. Oh no, he's, he's cracking one and he was explaining to me like how amazing and clean and safe Japan is. Yeah, he's like the, the, the floors in the subways are so clean you can eat off of them. He's like, and it's safe enough to send, you could send your 5 year old on the subway across town and not blink an eye. Everything's so safe. Yeah, it was like, it's just like an amazing, thriving, clean, efficient society there. And that's the country we dropped two atom bombs on.
- [135:15]
B
Yeah, think about that.
- [135:16]
A
And now look at what we're at.
- [135:18]
B
I mean, even when I think back that I, you know how I grew up, right? In Chicago, right? Like literally, I had, you know, my crazy. One of my friends, Sean. Well, first one of our, our, my brother's friend, his name was Brian, he gets killed, gets shot in the face in the alley by his house, right? Car pulls up, some gang bangers jump out, they pretend to be disciples. Hey, what's up folks? Hey, da da, right? Throwing up the forks. And he thinks they're part of his gang, right? So, Brian. Hey, what's up? Oh, he goes to shake their hand, they pull out a gun, they shoot him in the face. He's dead. 19 years old, right? Go to the funeral, right. My friend Sean, good brother, good brother man. He speaks, he speaks at the funeral now. He, he's actually been getting out of the, he's got a kid. He, he don't come around too much anymore. Yeah, you know, he's going on the family thing. He got him a little job. He comes to the funeral. To speak about. Hey, man, we got to give this up, man. This ain't worth our. Our young brothers dying, right? He's given this whole thing.
- [136:27]
A
Yeah.
- [136:29]
B
After the funeral, he goes to the dunkin donuts on 31st in Halstead, gets into it with a couple cats, right? Actually, it was a couple brothers. They were having a hard time with the. With the. With. With the cash register, you know, they were giving her a problem. He kind of like, hey, man, calm down, man. You know, you ain't got to get crazy with her. They got a little uptight about it. He just took his stuff, turned around, walked out. They shot him in the back. Killed him in front of his. His. His baby and his mom. Baby's mom. Jesus Christ. Right? So when you. When you have those types of things happen in. In. In. In. In a. In a place, in a country, in a city and whatever you have to question, man, what is going on? What is. What is going on? To where this is such a common thing that people don't even care anymore.
- [137:16]
A
Right?
- [137:16]
B
That's the real sadness about it all. Yeah, right? You. You'll protest for something, but not for another, right? There's a lot of things that we could probably come up with, say, hey, we need to change. You know, how about change this department that's been selling us drugs for all these years, right? Or how about this? But it doesn't happen, right? And then. Then there's no accountability. That's. Even though that's even more concerning, that these cats can do things with no accountability. There's no. There's no one to stop them. And, I mean, they'll stop me quick, right? You do something that's not in accordance with what is in the law, you're going to prison. I was in prison with guys that had 20, 30, 40 years for crack. Okay? Like, I mean, you're, like, really? 30 years, man. Yeah, right? And even when I would see them, like, go after political opponents about, like, Trump, right? Lock them up for life, really. Even if you don't like the guy, why do you want to take someone's life like that? Whether you do or not, you know, it's just like, people are becoming so aggressive in this tribalism that, man, I. It really concerns me that it really will split this country in half. You know, there was an old book that I read, a Russian philosopher, man, it was really old book, and I read it, like, probably 30 years ago, and he had predicted the splitting of the United States. That is political. Yeah, man, I wish I could. If I remember the book. I'll send it to you. Man, you'd think you'd really dig it. Was a Russian philosopher. Probably get to Google it. But he. He was talking about how. How the politics of the country would rip it apart. Tribalism would. Yeah, right. And now you're really seeing it on the highest level. Yeah, right. Yeah.
- [139:06]
A
You can see it fester the most with things like the shooting, the ice shooting or whatever, where there's.
- [139:13]
B
Where it's. That might be him. Yeah.
- [139:16]
A
This guy's. This guy's pretty modern, though, is he? This guy's.
- [139:19]
B
Well, I read that book when I was.
- [139:21]
A
This guy was born in 58. Is this guy. How old. Was this Russian philosopher? So apparently, like.
- [139:27]
B
Like, with.
- [139:28]
A
Like, with political things like the shooting that just happened. I've noticed you can't ask anybody their opinion on it because it just comes with political baggage.
- [139:36]
B
Yeah, right.
- [139:37]
A
Just like their opinion on it is directly correlated with whether they're left or right.
- [139:41]
B
Left or right.
- [139:42]
A
Right.
- [139:42]
B
Rather than just saying, damn.
- [139:43]
A
There's no. There's no. You can't look at that in a vacuum and assess it.
- [139:47]
B
What's even more, like, fascinating to me is, like, how people can see it so differently. The same video. Exactly. Right. Oh, he. He had the right to shoot her in this side. No, he did it right. Right. They're seeing it like he could have got out of the way. Yeah.
- [140:05]
A
It's either you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. Stupid shouldn't have been there, whatever. Like. Yes, that's true.
- [140:12]
B
Yeah.
- [140:12]
A
Also, is it possible that that dude just wasn't trained enough? And that dude was. Did the. He. He shouldn't have done that. And a guy. A Delta. A Delta SEAL team dude. Or. Or a. A Navy guy wouldn't. The. The guys who kidnapped Maduro.
- [140:29]
B
Yeah.
- [140:29]
A
If they were there.
- [140:30]
B
Yeah.
- [140:31]
A
That wouldn't have happened.
- [140:32]
B
They would have just hit her with the frequency and snatched her out.
- [140:35]
A
My point was, like, they're. They're more trained. Trained for that kind of situation. They would not be fearing for their lives if some lesbian poet was, like, pulling her Subaru around the corner.
- [140:44]
B
Well, even the fact they said he got dragged and got 30 stitches. So like, a few months ago, I guess he got dragged by a car. Well, right. It. I know I got shot. Right. So, like, guns freak me out. I hate guns. I don't like them around me. I don't have nothing on in my house. I don't. If someone has one, I want to. I don't. I don't want to be near it. It. You know, I just have a real bad thing with it. So this guy gets dragged. Right. Which had to be pretty traumatic.
- [141:10]
A
Yeah.
- [141:10]
B
Right. And you're gonna let him go right back out there knowing that they're using cars to. Again, common sense. He probably shouldn't be there. Right. He just got dragged. If he even gets an inkling that he might be hit, he's gonna respond in a very negative way. Right, right. Like that. That's just kind of common sense to me, man.
- [141:31]
A
Yeah. You know, and there's these videos of. Of these dudes just straight up arresting American citizens for not having their papers.
- [141:39]
B
Yeah.
- [141:40]
A
Like, I saw a video this morning of a guy like, he. I think he was a Mexican dude. He was a legal registered American citizen, and they were stripping him of all of his stuff. Like, oh, he's got a gun on him. He's like, yeah, it's a registered firearm because I'm an American citizen. You. And they were like ripping all of his stuff off. They threw him in handcuffed, threw him in the back of the car. Like, it's like we. What is this? Like, it's like the Gestapo Jack booted thugs pulling up on people, like, asking you for your papers.
- [142:05]
B
Yeah. I got to see it in Chicago. It freaked me out. I was coming down, going to my gallery and. And the ICE jumped off. It was near a construction site, and they jumped out everywhere and just started chasing them. And I was like, wow, man, this is. This is scary because they're all. They're all like SWAT teamed out and. Yeah. And you're like, okay, here's the thing is. And this is why I even tell people that. Condone that. Right. They say, this is good, right? Yeah. When. Yeah.
- [142:31]
A
America.
- [142:32]
B
Yeah. But here's. Here's what they don't realize.
- [142:34]
A
Yeah.
- [142:34]
B
America has the ability to teeter totter all the time, man. Right.
- [142:38]
A
Yeah.
- [142:38]
B
So who you think? Like, I remember when Biden was in there and there were some things that, that the feds got a little aggressive on. On some things. Like. Well, for take example, January 6th, they arrested 1300 people. Right? Exactly. And this side said, oh, that's terrible. Police state. And they were sending Fed FBI SWAT teams in there to grab them people and stuff. Like, it wasn't something. I. I watched a video of this old couple from Alaska who said they were just there walking through, you know, but the Feds came up there, seen them on the camera. Right. What happens now? Now it switches, right. The government switched and now they're using their. Yes. What Is important to them.
- [143:19]
A
Yes.
- [143:19]
B
And that's where it comes back to the robots. Who's ever in control.
- [143:22]
A
Who's ever in control of the robots.
- [143:24]
B
And we can pretty much be guaranteed it ain't always going to be the same person. Right, right. That's the problem.
- [143:30]
A
That is the problem.
- [143:31]
B
That's the problem. So how. How do we fix that? You know? But, you know, anyway, like, want to go back to the money?
- [143:38]
A
Well, I wanted to ask, like.
- [143:40]
B
Yeah.
- [143:41]
A
You come from the worst. One of the worst places, inner cities in this country.
- [143:47]
B
Yeah.
- [143:47]
A
Probably the worst.
- [143:48]
B
Right. Maybe one shy rack. Yeah. South side.
- [143:51]
A
How do you fix that? How do you fix that problem as a country, in your opinion?
- [143:59]
B
I mean. Wow, that's deep. Right. You know, and. But how, for me, when I look back, what. What would have helped me. Right. What's helped me now is I told you I have great people around me. Right. I have some of the best mentors right now. Yeah. Okay. Which I was lacking my whole life. Right. I got people now that if I'm getting into a situation that I don't understand, I can go to them and I trust them and they give me feedback that I take in. Right. So it's a. So. So I'm. I'm. I'm reaching out, and then I'm taking in. Right. And then I'm responding. Right. I'm responding from what they're telling me. Okay, that makes sense. Rather than just listening. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then go keep doing what I'm doing. For. For the neighborhoods, I think you have to keep the kids active, right? You have to give them something to do. There was nothing for us to do in our neighborhood. I mean, we had basketball rims, we had public playgrounds, right? But there was nothing for them. There was even. Even work. Right? Like, where. Where. Where did these kids, like, say. Say Inglewood. So I lived on 31st street in Halstead, but if you go a little further down, it's called Inglewood. You can look up Inglewood, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the cup, maybe the world. Okay. Inglewood, it's from. It's from, like, 55th to, like, 79th. It's a war zone, a dead trap, you know, it's just terrible. I would go over there. I had a couple brothers, man, that I would go over there to visit, man, right? And there was no hope right there. There was nothing for them to. To hope for. There was no industry there for them to get a job, Right. There was no programs to help them find a way to get out of this. I mean, there was no education, right? For me, I think the biggest thing to, to really help the impoverished is to educate them, right? Like, like educate them on finances, educate them on, you know, social skills, right? There's no, there's no education to teach the people on how to be better, right? And then, and then what happens? You're around the same people, right? So when I first got out of prison on this, the first two years I was doing crazy jobs. I was doing, I did delivering liquor, I transported cars, I even cleaned toilet bowls for like nine months. I was a janitor, right? Here I am the greatest counter forever and I'm cleaning toilet bowls, man, you know, saying like, but I loved it. I was getting a paycheck, you know, But I almost gave up. I almost gave up. I almost went back to printing. I ended up waiting, borrowing some money from some gangsters and tried to do a whole new print shop and it all turned out sour and thank God it didn't work and I walked away and I ended up becoming an artist, right? But up until that point, that first two years that I was out, I couldn't take care of myself. The biggest problem I think that, that people deal with in poverty is even if you're working, you're not making enough to live. I made 1250 an hour. I'm a 40 year old man, right? How am I going to live off 1250 an hour? You don't. I had to get a roommate, right? I was riding a bike for like nine months a year, just a regular bike. I even invented a, a, a bike umbrella because I was getting rained on all the time. And I had to figure out how to stop that. But you have to give people a belief that they can actually take care of themselves, right?
- [147:28]
A
Yeah.
- [147:29]
B
And a lot of people in, in the poor neighborhoods, they don't believe, they don't, they don't believe that. They don't believe that there's a way that they can get out of it, right? Like, I still go back to my neighborhood, right? Still go back all, you know, I got family friend, I still go there, right? And there's still generational poverty. I go back by the projects and, and there's a guy that I grew up with who now his kids are living in there and now they're having kids, right? So how do you stop that? Right? How do you stop that part? Right? The generational poverty, right? But it's, I almost feel like it's designed that way because the rich design it to keep it, you know? When I, when I tell you I've been around a lot of the elitist world, you know, they have family offices that plan their wealth. They got 20 year, 50 year, 100 year plans. When the first time I heard that they were doing a 50 year plan, one of my friends was going through his family office and they were trying to plan 50 years. They think ahead. How the hell you do that? Yeah. They're not thinking in 1 year, 6 months, 5. These cats are thinking of how to keep their wealth forever. Right, Right. And then they train their children on how to do it.
- [148:42]
A
Yeah.
- [148:43]
B
You know, it's all training, it's all education. So how do you take like schooling? Right. Like so, so my son, he goes to a private school, right. He could speak Latin to you right now. He's out there right now. Da Vinci. His name is Da Vinci and he is a Da Vinci. He's brilliant. He's out there right now building a. Yep. Crazy, right?
- [149:04]
A
Yeah.
- [149:05]
B
But you could go out there and he'll speak Latin to you. Why? Because that's, I'm training them, right. I'm putting them in a place to be trained. Right.
- [149:12]
A
And it's, it's environment. When you're born into a situation where crime and thuggery and gangs and violence is all you're exposed to. It's all your parents know, it's all your siblings know, it's all your friends know.
- [149:25]
B
Yeah.
- [149:25]
A
How, how can you find an exit.
- [149:28]
B
Yeah.
- [149:28]
A
To that?
- [149:28]
B
Difficult. You know, and for, for me, you know, I, I think a lot of it has to do with, with I, I, I, I, I, I was never content. So when I, when we used to walk around in the projects, I always felt like there was something more for me. Right? There was, this wasn't. I didn't want this to be my life. Right. I wanted something more. And so for me, how could I become the best at what I was doing, which was the money. Right. At some point I started doing the money and, and, and I, and, and so, so I've always had that drive to not live like that. Right. To not let my children go through what I did. Right. But that's a personal choice. So how do you program people to have a personal choice to do the right thing? I don't know. Because that's really a tough thing. And then is it even capable? Because our society is set up for like, you know, you think about it. During the early English kings, right? You had your kings, you had your country, had your dukes, you had your, your serfs, right. You had your different levels of society that did different things. You know, this Duke had this amount of land. He had 10 farmers on his land, three pig farmers. Right. And then they would bring their crop up to the. To the Duke, and then he would give his percentage to the king. This whole. This whole economics, and it really comes down to economics. How do you change the poverty? You change the system. Right, Right. You can't give to people because then they don't appreciate it. Right, right.
- [151:03]
A
And then what happens if you have to actually experience that system to be able to work your way up?
- [151:09]
B
Right.
- [151:10]
A
If you're completely excluded from that system from birth and now you're in your 20s or 30s, how are you ever going to integrate?
- [151:16]
B
You won't and you don't.
- [151:17]
A
And you also don't know anyone who's a part of that system.
- [151:20]
B
It's like, guy getting out of prison, man. I did. So I call it the 5, 10, 15, 20 year, like, glaze, right? So a guy that's been in prison for five years, something starts happening to his eyes. You ever went to a zoo and you looked at the line and his eyes just look, like, blank?
- [151:41]
A
Yeah.
- [151:42]
B
There's no right. It happens to humans, too. And it's a scary look, man. When you.
- [151:48]
A
When you Shamu at Sea World.
- [151:50]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. Shamu and SeaWorld, the fin starts drooping. Yeah. And he's drowning at trainers. Yeah. And that's how it is for guys in prison. So here you got a guy that you put in prison for 20 years because he grew up poor and didn't know any other way, and then you let him back out with nothing. Right. And the reason I even bring that up, because as I was working on my mural, it was like 2 in the morning, a guy rolled up on me. Old brother, man, on a bike, you know, rolls up, he's like, hey, man, you know, how you doing? I start talking to him, told me he just got out of prison, he did 15 years, and he don't have nobody. He don't know what he's doing. He's been living out on the streets, Right. He did his whole sentence because he didn't have nowhere to go, all right? It broke my heart, man. And I told him, I said, man. And then I told him I was. I was in jail. Jail. I walked out of jail with $20, man. $20. That's what I walked out with, you know? And. And they have nothing. My wife left me, had no money, left over for my criminal run. Right. And all I had was just, you Know what, what I was dreaming for? Well, and I wanted to be a writer. I didn't want to be a painter. I wrote a book. I wrote three screenplays. Painting was like my, my hobby, you know, but, and, and what was I going to tell him, right? What did I tell him? I said, the. The best thing you can do is, is, is get a job in any job, right? I mean, that's how I made it, right? There was a system of how I was able to make it. I always kept a job, right? I never got discouraged with how much money I was making. As long as I was making something, I was all right with it, you know, and, and even when I was even with this whole thing with the painting, you know, in the early part of it, I had to, I had to work, man. I had to go to work. I couldn't become a painter. I couldn't be a full time painter. I have, I got to eat, I got to pay bills, you know, So I think it's an intense discipline, right? To make it through, to really reach the top, you know, is you got to be able to be disciplined with your life. And, and I told him, I said, you know, unfortunately, 76 of people go back to prison. So if, you know, 10 guys there, seven of them are going back three or maybe make it, right? That's crazy. It's crazy, man. You know, I went back twice. Three times, man. I couldn't break the cycle, right? Art saved me, right? That's why I'm here. You know, I, I had told myself I would rather paint on the beach with nothing than sit in a cell with a smelly, snoring animal, right? You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm tired of it. I was tired of it. So how do you change it? You know, I think it takes a community.
- [154:41]
A
Totally.
- [154:42]
B
It takes community to change it.
- [154:43]
A
Do you think it could be fixed top down, like with money, like from government's perspective? Oh, we'll throw like billions of dollars.
- [154:49]
B
It hasn't worked yet. Right. All right. You know, I mean, they, they've tried to do welfare and food stamps and programs and stuff like it. I, I almost think that sometimes that.
- [154:58]
A
What if you gave. What if you gave like a universal basic income to all these people where they get like, I don't know, like five grand a month? Do you think it would stop crime? I think it would have any. Do you think you have any sort of dent on anything?
- [155:10]
B
I don't, I don't think so. Because I think when you give. Anytime I'VE ever given something to somebody, just give it to them. There's not that same appreciation is earned. Yeah. Right. And I think that's what's going to happen. If this whole basic universal income thing, like what is value then, right? If, if. And it's almost kind of like socialist, communist. Everybody gets the same. Yeah, right. Think about that. Right? Like yeah, that's. So, so how, how can you raise your universal basic income? Or do you got to be a good boy for a month straight to maybe get a little raise.
- [155:44]
A
Right.
- [155:44]
B
Like is everyone going to get 5,000 and then like what's the separation to me, capitalism and, and, and, and earning and fighting to get to the top. Right. That brings out the best. We stopped doing that. Right. We. We haven't really, you know, had that. I mean think about it during the like the, the rev. The when. When. When Tesla and Einstein and or like even go further back Carnegie and Henry Ford and all these guys where they were, they were building things and, and creating things and fighting to, to. To build stuff. Like you don't really see that much anymore unless it's building a data center or something like you, you don't. Or a new app or a new program. You know what concerns me is that people will turn into just couch potatoes. They'll be plugged into their little reality. Right. It'll be like ready Player one. I don't know if you ever watched that movie. Right? Yeah, that's what concerns me that the world would turn into something like that. Right.
- [156:42]
A
Which I, I'm certainly possible. There's a lot of possibilities. But it's also possible that it could give somebody, a family or an individual like the stability to not have to stress or go or spend time on a dead end job just trying to pay their rent but food table and instead focus on things they enjoy or focus on things they're there.
- [157:05]
B
That's like a utopia, right. Like it's like almost kind of like the heaven. Right. How everything's we're gonna have.
- [157:10]
A
Like maybe you don't care about living in the mansion or driving the nice car are but you want to pursue happiness and you can get. You can figure out a way to live modestly with this money and you know, maybe you want to make cotton candy and sell cotton candy or maybe you want to be a piano teacher or whatever. You can now pursue those endeavors.
- [157:31]
B
I like the concept. Right? Yeah the concept.
- [157:33]
A
There's definitely a lot of holes in it. A lot, a lot of pitfalls.
- [157:35]
B
Well. And that those are the things that you know, hopefully humans will rise to the, to the occasion.
- [157:41]
A
Yeah.
- [157:41]
B
To figure out, right? Or do we leave it to AI to figure out, right? Because that's really what everyone's doing now. I can't, I can't tell you how many people say, hey man, I could do this chat GPT photo now like you had today. We could do a jungle over here and make it right. Like now everybody is like a creator, right?
- [158:00]
A
I saw this video of this woman drawing a mural, but she was wearing the, the VR headset, the meta headset, and it's awesome. Puts the stencil on the wall.
- [158:08]
B
It's awesome. Awesome.
- [158:09]
A
That's crazy, dude.
- [158:10]
B
I want one. I do, I want one. Because you know how hard it is to hand draw what I showed you, right? Like, my brain was twisted, man. I'm like, yeah, man, it was. No, no, technology, listen, technology has its, its ways of maybe, you know, really advancing us. I just haven't had, I, I, I don't have too much faith in, in the leadership of this world right now. Right. That, that's what concerns me, right? Like, I don't. The only country that I see that even has somewhat of a, A positive is Norway. Right? You're literally born, you're worth 250, 000, right? So Norway has this crazy fund for their citizens. You should look it up. It's really. Yeah. So how we're born into debt.
- [158:52]
A
I actually heard some crazy about Norway the other day. I don't remember.
- [158:55]
B
Norway is an interesting country. How they got wealthy from the oil and the gay. I mean, it's, it's wild. But what they did do, which I thought thought was amazing, is they created a citizen fund. Right? And so like, you know, when, when, when, when our, when we're born, we're like, I forgot what it was, but it's thousands in debt. You're technically as soon as you're born because our 38 trillion debt, you're, you're born into debt. It's far out. But Norway, they created this, this, this citizen fund to where when these kids are born, they're, they're already born into wealth. Wealth, not wealth, but they're born into like where they, they, they have a citizen fund right now. I don't know how they access it or even if they can. Right?
- [159:40]
A
Norwegian sovereign wealth fund.
- [159:41]
B
There you go. Two trillion. It's, it's insane. The users figured 250,000.
- [159:49]
A
Okay? So they don't receive a direct personal payout, but instead they are indirect beneficiaries of the World's largest sovereign wealth fund which benefits the nation as a whole through public services and long term financial stability. The key factors about the wealth fund is its value, its purpose, which is to fund and invest state oil and gas revenues abroad, safeguarding the economy. And the government is permitted to spend only the investment income from the fund. The general rule not exceeding approximately 3%. No direct payouts.
- [160:21]
B
Whether you're. It says which is the fund is valued over 2 trillion which is roughly equivalent to 340,000 for every citizen. So my point.
- [160:31]
A
So how do they benefit from it?
- [160:33]
B
Just. Well that's the question now I'm asking because I didn't know that part. But my point being is this should be us, this should be America. You know, like they're talking about they're taking all that oil from Venezuela. What, what am I going to get a 10 cent lower my gas while this company over here is going to get rich.
- [160:52]
A
So it says that, it says that the spending covers 20% of the government's budget. 20 annually. And funding public services such as education, healthcare, infrastructure and the national welfare system. Interesting.
- [161:07]
B
And, and so I was just actually talking to someone who was from, from, from Norway and, and she was explaining to me that they have, have like their education system is out of this world.
- [161:18]
A
Yeah.
- [161:18]
B
Right. Their, their health care, their, their, the infrastructure is beautiful. So maybe that's how whatever they're doing, if you go to Norway, crime. They didn't. I don't, I don't believe they let in a lot of, a lot of immigrants. Right. They were, A lot of Europe was taken in a lot of these.
- [161:34]
A
Right.
- [161:34]
B
And really just messed up the whole, you know, the whole. Yeah, I don't even. That's a whole nother.
- [161:40]
A
A lot of those countries they're, the infrastructure is amazing. Like the gas stations are beautiful, like modern, clean, great food, healthy food. They're incentivized to like not put dog on the shelves because they have subsidized.
- [161:55]
B
Well, you're up a semi socialist. You know, it's semi, like I'm not semi socialist. Yeah but they do take care of their, their stuff, right? Yeah. You know, I mean that's what needs to happen here.
- [162:07]
A
Right.
- [162:08]
B
Instead of 20 billion fraud, you know, we put 20 billion.
- [162:12]
A
Yeah, we got missing, missing trillions of dollars depending on how it passed an audit. Decades.
- [162:17]
B
Where's that money? Right. Like that's what I'm saying. This country, when I see stuff like that, when you ask how can we change the country, you know. Well, I think it would have to Stop. Start from the top. The top would have to care. They would literally really have to care. Right. They were like, okay, listen man, we're, you know, instead of just locking people away for 20, 30, 40 years for petty. Let's try to find.
- [162:41]
A
Also the prison systems overseas are a lot different.
- [162:44]
B
Oh, yeah? Yeah. I mean, some of them there.
- [162:47]
A
It's like I had a dude, we had a dude on here who went to prison in Spain.
- [162:51]
B
Yeah.
- [162:51]
A
And it was beautiful. He was like, it was amazing. He was like, you get to be outside all the time as much as you want. You get to wear your own clothes. You get to have. Your wife can come over and, you know, you guys can have like, you know, your private time.
- [163:04]
B
Yeah, I've heard of amazing prisons over there. Because they want you to still be human. Yeah, right. You know, when you go into these prisons, I mean, you're a number of cattle. 203084 and the dudes who are running the prisons.
- [163:17]
A
The, the, from what I've heard is like the, the. The. What are the officers called in prisons?
- [163:24]
B
So you got the CO, the CEOs, all those guys.
- [163:27]
A
Those guys hate the hate working there.
- [163:28]
B
Oh, hate it. Yeah, they hate it. And then they take it out on you. Again, another human element of just being miserable. Right. You know, so, yeah, I mean, prison for me, like, I had seen some really rough. You know, I, I was fortunate because I, I grew up the way I did. So when I went to prison, I wasn't walking around all fearful. But it was terrible, man, the way that, that white people got. Got treated, you know, like that.
- [163:56]
A
That segregation is hardcore in prison from.
- [163:58]
B
Whatever super hardcore I did.
- [164:00]
A
The whites, Mexicans, blacks, they all.
- [164:02]
B
Oh, yeah, well, the rate, the rate the segregation is, is like, it's. Well, I'll tell you, I got into it with, with a few people because of it, you know, one, I didn't want to join the Aryan Nation.
- [164:14]
A
Yeah, they want you to be a skinhead.
- [164:16]
B
I didn't want to do that. And, and that turned into something you.
- [164:20]
A
Got to, to be like, protected by a certain group of people. You got to join their club.
- [164:24]
B
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, like in state prisons, it's real, it's real heavy like that. And the feds, it's a little bit different. You got coalitions. Like the Chicago coalition was. If you were from Chicago, you were together, then you got Houston, you got, you know, so. Right. You have these different coalitions. And. But the, the race thing is bad. And I, I've seen, you know, unfortunately, I Did some time in Edinburgh, Texas State joint. It was at the very tip of Texas. And they sent me down there because there was a riot and they needed white people, right? And so I get down there, and it's like a 1200 mile, 1200 man compound, right? And there were like a hundred white dudes, you know, 700 Mexicans and the rest brothers.
- [165:16]
A
Wow.
- [165:17]
B
Right. Well, I could tell you this much. There was all out of. Out of. Out of that 100 white dudes, there were only like 10 that stood up for themselves. I was really. I was one of them. Right. The other ones were paying protection being. I mean, just really bad. Right. And you know what helped me in that system was there were some cats from Chicago that were. That were disciples, right. They were black dudes, and they knew I was from Chicago. And we would talk a little bit, and I let them know where I was from. And so they kind of had a little bit of, like, a little bit of protection. Protectionism going on with me, Right. They didn't. They didn't want nothing to happen to me. Yeah. Right Now I was with my boys and we stood firm, you know? And what was really crazy is a white dude would come in and you would see just like vultures just flock to him. Yeah. If he came in with his bag filled with commissary.
- [166:15]
A
Yeah.
- [166:16]
B
Oh, he was hit. That was gone. That was gone. There either fight or give it to him. And I say 95 of the time, they would just give it to him. And then once you gave it to him, then you kept giving it to him. You were never free, right? Oh, yeah. You know, and so. Yeah, no, prison was rough, man. You know, and the white. The white cats had it the worst.
- [166:39]
A
So where did we leave off at your story? We. We just went on like a 45 minute. I know.
- [166:45]
B
We.
- [166:48]
A
He got out, and then he got.
- [166:52]
B
My son get caught again. Yeah, my son.
- [166:54]
A
Oh, yeah. You said that you met your son. You and your hunt were in prison together.
- [166:57]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So when I. When I got out after that stuff. Stuff with my dad, you know, my son was trying to print money at his mom's.
- [167:05]
A
Yeah.
- [167:06]
B
House. And. And. And so she. So when. When I did get out and get my own apartment, she. She's like, you got to take them. So I took them. We started doing our thing. I got him into some music and.
- [167:16]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [167:17]
B
I got him into music. I went and pulled some money out that I had buried, tried to sell it. They wouldn't buy it. They wanted the euro. The Euro Right. They were like, look at, man. Right now we're, if you could do the euro for us, we'll, we'll take as many as you can. I never printed the euro. I didn't know.
- [167:34]
A
Oh, that's where we left off. We're talking about digital currency in the uk.
- [167:38]
B
Yeah, I didn't know about the euro. So I ended up starting to figure out the euro, started trying to break it. It was actually kind of fun because it was new, right? It was something new. It was. And I knew I could get rid of it and I knew it was going overseas, so I knew it wasn't going to be here. And so it fit all the, the, the, the perfect crime to me, right? I thought it was like this was perfect crime. Yeah. And so I started going after it and here me and my son is still printing money, right? And I got some of the old money that I've been moving and I came home one day. Well actually, so I started, I ended up at the job that I had at the, the marina. What I did for him is I used to pick up guys from, you know, if they would fly in from somewhere and fly into Chicago. He was like my uncle, his name was Dennis man, real, real old gangster man, had him, had an old like tugboat marina, had barges that he would send up and down the river. We called him river rats. He had probably about 200 people that worked on, in the, in the marina. And he would have me pick up people that would fly in, bring them out there and he'd have their meeting, then he would have me take him back. So I ended up picking up this producer named Paul Pompeian. And, and when, when we were driving from Chicago to Lamont, which is about a 45 minute drive, Paul was on the phone talking about Chris Rock and talking about this movie they were making and all this. And I'm like, man, this dude's making movies, you know. So when I was taking him back, I asked him, I said, you make movies? And he's like, yeah, you know, that's what I'm doing and I'm getting ready to do something now. And I was like, well, I got a good story. And he's like, I heard that before kids, you know. And I'm like, well, have you ever met a counterfeiter whose ex wife was a cop? He said, what do you mean? I said, make money, print money, Sprint money, right? So he got super like wide eyed, he's like, no, I haven't. So I tell him what happened. The whole Story with my dad and all this craziness. And, and so he calls Dennis, he's like, hey, I want to keep the kid for a minute. You know, I want to keep art. I think I was like 30 at the, the time, something like that. And, and so my dentist was like, yeah, go ahead. So we went to Pompeii Bakery down on Taylor street and I tell him everything. So he called some agent, Mickey Freiberg, who did the Flags of Our Fathers with Clint Eastwood. And he says, hey, I got this kid you got to meet, man, this crazy story about him printing money. So they fly me out to la, I meet Mickey, talk to a couple writers, nothing came of it. They wanted an option, my life rights. So I do it. I'm thinking, this is great. They're gonna make a movie, right? And, and then, you know, go back to Chicago. So here I am dealing with this Hollywood thing. I got my son now, and I'm trying to break the Euro. Like I'm all, I'm all jacked up right now, you know, like twist in every direction. Right. And. But I'm really hoping, man, that this, because they kept telling me, man, this movie's gonna get fast tracked, it's gonna happen quick, you know, you know how.
- [170:40]
A
That's how they do it.
- [170:41]
B
Yeah, that's how they do the little carrot in front of you, you know, And I was really believing in it though, you know, like I. Because they're flying me places. And then I ended up meeting Jason Kirsten. They wrote a Rolling Stone article about me. The Rolling Stone article went crazy. You know, this is before social media and stuff, right?
- [170:59]
A
Yep.
- [170:59]
B
But we start getting contacted from Ron Howard, George, all these big time cats to make the movie, you know, and then Jason decides that he's going to write the book. Right? And that's where the last counterfeiter came from, Right. Well, it was. Started making money, but then it got expanded because they did a re. Yeah, a reading because of my art. But so anyway, so they make this article, the Rolling Stone magazine and it comes out and, and I start getting all kinds of cool things to do. I ended up flying out to Rochester, New York and I end up speaking for Document Security Systems, which was a Czech security company. Yeah. So here I am, I got this Rolling Stone article out. I'm trying to get my son into the music. Unbeknownst to him, me, he's playing with money, right? I'm doing my own thing, trying to break something. And Paul calls me and he says, hey, we got something for you. We want you to start speaking and we got. Your first one's gonna be out in Rochester, New York at the Document Security Systems. I'm like, well, what, what, what's the company. So I talked, they hooked me up with the company. I talked to him, they said they're gonna have me an assistant when I get there. It just happened to be Frank Abingale's old assistant to catch me if you can. Yeah, right. I ended up having his assistant. I guess he was, he was do. So the whole point was he was just getting ready to retire from the little stuff speaking circuit that he had been on and they were looking at me to replace them. That's kind of how it felt, right? But I'm still trying to break the. I'm still trying to break the Euro, man. I'm, you know, I need to survive, I need to make money. I got to live, right? But so they, I go out there and I'm sitting in the bar and I'm, I'm. I'm with the, the assistant and I'm like, it feel. It felt a little coppish in the bar, you know, Not a little. It felt a lot copious. What am I saying, man? It. There was, you know, and I'm like, hey, what ain't this a corporate event? And. And she said, well, you're, you're speaking on behalf of Document Security Systems Court, but this is actually a Homeland Security event. I said, homeland Security? I said, well, you try. You. She goes, yeah, these are all FBI, Secret Service. I'm like, what?
- [173:14]
A
I'm like, you're a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs. What the hell, right?
- [173:19]
B
And I said, I said, they're like all. She goes, yeah, yeah, you're gonna be speaking to, you know, on this panel, dog. I start slamming whiskey, man, right? Like, I'm a mess. I'm a mess, man. I'm a mess. I go up to the room, she. It felt like just time flew, right, you know, like I'm laying down at midnight and it's five o' clock already, you know, she's knocking on doors, she's like, you ready? We went down, we ate, we go into the auditorium and we go into the auditorium and it's kind of empty. There's only like five or ten people in there, right? And I'm thinking, well, I'm the first one on. They're surely they ain't gonna be. They're not gonna be filling this place up, right, you know, because it's eight in the morning. Right. And it's a long day. There was a long panel that day. So I thought, man, maybe I get lucky and a lot of people wouldn't show up for the first one. So, like, they're getting me miked up, they're putting a mic on me, you know, they're getting me ready to, to do, be the first speaker. And, and all of a sudden, man, I, I start getting loud. You start hearing people talking, right? It's like 7:56. I guess this is how the feds like to do it, man, because they were. That place filled up in like two minutes, dude. Like, the whole place filled up, like, in a matter of minutes, man. I was like, where were they all? And the whole place was filled. I start freaking out. My mouth dries up. I start getting sick, sweating. Like, I've never spoke in front of a crowd now, now I'm speaking in front of a crowd of agents. Like, you know, the 2, 000 of them on top of it. So I, I, I get, I get, get real. Like, just, I'm a mess. So I tell her, I'm like, hey, I gotta, I gotta go to the bathroom real quick. And she's like, you all right? I'm like, yeah, I'm all right. I'll be right back. I run out to the bathroom and I start mother. I start swearing. What the am I doing? This is crazy. I'm, I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm not throwing up, but kind of like dry heaving. My mouth is all jacked up.
- [175:22]
A
Yeah.
- [175:23]
B
And, and so then I leave the bathroom and I, and I go outside, but where's the side door with the, to the, to the auditorium? And, and I'm, I'm just like, Just talk, I'm talking to myself. What the are you doing? Right? Like, I'm really just like a mess. She comes running out. She goes, are you all right? What's going on? Oh, my God. She goes, turn, turn. The mic was on.
- [175:48]
A
Oh, no.
- [175:49]
B
Freaking mic was on, man, the whole time. So the whole. They heard, they heard everything. Me, I, and then I would, I was nervous thinking, damn, did you say anything about your still printing money? Right? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, because now I'm all freaked out, right? So she turned it off. She says, listen, we're gonna cancel. We're not doing this. She said, no way we're doing this. I said, nah, man, we gotta do this. I gotta do this. I came all this way, man. I'm not gonna, I'm not Gonna back out, I'll go in there and I'll do this, you know. And she goes, are you sure? And I'm like, I got to. What I'm. You know. So I go back in there. Dude, I'll tell you, when I walked into that auditorium, I had 2, 000 people looking at me, man. And you couldn't hear, man. Like, you couldn't hear. And they were just staring at me. And I was just like. I felt so small. I walked up the front, sat down, and I'm telling us, you gotta do this, you gotta do it. You gotta just like, I'm just. Because I'm one of them dudes, I talk to myself a little bit in my mind, you know?
- [176:45]
A
Yeah.
- [176:45]
B
Kind of self motivation, man, you know, before you jump off the dam, you know? And. And so then they get up there and they introduce me, and I go up on the stage and I just freeze. I just fro. I couldn't talk, I couldn't think, I couldn't do nothing. And I'm just like this. And I could see her like, like, come on, man, come on. And. And then finally I seen this old. This, this, this beautiful woman. She was federal agent, but she had silver hair, older, probably like, you know, mid-50s. And. And she said, you're all right, baby. But she, she like, lifted to me, right? You're all right, you're all right. You can do this. She kept, like, trying to see, you know, which it should have been her telling me that, you know, instead of the agent, but when she did that, I said, listen, man, I said, I'm really. This is my first time doing this. And usually when I'm around federal agents, I'm going to prison. And so they start laughing. It broke the ice, and it was the most amazing thing that I ever done. I spoke for like an hour, took questions for like 45 minutes, ended up getting to sit at the table with the Homeland Security, you know, guy.
- [177:55]
A
No way.
- [177:56]
B
Yeah, I got to see. It was awesome. Yeah, he was joking around. He's like, yeah, I used to make licenses when I was in high school, you know, so we got a little laugh and. And I think that was the first time because when I went back to Chicago, I really felt like I wanted to change, you know? Like, I. I really liked that. I enjoyed being, like, around, just being legitimate, you know, and having some purpose, right? It felt. And I was really getting. I was tormented, man, because here I am, I got to do this, and I got to take care of my son. And then I Got this Hollywood shit going on. And, you know, it was just one of them real confusing times, you know, confusion does. It brings chaos, right? And that's what happens. Chaos hit me.
- [178:39]
A
Yep.
- [178:40]
B
I come home one day, my son's printing money in their house. I run all his friends out. He runs out, I chase him. I catch him on the street. We're arguing. I grab him. He throws the money. A Chicago police officer was passing by, sees the money in there, gets out. I tell, you know, I said, man, this is my son. I got this. I'll take care of this. And he asked me my name. I told him. And as soon as he heard my name, he said, get around, turn around. And he arrested me. I guess he knew, you know, because I, I'm kind of known in Chicago, I mean, now for sure, you know, but, you know, back then, still, neighborhood guy, you know, Secret Service came and they were like, you know, they were like, all right, we're going to figure this out. We know, we know those. We know these twenties aren't yours. Unbeknownst to me, one of the hundreds that I had pulled out of the ground, my son had. So, so my indictment, I probably got the shortest indictment in federal history. I swear, one paragraph 12, possession of twelve hundred dollars twenties and then 100. And that hundred was what, what nailed me. Wow. What's crazy is, is they pretend they were, they were kind of going along like, we know the saint yours. We know the saint yours. They take me down to the, to the Secret Service station, put me in the cell, and they put, Leave me in there for a while. They finally come back and they're like, we're about to go into your place. So they, they, they felt like they knew where my, my print shop was, right? And I said, I said, what are you talking about? I said, we finally got you. You know, because for a counterfeiter, you know, it's, it's really hard to get a lot of time unless you really get busted with the equipment. If you get busted with the equipment, like an offset press and this, you're going to get 20 years, 30 years. But if they don't, if it's just like a continuous conspiracy low, you're not going to really get slammed. Yeah, right. So I've always been really careful about my equipment, right. Like trying to keep it at. Because for one, the shit's heavy. It's not easily moved, right? £700, £800. And so. But what happened, what they didn't know is three weeks prior, before all this happened, and My landlord, an old time Ricky Benny had sold the building and told me I needed to get out of there. So we had went in there. Another Matrix type of moment, right? We go in there and I cleaned the whole place out. We moved it to a different spot and they, they, they had helicopters, it was on the news. They SWAT teamed the place and there was nothing in there. It was completely empty. Wow. Completely empty. And they were pissed. Ooh wee, man. The next morning they took me to court for bond hearings and they're holding my arm and they're like, oh, you think you're funny. You think you're funny. I'm like, so I didn't lie to you. I said I'm a counterfeiter but not a liar. You know, I told you there wasn't nothing there. And man, you know, and then they ended up, you know, I ended up getting bond and you know, it took a while for me to get, get jammed up, you know, get my sentence. And I fought it for like nine months. A lot of happened in between there, you know, the, the Rolling Stone article ended up turning into a book deal, like right before I'm getting sentenced. This is how crazy life can be, right? So here it is. I'm fighting, fighting, fighting. The movie producers are saying, hey man, you're only going to get a couple years. You're going to be out, we'll do the movie. It'll be all right. The, the, the book goes up for auction. The agent, Mickey, he gets, you know, he gets some big boys, shoot me, Random House, I mean, all the top dogs, right? I'm sitting in my basement and they're doing an auction for the book rights. And it starts at a hundred thousand, it stops at 1.4 million. 1.4 million for my book rights, man. I'm a kid from the projects, man. They've been breaking the law these times.
- [182:38]
A
Yeah.
- [182:39]
B
You just gonna give me 1.4? So I'm going crazy, dude. I'm doing backflips, man. I'm tripping. Out, out. And they, you know, they call me, congratulate me, hey, Hugh Mifflin. It was Shoot Mifflin who won. The Wonder won the thing, right? And I'm like, I'm like, man, this is great. So the next day she calls me the lady that was going to be over the whole, you know, publishing and, and managing, you know, this book they were going to make. She goes, we're so excited. We're going to put you on the talk shows. We're going to have you on the Circuit, you're gonna, you're gonna sign book signings at all different. Like, they had this, this huge plan for me, you know, and, and, and I'm sitting here thinking, like, man, do they know I'm not going to prison? Like, I'm about to go to prison. And. And so I called the agent. I called Mickey. I'm like, hey, Mickey, did you tell them that I'm going to prison? Like, probably in another month. They're talking about me going and, you know, going to book tours and doing book signings and going on talk show radios and all this. I said, did you let him know? He's like, nah, we were just gonna wait till the deal was signed and we got the check. I said, nah, man, you can't do that. You can't do that. I don't. I'm not down for that. He's like, what do you mean? It's 1.4 million. Screw it. You know, stop having morals here. You're a criminal. Like, literally. He was super pissed with me, man. Yeah. He said, you're a criminal. Be a criminal. Like, nah, man, I ain't a cheat, though, right? I signed, doing it. He let her know if they still want. But I'm not. I'm not gonna. I ain't doing that, man. So he. They did. They didn't. Hugh Mifflin dropped it.
- [184:16]
A
No way.
- [184:17]
B
Yeah, they dropped it. That sucked, man. It was sucked. And then I ended up getting sentenced like a month later, two months later, Movie people were pissed at me, weren't talking to me. The book writer wouldn't talk to me because they were mad that I sabotaged the deal. And then, like, two months into my sentence, the, the writer got a hold of me today. Penguin wants to pick it up for 300. You want. We're going to do it. I said, okay. I said, you know, whatever. I'm. I'm cool, you know. So they wrote the book. The book, you know, the. I end up going to prison, Manchester. And I started drawing money. Past time writing. I wrote the book Kane's Dagger. I showed you. And, and I. Basically, that book because, like I said, I've read a lot of books, studied a lot of history from Sumerians to. I love, like, Roman history is one of my favorites. Yeah, right. I love Asian history. Right. The, the. The. The Chinese emperors and stuff. Like, I loved samurai. I did a real long stint with samurais. I was fascinated with the samurai for a minute. Right? Yeah. So I, I'm a real history buff with things. And so with this and then, then I studied a lot of like secret society stuff, Solomon Knights. I mean, I, I went deep into all kinds of stuff, man. You know, and I just took everything that I had in my mind and just kind of combined it into that. Wow, it was pretty awesome, man. It was a great thing. And I started painting, of course, you.
- [185:48]
A
Know, started painting, doing shows, doing shows, galleries.
- [185:52]
B
Well, that, that was, that was wild, you know, because so I, when, when, you know, after my sentence came, you know, my son ends up coming to prison. We're together, he's doing music, I'm doing writing and painting. We got this grand scheme. He's gonna, you know, we're gonna, he's gonna be a famous rapper, I'm gonna be a famous writer. And none of it happened, right? I ended up becoming a painter. And he's driving a trash truck, right? But he loves it, he loves his trash truck. He actually does, does pretty well with that trash truck, you know, and, but when I got out, you know, I, I, I, I published that book. Self published, nothing happened, you know. And then I had, I had probably like eight paintings that I did in prison. I did a show, couldn't sell none of them. And so it got into a place where I was like, man, this, this shit's a lot harder than just like making a book and you're going to do great or making a painting, you're going to sell it, you know. And you know, I learned the hard way that it doesn't work that way, you know. And after like two years of that, I almost went back to printing money. I ended up, you know, I ended up meeting a, a really cool cat, Joe Catch Tory. He owns Lakeside Bank. It's, it's a bank up in Chicago. He kind of took me under his wing, stopped me from making a really bad decision. He was bringing in artists from all over the world to do a murals on, on his building and he wanted, he needed a, an assistant for them, a resident artist. So he put me on, man. So I got these artists and I'm help getting their stuff, doing, working the lift, you know, helping them put the murals on. So all my, so I, you know, my art is just self taught, you know. I've been real fortunate to, to be around other artists that I could take a little something from and I create my own thing, you know. And then that, that lasted for a little while and then I ended up, that job ended and I started painting houses for the union. Kind of gave up art painting again because it just didn't seem like you'd get through that ceiling, you know, and then series events. I lost my job, my car blew up, and my house burned down. Like, literally, like, boom, boom, boom. Comes in threes. It came, you know, and. And the only thing that survived the house, I actually even posted it on my Facebook, man. It was like, July, June 13th of 2017. It's on my Facebook now. You can see where the flames were coming up behind this painting that I did for my brother. You know, my brother's gone. But it was about mental illness. And it was the only thing, you know, if the water or fire didn't destroy it, you know, was just. It was a mess. But that painting survived. You could see where the flames were coming up behind it was kind of cool. But it made me think of my bro. And my bro used to always tell me, art, it's your art that's going to make it for you. I never believed that, but he did. And now here was this painting that was saved through this. This fire, you know, So I just felt like there was some sort of something speaking cosmic connection. Connection there. Yeah. And so then one of my friends, you know, he gave me a job. This guy Frank, man, he's a great dude. I started working for him and got me a little apartment and. And then this book came out. There was a book coming out. It was the Things We Keep. I think it was some New York Times writer was doing this book about objects that people keep that are special. And he had. He had some pretty famous people in this book. And he wanted me to be the painter. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't even really sold any paintings. And this guy wanted me to be the painter. And I still have one of the brushes that I had in prison, my paintbrush, right. And so he wanted to take a picture of it and put me in this book. And. And Frank, my guy, he's like. He's like, dude, you gotta do some paintings, man. Like, you gotta start painting again. This book could be, you know, kind of start putting you out there. And I said, man, I just ain't got. I mean, it's hard to paint and do this. And I've tried to do it. Don't worry. He said, well, what do you think you need to do to really kind of go at it? I said, just paint. Not work. Not paint houses or build bathrooms. I just need to paint and create. And he said, well, what if I gave you a salary for six months and you came out here to the office and we put you a studio up in my office, and all you did was paint, and we see what happens. And I said, well, what if nothing happens? He goes, well, then nothing happens, but let's give it a shot. And so I did, man. I started going out there. He, you know, it wasn't a great salary, but it was enough for me to live and take care of my kid. And I started just jamming and went down to Miami with four pieces for that Art Basel. And like, the first day, nothing happened. The second day, nothing happened. The third day, I was able to throw my own show at an airport hangar, right? My boy worked for like, Jet Smarter. And so they, they threw a little show for me and I ended up selling all four pieces. I met Arnold Schwarzenegger's vp. She loved the energy and the story and everything. And she said, hey, listen, I'm doing a. We're doing a show for Arnold at the Nobu. She goes, would you want to be a part of it? It's for the charity. You know, we pay you a certain percentage off the paintings we sell, but I'd really like you to be there, man. I really, I think what you're doing is, is. Is a good thing. And I'm like, yeah, I love to. When is. She said February, and this was December, like 5th, 6th, where our business. So. So not only did I sell all my paintings, right? But now I meet, you know, like one of my idols, like someone that works for. For him, you know, I watched every Arnold show who hasn't. Terminator, Predator, all of it, right? I grew up on that. All the action heroes, Sly, Bruce, Arnold, all of them, right? So I'm driving back to Chicago, man, just on cloud nine. Sold work, invited back in February, and, And I did. I went back, we sold 64,000 worth of art. I gave Arnold his. His part. And then they were so impressed with. With everything. They said, hey, Arnold does a show once a year at his house in la and you've been invited. I said, what? To Arnold's house? And they were like, yeah, yeah, to Arnold's house, man. And dude, you. You don't even know, man, how I was feeling, right? Like, I was feeling like I was on top of the world, you know? And that was in June, so. So I had. I had some months to get ready. I had a little money, so I wasn't and stressed. And so, man, I just started rocking, bro. I started rocking. I started painting like I never painted in my life, man. And I rented an SUV and I drove all the way out to LA for Chicago. I had like 13, maybe 15 paintings. I forgot I was only allowed to show three at Arnold's, but I said to myself, I'm like, man, you're going to meet someone, so make sure you have some extra stuff in the hotel room. And so what happens, man? I, I, I get out there, I get. Well, first off, I was told I couldn't come two weeks before it because security reasons, because of my past. So I, I was like, I was devastated. She called me. She was all right. I'm so sorry, man. The, the state police, that guard, Arnold, they denied your entry. So you, because he still has people that, you know, he's got bodyguards, right? And he said, but we got one more shot at this. They're going to shoot your file off to D.C. to the secret Service. And then Arnold makes the last call, right? And I'm gonna fight for you, man. And, and, and so I'm like, all right, man. But I, I just kept working. Like I was going, right? Like, I, I, I was hurt and I was a little nervous, of course, you know, but, but I felt like, man, I'm gonna go. And they called me like five days before. Hey, you're not gonna believe this. Arnold gave the go. The secret service in D.C. said you were cleaning. And so Arnold, we all had a meeting. And Arnold said, yeah, let him come. And so I could, I was so excited, man. I got that, that truck, man. I loaded everything, I drove all the way out to la, I put all the extra paintings in my hotel room. Frank flies out there. And, and so the theme was a cowboy theme, right? So Arnold has these themed parties, right? This is a, so it's a cowboy theme, so you gotta dress like a cowboy. So I'm like, where am I gonna get a cowboy outfit? You know? And there happened to be a place I went and I, and I, and I got all black, I got a black Wranglers black shirt and a black cowboy hat. So I look like Artie Cash, right? Like, that's what I was calling myself, Arty Cash, right? Like Johnny Cash. And, and I was telling Frank, I'm like, frank, what are we, how am I gonna stand out in this crowd? Like, we're gonna be around superstars, like, what, what, what do we do? You know? And, and he was, ah, I don't know, you know, I was like. So then I came with this brilliant idea. I said, well, what if I put puzzle piece hundreds around the top of my hat? I'll show you the hat. It's crazy. And I, I show you pictures of this. It was a crazy night. And. And he's like, well, where the hell are we going to get 19, 9000, 6 hundreds? I said, from the bank. He goes, well, how are we going to get those? I said, well, we used to do this back in the day. You just walk in the bank, tell them that your daughter's birthday is 1996, and you want to give her a 19, 9, 6. And they'll actually go through them all and they'll find one for you if they got it. Wow. Yeah, it was great. So we ended up going down, walking down Sunset Boulevard, hitting all the banks, looking for 1990, 600.
- [195:31]
A
It was great. That's incredible.
- [195:32]
B
We ended up getting three of them. We come back to the hotel, I break them up into. To. I draw puzzle pieces on them. And all night before the show, I'm working on this hat. I'm cutting out the hundreds into puzzles. I glued them real neat on the hat. Perfect. And I told Frank, I said. I said, whoever wins the auction, that's who I'm going to give the hat to. And when people come up to me asking about the hat, that's what I'm going to tell them. Frank's like, that's brilliant. I love it. Right? So we go, we get to Arnold's, we put up the pieces. I got fingerprinted, right? Never been fingerprinted for an art show, but they took me in the back and they fingerprint me and they took a picture of me. I'm like, wow, I'm going to get fingerprinted to go to an art show, man. Like, this is crazy, dog. You know, me and the coppers got real cool, though, because they had a bathroom out there, and Arnold only had one bat, so that's where I would go to use the bathroom. So I'd have to stand in line, you know, so that. That led to something, actually. But anyway, so I get fingerprinted, man. They. We do the show. Tom Arnold's the auctioneer. Tom Arnold, Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. So he's. He's telling my story, and I'm in front of everybody. I mean, literally, Sylvester Stallone was there, Jason and stadium. Like, everybody, man. Here I am at Arnold's house with a mic in my hand telling my story. It was just wild. It was crazy. Like, how. How did I get there, you know? Yeah, man. So the piece auctioned off for 75,000. $75,000 to the Rizzuto family. Beautiful family. I love them. And. And I. And I. It was awesome. As soon as they hit the Auctioneer. I took the hat off and gave it to Sergio Rizzuto, who was the. The. Was the son who wanted it. Because everyone that would come up to me asking about the hat worked perfect. Everybody was looking at the hundreds on the hat. Right. And asking about it. Right? Yeah. And Frank was like, art. That was just awesome. Look at this thing, right? And everyone wanted the hat, right? People wanted. What's the deal with the hat? I'm like, whoever wins the auction tonight, I'm gonna give it to him. Yeah. And the piece went for 75,000, bro.
- [197:38]
A
That's amazing.
- [197:39]
B
And I gave the hat, you know.
- [197:40]
A
Yeah.
- [197:42]
B
So then. So then I get real cool.
- [197:44]
A
Oh, look at that.
- [197:44]
B
Oh, there it is right there. That's it, man. Me and Arnold. Yeah. There's the hat. Look at that. Look at that.
- [197:50]
A
That's amazing, bro.
- [197:51]
B
That hat's awesome, man. So anyway, you know me, Arnold was awesome. He gave me a hug. He was the best. He gave me my shot, man. He. Without him, I wouldn't be here.
- [198:02]
A
That's incredible, bro.
- [198:03]
B
Yeah. He really is a great man. Like, he's a great man. He changed my life. Life. He changed my life. He. He don't even know how much he changed my life. I got three beautiful children in a family now because I was able to stay free.
- [198:18]
A
Yeah.
- [198:19]
B
Night free. And because of this, you know.
- [198:21]
A
That's incredible.
- [198:22]
B
That was a great night.
- [198:23]
A
That's powerful, dude. That's a powerful story, man.
- [198:25]
B
Yeah. Well, it gets nuttier. So I leave. Auditor on cloud nine. The Rizzuto family says, hey, do you have any more out here? I'm like, I actually do. It's back at the hotel. They said, well, we're staying in Beverly Hills at the Waldorf. We want you to bring it all over there. I'm like, what do you mean? Like, you want. Bring it over to the hotel? Yeah, bring it all. I'm like, frank, this is crazy. What are we gonna do? He's like, we're gonna bring it to the Waldorf. Right? That's what we're gonna do. So the next morning, man, we load everything up. I'm still on cloud nine. I still can't believe what happened at Arl's house, you know? And we go to the Waldorf and we start unloading art into their. And. And she basically had the whole restaurant shut out. Susie Rizzuto. She. She there. Her family owns Cuisinart and Conair. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the hair dryers and all that, like.
- [199:20]
A
Yeah.
- [199:21]
B
Phil Rizzuto, Yankees player, you know? Anyway, Big time family, Great family. She was amazing. And so they're sitting in there, you know, and we're putting all the heart up against the walls, man. It was like. It's like a real crazy moment, man. You know, here it is, just a Southsider, man, in Beverly Hills, just, you know, bringing all this art into the hotel. And she bought it all. No, she bought it all. Whoa. She bought every last one of them and then continued. I mean, and. And I took the money I made from there. I gave a lot of it back to Arnold's. The charity. Well, to the charity. I gave it to the charity.
- [200:01]
A
Yeah.
- [200:01]
B
And then I went and opened a gallery in Chicago. I took the money I made and opened up a gallery. And since then, you can even see I've opened up a gallery in Beverly Hills. I opened up a gallery in West Hollywood. I opened a gallery in Boca Raton. I now have a gallery in Lincoln park in Chicago on Chicago and Division, which is a beautiful area. And so I kind of changed the whole game of even how someone sells art, you know, because the galleries take 50%. And I do have a gallery that represents some of my art. It's artist replete. It's one of my friends, he started the same time I was doing my art, he started a gallery. But for the most part, I've always had my own studio gallery. And because of my story and because of. Of the books and stuff that's happened, people want to come meet me and talk to me and then have a piece of history, Right? Because my art is more than just something cool to look at or whatever. It's literally, it's part of my history. Right. And my history has been documented through books and all these different things, you know, and so collectors have really been. Especially in the last couple years. Like, at first it didn't really. It helped a little bit to sell the art, but now it's on a whole different level because I've stuck around. Yeah, right. You know, a lot of artists come and go. Yeah, right. They have a short lifespan. I'm going on 10 years now, so not only did have I been able to stay out of prison, but I've been able to stay an artist and. But I work hard, you know.
- [201:30]
A
It's amazing, dude. Such a powerful story, bro.
- [201:32]
B
Yeah, I appreciate it.
- [201:33]
A
Well, we just did like, like over three hours.
- [201:35]
B
That's nuts.
- [201:36]
A
That was amazing. Such a amazing show. Where can people find your art online and like, find your work online? Is there Instagram Junior?
- [201:44]
B
And then I got a. I got a guy Williams, Jr. Yeah, Arthur J. Williams Jr. Okay. And then I got Da Vinci's gallery. We're actually building the website right now. There was one, but I tore it down because I'm remaking it. But Da Vinci's gallery, that's. That's my gallery that I. I created.
- [202:00]
A
And.
- [202:01]
B
And yeah, man, it's just. It's been amazing, dude. You know, it's been really amazing. Now I'm just doing all kind. From gold leaf to murals.
- [202:09]
A
Yeah.
- [202:10]
B
You know, it's just getting bigger and bigger and bigger, you know. That's amazing, man. Yeah, it's been great.
- [202:15]
A
Well, thank you so much, man. Oh, here it is.
- [202:18]
B
Whoa.
- [202:19]
A
Look at that, bro. That's incredible.
- [202:21]
B
Yeah, it's wild. That's wild. Yeah, that's awesome.
- [202:26]
A
That is so cool. Well, my walls are bare in this building. I need to get some. I need to get some art. So I'm going to be. I'm going to be placing some orders.
- [202:36]
B
And I. Yeah, well, if you ever want anything, just contact me. Don't go through them because they take half. Okay?
- [202:42]
A
Okay.
- [202:44]
B
I didn't take half off just because. Yeah. Oh, that Martin Luther King. So. So, hey, funny story about. Wow, that's sick.
- [202:53]
A
Look at the Tupac one.
- [202:55]
B
So the Tupac right now is sitting in Interscope Records.
- [202:58]
A
No way.
- [202:59]
B
Yeah, Tony Seiler from Interscope had me do that. The Martin Luther is a funny piece. So. So this piece.
- [203:10]
A
I can't afford that one.
- [203:12]
B
No. Yeah, it was a beautiful one.
- [203:15]
A
That's incredible, bro.
- [203:18]
B
It took me a long time to figure out how to paint that. So I'm big into layering. Remember I told you perspective, even on that. On that mural that you've seen, where you almost look through it. So, man, I. I'm really. I'm really like. I'm really into, like, taking a flat surface and. And creating like a whole world. Almost like I'm getting really good at it now. But like, even. Almost like when you put, Put. Put an AI glasses on and you feel you're there. I promise you, people. People are going crazy at that mural that I showed you, the little wall, because you. When you stand there by the path, you feel like you're there.
- [203:57]
A
Yeah.
- [203:58]
B
And that's pretty. That's pretty awesome. You can do that with the brush, man. You know, and. And I put secret things in it. I put watermarks in the stuff. I put. I. I put fingerprints. I. Even. So when I sign it. When I sign a piece, I'll put my fingerprint on it.
- [204:13]
A
Oh, that's Sick.
- [204:14]
B
Yeah. I got badass certificates for the providence. They're like 100 bill certificates.
- [204:19]
A
Go back to the, the main one where it shows everything. Steve, go back. I want to see what else you got.
- [204:28]
B
That's my boy.
- [204:30]
A
Wow.
- [204:31]
B
Keep going, dude.
- [204:33]
A
I really like the. I really like the layer with the colors. So cool.
- [204:38]
B
Those are fun. Those are fun. This is, this is a lot of old. Yeah. Ben. Rob.
- [204:46]
A
That'S incredible, bro.
- [204:48]
B
And then right now, I'm on some, like, I'm on some knockoffs. I'll show you some stuff that I have right now. Yeah, it's, like, on a whole nother level. Hell yeah, man. Yeah, I'm doing some really, really cool stuff right now. I mean, 20, 26 looks real good for me because I got. I got some pretty big shows coming up. My gallery, I just built it in October, so I, I, My gallery in Chicago on my, on the, on the south side, I, I closed it like, three years ago, and we moved to, to, to the Ozarks. So I live in those arks now.
- [205:21]
A
Okay.
- [205:22]
B
Up in the mountains.
- [205:23]
A
Yeah.
- [205:23]
B
You know, it's, it's unbelievable. And I go back to Chicago once a month to the gallery, you know, and, but it, but, but when I closed my gallery and moved to the Ozarks, I thought. I thought I was, like, secure financially, right? Like, I felt. I felt comfortable enough to close my, my gallery and then go out into the mountains and disappear, right? And just do my commissions and then maybe do a show once a year, right? And for, like, the first year, that was cool. But then it started. I didn't realize how much I relied on my gallery. I, you know, right? I, I, I. And I started sound like, man, this is. I gotta get my gallery again, man. Yeah, this, this is not gonna work. And, and so then I just, I just opened one in October, and already it's already doing awesome. Wow. That's incredible. Yeah. So. And, like, I got other artists in there. I don't charge them gallery prices, so I got my guy, Brandon Cooney in there. He's awesome. Graffiti artist goes around the world. I got a couple other cats that I'm putting in there, and, and I, and I only charge them 25 rather than 50, you know, because, Because I, you know, I know how that 50 hits.
- [206:37]
A
Yeah.
- [206:38]
B
You know, it hits, you know, And I want these guys to, to feel the, the right pleasure of, like, I've sold a lot of art, you know, Each one has its own feeling. Like when you, when you sell something, I got a video I could send you where? I sold a piece for a hundred thousand at an auction, and it was actually at Arnold's house. It was the following year I went back, right? And. And Frank Gary. I met Frank Gary.
- [207:03]
A
No way.
- [207:03]
B
Yeah. The architect.
- [207:04]
A
Yeah.
- [207:06]
B
Yeah, man.
- [207:07]
A
Really?
- [207:07]
B
Yeah, he just died, but so when I went out to LA and opened my Beverly Hills gallery, everything was shut down. And Frank Gary had just finished the U.S. eisenhower Memorial. Just finished building it. And they had these robots that did this crazy mesh welding that they put on the side of the U.S. memorial. Eisenhower Memorial, Yeah. And so now they were finished and these robots were just sitting there, right? So my guy knew Frank Gehry's assistant, Thomas awesome dude. Been with Frank Gary 40 years. He's a scientist. Straight up scientist, right? So they're like, hey, man, they wanted. They want someone to make some art with these machines, with these robots. Would you want to come over there and check them out? Out? And I'm like, hell yeah, I'd love. I knew who Frank Gary was. He built Millennium. You know, he's built a lot of stuff in Chicago. So I was like, hell yeah, I want to go. So we go over to his studio in Glendale and he's got these big koi fish made out of this crazy material, right? Like mass. I guess he was making them for the Saudi prince. No. Real fascinating. Yeah. Wow. But anyway, so they're. They're taking me on a tour and. And they bring me to these robots and they're telling me how. How we can use them and how we could change the colors. And I'm. I'm looking around and I see this big roll of paper in the corner. Right? Well, of course, you know, counterfeiter, right? I start beeline right to the roll. I'm not even paying attention to robots anymore, man. Right. And I start feeling it. I'm like, man, I look back and they're all kind of like grinning and laughing. They said, only someone like you would go to that, right? And I said, well, what is it, man? They said, well, you could. You could mold it. You can mold it into anything. You get it? You got to put it into some solution. And it gets. And once it's wet, you can move it. And you got about 45 minutes. And I'm like, well, has anyone ever painted or printed on the stuff? And. And he's like, no, we. We just use leave it White. And they do, because they. They actually. It's the same material that the Louis Vuitton store in Paris was built with. Yeah. So he built the Louis Vuitton store. This was some of the material. Same, right? And. And I said, well, can I try? Can I experiment with it?
- [209:16]
A
It.
- [209:16]
B
And they were like, yeah, we could give you a little bit of it. So they gave me enough to do like four pieces, five pieces. The first three I ruined completely. Just. Yeah. What? The stuff wouldn't take the. The oil, it wouldn't. It wouldn't take the. Pray. It just couldn't get it to work, man. You know, everything would peel off it, man. This stuff was just a pain in the ass. I guess they use it for the electronics and space shuttles. They wrap it so they don't get moist.
- [209:44]
A
Really?
- [209:44]
B
Yeah. I don't say the name of it because I don't want no one else to know my secret. Because, yeah, the shit's, you know, it's pretty cool. But anyway, because we're done when we.
- [209:54]
A
Turn off the cameras.
- [209:55]
B
Yeah, they didn't give me the name, right, but.
- [209:58]
A
Really?
- [209:58]
B
Yeah. So what happens is. So I finally get a piece to work, right? I'll show you this video. I go to Arnold's with. It sells for a hundred thousand. I go back to the studio in Glendale and see Thomas, and I tried to give him some money. He wouldn't even take it, right? I said, man, I sold the piece for a hundred thousand, man. I said, man, can I please get some more? I finally got it, man. So for me, it was like I finally found the perfect piece of art that I could just sell. Because that's what you want. You want to find artists, search their life for that style that just takes off, right? And so for me, I had been experimenting with a lot of different shit. If you go through my art, you'll see I've tried everything from aliens to horses, man. I've tried to paint it, but it's always on a sheet of money. But I try to paint everything. So I look at this, like, this is it, man. I got it. And Thomas, he's like, we can't. I can't give you any more of that, man. We're doing a big project for Facebook. We're still finishing up this koi fish. It was massive. He said, and that's all we have. So I, you know, just not going to be able to give you any. So I got super discouraged, man. I left out of there and then. Then I said, well, can I at least find out what it is so I could get it myself? And he's like, man, we don't. When Frank don't like to give up.
- [211:12]
A
He gets it from NASA.
- [211:14]
B
Well, apparently I found out it's pretty heavy duty, right? So, anyway, long. So. So I. I leave out there. About a year goes by, and I'm getting ready to go back home to Chicago. I've been out in LA for, like, two years at this point. And so I'm going around visiting all my friends that I met, you know, because I met some great people out there, you know, and so I go out there and see Thomas and. And I say my goodbyes. And he said, hey, I got. I got. We got a surprise for you. And I'm like, really? And they gave me enough material to do, like, 15 pieces.
- [211:49]
A
No way.
- [211:49]
B
It was amazing. That's incredible, bro. And I went back to Chicago, I made some more stuff, sold everything like that stuff, just quick, you know. And then I ran out again, right? But this time I was sending pictures of everything I was making, right? Saying, hey, check this out, check this out. And this stuff was just badass, right? And so then I finally. I finally. When I ran out again, I called him and I said, man, I know that. Please, man, I'm begging you, right? I'll pay, whatever. He said, well, I got really good news for you. I'm like, what? He said, we're done with it. I'm like, you're done with it? He's like, yeah, we're done using it. I said, well, man, like, he goes, we're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna give you the name of it, and we're gonna give you the supplier, and we're gonna let the supplier know that you're going to be calling on behalf of us. Wow. I said, no way. And they did. And. Yeah, so now I got, you know, I got the stuff.
- [212:44]
A
And you got pictures of this stuff?
- [212:46]
B
Yeah. No. Yeah. Can I see it here? Yeah, yeah, I got. I got my phone.
- [212:49]
A
How do we find it online?
- [212:51]
B
If you. If you. If maybe if you Google, like, pictures or something of mine, you'll see because I. A lot of stuff pops up on it. Might be in, like, Google images or something, but I got it on my phone.
- [213:00]
A
Show me on your phone.
- [213:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, but, yeah, I could send you some stuff. No, stuff is gorgeous.
- [213:05]
A
That's amazing.
- [213:05]
B
Yeah, but actually, one of those pieces was on. There was an Einstein that was all crumpled up. That's one of the pieces. But I've. I've. I've done quite a. Cool. Now I'm about to. I'm about to do some. I just did a octopus. I. I cut out the octopus and then I. I cut out little hundreds and I got the octopus grabbing little hundred dollar bills.
- [213:28]
A
Oh, sick.
- [213:29]
B
It looks so bad.
- [213:30]
A
That's amazing, bro.
- [213:31]
B
Yeah, that's a crumpled one right there. There you go.
- [213:34]
A
Oh, that's amazing.
- [213:34]
B
That's hanging at the lunch.
- [213:35]
A
That's so sick.
- [213:36]
B
Yeah. See how it's crumpled up? Up.
- [213:39]
A
Yeah. And you just hang it on the wall.
- [213:41]
B
Yeah. You just hang it on the wall. Yep. I did that for Roy Jones. That's Roy Jones Jr. No.
- [213:47]
A
That is insanely cool.
- [213:49]
B
Scroll up. I'm gonna show that printing press. Just print. Look at this. Look at this thing. Wow. That is ridiculous, dog. You see that Warhol in the back and. Yeah, dude, I do. I do. Like, you know, that press was. Is awesome, though.
- [214:02]
A
Like, that is incredible, dude.
- [214:04]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I. You know, that's the thing about art is that, like, it's like. As long as your mind is there, man, you just. The ideas, you know, so. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, first million. Yep. Printed on that.
- [214:21]
A
Incredible.
- [214:21]
B
Yeah. Yeah. I did a Rolls Royce that sold for like 800,000.
- [214:25]
A
Wow.
- [214:27]
B
Yeah. I was in Rob Report. If you looked up Arthur J. Williams Jr. And Rolls Royce, you got to see this thing. This thing is nuts. Nuts. But it. Yeah. And then put Rolls Royce. This thing is ridiculous. Look at that.
- [214:40]
A
Oh, my God.
- [214:42]
B
Yeah. Look at that.
- [214:43]
A
Wow.
- [214:43]
B
It's crazy, man.
- [214:46]
A
So it's like a wrap.
- [214:47]
B
Yeah. And then. Well, wrap and paint.
- [214:49]
A
Yeah.
- [214:49]
B
Okay. I did both. Yeah. Look at the wheels, dude. Are the wheels insane?
- [214:54]
A
Holy smokes. That is bananas, dude.
- [214:58]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [215:00]
A
That's really cool.
- [215:01]
B
No, I mean, I. Like I said, man, my, my, my. My art career has just been like. Yeah. Yeah. It's just been.
- [215:06]
A
It's like a movie, man. Your life is a movie.
- [215:08]
B
Yeah. It's still going, too. Yeah, it's still going, man. I really appreciate, man, you bringing me on, man. This is.
- [215:13]
A
Of course, it's been a long time coming, man. I'm excited.
- [215:16]
B
We got. I remember the last time we talked, man, I was like, man, I can't get on a plane.
- [215:20]
A
Yeah. Years ago.
- [215:22]
B
Years, years ago.
- [215:23]
A
Well, I'm glad we made it happen, man.
- [215:25]
B
About to break it. I'm going to be flying real soon here in a couple weeks.
- [215:28]
A
Do it, man. Like I said, getting over.
- [215:29]
B
I'm done.
- [215:30]
A
200 milligram edible. And make the flight 10 times scarier. And then you won't be afraid ever again.
- [215:36]
B
Do it, brother.
- [215:37]
A
Thank you so much, bro. We'll link all your stuff below.
- [215:39]
B
Yeah. This has been great, man. All right. Good night, everybody.
- [215:42]
A
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