Tommy G - Interviewing Gang Leaders, Exposing Politicians & Being Raided in Mexico

Summary

DOPE AS USUAL Podcast Episode: Tommy G - Interviewing Gang Leaders, Exposing Politicians & Being Raided in Mexico
Release Date: December 10, 2024
Host: Dope As Yola with Co-host Marty O'Neal
Guest: Tommy G

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1. Introduction and Milestone Celebration (00:00 - 01:12)

The episode kicks off with Tommy G sharing an inspiring message about courage and taking remarkable actions to live a life worth discussing. Dope As Yola and co-host Marty O'Neal celebrate reaching Episode 200, highlighting the podcast's growth and Tommy G's return after nearly two years.

Notable Quote:
Tommy G (00:00): "Remarkable things take remarkable actions. And I think we all want to live a life worth talking about..."

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2. Exposing Corruption: Mayor Tiffany Henyard of Dalton, Illinois (01:12 - 08:16)

Tommy G delves into the corruption surrounding Tiffany Henyard, the mayor of Dalton, Illinois. He details how Henyard misused public funds, overpaid police officers, and engaged in illicit deals, including demanding a significant portion of COVID aid funds in exchange for assistance. Tommy G also recounts his attempts to interview Henyard, portraying her as a textbook narcissist who resisted accountability.

Notable Quotes:
Tommy G (02:09): "She was using the police force to do her dirty work. She was paying them crazy overtime..."
Tommy G (07:03): "She's just a textbook narcissist."

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3. Content Creation and Editing Techniques (03:43 - 06:42)

The hosts commend Tommy G's documentary-style videos, praising the high-quality editing, drone work, and ability to present complex, underground topics in an engaging manner. They discuss his strategy to provide context to sensitive subjects, ensuring content complies with YouTube's community guidelines without diluting its impact.

Notable Quotes:
Dope As Yola (03:43): "They're making it feel like I'm watching a Dateline NBC documentary. Except YouTube."
Tommy G (05:21): "I had two strikes on the channel... I know what I can and can't put out."

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4. Overcoming YouTube Strikes and Channel Growth (05:21 - 07:29)

Tommy G shares his experience dealing with YouTube strikes that nearly led to his channel's deletion. He explains how he adapted by understanding platform guidelines, such as blurring sensitive content and providing contextual narratives to avoid instructional content that could trigger violations.

Notable Quotes:
Tommy G (05:43): "I can't imagine this being wiped off. What am I gonna do?"
Tommy G (06:26): "Context is so important... I give the context so that it's not just a how-to."

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5. Interviews with Diverse Personalities and Expanding the Channel's Reach (08:16 - 12:53)

Tommy G discusses the evolution of his channel, highlighting interviews with a wide range of guests from gang leaders to billionaires and Navy SEALs. He emphasizes his goal to present unpredictable and diverse content, fostering a reputation of trust and honesty that allows him access to various inner circles.

Notable Quotes:
Tommy G (09:30): "We can get into any inner circle that you can imagine. That's kind of the goal."
Tommy G (12:53): "We want to be where you can't predict the next episode."

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6. Nationalism and America's Potential (13:16 - 14:58)

The conversation shifts to a discussion on American nationalism. Both hosts advocate for a balanced pride in being American, emphasizing high standards and the nation's capacity for innovation and growth. They reflect on how America can be a land of opportunity for entrepreneurs despite its challenges.

Notable Quotes:
Tommy G (13:16): "We need to bring that back. We need to be exceptional."
Dope As Yola (14:38): "The promise of America."

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7. Humanitarian Efforts and Immigrant Stories (15:11 - 19:52)

Tommy G recounts his experiences aiding immigrants, highlighting the moral dilemmas of supporting individuals who traverse dangerous conditions to seek a better life. He shares a poignant story of helping deported individuals and reflects on the ethical challenges of documenting such efforts without overstepping legal boundaries.

Notable Quotes:
Tommy G (15:35): "These guys just want to work and be with their family."
Dope As Yola (16:54): "That's a weird situation."

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8. Challenges of Undercover Journalism: Raids and Safety in Mexico (34:39 - 40:25)

The episode details a harrowing experience Tommy G faced while filming in Mexico. During an interview with a local named Hostage, they were unexpectedly raided by armed individuals who resembled cartel members or police. The tense encounter ended without violence after a thorough search revealed no illegal activities on their part.

Notable Quotes:
Tommy G (34:53): "We cross over the border of Eagle Pass into P. Negras... we were raided."
Tommy G (38:32): "It was unbelievably scary."

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9. Reflections on Violence, Parenting, and Societal Issues (48:32 - 64:19)

Tommy G and the hosts engage in a deep conversation about the roots of violence, the impact of upbringing on youth, and the societal factors contributing to criminal behavior. They discuss the importance of stable environments, parental support, and community initiatives in preventing young individuals from descending into crime.

Notable Quotes:
Tommy G (49:02): "What happened? Like, what happened?"
Dope As Yola (52:30): "Protect the nerds."

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10. Ethical Dilemmas in Journalism and Content Responsibility (67:06 - 84:30)

The discussion turns to the ethical responsibilities of journalists like Tommy G. They explore the balance between documenting harsh realities and maintaining empathy, the challenge of not becoming desensitized to violence, and the importance of telling truthful, unbiased stories without judgment.

Notable Quotes:
Tommy G (73:14): "I'm there to figure out a little bit inside your head. I want to know about you."
Dope As Yola (89:15): "That's your empathy."

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11. Real Estate Ventures and Business Challenges (84:30 - 106:00)

Tommy G touches on his involvement in real estate, sharing experiences of renovating properties in troubled neighborhoods. He discusses the difficulties of maintaining high-quality housing amidst challenging tenant behaviors and considerations for future business models that are more sustainable and less hands-on.

Notable Quotes:
Tommy G (97:36): "I have mixed feelings about him."
Dope As Yola (106:00): "Houses and real estate."

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12. Final Reflections and Encouragement (120:28 - 121:05)

As the episode wraps up, Tommy G reiterates the importance of courage, discipline, and taking positive actions to make meaningful changes. He emphasizes his gratitude for his role and the unique opportunities it provides to interact with diverse personalities and influence positive narratives.

Notable Quotes:
Tommy G (120:28): "Remarkable things take remarkable actions."
Dope As Yola (120:43): "Thank you for being here."

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Conclusion

This episode of the DOPE AS USUAL Podcast offers an unfiltered look into Tommy G's ventures into undercover journalism, his encounters with corruption, and his efforts to shed light on both the underworld and the potential for positive change within American society. Through candid discussions and real-life stories, the podcast emphasizes the significance of integrity, empathy, and proactive efforts in creating impactful narratives.

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Stay Connected:
To watch Tommy G's in-depth documentaries and follow his investigative journeys, visit his YouTube Channel.

Follow DOPE AS USUAL Podcast:

• Instagram: @dopeasusual
• Twitter: @dopeasusual
• Spotify: Search "DOPE AS USUAL Podcast"

Transcript

[Tommy G]

Remarkable things take remarkable actions. And I think we all want to live a life worth talking about and that we want to take part in. So have some courage, make some moves. I'm confident for the youth. Whoever wants it is out for them on the table to get it.

[Dope As]

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Dope As Usual podcast. My name is Dope As. Yo, this is my co host, Marty O'Neal.

[Marty O'Neal]

What's up, guys?

[Dope As]

Guys, Feels like a new. A new chapter in life. It's the end of the year. It's been almost two years since we've seen this man on our channel. Not in this room.

[Marty O'Neal]

Episode 200 going down right now, by the way.

[Tommy G]

Hey, cheers to that gentleman.

[Dope As]

I have water.

[Tommy G]

That's badass accomplishment.

[Dope As]

200, Marty. I forgot.

[Marty O'Neal]

Let's go.

[Dope As]

All right. I'll drink a little bit of water. Isn't it bad luck to cheers with water? No, well, no, no, it's fine. Guys, we are here, all right? And we have a special guest today. We have a lot to talk about. And since the last time you were here, you've done a lot. So everybody welcome Tommy G. Hello, folks. Hello. The most clean cut man in the trenches that I've ever seen in my life. That's why you get away with a lot.

[Tommy G]

It is a weird dimension because you're.

[Dope As]

Very polite talk, you speak well, you articulate and go. You're doing illegal things. I'm. I'm okay. I'm in the right. I watched your. Can we start off real quick? I'm. I'm still irritated about this damn video. What happened to this mayor of this city in Illinois is Illinois.

[Tommy G]

Yeah. Tiffany Henry.

[Dope As]

What is going on? I watched the whole thing and the whole time I'm just getting frustrated. They acted like a gang.

[Marty O'Neal]

A Gilead.

[Dope As]

It was like Gilead. So for everyone that doesn't know what you're talking about, her name is what?

[Tommy G]

Tiffany Henyard.

[Dope As]

And she's the mayor of what's Dalton.

[Tommy G]

Dalton, Illinois, which is south side Chicago, kind of. Dude. It is so unbelievably corrupt. She was using the police force to do her dirty work. She was paying them crazy overtime. She rolled around like, dude, you I've met. I've met billionaires. I met CEOs. They have like maybe one security guard, if anything. She would travel in convoys of 4, 5, 6, you know, suburbans that she bought at a ridiculous price.

[Dope As]

She overpaid 45 bands on one of them. Obviously she went do that because she went to the card. You're like, hey, you mark it up for 145, right? I'll give you 15, dude.

[Tommy G]

All the back end deals she would do with people like, hey, you. You have Covid aid coming to your business. I can make it happen, but I need half of it zelled to me afterwards. I actually finally got a call from her.

[Dope As]

She's not in jail, dude.

[Tommy G]

Not yet. But the feds take a little bit of time to do their work.

[Dope As]

She's going to federal prison.

[Tommy G]

And if anyone, like, listen, we're not. I'm actually cheering for the feds on this one. You know, for the first time, that's how crazy she is. I'm like, FBI agent. You get in there, dude, you go.

[Dope As]

Because usually my reaction is like, you know what good you got over in the government. And this one, like, you can over on us, dude.

[Tommy G]

Her town's already messed up.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

And she had resources to help people. So anyway, she called me, dude. She. She's just a textbook narcissist.

[Marty O'Neal]

I was just going to say that.

[Tommy G]

Textbook. So she wanted to invite me to. She's like, this is going to be the biggest turkey drive ever. You should come up and pull up. I'm like, okay, I'll come to the part of the turkey drive, but we got to do other stuff too.

[Dope As]

This is after your video.

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Dope As]

Did you go with a steam of security?

[Tommy G]

Because she just DM me and I DM her, like, kind of like pushing at her, like, poking at her. I just like, randomly DM her. Like, I'd be like, hey, Tiffany, how you doing? You know, she'd read it but never respond. But finally she. We finally started calling and she's like, well, I don't really let, like, normal people follow me around for stuff like that. Like, her big. Her day, like, other than the turkey drive. I'm like, okay. Like, it's not. She. She acts like she the vice President of the United States. Yes.

[Marty O'Neal]

She has like over 200 billboards up around the town, right?

[Dope As]

Like, yo, 25 bands a month she spends on personal PE. I watched it. I also. We talked about if we got here. You guys do such a good job on your videos. It's. It's full on documentary. It's like watching the news with no commercials.

[Tommy G]

We really appreciate it. And the guys you see back there are huge. Rush, dude. There's absolute animals. We have a couple guys back in Milwaukee. My wife does things too. But as far as the guys on the road when we're rushing. Yeah.

[Dope As]

Edits are unbelievable.

[Marty O'Neal]

The drone work, the. Everything about especially when you're running gun, you have no time to really set up and plan shit.

[Dope As]

Checklist.

[Marty O'Neal]

So well done.

[Dope As]

Shots, cars passing, people walking, birds. Like, you guys are making it feel like I'm watching a Dateline NBC documentary. Except YouTube.

[Marty O'Neal]

Very informative and to the point, but the editing makes it feel like a music video.

[Dope As]

Editing?

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Marty O'Neal]

So it like ties it in for younger people to want to watch it, but you're just sitting there just spitting facts.

[Tommy G]

Dude, somehow we stumbled upon a formula and I have the best job in the world. I can't. There's so many days where I can't even believe, like, this is what I get to do. Just so happy. I'm so grateful and to be here. And then there's so many ideas that keep floating in my head. It's like there's. We could go for years and years on this, you know.

[Dope As]

Oh, it's never in one town. You can just.

[Marty O'Neal]

When we met you last time, you were just kind of like hitting the.

[Dope As]

Kia Boys video and you said, I think I'm gonna stop YouTube. They keep striking me. Oh, that's the day you asked. Mike, what do you do? You tell me what you do. I don't know. I'm getting. I'm not even monetized. I get Adri to every video. You found the formula. You found it because it's working. It's working well, it's. It's as if YouTube goes, Hey, I put them on the front page. Yeah, let's do it. Let's run it. Let's run. Last time you said, I'm gonna get off, I'm gonna do something else.

[Tommy G]

Yeah. I had two strikes in the channel. I was very close to being permanently deleted. And it was a very scary feeling to have that hanging over your head. And especially when like, I've had jobs where I'm like, I just. Dead end jobs that kind of suck the soul out of you. And to finally have something where I wake up every day and I'm just like passionate. So it was very frightening, dude. It was like, what am I gonna. I can't imagine this being wiped off. What am I gonna do?

[Marty O'Neal]

So how did you pivot? Like, what did you implement?

[Tommy G]

Basically, what I can really get into is I. I know what I can and can't put. I know what I gotta blur. I know how I gotta. What I gotta cut out. And just. You know, there's certain drug related things. Yes. They just have, they have a community guidelines and you have to just know your, like, for example, the keyboards. If I just put out a 30 second clip of them showing how to do it. They would rule it instructional theft strike. But if I say this is a documentary, this is, you know, I give the context. Context is so important. So you have to fill in the blanks so that it's not just a how to. Yes. Which is important. I mean, I don't want it to be how to. I don't want it to be someone can watch an episode and then all of a sudden everyone's Kia is missing. That's important.

[Marty O'Neal]

When you interview the scammer, same thing, right?

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Dope As]

So you have to put it in the context.

[Tommy G]

But this is the thing is you got to let people know that this guy really does know what he's doing. You don't want just someone that can bullshit like, you got to know that he actually can do it, but then you can't. You have to take a little bit off the table where you don't give all the sauce away.

[Dope As]

Yes. Before we started, eight seconds before we started. What did he say is the first guest we ever. Oh, sorry, I have to talk to some car thieves real quick. Like I have to go meet up some car thieves after this show. So your life is, I would say like without CIA. You're like the international man of mystery. It's like Austin Powers. He's just going on side missions every day.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

And they're getting bigger, they're getting crazy. Oh, let's not let her off the hook. What happened to this mayor? What's going on with her? She is a.

[Tommy G]

Investigation is still cooking, but you know, she just fell off the radar now. I've now sent a text like, oh, did you get cold feet? Like, I'm just kind of like, I'm okay. If you're a textbook narcissist, you probably won't respond well if I'm kind of like pushing you and challenging you. So I'm trying to see if I can like get her to be like, yeah, just come through. But right now she's kind of chickening.

[Marty O'Neal]

Out of an interview.

[Dope As]

She's still the mayor.

[Tommy G]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

How many times? When did the voting happen? It's what's happening.

[Tommy G]

I know that every town hall is like a chaotic riot where people are like, get her out. Like, but she's like, nah, the people love me. Okay. You gave away a few turkeys. Like, calm down. You know what I mean?

[Dope As]

Well, when you're going around town and people, the lady that's trying to do the non profit to grocery store can't get the permit because she won't allow it.

[Tommy G]

She's literally trying to provide people free food in the community, a dignified experience. It's not just a soup kitchen where you get this slop, ladle and you get what you get, but you can go through and actually put stuff in your car and feel like a grocery store. And the fact that she's blocking her and try. And she's doing this to people all around the city. She's like a mob boss and that's.

[Dope As]

How it feels because she said, oh, you didn't.

[Tommy G]

Unless you kiss the ring and you.

[Dope As]

Didn'T give me cash. She's blocking business permits for people that don't do her campaign.

[Marty O'Neal]

So many dms about her. Is that how a video like that happens?

[Tommy G]

You know, I saw her all over TikTok. I saw TikTok after TikTok. I'm like, and this is only an hour and a half away from my house. Two hours. So I'm like, I gotta go see what.

[Dope As]

Think about that. Yeah, that's right. Milwaukee's not far.

[Tommy G]

So we have a lot of, like, hot spots for things that we're going to travel to regularly. But like la, New York, Chicago, there are stories always developing, always happening. So Chicago, if we can do a mission there, it's helpful to the family to be gone only a day and then come back.

[Marty O'Neal]

Mmm.

[Dope As]

She don't have the hook. I can't wait to see the rest of that and the conclusion of that.

[Marty O'Neal]

Huh.

[Dope As]

One other thing you. When people ask what you do. Oh, I do documentaries, but, like, where. Like YouTube if you. A kid came up. I do YouTube. So a YouTube person is interviewing 48 hours with RFK at this point?

[Tommy G]

My dog, I love RFK because I remember you posted.

[Dope As]

Wouldn't it be cool to do something with him? And then like a month later, coming soon, 48 hours. I think it's very eye opening to people because, you know, you're wrestling. Last time I talked to you on the phone, you're like, you were doing construction and having fools put up a wall mid conversation because you're like, oh, it's closed on the house. We're redoing it. Like, you're doing things in the day as a normal person. And then you can be going, hey, I'm gonna go possibly interview possibly the future president on a presidential campaign.

[Tommy G]

That's been one of the breakthroughs of the channel this year, too, is like. So we. We feel like, okay, we've established ourselves in the underworld. We have a great reputation. We can get into almost anything to a degree. But now we're starting to reach the other side of the table too. We just did an interview with a billionaire. We did an interview with the Navy seal. We did an interview with a presidential candidate. We did a ride along with the police department. So I want it to be where you can't predict the next episode and we can get into any inner circle that you possibly can imagine. That's kind of the goal.

[Marty O'Neal]

Love that. It's limitless.

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Marty O'Neal]

Not just hood vlogs and like, criminals.

[Dope As]

What do you take away from that experience?

[Tommy G]

Which one?

[Dope As]

With rfk.

[Tommy G]

Rfk, man, it's different.

[Dope As]

It's very.

[Tommy G]

One is how the guy had to move what he was paying for security out of his own pocket because the Biden administration, one of the ways they were trying to strangle his campaign was, hey, you have to front the cost for security because they wouldn't let Secret Service protect them, even though they blocked it. They're like, ah, you don't really need it. And it's like, okay, my uncle got assassinated. My dad got assassinated.

[Dope As]

The only family in American history that possibly needs security, bro. What?

[Tommy G]

It was fun talking to those guys too, because there's big dudes. They're cool guys. They're cool guys.

[Dope As]

Like, they go home like, yeah, I watch football.

[Tommy G]

I think they're more loners, I think, to be in that role, because especially you're on the road for weeks and weeks at a time. Like, maybe they have family, but it's a tough job to have a family. And the other thing you don't think about with a security job like that is how much their backs hurt. Like, if you're at a rally for four hours straight, standing in the same spot. Oh, like their backs are killing them, dude. They have a tough, tough job. They're always on the road, they're always moving. And they're on his schedule too.

[Dope As]

So, like, also, I gotta take a bullet for this guy.

[Tommy G]

That's a badass job, isn't it? I mean, it's a very selfless, courageous, noble job to be able to do that.

[Dope As]

And these guys are with them 24 7.

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Dope As]

They don't have lives. That's unbelievable to think about.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

I wonder if they go on missions, though, where it's like, okay, like, hey, I do a six month deployment or a month deployment, then, you know, we have guys in the agency that'll switch off. We pass each other. But the baton, you know, but what? Okay. One thing that was very impressive about him shows up, he Always lifts in jeans. So he shows up to this gym, gets in there 20 pull ups, dude. He's like 70, 71 years old. 20 pull ups pumps him out again. I'm just thinking he genuinely has a passion for wanting America to be healthy again. And some people can say he has wacky ideas. I don't know, I'm not a scientist, but to me, to actually be calling out the establishment, to actually be serious about these are the things that I think we, if we cut out, that America will be much more healthy. Like, and hey, I'm going to hold the CIA accountable. I'm going to hold XYZ accountable. Like he actually has the balls to take on the system. I think we need a little bit of a, a reexamination of some of the people that have in power. If we have someone that's a bulldog, he's like a bulldog on a leash, dude. Like an old fashioned Teddy Roosevelt. Kind of where he's going to get in there, he's going to clean some shit up. He's not afraid to tell the truth. That's the guy that I want on my team, dude.

[Marty O'Neal]

Also, great response.

[Dope As]

He needs security. So I'm just gonna end it with that. Oh, he's pushing back. Like, you need a force field around you at all times, bro. At every gym. Because that isn't. He is. I was thinking this morning, damn, that man's American. That man is American. But when it wasn't. Like, it's racist to be American. Like, no, no, not that kind of American. I'm talking about, like, I love our.

[Tommy G]

Country and we need to bring that back. We need to bring that back. People think nationalism is bad. Like, like what? We live here. What do you mean? We can't be excited about it to.

[Dope As]

Be American, dude, every time America wins Olympics, let's go just show everyone else that we better than. Like, we're not. But like, we can be in some aspects.

[Tommy G]

It's simultaneously true that you can love everyone else, but also be like, we want to be exceptional. We want to have high standards. And for a while it was like, it was unpopular to be like, we want this place to be good.

[Dope As]

Like, yeah, it was.

[Tommy G]

Shut up, colonizer.

[Dope As]

Like what it kind of was. My thing is, don't worry, guys, we live here. Here. I'll say it from this persp. Perspective, not this perspective. That way everyone listen like, yo, America. Yeah, yeah, yeah, America. Exactly. I just think it's exactly, brother. But not like scary brother. You can hang out.

[Marty O'Neal]

It didn't have that connotation when we were growing up.

[Dope As]

No, everyone, if you're American, you're the man. Rocky's American. He beat. He beat Ivan Drago, the Russian Amer. Like, we do cool stuff.

[Tommy G]

We send people to the moon. We're gonna build this thing. We're gonna. Like, that's the sense of expansion. Like, we want to be the ones that can grow and innovate.

[Marty O'Neal]

Exactly.

[Tommy G]

And provide. Like, I firmly believe, and I. I've seen it with my own eyes, that you can come here from any corner of the planet, and if you have the right setup, the right strategy, and a little bit of luck, like, you could be something really special here. And not a lot of places have that.

[Dope As]

And so nowhere else.

[Tommy G]

The promise of America. Yes, there's some huge problems we have. There's some big, big things that we gotta take care of and be able to look ourselves in the mirror and say, like, this is a little wacky right now. Like, maybe our insurance standard is really bad, or, like, we're getting screwed in a lot of ways. But still, overall, America is a place that an entrepreneur can come here and do something special 100%.

[Marty O'Neal]

It goes along with your Coyote video. Right. And there's the two dudes that came here from, like, Venezuela or whatever. And that was just so weird seeing you. Like, damn, we can't even really help them.

[Tommy G]

That was a big moral struggle was because. Because basically what. What didn't get included in that video.

[Dope As]

So we.

[Tommy G]

We met with these illegal guys. We just popped into them and we wanted to help them because they hadn't eaten in a couple days. They just. All they wanted was to work and to live safely. That's. And most of the immigrants that you meet, like, yes, there's the occasional, like, really bad piece of. But a lot of the guys you meet are just, all I want to do is work and I just want to be with my family.

[Marty O'Neal]

I've been on this huge journey, dude.

[Tommy G]

They sacrificed everything to come here and gone through some dangerous, unbelievable conditions to make it here. Like, that, to me, is like a qualifier of a pretty tough person that you kind of want around and. But I had promised my friend, like, they wanted to show us a little bit of, like, the rooster fighting situation. So we were going to dive into that. So I went to a little rooster farm for a couple hours, and then we came back. I'm like, we got to meet back up with these guys. And after talking to my lawyer and looking up some laws, I didn't real. Dude, you can get aiding into bedding Just for letting them sleep in your Airbnb and like letting them have a shower. Like, I don't know how serious it would actually get, but like, what if there was some prosecutor that's like, we want to make an example. Like these YouTubers think they can just play around with arm our laws, brother. Like that, that's scary. You're like, that's where it can get scary. When they just throw the book at you, you have no defense. And you're just like, I have to live in a cage now because I wanted a guy to have a shower?

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

Are you kidding me? Like, that's. I get. You have to draw some line in the sand. Like, you can't just make like a. Otherwise people are, oh, it's not a safe house. It just. I was just giving him a shower for a day. I kind of get it. But as far as when you, when you look at it from millions and millions of people, like, some of these law laws make sense, but when you look at it as a one on one compassion, sympathy, I understand your experience. That's like, dude, can I just give this guy a burrito?

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tommy G]

You know?

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, totally. When you're actually there with the guy.

[Dope As]

What a weird situation.

[Marty O'Neal]

When you asked your audience, are coyotes bad people or not, what was the response?

[Tommy G]

I think it was mixed, but I think it gave me a new image. So people think human trafficking, human smuggling. They think there's really dark, dark side. And I think there is a very dark side to that. But if you're just the guy that like, hey, I'm going to lead you through the desert, I'm going to lead you through the immigration line, I'm going to make sure that you get there. I'm going to help you get to the next stage that you can get a job. I don't really view that guy as like an animal, a barbarian, but if you're like obviously trafficking women, trafficking kids for really bad things, like, that's where it's like, okay, you're a human trafficking. You're a piece of. Go to human trafficking.

[Dope As]

Coyotes are different.

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Dope As]

And there's some like, there are horror stories about coyotes too.

[Tommy G]

Some guys that just leave you guys that leave you packed in a vehicle, bro.

[Dope As]

Leave them in cars, they die.

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Dope As]

Shit's. My grandpa used to do that in like the 5th, 40s, 50s.

[Tommy G]

What was his method?

[Dope As]

He only take family members and it was only one or two at a time. And my grandpa's a diesel driver, so my grandpa was one of the. He led the workforce on the first Mexican. Mexican citizens coming to America to work. So like in the fields in the middle of the country, in the middle of California, there's a bunch of old pictures. But like I found out during college, I had no idea. Like, that's my grandpa. What the hell is happening? And my grandpa was all little Mexican fool around, all these Mexicans and Asians. And he was like the workforce. So he was speak English to the. You know what I mean? Like he was that guy that's a brave man. Yeah. But he was allowed to be here. Citizen allowed to be here. So he was able to lead the people. But he used to get people in his diesel truck, cut the extra diesel tank, cut it down the middle. Because you know that there's that metal strap that goes around the tank. That's where the weld line would go back. So he cut it. The back would be slid open so they can breathe. And he would take one or two cousins from Mexico back to California.

[Tommy G]

That's one of the really cool things about the smuggling operations is how ingenious it gets. Like some of the things they come up with to do it are. Like I saw recently was like a pair of blue jeans that was soaked in like a liquid fentanyl type thing that when they dried, they could extract it. But it just looked like a pair.

[Dope As]

Of one whip and the powder come.

[Tommy G]

Off something like that. Dude, we're just like they have scientists working for them. Like they have high level. Like if they weren't in Mexico doing this, they'd be at Harvard, you know, mixing potions together. Yeah.

[Dope As]

You see the ones where they smuggle people in the wood, pal? Or in just two by fours.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

Wow.

[Dope As]

It's like a stack of two by fours, but the middle is cut like a book. And there's like 15 people just hiding out in these 30 foot two by fours.

[Marty O'Neal]

I saw that. I saw that on like genius Twitter or something.

[Dope As]

Yeah, I saw it. If someone's willing to do that, like, bro, you might, might be a very good worker. Actually, you might be a good co worker. You travel 1400 miles on the foot.

[Tommy G]

And all if you. All you want to do is to work hard six days a week, pay your rent, live here, maybe get a house for your family, eventually go to church. Like, I don't have an issue with that guy being my neighbor.

[Dope As]

Nope. But what it is is the issue is the person going, damn, I didn't do anything. All winter that guy's been working. He's got way more money than me. He's not even from here. That should be my job. It comes down to that old cartoon where the fool's freezing outside looking at everybody inside. It's the same thing. It's just laziness.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

It doesn't matter if you're American or not. America. We're getting lazy. Rfk help us.

[Marty O'Neal]

How creepy was it sitting next to that dude from Dallas, the hitman? You seem like one of the creepiest.

[Dope As]

Wait, I didn't watch this one.

[Marty O'Neal]

The Dallas one was dark.

[Dope As]

Wait, what's his name?

[Tommy G]

I don't like, know that kind of stuff.

[Dope As]

No, I'm saying wasn't the. The old man.

[Tommy G]

I forget what his.

[Marty O'Neal]

He had a. He couldn't see anything about him.

[Dope As]

Oh, he was concealed.

[Tommy G]

We're very good at doing that. And I wouldn't, I don't, I don't like to know the least amount of information about some of these people. I don't know on one end. Like, you wonder how much is like, okay, like, real. Some of the questions he answered. I'm like, you probably could have gotten a little more specific on that. Where, I don't know, like, you may have done hits in the hood, but are you really a hitman? Like, the way I'm picturing it, I don't know, I feel like there's just a lot of dudes catching bodies out there, but I feel like hitman is like the next level of.

[Dope As]

It's a professional.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah. You're being hired for it.

[Tommy G]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

Yeah. You know, I would say he was.

[Tommy G]

In between if I. If my gut would tell me, like, he's definitely probably done couple people away. But I don't think it was as sophisticated as I thought. Walking into it got you.

[Dope As]

When you go into situations like that, like in America, are you guys armed?

[Tommy G]

Never try bleep that out. No, don't bleep it out. But you know what? I don't. Here's the thing to me.

[Dope As]

So you don't know what he said. Bleep that word. So you don't know what happened.

[Tommy G]

I'm going in very non threatening, unassuming, and I'm very direct about what I'm there to do. I'm there to ask you questions about xyz. Are we going to talk about that? Okay, cool, then I'll be there. So the biggest thing is you don't know. Since I don't like to ask too many questions about, you know, what were you doing yesterday? What are you involved in? You know, we were, we were setting up that shot. So there's they're putting all these guns on the table, they're starting to mask up. And then there's a knock at the door. And I'm like, oh, no. Like, who? It's either. If it's the police, this isn't good. If it's enemies, this isn't good. It was just a random one of his buddies that came by, but it was just. You get into those situations. I'm just like, dude, this is feeling a little bit uncomfortable.

[Marty O'Neal]

You know, Would it change the whole dynamic of what you're doing if you had a security guard with you or some?

[Tommy G]

I think so. Also, I think it's unnecessary. Like, what am I going to do? Like, if someone does do a drive by, like, hey, snipe them, like, oh.

[Dope As]

Not talk, you know, Only thing I'm thinking of is, hi, my name is Tommy G. Oh, now that you have a gun at me. No, I don't want to give you my cameras. That's scary as cuz that's what I'm thinking. Like, hey, man, don't worry. I have giant man right here with two guns.

[Tommy G]

You know what? I think what we've built that's even better is a reputation of trust and honesty. Like, we know we're gonna, you know, we're gonna take care of you. No, we're in a bad light. No, we're gonna be fair. Like, yes, I'm gonna ask you some tough questions, but I'm also gonna, like, you're gonna be a human being that people can see all sides of you. And I'm gonna conceal you. The way that we do the voices. Like, hey, if you have a hand tattoo, we gotta put a mask, everything. We gotta put a glove on you. So I take care of people. We make. It's very important to me. Taking care of the contact is the number one thing that's the only reason I have a job, is because contacts are willing to invite me into their life and show me what they got. So. But what's scary is you don't know what they're involved in. Like, we were just with the Kings, the Latin Kings in Chicago a couple weeks ago, and I never ask questions about beef because I don't want to stir anything up. I don't want people talking. I don't want to be involved in anything. People, yes. I'm hands off with that. After I left, I kind of found out, like, things are very, very active. Like there's, there's left the first one.

[Marty O'Neal]

Because you thought, yeah, shooting, right?

[Tommy G]

Yes. And that someone even in my YouTube comments was like, the score is 12 to 4. And so. And so is losing. Oh, just like, God, that's a lot.

[Dope As]

Also, why are you typing this from your YouTube channel?

[Tommy G]

I think his first name word it too. I'm like, this guy's not very sophisticated.

[Dope As]

These guys are crazy, bro. So wait, what do you say? It was way more active than you thought it was while you were just standing there.

[Tommy G]

Yes. Well, one thing, I don't want to ask anything hot on the phone. And there's different ways I talk to people that I like more. Encrypted lines where I know we are open to talk, but at the same time, I still am not going to ask. Hey, have any bodies been caught recent? Like, sometimes I wish I knew more about the danger that we're walking into.

[Dope As]

This, you know, what's going on.

[Tommy G]

But also, it's like, I trust the contact. I trust that they're going to, like, they don't want to die either. So they're going to be holding on the block in a way that they live as well, so. And plus, I'm on their reputation. Like, if something happens while I'm there and it's on them, it's like, hey, like, you not run your block, dude. Like, what's going on? So I trust that their desire to have a high reputation will also keep me safe. But the biggest pet peeves I have is when people start going live.

[Dope As]

People start posting pictures, man, geotagging, showing where you're at, what stores you're at.

[Tommy G]

Oh, and they'll do it while this. Yeah, we out here with Tommy G, by the way. Fuck this guy. Whoa. Not hate. Like, actually a clip came out from that. There was one thing that went wrong in that documentary, too, is one of the shoots we had. They invited like 12 videographers that were trying to, like, interview me as I was interviewing the guys. And there just was way too much. And also, like, they passed me a blunt and they, like, they said something, some lingo, and I just took another hit. They're like, ah, yeah. Like, no.

[Dope As]

What'd you smoke? Sorry.

[Tommy G]

I was smoking on Dead Ops and it just like. And so. So I had to clarify, like, I didn't even know what the lingo even meant. Obviously, I don't.

[Dope As]

Pcp.

[Tommy G]

That would have been better than that.

[Dope As]

No, you got laced on camera.

[Tommy G]

That would be insane.

[Dope As]

That's.

[Tommy G]

I thought, I'm driving fast.

[Dope As]

Oh, God, dude.

[Tommy G]

But it's a respect thing because to me, I'm not even a remote remotely in the streets. So the woods. I'm the. I'm the. I am the woods dude. I'm the prairie dog dude. So I wanted to be very clear to these guys. I don't have any favorites. Like, oh, like, I actually. Actually recently in Memphis, this video. Video hasn't come out yet, but it was the most dangerous city in America. Or every year we make a trip and we cover it. I inadvertently interviewed two ops, like, one right after another. And the other thing is, we knew walking into it that the day we were interviewing one of the crews, someone got shot in their crew. And I don't know, like, they might have many different pockets of ops. I don't know if it was really like, this guy versus this guy, but it was a little strange to be like, I want to be so neutral, but I also don't want to, like, make any dumb strategical moves either.

[Dope As]

But, yeah, I'm gonna go meet up with so and so. Oh, are you. Where you gonna meet him up at? Okay. And they come in and murder the man. It's that easy.

[Tommy G]

Most of our shoots go really smooth because they know we're coming. They're excited. They know who we are. But in Memphis, it was. It was the. The crew that had just had a guy lost. And so it was like a really scary, grim. Like, there was, like 40 deep in a room. No one was smiling. No one was even talking to each other. Everyone was just high and mad. They were in the kitchen filing off serial numbers, and then they start getting my guy, Keegan. They're like, are you a fed? Are you wearing a wire? And it's like, are you guys kidding me? You invited me here and I told you I had cameras.

[Dope As]

Like, also, I'm gonna say, yeah, I'm gonna deny it. What the.

[Tommy G]

And then it was one of those feelings, too, where, like, you know, like, there can be a really treacherous area, but if the guy is well respected there, you're not worried at all, because they're not. Every car that comes by, they're not jumpy about not looking at. This was one where every car that would go by fast, just like, oh, no, please, mom, come pick me up.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, you know, did the Brandon Buckingham situation make you even more apprehensive about doing this kind of stuff?

[Tommy G]

A little bit. Just. Just the fact that you can get a little bit too in deep, I think. But I think part of it is knowing what situations to walk in and walk out of. Like, one, I'm not going to be in a studio at 2am, 3am I'm not going to be there for hours. I'm not going to be there with guys that are posting the location. I don't know exactly. Like, I don't want to talk too much about it. I mean, he's safe, he's out, and he's good and he's like, there's things he's going to adjust going forward because you're with. The other thing that we have to acknowledge here is you're with some people that really don't care if they live or die. And they're. They're very quick to take someone else's life, and I don't want to be around that for too long. So you have to make sure it's nice to work with guys that have at least something happening.

[Dope As]

Yeah. Gangster rapper that have something to look.

[Tommy G]

Forward to, have something to shoot for, have something. Oh, they have a dream to get out of the hood or do something different. Not like we really try and stay away from crash outs because just bad things happen around these guys. Like, I was watching a video, like a little hood vlog in Chicago, and there's. It looked like they were like 12 years old. They were riding in a car and they were pointing guns. They were pointing guns at the driver. Not like, I want to shoot you, but just like, so, so careless with their gun safety that, dude, someone's gonna die. Someone's gonna die. Actually, we just had this situation happen. There was a kid that we had to blur his face for the interview because of how young he was.

[Dope As]

Damn.

[Tommy G]

And I got word this guy, he passed away like three days after the video. I was thinking, oh, my gosh, like, what? And a few of the guys reach out like, hey, don't. Don't worry about it. It's not on you. These, like, they. They had an accidental discharge with friends in an apartment. I'm thinking, are you guys kidding me?

[Dope As]

It's real, dude. My friend Joe, he got shot in the chest. You can't feel his left. Parts of his left arm get shot. Just like the commercials. Oh, my dad's blasting the rifle. Same thing. Shot right down the middle of chest. So quick ot I had OT at my house showing what my cool Nerf guns. I have a Nerf gun collection. Like stupid ones. Turrets and C4s. I don't have kids, but it's fucking fun.

[Tommy G]

Oh, she's a great guy.

[Dope As]

He's awesome.

[Tommy G]

Love that guy.

[Dope As]

We're all hanging out. We're having a pizza party. Party, literally, pizza party at my house in Daven. And I stole My shotgun. It's like a crazy three barrel. It looks like a halo gun. I'm like, yo, check this out. He's like, oh, man.

[Tommy G]

Sick.

[Dope As]

He goes like, that's real. And he's just like, oh, my God. It wasn't loaded. But yeah, we were shooting her. Like, look how quick it was. Pointing right at Jordy's feet. Would have blue Jordy's leg off. Look how quick we were all just hanging out. Could have turned into a disaster.

[Tommy G]

Look, especially like when you're jangling around in your pants. You don't have.

[Dope As]

That's scary.

[Tommy G]

You don't have. None of them have holsters. That's. You know, if some hood business wants to take off, sell, like, cool holsters with like. Like graffiti designs on them or something.

[Marty O'Neal]

I was thinking about that. No dude in the hood has ever had a holster.

[Dope As]

I only met one idea. I only met one. I was like, you're more tactical and scary for some reason. I don't know about this guy. He's scary. Somebody got a hole shake?

[Tommy G]

Why not? It's like a 1520.

[Dope As]

And it helps so much.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, it helps.

[Dope As]

So you could put it right in the front.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, that's the. That's your best bet because it's like, if you need that gun, that's really where.

[Tommy G]

Big drop.

[Dope As]

That's where Marty's at. Marty's scary. Marty. Oh, I have a camera and a gun.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah. Yeah. Or you get the belly band and.

[Tommy G]

You know you're not going to shoot yourself.

[Dope As]

That's. I don't want to put a gun anywhere near my midsection.

[Marty O'Neal]

You got to get past that.

[Dope As]

I'm talking about without a holster. Yeah, yeah, Put it in there. Yeah.

[Marty O'Neal]

That's crazy.

[Dope As]

What if I get in a fight?

[Tommy G]

We're pointing at your friend is insane.

[Dope As]

Yeah, of course. Seen too many videos like that. So sad.

[Marty O'Neal]

They say don't point a gun at anything you're not willing to destroy.

[Tommy G]

Yes. Oh, but it's a good. I mean, there's too many sad stories that are just like gun safety. If you're riding around all the time with a gun, I get it. If you're in a neighborhood where you feel like you need one, but let's do it a little bit more smart.

[Dope As]

Let's get a holster.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah. Let's know what we're doing.

[Dope As]

That's really what it is.

[Marty O'Neal]

Right?

[Dope As]

Okay. So with. With the Brandy Buckingham thing going on. We had him on two months ago. First person in this set. Actually, we rebuilt this, like, two months ago. We had him on and we were talking about it, it was like, yo, it's getting kind of crazy. It's like, yeah, somebody we just. The day after somebody that he just interviewed got. Got killed or shot. And then like two weeks later is when the next thing happened.

[Tommy G]

So here's the thing. Some of the online couch potatoes that wanted to talk about rap, there's some guys out there that are like this. They're professional couch potatoes. And so they wanted to talk about Brandon Buckingham and kind of blame him for the situation. If you look at, I mean, academics, those type of guys.

[Dope As]

Oh, really? Yes. I don't pay attention to that guy.

[Tommy G]

Well, I. I saw what he was saying about Brandon and it was like, first of all, if you look at duels track record, that was a guy that you could. The house could be bet on him being dead or in prison in a short amount of time by the way he was living, the way he was talking about people, the way he was disrespecting people. It's just the truth of the matter. And it just so happened. It lined up with Brandon. And so. And the other thing is, I heard. I was privy to this side of the conversation. There was a lot that Brandon was like, yeah, I don't think we should keep that part in. And he's like, let's keep that part in. And so sometimes, like, you're dealing with a guy that is. I mean, he was making ignorant decisions.

[Dope As]

And he, oh, in the V, I got you crash out.

[Tommy G]

Basically, he was a crash out and an open crash out. I think his strategy is not surprising what happened, given his strategy. And to put any sort of blame on Brandon for that is one, crazy and two, I think it's hilarious coming from guys that spent their entire career making it off of Chicago beef and talking about who beefed with who. Like, you're stirring up. That was how you made the lion share your dough. So, like, how about you calm down over there? Plus, Brandon at least has the balls to be out there. I don't think you need like 15 security guards, buddy. So calm down.

[Dope As]

Yeah, well, also, you get mad the reporter that when shots go off. No.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

What the.

[Dope As]

I've never heard anybody go, damn, the reporter wasn't here. It would have been fine. Like, nah, man. Make sure he's okay.

[Marty O'Neal]

Blame news for this.

[Dope As]

What the hell? Taking a moment from this episode to talk about one of our sponsors. And this is raw rolling papers. Just want to say thank you so much for sponsoring this entire year. We are coming up on the end of 2024. That means Christmas time's here. Stocking stuffers are here and they have actual stockings. I have a RAW stocking. RAW makes something for all your homies, all your friends, and your dogs. Yes, there are stuffed toys for your dogs made by Raw. They make a lot more than just papers. These lighters do not use flint. This is sparked with electricity. It's a little electric thing in here that sparks it. Instead of using flint, it's supposed to be a lot healthier. It doesn't come off into your paper, into your smoke. Smoke which goes directly into your lungs. I'm not a scientist. I have no idea. But that does make a difference. You know why this does this? For wind is the wind protector. Also for all the bowl people out there, go the other way, Light your bowl, stir it up.

[Marty O'Neal]

God damn genius. Josh Kesselman.

[Dope As]

It truly is cool. I, I, I can't lie, man. That's badass. Check them out on Instagram. Raw Live247. That's on Instagram. They're on Twitter. They're on YouTube. YouTube. Thank you guys so much for supporting the brands to support us. Back to the episode. All right, so question. This is 2024. You've been doing this for exactly two. No, two and a half years. Yes, Because I remember you got here, like, I'm doing about nine months now going strong or eight months going strong. What is the most tense moment besides having to leave the Latin Kings? Is there any moments you're like, oh, man, I really wish you just stuck to houses and selling them and flipping them?

[Tommy G]

Had the Mexican police raided me since the last time I was here?

[Dope As]

No.

[Tommy G]

Okay. That's the scariest moment to date. So let me, let me give you this scenario here. So we were going to interview a guy named hostage on the Mexican side. I was scared. Yeah.

[Dope As]

But also like, are you the hostage?

[Marty O'Neal]

Confusing.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, a little confusing, depending on which role he took. Yeah. You know, so anyways, he calls us the night before. So we're on the. We're an eagle pass about to cross over the next morning.

[Dope As]

When you went to Mexico, when was this?

[Tommy G]

Maybe a little more than a year ago.

[Dope As]

Oh. Because you talked to me recently, like, what about this? Mexico? I'm like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it.

[Tommy G]

We're going there tomorrow.

[Dope As]

Oh.

[Tommy G]

But we'll talk more about.

[Dope As]

Yeah, we'll talk about later. Okay.

[Tommy G]

Anyways, hostage calls us and he's like, dude, I don't know if this is a good idea. I'm wanted and I'm like, well, wanted by who? And he's like, the government, bro.

[Dope As]

And I'm the whole country.

[Tommy G]

So it was a little vague, but I'm like, okay, what we're going to do when I get in there, we're going to do this first thing in the morning. We're going to get in there 45 minutes, an hour. Get back. Boom. So we cross over the border of Eagle Pass into P. Negras. And that's one of, like, the primary.

[Dope As]

What state. What state do you cross? Are you in Texas? Texas.

[Tommy G]

And that's like, if you. Elon Musk, went to visit Eagle Pass, that's one of the, like, ground zeros for crossings. Anyways, we go across the border, we stick out like sore thumbs.

[Dope As]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

And, you know, and it's not that bad of a town, actually. Like, it's not like a Juarez or, you know, Tijuana. So we go, we find hostage, we find this guy and we interview him in a house. It's going really well. He has very interesting stories. He got deported back in the day. He was kind of a gangster out in Houston, and now he's living in Mexico. He's a tattoo artist, and he's into some other things. I go to the bathroom, I come out. Boom. And el piece of la verga, la pizza. La verga. Get on the ground. We have three cops, ski masks, rifles, coming into the house. The Mexican guys in the house go flat. Immediately, I went on my knees. I put my. My knees and I put my hands on my head. Because if I'm gonna die, at least when I, like, understand what's going on and see, the other thing is, because it's a weird time warp where things come in slow motion, but it's also happening really fast. And you're wondering, are these guys cartel? Are these guys police? Are they good police, bad police? Am I getting pranked? All these different thoughts are creeping in, and things are very tense. You don't know, do you speak Spanish or.

[Dope As]

Enough to understand.

[Tommy G]

I. I speak, like, 40 fluency, but it's hard for me to hear. Quick. Okay.

[Dope As]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

So anyways, they take one of the guys upstairs, they kick him around a little bit. They search the house and they find no drugs. Because I think they thought we were coming to make a major purchase, which we probably look sketchy. So once they find that it's clear, they bring them back downstairs. They let us up to our feet, actually, before we laugh, to our feet. I'm like. I tried, like, you know, talking to them and cracking a joke. I Was just like, wow, Tnas grande. And they had a little bit of a laugh, you know, and so, like, a little bit of tension seeped out of the room. And I think that's another thing. Like, wherever you are, if you can get somebody to laugh, it really levels the playing field a little bit. So they let us up to our feet, and they're like, yeah, you're gonna need to delete the footage of us storming in and the interview you had with hostage. And we're like, ah, please, no, like, so we actually, you know, I'm like, actually, we could interview you right now if you want. And they're like, no, no. So they. He puts. He puts his WhatsApp and Miguel's phone as Ghost. That's how he saved his number. And he's like, yeah, send me the video before you post it. Which, of course, we don't, because it's like, you. You just pointed a gun at me, dude. Like, I'm not gonna send it to you. But we resumed the interview, and we were like, how are we gonna prove this happened?

[Dope As]

Because, well, also, you don't have no footage. Step. Hey, guys, we just got right.

[Tommy G]

No one's gonna. Especially in the clickbait era of YouTube, no one's gonna believe we really got rated. Luckily, we were the recover one of the clips. It was like we were on the ground and the cops were walking around in the house. And then also, the next door neighbor had security camera. So we saw the truck pull up. We saw them come in. So we had verification, but that was unbelievably scary.

[Dope As]

They just left.

[Tommy G]

It was like 20, 30 minutes.

[Dope As]

I'm saying they just like, hey, you guys don't got drugs and shit. Delete that. We're out. Yeah, so they were good cops.

[Tommy G]

Rare in Mexico if you didn't get.

[Dope As]

Extorted or get no money taken from you or camera, they could have gotten the.

[Tommy G]

How bad it could have gotten is unbelievable. I mean, we could have gotten led to an atm, take out whatever you want. Like, people talk about police brutality in America.

[Dope As]

It's nothing Compared to Mexico.

[Tommy G]

It is absolutely nothing.

[Dope As]

I'll take this every day, but I got shot on camera. Everybody knows he's going to jail. Maybe over there, I'm just missing for 45 years, and that's it. And nobody cares. I'm not even from there. Nobody gives a. That's frightening, bro.

[Tommy G]

It gave me a little tiny perspective about ptsd. I. When I got home the first. The first time the doorbell rang when I was home alone, it was like. Like, it was just like mailman, you know. But I had like a. Like a little bit of that sensation of, like. And it is traumatizing when, like, violence is committed. So anyone that's been robbed, anyone that has had been carjacked, like, that's a lot to live with. And. But. But I do think, like, when you're on the path that the universe paves your way for you. And so I do have this kind of faith. Like, yes, we go into a lot of sketchy scenarios. We go into things that could go the wrong way. But I do believe, like, with the right intentions. I'm trying to be fair. I'm trying to just tell someone story. Like, I'm. I'm hoping that it continues to work out.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah. Does that deter you from wanting to go to other countries?

[Tommy G]

For the most part, yes. Because there is something to be said for when you're in the safety of the United States. Like, you call 911, like, even in the worst neighborhood, like, they're going to be no more than 30 minutes and they're going to be there.

[Dope As]

It's going to happen.

[Tommy G]

And you can't just pay them off to, like, look the other. Like, it's amazing that you cannot, like, some. You can bribe some cops or very, very small percentage cameras out here.

[Dope As]

Too many. Just too much to lose.

[Tommy G]

I would say over 99.99 of American police you cannot bribe. And that's. That's pretty.

[Dope As]

Yeah, it's pretty good.

[Tommy G]

Rare. If you look at other countries around the world, that's how.

[Dope As]

The other way.

[Tommy G]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

1%. You can or you can't.

[Tommy G]

And also to think that somebody is willing to come into a crazy situation to help you is remarkable. There's a little segue I want to have. There was another. I was just. I had an old friend of my house, and we had this. We lived in Whitewater, Wisconsin at the time, and his whole family is illegal. And so they. The whole family lives in this one little house. And we were hanging out and we slept on a trampoline that night. We're just gonna look, we're gonna look at the stars, just hang out and sleep on the trampoline. All of a sudden, we hear this huge crash and we run to the front of the house, and his little brother had drove in this pickup truck and wrapped it around a tree. He drove him drunk and in front of the house. Yes. And this guy, he got moved to the United States because he was getting recruited by a cartel in the area. Area. And they're like, we got to get him to the United States so that he can just work and be safe. So I'm too scared to go close to the trucks. I'm like, I think he's dead. Like so. But my friend goes to, you know, checks his brother. We call the cops and punch of cops, bunch of firemen. They get him to the hospital and then they eventually airlift him and they save his life. And he was in the hospital for a couple months. I mean, he had so many different broken bones, but it was, it made me cry at the time because it was like one cool thing about America. Yeah. Yes. The hospital bill was kind of up, but they don't care who you are. They don't care if you're legal, not illegal. They did everything they possibly could to save this guy's life. And it just gave me goosebumps to think that people were willing to come do that. I mean, that's, it's impressive. It's, it's, it just moved me. And so like, it's a good dichotomy to see like what happened in some other countries. Like, ah, we're just gonna leave them to. Okay, we're gonna do it. Doesn't matter who you are, what you look like. We're gonna help you.

[Dope As]

You America.

[Marty O'Neal]

That's America. Distinguish right back between countries.

[Dope As]

Come right back to it. America, dude.

[Tommy G]

We have a lot of things to be happy about. And I, I hope that we have an age of transparency and things start like pro America. People step up for the good of America, not just for the good of corporations and health care companies and pharmaceutical companies. That would be pretty cool.

[Marty O'Neal]

You've interviewed a lot of homeless people. Do you feel like it's only going to get bigger and worse, or do you think there's any hope for that ever healing in America?

[Tommy G]

Dude, it seems like it's getting worse every day, dude. Because rents are getting out of control. I mean, I know just from the market in Milwaukee used to get like in the hood in Milwaukee you could get a two bedroom for 600, 650. Now that's like there's people trying to charge 1100, 1150. And that's really high for that market.

[Marty O'Neal]

How it is in Buffalo.

[Tommy G]

And it's getting out of control. There's people that. I just saw a statistic, 22% of Americans put every single dollar of their paycheck into rent. Oh, it's supposed to be 30% of your income goes into rent. That's like the healthy standard of whether we'd rent to somebody or not. So between that, between the drug issues, between the mental health issues, I think it's only going to get worse. And I am rooting for a champion that can think of innovative ideas to tackle this, because I think the cool thing about America is it really is one. It can be one big experiment. Hey, what we try in San Francisco, we try in Buffalo, we try Milwaukee, and whatever looks like the best solution that's implemented in other spots.

[Dope As]

I think Orange county is winning. Whatever they're doing is really nice. Wherever he lives, I don't know, but it's so nice.

[Marty O'Neal]

Such a contrast between LA in terms of homelessness and then you go into Orange county and it really doesn't exist. There's like a few little pockets, but they're, like, hidden away. You don't even see.

[Dope As]

It feels like when I was a kid growing up and like, oh, it's nice. Oh, it's not a bunch of homeless fools or drug addicts just screaming, which is like, oh, they need help.

[Marty O'Neal]

Whereas they've taken over la. Like, if you come from out of town and come through la, you're, like, shocked.

[Dope As]

Like, whoa.

[Tommy G]

It's like, it's not somewhere you want to bring your kid.

[Dope As]

No, you can't.

[Tommy G]

When a guy's naked on Fentanyl, you're not like, oh, yeah, just walk this way, kid. Like, it does seem we want to have compassion for people, but you also don't want to cater to the lowest common denominator. You want to cater to the people that are building, the people that are adding positive things to the community, the parents that are raising good kids, the parents that are bringing their kids to the library. You don't want to cater to the guy that's throwing feces at you and. And make the rules around him. So I don't know, Like, I don't.

[Dope As]

California.

[Tommy G]

But then, like, you. You could say, like, okay, oh, you just put them in a camp. Oh, you're making a concentration camp for homeless people. Like, you don't want it to be bad, but, like, you don't. I don't think they should be taking over the streets. Like, if you. Litter is a big pet peeve of mine. I know it's a minor crime, but when you're pooping on the ground or you're throwing fast food bags out of the window, you. Yeah, I like in Milwaukee, when I see it and it's regular there, I want to pull up and yell at them or do. But so I'm not. I don't want to get Shot over.

[Dope As]

Yeah, you will.

[Tommy G]

Because the same type of person that would throw their fast food will shoot you.

[Dope As]

They don't care. Exactly. Perfect example.

[Tommy G]

Where are we as a culture? If you're just like, yeah, there's a million trash cans in the city.

[Dope As]

It's not cool to be a good person anymore or to be upstanding or to know at school.

[Tommy G]

Why?

[Dope As]

Because, man, the phones took over, bro. The phone's ready. I watched this thing on Tick Tock. This is a perfect example. Watch a thing on Tick Tock. Last night, this guy interviews people, you know, 21 and under. He asked these girls how many days are in a year? And the said 31. And she said, no, no, a year. She goes, oh, no, no, a hundred. The other girl said 10,000. Then they asked who the first president was. The girl didn't know. Didn't know what a continent was. And she didn't know. I'm not trying to talk bad. They were on college campus. He was on a college campus.

[Marty O'Neal]

That's only going to get worse for chat.

[Dope As]

So it's like, I'm not trying to. So it's like the phone. You ready? Ready. Grow up. Hey man, I didn't study last night. All right. I'm making an A right now. I have a D already. I just bring it to a C. Cool. All right, I'm gonna go now. I'm a Tick tock. Let's make a tick tock real quick. All right, cool. Yeah, let's just smoke a vape. You have a vape. Do you see how easy it is to be 13? You can pass class. Your parents are good. They're like, yeah, you passed sick. They're not checking on me. They're on Tick Tock too. You see where the world is?

[Tommy G]

Shitty existence though, because nothing. You don't feel good when you are doing those short dopamine hit type activities. My brain long term satisfaction only comes from being in the weeds and actually striving towards something that's a struggle. And you want skill set you're proud of. No, no skill set is developed by doing this easy path without any work. You have to. There's no shortcut to success. But the thing is, the journey to it is what gives you all that happiness and satisfaction and aligns you properly with the path.

[Dope As]

But I think it's like the click, the movie click. Everybody wants that, the fast forward. Because like, why don't I get a BBL? I don't want to work out for seven years. I'll be 50. Like, oh, all Right. It's not saying that it's a shortcut, but, like, that's how fast you can do things. Now look how easy it is to not. You just have to hunt. And I'm like, yo, Uber eats while I'm just spacing out. Oh, it's here. Yeah. Yeah. See how the world is just becoming. It's just. It's just too easy. And like. How old are you?

[Tommy G]

31.

[Dope As]

Rare. A rare 31. You, like, get up and do. I don't know.

[Tommy G]

You want to know what my morning routine is right now?

[Dope As]

Besides running forever? What is it?

[Tommy G]

It's beautiful, dude. I wait. So I. When my boy wakes up, he's 11 months old. I wake up, I put the bottle on, I go upstairs, I feed him, and then I crawl around with him and we wrestle around. I watch him explore stuff. Then we pack the family up, we go somewhere where my dog can go off leash. Me, my wife, my baby, my dog. We go for a nice walk in the woods, then we come back, the coffee's on, get to work. Hey, car thief. How you doing? Okay. I'm going to be in your city next week. Blah, blah, blah.

[Dope As]

Like, it's a feel like Marty, except no woods.

[Tommy G]

Having a baby, dude, it just. Everyone thinks their baby's amazing. He's just such a beautiful peer. Like, oh. Like, I just. And he's just gotten to the point where he's kind of learning how to hug. So I picked him up when he was crying the other day and he just sank into my arms. I'm just like, you're like their little laughter, the little plop, plop, plop as they crawl around the floor.

[Dope As]

It sounds incredible, but also I love waking up going, I don't gotta do shit for no one. Let's go.

[Marty O'Neal]

The weird thing about babies, like every babies, it connects you to every human. Every baby's always been the same. If you think about it, babies are babies. Then they get influenced by you and everything that you put them around.

[Tommy G]

So that's one thing I've been thinking an awful lot about lately is how is it that a cute little baby can one day be the car? The kid named homicide, who has 16 bodies and blah, blah, blah. Like, what happened?

[Dope As]

Where it's not even all parents fault, man. I know a lot of good kids with parents trying to get them on the path and just some kids are pieces of.

[Tommy G]

There are kids.

[Dope As]

I think that's for sure, man. I know a lot of them.

[Tommy G]

It was interesting because I met a gangster the other day and I Know some of the things he's done. And I know his street name, I didn't know his real name. And then I met his mom accidentally because she, she saw us doing a little scene and she's like, oh, how's Timothy doing? I'm like, no way. His name is Timothy and he's catching bodies out here like you. You do not deserve to be catching bodies, Timothy, with your name.

[Dope As]

Timothy. Also. It's kind of sad though, like, yo, this is your son. You know what he does? He's a monster. And they just go like, all right, well I have to go to the store. Like, though you're responsible for murders, your child is shitty. I think it's a lot of people don't think about like how many people have eight kids? Like, well, three of them are in jail. Like you struck out three times already. What's wrong with that? Is up, let's get it. And then it's environment. I totally understand, but somebody's got to be furious style somewhere. Well, you know what I mean. Someone's got to step it up and be furious as you get older.

[Tommy G]

I do think there are some, there's old fashioned truth. Like a happy two parent household is the best recipe. I'm not saying you can't do it other ways, but a kid needs that kind of support. Court it doesn't. There's no winning strategy. I've heard of where it's like 15 baby mamas and 50. No one does well off of that strategy. It's rare. That's the exception that makes it through it and survives and does well. And also these kids need a lot of love. Like what happens at the 1 from 0 to 4? Like the love, the attachment, the support. Because like one thing I'm really thankful for, for my parents is I had a very stable environment growing up and they, they fueled my curiosity. It wasn't like my dad tried to live vicariously through me. He's like, well I was a football player. You're going to be a football player. Like if we mentioned something was interesting, my pop would like the next day he'd like print off an article about it and be like, oh, but like, and stir that curiosity. And like I'm so now looking back, like when you're a kid you're not as thankful to your parents. But now that I see like how much of a struggle it is to be a parent and kind of what my, my launch pad was, I'm like, my gosh, like you guys, I love you. Thank you. You did a Great job.

[Marty O'Neal]

And then you'll see in your kid how vulnerable, like, how easily you could steer your kid, how impressionable they are, and, like, how much you see, like, how just vulnerable they are. And then to me, like, the hood would forever be changed if it wasn't normal to beat kids in the hood if. Because that's something. All my friends are people that I knew that were.

[Tommy G]

And the women are beaten a lot too. Like, the whole household is beaten. How do you have a healthy household when everyone's beaten?

[Dope As]

Well, it's true. I think it ends up on the kid a lot too, because, like, you hadn't witnessing that. I mean, I witnessed all that. Crazy.

[Tommy G]

Isn't that horrifying?

[Dope As]

It was scary as a kid, but now they think about it, go, oh, well, I just won't do that. That's up. But not everybody has a black and white where I go, well, is it wrong? I don't care if you did it to me. I'm not gonna do it to you. It's wrong. I didn't like it. Why would I do it to you?

[Marty O'Neal]

Other kids, they don't.

[Dope As]

A lot of people don't.

[Tommy G]

They're.

[Dope As]

They're more of like, well, you did it to me, I'm gonna do it to you. It's like, bro, I think there's a.

[Tommy G]

Lot of anger traveling around. Like, anger that is flowing like lava, and it just sometimes just comes out. And that's why I think sports are so important. And that's why I think, like, doing difficult things. Like, if a kid is in cross country running eight miles a day, I doubt he's gonna be. Yeah, like, he's gonna be so exhausted in a pursuit of a good thing that he's gonna do too tired to do something and be proud.

[Dope As]

Like, you know, I just won the state.

[Tommy G]

But, dude, when there's.

[Dope As]

When there's stuff, when you can be proud of your homie for doing good, there's. That's. That's the thing that is kind of put off right now. Like, fool's over here studying. That's too cool. But when it's like, damn, this fool's studying good.

[Tommy G]

Protect the nerds.

[Dope As]

For sure. I know one nerd. He makes 540k a year. Ethan is the only one that did his homework. He's a psychologist. And up. Up north, he's the only one that ever did his homework before we did drugs. Even though he did drugs, he was like, no, I got to do my homework. I need to go to college one day. And we'd be like, look at this guy. Hell, yeah. His brother would hook him up with weed just because he did it. Now look at him. The only one that's literally not on drugs.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, fellas, I said when I came here next, I would do at least one puff. I don't know if. Oh, one puff is an option, but.

[Dope As]

Okay, hold on. So I didn't know you smoked weed at all. Then you go, oh, I smoke if I don't have anything crazy to do.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, tonight actually might be pretty wild. So I want to be, like, a little bit dialed in, you know?

[Dope As]

But don't worry, you can just hit it. Let it go. So you said, I like to smoke and then go do jiu jitsu.

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Dope As]

Sick. All right, so you can smoke weed and be successful and on time, of course. And do thing.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, of course. You go, sir, I got a question. I saw this post you made, but I didn't. I didn't see the actual video of it. You said, I ended 2023 getting waterboarded, being jumped by Crips.

[Dope As]

Wait, did they do it to you? Wow, you lit that like it's 1966. I like that You're. You're old at home.

[Tommy G]

It is good to be in California, yo.

[Dope As]

He looked at like, a. Like Winston Churchill hit a cigar.

[Tommy G]

We had a Texas trip where on one day, I got to hang out with some mercenaries. We went to a compound. It was actually a gun dealer's compound, but it had a lot of open. We did some scenarios. It was like, okay, if you get captured first, how do you evade capture? And then if you do get captured, how do you sustain torture?

[Dope As]

How do you evade capture?

[Tommy G]

Real quick, run as fast.

[Dope As]

What if. Dudes, my thing is, like, if you can pick me up and grab my ass and, like, you're. I can't fight you.

[Tommy G]

What, you're going to out gay them so they don't want to pick you up or what? You said grab your ass. What did you say?

[Dope As]

And. No, like, and pick me up and grab me as a person, my ass. All right. No, I'm saying, like, if you can do that, man, you're a scary human being. If you can hold me down, that's scary. You're a wrestler. You. I would wiggle my ass out of any single hold you got. Unless you get my neck, I'll just die.

[Tommy G]

I feel like that's a decently solid strategy until you have five guys with guns surrounding you. You can try wiggling, but I don't.

[Dope As]

Know if I'm saying, like, oh, you're gonna kidnap. You see people get put in trunks on this video.

[Tommy G]

So here, here's one like one strategy you gotta have for that is it is better to fight and die in the street than to get taken anywhere and get tied up. Dude, shoot me with a bullet. But I don't want to get my freaking left nut sawed off. You know what I mean? Like, no thank you.

[Dope As]

No, that's what I'm saying. I've seen people get put into cars. It is shocking that your legs aren't on the door as you're getting pushed in. Screaming, biting, shitting on your. I don't give up. I will bite through your lips to.

[Tommy G]

Get you off from someone going ape. Even like a little 120 pound person is not easy to control.

[Dope As]

You ever try to put a little kid in the bath or anything?

[Tommy G]

Like, damn, changing my boy's diaper. Dude, that guy is.

[Dope As]

Babies are strong as hell though for some reason.

[Marty O'Neal]

And they're down to just kick you in the face too.

[Tommy G]

And balls did he kick me. Cuz he's like, oh, little bastard, I love him.

[Marty O'Neal]

So you ended up getting waterboarded.

[Dope As]

Oh, sorry.

[Tommy G]

The lightest degree of waterboarding you can picture. I mean like they were as gentle as you can be with a waterboard and they were.

[Marty O'Neal]

So all that means is they put a towel over your face and poured water on it, right?

[Tommy G]

Yeah, but the real waterboarding is gallons and it's thick cotton.

[Dope As]

How dumb. I did that relentless to myself. Is that real? Just put a shirt. You can't breathe.

[Tommy G]

The thing about the human mind is it is amazing how quick it is to break somebody in the right conditions. Like, okay, I saw a prison escape video, you know, a TV show where the guys in like an 18 inch pipe and he has a panic attack because he has to. Dude, look, when your limbs can't move or you're tied up, it is so easily to psychologically wreck somebody. Like, I'll tell you whatever I want. You didn't even grab my pinky nail. Yeah, but just, I'll tell you, you know. Yeah, which, the other thing I think I can. I don't envy the life of a spy or soldier that has to withhold information. Because my philosophy on life is like.

[Dope As]

I'll just tell you, cyanide pills.

[Tommy G]

I don't have any information that I need to withhold. I can just tell the truth. So hopefully that gets me out of this situation.

[Marty O'Neal]

Jesus Christ.

[Dope As]

I always, I think about things like that.

[Marty O'Neal]

So then how did you end up getting Jumped by crips.

[Dope As]

What do you do?

[Tommy G]

They. So Maxo Cream. We were meeting with his squad, his. His neighbor.

[Marty O'Neal]

Me too.

[Tommy G]

He's a really good guy, too.

[Dope As]

I love that.

[Tommy G]

He was taking forever. Dude, we beat him to his spot by, like, two hours, and he has a Lamborghini Urus. So, like, what's the word?

[Dope As]

Where's the excuse?

[Tommy G]

Get over there, buddy. So I'm just like, you know what? I want to sit, like, everyone pretend to jump me. I want to send him a photo. Like, help, Hurry up.

[Dope As]

Didn't work.

[Tommy G]

He got there in, like, 30 minutes afterwards.

[Dope As]

Oh, all right, I'm just gonna stop at this.

[Tommy G]

Okay. Here's another thing about street dudes that I still cannot wrap my head around. Why can't you actually tell me what your GPS really says? I'm 10 minutes away. Meanwhile, 54 minutes. I just tell me what the real time is that I can adjust my own day.

[Dope As]

I'll tell you what. Just because I used to sell a lot of weed and stuff. Yeah.

[Tommy G]

What the hell?

[Dope As]

Is it ready? I'm 15 minutes away. I am 15 minutes away. If I left right now. But I Forgot I got 15 other sacks to sack up. Let me get those done. Let me take this call. What did you want again? All right, cool. Cuz I'm not leaving without doing it all. They know how you selling weed, but they're like, all right, let me do this. Let's do this. Eight minutes on your phone. Damn. Oh, you're supposed to leave GPS that. No, no, we need to stop and get swishers. That turned into 56 minutes when it's only 10 minutes.

[Tommy G]

You know what? I'm not buying it. You take care of your operation. But you told me we were doing this at 5:15. I'm gonna be there at 5:15.

[Dope As]

Yeah, but that's. That's how it happens.

[Tommy G]

Yeah. I'm telling you, that's a stressful job to always be adjusting your schedule that much and have that many moving parts. Yeah.

[Dope As]

Oh, yeah. Forty different things going at once with 30 different.

[Marty O'Neal]

Imagine trying to book these for podcast every week.

[Tommy G]

Dude, one of the worst is having to talk to the manager. How many rap managers have no idea what's going on?

[Dope As]

90%.

[Marty O'Neal]

You know what's really funny?

[Tommy G]

They have no idea.

[Marty O'Neal]

Every time we get, like, a rap rapper like entourage here and I tell them my name, I go, yeah, Marty. Every one of them goes, oh, Murder. Good to meet you.

[Tommy G]

Oh, Murder.

[Dope As]

Why?

[Marty O'Neal]

They hear Marty and they hear murder.

[Dope As]

That's just hearing what you want to.

[Tommy G]

Hear, man, I think you should go with that. That's.

[Dope As]

Yeah. Murder. Marty, nice to meet you.

[Tommy G]

Instant street cred, right?

[Marty O'Neal]

I'm like, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, yeah.

[Tommy G]

Some people call me murder. Some people call me martyr.

[Dope As]

The angel angels hat call me murder.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, right? It's ominous. The angels hat. Yeah.

[Dope As]

This is where you're gonna go if you see me. I like that.

[Tommy G]

I'm digging it.

[Dope As]

Okay, so, yeah, they're all late. They're always going to be late. I can't stand if I'm more than 30 seconds late. It's. It's shocking to me when I pull up and I'm not on time. Like, it's just like a. The one thing that eats me alive if I'm late to anything, dude.

[Tommy G]

The other thing I'm trying to like, I guess the. Sometimes the culture of non truthfulness can really bug me and working with the streets, like, even little things like, hey, I'll have a shoot lined up. Like, hey, I want to talk to a mom of someone that has lost her son in the streets. Because I really think it's a good alternative voice to put in. Like, I'm going to show you guys, you know, showing your guns and all that. And like you can feel yourself and like pump your chest out. But I also want to cover the other side of the story that can happen and like, every single person will be like, oh yeah, I got two moms you can talk to. And then the day of, it's always something that falls off the table and I guess just shoot it straight. That's one thing I've learned in this YouTube business. And overall, like, my life has improved if I can politely shoot things straight. I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm not trying to tell you anything. But like, this is it. And it clears up so much nonsense.

[Dope As]

100.

[Tommy G]

So there'll be times where I'm like, I'm sitting in some sketchy parking lot and just being like, what the hell? Like, how do I beat you to your own hood? Like, what is going on over here?

[Dope As]

I didn't even think about like, that I came to where you live.

[Tommy G]

Or it's like. Or like Memphis. They told us pull up. He didn't tell any of his friends we were pulling up. And they have like, they have their guns ready. So I'm like, I don't want them to think it's a drive by or. So I'm like, I'm trying to like, do I stop?

[Dope As]

Do I sit windows all the way down?

[Tommy G]

But then no one knows who I am, because then, oh, they're gonna think I'm a cop. But, oh, because of my car.

[Dope As]

Like, what I will say, though, put you on the wall. Like, lawyer suit, cop suit. Yeah, you match a lot. It's this. You look official. Like, you could wrestle me to the ground and say, put your hands behind you.

[Tommy G]

I love the mustache. Stop resisting.

[Dope As]

Yeah, that's. That's the mustache. Stop resisting mustache.

[Marty O'Neal]

That's the Ethan Hawk training day look.

[Dope As]

Thank you. That's what it is, Marty.

[Marty O'Neal]

Good.

[Dope As]

Marty, you bastard. That's exactly what, what, what Tommy looks like.

[Tommy G]

I'm a big advocate of the mustache. It makes you a little bit stronger. I like feeling a little manly, dude. Like, I just feel like, yeah, I could run through the woods for six miles right now. I don't get. I could take, like. I just. Like, I don't have a naturally, like, really gritty personality. There. There's certain places where you can express yourself differently. Like in the wrestling room in college or high school. Like, you were able to be a dog and really have, like, that. Like, I don't care if this guy doesn't score a point all year. I will be relentless. I will have no mercy on this guy, and I will just, like, whatever I want to do. I'm just going to impose my will. Like, that's a mentality that comes from the wrestling world, but it's not like you can put that into other things that.

[Dope As]

Well, they're just mean.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, you're a big. Yeah.

[Dope As]

I feel that. Like, the only time I'm like, I don't care who you are. It's like, I'm gonna pancake flat, play football. Like, I'm gonna knock those out as hard as I can.

[Tommy G]

The thing is, you have to wear that same thing with a gangster on the block. There's some days you can be the guy that everyone loves and that you're helping the neighborhood. There's some days either, killer, because depending on the environment you live, the job you have, you have to be able to wear those different hats and you have to be able to activate. Sometimes you're the very mature. I'm holding a baby. I'm very gentle. And some days it's like, I think this guy's going to rob me of my family. Like, I'm ready, Like, I have to kill this guy if I. If, like, I have to be ready to kill somebody. Just interesting to, like, observe. Like, one thing I've learned over the entire course, we've talked to killers. Fentanyl Dealers, pimps, all sorts of different people. And not one of them, I'm like, this is an evil guy. Oh, a lot of them, if you didn't know what they did, you would actually invite them to dinner and be like, this guy's hilarious, or, this guy's got interesting stories, or, I like this guy.

[Dope As]

And so do you ever know anyone that you're like, ooh.

[Tommy G]

All people probably say they are.

[Dope As]

Yeah, but saying you're a good judge of character, you're in these people's homes sometimes.

[Tommy G]

A lot of these guys, I think that if you just put them in a different spot and took away some of the economic concerns, they'd be okay. There's other guys that are just. They are dedicated to being certified threats.

[Dope As]

Yes.

[Tommy G]

They take pleasure.

[Dope As]

They're hyped about it. It's like the yard they get.

[Tommy G]

Some of these people. Like, a lot of the criminals I met, I haven't met that many of them that are exceptionally rich. Actually, probably almost none of them are. Have much money. Maybe they have like, 30, 40 stuff somewhere, but that comes and goes. A lot of them are adrenaline guys. They want to be. When they're grabbing that car, they feel the most alive they've ever felt. And it's. It's the same. The reason I have compassion for them and I can see it, is it's the same thing as the road yoga guy. When he hops in that bowl, he is alive in that moment when he jumps out of that plane, when he turns, you know, green. On the podcast, whatever it is, people want to find themselves in states where they feel most alive. Because a lot of, like, this concrete, big lot America, where everything is a department store or a Walmart, like, there is a kind of a soulless consumerism that's in the country. And so when you can find that one activity where you're like. Like the Matrix numbers start going, like, you know, you start. You feel like you're there and you're moving and you're in it. Like, that is magic.

[Dope As]

And 99 of people don't find that, and that's why people are just walking around.

[Marty O'Neal]

Do you think that's why maybe your top viewed video is the reckless driver?

[Tommy G]

Dude, that guy is something else, huh? Squeeze Benz.

[Dope As]

Yeah, Squeeze Benz. The way you say his name, an absolute problem.

[Tommy G]

He's an absolute legendary character. He's a guy that you think, like, you pick up a comic book and you're like, oh, Squeeze Ben's went through the city in his Urus. It's like. And then you meet him, dude, the way he had me meet him, it was one of the most epic, like villain arcs. He's a villain, but, like, there's like the notoriousness around him, you know, he has me meet in this empty abandoned parking garage and then just starts revving the engine and I'm just like, holy shit, we're meeting Batman right now, dude. It was just like he was a character. One of the goals of the channel is to meet these one of one guys that you're just like, I have never met a guy like you before. And you. I'm fascinated. I don't agree with everything you do, but I am fascinated by what you do. Squeeze Benz, dude, a legendary character.

[Marty O'Neal]

Is there any people that you like, want access to like that that you can't. Haven't been able to get it or. It's not going to happen.

[Tommy G]

You know what? There's. You're talking more of the underworld side of things. One thing we want to do is we want to go on a human smuggling or a human trafficking bus. So that's. That's more of like the special forces kind of guy. So it's not really underworld, but you get to see the people. Like, okay, when the guy gets taken out of the building in the riot cups, I'm gonna see. You were the guy that was selling kids. Yeah, that was you. Okay, I'm.

[Dope As]

All right.

[Tommy G]

Next. Like, I want to see who those guys are as far as an underworld people that. There's these political activists that climb buildings and like, they'll have like a sign, yes, Trump 2024. I'm. I'm curious to interview a guy like that.

[Dope As]

He works at Target.

[Tommy G]

People that do train heists. That's something.

[Dope As]

Whoa. Like hop on. And I just take a whole.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, like they'll. They'll empty that train out.

[Dope As]

And like when the train stopped or like heist stopped.

[Tommy G]

I forgot far enough to know their methods.

[Dope As]

If you're gonna meet some cowboys, I'm gonna be very, very excited because that's cowboy. You stop the train. You know what I mean? If they pull up on horseback, bro, it's the number one video of all time, dude.

[Tommy G]

Imagine that back in the day when the outlaws. There'd be a train going and you'd.

[Dope As]

Be one guy pointing at the conductor.

[Tommy G]

Don't.

[Dope As]

Don't do nothing.

[Tommy G]

That's a. To rob a moving train on a horse is an insanely badass to get $40. And so like there some me there. And I think everyone feels this to some extent, whether it's it's Bane or the Joker or the guy from Law Abiding Citizen. Like there's like these, these outlaws that we, even though we know what they're doing is wrong, we can't help but kind of be admired and impressed by how they do it.

[Dope As]

Good fellas.

[Tommy G]

Because it takes, it takes balls to be the outlaw and to pull out like you're going on a high speed chase from a helicopter. Are you kidding me, dude?

[Dope As]

And winning casually multiple times, say doing that nobody would ever believe that you actually did. That's the kind of life that I think most of those guys are chasing. Like no, no. I stole three cars in one night. Shot at a copy. He got so scared. I got away like, yeah, right. Like I did it.

[Tommy G]

So the one question is the short term thinking of it because why? Why is there no guy? I guess no one's really willing to put in the time. Like, hey, I'm gonna work hard and by the time I'm 60 I'm going to build a foundation where I can fund all the youth football in the area for 20 years. Like there's long term plays where you can be that guy. But I feel like they want to be a legend right now and it doesn't matter if they don't live another year, they're going to be the legend right now. That's the thinking that I struggle to wrap my head around sometimes. Because there's a nihilism that if you look at what's behind that, there's like a maybe it's a lack of hope. That's all it is, a sense of nihilism. And why is this creeping into our young people, especially our young reckless folks out there? Like it is creep sleeping in at an alarming rate. And when you meet a 12 year.

[Dope As]

Old, this is why. Yeah, people want to get popular and. But did you see so and so? Yeah, yeah. He stuck his head out the window live running from the cops. Remember that guy that got on top of the car on his live running from the cops? He probably did it just to get people on his. I'll take a year and a half. I'll be the. That was danced on top of the car. People are so quick to like you don't even go to jail for like how many you see the takeovers in LA or the stores?

[Tommy G]

I have mixed feelings about him.

[Dope As]

I can't stand the tape. No, no, in the stores. Just in the stores. Not the takeovers, the stores. The takeover in the store.

[Tommy G]

You see it where they just robbed the store they robbed the whole store, 711 guy back trying to fight.

[Dope As]

And they were like, hit the rock up and we're gonna crack with the rock.

[Tommy G]

Okay, Let me just say, anyone I.

[Dope As]

Start shooting you motherfuckers.

[Tommy G]

Dude, if you want to be a real man, you get into a consensual fight with another person that wants to engage in combat. If you are a guy that fills a store with 40 people and you beat up the 12, 50 an hour worker just for existing and being there, you are a pussy. And that's the other thing is like bringing back a healthy sense of street code. Again, I'm not a street guy. I'm not like, I know it there, but don't shoot someone's grandma's house. Don't have some sort of respect for your own. Like don't jump someone with four people. Yeah, the takeovers. And here's the other thing for the.

[Dope As]

Phone so you can show the video. Look at this. We'll get stomped out.

[Tommy G]

I had a, I covered a little takeover Milwaukee and it's nothing compared to what you guys have in la. And there was a business owner, a daughter of a business owner. She's like, you know what? My parents recently had to close down because the parking lot that we had to repave every single week in the summer, we just couldn't do it anymore. And like that's the thing is like, it's easy. Like when you picture someone who's going up and stealing a car, like whether it's from a dealership, like, oh, they have insurance. It's not going to be a big deal.

[Dope As]

They don't pay out.

[Tommy G]

I just talked to a guy today, he's like, yeah, I got my, I got my car stolen. I got a bunch of stuff from my house stolen. And including my camper. I what? We had this big yearly camping trip we do every year and I take my kids out into the woods. Couldn't do it. Couldn't take my, my son on my Harley and go mountain through the mountains like. And hey, insurance treated me like I was a thief in my own car. It took three or four months to get half the value of the car back.

[Dope As]

People always think that they get the full value. No, insurance companies are that got business for a reason and they go out pocketing.

[Tommy G]

And in California they're not even covering people in certain areas. Or, or it's true. Like it's. Some people's insurance rates have double or triple.

[Dope As]

I got dropped because I live in la, because I have my car, like too many, too much Theft. I need a new car. So after three years they dropped me. Never had an accident, never speeding ticket. Like yo, the area you live in is just two days. It's because I lived in Glendale at the time. Or bur break. It's crazy. Yeah, but that's, that's what it is. And like what if I got my car stolen that day? Oh, I'm just out because you dropped me.

[Tommy G]

What's a theft? That's more like if there's any sort of theft that's acceptable. Like is it bank robberies? That's where it's like okay, like the bare necessities. But like if someone pulls off a heist, like you feel less bad about it.

[Dope As]

Bank, Casino. Yep. But the casino, the only thing I'm scared about is like how many people get murdered because of that. Because the casino fools are not nice guys. I'm like, oh, all you are my team. Okay, we'll see. Because I, you know someone, every time a villain gets taken over in a movie, the right hand man gets shot. Because like you let this happen. Every time you think it happen in real life, it probably does, man. So that's what I think of like oh, casino. Those guys are bad guys. Banks couldn't give a. And you rob a bank.

[Marty O'Neal]

But there's regular like my everyday person.

[Tommy G]

Just works at a bank.

[Marty O'Neal]

Robbed a bank. And I always felt bad that there was like there could be a mom in there with her kid. There are people just behind the counters.

[Tommy G]

There's an employee to live with.

[Dope As]

I get that.

[Tommy G]

But the actual money of the bank.

[Dope As]

That'S all I was talking about.

[Tommy G]

But here's the other thing does not the. The consumer will always get the cost handed down to them. It's never going to be the big business that people think about that.

[Dope As]

Dude, they're stealing this from the. It's from Target. Target just raise it A$40 because of how much profit they're losing. Now we are paying A$40 more because you let that guy walk out.

[Tommy G]

Look at the Walmarts in Chicago and some of the places where there's food deserts. Like they. One of the only spots they would have for groceries is the Walmart. But the theft got so out of control that three or four Walmart just said, you know what, we're folding our cards. We're out of this neighborhood. There's CVS's thousands. I don't know if it's thousands or hundreds of CVS's around the country closing. That's where some people, that's their Pharmacy. That's where they get their baby needs medicine, their kid needs medicine, they have a wound like they should done a whole Walmart.

[Dope As]

Damn.

[Tommy G]

Yeah. So there is a cost of theft and, and it hurts the person living right next to you. Like sometimes you think like if you steal from Walmart like you're oh, I'm doing it from the man. No, it's the person next door that now can't shop at Walmart.

[Marty O'Neal]

Mm.

[Dope As]

Or everything goes higher. And that's just the fact.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, that's fair.

[Dope As]

I don't know. It is, it is a, it is a wild theory or a wild thing to think about because the younger youth like why? Because there's so much to crash out things so cool with the. I have 11 year old brother. I see what he talks about, I see his friend, I see what they talk about. It's the hopelessness of like. Well I have 15 seconds on this. I just watched this thing, I posted this thing. I don't know how to spell like crazy. I dude, I see it all the time. Like damn fool. There's three different types of theirs. Like there, there's and there like. But it's like grammar is no big deal but when it comes to the point where like I don't really need to give a about it and it's like dude, who's going to be our doctors in 10 years? I'm scared for me as an older man, like what when I'm 60s, who's.

[Tommy G]

Going to care for me?

[Dope As]

Who. How do you build a building? Who's. There's no engineers. I don't know. One dude in school for engineering.

[Tommy G]

Dude, if we could make reading cool, we would be so set. Honestly, it's one of the like if you are a, if you are a reader, you're going to be a self learner for life. And, and if. I just wish like if the Migos could come out with an album about that. Dude, look at the book. Look at the, look at the book. Yeah, it's like okay.

[Dope As]

Like well when I was a kid it was Shaq and then like read five books a day. Five fruits and vegetables a day. I thought that was so cool as a kid, dude. Oh man, that was awesome. As a kid at school it would show you remember the eat five fruits and vegetables a day. Have a kid with an apple. Like damn, I only ate two today. I need to eat more fruits and vegetables. Shaq said it. I love Shaq. You know, that was cool.

[Tommy G]

At a time to be a hero and go for positive things.

[Dope As]

Yeah, that's that. I don't see that. I don't even see who's like an athlete that does stuff besides Sprite commercials.

[Tommy G]

I think Shaq is a really cool guy. I think he's only one. He does a lot of philanthropy. He's a really. I mean, the amount of things he owns as an entrepreneur and he's a dj. He's a guy that I want to do a day in the life with Shaq. If you watch this show. Yeah, he's a dj, dude. He like, goes on SOL out tours as a dj.

[Dope As]

I didn't know that. Could you imagine seeing Shaq?

[Tommy G]

He's big with like. Yeah. He invests into the fire department and police department.

[Dope As]

He does a lot of cool for two different generations. Mine and the one before he was the coolest man.

[Tommy G]

When I was a kid making affordable shoes at Walmart across America could own them.

[Dope As]

But then again, you got to school every funny. Why? Because you. You're like, we're all poor. We're all poor. Literally. We all go to the same school. I remember kids used to make fun of my shirt because it was fading. I was like, your mom works where my mom works. You're poor too. It's okay. Like, but even when I was a kid, it was a big thing. She was annoying, and nobody wants to go, oh, I'm wearing shacks. Never to make fun of me. Even though it's like, bro, it's a shoe.

[Tommy G]

What if we got to a point where if you over buy on the expensive thing you can't afford, like, you're actually more clown than the kid that saves his money properly buys the right thing.

[Dope As]

It could be there.

[Tommy G]

Like, what, dude, Your net worth is a thousand bucks and you spent 500 on a pair of shoes to show how rich you are? Like, why?

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, for what?

[Dope As]

Or like we said when I saw the season one, like, we got to make. Make it cool to make fun of your friends for littering again. Remember we said that that was episode like season one. I'm like, just talk to every one of your friends because I don't throw ray roaches. I don't throw none of that. Because, bro, who am I just to throw trash there stays forever until some guy nicer than me goes, I'll. I'll pick it up.

[Tommy G]

What is that?

[Dope As]

It's weird to me.

[Tommy G]

Respect you have. You're just.

[Dope As]

Well, then it. It just shows you what I don't with people that don't that litter. Remember I told you my.

[Tommy G]

My business mark of a Shitty person.

[Dope As]

John stopped littering. It took three years for my homie. Stop littering. He stopped littering. He. I saw him pick up trash constantly.

[Tommy G]

Thank you for harassing.

[Dope As]

Oh, I talk him in public. Every friend of his kid like, oh, look, your dad threw in trash. It's great, dude. I love that. Just be better. It's easy, it's free. I even smoke, Joe. Oh, my God.

[Marty O'Neal]

Speaking of shitty people, you just. You and Chris Hansen just went out and did the missions again.

[Tommy G]

I've heard things about him since I filmed with him. I heard some different rumors flying around. I got a lot of details I.

[Marty O'Neal]

Wasn'T going there with.

[Dope As]

I was talking about the people that you're catching.

[Marty O'Neal]

I've heard Rivers, Servant.

[Dope As]

I've heard some rumors, too.

[Marty O'Neal]

I want to get your.

[Tommy G]

He's a very interesting guy.

[Marty O'Neal]

Dad's against predators.

[Tommy G]

I think they're the ones that slap people.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

How do you feel?

[Tommy G]

I have mixed reactions to it. On one end. It's like, if that's what it takes for the guy to never go back into a Walmart and try that again, okay, that was worth it. But I. You almost like some of those guys. I don't know if it's exactly them, but you can feel they get, like, a pleasure out of being the bully. It's like an excuse for them to be a bully.

[Dope As]

Oh, yeah.

[Tommy G]

And I don't really.

[Dope As]

Oh, yeah. Okay. If you don't. I. I feel bad when it's like, oh, man, someone's kid. That sucks. And then they're like, well, that. You don't even do someone else's kid. And I go. One thing I told him is like, you probably save people's lives by deterring them, because if they go to prison, they're getting stabbed up, they're never getting.

[Tommy G]

Out, and they're gonna ruin a kid's life. Well, if you.

[Dope As]

That, too. The cycle is never going to stop after that. But I see what you're saying is a lot of people, like you had d8 dads against predators on. All they do is fight people. And then when I really broke it down, it's like, well, they were gonna go do it anyway. And the cops in my town don't do anything. So can I get my snacks in?

[Marty O'Neal]

Fully authentic and.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, yeah. And you know what? It's cool.

[Dope As]

They've.

[Tommy G]

They've turned into a career. A way to clean up the streets. How can you be really mad?

[Dope As]

He literally said, you can't do this in our town. Everyone knows we're there. You cannot Talk to kids in our towns.

[Marty O'Neal]

Like, they go city to city. They get like six to ten creeps every night.

[Dope As]

Every night. Every night, bro. Every single night.

[Tommy G]

So in. In this operation, there's the person that has to text them.

[Dope As]

It's them.

[Tommy G]

There's someone.

[Dope As]

Oh, it's them, too. He's like, you know how dark this is? He's like, sometimes I don't want to look at it because I'll wake up to horrible from guys knowing I'm 12. Like, the. The way they do it and the why they do it. I was like, I like these guys so much, and I. I subscribe to their Patreon. Like, and a lot of people talk to me about it for having them on, because, like, they're just smack people. Like, yeah, I get it, okay? But they didn't get smacked without them, and they're going to do it anyway. So why don't you pop these fools, Amelia, right now?

[Tommy G]

Okay? Maybe this is the way to. If you treat the rest of the world like other people are other kids. Are your kids like this? I want to protect them. I want to love them. Even if I don't know them. I want to protect them and love them.

[Dope As]

Kind of normal.

[Tommy G]

If someone was about to molest your kid in Walmart, dude, they'd be lucky off. All they got was one slap. So if this guy. If you pretend the kid that you imagine the kid, he was, okay, yeah, you know what? You get to walk away alive from this.

[Dope As]

That's what I'm saying. You get to walk away alive. Because I asked him, like, so what do you. He's like, do you feel bad? He goes, I feel bad if I feel like they're not all the way there, and I won't hit them, okay?

[Tommy G]

Because you know what? Like, one of the first guys in the Chris Hansen episode we did, I felt like he may have been on the spectrum for that guy.

[Dope As]

I watched it, too.

[Tommy G]

I don't know if he, like, he.

[Dope As]

Shook the hand at the end.

[Tommy G]

He just seemed, like, nervous to be there. He's like, oh, I have the 150 for sex. Like that.

[Dope As]

That guy? Yeah, Yeah.

[Tommy G]

I was like, I don't know. Like, I don't think so. One of the. We had a detective in there. He was a. An ex Chicago detective that spent 15 years of his career finding these guys and putting them away. And he said, these guys are preferential predators. And which means that the opportunity was there. They took it. He's more interested in taking down the.

[Dope As]

Guys that create the situation.

[Tommy G]

They're doing like, there's. He's like, I busted guys that hundreds of kids got them. These guys, I think, are more that. Some of the people on these shows, I think are guys that are more really lonely. They're out of touch with reality, they're miserable at home, they're depressed. They finally get the attention from a woman. And a lot of times they start the conversation with, hey, I'm 19. Because that's what you see next to.

[Dope As]

Their name every time.

[Tommy G]

So they're like, oh, I meant like, oh, some girl actually thinks that, like, I haven't talked to a woman in years and got an affection. I just want to be close to a woman. And then I think, like, some of them, like, last minute, it's like, by the way, I'm 13. And it's like, wait, I thought you were 19. I'm already too horny. Like, I made a bad decision and they've committed and I'm not excusing them.

[Dope As]

No, not still. But it's.

[Tommy G]

But there's like, a lot of these.

[Dope As]

Guys are the dudes that you're like, yo, definitely is a friend. Dude, that's. That's when I feel bad. I'm like, oh, dude, that guy's just sad.

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Dope As]

She could have been 50. He didn't care. I was just a kid. It's just a person talked and it is sad. That's when I feel bad. Like, damn, this fool. That first guy. If that was on Dads Against Predators, they would have smacked it. I would have felt terrible. Yeah, but this guy's so sad. You can see on his face.

[Tommy G]

Even a guy that you feel sorry for still, smack is like, oh, you still kind of got off easy. Like, it's almost like, you know, if you smack your kid on the hand when they're about to put it into a fire, like, okay, like, yeah, you got your. Your hand smack, but you would have jumped into the fire.

[Dope As]

So, like, take the hand, calm the down. Yeah. So like, cuz, just a backstory. The. The Josh, he. Somebody did something sexually to somebody, his family, and the cops didn't do anything about it. And he followed the guy to job to job to job with a sign saying, this guy's a rapist. And that's how he started doing this till the guy moved because the cops wouldn't do anything. So it's like, oh. He's like, well, they didn't do anything. What do you want me to do? And then him and his friend said one day, like, you know, we can go catch Guys. And that's how they started. Like, let's do it right now. So they caught two guys within 30 minutes of starting in their hometown. Like within blocks. That's scary.

[Marty O'Neal]

Any kind of highlights how little effort really goes into this. Scary from police departments. Like he'll call like the.

[Dope As]

I don't know why it's not like a huge thing. Like I can sell packs and go to jail longer than it is. Like you were trying to talk to kids.

[Tommy G]

Yeah. That is a crazy thing, isn't it? Dude, they're still putting people in a cage for weed. So we haven't released this episode. It's coming out next week. But I actually went on a raid with drug task force in west Tennessee. Basically how it all got connected is I was going to go out there and work on a story with a nonprofit about human trafficking. He's like, oh, if you're going to be in Tennessee, you got to talk to my friend Johnny Carter. He goes on Rage for undercover. I'm like, okay. So we show up and I get cleaning up the streets for fentanyl. But their argument about weed is they said weed. If you have tons of weed, especially in really dangerous areas, that leads to robberies, which leads to shootouts, which leads to other things. So that's why. Yeah, like maybe a guy puffing a joint, they're not a threat. But a guy selling pounds, that's why they view him as a threat. And I'm like, I still don't agree with going to a cage for weed. But there, I guess there is danger. Like that might be one of the most profitable drugs to still sell in the black market.

[Dope As]

Easiest.

[Tommy G]

But if we legalized it, it wouldn't have to be like just. And I think that the same thing with sex work. I think brothel should be legal. This could be a slippery slope where we have too many men just going there and taking the easy way out. And we're not having long term relationships form because hey, it's like going to McDonald's, I can just go to, you know. But should some guy that just wants the warmth of a woman and has 150 bucks in his pocket, like that guy in the Chris hands, should he go to. Obviously not with a minor. 18 year old and older. Does that guy be in trouble for wanting to have sex with a woman who also wants the money and wants to have sex too?

[Dope As]

What country was. I saw that there's a, an allotment every year for every citizen for sex work because they said human intimacy is a, is a hu Intimacy is a human right. It was like an old man going to a brothel. Like an old man with a cane going to a brothel. And I just watched a little like two minutes on it. I'll find which country it was. But I was like, wow, that's. What if this mole man's wife died 40 years ago and he's just sitting here for 40 years, sad. He's like, I don't want to talk to girls. I'm just gonna sit here.

[Tommy G]

Sad, lonely man.

[Dope As]

That's sad, dude.

[Tommy G]

I feel like men that don't have sex are probably more dangerous statistically than men that do.

[Dope As]

And not even just banging girls. Like, yo, I don't talk to women. Like, I just get a check and sit here all day.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, because I think you'll talk to some prostitutes and they'll be like, some guys just. We just have a conversation. Or some guys just want a hug. Which sounds pathetic, but at the same time, it's like, give that guy a hug. And if someone gets 200 bucks for I'm not okay, you know, it goes more than a hug usually, but you feel bad for that guy and you feel like that guy probably should have an avenue where he's not lonely for the next 20 years.

[Dope As]

Or gets on the newspaper for getting busted because the girl was a cop. Because he just like, yo, I work every day and now everybody thinks I'm a creep. It's like, you bang your wife all the time. I bang this girl once, if you think about it. Or, Marty, Marty, I was thinking about the thing you said the other day. It was horrible. You had to. Mar's like, I've only had sex with teenagers. And my wife and I go, bro, don't say that out loud. I was a teenager too. Like, oh, but it sounds insane to say you're the worst guy or the best guy. Like, you're the best guy of that situation.

[Marty O'Neal]

I've been with my wife since I was a teenager.

[Tommy G]

And cheers to that.

[Dope As]

It makes sense.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah. You're either the biggest piece of sugar, the best dude ever.

[Dope As]

Ding. You're the biggest piece of. Or the best dude ever. I like that.

[Marty O'Neal]

How nervous were you to speak in front of all the prisoners at the largest prison, Texas?

[Tommy G]

A little nervous, dude. Well, one is, since I'm not a street guy, I haven't lived like that type of rugged life. Like, what kind of. What am I gonna say to these guys? That's, yeah, I came from a nice two parent household. My parents encouraged me. Like, a lot of these guys have had Rough, rough life. So I just really wanted to make it meaningful and, and say something that would resonate with them. And also, they didn't tell me I was going to speak. So it was a little bit like, I wish I would have, like, I wanted to prep it a little bit, you know, freestyled. I had like 10 minutes to think.

[Marty O'Neal]

Okay, that seemed like you, you prepped it. It was great.

[Tommy G]

Well, thank you. And, but to me, I will say, like, I think experiences like that are like what you look for, you want, you want to be thrown into the fire every once in a while. And that's the best thing for your growth, that's the best thing for your development and for the stories you get to tell in life. So. And that, that's one that I think we're getting to a lot more prisons going forward. I have more people reaching out saying, hey, I have connections here. It's always through, like, for the most part through ministry. So I don't want, and the thing is, I don't want, I want to see the Christian side of it and how these guys are changing their life around. But I also, I want to, I want to eat the lunch, I want to be in the cell, I want to be in the yard. I want to do push ups with some guy that's like, you know what I mean? I don't want to get like the corporate version of prison or like the PR side of prison. But it's amazing too. You know, we've been to a lot of sketchy places. I did not feel any danger in the prison. And they're, dude, like, they're understaffed. A lot of these prisons are very understaffed. There was like some like chunky old woman just standing. She's not doing. Dude, there was like one woman guard. It felt like for, like, so. But we didn't, we didn't feel any danger. Like, the love in that room and those rooms were like, it was, it was special really. And you just wonder like, okay, if this guy got let out. Like, my gut tells me from the meeting I've had with you now, like, you'd be just fine, man. But I don't know what. Like, I think also prisons, you unlock opportunities from being involved. Like, if you want to get out and go to the gym or go to the chat, you got to be involved in ministry. So, like, there's so little extra things to do that I do feel like it's, you have to kind of toe the line in there. But if these guys are turning their life to God and Jesus, and they are loving each other because of it.

[Dope As]

Okay, did you hear any stories that you. Do you ever film things that you're like, we cannot put that in the video.

[Tommy G]

You know what? There we were in a crack house in Baltimore area, and a guy was cooking up in a kitchen, and he was using the house of one of his customers. It was a really old guy, and he was just cooking in this guy's kitchen. And close to the end of the interview, I was like, you know, has anyone died? Have you ever served anyone? And they just died? And he's like, well, yeah, I had this one customer, lady. She ordered some. She kept. She took it, asked for some more, Took it, asked for some more. And I knew this last time I handed over to her, like, that's. This is probably it. And sure enough, you know, I walked out, and I got a call a couple of days later that she was gone. And one thing is, I, like, there is a sense of being desensitized, because in the moment, I was like, oh, next question. But in the car ride home, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What the fuck did he just say? Yeah, and that's one thing that we've been wrestling with, too, as a team is like, in the beginning, like, the first time you pull up to a trap house with fentanyl and there's a gun, you're like, oh, my God, this is insane. And then, like, it's just like, okay, you got the gun. Fentanyl. Okay, Like, Ambrose, like. And I don't want to get desensitized to this. But the way that I put it in my head, you have to.

[Dope As]

To almost have a guard up to like, this is. This is okay. It's passing through.

[Tommy G]

But the same way I look at it, too, is okay, a doctor in the ER room. When me or you see the gunshot victim on the ground, we're like, oh, my gosh, the guy just got shot. And he's like, past the sutures, past the gauze. And so I don't want to get too clinical about anything. And I think there's probably, like, when you hear things enough, though, it's like, okay, your name's murder. Like, okay, like, what's. But I. I. Pardon me wish more I could have had the wherewithal to stop in that moment and be like, hold on a second.

[Dope As]

Explain this more.

[Tommy G]

That.

[Dope As]

That's your empathy.

[Tommy G]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

Oh, I can see how you can coast right over that. Yeah. You just. And you don't want to also, like, yo, Tell me about your feelings, murderer.

[Tommy G]

Because that's. That's the other big thing is I'm not there to judge anybody.

[Dope As]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

I'm there to figure out, like, a little bit inside your head. I want to just know about you. I want to know how you got to this point, but I'm not telling you right or wrong.

[Dope As]

But also, are there any times where you're sitting there like this, I got to get it. I can't handle this.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, there's been a couple pimps, especially the last one I interviewed in Los Angeles, where he was like, yeah, I'll be bossing these up. I'm like, hold on a second, buddy. You take 100 of the money. They're out working their ass off right now, and you're sit chilling with the boys doing nothing. Don't. How are you saying that you're bossing them up? Like, come on. And. Yeah, so that guy got me kind of pissed off.

[Dope As]

So there has to be a moment. You're like, I'm gonna wrestle you to the ground. Yeah, I'm gonna beat the out of you. There has to be the dude that.

[Marty O'Neal]

Was hitting the dog, right?

[Tommy G]

Oh, yeah, that was another one where.

[Dope As]

See what I'm saying?

[Tommy G]

Yeah. We were in Ohio, and it was a really fun environment. Like, there was. There's dirt bikes coming by, and it was a really good feeling in the air. And a guy was just beating the hell out of his dog and punching it, kicking it, hitting it with, like, a flip flop. And it was like yelping. It was like. It wasn't just like one. It was like. And so I got fired up. Like, that's. That's where it's like, hey, like. And you don't want to fight him in his hood, but at the same time, it's like.

[Marty O'Neal]

I guess you can see the dude. Like, the way he was reacting to you. It's like, damn. There really is just pieces of out there. You know what I mean? He's like, the way he was justifying hitting his dog and, like, arguing with.

[Tommy G]

Like, I was the bad guy for.

[Marty O'Neal]

Did he just walk away or how did that.

[Dope As]

Like, that's what it seemed like.

[Tommy G]

Okay, just. I'm gonna kidnap your dog. You. You better not do that again, you know?

[Dope As]

Oh, yeah. You got to be like, almost like a war. A war journalist. Like, that guy's dying out over there. We're just documenting it.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

Oh, yeah. You have to desensitize yourself a little just to get through the video sometimes.

[Tommy G]

And you see it. I mean, we Go on a mission about once a month, and we're seeing three, four different stories. You go on all these missions and like every week it's like, well, like last night, literally last night I was out in the foothills, some undisclosed location, and we're going to where they believe me. This car thief stacks like. And he breaks everything down. He takes the guts out. And first, like, we were wandering through this area, like, one, if the car goes out or like, we're stuck here. And two, like, I don't know this guy's. I just met this guy. His name is Loco. And I met him two minutes ago. And I said, okay, we'll meet in that area. And we just follow him. So we just go deeper and deeper into the kind of mountain area, and then we pull up to the skeleton of a car and it's like, holy. And like, these are the raw moments that you live for as this type of journalist. And so there's a thrill to that, but also like, okay, then the next Today I'm gonna. Maybe I see a Ferrari get stolen, and tomorrow I'm gonna talk to these deported rappers and they're gonna have. When you get like dose after dose after dose, it almost becomes kind of a blur.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

Okay, so real quick, I don't know where you were last night because it's bleeding, but you were in a certain.

[Tommy G]

Part of California, maybe the shittiest town I've ever been to in my life.

[Dope As]

Yeah, it's. It's funny that you say that, cuz it probably is close to it.

[Tommy G]

It is.

[Dope As]

That's bad. It's des.

[Tommy G]

I was thinking of making a video called this Place sucks and then just having an arrow on the map to it. You talk to the locals, they're like, yeah, this place does kind of suck.

[Dope As]

You know what's crazy? How content people are like, yeah, I hate where I live. See you in 15 years.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, that's.

[Dope As]

That's the central California. It's crazy that you're talking about where I'm talking, because I know it so well. I know we haven't talked about it much. It's so shocking that you're in California, a place overrun by Mexican people, and there are active white supremacists running around doing whatever the they want, having rallies in the street.

[Tommy G]

They would stay. I heard some of the craziest white I've ever heard this morning in that town.

[Dope As]

And they were like, oh, look at him. He's gonna like this.

[Tommy G]

He's like, they're. They're like. I'm like, how hard would it be to find a swastika? They're like, oh, right. Pretty easy. I'm like, pretty easy. I don't. I've never seen one in the wild before.

[Dope As]

Oh, really?

[Tommy G]

I've never seen a flag. I've never seen a tattoo.

[Dope As]

Really? Well, I have a whole backstory. My. This is different. My mom married somebody very wild. Whole different story.

[Tommy G]

Very wild. It sounds like, okay, wow. Well. And then they're like, they. Some of the stories. And he also, like, this white guy was like, yeah, I was with. I saw this Mexican guy and this colored guy and I was colored. What the. Are we in 1850, buddy?

[Dope As]

Like, was he younger? He was like 40 at tops. Huh?

[Tommy G]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

That's the mentality of that. Yeah.

[Tommy G]

Or you meet. You go to places like, their dog's name is like, you, you. You just a racial slur. Your dog's name.

[Dope As]

Hold up real quick. Kind of. Kind of tight, though. Like, you had a dog and you're like, what am I going to call him? What do I like to say?

[Tommy G]

The one word that can guarantee get you killed. If you yell in public, that's what you shout out into the yard for your dog. That is comfortable.

[Dope As]

Don't you love your dog? And you hate those people.

[Tommy G]

Can you imagine? You want to separate when guests come over to your house and like, oh, yeah, you can. Pet.

[Marty O'Neal]

Word.

[Tommy G]

He's. He's nice.

[Dope As]

Hard r. Dude.

[Tommy G]

That's what they don't.

[Dope As]

I know, but the hardest of ours. And no softest of A's on your door.

[Tommy G]

It's hard enough to knock you over.

[Dope As]

Wow.

[Tommy G]

Can you imagine going out of your screen door and be like, hey, come in. And your neighbors.

[Dope As]

Have the neighbors like, oh, you stole my dog's name.

[Tommy G]

Huh?

[Dope As]

That's what they would say. Like, that's what I named my kid.

[Tommy G]

That is.

[Dope As]

That's where you're at.

[Tommy G]

Hard to believe that it's really out there.

[Dope As]

It's there. It's. And it's crazy because they're like all Mexicans around them and they can just like close the gap.

[Tommy G]

Link up though. It seemed like there was more of an alliance between whites and Hispanic in this area.

[Dope As]

Oh, because they're all doing drugs together. That's all it is. It's like some prison.

[Tommy G]

It bonds people.

[Dope As]

Yeah. They just to get drugs off each other. Pretty crazy, huh? Yeah, yeah. Racism, like, I don't care if you're calling me that, give me a hit.

[Marty O'Neal]

You know, Strong drugs are uniting force.

[Tommy G]

It is interesting, though. Like a white guy expresses it and it's, like, extreme to the worst outrage, and rightfully so. But you can have a black guy say some pretty outrageous stuff. Like, we met with the black Israelites.

[Dope As]

One thing I wanted to bring up.

[Tommy G]

Dude, the stuff they were saying, if a white guy said that, you'd be in jail. Cemetery to social outcast. But these guys are just casually standing in a park.

[Dope As]

We talked about this the other day.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

They said, hey, man, B. Black fool's being racist as. Yeah, you can be racist against white people. Calling people cracker and white crack. Oh, because it was a Antonio Brown on the football player has a cracker of the day. That's his thing. Cracker of the day. And I said, if Tom Brady had wet back of the week, he'd be canceled. But white people aren't allowed to be racist unless they're like, yo, this is what I believe. And they're like, yo. And I kept my job because everyone here loves me. But if any other race starts to talk shitter, it's like, no, no, it's. White people are free. Free game. But it's, like, not free game. I just say, well, you own everything, so that's why people are mad at you. But also, like, it is racism. They don't like you because of your skin. The black Israelites guy, those guys, I see them everywhere. I didn't know that that's what they believe. I thought they were just Muslim dudes with the. With the shirts. I thought they were just like, a gang of Muslims that are like, love to work out.

[Tommy G]

They have a cool concept as far as the discipline, the organization, and the workouts, bro.

[Dope As]

Yeah, they just went, hey, we're not on the yard. We're just at the park.

[Tommy G]

But if they implemented that with a. An actual religion of love, like, or positivity. Let's get these guys out. Let's.

[Dope As]

Yes.

[Tommy G]

Spread these guys.

[Dope As]

Those guys are drill sergeants, and they need to be in every. Every neighborhood.

[Tommy G]

If you're positive that's funny about the black Israelites is they'll be practicing, like, the dumbest karate. And they think they're, like, trained killers. Like, they were like, this is the Akuna matata. Like, dude, like, you don't know what. You're like, you're big Steven Seagal. Yeah. Like, come on. But, like, they're acting like they're Navy seals out there.

[Dope As]

Oh, really? So look it. I see them all the time. And now that you put inside a hate group. Thank you for putting that, because that's exact. They hate white people and they literally said, we will enslave white. That's the most racist I ever heard in my life.

[Tommy G]

You better not try that.

[Dope As]

I will. I will sprawl on you to the ground. No. Isn't it kind of crazy that, like, oh, yeah, it's fine. But then again, there's these fools, right, walking. These white supremacists walk around doing the same.

[Tommy G]

A little more scary even.

[Dope As]

I don't know why. Like, I can see a hundred black Israelite dudes.

[Tommy G]

No big deal.

[Dope As]

No big deal. Because I don't know why I feel like the evil going from them is different than the evil coming out of some of these white supremacists because they hate anyone that's not them.

[Tommy G]

And everything about. Serious about being a threat about it too.

[Dope As]

They, they will, they don't want. They'll throw their whole life away because when they go to jail, they're going to be the man. But what'd you do? Oh, you shot those. Oh, all right. Get him some soups.

[Marty O'Neal]

Get him some soup.

[Dope As]

For real, dude. Like, we'll go over it later. But I grew up and going to prisons every weekend and just seeing all this crazy is just like, I was 11 going, you guys are losers, bro. You like that. You love this. Like, some of my stepdad's friends, like, you guys love. You know, I'm not knocked out. I hear me knockout stories. I've heard from prisons. Like, bro, you are. You don't have a job. You're at my house. My mom. This is my mom's house. Like, you're a loser. Like, no, no. And on the yard, I'm the big. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's the same crash out mentality of his kids, except they just never grew out of it and became men.

[Tommy G]

You know how we were saying earlier, like, there's something you admire about, like the car thief or the bank robbers because of, like, what they're pulling off. I mean, to be the guy in a crazy maximum security prison where there's other savages walking around, like, there is a sense of like, okay, like, you are a tough time. Like, dude, you are tough.

[Dope As]

You're not in jail right now, man.

[Tommy G]

But, but if you could dedicate that towards a positive path, man, you'd be unstoppable.

[Dope As]

Yes.

[Tommy G]

I guess seeing people committed to the path of destruction is tough to see.

[Dope As]

Yeah, that's a way to put it.

[Marty O'Neal]

Not caring.

[Dope As]

No matter what skin color or environment.

[Tommy G]

They'Re taking the ride. And there is no detour. And it's like, dude, I don't know. Like, you're very. You have a lot of potential. Like one of my. One of the guys. The car thief video. I love that guy. Talk to him regularly. And he is fascinating to me. But it's also like, dude, if you use you, you are incredibly smart. If you use that in the positive direction, even a little bit, you'd be a very happy, wealthy man. Eventually. It might take some time to get off the ground. But why are you committed to a path where I. I don't want to. Like, it's weird to know some of these circles that this guy. That the chance of him. Him being dead or in prison within a year or two years is like, wow.

[Dope As]

Like, it's sad. It's like knowing that chapter of books over, like, why I met this guy and he. He didn't live past 22. I'm 50. He's been gone for 26 years and nobody remembers him. That's a lot of thing people don't understand. Like, nobody's gonna remember you, dude. Did you knock fools out?

[Tommy G]

Do you have one more of these? Oh, I keep.

[Dope As]

Oh, right.

[Tommy G]

I'm chugging.

[Dope As]

Go for it.

[Tommy G]

Thank you. Jeez.

[Dope As]

No worries. So, yeah, now you get to see all aspects of this. And I feel like the art. I keep going back to RFK thing because it's, It's. It's major.

[Tommy G]

You'll breakthrough moment for the channel. Because when I saw a lot of those people on the other side of the table would take one look at what we do and be like, I. I don't see how I fit in into this. Like, I, I see this video with all these guns and these gangsters, like, where. How does the day in the life of a billionaire factor into that?

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tommy G]

That guy, by the way, is really cool guy too. We're going to his Christmas party in Miami and he has a little book launch.

[Dope As]

Just so wild. Like, oh, yeah, you have a billion dollars. Like, yes, I have no concerns. That's cool.

[Tommy G]

Somewhat. Some of these guys.

[Dope As]

Financial concerns.

[Tommy G]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

Like, yo, I don't ever have to worry. I can just swipe my card. That's such a relief.

[Tommy G]

Like, I asked him how much he had. Like, how much do you keep in a bank account? Like, percentage wise? However you want to answer that question, you feel comfortable. I don't even know.

[Dope As]

Why would he.

[Tommy G]

That's nuts, though.

[Dope As]

Like, to not even forget about that account. It's got 40 million. Let's go. That's cool.

[Tommy G]

But I do think a lot of these guys have undertaken some pretty big risk to get where they are. Like, like, okay, the 2008 crash. If I would have not played my cards or I would have been entirely wiped out. So, like, I survived a few storms. And to hear, like, a billion. One of his. His big storyline is he wanted to not be on Earth anymore. He went through a period of his life where he had everything, but he had nothing inside. And so he had a re.

[Dope As]

I thought you meant go to space. I was like, wow, he's that rich. Sorry I missed that whole thing, dude.

[Tommy G]

And like, to think you can have a billion dollars and that's an alternative for you. I think is. Is grounding because I don't think there's one person that walks this planet that doesn't have some sort of heart hardship. Even Jeff Bezos is going through hardship.

[Dope As]

He's got divorced.

[Tommy G]

Did he.

[Dope As]

I took half of it.

[Tommy G]

I thought they were like, no. Oh, his first wife. Because he's with that.

[Dope As]

He got married again.

[Marty O'Neal]

Damn.

[Dope As]

Yo, yo, yo, yo. He needs a life coach. Like, don't stop getting married.

[Marty O'Neal]

First of all.

[Dope As]

Just chill for a minute. Hire a life coach. Jeff Bezos.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, but.

[Dope As]

Yeah, to see somebody with that much money go, I don't want to be here is. Is insane.

[Tommy G]

But then I think that that is the truth of life, though, is that materials will never bring you the fulfillment that you might picture. It will.

[Dope As]

No. Like, growing up super poor, all I cared about was like, I just want to not worry.

[Tommy G]

I've seen some of your automobiles you've done very well for.

[Dope As]

And now that I'm not worried, it's like, okay, that's cool. Everything else is still here, but thank God that's done.

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Dope As]

So people, like, money doesn't buy happiness. No, it doesn't buy happiness, but it does buy less stress and worry and Freedom Day. Freedom and freedom. Or you can help people. You imagine remember going like, damn, I can't pay someone's rent. I can pay my own rent, but I can help you rent. Don't worry.

[Tommy G]

But that's so cool to be generous and not feel like, now it's gonna be really tight. That is cool.

[Dope As]

Yes. And not like, oh, I'm done. Yeah, I'm flat. Like, no, I got you. Don't worry. It's cool. That is cool, man. It's like having a video game cheat. Like, don't worry. You always been really good person, you know? Like, yes, it's cool. Like, knowing that you can help when you need help. It's the coolest thing in the World. So a billionaire, like, dude, if you're that sad, just go help a bunch of poor kids. Just go help bunch of single moms at the store. I guarantee you'll be happy by the end of day. Hannah fucking college student. 5K, man. That's the only charity we talked about. That's the charity I wanted by. Oh, nice people to store. Hey, 500 bucks. My wife, like, you're very polite. And then what? People in that town go, like, people are. You don't know who the fucking give you money. That guy's on YouTube somewhere. And then it's almost like, hey, man, you're changing your town. Hopefully it becomes cool to be generous to people or cool to read books or cool to be a sick athlete. That's what it is, man, because it's just not cool. And that's what we try to preach. Don't litter. Be cool and just work. Work as much as you can.

[Tommy G]

There's a sense of coolness or respectability about being responsible and actually like carrying the load up the hill.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

Like, it's easy just to not carry a load and just sit on the couch and do whatever.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

But to actually push the rock up the hill, that's hard to push. And to do something that changes people for the better and yourself is like, that's. That's what you look for in life. Those. It's those opportunities that give you the most satisfaction.

[Dope As]

Yeah. And a lot of people listening maybe haven't got there yet. You will.

[Tommy G]

And you matter what it is. The thing is, our time is people say it's more valuable resource. You don't have to be rich. If you want to go, you know, an hour and a half a week into your local wrestling gym or volleyball gym or basketball gym and help kids in the sport that you played. That's big. If you want to sit with a kid as they're doing their math homework or read with them, that. I mean, that's. That's everything.

[Dope As]

Yeah. Imagine being a kid I didn't know tutor if I had an older kid helping me. Oh, wow. I kind of want to do good to show you like I can learn.

[Tommy G]

Just do it in a way where Chris Hansen doesn't have to show up.

[Dope As]

Honestly, I wasn't gonna make it when you said, help a kid in math, and I was like, don't do it, dude. Don't make the jokes. And you did it. So it's okay.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, it's all right.

[Marty O'Neal]

So you're dropping basically, what, like once a month?

[Tommy G]

A week?

[Marty O'Neal]

Once a Week.

[Tommy G]

Once a week.

[Marty O'Neal]

But you're going out on. You said you go travel.

[Tommy G]

We go travel. We try and travel once a month. Knock out 3, 4, 5 videos depending on what we can find in the area.

[Marty O'Neal]

You're doing this all completely independently. You're like traveling away from your family all the time. Heavy, heavy duty editing, I would imagine tons of footage. Because it's not like you can really script all this stuff.

[Tommy G]

Yeah, we have like three. We have three editors on board. And so the. And they're these guys are. They work their absolute ass off. So we have a really like a top notch team.

[Dope As]

One of those videos is 60 hour edit. 70 at least.

[Tommy G]

Yes.

[Dope As]

Just the intro of the mayor. One was a 25 hour edit. You see it?

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, for sure.

[Tommy G]

So that is the thing is it's getting harder and harder to leave home. One of the last time I was leaving home, my baby boy was crawling towards the door and he doesn't know enough to know like, you know, dad is leaving. But there's gonna come a time where that's true. So I'm trying to figure that out in my head because you know what? Hey, the alternative, okay, I'll go back, I'll get a 9 to 5, I'll get an office job. You're still going to not see me for a certain amount of time every day. So one thing that there's this gonna. I'm gonna bring this full circle. But we went to go party with a bunch of Jewish folks in New York. It was a holiday called pm. They get really drunk, really wasted and they share a lot of food. And what I learned from them is that two, two weeks out of the month women are spiritually unclean. They don't hug, they don't touch, they don't have sex, they don't do anything. But they constantly are wanting their wives and, and missing them. And it was almost like, okay, now that you're, now that you're spiritually clean and we can do whatever. Like there was so much like desire for them when you miss somebody. So it is like it recharge my, my batteries constantly. Like I'm always excited to come home. I'm always happy to be home because it's like I have three weeks home and then boom, I have to go again. So it's like make the time at home really, really count.

[Marty O'Neal]

Is thinking of ideas and concepts for videos that are going to work. Does that stress you out putting out a video every week or do you feel like you got it down?

[Tommy G]

You know what it is A really fast treadmill to be on. And I wish that we'd be. It would be nice to have funding work in a way that I could only put out two a month and still make the same level of money because there's a lot of overhead right now with it.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

You know, five employees, all the. All the business, the travel, the. There's a lot, and. But it is possible. The biggest thing is the contacts. The right contact can bring you into any door, and so it's finding that person. I know I'm gonna head here. I have these two stories already. Who do I know that's in the train heist business that's willing to show me, you know, and I might not. And then you stumble upon it. So that's what I spend a lot of time doing, is I'm on the phone with context, constantly figuring out what we're gonna do, figuring out a game plan, figuring out who they know, and really kind of buttoning it up so that. Hey, we're okay. This is the day we're dedicating to this topic. Okay. Boom. We have a rough. Obviously, nothing's like, you know, 6:30am you walk through the door and you say, hello. It's not a play, but it's okay. I know I want to hit these four or five things. Okay, we've been here for 45 minutes. I think we got this. Do you have this lineup? Boom. Let's go.

[Dope As]

Production.

[Tommy G]

Yeah. Being very efficient because being the less I can be away from home, the better.

[Dope As]

I have a question. Do you see yourself, like, say, a network came at you tomorrow, but you don't. You have 95 say. You're gonna be like, well, we have to tweak this, and, you know, you have to break for this sponsor, and we can't have that guy with.

[Tommy G]

I have 95 say of everything that.

[Dope As]

Goes on, like, oh, that gun has to be blurred. He can't say that word right here. You see what I'm saying?

[Tommy G]

We don't need an HR department. There will. No, there will not be an HR department.

[Dope As]

So. So, no. But, like, if they came at you, there's.

[Tommy G]

Companies reach out and be like, hey, for this much, we'll give you this much money up front for as much equity. But I don't think equity is ever, never, ever worth trading away. There's times where it's like, it'd be nice to have, like, do some sort of cr. Okay, I want 5 million in the bank right now so that I can work at a pace where I'm not like every week. Every week. Every week. Because it'd be nice to, like, sometimes you just want to spend more time with people to really get a deep dive of their life. They can be like, hey, this guy sells coke and Tijuana. Can you live with him for a month? Then we make the, like, instead of. We have one day, pretty much, you know, eight hours, ten hours of footage.

[Dope As]

You get a summary of a person.

[Tommy G]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

Instead, like, instead of like all those steps. You got those steps. It's. You're. You're a journalist. That's really what it is. That's all. That's all this is, is an honor personable journalist. Yes.

[Tommy G]

It's. It's funny. This is a world where you don't need credentials anymore. I don't have a degree. I don't have any connections. My. I don't have a grandpa that runs Fox News. But anybody can be a journalist if they are on a quest for the truth. And they are really good at getting the story and getting the right contacts. And I think media has gone so far off the reservation. Every story is like either a hit piece or some preconceived. Like, there's no quest for discovery. Like, you already had your story written. You just needed to film the footage to back it up. You are on a quest for the truth. That should be a journey to get there. And you are bringing people on the discovery of what you find out. That's pure journalism. And I would say, like, there are ethical dilemmas that come up. Like, for example, just did a piece on a Texas prison and to be invited. I always want to do things in a way that I'm invited back, but I'm also going to tell the truth. So do I. Do I talk about how there's no air conditioning in this place and it gets to 120 degrees? But, like, you have to. You have to do it where it's not, it's not a hit piece, but it's honestly just saying this is. Oh, this happened. Oh, no one gets paid for work here. I'm not gonna give a judgment on it, but I'm allowed to bring it up. But it is. You do want. You want to be invited back. That's the other thing. That's.

[Dope As]

It's not like you're saying, yo, did you know that everyone's sweating their ass off? That works here and nobody gets paid. What kind of place is this? You fret. You said the same exact message, except you worded it right. Yeah, yeah, Like a place where they're up to 110 degrees.

[Marty O'Neal]

Employees would have really changed it for sure.

[Dope As]

Just knowing that now you're like, wow, these flies are in here all day, just sweating in the Texas sun. It's different. It's different. Just that little ad. Just the little bits that you like. You say, I want to be invited back, but also I'm not going to leave out because I want to come back.

[Tommy G]

Yeah. So there's another one. So the. The drug task force guys were really, like. They were professionals and they did a great job. There's a police department we worked with that they did some very questionable things. Like they would be running stop signs the entire shift and then pull someone over for running a stop sign and then bring the canine. Like they would do. They would go 4 deep on traffic stops, broken tail lights. They would have three or four squad cars. And then at one point, he's like. He's like, did you hear that? Like, so it was a tow truck guy. Him and me and Miguel. He's like, did you hear those gunshots? And me and Miguel, like, didn't hear the gunshots. And the tow truck driver's like, maybe. And so we drive, we find the car. He's like, it's probably either this car or this car. So he picks the car and he gets his. They pull him out at gunpoint. Dude, get out of your car. Back up towards me. And the guy was just driving his wife home from work. They check his car. No gun. Oh, it wasn't him. You're free to go, sir.

[Dope As]

Jesus Christ.

[Tommy G]

And part of me is like, dude, I. I don't want anyone to get on when I put something out, but.

[Dope As]

Some people need to get on, Let.

[Tommy G]

The audience decide what was right and wrong.

[Dope As]

If you put something out and the public says, what's wrong with these people? You're just. It's not exposing. You're showing. You're leaving the door open. You're not going, hey, everybody look. But when they do load, they go, what the fuck's in that door? And that's all you're doing. You're not. You know, it's not exposing. It's not hit pieces. It's just letting it be known. Just open the door to what's going on. Like, the mayor thing, that was a little different. I feel like that was investigative. That was investigated because, you know, and. And when they're trying to punk you in the parking lot, it's just. It makes everybody more infuriated.

[Tommy G]

Okay.

[Dope As]

Just seeing it happen.

[Tommy G]

I have to go to the Bathroom. But when I get back, I want you to ask me about Kenneth Copeland. Are you familiar with Kenneth Copeland?

[Dope As]

Kenneth Copeland? No idea.

[Tommy G]

He's a mega church pastor out in Texas. He's absolutely bawling, dude. He has a 19, 000 square foot mansion. He has multiple jets. You may have seen the Tik Tok clip. There's a lady reporter confronting him. And he looks like.

[Dope As]

He looks like a demon. And he's like God gaming as a demon.

[Tommy G]

Okay, I don't. We went under. This demon's private property. So basically you invited in. No. So we, we went. We did an undercover job in the church.

[Dope As]

That's a demon, dude. Something's up with his eyes. He looks like Hank Hill's dad.

[Tommy G]

I'm. I'm. I'm going to spin his block. I got, I got. We got some on him. So, dude, we, we go to the service and it's so strange in there, dude. There's guys with earpieces and suits. Like, is this the FBI in here? So they're like, they're like walking around. They're kind of quasi security. But more what they do is they, they pack the studio audience in the front because it's mostly about the TVs. Like most of his audience is the. He's a televangelist. So they wanted to look packed for the tv. So they're always moving people. But it's a very strange cult. Like you talk to some of these guys and they have a very like intense eye contact and like, welcome brother. Like, and just. It just like there's something. And plus I knew I was about to some up on that church or maybe I just felt a little bit like they knew what I was up to. We go into the parking lot and we go on a mission. We start driving through his private property area. But technically it all belongs to the.

[Dope As]

Church and that's where his church is.

[Tommy G]

And we donated to the church. So technically we remembered. I donated 69 to his church. And I still haven't gotten. I've probably gotten like 15 emails from him about. Continue to plant the seed and believe in God and I'll 10x your. So anyways, we, we go into this private airfield. He has a tarmac for his jets. We're raiding it, we're getting footage. We're.

[Dope As]

Everybody's at the service, dude.

[Tommy G]

We're just Runner.

[Marty O'Neal]

You're also sneaky.

[Dope As]

Oh, I love this.

[Tommy G]

I'm a dog, baby. So we like, that's the type of like, this is a guy that like, I want to do more of these where I'm. We're cowboys out here. So anyways, we, then we go to his private hunting grounds and then we go, we, we get a drone and we flight to the front door of his house. Boy, we're watching.

[Marty O'Neal]

Oh.

[Tommy G]

And then security gets called. We make it back to the tarmac and we have a standoff. And they have like three or four. They have private security, they have church security. And one guy like, he's like, oh yeah. And like does like that. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy. You just try and draw a gun on us. And he. It was like the, you the best reaction you could possibly get. Like we're, we have to wait till Easter. We're collaborating with another guy that's doing, doing a big Amazon show about different religions or Christian churches that are really dropping the ball on, on how they spend their money and. But that's like more investigative pieces like that I am very excited to be working on.

[Dope As]

That sounded so fun. So everything you just said sound like like an actual mission, dude. Oh, and, and you know that guy's not a good guy. There's something about him that's going to come up like, oh, you've been embezzling and selling children. Something's up with him, man.

[Marty O'Neal]

Look at his face.

[Dope As]

No, that's not, that's not positive.

[Tommy G]

Give me a break, dude.

[Dope As]

That's not, that's not.

[Tommy G]

I will say one positive thing about them. Their church choir was on point, dude. I was feeling the Lord. I was like, I was like, it was good.

[Dope As]

Oh, I, it kind of scares me to go into a televangelist church.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Dope As]

I feel like it's just the devil. Yeah. I don't know why it feels like the opposite. Dude.

[Tommy G]

Who is dop donating to him though? Who is doing this?

[Marty O'Neal]

Gullible people.

[Tommy G]

Some people got their hands on the books and I, I believe. I don't want to. I'll say allegedly because I think they're too happy, but I think they got like $800 million in the last 20 years and they're supposed to be building stuff. Like I'm gonna build a retirement home so you can retire here in this community. I'm gonna build this. Nothing he. For other people did he build. But everything for himself he built.

[Dope As]

I can't wait for this.

[Tommy G]

I can't wait.

[Dope As]

That's gonna be fun. See. Thank you so much. What, what is your YouTube for everyone out there, they can go watch you have two and a half weeks straight footed footage. If you have time you can just come to continue and keep watching. Some of your shit's 48 minutes long. It's real PE. It's like a real journalism. This is. Oh, yeah. I was on the treadmill this morning. Like, damn, dude. This fool for real. Largest prison in Texas. Brand new. One day. Let's go.

[Marty O'Neal]

Are you gonna be wrestling any motherfuckers in 2025?

[Tommy G]

You know, I run. I run classes and practices, and I still train jiu jitsu, but as far as, like, wrestling someone on the camera.

[Marty O'Neal]

Seven footers on the beach, I don't know.

[Tommy G]

Let's see. We'll see.

[Dope As]

Hopefully by this time next year, everything is just 10 times or times 10. That's all I will really see. You doubled your following in a year.

[Tommy G]

I am just happy this is my job every day. I'm like, I can't believe I get to talk to this guy, this guy, that guy.

[Dope As]

Like you don't know what's next.

[Tommy G]

I'm happy to be where I am. I'm grateful and, like, it sometimes just trips me out. Like, this is my. When I explain my job to people, I'm like, I can't believe this is my job.

[Dope As]

Sick.

[Marty O'Neal]

Are you still doing real estate at all?

[Tommy G]

A little bit. We slowed down. This is a tangent. But basically, it's. It's a lot to keep in the air. There's a lot. Only so many things you can do well. And also, I've had a little bit of issues where, like, we'll. We'll get a house in the absolute trenches, and we'll make it the nicest house on the block. I'll show you guys some pictures. And then you have someone move in. And within six months, the windows are broken, the doors are. It's just like, what? Oh, my phone's out in the. But. So, like, we thought, okay, the business model make really nice places that people want to stay forever. Because there's one of the big problems in the area is it's a reshuffling deck. People are moving once a year that getting kicked out or their landlord sucks. Like, there's a lot of terrible landlords that just don't take care of places. I've been to places where it's leaking for three months and the landlord never shows up. We make these nice places. And most of my tenants are really good. We have a great relationship. But some of them, I'm like, how. What are you even doing in this house? And so it's just discouraging. Sometimes you're like, oh, like, I Thought like we put the extra money in, extra effort into like make something nice and what are like, are you swinging the sledgehammer in there? So it would be interesting to get into some real estate plays that are a little bit more hands off or maybe luxury or BnBs or maybe a middle class development of. I don't know. I just don't. Some of the. The trend gets a little wearing at times.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, I can imagine.

[Dope As]

Yeah. That's Marty's. That's what Marty's on next, actually. Houses.

[Tommy G]

Real estate.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Tommy G]

Buffalo.

[Marty O'Neal]

Nah. Well, we're really open to My wife's like a professional real estate.

[Tommy G]

Okay.

[Marty O'Neal]

So we're open to whatever makes sense. But yeah, Buffalo risk. Like expensive now.

[Tommy G]

Oh, really?

[Marty O'Neal]

No, the house that was 80k is now 300k.

[Dope As]

That's like Merced. Same thing.

[Marty O'Neal]

So it's got to make sense.

[Dope As]

The, the, the theme and the moral of this episode. Discipline, do good things, don't litter, don't be a bastard. And you can do take risk. And what you say, put yourself into the fire to grow better, to grow more. Yeah, I could fully agree with you because if you're doing things every day that you're like, I'll crush it. I'm gonna do it. It's fine. It's nothing. Every day's the same. Nothing else is going to change. And you're never going to do the thing that you wanted, like a standup shift. Ken didn't ask me. I wouldn't have did it. So fun. Yeah, I get it. I understand. But you can do this with a phone, homie. Or yourself. Edit Imovie Pro I'm sure you didn't have a team when you started.

[Tommy G]

Remarkable things take remarkable actions. And I think we all want to live a life worth talking about and that we want to take part in. So have some courage, make some moves. I'm confident for the youth. I'm confident that people, whoever wants it is out for them on the table to get it.

[Dope As]

There it is. Thank you for being here.

[Tommy G]

Peace, gentlemen.

[Dope As]

Really appreciate you.

[Tommy G]

Thank you for having me.

[Dope As]

This has been Marty O'Neill. Appreciate it's been Tommy G. I'm dope as. Have a dope ass day, politician. Tommy G. One day. Well, you speak like you're gonna change the country for real. You have a politician's way about you. I could see this happening one day.

[Tommy G]

Ooh, politician. Yeah.

[Dope As]

But like the one you just interviewed, the one that you're like, wow, this is a real politician. That's. He's the politician that the Simpsons Drew when we were kids, like, yeah, this man's gonna change. Now it's a literal TV show. Perfect, perfect, perfect.