Ep 538 - LSD Supermax (feat. Joel Blaeser)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast

Episode: Ep 538 - LSD Supermax (feat. Joel Blaeser)
Release Date: December 23, 2024
Hosts: Matt McCusker & Shane Gillis
Guest: Joel Blaze

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Introduction

In Episode 538 of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, hosts Matt McCusker and Shane Gillis delve deep into the tumultuous journey of Joel Blaze, a former LSD distributor whose life took a dramatic turn after an intense legal battle and subsequent incarceration. Featuring firsthand accounts and insightful discussions, this episode uncovers the harsh realities of the American prison system, the evolution of drug laws, and personal resilience.

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Early Encounters and Connection

The episode begins with Matt and Shane expressing their admiration for Joel Blaze after seeing him on the Soft White Underbelly series. They recount their first meeting in Milwaukee, highlighting Joel's impactful presence and the signed copies of his book, Letters from Marion.

Joel Blazer: "We went to the steakhouse. Five O'clock Steakhouse. Might have been the best steak I've ever had in my life."
[01:50]

Legal Troubles and Sentencing

Joel Blaze shares his harrowing experience of being sentenced to 151 months (12 years and 7 months) in prison for selling LSD—a sentence he considered short compared to the typical decades-long imprisonments for drug-related offenses during the early '90s.

Joel Blaze: "When I was facing 40 and I got 151, I looked at my mom and I just went like this. Like, really?"
[03:53]

He discusses the broader context of drug laws at the time, emphasizing the severe penalties for even minor drug offenses, which far outweighed today's standards, particularly concerning marijuana.

Joel Blazer: "Texas is still illegal. If you have weed in Austin, they don't care. But if you leave Austin, you can still be thrown in front of the hotel."
[05:03]

Evolution of Drug Laws and Societal Impact

The conversation pivots to the transformation of drug legislation over the years. Joel and his hosts reflect on the impact of decriminalization and legalization, referencing studies like those from the Cato Institute that suggest positive outcomes from more liberal drug policies.

Joel Blaze: "They would track it all the way to when kids first tried drugs. It just had a positive impact on all the metrics of drug use."
[07:16]

However, they also critique harm reduction strategies in places like Oregon and Seattle, arguing that these approaches sometimes fail to provide adequate support, leading to unintended negative consequences.

Joel Blazer: "If both metrics were the same, legal and illegal, the use. There's still the metric of the criminal elements out of it."
[08:19]

Incarceration Experiences: The Marion Supermax Prison

Joel Blaze recounts his time in various prisons, with a focus on the infamous Marion Supermax Prison in Kentucky. He describes the brutal conditions, the concept of "diesel therapy" (constant shuffling between facilities), and the extreme measures taken to maintain order and control.

Joel Blaze: "The whole yard saw that. And he had... He knew that he was pushing my buttons."
[46:44]

A pivotal moment in his imprisonment was an altercation with a black lieutenant, which indirectly led to his transfer to Marion. Joel details the racial tensions and the systemic issues within the prison system, including the disproportionate sentencing based on race.

Joel Blaze: "The lieutenant took my bag and called me a hippie rat. I called him a really fucked up name."
[45:42]

Personal Reflections and Family Dynamics

Joel opens up about his strained relationship with his father, who suffered from PTSD after fighting in a war. He shares a poignant memory of his father's sudden death, which coincided with Joel's first experience with LSD.

Joel Blaze: "We had a fight, and then he died right in my arms."
[27:59]

This personal trauma, coupled with his incarceration, shaped Joel's worldview and fueled his later endeavors.

Drug Culture in Prison

The discussion shifts to the pervasive drug culture within prisons. Joel describes interactions with fellow inmates who were major drug dealers and his own contemplation of using heroin as a coping mechanism during his sentence.

Joel Blaze: "I wanted to try once. I want to stick a needle in my arm and I'm going to try heroin."
[30:10]

He reflects on the psychological toll of constant drug use and the lack of supportive environments to address underlying issues.

Joel Blaze: "It makes sense you would lose your mind because you have psych now."
[40:44]

Strategies for Survival in Prison

Joel shares survival tactics he adopted while incarcerated, including methods to pass drug tests and maintain his sanity amidst the chaos. He humorously recounts using socks and pressure techniques to masturbate without arousing suspicion.

Joel Blaze: "You turn it inside out and then you fold it over so it's a little tight. And you got to get a big sock."
[09:36]

These anecdotes provide a raw and unfiltered glimpse into the day-to-day survival strategies employed by inmates.

Post-Prison Life and Real Estate Success

Upon release, Joel Blaze pivoted his life towards real estate. He narrates his accidental entry into the real estate market, purchasing distressed properties, and revamping them with a passion akin to artistry.

Joel Blaze: "I wanted to do grill, and then they would pay me anything, but I would never take more than I needed."
[32:01]

Despite facing challenges like the subprime mortgage crisis, Joel's dedication to real estate provided him with a sense of purpose and financial stability.

Joel Blaze: "I paid all the mortgages till I had like 11,000 left. And then a bankruptcy lawyer came to me."
[68:46]

Future Plans and Ongoing Endeavors

Joel discusses his aspirations to expand his influence by publishing an audiobook version of his book, seeking second editions, and exploring potential film rights. He expresses a desire to continue mitigating mental health issues through innovative programs inspired by his own experiences.

Joel Blaze: "I'm going to do an audible on the book. I'm going to do a second edition."
[70:16]

He emphasizes the importance of mental health support systems and envisions creating peer-led groups to assist those unable to afford traditional therapy.

Joel Blazer: "I could use it in a way where I'm not, like, pulling it out, being like, let me see if anyone."
[41:46]

Notable Quotes

• Joel Blaze: "I wanted to do an unsolicited bid with the marshal service. If they take, if they seize assets, I knew all this from jail."
  [67:15]

• Joel Blazer: "You're gonna die."
  [38:43]

• Joel Blaze: "I could have lit me on fire. If you're smoking cigarettes."
  [02:42]

• Joel Blaze: "I had to do it as one last act of defiance."
  [59:04]

• Joel Blazer: "It's worse than bad cocaine."
  [43:32]

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Conclusion

Episode 538 of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast offers an unflinching look into Joel Blaze's life, from the depths of incarceration to the heights of real estate success. Through candid conversations and compelling narratives, Joel illuminates the flaws within the criminal justice system, the transformative power of personal resilience, and the ongoing struggle to address mental health and societal issues. This episode not only entertains but also provokes thought on significant cultural and legal paradigms.

Transcript

[Joel Blazer]

And we're live. Joel Blazer. What the is going on?

[Joel Blaze]

Thank you.

[Joel Blazer]

Thank you for coming. Doesn't it feel good? Yes, feels good, dude. Every now and again, just to jump in hot, get the juices flowing. So, Joel Blaze. I. I. So we met in Milwaukee. I saw you on Soft White Underbelly, and I was taken by. I was like, dude, this is. This is crazy. I think, Honestly, I think you're one of their best guests. You know, they've done some.

[Joel Blaze]

Thank you.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Right, right, right, right, right.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

I could have missed you. I'm obviously on your grip right now. Couldn't miss you.

[Joel Blaze]

That was rad.

[Joel Blazer]

My fuck, dude. My friend. I think Nate. You met Nate?

[Joel Blaze]

Yes.

[Joel Blazer]

Nate comes. Oh, no, I think it was aj. AJ comes back and he's like, yeah, there's a guy like an all white in the front row. And I was like, I know who that is. That's Joel Blazer. I was like, dude, hell yeah. So, yeah, we talked a little bit, and then we met. Dude. Dude, you're the fucking man. We met in Milwaukee. You gave the signed copies to Nate, and AJ of your book, gave him a little note, Letters from Marion. The notes were, I thought, beautiful, man. I gave them their books, and we were reading them. I'm like, they're just beautiful notes. You're the man, dude. You're an absolute beast. But we went to the steakhouse. Five o'clock Steakhouse.

[Joel Blaze]

Yes.

[Joel Blazer]

Might have been the best steak I've ever had in my life. Dude. I. I'm not lying. Like, good it was so good. And then I. The. The thing that really killed me was I've never seen this happen before. When you showed up, you had had an incident with gasoline.

[Joel Blaze]

Oh, my God, dude, that was.

[Joel Blazer]

Dude, you smelled like gasoline. You showed up. I, like, we're all sitting there eating, and I'm like, I. I thought you're working with power tools all day. So I'm like, maybe he was like, chainsawing all day or something. He come in like. I'm like, I don't want to be there. What the. Why did gas.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, you got drenched with gasoline.

[Joel Blaze]

Like, that is wicked, bro.

[Joel Blazer]

You. I swear to God, I've never. It was such a pungent.

[Joel Blaze]

I'm like, what am I going to do?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

You could have lit me on fire. If you're smoking cigarettes.

[Joel Blazer]

I seriously was concerned. I was worried someone's going to order, like, offlombe or something. And you would have went up because it was a thick gasoline smell. Although that's kind of the most manly per, like, cologne.

[Joel Blaze]

Maybe we could start it Letters for Mar. Gasoline.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

He just.

[Joel Blaze]

Completely Right on his front step.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

You said they were 151 months. 12 years, 7 months, which I jumped for joy. That was short.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

When I was facing 40 and I get 151, I looked at my mom and I just went like this. Like, really? You turn around yes. Because I'm like, it's 151. Like, I'm at least that, you know, 40. When you're 23, your whole life, you're done. You're like, how do you look down that hallway? 151. It's like, okay, I can file some appeals. Maybe I'll get lucky. And I did.

[Joel Blazer]

But that was 1992. So that's. This is like. It's crazy to think about the drug laws back there's even, like, weed back then. You go to jail for, like, four or five years for selling weed. If you had enough.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

It's crazy. And now look.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

And so we paved the way. I should put a collection bucket out.

[Joel Blazer]

Should. You should. That's.

[Joel Blaze]

The young people have no clue, man.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. Even. Even the early 2000s, it was like, you could go to jail for, like. Like, little, like, weed and stuff. I guess they softened, obviously. Softened.

[Joel Blaze]

There's still some. There's 25 states where it's illegal, right?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Everybody.

[Joel Blazer]

They don't care in Austin. But if you. Is that. Isn't that right, Josh? I think if you leave Austin and you get caught with weed, like, I.

[Joel Blaze]

Knew someone who's decriminalized in Austin proper.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, pretty much. I. I mean, they. At least they don't. They don't prosecute it at all.

[Joel Blaze]

It's not the lib side.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

In Austin?

[Joel Blazer]

No, outside of Austin. So Austin's a safe haven, so they can't.

[Joel Blaze]

Where do they sell it here?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

It's one little thing.

[Joel Blazer]

The hemp bill. No, the hemp bill. Exactly.

[Joel Blaze]

If you get it from hemp, you can. It's like.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. Or the big thing's THCA is. THC is what's illegal. Thca, you know, you have to, you know, like, heat up weed. Make brownies.

[Joel Blaze]

Carbolic.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. Decarboxylate or whatever.

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

So now if you. If you have that extra carbon molecule that heat removes from, literally, of a lighter, it's technically legal because you can be like, well, this is hemp.

[Joel Blaze]

It's.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, it's. Weed's legal now, by the way.

[Joel Blaze]

But is it medically legal here?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

I mean, dude, it's like, it hasn't worked. I mean, look at the prisons.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

And. And you take the. The Mexican cartel would go out of business like that. Think of that.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Yes.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, well, apparently they told you they sent you to jail for fucking 15 years. So, dude, so that you have a book. It's called Letters from Marion. I read it. I love the book, dude. I thought it was great.

[Joel Blaze]

Thank you.

[Joel Blazer]

Book was fantastic.

[Joel Blaze]

It kind of gave me that shout out about the jackrag on another podcast.

[Joel Blazer]

Yes, I did, I did. I did.

[Joel Blaze]

Actually, I parted it too.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Nikki at the Third Place. Yeah, Nikki told me he started to tell me and I thought he was with me.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

And it was. What was the technique again? You rolled the socks inside out so.

[Joel Blaze]

It'S smooth, and then you're not actually, like, going up and down on the shaft. And it's hard. It's hard when you get a really big hard iron, but you grab the shaft and then that heat created. And then right at climax, boom. Right on top and underneath, put some pressure on it. It has an effect. Man, that's crazy. I mean, like, most. Don't guys know that?

[Joel Blazer]

Oh, man, I don't know, I've never tried this sock in the pressure plate.

[Joel Blaze]

So you. You turn it inside out and then you fold it over so it's a little tight. Right. And you got to get a big sock. But no, it works. And then it's all contained. No. No spill, no trust, no muss. You don't have to buy a cab ride home in the morning.

[Joel Blazer]

True. Gotta wash the sock. Yeah, gotta wash the sock.

[Joel Blaze]

Throw that out. Throw it out after like six or eight uses.

[Joel Blazer]

What? Oh, so you still wash. Or I'll.

[Joel Blaze]

Rinse it, but not. I don't want to put it in the machine.

[Joel Blazer]

Ah, True. You need to keep. Here.

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

You need to keep it pure. I get that. True. You don't want all those chemicals on you. The funny. So you were telling me this made me laugh a lot. So you get. You go to trial. You took your case to trial. You fight it yourself, which you know that is honorable. You go take your case to trial and then you were sentenced. Like you said. What was the first thing you did upon sensing you back to the cell? What was your play?

[Joel Blaze]

So it was a.

[Joel Blazer]

That was 23 years old.

[Joel Blaze]

Sober experience. Sobering experience. I went to that cell and I just started to think, what do I want to do? What am I going to do when I get out surfing Sushi. And then I'm like, somehow I got aroused.

[Joel Blazer]

Right on.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

I mean, and who knows?

[Joel Blaze]

Maybe If I spent 151 months in there, I mean, I might have been getting my dick sucked. I don't know. I don't think so. But after a certain amount of time, like, say if you're there for 30 years, man, I hear you.

[Joel Blazer]

I hear you.

[Joel Blaze]

You gotta be touched. Like, what the.

[Joel Blazer]

Something's got to happen.

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah. Or a guard that you get lucky with. The female prison guard.

[Joel Blazer]

That'd be huge. That would be very lucky.

[Joel Blaze]

So I don't know. I've never had to deal with that. But you never had it.

[Joel Blazer]

That was. That was your primary concern. You said going in you didn't want.

[Joel Blaze]

To have to get raped. Get my filled with come. Can I say that?

[Joel Blazer]

You can say that. Yeah. It's your journey.

[Joel Blaze]

No, man.

[Joel Blazer]

Dude, that's a real fear I'd be terrified, man. Because you were down where? In, like, Kentucky?

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Exactly.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Acceptance, it's a big thing. It was luck. I don't know how I, like, I look back, what the.

[Joel Blazer]

Why you were wise. You were definitely at 20. For the 22, to be like, all right, this is what it is is pretty crazy. I don't, I wouldn't be able to take it. I would have been like, this is, there's no way. I would have been in total denial.

[Joel Blaze]

I think when they arrested me, I thought to myself, as they're driving me in the car, like, I had the thought, I'm like, I know a who's got a kilo of coke? I'm thinking in my head, and, and I'm like, no. And they brought me to the courthouse in this room with Christopher Bick and a couple other agents, and they said, you're going to spend the rest of your, you're going to spend all your 20s and probably most of your 30s in prison. This is the best part of your life. And they said, just, we, you don't even, we won't even process. You just tell us you'll cooperate and help us and you and it can stop right now. And I said take me to myself. You. Which was the hardest thing because I knew it not. I'm not going to jail then. Yeah, they threw the 18 count indictment on my lap when they arrested me, which I thought holy. That means they convened a grand jury. They've been following me, trying to catch me with which they were. So yeah, man, that was, that was a wicked, A wicked situation. Then I got out on bail for like four months and then out on bail I got in trouble. So they arrested me. I don't know if I put this in the book. And then I had to go back to Kentucky through the federal prison system. And then once I got to Kentucky, there was a mix up with getting the car and then I got out again. But I went through six or seven prisons because the way the marshal services like transfers you through. And then I went to this one in Oklahoma. Now they built a different one, but you actually went into a prison with like six tears. And so I'm only have been arrested, I informally charged, but I have, I have not been convicted or sentenced. So I saw in that point, I saw what prison was. Yeah, like really what prison was.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah, because they arrested me in Milwaukee, but the indictment is out of Kentucky. So they rained me here. They gave me pre trial probation. They said you got to show up in three weeks.

[Joel Blazer]

Kentucky. And you couldn't get to Kentucky.

[Joel Blaze]

Right, right. Like two days before I called the marshals, they said, you got to get there, you got to get there, we're going to come arrest you. And then there was an issue with my getting a rental car and then my brother wasn't going to let me use his car and I, I mean I up.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

But they don't go straight. I just get in the system and you just, you go around. And then it took me like 31 days, couple county jails, but the, it was the one in Oklahoma, Oklahoma City. I can't remember the name of the federal prison, but like you would go to the chow hall and you'd mix with the prisoners like the wick, you know. And it's just like I remember Gene Gotti was there, I believe at the time. But it was like, holy man. Then I get to Kentucky, they gave me. He gives me the bail. He's like, you can't up. We're gonna piss you all that. He's like, but I'll see you. I don't know. The trial was in four or five months after that. But that. That. No, I went back to Milwaukee. Okay, but if that. That could have made anybody rat. Yeah, because you see, like, this is the gonna be home.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

I didn't even have the trial.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Like, yeah, you don't know anyone, so you're just getting shuffled or you're straight.

[Joel Blaze]

No mail sucks, dude.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

The hole's the jail within the jail. Like, it's crazy, right? Yeah, the hole was pretty wicked. The thing is, like, on the commissary slips they sold at every single federal prison, they sold raw garlic. And when you went to the hole, there were certain things on the commissary they wouldn't let you buy, but you could buy, always buy raw garlic, really cloves. And like, for the whole entire time, every single day. I'd eat two to four cloves every day. I just wanted to do it.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, it probably kept, like, infections at bay. And, you know, getting sick in jail would fucking. You never. No one ever thinks about getting sick in jail.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

That's cool.

[Joel Blaze]

But the.

[Joel Blazer]

Well, my. My friend was in county jail and that's the thing. People don't know too, apparently. Exactly. That's what I've heard.

[Joel Blaze]

Cesspool, wickedness.

[Joel Blazer]

It sucks. My friend was there and he was. He was an older guy and he was in the county jail sturdy.

[Joel Blaze]

There's no regulation.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

It always is. And the air is recirculated. So getting dandruff.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Right. Because even if you're federal hold over in a county jail, you don't get the federal. Like, if you're in a federal prison, there's just like, you're in the county. That's it.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

It's a pyramid scheme.

[Joel Blazer]

No, I'm saying, like, run it. You. If you did like a high level crime, you get better jail conditions. Basically. Federal prison.

[Joel Blaze]

No. Well, once you get there, yeah, true.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

You know what I'm saying?

[Joel Blaze]

Yes.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Doesn't it Come together at the end, though.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Thank you.

[Joel Blazer]

Hold off. The letters were. So what was your thought?

[Joel Blaze]

Because within the book, too many.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Some of it was a little too deep.

[Joel Blazer]

I loved it. I thought it was great. But, like, the best is when you send a letter to your brother being like, I'm gonna fucking destroy you when I get out of here. I'm so jacked. That made me literally laugh out loud in my bed. I was reading that. I'm like, what a funny thing just to be in jail. Be like, I'm gonna fucking beat your ass when I get out of here. I' so strong. Which I'm sure you're around with your brother. But it was like, yeah, the.

[Joel Blaze]

The.

[Joel Blazer]

The. The letters did, like, the, the story, you know, was flowing. The letters, like, it. It really gave it some kind of, like, grab some weight to it, man. It was like some of those letters.

[Joel Blaze]

Were like, thank you.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah. I wanted to do the envelopes to prove I was there. And then the. Hillary wanted me to type the letter out, but then I'm like, no, that means it could be edited. If this letter. This is it. Like, you can't change that.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Oh, she. For Playboy. My parents met at Playboy and she posted that. I heard.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

They're not getting. Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

Obviously not all nude, but she has a couple. Then on the back it says Playboy Studios, but I think I had a bet or something with someone or some reason ulterior. I can't remember what it was, but I got the picture and I showed. I said, look, Playboy Studio.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, that was the.

[Joel Blaze]

I think it was a bet.

[Joel Blazer]

That was a letter I saw in there. There's no context on the letter, so I like kind of like looked it up and I was like, okay, that's. That's what I thought it was. You wanted the Playboy photos for a bet. You never said that in the book. So when you're reading it, you're going, this is a freaky ass bull, dude in prison.

[Joel Blaze]

I'm going to be jacking off to my mother.

[Joel Blazer]

I would never know. I would never say no, but you're.

[Joel Blaze]

Right, that's a reasonable thought. How fucked up does this dude get? He's jacking off to his mother. Oh, my God.

[Joel Blazer]

I never say so. God damn. It just made me laugh because I was reading the book and I'm like, what the fuck is he talking about? These photos and that. That makes sense. You had a bet with somebody, they didn't believe you.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

He didn't believe.

[Joel Blaze]

Might not have been a bet. It might have just been. Look, I want like, hey, my parents met. I play. But check this out.

[Joel Blazer]

Like, yeah, that was an interesting story too. That was. So how did that go down?

[Joel Blaze]

I think it happened on Lake Parkway at the mansion.

[Joel Blazer]

You.

[Joel Blaze]

Hefner's mansion. My dad collected money. He worked in the credit department. My mom worked in some area where like, you're just kind of the traditional whatever. And then they met at the party and then that they married. I think they married in 63, November 22, the day John Kennedy was shot. And they. I think they met in 61, but they both worked at Playboy. And then Pompeo Pozar was a big staff photographer. Just hounded the out of my mother until she relented to pose.

[Joel Blazer]

So.

[Joel Blaze]

But the. The rest of the story, which I've never told anyone, probably never happened in the history of Playboy. So she posed. They picked her for centerfold. Everything was set typeset and everything. And she freaked out.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, it's a big Catholic.

[Joel Blaze]

Especially back in 60.

[Joel Blazer]

Especially back then. Like people now wouldn't care because everyone. People have like only fans and shit. But like, yeah, back then that was a big.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Well, she was super fine.

[Joel Blazer]

Really?

[Joel Blaze]

She was extremely fine. Yeah, no, unbelievable. Like, okay, I had a party at the lake estate. The Super bowl was February 4th and my friend was there and my mom came into the kitchen. And so I'm. I don't know, 40. My mom's 65. Probably now she's my mom. So like I, you know, but petite and perfect.

[Joel Blazer]

You're cursed with a hot mom.

[Joel Blaze]

So she leaves the kitchen and Bob's there. It's probably five years my elder. He's like, dude, your sister is so fine. Can I get her? Can I call her? And I said, it's my mom. And he's just like, oh, lady walked out, you know, like that's who she was. But she wasn't like. What's the word? Like, she didn't act like she was, but she was really. Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

What was it like growing up with like a. Like a hot mom? Basically?

[Joel Blaze]

I. How could I know the difference?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

I always wonder what that was, looking back. Like the way people reacted to her and would talk to her, like when we would travel. Like they were very attracted to her. I don't know. It probably helped me. I mean, if I'm do. Am I ugly? No.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. No. No. You're looking guy. Dude.

[Joel Blaze]

I think she might have been able to do a lot better than my dad though. Right? Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

So what was. And what was the. In the book, you include some stuff like you guys had a rocky relationship and then he just died.

[Joel Blaze]

Yes.

[Joel Blazer]

How was that? Because you go into the. It's kind of jarring because I read it. It's like, you guys have this. It's almost something altercation and then he dies that day.

[Joel Blaze]

The week before he died, maybe two weeks were at the dining room table and I'm like, dude, I think something's wrong with you. I think you're going to die. I've been having these dreams. It happened with my grandmother. He said, I'm fine. I had the cholesterol check, everything's good. Then the day before. So what was it? October 15, 1989, 1988? Because the first time I took LSD was a year later on that date, unbeknownst to me. And so we got in a fight over something. The cakes went flying.

[Joel Blazer]

It was like a birthday.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Damn. That's crazy.

[Joel Blaze]

Which is fucked up.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, that's. And you were, you know, early 20s. It's got to be a pretty heavy experience.

[Joel Blaze]

20 or.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, 20 or 19.

[Joel Blaze]

Okay, eight. No, maybe I was 21. 69. 89. 88. Seven. 19.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. It's kind of crazy, right?

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

That's cool.

[Joel Blaze]

Every fucking day. So, like, I made peace with it somehow, like. But yeah, there was a rocky relationship. I mean, my dad suffered from ptsd. He fought in a war. And like, I mean, I don't know if I was. I don't like. Because you mentioned it when you did your thing about hitting a kid. Is that really the way. So five or six year old boy, like, that's it. It didn't happen all the time, but it happened enough to where it's like. It's significant. Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

Right.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

No. Yeah, that does. That was a. It was like a heavier moment. And the. And this was. I thought this was kind of interesting too, in the book. The. I mean, this was kind of like the crux of the tale was like, you're in jail, you know, you're kind of having a good time. You're, you know, sound a little black dog. Heroin. I was.

[Joel Blaze]

Finance my weed. Oh, my God. That's just the hypocrisy of it. Right? Like, we're gonna keep this illegal. I know what the.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

I said the whole thing with drawing the needle back and the blood coming in, was that.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't. It wasn't this, like, otherworldly.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Was that because of Jerry Garcia having. Was he, like, into heroin then or. That was until, like, the 90s.

[Joel Blaze]

It's. I don't know the whole history he was in it. I mean, probably from the beginning, but when he got addicted, it was definitely in the 90s back really bad. And then he went to the Forest Knolls or Serenity Knolls, and then he died. I don't know if it's because of that, but it was the re. No, it wasn't because of that. Because the people that do heroin and coke and are alcoholic, they're not thinking safety first.

[Joel Blazer]

Right.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. So that makes sense. So that was part of your thing. Like, I'm. I'm gonna try heroin too. Once.

[Joel Blaze]

Once.

[Joel Blazer]

Now I can do it. Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

That was the three things I promised myself.

[Joel Blazer]

You're getting crushed by the corporate lifestyle of selling lsd. So you're like, I was not.

[Joel Blaze]

I was always to get to the next show. Like, because if you went broke, you could sell grilled cheese and beer and make 6 or 800 bucks, buy 20 or 30 sheets, go to some city for two weeks with someone that you just met, or they know the city, and then make 4 or 5,000 and you're good for like, the whole tour.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

I mean, two or three grand in the 80s on tour, it was like, you're set true. And you got three or four guys in the car. But, like, there always was the juxtaposition. It's like, I'm risking my fucking life for a little bit of money, even though I believe in it. Like, so that was the dichotomy of wickedness.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

That was amazing.

[Joel Blazer]

Basically, just following around the great was.

[Joel Blaze]

Beautiful because, like, those people accepted me. It was like a family. And it was just like. Love the. The scene in the parking lot when I went to the first show was unbelievable. Like, it just was what was missing at home.

[Joel Blazer]

That makes sense.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

You weren't really getting after it like that.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

So one side had that, and then the one side was surfing hippie ladies. And then the sheet is a thousand hits, which is like maybe a 7 by 10. And then 10 of those is like accordion. So that's. That's 1 gram of LSD, which looks just like a gram of cocaine. And then they would pay someone to batik those sheets with each square of a hundred hits would have the. That Vesuvian. The vitruvian man from. What's his name? Astronaut.

[Joel Blazer]

Vinci.

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah, da Vinci. And the other side would be the surfing hippie ladies. But that piece of paper was like, Artwork. You could not. You could not counterfeit that. So if you, If I saw one of those sheets on the lot, I'm like, all right, rainbow's here. I'm search them out. Like I know I can get. And then they would front me anything, but I would never. They would front me 10 grams, which is 100,000, but I can. I would like, what am I going to do with it? And they would train me. Like, if you ever think there's heat around the corner, like, throw that shit away. You just have to stay safe. Like one time we did a 10 strip and like they were just with me when they met me.

[Joel Blazer]

And you took 10 hits, you're saying?

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah. And they could tell. Some, however they told, they could tell. But like I was in.

[Joel Blazer]

Damn.

[Joel Blaze]

You know, I was.

[Joel Blazer]

What was that like when you, when you. Like that was your first experience? Was that your first experience?

[Joel Blaze]

No, the first one was the year. The year anniversary my dad's death. I was right a. Friends, new friends that I met and we were in the show. They were blue unicorns and there were lights like this on the ceiling. And we just kept eating the LSD because we're like. I'm like, I don't think it's real. I don't think it's real. It was her second time. And then, I don't know, I probably got to eight or nine and then all of a sudden we're like, this is real. But then we just spent the next 15 hours together. We were at the show. It was the most beautiful, lovely experience. Like you could see, you could just. You were just in the moment. It's hard to explain in words, but that was a beautiful trip. At the time I took the 10 was Northern California and like, you could sleep. I mean, pure good LSD is not. I don't think it's really harmful unless you have a very. Something psychologically that's really okay. Impending you and. Or the precursor to the trip. Like if you just got in a wicked fight with your ex wife and she's taking the kids and you got to double the alimony, and then. Then that might be bad.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

I mean, tartate. No, it's a Substantial amount of glassware. And it's not just some bathtub to get pure LSD 25 it took some time. And so the other thing is like. And you're not just going to make, you're going to end up with millions and millions of hit with a batch, you know, so it's like you're going to have a lot. But those people that I met, they never were about bling bling. They were specific to safety first and wanting to bring about radical social change. And when I was in prison I met people from Caracas and all down South America, these big huge coke dealers. And this one dude, remember his face? I can't think of his name. And he sort of made me start to think even more about it because he said like when the LSD came and he knew about Owlsley, he knew all this stuff about like the scene, but he was like this wicked cocaine dealer, but he was so smart. And he said when that LSD came in, it's when people were rioting in the government and we wanted to overthrow things. And he's like that stuff brought about radical social change. So it makes, it makes sense that the government wanted illegal. But who knows why? Maybe you know, maybe they found some true serum way to like make people. Yeah, they didn't want Russia to get it, but it did. They did a lot of stuff with alcoholism too.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, that was a big thing for aa. I think LSD bill wanted it everywhere.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Damn.

[Joel Blaze]

So that was a small study.

[Joel Blazer]

How much do you think how much they were giving them? They're probably back then I think it was.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Well, it's Weird too, because.

[Joel Blaze]

And then it would infect them forever till they died.

[Joel Blazer]

I mean, imagine in the. Again in the 50s, like, LSD. Like, you know, I. I grew up hearing about it. You have, like, a context for what it is. Like, oh, it's like, you know, it's like hippie stuff and jumping out the window.

[Joel Blaze]

You're gonna die.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. Or even. Even being like, you know, say I was following, like, Fish and I. If I was a kid, I would have been like, yeah, it's like. It's like weed. It's like you get high. But in the 50s, if someone just hit you with 10 hits of LSD in a lab and, like, get your life together, I'd be like, it was.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, it makes sense.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

That'd be sick, right?

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Like lsd.

[Joel Blazer]

Yes.

[Joel Blaze]

So I've never seen that. I believe it.

[Joel Blazer]

But. But I think you have to have underlying stuff already kind of kicking.

[Joel Blaze]

Abused it, like, daily.

[Joel Blazer]

It was just. No, there was like every weekend just boom. Like and like, constantly, as you said in your book, you didn't take it.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

These guys were. Every weekend that the nitrous, they're just partying with it. And they. I remember, wow. I see the one guy, I was in a grocery store and I'm like, oh, hey, what's up, man? He was working there. I'm like, how you doing, dude? He was. He cornered me. He's like, I'm fighting a battle against light and darkness. And I was like, oh, boy. I was like, all right, bro. I was like, you know, I'm gonna grab my. My stuff and get out of here. But it was. Yeah, I remember this guy. But again, it could have been just like underlying stuff, because that is like, you know, if you take a person who already has, even if, like, you know, they could have like, had a job and just been a little weird or whatever. But it's like, if you really kind of ramp that up and it's like you don't give them any kind of, like, way to work through all that stuff. It's like, yeah, no, you're right. It makes sense you would lose your.

[Joel Blaze]

Mind because you have psych now. What is that?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Yes.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

You can kind of get people anything.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Sharing the tools. Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

Like that these people, like, these PhD level people make up and like, how do you kind of disseminate them in a way that like, that could be done in like a peer to peer thing. That's my goal. And I'm still now looking for therapists now because I want to just salary a couple therapists now that I can to just kind of like run groups and like, kind of like see where curate the whole, like online space.

[Joel Blaze]

That's awesome.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, it'll be. It's.

[Joel Blaze]

How did you get that name?

[Joel Blazer]

I made it up. It's like. No, I don't know. It's kind of funny because, you know. But. But yes, that. That is My goal, because, you know, we do need to figure something out collectively, because this isn't, you know, it's clearly not working, dude. It's like the fact that we're immune to, like, kids shooting kids in school now. It's like, it happens enough to where it's like, all right, dude, there's some. We need to organize ourselves mentally a different way. We're organized around, you know, one thing right now, and it's not really money. Yeah, pretty much. And it's like, it's. It's good. I don't. I don't hate money, but it's like, it's. Clearly something's getting up and it's like, I really feel like as human beings, you know, we're organisms and, like, we're not.

[Joel Blaze]

It's.

[Joel Blazer]

It's hard for people to wrap their head around the fact for everybody that they're not, like the most important person in the world. Because as an organism, if you. You know, if you think about organisms.

[Joel Blaze]

Cells, we're all a cell.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Is it the human condition?

[Joel Blazer]

I think so.

[Joel Blaze]

We're stuck. The iPhone. Yeah, I got an iPhone in April or May. I had a flip phone from 2013. I shut off my iPhone, too. Dude. That is worse than bad cocaine.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, dude. I'm coming to grips with how addicted I am to my phone, and it's like. It's bad, man. I got my screen time down to, like, I think, like three hours. And I. I think this week I should be hitting 2. But it's like, dude, it's such an addiction.

[Joel Blaze]

But you need it for your business, right?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Every two hours. They're just.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

How many likes.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. So that's. You know. But either way. So, yeah, I kind of agree, you know, something needs to happen. But, you know, it's one of those things where it's like when people try to push the pedal, like, I got the solution and push the pedal. Usually it's just 10 times worse. So I don't know. I'll be curious to see what happens with people, but either way. So. Dude. Okay, so you're. This is. What else did I want to ask you about? So you. Oh, this is the thing that was. I thought was crazy. So you're in. You're just. You're kicking around different, you know, prisons.

[Joel Blaze]

Six.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, you're six.

[Joel Blaze]

I didn't adjust well. Who does? Right?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

You said that name in a disrespectful way. The Aryan Brotherhood would have killed you.

[Joel Blazer]

What do you mean?

[Joel Blaze]

Wait, which guard?

[Joel Blazer]

You're talking guard who sent you to Marion?

[Joel Blaze]

Oh, that guy, the lieutenant. Okay, no guard.

[Joel Blazer]

Are you talking about.

[Joel Blaze]

And when I admiring. When I said, I'll do you like Tommy Silver.

[Joel Blazer]

That was crazy.

[Joel Blaze]

So ridiculous. Oh, no, the black lieutenant, though, that really was the chain of events to get me there.

[Joel Blazer]

This was a kind of. I thought it was kind of nuts. You're in jail. Things are going well. Whatever. This black lieutenant takes your bag, you Guys get into an altercation.

[Joel Blaze]

So he called me a hippie rat.

[Joel Blazer]

He did.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

You don't have to.

[Joel Blaze]

So. And then. But the whole yard saw that.

[Joel Blazer]

Yes. And he had.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

He realized that. He said that to you in front of all the other prisoners.

[Joel Blaze]

He's like, well, because when I came to that prison, he wanted the bag.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

He's like, I'm going to get that bag. I know you faked that property slip.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah. And so it was in. That was the third prison I was in with it. And then I'm coming out of chow to go to the yard and he just gave me that bag. You hippie rat. And I yanked it back just out of reaction. He body slammed me. It's like 6-46-52526. Huge lieutenant. I mean, he's running it and he's like, you hippie rat. And I'm like, oh. But he knew when you come in, they know who's ratted, who didn't rat, who might have to be in PC or not. So he knew that he was pushing my buttons. But anyway.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

That was the first 1 out of 12 to riot.

[Joel Blazer]

That's really 12 prisons around the country, like.

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

And like. Dude.

[Joel Blaze]

And that was.

[Joel Blazer]

Damage was crazy. Like the bill. You were saying.

[Joel Blaze]

Did you see the report?

[Joel Blazer]

No, what was the report?

[Joel Blaze]

I put. I have the whole riot report. Well, now I got to re. Put it back up on my new website, but it's a report from the Justice Department. It shows, like, all the prisons that riot it. What was burned down to the ground. And they said that the instigator was Talladega, Alabama, and they charged me with leading it, which was the lieutenant like, crazy thing.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, well, it was. It was really like a racial. Racially inspired riot because it was like, black guys are going to jail for crack. Like, for the most part, white guys are gonna.

[Joel Blaze]

For coke and at methamphetamine and lsd, they changed all those three okay, so three.

[Joel Blazer]

So the black guys were understandably kind of pissed.

[Joel Blaze]

So they write the same drug.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

You just explain what Marion is. Because I didn't know what it was.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

And it was long, three hour lockdown, one hour outside a day.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Damn. And you were saying in the. Sorry. In. In the thing that really kind of like I thought was nuts. In the other prison, during the riots, you were like about to go to the yard to work out and you were like, it was weird. Let me go back to my room. And you were saying the. The yard itself was just like an apocalyptic battle of like dudes getting raped, people getting their head smashed.

[Joel Blaze]

When I went to Marion, my neighbor told me a story of Dean who went out on the yard because he said that day they. After the riots, they both got transferred to this other prison. Then T came to Marion. And then. And he, he just. He didn't know that. What you just said that. I put it in the book. But he told me what happened out on the yard. And he said Dean was almost dead. Like he was beat so bad, like his head caved in like he was alive but just like not doing really good. Even after like months of like he was that up. But then in the unit you walk in and it was just a jungle. But like we were all together. They were breaking the machines. We were trying to break down the door to where all the records were because that all the official records were still like physical. These guys who had all the other crack law guys wanted to burn them. No, I only have a year. No, they would have said, I know, I know that.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

When they toured us out of the. Because I didn't see everything that happened once they locked us down. We were in that unit for 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 days before we left for Marion. But when they took us all out to go to Marion, the one building was burnt to the ground and another building was halfway burnt down. And then when we were in there, we could hear bulldozers and shit. But you didn't really know what's happened. But I'm like, where all housing unit was, it was gone. It's like. I mean, you could smell smoke, but you just didn't know how bad it was.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, you got to see the damage.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Exactly. That was in the report too. Yeah, there were Some that did that. And the funny thing is the ones that. Here's the thing, what I. What I talked about earlier, the medium security prisons were the ones where the most violence in buildings being burnt happened. Because these guys that. It's an. It's a consensual crime. I sell you something. I know it's illegal. All right, I didn't do the crime due the time, but it's like, I could have raped. I could have robbed you. I could have have stolen so much more money and gotten less time. Like, it's not fair. Justice.

[Joel Blazer]

That was always my thing. It's like the prison law should be according to who would rather have. As your neighbor. Right? Yeah, yeah. Would I rather have a guy who sold coke or a pedophile? It's like, all right, a pedophile longer time than a guy who sells coke because it's like that's who I'd rather live next to. If I had to choose or if I didn't have a choice, it would be like, you know, it should be. People should be sentenced accordingly.

[Joel Blaze]

Did you ever look at when you moved to a new neighborhood, the federal sex offender registry? It's unbelievable map. And you could just hover. You see who they are, what their crime is. Are they on probation and there's. What a tool. Yeah, they're everywhere.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

That might be my next play, you know, Free prison.

[Joel Blazer]

What do you mean?

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Right. Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Oh, you're talking about like pedophile specifically or just. Yeah, yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

Pedophiles. Pedophiles.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

There.

[Joel Blazer]

There's.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, they should have to. You should like ever. They should be. There's a documentary to watch where they. It's called Pervert Park. It's. It's a really rough watch. But they. They have, like, a trailer park in Florida, and they're just a gated community. It's like they just all live in here and people just. Oh, beer bottles over it.

[Joel Blaze]

No. Okay, so they're contained, then. At least they know where they are.

[Joel Blazer]

But, dude, not like. So I used to get housing for. Went to school for social work. One of my jobs was get housing for prisoners. So you get out of jail. I would. I would do a little interview. Like, hey, you know, I'd have to get like, what is the nature of your crime? But it was like. It was just like, selling drugs and stuff. And then the lady who ran it didn't tell me she had opened up to pedophiles, because that was one of my. I would, like, you know, the crap, break the ice is. I didn't like being like, hey, what'd you go to jail for? So I'd be like, hey, I have to ask you this. As long as you're not, like, a pedophile, whatever. Don't worry. And they'd always be like, I'm not a pedophile. Like, ah, you know. And then one day, the guy was like, well, I actually am. And I was like, what? And then they were like, yeah. And I talked to my boss. I'm like, what the. And she was like, yeah, I decided to start taking pedophiles. We had to find them housing, too. And I was like, okay, but what year? This was only like, this would have been 2019. 2019, 2018. Around then, my thing was, like, I didn't want to. And I would call their probation officers because I would be like, I don't. Isn't there laws? These guys can't be. I can't, like, throw this guy into Best Buy. Like, there's kids around.

[Joel Blaze]

No, there's the thousand feet or whatever. That's my school and all that. I think there is.

[Joel Blazer]

That's what I thought it was, man. But this. This person, I would. It was kind of like, you know, leading the thing, you know, as far as I remember, was kind of like, no, no, they're fine. They have rights. And I, like. I called the guy's probation officer. I'm like, this guy can't work here, can he? The probation officer was like, no. And I was like, yeah, I didn't think so. So it was weird. I remember I ended up telling the.

[Joel Blaze]

Lady, I was like, I Don't, don't ask, don't tell. We got to get rid of them.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

You know, the stigma seems less now for ex drug dealers.

[Joel Blazer]

It does those guys legal.

[Joel Blaze]

I mean, if you went to jail for weed, like is. How could that even.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

People pay their rent. Who cares?

[Joel Blazer]

And then. So they were cool about that. But once she tried to have me find like the pedophile and I had to tell her like, like, look, I'm not the guy to help because now they're gonna.

[Joel Blaze]

You.

[Joel Blazer]

You'll never. Well, not even. Yeah, then you're gonna up all these other guys housing. And it's also like, like I remember the one dude would call me, the guy who was on my caseload who had that kind of stuff. And he would just be like, hey, I'm outside in my head. Like, you know, I wouldn't even be there and I'd be like, I don't give a. He's like, it's raining. And I'd be like, tough. So I'm like, there's got to be someone who can help that guy. So they do need help from somebody. But it was like, I'm not. I can't do it, man. I just. I couldn't do it.

[Joel Blaze]

Like, he's just built like a this, you know, 600 unit spot, like. And he just. They're all there. Where are they gonna go?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

And then when you do the real estate transaction, you gotta say, you know about the sex offender registry. Like you have to check that box because it's like no one. If someone moved into your neighborhood and they do that, it's gonna devalue everything.

[Joel Blazer]

Yep. It's that those Guys have a hard time.

[Joel Blaze]

They never seem to be to break free. No, it's not like you sold lsd. You went to prison, you never sold it again.

[Joel Blazer]

Exactly. Even if you did.

[Joel Blaze]

Well, I did flood Marion with it. Did you really Time. What.

[Joel Blazer]

How'd you do that? So, yeah, you were in the scene.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Oh, I remember this. When you. Because you were pissed when you got. Is that. Was that correct?

[Joel Blaze]

I don't think I put it in the book, but maybe I put it in the book. I don't think it's 2015. I got out. No, that would have been after the Statue of Limitations. So I set it up. Up. I set it up. I said to my friend, I said, listen, I don't know if I'm going to do this, but if you get a letter that's like this from this place, this is where the LSD will be. So I drove. I mean, I was on federal. All this shit's past. It's five years statute limitations. The only way that they can extend it is if they ask a court and then they have to notify you.

[Joel Blazer]

It's just all entertainment anyway, dude.

[Joel Blaze]

So. Right. And so I got it. I got the liquid. I put it on the paper. I wrote this letter with gloves on, with my right, left hand, you know, the envelope. And I drove. Actually drove past Marion, way down south through Illinois and then into some. That state that's right to the east, either Tennessee or Kentucky. And then just went to a mailbox with a stamp and just put it in. So then it had that. That right thing, right? And then he acknowledged it in a very with a future letter. He didn't say anything. Yeah, but. And then I never wrote him back again.

[Joel Blazer]

That's cool.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

And it just got. It just ran right through there. That must fuck wild.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

That must have been Terrible. That high in jail.

[Joel Blaze]

Twice there was acid and I didn't take it. But one time, this guy gave me this Lana coke ether base. Just wicked. Just so high. But then coming down off that dude was like, not that you want. You wanted more, but like, I'm in prison, dude. That's a hard reality. So taking acid?

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

Herb got four or five hits. Each hit was 200 mics. And he asked me for, like a week not to push me, but he said, because he's like, we're all going to take this, but there's one for you. And then he kept coming to the child and saying, are you sure? Because he's like, I'll probably never get this again. And then I remember when they took it, they had a great time. But I just thought if I took that in jail, like, eight or 10 hours of tripping in prison. I don't know, man.

[Joel Blazer]

I couldn't do it.

[Joel Blaze]

I don't. I couldn't.

[Joel Blazer]

I have a friend who smoked K2 in jail. Like the synthetic weed?

[Joel Blaze]

Yep.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Isn't it just like weed?

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, but apparently it's like. It's, like, kind of harsh from what I've heard. It's like. It can be like. Because it's just a chemical. So, like weed, the plant can only get so strong, but K2, they're spraying these synthetic cannabinoids. Like, you know, it could be.

[Joel Blaze]

Who knows?

[Joel Blazer]

Exactly. So he said this guy, he had, you know, he had done, like, tripping all the drugs you could possibly do. And he was like, dude, that. He said he was in there, he kept hearing people coming, checking on, and it. Like, it wasn't happening. It was him and the dude in there just in terror. The whole.

[Joel Blaze]

Did you like the way we made pipes?

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

That was the. That was the college trick. You would put the Febreze fabric. Fabric softener sheet in a paper towel thing and blow it out.

[Joel Blaze]

Because pots so smell so strong to people that don't.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

Smoke it.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Sparky took me out. We just kept hitting this joint, kept hitting this joint during the move, right when I arrived. And when I got back, I swear to God, it was like I took 10 hits acid. I was so stoned, like, dude, and I'm like, 151 months. I hadn't won an appeal. It was just this wickedness.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

He took me twice a day. And after about a week, it. You gotta do your time, right? And then they taught me how to beat the piss test. You drink.

[Joel Blazer]

Oh, yeah, I read about that.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Don't you get a dilute, though? I heard you. The drug test now they can hit you with. It was too diluted. Where they.

[Joel Blaze]

This was the 90s. And the thing is, whenever they would take the, the, the they take it. You'd go back to lieutenant's office, they would make it look like they're putting it in a mailer. But then they would always ask you, if you admit to us you did, you did drugs, we'll give you, we'll only give you 30 days. I mean, I never would. But nothing ever came back dirty. Today the test might be different, like the whole whatever, but if you didn't piss, you would get it dirty. Then it's 90 days in the hole and you'd probably get transferred.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, it sucks.

[Joel Blaze]

Which is the worst first.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Don'T know, did they do that in the 90s? The dilution, I've just heard about it.

[Joel Blazer]

I don't know. I was so Young in the 90s. I was, I was a wee boy. But the. I remember hearing about that move, like just slam a bunch of water. But then it would, the test would come back as like inconclusive because it was just too diluted.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

It's probably barely 98 degrees warm.

[Joel Blazer]

So it makes sense back then that they would have been like.

[Joel Blaze]

But today, I think they probably could detect it.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

I just knew he was. I asked him. He didn't. I knew. So he didn't smoke weed or do anything. So I was like, let me get. Peeing this glove for me or peeing a thing. Then I just dumped it in the.

[Joel Blaze]

Glove and it worked.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Did they take it?

[Joel Blazer]

The nurse was cool. She was really. But they. They hit you with a temperature. That was a big thing. They temp check it because then they.

[Joel Blaze]

See if it's cold, it's 98 points.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

What about the duffel bag?

[Joel Blazer]

What about it?

[Joel Blaze]

What do you think happened to it? What?

[Joel Blazer]

The duffel bag you got taken from you. Didn't you get it? Did you get it back?

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. That was the end of the book, man. You got the. That was. It all came together. That guy.

[Joel Blaze]

What the fuck? So that motherfucker.

[Joel Blazer]

Fucking bad.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

It was a You.

[Joel Blazer]

You think that was his you100?

[Joel Blaze]

What?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

No way.

[Joel Blazer]

Why did he do that?

[Joel Blaze]

Just to be a. I think so. I burned it in a 55 gallon drum that day. I had a ceremony to let it all go.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

I did. And maybe it was. I never thought that. I mean, I wasn't in a bat. It just struck me like, this motherfucker sent it back. Now it is weird.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

He was following it. He had to be.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. Weird.

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah. So, like. But it represented so much.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

I had to like, the Phoenix, like, just let this go. And I had a ceremony.

[Joel Blazer]

That's pretty cool. Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

This thing's out of here. That. That makes sense.

[Joel Blaze]

Just. I don't regret it. It. But it would have been kind of cool to say, hey, here's the green duffel bag. But no, I had to let it go. I had to just get rid of it. It symbolized so much. Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

And just to move.

[Joel Blaze]

Was that bad psychologically? What do you think?

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

And this. There's something kind of cool and ceremonial about being like, all right, I'm done with this part.

[Joel Blaze]

I can let go.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

What? I don't know that it shocked me, though. Yeah. I'd be freaked out. It was shocking.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah. That would have freaked me out. Like, first of all, I was like.

[Joel Blaze]

Dude, you're keeping on me staying with my brother. Which the probation officer would have known. But, like, all my other stuff I had.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Dude, I was so focused. I got to come back. No, I was like, by accident. The house.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

And so then I actually dated the marshal. That helps a little. She probably would deny it, but. So I bought that house.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah, I bought that house probably 18 months for like 25,000. And then I just like felt like changing the design. My mom would always take me to these Frank Lloyd Wright homes, and so I just started doing it. And then some people helped me in the neighborhood they saw sympathetic to the architecture, but I needed help, like with the design and just people and contractors. And then that just started the evolution. And I was hyper focused monster just like going after it. Like, not worried about a Rolex, but just loving what I do. And I was good at it. The best that I've ever been at anything. Probably in the world of commerce and making money, that's legit. Paying taxes. I mean, 2005, I paid 175,000 in federal tax. I mean, where the did that money go, man? A tank tread. Like, God damn. But yeah, so that just focused me and I just would buy buildings, restore them or buy apartment buildings, Restore them, rent them and sell them.

[Joel Blazer]

That's cool. Yeah. And you. And you got into like just kind of.

[Joel Blaze]

I remember I did addresses and everything. And then my lake house, I. This massive Lake Estate. State S109W 35190 Jack's Bay Road, Eagle, Wisconsin, 53149. Dude, nice. Unbelievable. Yeah, Spot was unbelievable.

[Joel Blazer]

And you got hit with the subprime mortgage crisis. Ah, yeah, man.

[Joel Blaze]

I was told.

[Joel Blazer]

That's wild, dude.

[Joel Blaze]

I was told not to. Yeah, I mean, I don't blame them. I was. I wanted to get to 3 million and then get 3 million in T bill. And then still what I did, still do what I do, but that was my goal. And I had nine years at a million 10. I bought that Lake Estate and two other houses. 6429 North Santa Monica and 1525 North Marshall. And then just it went, man. And I paid all the mortgages till I had like 11,000 left. And then a bankruptcy lawyer came to me and said, if you file bankruptcy, you could stay in that lake house for another 18 months. I said, dude, I'm giving the keys back. Like, it's done. I'm not just gonna. I flew to Hawaii and I started to caretake a farm. But that took me 10 years mentally, like now, like you being on here like that focus and drive like it's there. I have it, but I. I still do it today and I have a little. Not where I was, but I'm not driven like I was, and I want to be. Right. I want to be.

[Joel Blazer]

You're still doing the properties?

[Joel Blaze]

Yes.

[Joel Blazer]

That's cool. Rehabbing and fixing up.

[Joel Blaze]

Yep.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah, that was.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

That's true.

[Joel Blaze]

So it gives. That's what I know. Like, I can't, you know, like, I'm not a painter or.

[Joel Blazer]

For sure.

[Joel Blaze]

That's kind of like, what. The hand I was dealt. Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

No, that's pretty.

[Joel Blaze]

And I love working out. I like working out.

[Joel Blazer]

It's a nice physical job.

[Joel Blaze]

Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

Like, you can go on a show and drink liquid death and show it, and, like, you're gonna get 10 fucking grand. Like, I see it. I understand marketing. Like, holy fuck, man.

[Joel Blazer]

That liquid death money.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Like, you're gonna start a podcast or something. Something.

[Joel Blaze]

I don't think I could compete.

[Joel Blazer]

Right. But you. You just want to do the real.

[Joel Blaze]

I'd love to sell the book, the movie rights. I had started a cream plate. That would be really cool. Yeah.

[Joel Blazer]

With the book, it was funny because you sold. You did what, 5,000 copies. Yes, sold them. And now the only books are on Amazon. And I was like, I'm not.

[Joel Blaze]

I'm not selling them for $200. Those are.

[Joel Blazer]

Other people looked up his book. Me and Nate were there. Nate Marshall were looking.

[Joel Blaze]

You thought it was me.

[Joel Blazer]

I was like, damn, this guy's selling his books for $200. And that's all. They're secondhand sellers.

[Joel Blaze]

Sold all your ones from the Soft white underbelly. It's like, within a couple months, I'm like, mark, what? The people are selling my book for 250. He's like, yeah, that's part of the deal.

[Joel Blazer]

You got to Print more, dude.

[Joel Blaze]

I could print more and. Or do a second edition. Because what I want to do is a chapter, every other. Every other. A letter, every other chapter, and then add marion. I took a bunch of stuff out about Marion.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

And the. The drug laws and like the. The riots.

[Joel Blazer]

Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

What the.

[Joel Blazer]

That was cool. And it was fascinating.

[Joel Blaze]

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

[Joel Blazer]

Like, yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

What?

[Joel Blazer]

What?

[Joel Blaze]

And then I took 21 days to respond. I'm like, oh, my God, this motherfucker's gonna think not big deal.

[Joel Blazer]

I think it was crazy how you were in there and you were describing, like, the people, especially in Marion, like, these guys would kill you, like, without hesitating. And you'd have to form friendships with these guys and hang.

[Joel Blaze]

Bruce Pierce.

[Joel Blazer]

And you knew Holiday in the fact. Yeah.

[Joel Blaze]

The fact that you did tell Big Mike McElron.

[Joel Blazer]

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

[Joel Blaze]

Well, I thought about it on the plane coming here. There was a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood who's now in the ADX, Mike McElhinney. He never overtly. I thought danger of him, but I knew he was a wicked dude. Like, you have like the big wolf. But, like, he gave me a respect and it had to be because who the would. He also probably thought I was idiot because the guards could have killed me. But, like, who would have ever said that? Yeah, I'm gonna do you like Tommy Silverstein. Like, what the. Man, that's insane. I mean, I'm not bragging I'm like, at all. Like, how could that have even come out of my mouth? It shows you the. I don't know, the naivety I still have probably this day in some form.

[Joel Blazer]

But no, that was. Was. That was pretty sick. But. Well, dude, yeah, man. Pumped. Thank you for coming on.

[Joel Blaze]

Thank you for having me.

[Joel Blazer]

Perfect. Thanks, bro.

[Joel Blaze]

Thank you.

[Joel Blazer]

See you, man.

[Joel Blaze]

Thank you.