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The Iced Coffee Hour
Interviewing The Internet’s #1 Scammer, America’s Most Corrupt Mayor, & Infamous Liars | Tommy G
02:06:15
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- [00:00]
Graham
In every city across America right now, there is a thriving underground economy that few people ever look into. My job is to get inside access to places that most people don't get to see, ask people questions, and bring it back to the people. This has to be one of the ground zero spots. We cover a lot of the fringes of society, the trailer parks, the reservations, the hoods, the smugglers. These are people that the average media outlet will not cover. We give them an opportunity to broadcast their message to the world. Is it safe to say that you are on the run right now? Yeah, I guess you could say always had a desire to explore, to discover, and to really understand what makes people tick. You just got out of jail. What role do you feel like you play in all of that?
- [00:41]
Unknown
I feel like whatever you're consuming is on you.
- [00:43]
Graham
It gets really scary when you piss off some of the most dangerous people in the world. But we get to look into this guy's mind and see why he does it. What led up to this, what happened in his childhood, what is his motivation?
- [00:53]
Unknown
And have you ever met anyone that you thought was truly evil?
- [01:00]
What do you describe in terms of what you do? How do you describe that?
- [01:04]
Graham
Boots on the ground, journalists giving people inside access to worlds that they don't normally see. And we've covered a lot of the criminal side of it, the criminal underworld, and that's one of our strongholds. But it's also, you know, day in the life of a billionaire. We have a. Our narcotics raid that's coming out with Jacksonville police. Basically any interesting one of one character, one of one situation. That and investigative pieces. We have a lot of those in the chamber. Kenneth Copeland is not going to be happy with us. In a couple weeks, around Easter Sunday, we're going to be releasing expose on the mega church pastor Kenneth Copeland. We have a Scientology piece in the works. We have an Area 51 piece in the works. We just launched our Tiffany Henyard most corrupt mayor in America piece. So I want it to be where you can't predict what next week is going to be. Every week it's going to be a new adventure. I get to take you.
- [01:51]
Unknown
How are you different from mainstream media?
- [01:53]
Graham
I would say a few things. One, we're a lot more running. I don't. There's not levels of bureaucracy that I have to do to approve a story. There's less regulation. So I can go talk to the train robber, no problem. Not going to have 16 lawyers tell me that I can't. And I think the format, I think where mainstream media really went wrong is this. If they use their resources to do boots on the ground investigative stuff that is interactive, like, maybe they don't have to read in a voice that's like, hello, today I'm going to like, if they just acted like normal humans, wore normal clothes and use their resources to get, you know, contact sources, insiders, whistleblowers, and made pieces for YouTube, they would.
- [02:31]
Unknown
Probably be, dude, that was Vice back in the day. The Vice, early Vice videos, fantastic.
- [02:36]
Graham
They're early inspiration. Like, anytime if someone says, oh, you're like early Vice, like that to me is like a little warm pat, like, yeah, thank you. Like, the thing is, mainstream media, I think they're one of their biggest mistakes is they never adapted to the new era. They never switched to the pot, the long form, because that's what people have been hungry for. You even when I, my wife will put NPR on in the morning and they'll like do two seconds, like two lines and then cut away. And like, you never really get. You hear like the tiniest detail of the story, but you never really get what's going on. I had an interaction with a mainstream media reporter, an anchor in Chicago, during the Tiffany Henyard conversation. Initially, it started off a little hostile because I was wearing my RIP Main street, my R Mainstream media shirt. And he saw it, he's like, oh, what is that? I'm like, oh, well, it's not you personally, but it's just your organization and like the, the people, like, power behind it. And like, I started listing why I think mainstream media is kind of like how they have shifted the narrative. Like, you basically have these billionaires controlling the. The narrative, and then you have like, the Sinclair effect. Where have you ever seen where you see, like, all those local reporters saying the same script, like, across dozens of news stations. You ever seen that before? So when you have that, like your mouthpiece, like, we want straight from the heart, we want someone that, yes, I'm not the smartest guy out there. I'm totally imperfect. And there's better investigators, there's better researchers, but people at least know when they get it from someone like me that there's an honesty, there's a trust factor, and I'm actually going to try and see what's going on rather than just have like a prescribed narrative. I think that if they switch, I guess I wonder, have they lost so much trust from our generations and the ones a little bit above and before that, they're just totally toast. Even if they shift their, their recipe. I don't know if they can bring back their reputation.
- [04:25]
Unknown
It's interesting because I've seen Don Lemon now going around doing street interviews, trying, like, this new style of journalism and the boots on the ground approach, which I feel like is. Is interesting, but a lot of people are not liking it. In the comments, they're like, wow, it's sad you've resorted to this, but I see. I'm like, hey, at least it seems like he's.
- [04:43]
You know, it's a different demographic. I feel like if you're over 5, you really like the. The news anchor. If you're under 35.
- [04:51]
No, it's like, young people, though, that are hating on him. I think that it was just because of.
- [04:56]
But I'm just saying, in general, younger people, I think, are more receptive to.
- [04:59]
Graham
Like, your videos feels so fake when, like, still does when you read in a voice that is totally un. How other humans communicate. And most of the time, like, are they even reading something they wrote? Or did someone in the back room write it and this is the first time they're seeing it? And then when you know that there's, like, certain angles of what they can and can't say that they're steering it in a certain direction, they just have lost all public trust. And in some ways, I'm glad they did because it opened up doors for guys that have. Like, me. They have no credentials. I don't have a journalism background. I'm totally untrained. So is my entire crew. Like, they, like, my camera guy jumped in from music videos. My other guy jumped in from real estate, like, and here we are putting together YouTube documentary journalism.
- [05:42]
Unknown
Hey, by the way, before we go into the episode, I just want to say this is Graham from the future, and we had a lot of trouble uploading this episode. It kept getting age restricted. There was a lot in here we actually had to take out so our entire episode didn't get shadow banned and demonetized. So if you want to see the entire uncensored full video without anything cut, you can join as a channel member. And we're posting all of these podcasts a bit early so you could see them before they go public. And we're not censoring any of them. There's no ads, there's no sponsors, there's no nothing. Nothing. It's just the entire uncensored podcast in its full format every single week with maybe some bonus episodes thrown in every now and then. So if you want to join, it would mean the world to us. Thank you so much. And now let's get to the podcast. Enjoy. What do you think is the most ethically challenging video that you've posted so.
- [06:29]
Graham
Far, most recently, the Train Robbers. Because I don't want it to be like, I mean, I know I'm going to meet with a train robber, but I don't want. I'm not going to be part of the. I don't know when it's going to happen. Like, I just want it to be like, okay, if we're in the vicinity when it starts to go down, we'll be there to catch the action. But the other thing is, like, I don't even know what the federal laws are. So, like, if I'm on a train tracks while it's happening, am I in a. Like, am I too close to the action for comfort? We have one coming up right now where I did a piece with a car thief, a very, very good car thief, and he wants to do a second piece that basically he knows that his window is going up where he's either going to be dead or in prison. Like, he's like, the things I've done, like, if they give me 30 years, it's a fair deal. And my other guys just got raided. I know that they're going to be hot on my trail. There's going to be a U.S. marshal that probably picks me up soon. So I want to make a cautionary tale to the youth. I want to show what I do. But I also want to give the final message of this is this lifestyle is not worth doing. The consequences of it. How he's disconnected from his family. How he can't really see his daughter anymore because it's too risky to go to the house. Because the police are calling his girlfriend, they're calling his mom. Like, the walls are closing in. But it's like, okay, if I give this guy a GoPro and just say, report back to me in two weeks, is that crossing the line ethically? Another one, a hitman, Alleged hitman in Dallas. I'm trying to figure out if he's legit or not, because I have to. I don't. I don't want to just put a kid that's like, oh, I just pulled a prank. Or I, like, I just want my moment of fame. So I'm just going to lie about something. So I have to verify somewhat is this guy at least one body of a. And so he's like, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to call you. I'm going to call you about an hour before the mission. And that's, that's your heads up to be by your phone. And I'm going to FaceTime you for 10 seconds and you know, I'm go on signal and FaceTime you. And that, that'll be enough proof like, okay, like, is even like, seeing this. He's going to do it anyways, though. That's the thing. He's going to do it anyways, whether I'm involved or not. And to me, the value is we get to look into this guy's mind and see why he does it, what led up to this, what happened in his childhood, what is his motivation. So the ethics of that, because I talked to a, I think it was WG and it's a regional station in Chicago. I talked to a journalist. They're like, is it even okay to interview a guy like this? And he's like, look, you're not helping him do the crime. You're telling him to do the crime. You're just trying to get into your mind and where do you draw the line ethically? Like, some people could say, you know, there's leaders of countries right now that are war criminals, but you'll sit down and ask him a question. So, like, I think as long as you don't participate, like, I'm not going to be like, hey, I know a dealership over here, you should go rob them. And I'm going to be standing outside filming. But if you do something, if you, like, he's this guy. These, A lot of these guys film stuff on their own phone that is totally incriminating and they'll send it to me and it's like, okay, like, you're legit.
- [09:10]
Unknown
So if you knew that someone was going to die, you would step in. But if they, yeah, I don't want.
- [09:16]
Graham
To help you out of any active crime. If he says, this is a body that I just recently, you know, did a job for, I'll look at it to verify. And then there's like, there's an ethical argument, like, is it my duty, like, to be a mandated reporter of a crime of that nature? Because whose family did that guy just get taken from that wants justice, that I could help unravel that. But I do think, like, no one will ever go down from one of my videos. Like, we edit it very carefully because we cover very serious criminals sometimes. No one is going to go down because of me. They're going to like, the police got to do their jobs, the agency's got to do their jobs, or these Guys got to slip up on their own. My job is to get inside access to places that most people don't get to see, ask people questions and bring it back to the people. But I am not law enforcement. I'm never going to participate with law enforcement.
- [10:03]
Unknown
You afraid of lawsuits?
- [10:05]
Graham
I have some errors and admissions insurance, but I'm not confident they're going to back me up when they need to. I'm paying like 220 bucks a month and I'm sure as soon as there's a little bit of friction that they're going to have some technicality in the policy and drop me. I haven't been sued yet, and I don't. The other thing is, I don't do many hit piece style videos. And the exposes we do, it's not me saying it about this person, it's insiders in the church, insiders that were former Scientology or people that lived in this town that can speak to it. And I think the thing that's on our side is if they do try and take me to court, yes, they're going to have bigger pockets than me. Yes, it's going to be an uncomfortable experience of me fighting, you know, a billion dollar organization in court or multimillion dollar pastor. But what happens in court if he really wants to take it there? Let's say Kenneth Copeland is. Now he has to open up his books. And he doesn't want to do that because the people that were calling out, like, I'm not just like making smoke about someone that I think is actually a good person. Like, these are people that are, they need to be called out. And if they were to reveal their books, it'd be even better because then we'd have a part two to go.
- [11:07]
Unknown
How did the police not go to you and say, hey, you were filming with this guy. We've been looking for him for 10 years. You know who it is.
- [11:14]
Graham
In the last three years, the police or agencies have only come to my house twice. So first of all, with the Key of Boys video, Milwaukee PD came to the house and I had already talked to my lawyer and I, I knew what my rights were as a journalist. So I knew, like, I can stand my ground. So I was very polite to them. I'm like, I understand you fellas are in a tight position. You guys are trying to, you know, now it's very visible in Milwaukee, what's happening. It's going nationwide with the publicity. Like, I understand you guys have a job to do, but I can't say anything about it and they had a manila folder. They were going to ask me questions. They closed the manila folder and I remember I took him to my back porch because I at the time I had lived two blocks from the east side hood of Milwaukee. And so like if anyone saw me talking to police, even me saying, I'm not saying anything, it was dangerous. And so I had him come to my back porch. My dog Frank was still a puppy at the time and started humping the detective's leg. I'm just like, oh God, like here we go. And they close the manila folder and they say we just have one question. Did these guys have any empathy for what they did? And I said, honestly, I didn't get that impression at all. I felt like again, it's your fault if you don't have insurance. Was the mentality explain the Kia Boys.
- [12:17]
Unknown
To those who may not have seen it.
- [12:18]
Graham
So the Kia Boys phenomenon originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where I've lived for the last 10, 12 years. And it's these teenagers that are extremely reckless that are very proficient at stealing Kias because of a certain exploit that a USB allows them to take a car in about a minute or less. The really good guys, 30 seconds or less. And Hyundai days were really big. That was an era of car thieving that those two cars were really easy to exploit. And they were so notorious in the city because of how they would drive. They'd get into a stolen car and they would drive like this. Like I don't. Have you ever seen how keyboys drive? There's certain.
- [12:51]
Unknown
Like I do that every now and then. You're just driving alongside them.
- [12:54]
Graham
They'll drive through playground. They'll drive through high schools. Not, not through but like the yard of a high school. Like there'll be kids going to class and they'll drive on the sidewalk and kids are running. Like if you go to this there's A page called 414Hype House 414-is the area code in Milwaukee. And you see some of the Kia Boy activ. Like the way they would drive is so scary, so reckless. It was something that originated in Milwaukee but has come to find out is was a nationwide thing.
- [13:17]
Unknown
And what was the. The conclusion to the Kia Boys?
- [13:20]
Graham
The guy, the main character in. In the video, Mr. Ebrake I came to find out that he graduated into much more dangerous things. I'll just say in the firearm realm through Telegram. I'll just. If you guys can piece it together. Like this guy went from cars to. And certain parts that go on other kids in the video were repeat offenders. One of the kids got caught. And apparently how he got caught was he was on a jail phone being like, hey, yo, that was me in the video. And they're listening to the jail phones and like, okay. And then they match his fingerprints to like six or seven other cars. He went. I think he did. I don't know if he did, like two months, three months, he did something light, came out again, stole more cars, got into it, and since has gone back. I don't know what happened to him since. And I've kept. Kept in touch with Mr. Ebrake. That was the only kid that I actually messaged and knew a little bit. I met him that day. It wasn't like I had a relationship going in there. But I've kept in touch with him because he's a guy that I was rooting for. Like, he definitely is. Is intelligent. He definitely, like, he's handy. Like, even what you do with putting them together, knowing how certain parts work. Like, the kid is really smart and the kid is funny. Like, he had some lines in the keyboard video that he's a genuine, genuine comedian. So I saw this potential in him and I was thinking, like, I think I would sponsor him to go to my MMA gym. But then I'm like, then I know what this. Like, when I met up with him again, you know, hanging out of his ways. His friend has a. They're in the business. I'm like, there's no way I can have this kid come to the gym when I know what's in his backpack. Like, it's just too much of a threat. And when I had followed up with him, he's like. Like I met with his mom and she's like, yeah, like, it's been real crazy for us. Like, our house has been up all drive by. I'm like, they're not putting Tundra together. That her son is the reason that these drive by that happened. Drive by don't just happen to your house. They don't just like you. He probably someone else's house up and they were retaliating. They're like, why is this happening?
- [15:09]
Unknown
It's like, so how often is it that you do an interview and you decide you can't post it, or they say something on camera that you just say, we can't air that.
- [15:18]
Graham
I consistently edit certain pieces out. I remember I was in a Midwest city where a gang I was with showed me a Snapchat video of a recently body. Like, they just. And they were. They filmed it and they showed me and we're talking about it. So I completely took that part out of the video. I'll be with guys that'll turn their and they'll show us the camera which is a federal charge. So we'll blur that like what is this is something that makes it go fully automatic and it's a instant. Like the ATF will raid your house if they know you have these devices. And right now they're getting sold on telegram. They'll come to your house disguised as a toy car or different things where you just disassemble this, put it on the back of your and boom, you pull it and like you'll hear with like this kind of the modern day violent rap out that's right now like they love making like switch noise. Like because that's the sound of how what a switch is because it just. And it's a very bad thing to put on your. Because it makes it inaccurate which is good for the rest of us. But like it's. It's not no Delta Force operator be like this is a good idea to put on my. Because basically you just like miss. You empty the clip in like two seconds and you miss pretty much all of what you're trying to.
- [16:25]
Unknown
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- [16:51]
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- [17:11]
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- [17:16]
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- [17:18]
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- [17:27]
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- [17:37]
Graham
Every person is a yin and yang. Like I haven't met people that are genuinely 100 evil. Most people I meet, there's redemptive qualities in them. And that's the hard part about it is I know some of what they do is really bad. Like I know gangsters that have caught a few a handful of bodies and. But then when I talk to him like, hey gang, how you doing? Like your son doing good? Your family doing good. Like they're like, they're compassionate in any way. Like, they're nice to you. And part of me wonders like, if I didn't have a platform, would I get the, like, I obviously probably wouldn't get the same level of treatment from some of these guys. But I do think you can make friendships. Like, I think a lot of these guys are looking for love. They're growing up in these zero trust environments and this weird masculine energy where it's not like the pure version of masculine energy where you care for people, you express your, you're vulnerable, but you also are strong. Like it's a fragile masculine energy where it's like if someone says the slightest thing about you, you either gotta or fight them. But a lot of these guys are looking for love. Like, and you show genuine love towards them. Like, these guys will go to the end. Like, I had a situation where a kid owed me a good chunk of money because of a copyright issue on YouTube and I pub, I went public with it after months of trying to settle it privately and be amicable. And I had a few different guys reach out, like, hey, I'm in New York right now. I'll kidnap this guy. Like, what? Like, do you want me to do that? Like, no, I don't need you to do that. Like another guy. Like, I'll fly out there right now and get some guys and beat him up. And so like to them that's a love language. Like in the streets, if someone is willing to be loyal to you like that, that shows a lot of love because that means they're willing to risk their own well being their own time out in the free world for you. So that's like buying someone chocolates on Valentine's Day in the hood. You know what I mean?
- [19:18]
Unknown
Do you worry about getting so close to these people where if you do something to them Even unknowingly, that that could flip.
- [19:24]
Graham
Not really. I mean, well, one, I don't invite people to my house that I know are really dangerous. Like, I keep, like, my private little bubble. We get. We come to places with a lot of love. Like, people. People are excited for us to come. Especially, like, you're saying, like, the gangster world, the rapper world. Like, we. It's not 100% success rate, but there's a few guys I can count on my hands that people get rap. You know, they get signed to record labels after they do a video with us. So we can provide a lot of value to somebody and work with them and that there's nothing better than that to me, like, because a lot of these guys, even the guys I know that have caught bodies in the street because their rival gang lives three blocks away. Like, if this kid could get a record deal and move out of the city, he's going to do it in a heartbeat and just change chase after music. That's what he really wants to do. He doesn't want to be in a gang turf war. It's stressful. Like, can you imagine the stress waking up and knowing that the guys that don't like you and multiple groups of them live within two blocks of you sometimes? Like how you don't just go on a calm walk down the street with your family even driving. They don't ever want their car filmed because, ooh, like, they'll line it up. Like, then they're gonna me up in the street or they'll catch me at a traffic light. They won't tell you that they're stressed out. They won't tell you that they're scared because they can't really, like, you can't really express that. But I know if I was in their shoes, I would be turning gray and losing hair.
- [20:41]
Unknown
Where does all the hate come from? It just seems like if you live within a few blocks of each other, like, you shouldn't necessarily hate the person because of what?
- [20:50]
Graham
It's tribalism in a hood sense. I mean, it's the same thing. Why Republicans and Democrats, like, you mix it up in any group form and it's the same thing. The difference is here you're in a violent environment and all it takes is one, one gang versus another, and then you have. You have to inherit it. If you're part of the crew and you're not going to do anything about it, then you have to back it up. It's like a really strong river that's flowing and they just get Born in these areas where, let's just say sometimes 80 to 90% of the boys in that area will go into a gang, sometimes as long as young as, like, 10, 11, 12, they're starting to get somewhat affiliated. And so you can't just sit on the sidelines. Like, if someone on your team gets. You can't just go back in your house and make dinner and call it a day. Like, you have to do something about it. So then these guys are just stuck. And I wonder how many of them that if you just grew up in a different area, how different their life would be. And to put ourselves in their shoes, if we grew up in Little Village in Chicago and we grew up on Latin King territory and the two Sixers are here, the. The SDS are here, you know, we're. What are the chances that we're not in the game? And I think that's. That's an element that, like, even though you can look at, like, cultural things, like a lack of education, a lack of integrity on certain things that, like, as an outsider, you're like, why would you treat a woman like that? Or why wouldn't you emphasize education? But if we grew up there, what are the odds we would be any different?
- [22:15]
Unknown
What's the closest you've ever been to committing a crime? While making a documentary, someone claiming to.
- [22:20]
Graham
Be a New York police officer reached out to me and said, there's a warrant for me, and next time I go to New York to contact him, he said, it's not a big deal, just a misdemeanor trespassing. There's. I'm not going to say where it was committed, but there was another one that I'm. There's a heavy fine, and I don't know if I did something to an extent that it could be past misdemeanor, but usually I don't commit crimes when I film my videos, if that's your question.
- [22:46]
Unknown
You have a good lawyer?
- [22:47]
Graham
A good lawyer? Yeah, I do.
- [22:50]
Unknown
I feel like this would be a great integration for a sponsor at this point.
- [22:53]
Graham
Hi, I'm Saul Goodman. Did you know that you have rights? Shout out Dan Adams. After the Kia Boys video came out, a local Milwaukee lawyer reached out to me, and we've sent. Grown a really good friendship, and anytime we're about to do something sketchy, I reach out to him. Like, there was a time we were on in Eagle Pass, Texas, where a lot of the immigration was coming across. We just interviewed guys in a stash house that, you know, basically when you cross the border, you Come to the house and really like 20 year old, 22 year old kids run this house and then they transport you, you know, you need to, oh, you have family in Ohio that you're trying to get to Cleveland and work in a factory with your brother. Okay, we're gonna, we'll do the driving path to points to get you there. And after that interview, we went to the border and we, we had met these two guys from Venezuela that were starving. They, and they, they had gotten beaten by Mexican police. Like they just had the roughest possible journey to get to this country and all they wanted is to get a job and live in a neighborhood that's safe. They don't care if they live 10 deep in a house. They just, they want to be a respectable citizen. And so like just go on a political tangent. Like some of the rhetoric has been like, they're the worst. They're the, they're the, there's a handful of them. But overwhelmingly I think the people are crossing, are trying to find a better life and just, they just want to work hard. You put them in a construction job, a roofing job, like some people, a fast food job is a come up. If they can make 15 bucks an hour at Wendy's, they're happy. But the, the legal question that came in mind was we met these two Venezuelan guys and I'm like, you know what? Like let's, let's bring them back to the Airbnb, let's let them have a shower, let's let him sleep in a bed tonight. Let's cook them a dinner. And we were gonn it and then I, we had to segue. I'm like, okay, guys, like these guys that are going to show us like chicken fighting, fighting, they're, they're, they've been expecting us for the last hour actually. I had to go run an interview and I'm going to come back and we're going to meet you guys, get you guys supplies and get you guys going. And then in the time driving to the, the roosters, I called the lawyer, my, my guy Dan, and we looked up the line, the, the laws online, like harboring a, I don't know if it's harboring a fugitive, but there's, there could be very serious felonies just by letting someone sleep in your house. It was like when we got back there, we went to Walmart, we got them camping supplies, we got them granola bars. We just loaded them up with supplies and, but we, we didn't invite them back to the Airbnb and it felt wrong, like from a human aspect. Like all we wanted to do were these guys to enjoy. Like, these guys are suffering and I just wanted one cool night where they, we could talk to them, get their story. And it felt weird that that was illegal. I get why it is, but it felt weird that giving someone a shower.
- [25:23]
Unknown
Like, hey, you know what, if the back door is unlocked, I'm a really sound sleeper. I'm not going to hear anything if you go in and take a shower.
- [25:31]
Graham
I could have tried.
- [25:32]
Unknown
Don't do that.
- [25:33]
Graham
But anytime we talk felony, that's a long time in prison. Even six months to me would be a long time in prison. Maybe if I was a single man, I would entertain doing riskier ideas. And we just went to Area 51 and there was some certain things that we might have to redact because you just have to be careful in some of these situations. Nothing is worth, worth your freedom. And that's, I think, a theme that we explore with a lot of these guys is the things you do. Like, why is it worth you to think, like, if these guys give me 30 years, that's a fair deal. Like, why would you do anything that would, that would make that a fair deal.
- [26:06]
Unknown
Now, speaking of opportunity, I went back to your earliest videos and there was a video that you posted and you held up a phone in front of a computer and you just said with complete conviction, this is going to make me a millionaire one day. And one day I'm going to have an Instagram with a million followers on it and this computer right here, I'm going to edit my videos on this and I'm going to be a millionaire one day from this. And that was five years ago. Did you hit that goal?
- [26:30]
Graham
Many of them? Yes. And to me, I think that's like the beauty of chasing a dream. And I appreciate you saying that moment because sometimes, like, you probably know this, like you're so much in the hustle and the grind sometimes that you forget to remember. Like, dude, my 20 year old self would have traded his left nut to be in this position. And here I am. I literally would not trade my job with anyone in the world. You could offer me any job. This is what I want to do. And I'm. And I'm making money off of it. And it just feels so fantastic because my first five years on YouTube, I would guess I lost money. I never went into it to be. I'm not trying to be Jeff Bezos. I. All I ever wanted. I remember in college looking up there's this financial blog called Mr. Money Mustache.
- [27:11]
Unknown
Yeah, I love Mr. Money Mustang. Super.
- [27:13]
Graham
Like, basically freedom through frugality.
- [27:15]
Unknown
Yeah.
- [27:15]
Graham
And I. I was a disciple of that teaching. Like, I was, like, calculating, like, the slimmest margins. Like, I'll live out of my car. I'll eat beans. Like, if I could just make. Find something that can make 1200 bucks a month, like, I'll be free of the corporate world. I'll never join it, and I'll be able to do what I want and be the road. And to think that I, like, all I ever wanted was to replace the income I had a sales job for, you know, two different sales jobs over the course of five and a half years in the corporate world. If I could just replace this income or pay my rent making stuff that I love, I'm happy. And now that this has taken off, like, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I can't even believe that you could make this much money. It just is, like, it feels really good to committed to the dream.
- [27:52]
Unknown
Have you ever considered doing a Chinese sweatshop shop video? I feel like everyone's always talked about Chinese sweatshops, but we don't know what.
- [28:00]
It'S actually like, oh, good luck going to China, filming that, coming back.
- [28:04]
And you think that would be impossible.
- [28:05]
Graham
I'm not as keen on the international side, mostly because the longer I spend away from home, it's just as tough. That's a good point. I would love, you know, I would love to one day there was something adjacent to that. And you may have seen stories about Pakistani bricklayers that are like, kind of indentured slaves. That the way that it's set up at the. These bricklaying factories, they can never make enough to get out of it. So some of these people, I think it's like, this sounds mind blowing to even say, but like 200 years their family has been at this brick factory making bricks. And there was a gentleman that I was gonna go out and he's gonna buy out the factory and free everybody. He's a guy that's a really upstanding guy, good Christian guy, very good ethics and morals, and he respects what I do. But at the moment, my channel is a little brand dangerous to him. So I think we backed off on that idea. But something like that, that brings justice to the world. And there's a lot of stories here that I think can bring justice to the world.
- [28:59]
Unknown
That I'm indentured servant industry is so interesting to me because you would never expect it. But it's in plain sight. I'll give you an example. Paris, I went there. And in front of the Eiffel Tower you have these people that are selling little figurines of the Eiffel Tower. And as soon as a police officer walks by, they're on radios like, pack it up, Pack it up. Although really quick. Before we go into that, you have to ask yourself the question, what makes a leader stand out? Because it's not just about taking charge, but about setting new standards and embracing bold moves. That's why if you lead by example and live with passion, then our sponsor, the Range Rover Sport is made for you. Every model of the range Over Sport offers a unique blend of dynamic sophistication and sporting luxury. It's where refined elegance meets visceral power. With focused on road performance and world renowned off road capability, this vehicle rises to every, every occasion.
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- [30:18]
They'll go and like, you know, pack it up, walk away and then as soon as a police officer walks away, they'll come back to their spot and put it back up again. I'm thinking to myself, geez, this has gotta be pretty profitable. If they're risking something like this, how much do they make? And I started looking into this, I had no idea that these are basically indentured servants, like slaves in a sense, because they get smuggled over into these European countries and part of the deal is, well, now you have to pay back your debt. But they know never pay off their debt and there's nothing that's insane.
- [30:53]
Graham
How much of a psycho you have to be to run that operation to say, yeah, I'm gonna bring them over here with the promise of a new life. But then their life is going to be selling trinkets or selling something that they're never going to get. I mean, that's what I'm fascinated by, is the people like that. That's real evil. There's no way to rationalize that as like, I'm a pretty good guy, but I just have 100 indentured servants.
- [31:15]
Unknown
They probably justify that. They're like, life in Paris, safer is better than their other.
- [31:20]
Graham
I suppose that's the thing. There's always a justification.
- [31:22]
Unknown
They have a improvement based off probably where they were coming from. At least they have access to shelter, clean water, consistent food. Is that a justification that that's probably what they think?
- [31:34]
Graham
I do think that goes to show it's a real matter of perspective on how happy you are with what you have. Because when you really look at how some conditions are, like, there's certain things I'll see. Like, I'll see. I'll go to Pine Ridge Reservation and I'll see how people are living there. I'm like. Like, the car ride home is like, I don't ever get to complain about anything ever again. Like, you. These people are living in. Like, there's. There's no heat. They're. They're. Everyone is an alcohol. Like, like 80 to 90 of the people there are either on alcoholics or they're meth heads. And imagine growing up near that. It's like. Like some people in this world have unspeakable conditions. And it's good to put in perspective because when we, like, we're in this country where a lot of us have gotten a little comfortable, a little fat and lazy with the luxuries that we do have, like, it's a good reminder to be like, things are pretty good here, man.
- [32:22]
Unknown
What's your most memorable interview?
- [32:24]
Graham
Man, it just feels like the most recent one is always the best. Like, I have so many little gems in my mind of. Because we really enjoy ourselves, like, when we're out there, let's say recently, the Area 51 documentary we just did, which we just recorded in the last last couple days, just being out at a top, like, arguably the most secret base in the world with a guy that's dedicated his last 30 years, James Fox, towards investigating encounters and UFOs. And he's the guy that, you know, if someone has a. A Polaroid in Scotland from 1957, he's going there to interview that old man. And what did you see that day? And so we were with him. We really played the edge of where we could have gone in the base. We got security trucks and we got the alarm to go off. And then we're interviewing people that have had encounters. We talked to a guy from Area 51 that, like, yep, like, he had an encounter with an alien. And he's been. He was sworn to secrecy, but now he's able to testify and now he's able to go forward with his story. He just made a Joe Rogan appearance about it. And so, like, to me, just to be. To be in the mix of, like, if any of this is real, this is arguably one of the most important stories of humankind. It's either the biggest lie and, like, one of the biggest farces, or like, this totally changes the paradigm of. Of what we understand in this world. Yeah.
- [33:38]
Unknown
How much of that is BS do you think that? Because I tend to think that it's so obvious that, you know, Area 51 is, like, this. This UFO place. It. You know, it's just a front for, like, it's. They're probably just doing, you know, military testing. It's not like an alien hub spot. It's too obvious. Like, there's signs everywhere with, like, aliens. Like, that wouldn't be the place to hide it, right?
- [33:59]
Graham
It would be because of how remote it is. They're like one of the towns we. We stayed at, the Ailey Inn, this motel. It's a town of 20 people. The other Alamo in. We stayed a town of, like, 1200 people. It is so unbelievably remote there. Like, there's some places where, like, next gas is 40 miles. Like, you better load up. So it's the perfect place to hide it. I do think the majority of what happens at Area 51 is from the sounds of. From the guy that worked there, there's military exercises that are happening all the time. Pilots are training there, and a lot of times pilots from other countries come and we do joint exercises there. But what he said also happens is anytime an unidentified craft crashes, it is an absolute rush. So they send Delta Force, because if, let's say, it lands in Brazil, we will send our best to go recover that. And probably Russia's doing the same thing, China's doing the same thing, because we want to get our hands on that technology, and we bring it back to Area 51, where you have some of the most premier researchers, scientists, physicists, geologists that are looking at this and trying to determine, one, what is it? And two, can we create it? Can we use this alien technology? Technology? And what this guy was saying is what the general public thinks is possible as far as crafts, we are hundreds of years ahead in terms of propulsion navigating. And I'm like. When you say hundreds, years ahead of what the public is aware of, that's a pretty bold statement to say.
- [35:27]
Unknown
Has documenting aliens changed your perspective?
- [35:30]
Graham
It's opened me up. I'm usually a pretty Healthy skeptic. Like most things, I'm like, like one of my biggest problems with the whole alien thing is like, you're telling me in the last, like you're showing me photographs from 1947, 1952, and the videos I see online are like, pretty blurry, grainy. You're telling me in the last 15, 20 years since cameras have been prevalent, that all of a sudden the aliens have just not shown up anymore. There's elements of it that are really hard to believe. What makes it compelling is when I was talking to this researcher, James Fox. He has been around the world and people that have never communicated with each other. Like, he'll ask people in Brazil, China, Africa what they saw at, you know, at this landing or when the aliens came out in a cross culture. It's the aliens. They look kind of like this. They smell kind of like this. They can telepathically communicate emotions to you. Their craft looks like this. It. It moves this way. When you get all these different accounts corroborating it, it's like, like he's not going after crackpots that are looking for two seconds of fame that are just did a bundle of mushrooms and they're like, yeah, I saw aliens, like credible people. People that were engineers, people that had regular jobs, school teachers. Like, when you. When all those people across culture start saying, this is what I saw, that to me is where it gets pretty compelling.
- [36:46]
Unknown
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- [36:57]
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- [37:57]
Thanks again to our sponsor Pesty. And now let's get back to the episode. How do you get into journalism?
- [38:02]
Graham
I think I've always just been fascinated and curious by the world. When I was young, my mom took us to the library often. I was a triplet, so she'd take the triplets to the library. And we were all very big readers. And I could read about endless amounts of things. Like right now I'm reading about the Lewis and Clark expedition discovering western part of America. Well, I guess I would say Europeans discovering the western part of America. There's plenty of folks still there doing their thing before they got there. But there's an endless amount of topics that I can read sci fi, I can read biographies. I think I've just been very curious about the world natural naturally. One of the things that really was my first leap, I would say, into journalism is and I guess the experience of it, not actually documenting it. But I, when I was a sophomore in college, I, I went to go live with a tribe in the jungle of Ecuador. And there was this website, Volunteersouthamerica.org and you could stay in a Peruvian dog shelter, you could do this over here. But I saw live with a tribe and I'm like, dude, I'm 100% doing that. So I packed my bags. I had a contact out there that was going to meet me. I go there and I'm in, I forget some of the cities, but I went from the main city to a little city that you take the plane into the jungle from. And my contact wasn't answering the phone, so I started getting a little nervous. So I went to the tribal airport and I learned that the place that I wanted to fly into, the Runway was destroyed. So I couldn't go in there. But an old lady heard my predicament and she's like, you can fly into my village. So I get into this eight person passenger plane. I fly for an hour or two across just a sea, sea of wood or forest and trees and I'm going away from civilization. And some lady that I met 45 minutes ago, I land with her and she allows me to stay in her hut with her husband for the night. And I ended up just staying in her village the whole time. Initially, the plan was some other guys were going to take me through the jungle and get me to the village. I was supposed to go, but I stayed in this little 13 village hut. I lived with them. I did community work days. I tried ayahuasca, but it never kicked in. And the shaman gave me a bad feeling. So I didn't take a second dose to really get into it. But to me, I've always had a desire to explore, to understand, to discover and to really understand what makes people tick. And I think if there's any superpower I have, it's, I am pretty comfortable to go into a room where I am the odd man out. I don't care if I'm in a mosque during Ramadan. I don't care if I'm in the middle of the jungle sipping chicha, which is this little spit drink, or I'm in, you know, I'm in the middle of the hood and it's crazy. And I'm only white guys guy for miles. I've always just been curious about people and I think that genuine curiosity is what opens up doors. People want me to come in and I'm going to ask them questions. I'm going to be genuinely interested in them. And that to me is like the clear mark of a journalist.
- [40:45]
Unknown
How do you fit in so many different places? Like, I don't know if I do accept you, though.
- [40:50]
Graham
I think it's because I accept myself. So I don't need to, like, I don't, I don't mimic the environment that I'm in, but I'm okay with being myself even if I stand out, even if I'm a little bit like nerdy or out there. And I think because I accept myself and I'm genuinely interested in asking questions, it makes you a welcome guest just about anywhere.
- [41:09]
Unknown
Have you always been that way or did it take a lot of self development to become this way?
- [41:13]
Graham
I think it's always been who I am. I was always the little kid that, you know, my pop could send me on a mission to go talk to this person or, you know, I would be comfortable ordering for the family. Whatever. It was like I was okay going out there and striking up a conversation with a stranger. I remember, like, I'd be the guy that on a train to Chicago, I'd be the guy talking to the guy next to me who, oh, your parents were missionaries and they saw this kind of witchcraft in Africa and I could Talk to him for an hour and a half until the train landed. And then, you know, I go on to my next thing.
- [41:40]
Unknown
Just curious then, if you have that level of confidence, did you cold approach your wife when you first met her?
- [41:45]
Graham
So I lived in a duplex for about five years. My wife lived in the upstairs. And we each dated different people. We kind of knew each other a little bit. Maybe when we shovel together in the winter, sure, we'd come and we'd interact with each other, but then when Covid hit, they said, we're going to be locked down. I think I said, I think I'm going to go crazy. So I texted her, I'm like, you want to meet on the front porch and hang out? And from there we started hanging out, like every single day. And then we eventually started dating, which that was the most nerve wracking experience I've ever had, asking someone out. Because if she says no, she lives right there. I have to see her every day. If someone says no, they don't live by you. Like, okay, shake it off, go to the next one. But I think I've always been relatively bold and I've always been pretty down to gamble on myself.
- [42:26]
Unknown
Just curious, when you cross that bridge from becoming like friends to trying to develop more of a relationship, did you just word it differently, like, hey, let's go on a date. Or did you say something like, hey, let's go grab dinner? Like, did you leave it ambiguous?
- [42:39]
Graham
We were, we were coming back. There's this old producer I used to work with, Smoke, that I was making a song. I used to do some rap, let's say. And in the car ride home, I knew I was going to ask, but I ever. And at every stoplight I'd be like, okay, I'm gonna do it. At the next stoplight, I'm gonna do it. But I just was so nervous that I just kept pushing it. And eventually I was very vulnerable and open. Like, I really like you. I really wanna see where this goes. I'd really love for you to be my girlfriend. And then it was like, you know, the eternity of waiting for the hammer to hit. And she's like, I like you too. So we, you know, we were like, kicked things off and that started, you know, we. We eventually moved into our own house and got married. Now we have a baby boy. So that's been a really cool journey to have happen.
- [43:17]
Unknown
Jack wants to know what the line was did.
- [43:19]
Graham
I'm not a smooth criminal, so I'm not like, I don't have Any really good lines. But actually it was a book I read by Mark Manson and I forget what the.
- [43:28]
Unknown
I love Mark.
- [43:29]
The subtle art. Or was it everything is F'd?
- [43:32]
Graham
It was. No, it was about dating in particular. And basically his mentality on it was, yes, we all have a fear of being rejected, but you should go after it. Because either one, the best decision of your life will be made. You'll get a life partner and a best friend that you'll be able to do adventures with. Or they say no, and it's okay. Okay. I'm not going to spend months ruminating over it, fixating on it. I'm onto the next. So reading. I was reading his book in the midst of asking her out. So thank you, Mark Manson, for your book.
- [44:00]
Unknown
That is so cool. Yeah, that's really.
- [44:02]
Shout Out Mark. He's been on the podcast before. He's a great guy.
- [44:04]
Graham
Cool guy, modern day philosopher.
- [44:06]
Unknown
Yeah, I agree.
- [44:07]
Wow. Now, does your wife worry about you being on camera or associating with some of the people that you do?
- [44:12]
Graham
Not really. She, I would say, is a little bit more like, I'll get more nervous than she does. She's cool as a cucumber number. So she knows that I like, I prepare a lot for these things. Like, I'm on the phone with contacts, constantly building a relationship with them, trying to understand them, trying to verify them. And so by the time I get there, we've talked a handful of times and we're ready to go. Of course, there's situations that are dangerous. You know, a gang might invite me in and they might want me there. But if they're like, the last time I was with the Latin Kings, they were in the middle of a turf war where it was like 15 guys in the last month or so and had been. So every car that passes by is like a frightening experience. Like, you kind of want to hide behind a car and you wonder if when something's going to go down. So, like, it is very possible that dangerous things could happen. But I, like, I kind of trust the universe that, hey, I'm in. I'm on the path I should be. And as long as I operate the right way, I'm good. I'm honest to people, I'm good to people. Like, I trust that the universe will guide me in the right direction. Direction.
- [45:11]
Unknown
How do you find people who agree to be on camera? Where do you. Where do you come up with these.
- [45:16]
Graham
People you'd be surprised at? Who wants to share their story? I was talking to my car thief Friend Felix and I was asking him, like, you know, what is the motivation? Because I think that's a pretty common question, like, how do you get guys that are committing felonies on a daily basis to go on camera and talk about it? And he said, you know what, A lot of us know that we will either be dead or in jail in a short amount of time. And this is kind of like a living memory that we'll always be able to reference. Like a piece of us will always live on in this 30 minute documentary you do about us, where we get to share about ourselves, we get to hang out with you and tell the world about ourselves and what we do.
- [45:49]
Unknown
Why are so many people drawn to gang culture? Because consistently those are the videos that do the best. Those are the videos that I end up clicking on more than the positive videos. And there's another guy, hood vlogs. It's just, it's so interesting for me to see this culture. Why do you think that is?
- [46:06]
Graham
I think people are always fascinated by the outlaws. And hood culture has a lot of outlaws. You have guys that are willing and daring enough to not follow the traditional rules that most of us would be too scared to break. And there's a certain courage that an outlaw has to have that I think you kind of respect. I think also, I mean, there's the same reason why you'll watch a John Wick movie. Like when there's that much action happening in a place like real life, people like you could be standing next to four different and you have no idea until something goes down and you're like, oh, that was the guy that you guys rely on to take care of business. So I think there's just, there's a inherent want in us to like, want to poke our heads into the underworld. And these are guys that are the most open about it. Certain crews you're going to be, it's going to be hard pressed to really learn about them. Like Russian gangsters in the United States that are running sex trafficking in, in Florida or Paul Palm Springs. These are the guys that you will never get on camera to talk about it because things will happen to them if they do. But in the hood you have, there's a, a culture that people want a show, share. They want to share their, their, their life. They want to share what they're thinking. And not only that, but they've also like the rap music that emerges from it has created one of the most influential cultures in America.
- [47:19]
Unknown
What does that taught you about human nature?
- [47:20]
Graham
I think just about anyone, given the right circumstances, wants to share their story. It's like a Dale Carnegie, you know, how to win friends and influence principle. Everyone wants to feel important. The most magical word you can ever say is someone else's name. People want to tell their story and be heard. And I think especially because we cover a lot of the fringes of society, the trailer parks, the reservations, the hoods, the smugglers. These are people that the average media outlet will not cover. And so basically they're in their own little bubble and we give them an opportunity to broadcast their message to the world. And I think that's just an inherent value that we're willing to talk to people that the average person would never sit down and talk talk to.
- [48:03]
Unknown
What community do you think cultivates the worst kind of person?
- [48:06]
Graham
Yeah, I would say a no trust, fatherless poverty. That's the other thing, poverty. I mean there's not a lot of people like white collar crime isn't looked at the same. Like you can defraud. Bernie Madoff can defraud people worth billions of dollars. And they're like, ah, yeah, he defrauded them, he was running a scheme. But he doesn't get the same pressure, pressure that in the hood or a bank robber would get. And I find that interesting. Like there's, there are people that corporations, big, big name politicians that do things that disproportionately impact people. But for some reason, like the local Compton guy, the local Chicago guy gets more heat.
- [48:46]
Unknown
I think probably because Bernie Madoff would not take someone's life with his own hands. But the person in Compton that's done that before would absolutely do what Bernie Madoff does.
- [48:56]
Graham
Did.
- [48:57]
Unknown
They would love to do something like that.
- [48:59]
Graham
Yeah.
- [48:59]
Unknown
And so it's like a degrees of detachment and self justification. How did you get arrested?
- [49:05]
Graham
Back in my prank era, I did some wild things. One of them was I was pretending to be a doctor and I ran into a grocery store and I had a fake that I'm like, someone just lost us in a car crash, we need to put it on ice. And people were scrambling around and in setting up for that prank, I had that fake and I zipped it into my jeans and I had it hanging out. And an old couple thought I was exposing myself to them so they called the police on me. I had no idea anything was going on. I went back to my house in Milwaukee and was enjoying like the post filming little Buzz. And then the Wauwatosa police knocked on my door and took me in and processed me.
- [49:43]
Unknown
What Was the conclusion of that? Do you fight it?
- [49:45]
Graham
No. I mean, it was like. I don't know if it was disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, but it was just like. It was more of like, ah, this is kind of cool. Like, as long as I'm not serving any jail time. Like, it's little bit of a resume builder, you know.
- [49:56]
Unknown
So you have a mug shot out there somewhere?
- [49:57]
Graham
Yeah, it's a terrible mug shot. I thought I was like, oh, I'm gonna turn this into a T shirt. It's gonna be so badass. I looked like I was missing a few chromosomes in the shot, man.
- [50:06]
Unknown
Exposes your face.
- [50:10]
And that's the only instance of being arrested.
- [50:12]
Graham
I had the Secret Service visit me. I did this redneck video out in Tennessee where at one point I was just getting into my inner redness neck, you know, and I was. I had this in my head and I was like, joe Biden, you want to come and take our. And I was. It was. I was not threatening Joe Biden, but they had to investigate it as they should. So they came to my house and they had two Milwaukee police officers, two Secret Service guys, and they like two pretty much by the book, like, glasses, wearing like, almost like. What's the Superman's name? Clark Kent. Look kind of like that. Hey, do you have any firearms in the house? Have you ever. Are you on any antipsychotic medicine or, you know, are you. Do you think about going to do anything to Joe Biden? And I cleared the air with him, let him know it was just a little joke, but other than that. Have I gotten arrested? No, I haven't.
- [50:59]
Unknown
What community do you sympathize with the most?
- [51:02]
Graham
The underdog man? Because I think a lot of my time I've visit, I've kind of visualized myself as the underdog. And so I don't know. I think there's just. When you look at it, it. Almost everyone you meet at some point in their life is really going through something. And I'm just rooting for people to. To be on the journey where they can actualize. Because a lot of people. What's the quote? That the massive men live in quiet desperation. So I've been in that. In those shoes where I'm in a sales job where I'm, you know, I just gotten told no the last four hours. So I go into a parking lot and I'm staring at the steering wheel. I'm just wondering, like, is this all I'm ever going to do is sell payroll role? Like, I Know I meant there's something else in me that I just know I haven't expressed properly. But I don't know how to get to A, from A to B. And I know that there's millions of people out there like that that have this big dream, have this big goal or have this destination in mind. And they some they just are struggling to ever get there. So I guess that's the person I'm rooting for. And the person that I sympathize with is the person that is, feels like they're stuck in life, knows they're capable of more and just hasn't quite gotten there yet.
- [52:06]
Unknown
What would you say is the most dangerous street in America?
- [52:09]
Graham
Man, there's been places in St. Louis that are. I've been very frightened. St. Louis is consistently one of the top cities in America. And the way that the Memphis too, I would say they're very comparable. Where you're on certain streets with some of these gangsters, every single car that passes by you are just like, oh God, here it goes. Like the way that they're driving, like in Memphis, they drive very fast down the street partially because the people are scared to get like if they see a bunch of guys outside they don't want I get by them. So like they're going fast. But then is, are they also planning on doing a drive by and that's why they're going fast. So like I don't know if there's any one street, there's probably many streets like that in hoods across America where it's like you just, you're just ready for something to happen.
- [52:50]
Unknown
How do you feel safe filming? Do you wear like a bulletproof vest or anything?
- [52:53]
Graham
No security, no weapons, no vest. I'm here, I'm non threatening, I'm here to ask questions, I'm here to understand. And I feel like if I escalated things, like if I brought private security with me, I just don't think it would be the same.
- [53:07]
Unknown
What about a vest? How is a vest?
- [53:08]
What about bulletproof windows?
- [53:11]
Graham
I don't want to be like that would be a bitch move in those areas. Like I'm not going to wear, no one else is wearing a vest, but I'm going to wear a vest. I think that's something cool. Like if I look at some of the guys I look up to in the space too, like Louis Thoreau, he went to Philadelphia with a police escort and a bulletproof version. And it's not like a Harry Houdini thing where I'm trying to Escalate it to the next thing. But there is a little bit of pride of like I'm willing to take it a step further than maybe the other people will. And also that builds a moat around my brand is because some of the stuff is more daring, I'm gonna have less competition because not as many people are gonna be willing to try and do it.
- [53:47]
Unknown
What are those cities doing wrong?
- [53:49]
Graham
I don't know. It's so much. I mean you could argue there's a lot of different angles you could cover. Like how. How are the DAs in that city treating certain violent crimes? Are they letting guys the, the car thieves? We know in New York, they know that if they steal a car, they are out the next day. There is no concern, no worries. Same thing with California, theft, stealing, robberies, they're going to be out the next day. So I think in some ways the law is not. There's not a strict enough penalty. There's no hand that that comes up and slaps you if you do something wrong. And so I think because there's none of that, they're not as scared. But then I also say there are cultural things happening that are very serious. Serious. You have people that education is really not prioritized. Family units is not prioritized. Exposing your kids to violent domestic. Like the amount of domestic violence that goes on in some of these hoods is unbelievable. And can you imagine as a kid the fear, the instability you grow up with? Poverty is a big part. Like here's one. If I don't want to go on more, take like a little more of a left wing style stands a lot of these neighborhoods. I'll do Milwaukee because I know that the best. There are no really good job opportunities in the hood. There's your low paid daycare worker, home health care worker, gas station worker, although most of them are owned by people that don't live in that area. And they're, you know, the Sing family in Milwaukee is the one that owns like all the gas stations and their family works it. If you want a good, well paying job that's outside of a factory, you have to drive 20 minutes outside of where you are. And so, so like there's a chicken before the egg though. Because let's say I'm the mayor of Milwaukee and I say, hey, I'm gonna. Here's 300 million earmarked for two different major companies to open up factories and office jobs right here in the north side. Well, okay, now you're gonna be dealing with a workforce like how much, how Much late workers can you tolerate? How many people just not showing up that day can you tolerate? How many fights at the job can you tolerate? And it's like, it's a cycle that I don't see how it gets fixed. Because no company is gonna risk going to a place where it's like there' Hill battle for us to be successful in this area. But then the people don't have anything to look forward to. Like, in the 70s, Milwaukee had a really, really strong black middle class, and we had a very strong automotive industry where people had. People owned their own houses, people had good jobs, There was family stability, and people were thriving. All those jobs went overseas to Mexico and China and somewhere else across the globe. And all of a sudden you just see this instability happening now. More men are more likely to do stuff like sell drugs, which gets them in prison, which destabilizes the family. So, like, there is societal things that are. That have hit these areas that, like, there's so many boundaries to overcome to be successful. And then there are cultural things that are happening that, like, people are themselves in their own foot.
- [56:36]
Unknown
What was the most dangerous situation that you've been in?
- [56:39]
Graham
Getting raided by the Mexican police. We were. We had an interview set up. There was this guy that went by the name of hostage, and he lived in Mexico, and he was going to be traveling to the border town Piedras Negras, just across from Eagle Pass, to meet with us. And the night before, we're sitting in the Airbnb in Eagle Pass, and he calls and he's like, I don't know if this is a good idea, man. I'm wanted. And I'm like, want to buy who? The cartels of the government? He's like, the government? I'm like, okay, this is what we're going to do. We're going to do this interview early and quick. So let's do 10am let's knock this out in an hour. Let's make this happen, and let's get on out of there. So we cross the border and we. We get out of the car, we park, we walk about a block and a half, and the Mexican police trucks are, you know, patrolling. And everywhere we look like if people are outside, they notice us, and they're like, what are these guys doing here? Like, it was a really rough neighborhood, like, neighborhoods where some people don't have fridges in their house. And so we walk into Hostages Homies house, and things are really good. He's a very interesting guy. He'd been deported twice From America. He grew up in the Dallas area, did some prison time, did some crime, is now in Mexico doing various things, including being. Trying to do it, be a tattoo artist, which I think goes to show, again, like, a lot of these guys, even the criminals, like, their true dream is to do something with their art or with their. Their business, but they're to make money. They're stuck in other things as well, and that's their own personal choice. I go to the bathroom. I come out of the bathroom. Boom. And el piso, la verriga. No pizza, la verga. Basically, get your ass on the ground. Three Mexican police come in, masks on, hand on the trigger, rifles pointed at us. The Mexican guys in the room immediately go, on the ground, stomach on the ground, on the stomach, surrendering. I went on my knees, because if something's going to happen, I at least want to be able to see what's going on. Like, if I'm going to be kidnapped, because I don't know, is this cartel? Is this a prank? Are these dirty police? Because there's a lot of police in Mexico that have a terrible reputation. Like, it's very possible they could have gotten us. Hey, we're going to the atm. Here's the limit. You're taking your entire limit out. All right, who's next? You. You go. Like, things like that happen, or they just beat the hell out of you? They take you, they interrogate you. So they take his guy Borega up the stairs and they start beating him, and they search the entire house. And this guy has almost nothing in his house, so it didn't take very long. But they, like, his clothes were on the ground, everything was open, and they find no drugs. And probably what they suspected was that a few white guys are here to make a pickup, buy some drugs, and go back across the border. I said, I know, like, I would call myself 40% fluent in Spanish. I know a little bit of Spanish. I broke the ice with the police a little bit. I made a few jokes, got them laughing a little bit, and just told them what I'm here for. I said, I'm a journalist. This guy's a rapper. I'm here to interview him. And so we were let back up to our feet, and they're like, okay, where's the camera? And they start watching the clips that we had. And luckily, they couldn't understand English because hostage was speaking English to us because he was just like, we. This was around. We were talking about George Floyd, because we were talking about police brutality in America and police Brutality in Mexico. And he's basically saying, you guys think America's bad. Like, it's not even close to what happens in Mexico. So he's basically shit talking the police. And luckily he didn't understand that because I think things would have probably turned a little bit. But he's like, okay, good, delete this clip. Delete this clip. And we're like, no, sir, please. Like, can we interview I. Can we interview you? He's like, no, delete the clip. So we had to delete the two clips in front of him. We were able to retrieve one of them because it's one of those classic YouTubers, YouTube things. If a YouTuber's like, got raided by the police, but we don't have anything to show for, like, everyone's gonna be like, that's clickbait. That's nonsense. Luckily, Miguel was able to rescue one of the clips of us on the ground and the police there. And. And then my guy Cheddar that took us there had Snapchat videos of the police. And then we also went next door. There were security cameras where it showed the police truck pulling up, entering. And so we did a little animation to show what happened in there. I think some Pakistani guy did a b job on the animation and it told the story. But that was probably the scariest moment so far as a crew.
- [60:34]
Unknown
Has your life ever been threatened?
- [60:35]
Graham
So my life has never been threatened. In the Prank days, it did. Like, my. I had this sign. There was this comedian, I think, Tom Mabe, and he had this sign called. It was small penis parking. And so I would you. What you do is you put it in front of his parking spot. And when someone pulls up, you're like, sir, like, what are you doing in this spot? Like, I actually have a small penis. Like, why are you parking in my spot? Do you ever. And like, I remember across from them from the Milwaukee police station, like, I'm a show ass. Like, he was so mad and, and got mad. There was a guy that threatened me recently in the Tiffany Henyard video. And then I stood on business with him. I flexed on him too. I was like, you're not going to do it. And kind of. I was egging him on a little bit. I don't usually ever look for conflict. I haven't been in a street fight since like eighth grade. And. And I don't, like, I've always walked away from them. Even in college rolling around with the wrestling team. Like so many guys got into fights and we would have just cleared house. Like, if there's any opposition, I don't care if it's the football team, the track team, you name it. Like, if it's a bunch of wrestlers, like, there was no chance that they were ever going to win. And even that. Like, I would always go to sleep before that ever happened. Like, I was never interested in just being like, oh, you looked at my girlfriend or you call me. Like, I would always avoided those kind of situations.
- [61:41]
Unknown
Have you ever been threatened by anyone you made a documentary on? Maybe they were upset with how you represent, represented them.
- [61:47]
Graham
I don't think Tiffany Henya was pleased with my piece on her, but threatened. You know, there was some guys in Memphis, some real, real street dudes connect. Like, one of them was Pooh Shiesty's cousin. And the other guy, you know, it was the. It was the same house that we were scared of. The drive by, when we went in, it was a trap house, man. Like, there it was probably 30, 40 deep. And in the kitchen, like, someone had just got from their crew the night before or maybe that day in the kitchen, there's guys with ski masks filing the serial numbers off of. People are pissed. Like, no one's talking. People are just smoking weed and pissed. And then this guy, Jizzle, he tried, like, big dogging me in the house. Like, he's just like. He's like asking me what sports I play or whatever or. And I was like, oh, I watch fighting. And he's like, oh, you fight? And I'm like, yeah, I fought before. And he's like, you think you could beat me? And he's 40 deep with all of his boys around him, and he's trying to, like, step on me a little bit. And I just was calm and I was like, yeah, I think. Think I could. I could take you. And he looked like a dick because he was. He was a total douchebag. No hospitality. Pretty tough to flex. I mean, from four of your guys with. Around me while me and my two other guys have nothing. And so he wasn't happy with how he came out. But it's also like, dude, you knew we were coming. You knew we were filming your crew. Like, one of them asks my guy Keegan, if he's a federal, he's a fed. Another guy, he's like, like, just. They were very aggressive. So, like, what do you expect? Like, you knew the crack cameras were wrong growing. You treated us like, where do they.
- [63:12]
Unknown
Get from, like, every video when you go into these neighborhoods and they have like five and they're just like, you know, Pointing it to the cat. Where do they get them? How easy is it?
- [63:22]
Graham
We're gonna do a piece eventually one day called how make it to the Hood. And we'll maybe do Houston, New York, Chicago. We'll cover a few different cities and explore that more in detail. But the general ways that I understand one, a lot of these places is legal to bike as long as you don't have a fellow felony. And then you can sell it to a friend. So you know, there's get passed that way. That's a common way.
- [63:42]
Unknown
Also here's a little note. From now on we're going to say strap instead of G U N. Just for the YouTube algorithm.
- [63:47]
Graham
Yeah. So another way straps make it to the hood is car theft. If I have a in my car, someone goes into my car, they'll take that, take the strap, take this, take the strap, apologize. Another is, you know, home invasions, some guy might have a safe with 20 straps and that's a big come up for a crew. When we were in Texas, we had a guy who agreed to meet with us that had a 3D printer in his house and did business with the cartel. And we pull up to his apartment complex, he didn't give us his door and he chickened out. And I get it. I mean if you're doing business with the cartel and you're about to go on camera explaining that, that's if they find out you're so toast it's not even funny. So I get why he chickened out of filming with us. But 3D printing operations, I would imagine that's a, that's a more sophisticated than the average street guy is probably willing to go go. But that's certainly a way they make it in there. Ghost are like through Telegram dude, Like that's how this, this 16 year old Kia boy is doing it. Like so if you get into the chat, I'll pull up, oh, what you want Draco or this or that and okay, 400 bucks, boom, we'll meet here. But then another way they get is robbing the strap dealers. So there's a lot of different ways.
- [64:57]
Unknown
How do you communicate with all of these people? Like how, how is the FBI not, not logged into your phone remotely or something and just used it to catch all of these people?
- [65:06]
Graham
Well, the most secure ways to chat with people are either FaceTime, audio, FaceTime or Signal. And so those cannot be traced. From what I know. I'm sure there's some software being developed to crack that. WhatsApp has been compromised. Telegram was just compromised. Recently. So Signal, FaceTime, Audio and FaceTime are the most common. Because it's very serious to me to protect no matter what these guys are doing, it's very serious to me to protect them. Because to me, the value I bring to the public is I'm willing to find this guy and talk to this guy that most of us would be scared to interview or wouldn't, couldn't get him to agree to an interview. And I'm going to ask him enough questions that we get into his psyche and figure out what motivates him and also the economics, the business behind what he does.
- [65:46]
Unknown
So I'm really curious, you've done these videos on these reckless drivers, like the most wanted drivers in New York City. How do they get these cars? Although before we go into that, you have to ask yourself what makes a leader stand out? It's not just about taking charge, but it's about setting new standards and embracing bold moves. So if you lead by example and live with passion, then our sponsor, the Range Rover Sport is made for you. Every model of the Range Rover Sport offers a unique blend of dynamic sophistication and sporting luxury. It's where refined elegance meets visceral power. With focused on road performance and world renowned off road capability, this vehicle rises to every occasion. Like you could experience the adaptive off road cruise control that adjusts to your terrain or the dynamic air suspension for superior agility and control. Plus adaptive dynamics ensures smooth composed handling by minimal minimizing unwanted body movements. For those who elevate their desires and lead by example, the Range Rover Sport is so much more than a luxury vehicle. It's a statement. And you could build your Range Rover Sport today when you go to range Rover.com US Sport again, that's range Rover.com US/Sport. Thank you so much to the Range Rover Sport for sponsoring this episode. And now let's get back to the podcast.
- [67:00]
Graham
How do they get these cars cars?
- [67:04]
Unknown
How do they drive stolen cars without getting caught?
- [67:06]
Graham
Cuz they drive very fast. Like I just got a police chase sent to me from my guy Felix. And you know, a lot of these criminals, I would say to me it's more about the adrenaline than it is about the economics. You're trying to make money. They are so thrilled to hop behind the the wheel of a hellcat and pretty much taunt the police and go 120, 130 miles down the highway and get away. Like my guy Felix was like, he just got in one the other night. He's like, you know this department in Ohio, like get the body foia the body cam footage because you're going to see what I just did to them. So I think it's the thrill. It's the same reason why Alex Honnold climbs mountains with no support, no safety lines. It's the time that they feel most alive is running into the dealership, running into someone's driveway, stealing it and getting out of there.
- [67:54]
Unknown
Felix is the one though that steals the vehicles, right? He's the one that did the car theft, left that, that video. What about the ones in New York that like bob and weave throughout traffic? How did they afford such nice cars?
- [68:07]
Graham
I don't think they do. I think I'm not going to give too much away but from what I know about this scene and this is connected to the takeover scenes that you see in la, New York, across the country, a lot of those cars are hot cars, stolen cars.
- [68:18]
Unknown
But we, we did see like a Lamborghini Urus. Wasn't one of them driving potentially.
- [68:23]
Graham
There was a glitch I think where they could do it off of Turo or car run rental app.
- [68:27]
Unknown
But even that costs a lot of money because you ask them on average how long can you hold on to a car for?
- [68:31]
Graham
Some of those guys are involved in other businesses that supply their car business. Yeah, they do other black market stuff and they bring that money and they drive cool cars.
- [68:39]
Unknown
I feel like if they know you're doing a video, they're going to pull together like two grand.
- [68:44]
Graham
They're not going to pull up a 1994 Toyota Camry for this video like and squeeze Benz did it perfectly like hiding in the back of this parking complex with a, a black Lamborghini Urus revving as we come up on the scene. Like you can't get any better of an introduction to a guy than that.
- [69:01]
Unknown
I've been getting a lot of those videos on Instagram, the street takeover videos where they're like going in circles and they just will crash into another car and they don't care. And at first I was just like, well what's their insurance gonna be that? Like think of the repair bill on that. But it makes sense that it's like it's not their car because they don't care.
- [69:21]
Graham
The takeovers are particularly bad, I think and I've been invited to cover a lot of different takeovers. It's really hard for me to go do that knowing how much people's property is going to get destroyed in the process. I had a Milwaukee business say that their parking lot had to get repaved so many times. The family folded the business and she's. And she kind of was mad at me because I covered it a little bit in a previous video. She's like, I hope you're happy with what you broadcasted and sell like celebrating these guys driving crazy because look what happened in my family's business.
- [69:53]
Unknown
How do you make sure you're not glamorizing it? Because your New York video, like, I see that and I'm like, that's stupid. I don't get it. But I, I could see they're, they're like a 16 year old who's like, wow, that's so cool. Look at these guys, all the praise they get. I want to do that. And then they end up someone.
- [70:12]
Graham
Two different things. One is asking enough tough questions. When you sit down with a pimp or a dealer, a car thief, you have to ask about the societal impact. What about the single mom when you take it from her garage? What about if your customer. Ow. You have to ask, oh, you're bossing up your woman that's working the streets, yet you take all of her money and you're bossing her up. Like, I really pressed a pimp hard on that. In an interview in Los Angeles, you have to ask the tough question. It's not a fluff piece. So even if I go interview the cartel one day, tell me about how you guys give back to the community. Like you have to ask them about some of the things that they do. That to me is a big part of not glamorizing it. Number two is almost unanimously when you ask these guys, give your advice to the youth out there that think about joining a gang, you're getting to this profession. All of them will say, do not do it. Do not join it. Your life will end up in jail or prison or. And do not do it. So we always include those messages because there are impressionable kids out there that their economy is driven by the currency of clicks. And if me doing this gets me a million views on TikTok, they might consider doing that.
- [71:16]
Unknown
What do you refuse to make a video on there?
- [71:19]
Graham
There's almost not a topic I would stay away from. Like I would cover. I would interview a neo Nazi. And I know some people would say never for a guy like that. I think you ask them questions that like a good question is like a mirror to the soul. So you want them to see the, the absurdity of what they're saying. And I think that's important. There's not really a Line of who I wouldn't interview, whether it's a. Or someone that's a racist. But I wouldn't go to a car dealership with a camera and be like, all right, you're going to go run in and steal. I'll be right behind you. Like you. Whatever you do in your free time. Cool. I'm not going to because I know that car dealership owner is going to have a whole lot of trouble. Insurance claims, claims fix the broken glass. Maybe an employee was there and is terrified. Like, there's fallout that comes from an act of crime. So, like, oh, you guys want. I'm ever gonna go with a gang? Like, oh, you guys are about to do a drive by. Can I come with, like any crime that hurts someone or steals some stuff? Because I'm really against theft, even though I cover theft a lot. It's something that really, like, that's a line in the sand that I just really don't agree with. But if they want to talk about it, if they're open to getting hard questions about why they do it, then I'll talk to you.
- [72:23]
Unknown
You don't want to influence behavior, influence crime, things happening.
- [72:27]
Graham
I'm just asking why you do it.
- [72:29]
Unknown
But wouldn't interviewing someone like the cartel be way too dangerous? Like, isn't there a line to be drawn there?
- [72:35]
Graham
Yeah, there is. To me, it's always about having the right contact. If someone can bring you into that world that has a reputation that can pretty much bring you as much as you can guarantee a safe passage, that's the biggest thing. That's the. The person that this hinges upon working.
- [72:52]
Unknown
Have you ever felt like you're genuinely talking to a side psychopath?
- [72:56]
Graham
Probably a lot of sociopath. I don't know if. How to differ. I don't know the textbook difference between psychopath, sociopath, but probably a lot of them. The people that are okay with stealing a car and don't care about how it impacts the mom. I would probably say that sociopathic behavior, people that are okay with selling or. Man, we talked to this guy. We. We went into a. I wanted to document the. The how to cook crack because I thought this is a drug that's going to disappear from the market like this. It's a relic of the past.
- [73:24]
Unknown
Why is it going to disappear?
- [73:26]
Graham
If I was replacing a lot of these drugs or it's laced with. But I wanted to be in a trap stove on the. Like, just like a Young Jeezy song. I wanted to just see it for myself. And as we're interviewing this guy. There's a funny clip where we're in Boston doing this, and me and the camera guys are all, me, Keegan and Miguel are like this, interviewing him as the fumes of crack are coming through the room. And me and Keegan at one point look at each other because I'm like, I think I feel a little different. So, like, we look at each other and we're like, yeah, we both feel a little different right now. And. And as he's cooking up, Miguel's like, we should ask him, like, do you ever have a customer that didn't make it after you made a sale to them? So I asked him that, and he's like, yeah, there's this one lady who I sold it to. She wanted more. I sold it to again, and I knew if she asked again that that would probably be the final dose. And I sold it to her, and she did it and she kind of passed out. I walked out of the house, and sure enough, you know, the junkies that came to buy for me later that were friends with her told me, yeah, yeah, she didn't make it. And something that I like, I kind of moved on to the next question pretty quickly. But then the car read. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Did he just say what I thought he said? Like, he just casually basically admitted as a sex accessory to a MW, as we can say on YouTube. And it made me realize this, like, there is an element of. On this journey of being a little bit desensitized because. And how I compare it to is a. Is a surgeon in the egg ER room. When I. When one of us sees a. A strapped wound on somebody, we're going to be freaking out, panicking. How do we save this person? But an ER doctor is like, past the sutures, past the gauze, and it's just business as usual. And there. We've seen enough crazy stuff in this time that someone confessing to doing that is like, next question. And I had to check within myself, like, that was a pretty major thing he said. Sometimes it just being able to take a pause in the moment to die, because that's a pretty crazy thing to say. And for me not to dive deeper into it or follow up on that was like, damn, what is wrong with me? Have I seen too much wild stuff in the last few years to just like that? I move on to the next question.
- [75:28]
Unknown
Have you ever seen even of the most sociopathic criminals draw an ethical line that surprised you?
- [75:35]
Graham
A lot of them have pretty ethical lines. Like, one of My friends, one of my, one of my best friends on earth is a former bank robber and in his 20s he robbed I think six or eight banks in California and went to prison for 10 years. Now is an incredible, incredible family man, multi millionaire, runs a nationwide construction business. Very, very good guy. One of my favorite people on earth. And he said in prison like, and now that he runs a construction business, like, I'll hire an ex con, no problems. I won't hire a drug addict because a drug addict will do anything to cheat you, lie to you, steal from you. But a lot of these guys have very strict moral compasses that loyalty and respect means a lot to them. So their word is everything. Like there's raps on all I have in this world and my balls and my, my word. So there are guys that if they say it, it means a lot to them to back it up. And I've seen this in the rental business. I have a few rentals in Milwaukee. If someone just gets out of prison and gets a factory job and calls me up and wants to rent for me, that actually to me is a pretty reliable guy. Because I know this guy's taking his life in a new direction. I don't care if he got arrested for selling with a strap. If he's, you know, his boss at his factory clears him and he's been really good. Oh, this is one of my best guys in the job. Job. I would, you know, the business would hurt if this guy left. Okay, I'll rent to you. But a drug addict and people like that, you really can't trust their word because they're always scheming because their addiction is their number one priority.
- [76:54]
Unknown
Out of all the people you've documented, is there anyone you genuinely just disliked?
- [76:59]
Graham
Most of people I like, I'm a pretty easy guy to get along with and I look for the good in people. And there's like a little bit of a naivety towards me, me where I'm willing to see your good side even though I know you do a bunch of other things that are bad but totally dislike. It is hard to respect anyone that does something that involves women and children. Like if you steal from a mom, you, you're, you know, a PDF file. But I have trouble disliking people like most, even Tiffany Henyard on page paper, lying to my face. Compulsive liar. Ran her town, millions of dollars in debt in a two year period. Unverifiably a bad person. I enjoyed her. I like there's an element of where I get the cult of personality that made her the way she is. And even though I wouldn't trust her, I wouldn't invite her into my circle. Knowing what I know about her. I had fun hanging out with her throughout the day.
- [77:59]
Unknown
Let's start about her. She is known as the most corrupt mayor in the United States.
- [78:04]
Graham
Shout out Tiffany. By the way, who is she?
- [78:06]
Unknown
How do people catch on to her? What is she doing?
- [78:09]
Graham
Because she basically took this small town, the South Chicago village of Dalton, Illinois and turned it into like a third world dictatorship where you know, she was getting escorted out of Tahoes that she paid 50,000 over asking for. She got a fleet of six of them. She was would she would get escorted out like a security guard would grab her hand and she'd have police working overtime. And she's like the tiny small town mayor. Like you guys have met really wealthy people, CEOs, billionaires, where they maybe have one security guard if at all. You know, she's act like she's just a diva. She would sit in a queen throne and watch the town. And like at events she would make business owners do pay to play schemes like oh, if you don't donate $3,500 for the 4th of July party I'm trying to do for the town, well then I'm not going to approve your liquor license. And so like she would nearly bankrupt people that wouldn't agree with her. She allegedly had rivals up. She just blatantly lies and she basically used the town tax money to live a luxury life. First class flights, steak dinners, wigs, Tahoes. It just the list does not end with how much she balled off of the taxpayers.
- [79:18]
Unknown
And she also paid off the police, allegedly.
- [79:21]
Right.
- [79:21]
Graham
So she, she paid him off by having them work egregious overtime hours so that it was in their favor to protect her and walk her around.
- [79:29]
Unknown
Do you think she's going to pay any like penalties or crimes or like who's looking at right now?
- [79:34]
Graham
Currently the word on the street in Dalton is that there's a few people collaborating with the feds and to not impede their investigation. Because I have an idea there's like two or three main people that are in her circle that haven't been revealed yet that it's one of them. The walls are closing in. They know that the whole thing is going down, down and there's to me, there's no way she doesn't do time. Apparently one of the former right hand man is actively working with the feds right now. He knows he's going away, and he's talking as much as he can to kind of reduce his sentence.
- [80:06]
Unknown
Was it YouTube that really brought this to light? Because I hadn't seen this before until I started seeing YouTube videos of people going to the city and, like, trying to track her down. Like, is that what made it mainstream?
- [80:18]
Graham
I saw a couple TikTok clips of her, and I know there's early guys to the party. Like, a guy. Spencer Cornelius does a lot of investigative journalism. That's really good. I just saw a couple Tik Toks. Like, I actually try not to watch almost any YouTube, like, in my space at all, if I can, because I. Especially if I haven't covered that story yet, because I want to make it unique. I don't want to be influenced. But tik Tok was what brought it to my attention. I'm like, oh, this is two hours from my house. Like, we gotta go see this lady. Yeah.
- [80:43]
Unknown
Usually with federal investigations like that, you're never gonna hear a word until they actually have a case.
- [80:48]
Graham
Case.
- [80:48]
Unknown
And once they bring that case, it's practically unbeatable.
- [80:52]
Graham
If the feds are going up against you, it's over 99 conviction rate. So the fact that it's confirmed that they're in town talking to people in those circles and just how egregious she is, that. My favorite part of the interview with her was I kept asking her about these Tahoes because why in the hell did you pay $50,000 over asking and have a fleet of Tahoes, like your Brad Pitt or something? Something. And she just lied and lied and lied. And I got a paperwork with her signature on it, and I even took it out of my breast pocket and I showed it to her, and she's like, oh, yeah, that was forged. And how do you double down on a lie like that? And then we even did signature comparison. And, like, how is it even possible that this could have been forged? There's just no. No way that it's not her that bought the Tahoes. And to me, it was just a fascinating study. I don't know how you would diagnose her. I don't know if she's a compulsive liar, a sociopath. Sociopath. There is a likable quality of her, but I think. I genuinely think my hunch on her is that she's mentally sick. I think she is a good person that means well in some ways. Like, she genuinely has a love for some people in her community. Like, she. She wants to be the one that Brings resources. Hey, you need a new sidewalk. Hey, you need food from the food pantry. I'm gonna bring this to you. I want to show how much I love my city. She wants to be the. The source of it all. And anyone that would help outside of that, she would cut down or put licensing restrictions or permit restrictions in front of her. But I did get a warm feeling, like, the first time I met her and walked into a room. Like, she gave me a big hug, and I'm like. She had me living in this weird reality bubble where I knew everything about her was true and I knew how bad she was, but when I was in her presence, I'm like, have I been gravely mistaken? Like, is it possible she just lives in this entirely different reality bubble?
- [82:36]
Unknown
Yeah, sometimes the people who are sick in the. In the head like that are the most charismatic, nicest people you've ever met. Yeah, we've encountered a few, not. Not to that degree, but a few people who are just so friendly that my guard is down. I'm like, ah, this is just a cool guy. And then turns around and, like, just weird stuff goes on.
- [82:58]
Graham
That's how cults get started, I think. We think going into it, that this person would be so easily identifiable as evil, that's going to be easy to not like them, easy to kind of mash them down. The reason that cults get started is because. And there's also some good to it. Like the base level of Scientology has some decent self development principles, but then you go further into it when they're doing child labor. There's so many dark things that are happening in that organization, but there's always a yin and yang to everybody. I don't think there's anyone that you can look at. And they're just pure. You know, all their stuff is just bad. And that's how they attract a following.
- [83:32]
Unknown
So you've never met a single person that you thought is through and through evil?
- [83:35]
Graham
I've met guys that claim to be evil because I think they're trying to be tough on camera. There's this one, excuse me, Afghani gangster that I met in California that he showed me proof of him robbing. Like, there's a. A Chinese triad gang that they run illegal black market grow ops. And he showed me the proof that he robbed them. He showed me the proof of, like, they show me this guy that they scammed, scam, that apparently he tried scamming them. And then what they did is they invite, like, they invited him to an area, he got into the car Pointed a strap at him, had him sit in the passenger seat as he drove around his own car. And he's like, if you move, I'm gonna blame you. Like, show me the Snapchat video of that and multiple other things that these guys had done. And he was like, yeah, I'm evil. Even him, I do think, like, he has an allegiance to his family. Like, I think in a weird, weird way, the money goes to help his family, his brothers and sisters. So no one I've met is purely evil.
- [84:30]
Unknown
You deal a lot with scammers as well. What's the easiest way that just the general public gets scammed?
- [84:37]
Graham
I think we're all gullible to a degree and we're all looking for that silver bullet that get rich quick. And if someone packages it the right way and sells it to us, there's a good part of us, especially if we haven't made it yet. And we're looking for that way to break through true or get some money so we can live this life of our dreams. I think it's easy for those people to capitalize on that because they're tapping into like a basic human desire that we all have.
- [85:00]
Unknown
What are the most lucrative scams?
- [85:02]
Graham
As of recently, it seems like running a non government NGO seems pretty lucrative. I cover more of the street level scams. Street level scams, you know, so I'm in the landlord business in Milwaukee. There's a lot of tenants that are very scared to send you any money through cash app because they get these guys that will be like, oh, I'm the landlord, but if you want this, like, send me four or five months up ahead right now. And then they just, they never see the property and they sent the money and now they're screwed. But most of these scams are like, if you have any sort of common sense, seem pretty easy. Like if you're not in a desperate position, they seem pretty easy to see through.
- [85:38]
Unknown
They're getting better and better though. So there are two scams that, that have just recently happened to me which, which are crazy.
- [85:45]
Graham
You got scammed.
- [85:45]
Unknown
One of them I fell for.
- [85:46]
Graham
Okay.
- [85:47]
Unknown
And another, another one I'll tell you about, which is crazy. The first one I fell for was that we got a podcast request, but they wanted to do a Facebook live and I distantly knew the person. So I'm like, oh, yeah, this seems legit. The email was just like a random Gmail account, but like the way it was written is like usually pretty on par with our podcast requests. And so they said, we'll do a Facebook Live this date. And, you know, as a thank you, we're going to pay you, like, a few grand. And I was like, okay, perfect. And the day before, they say, hey, we want to make sure that you're set up on. On Facebook Live for this thing. I'm going to run you through exactly what to do. I was like, okay, fine. So we do a zoom call, and the guy doesn't show his. His face, but I'm like, okay. You know, the guy spoke, like, really good English. Didn't seem like anything was suspicious. And he says, okay, we have to make a Facebook event for you to, like, join us. And I went through, and I followed his instruction. He was so fast, and I was in the middle of doing something, so I'm like, just kind of, like, clicking buttons. And he's like, okay, perfect. You have to send this request to, like, this email so we could approve it. And it was to, like, this. This podcast email, and I sent it. Sure enough, the next day, he takes over my Facebook and they start posting just, like, spam. It took me weeks to get that Facebook account back, but. But they got me, like, completely syncher.
- [87:06]
Graham
This meta support system is pretty hard to work with.
- [87:09]
Unknown
Yeah, it took me.
- [87:10]
Graham
If you're listening to this man, I've been banned from Facebook Marketplace for no reason for over a year. Mark, we would love to have more people that are boots in the ground to help us with our concerns, like Graham has here.
- [87:20]
Unknown
This was the other one that was crazy. So I know someone who got an email from their work, and their work says, hey, there's a process server here who wants to serve you papers, but they don't want to do it at your workplace in front of everybody. So if you could please call this number and they'll arrange a time for you to go and get served these papers. Here's their information. Here's the claim number, here's their name. All of this, when you call the phone number, it says, hey, we have a debt outstanding for, like, $40,000, $30,000 from this company. And this is you, right? And they read off, like, your name, your address, dress, people that you like are associated with relatives, all of this your age. Okay, this is the last four of your social. Okay, this is the right person. Yeah, we have a debt for, like, 39 grand. We want to serve you. And the scam is that they say, or we could just settle the debt so we. We don't have to do all of this. If you send us, like, five grand, you know, we're a debt collection agency. That's all we want.
- [88:27]
And we'll release it because they typically negotiate anyways.
- [88:30]
Exactly. Turns out the whole thing is a scam. The whole thing. And I started looking into this because I googled the phone number. It turns out it just goes to a random P.O. box and like a Rancho Cucamonga. And other people have said, yeah, they've done the exact same thing. And they go through your employer because they're like the shame aspect of like, I don't want to get served papers for a lawsuit in front of like all of my coworkers. So I'm more likely to call. It's crazy. Crazy.
- [88:57]
Graham
It's pretty sophisticated social engineering. Like, to me, I like crimes that like, that have a certain amount of finesse to them because anyone can just break in with a bat or do something like that. But the, the criminals that are able to use finesse, I'm very fascinated by. Because as much as I know that what you're doing is bad, there's an element of skill like, how are you even doing this or getting away with it? That's intriguing to me.
- [89:16]
Unknown
Are a lot of these criminals that you talk to that are effective and successful at committing crimes actually pretty intriguing.
- [89:23]
Graham
Intelligent, A fair amount. There. There's like the Felixes of the world are pretty rare. Like the guys that can, like that could have been an I. T. Specialist or in finance or different. Like, there's some of these guys that are really, really smart and like, they like the way they know cars is better than like almost any car expert at a dealership would ever know a car. There's. There's some of those guys, but most of the guys I think I come in contact with are the more brute force criminals. Yeah.
- [89:45]
Unknown
Punch made. Dev. How is he not in jail? He's just this brazen.
- [89:51]
Explain this for those.
- [89:52]
So you did a video and he's the only one that I remember that was like not blurring. His face was like out in the open. Here's who I am. Head to tone designer clothes and was like skimming debit card information and then buying things for everybody. Going to the bank, pulled out $10,000 in cash from someone else's account and was like, here you go, here's proof. Don't worry, I'm going to put it back though, because I don't want to, you know, do this. How is that.
- [90:21]
Graham
How.
- [90:21]
Unknown
How does the police not see that and just arrest the dude?
- [90:25]
Graham
I'll say it like this. Punch made dev. 100% has a lot of money that he's made from scamming. I know that I could verify that. How he does his scams, I'm going to kind of leave to the imagination and also say certain things that he shows. It's possible that he is a very good illusionist with some of the scams he's pulling. But there's other scams he's pulling that are definitely scams people.
- [90:47]
Unknown
But how do the police still not see that? Regardless of how he's scamming, it's like, hey, let's at least investigate this.
- [90:52]
Graham
If he shows himself on camera, my hunch is if he's really scamming Chase bank with his face showing, there would be trouble. I think he's very good. He's. I would say, I don't want to say he's a method actor because I know he's made a lot of money in a scam. But there are certain rap characters that they're not just a rapper. They're also. Also like he's the scam rapper and I think he plays his character to a te.
- [91:20]
Unknown
Are some of these crimes truly victimless? It seems as though everyone has like a. Like an out. Like if I steal a car, they have insurance that pays for it. If I steal from someone's debit card account, the bank is going to reimburse them anyway, so it's free.
- [91:35]
Graham
I don't think any crime is truly victimless. Most of these because even a guy that has insurance. Insurance is going to hassle them. I interviewed a guy that got his car stolen. He's like, the insurance acted like I stole my own car. Like they didn't want to give me any money. They want to give me the least amount. Like it was a three or four month hassle and nightmare to get what I should have gotten for my car. I am sure that there's people that have been evicted because of their car getting stolen because that's their. If they're a single parent, they try and get to work. Now they can't get to work. They have to get their kid like it is a nightmare. So even if they are covered, there's a delay in that coverage where if my rent is due on the 1st and you scam me on the 29th and it takes Chase 10 days to reimburse my account account. I am totally hosed. I have to have a very understanding landlord and the other bills that are automatic draw like I might get the. The withdrawal. What is the fee? The. The overdraft fees. Like you're going to get hit with a lot of things that start to add up. So for sure it's not a victimless crime.
- [92:34]
Unknown
What is the least unethical crime that you've investigated? For example, if you steal a car from a dealership, the dealership has insurance, the premiums get increased. But that risk is spread amongst all of the different.
- [92:46]
It's probably got to be sex workers doing it it on their own.
- [92:49]
Graham
I would say I don't even think sex work should be a crime. If a consenting female and a consenting whoever their partner is want to do it. I really don't see an issue with that. And in fact most of the jurisdictions, they've really started to just crack down on the john getting the. And because the pimp and those guys are parasites. Like those guys will put these women through hell. They'll get them addicted to drugs. They'll have them work unbelievable hours. I mean if you follow the textbook of a famous pimp, Iceberg Slim, if you read like it's called gorilla pimping where you're very heavy handed, that is, that's a profession that is really bad. But the woman I, I don't think is that unethical.
- [93:31]
Unknown
And what about the most unethical crimes?
- [93:33]
Graham
We'll go with it because all the other crimes, at least they get to live to see another day to try and bounce back or, or to do something else with their life. But you take someone's life, there's no coming back from that.
- [93:46]
Unknown
How often are assigned to people that have done nothing wrong that are just completely different bystanders that maybe did one thing that's disconnected from something else.
- [93:58]
Graham
So the, the that I've come across is more of the hood street where as far as I've gotten explained to me it's really just a like hey, I don't want to do this myself. I'll pay you a few grand to do it. But sophisticated like taking out a politician, taking out. Hey, I don't. My wife. My wife has an insurance policy. I really want to divorce her but I need the money and I don't want to. Can you do it? Like there's sophisticated levels of there that I haven't really explored. As far as the street level guys, I would say that the person that they're taking out has probably done something that they feel like the reaction that's necessary for that person is to. You're. You took that guy's life, now I'm going to take yours.
- [94:39]
Unknown
How much does it cost to end A life.
- [94:42]
Graham
In some neighborhoods, it's free. They'll do it off the loyalty and the love. If you're talking more of a professional, street level guy that does hits, some of them are as low as a couple grand, a few grand. I would say the more sophisticated guys, maybe 10 to 50. It's really like the guy that I talked to, it escalates on the job job. Like how easy is this person to reach? How public of a profile do they present? But I would say like in the street side, it's probably more so done for free than I actually charge. It's like this guy did something to us, we need to take him out.
- [95:16]
Unknown
It seems like some of these crimes then can be pretty lucrative. What about doing simple things like dealing? Do you see a lot of people that deal Dr. Ugss making a whole lot of money?
- [95:29]
Graham
Honestly, most of criminals I talk, talk to, they're not that wealthy because it's always, it's a hustle. I mean some of these dealers, depending on the product can go well, but the, the opportunity cost of selling, even if you're making 30, 40 grand a month now, the way they spend the money, okay, well now I'm getting a fancy car. Now I'm going to a strip club. Now I'm do, I'm buying bags, I'm buying Dior, I'm buying all these fancy luxury items. They're like most these guys. It's not like they wash it and go into real estate or wash it and go into the trucking business. The smart guys will. But most these guys spend as much as they make. And then when you look at the prison time facing them for what they're doing, it's. I haven't met that many guys. I'm like, this is a pretty lucrative operation.
- [96:14]
Unknown
You got to get them on Mr. Money Mustache. Like at least if they're going to be making the money, invest it. A balanced portfolio of us versus international equities with a small risk tolerance to bitcoin.
- [96:25]
Do you see any of them doing that?
- [96:27]
Graham
Some of the guys for sure. Like I know one of the Afghani guys that robbed, you know, the triads and they got like half a million dollars worth of cushion bags and cash that was on site. They're going to try and wash it into other things. The smart guys will wash it.
- [96:41]
Unknown
What are your thoughts? Because you did a video with Chris Hansen, which I found really interesting. Chris Hansen why are people drawn to those videos? Why do they just consistently do so well?
- [96:51]
Graham
I think it's the same reason why Police body cam footage does consistently well. Gains do consistently well. You're seeing someone commit a crime that is like, once you're publicized as a PDF file, like, it is one of the most serious things, like, I'd rather go to prison for any other crime. But that, like, that's a very serious crime to commit, especially in the criminal world, because you're going to be holding someone's pocket, if you're lucky, and then other things will be happening to you for the rest of your stay in jail. I think people are just fascinated, like, just why I think so many women are into crime podcasts and they want to hear about what Jeffrey Dahmer did. We want to see into the depths of the darkest side of society without going too far. And I think that kind of person is a prime example of someone, like, it's so unspeakably dark that they would do that. And we kind of get to see into their mind of why they do.
- [97:42]
Unknown
What are your thoughts about this videos of people beating up the PDFs?
- [97:47]
Graham
I see the argument either way. It depends on the intention. Like, some of the guys I see doing that, it almost seems like they. They're bullies and they see this as their opportunity. Opportunity to freely be a bully. The counter argument is if slapping a guy like that a few times and humiliate him gets him to stop and you save a kid's life or save a kid's future from being traumatized, is it worth getting bullied like that?
- [98:08]
Unknown
Some of these videos that I've that I see get recommended to me on Twitter like that. I can't help but look at the guy who's getting beat up and thinking to myself, this guy has severe something going on in his head.
- [98:22]
Graham
I think from a concept you can look and you can have sympathy for these guys. Guys like, there is no one that, like, what, their life is probably entirely miserable and you feel sorry for them because of how pathetic it is. But then when you conceptualize it down to, like, it happening to someone you know or your kid, you're like, oh, I'll end this guy's life in a heartbeat. So, like, I can see the sympathy, but then as soon as they act on it is like, there's consequences for actions like that.
- [98:44]
Unknown
Yeah. I'm also surprised that so many of them just openly talk on camera, like, when confronted, like, they never take the just stay silent approach. It's always, let me explain everything and divulge all of my past crimes rhymes.
- [98:57]
Graham
I think you're onto it, though. A Lot of them are lonely people. And if this is their, like, if Chris Hansen sitting them down as the most like in depth conversation they've had with a human in a while, they're probably hungry for it.
- [99:09]
Unknown
How often do people fake themselves? Like they'll fake the story or they.
- [99:12]
Graham
Try to like, early on I got tricked a couple times. I've been, I've gotten a lot better at verifying. So hey, if you sell XYZ, I'm hopping on FaceTime with you and I want to confirm that you're selling xyz. I remember early on we got a lead to a Chicago trap house that said, oh, this like, were really like the biggest trappers in the city. I look at the address, it's somewhere like in a suburb. And I pull up there and the guy like could have matched the description, but I'm like, okay, let's check it out. And he's like, well, it's actually not here, but my cousin does it and you have to give me a ride to Chicago so we can go there. But my cousin's not answering the phone. And I'm just like, me and Miguel drove two hours for nothing for this guy. And so there are people that like that There is. That's another thing about, like when I said at the beginning of this episode about a no trust society. A lot of times in the hood, the other thing that accompanies no trust is the amount of lying you encounter is staggering. There's people that will lie about the littlest things that they have no need to lie about. And so you do have to verify things. And So I use FaceTime as a very productive means to do that.
- [100:14]
Unknown
How often does it happen now that you get lied to?
- [100:18]
Graham
Rarely, I would say. There's some leads that I have to figure out. Like with the, with the guy that does hits, how deep do I want to go to verify that? Because then I have to see stuff that I really don't want to see. Like, I'm not a guy that watches a Saw movie. I'm like, oh, this is awesome. Awesome. Like I leave the room because I can't. I don't want to see that type of stuff. But if I'm, I have to. If I'm going to verify a guy says he's doing that, I, to a degree you have to. But I rarely get fooled.
- [100:42]
Unknown
You hire that out, like have someone else see it and then it's like you trust their word.
- [100:46]
Graham
Trust is the. Probably one of the greatest currencies my channel has. My channel has the trust that whether you're a billionaire, a presidential candidate, or a dealer, that I'm going to come in and tell your story in a fair and open way. And so that's my competitive advice. Advantage. Like Keegan out sitting outside helps me with a lot of leads. Especially, like, he got a Harvard astrophysicist, Avi Loeb, to help comment on our Area 51 episode with the potential of spacecraft. But when it's an underworld character, I'm the highest close rate. If I'm hopping on the phone with that guy, I'm gonna talk to him by the end of the conversation. I feel like at this point, I'm almost unmissable of, like, this guy's gonna be ready to go when we come to his town.
- [101:24]
Unknown
How does somebody reach you? Is it just amazing?
- [101:26]
Graham
Instagram, email and Instagram as a primary lead source. At the end of every episode, we'll say, like, looking for a jail that'll let us stay there for 24 hours. Looking for a car thief. Looking for this. And then I'll get inbound leads through Instagram and email that will. And then we'll probably. Usually, if they're really about it, we'll graduate the conversation to Signal or FaceTime.
- [101:45]
Unknown
What are you looking for now?
- [101:47]
Graham
I would love to stay in a jail for 24 hours.
- [101:49]
Unknown
I saw that one guy did the jail. The most dangerous jail in.
- [101:54]
Graham
In across the world.
- [101:56]
Unknown
El Salvador.
- [101:57]
Graham
Oh, El Salvador. There's been a few. Timmy Carter.
- [102:01]
Unknown
That was the one. I think that was the one I saw. It was incredible.
- [102:05]
Graham
Yeah.
- [102:05]
Unknown
His videos are insane. Anytime he posts something, I watch it on the tv.
- [102:10]
Graham
He has an unbelievable concept. So let's talk about this for a second is he puts out one documentary a month, and it does like 20 to 40 million views. We eventually, because we're on a quick treadmill, like the amount of production and work it takes to put out 1:30 to 40 minute, really good piece out a week. Like, these guys hustle all like they're hustling all the time. And eventually we would like to get to a place where we maybe get to spend more time with a contact, more time on an issue. And we put out one or two pieces a month because the pace that we have to go at to like vice would have an entire company, dozens and dozens of employees to put out at this pace. And we do it with like a skeleton crew of six or seven people.
- [102:50]
Unknown
I feel like some big legacy company should reach out to you either for consulting or to hire you. I mean, I'm surprised They're not gonna.
- [102:57]
Graham
Be able to pay me more than I would make independently. And there's almost a stigma now of working with them.
- [103:03]
Unknown
True.
- [103:04]
Graham
I advice some vice guys, reach out. We were collaborating them. I was gonna bring them to Milwaukee and then we were gonna collaborate on another idea. And then it's like, you know what? Why would I spend a minute. Not that I don't like what they do, but why would. I'm already too busy as it is and I'm already away from home more than I want to be. Why would I spend a minute investing in their platform rather than my own?
- [103:23]
Unknown
Are you open to talking about your own business? Yeah, like breaking it down. I'm curious where your income sources come from.
- [103:29]
Graham
So it's a few different streams. Ad revenue is the most significant stream. Sponsorships, Patreon merch, real estate.
- [103:37]
Unknown
Ad revenue is number one.
- [103:38]
How I thought for sure your videos would just get demonetized.
- [103:41]
Graham
They used to be. I almost got actually banned from YouTube. I got two strikes at one time. I remember landing from a hunt honeymoon and getting the second strike notification to my phone. And if you get one more, you're banned permanently. So that was a real fear. But I've kind of learned what to edit, what to take out, how to blur certain things so that we. We've been. Most of my stuff actually does get monetized now. We've had.
- [104:04]
Unknown
We've had a few episodes in the past where they've shared graphic stories and we've done our best to censor them. And the whole thing just gets like limited ads and it does not get pushed.
- [104:12]
Graham
It's amazing how certain words are entirely off limits. Like you have to bleep this. But I cannot call someone. You have to call it. Like what? Like you have to call them a PDF file to come on. Like, I get that they have to protect people that are watching it, but I'm on the side of very. On the. The other side of almost censor nothing.
- [104:32]
Unknown
What's your overhead like to run this production?
- [104:35]
Graham
It's become very significant. So. So first of all, from an employee standpoint, we have what to like four or five full time guys and then we have a couple editors that are part time, but their hours are picking up. So I would say in travel, tour or car rentals, I would say my average overhead is about 50k a month.
- [104:56]
Unknown
No way. That's a lot of money. Can you share how much you bring in every month?
- [105:03]
Graham
So you want just ad revenue or you want my whole little picture? I would say in A given month, it can really flip, fluctuate, but I can probably do from anywhere from 90 to 220.
- [105:14]
Unknown
Congratulations.
- [105:15]
Graham
Thank you.
- [105:15]
Unknown
I think that's so cool to go from that video on your phone and be like, this is. This is gonna be it.
- [105:20]
Graham
It's unbelievable.
- [105:21]
Unknown
How did you have such conviction back then that that was going to be it? Like, you seem like you could see the future back then.
- [105:27]
Graham
There was times where I couldn't. Like, there's times like I almost quit YouTube altogether when I was in my prank era because I'm like, it just wasn't working. I wasn't growing. Um, so definitely I'm an overly optimistic person. I do have a very strong belief in myself. And I think, like, I have a. I have a unique personality where I can go talk to almost anyone. I believe I can talk to anyone in the world. And for that reason, I think that it's possible that this can succeed. But to see it come full circle. Like, I was in. I was really struggling in my sales jobs. Cause I can just. The money never motivated me. The money doesn't motivate me now either. Like, I could talk, like, think in my head, like, well, if I hit my quota for this, I'm gonna be making this. I can never, like, do the extra phone call in my sales job because the money was motivating me to do it. So to get to a point where now I'm making more in a month than I ever did in a year is unbelievable. And the overhead, like, that's the other thing. Like you would think, like, I think we always look at just the revenue and we think that's what they're making. Like there's some months where it's an absolute crusher. Like three sponsorships that were delayed in pain just came through. And there's some months where it's like we were slightly in the red or right on the edge. But to me, to be able to do this full time, to be able to, like, I have a job that I can talk endlessly about. I've, like, I get to live almost a bucket list. Like, oh, you just did Area 51. Now you're hanging out with the Bloods now you just went with these high rolling gamblers and that was in a four day span. You just did that like, I have a dream, dream job.
- [106:53]
Unknown
What do you do with the money?
- [106:54]
Graham
I'm a heavy investor. Cool. So every month right now I'm up to. I put. So I put 16 right off the bat into a vanguard like VFIAX.
- [107:03]
Unknown
Yeah, Bex is what I call it.
- [107:05]
Graham
Yes. Cool. I have eight single families and one four unit in Milwaukee. I'll probably get up to 12 or 15. I self manage all of it. So I don't, I don't know if I ever want to insane get to a point where I don't manage it because I, I take like. So some people might be mad like oh, you buy single family homes. What I do, I get houses that were trap houses. They're like abandoned for four years in the city of Milwaukee. There's boards on the windows, they're. There's crap holes. I go in there, I buy them for like 30k. Then I put about 30k and I make it the nicest house on the block. I'll send you, I'll show you guys some pictures of the houses that I do like. People have been outside of some of the houses I own and there's tape around the tree of the memorial. Like these are really rough areas. And what I'll do is I'll make it the nicest house for miles. Where people think it's a scam. Almost like when people look at this on Zillow and they see it, they're like there's no way this is. You're just going to take my money. Like this is not a real house. 11th in Atkinson. There's no way a house that nice is an 11th in Keefe or 11th in Atkinson. Then they go in and they're like holy crap. Because I want to make a house that someone never wants to leave. It's because there's a lot of slum lords in Milwaukee. It's a huge problem. There's even a book written about it called Eviction that the conditions I've been in houses that the roof is leaking so bad that the second floor ceiling has a hole in it. The first floor ceiling has a hole in it and water is dripping onto the floor of the first floor and they have, they just continually have to get a bucket cuz a landlord doesn't want to fix it. So to me. And I'll tell you more about my, my philosophy with real estate. So I'll get a house like that and maybe like one of them. I have a daycare in it that pay me, that pays me 1600amonth. Five bedroom, one bath, my four unit. I don't raise rents on people. Like I've had it for probably five or six years now. If someone moves out and I renovate it, I might bring it, I bring it up to market. I Don't charge anything over what I think market is. So I have people that have been in a, in a unit for five years that still pay 700 something 750. Some people are paying 910, a thousand for which I think is overpriced in Milwaukee in that market. So I try and pay them or have them pay reasonable amounts that I think they can afford. And I think that they're going to be have some longevity in the house. And then my goal is to keep them as long as they possibly can. And so to me, like, I have no aspirations. I'm never going to have a Lamborghini. I don't want a massive, massive house. I just want the ability. I want to buy a ribeye when I want to. I want to live. Like, I want to be able to walk in the woods a couple times a day with my wife, dog and baby. I want to be able to host friends and pay for good food. I want to be able to say, hey, we're having a boys trip. I got the Airbnb. You guys cover the, like, that's the type of stuff, like, I want to be wealthy for Anna. Never being a job where I'm miserable. I always want to just be chasing stuff that I'm excited about. So to me, financial freedom is not so I can like, you know, get grills or something. It's so that I can do life on my, my terms.
- [109:48]
Unknown
How long do you see yourself making YouTube videos for?
- [109:51]
Graham
Until it's not fun anymore or until it becomes too much. I don't know. I don't see slowing down but, or like stopping all together. But sometimes it's hard with a little kid at home. And I know it's a stress on my family to be away from home, so that is hard.
- [110:06]
Unknown
Yeah.
- [110:06]
Graham
But the thing is, the alternative is like, if I go back to the cubicle, I'm going to be away from the home anyways and I'm going to be miserable. Like, I'm fully alive right now. I'm fully passionate about what I do. And so it's just a trade off. But I do know, like, as my boy gets older, like, I owe my wife some nice trips, some good experiences.
- [110:23]
Unknown
I'll tell you, from an outside perspective, I see you putting yourself in some very dangerous situations that I think would be, you know, a little iffy to put your family in a situation where something could happen to you.
- [110:36]
Graham
I have a good life insurance policy, Graham.
- [110:38]
Unknown
But you want to be around, of course, and maybe you want more kids and you Want to see them get married one day and you want to be like a grandparent and all that. That like, I think there's going to be a tipping point where you start looking at like, here's how much I have invested. Here are the. The rentals that I have. And I'm going out there putting my life at risk for this little bit. Even though I love it. It's like I think there's going to be a balance at some point. We're going to be like, well, better for me to spend time with family, to have a one in a thousand chance of being at a couple of.
- [111:07]
Graham
Things to say that one is, I believe that when you are on the path, the universe will open up doors for you. And I believe right now 100% that I'm on the right path. So I'm going to trust that journey. The second thing is, I'll use a rap analogy. Rappers tend to make their best albums at the beginning of their career when they're hungry. No rapper makes their best album when they're already worth millions of dollars, like usually not. So I don't ever want to tone it down to play it safe. At the same time, we are shifting a little bit. Like we're last couple years we were really heavy into hood. Right now we have zero hood in our. We have eight videos in the chamber. None of of them are hood. We actually have four police videos in the chamber. So it's like a total shift. I do think the topics will change. It's not that I don't want to go to the hood. I'm about to go to the hood in like two hours and surround be. Be surrounded by a bunch of bloods. But I've hit it enough where it's gotten less and less interesting over time. And unless there's a really compelling character or thing that I want to check out, it's just not something we're going to cover as much. But I do believe, like one of the primary strongholds of the channel is the under underworld. We are the kings of the underworld. Like, there's no one, I think, doing it right now that has the contacts I do that is willing to go where I'm willing to go and get the complete picture, the inside access that we get. And so to me, it's like, if I can vet my contacts, I feel very good about it. And I think the biggest gamble at all is not to take a gamble on yourself. So I'd much rather be in this position where there's danger on the line. Line than be back at the office job where I'm like I could have done something but I didn't.
- [112:39]
Unknown
You and Andrew Callahan, man, if you get together, I swear you could the two of you have like the, the journalism covered.
- [112:47]
Graham
He does a really good job too. And I think he covers almost a different niche than I. He does he lean like he covers you? Well, yes, I, I wouldn't say either of us are, are especially my side is no sleep political but he covers more of the rallies, he covers more of the social issues and, and I think with, with who's in power right now, he has an opportunity to cover some really good subject that need to be covered. Like when we talk about veterans losing their Social Security. I just saw a town hall where a guy was really mad about that. When we talk about unions getting busted. And I want to cover some of that too. I'm, I'm pretty square down the line. I voted independent almost my entire life. But yes, I, I, Andrew does some really remarkable journalism. In fact, his, his movie that he came to you guys to talk about. Dear Kelly, love that. One of the best pieces I've ever seen. Like kudos to him for that. The way that he storytelled, the way that he put it all together over a multi year period. Like that guy is really good for the space.
- [113:41]
Unknown
I agree.
- [113:42]
Have you ever scrapped a video?
- [113:43]
Graham
Yeah, like there's a Fresno police investigation where there's a lot of really sketchy circumstances that the now mayor of Fresno has tied to his name. But the activists, the people that could have spoken out didn't. So I was like same thing with, there's a school called Judge Rotenberg in Massachusetts that it's alleged these people sue a lot. So I'm going to say very allegedly that they use electroshock therapy on children a lot of times with autism or different things. The people that were going to blow the whistle about it totally chickened out. And so it's like, look, if you guys aren't going to back up, I'm not going to put a flimsy piece accusing some powerful organization of something if you guys aren't willing to put your own face on the line here. So those are pieces I've scrapped. And also like we just know like when Miguel was putting the final edits on, if we just feel like we're not giving someone a, a level piece that gives them inside access, we don't want to put any fluff pieces just to post it.
- [114:36]
Unknown
Yeah.
- [114:36]
How does this all end for you?
- [114:38]
Graham
There's a Lot more to cover. I'm just getting started. I'm very new to this world actually. I've been in this business for about three years. So there's a lot I have to learn and a lot I still have to cover. What's next? One day we'll make a Netflix or Amazon piece where we'll cut a deal with a streaming platform. That's definitely on the goal. Maybe a series, maybe a one off document documentary, but would absolutely love to do that. I think really focusing on developing my son, I think like really, really these precious moments as having a young kid focusing on that because I think like you can get. This is a career that I could spend seven days a week, every single hour of the day working on. And I have to be careful that I don't. I'm not the dad that neglected their kids. So spending a lot of time hands on with my boy is very important to me. Taking trips with the family. But as far as career and a story that I really, really want to get into, I'm very interested in prisons right now. And a lot of prisons are hesitant to let you in largely because I think the conditions are so deplorable that they're worried that if you were a gotcha hit piece journalist that they'd be afraid of the story you tell. And then when you look at our incarceration numbers, we really have to look ourselves in the eyes and ask if we're doing the right things. When we, when we're the land of the free, but we incarcerate more people by far than any other country on earth, we really have to look ourselves in the eyes. So things that go into the justice process, the last thing I'll throw out, this is a total pipe dream. But I've always floated out the idea of running a private prison. Now, before everyone says I'm an evil maniac, let me explain what it would be. One of the things we're really going to need going forward is the trades. A lot of the contractors are aging out of the industry. They're 40, 50 years old, their backs are hurt, and there's not as many young guys taking up the mantle. These are a lot of guys in these prisons that are very smart and they would love nothing more than to use entrepreneurial skills they've done in other ways and put it into a legitimate business. I would love to set up a prison that's basically like the Harvard of prisons for, for the trades. You can apply from prison around the country and you live here and, and the pipe Dream would be the way we eat is going to be different. We're going to eat healthy, good food. You guys are going to be allowed to work out. Like we want you to be a well developed person when you get out. But also we're going to spend a heavy amount of time investing into electricians and plumbers and H vac guys so that when you leave, you have something for you waiting on the other side. And a big problem with a lot of prisons right now is they either do labor for free, like in Texas, they do labor for free, which someone could argue that's your debt to society. But also if someone's balling off of it, if someone has a private prison where there's a guy driving around in a Rolls Rice because you're working for free, I have an issue with that. Or some states do like 20 cents an hour. I want them when that, when they leave, they have a few, you know, 10, 20, $30,000 sitting in an account so they have money to put down an apartment, they have money for a vehicle, they have money for the. If they've been locked up for 20 years, the fashion has changed and you could tell guys like, they come back out in Timberlands and baggy shirts like, oh, this guy was recently incarcerated and still hasn't adjusted to the times. So give them their, their push so that they don't come back. That'd be my pipe dream. If anyone knows any investors want to talk down the line, how much would.
- [117:39]
Unknown
It cost for someone to join a prison like that?
- [117:41]
Graham
Maybe we'll take government money and grants if that's on the table. But I would. My idea of how it could be funded is, and this is a, this is a performance based incentive. Incentive is we take, let's just say we have to figure out the math. But the first four or five years that they're out, we take 10% of their income and that funds it. So it's on us to make them as highly qualified as possible so they're getting paid the most and help them grow their business and then both hands are getting shaken, you know, like both people are benefiting.
- [118:07]
Unknown
Yeah, I almost thought that would be so interesting. Like this was an idea I had like years ago of investing in people. And so if someone's just like, this is a bright fellow, an up and comer, good ideas, I want to give him 100 grand, make sure he's got his base needs taken care of. But I want 10% of what he makes for the next X years. I think that's A cool business and just, like, invest in people themselves that you think are, like, really promising. I think that'd be cool. But. But you could game it. There's so many ways that you could be like, well, technically, we had to pay out this subsidiary. Ll increase expenses, and they came in islands, and so I actually didn't make any money. It's like, there's so many little loopholes that anyone could pull. Or like, yeah, well, I need that Range Rover as part of my living expenses. So we were in the red this year, actually. Sorry. And then as soon as it's up, this person starts making, like, tens of millions of dollars. But if people were honest about it and, like, I think it could work.
- [119:06]
Graham
Well, the only thing I say to that, I think is gross. Actually really good on the table. But does that violate a fundamental law of human motivation psychology? Like, do they need to be so hungry that they need to succeed? Or is it, hey, if you pave the path for me, I'm just going to commit my life to it. I just need the chance. I think there's. There's people. You go find out.
- [119:24]
Unknown
It's kind of like taxes, though. It's like, at a certain point, they may disincentivize you.
- [119:28]
Yeah, yeah. Once they start taking more than 50%, I think it. It causes me to take my foot off the gas a little bit and be like, ah, do I really want to do that? Take 49. Maybe not.
- [119:40]
Graham
I hate how much money we work for. Really hard to think that the government is taking a quarter, a third, a half of what you make. And you're in these dangerous situations. You grinded so much of your life, and they just get to take it and spend it out. That's a time for another podcast.
- [119:54]
Unknown
Probably bring taxes down a little bit.
- [119:55]
Graham
A little bit.
- [119:56]
Unknown
Another podcast.
- [119:58]
Guys, thank you so much for watching. We'll leave all of your information down below in the description. Is there anything that you'd like to mention?
- [120:05]
Graham
I appreciate the support. Because of people watching like you, I have a dream job. I'm happy. I'm ready to rumble. So thank you.
- [120:12]
Unknown
Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This was such an enjoyable episode. You're such a nice guy.
- [120:16]
Graham
Thank you.
- [120:17]
Unknown
Very happy for your success. Thank you, everybody for watching. Until next time.