Mastering the Magic of Language: Insights on Persuasion and Connection | Jonah Berger

Transcript

Oh, my gosh. How do you go from, like, drug addict, junkie, to jail, to successful musician? I mean, this guy's got so many stories that were unbelievable to me. I didn't even know who he was. It's part of a new series we're gonna call Who Are You, where it's focused on the story, and this one was just riveting. So here's Brian Lawler and his story. So, Brian, I don't know who the hell you are, but I know you've been in in a in and out of jail, and you had some interesting stories and all sorts. I have a list of interesting stories that you've been through. But, like, first off, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. And why'd you go to jail? Well, you could basically all relate it to drug use. So, I used to be a very serious, heroin and cocaine addict. And not when you get arrested. It's not just because of the actual drugs. It's the things that you do to acquire the drugs. So credit card fraud, stealing cars, not showing up to court dates. So there was a string in the early to mid 2000 where I was just getting popped, like, every couple of months and just not going to court until eventually in a stolen vehicle. I got popped sort of the last time and locked up and wasn't bailed out, and so kinda languished in there for, like, 8 months in the county jail. But then I've also just been in, like, in and out for handful of times everywhere in New York City, all around Jersey. So yeah. Okay. So I have a bunch of questions. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's let's go here. Let's back up a second. Okay. How did you where where are you from? From Sussex County, New Jersey. And right now, I live in Jersey City. So I was from, like, Wantage, the kind of picturesque Appalachian Mountain area in the northwest tip of New Jersey. I mean, what were your parents like? What, like, what kind of background did you grow up in? Like, where did you go to school, stuff like that? Do you go to a public high school, a public school? I went to public school. I grew up in a family of the 7th of 9 children. I have 4 older brothers, 2 older sisters, 2 younger sisters, big old proper Irish Catholic family. My father was a cop. He was a state trooper. My mom was a nurse. They were not idle. Doesn't seem like the type of environment, like, good old fashioned New Jersey, big Catholic family, cop, nurse, parents. Yeah. Yeah. Like, how did you even discover drugs? Like, what was your first obviously, you know, you started off with alcohol or something like that when you were younger, but, like, how'd you get into, like, heroin and cocaine? So, basically, with a huge family like that, I mean, I was growing up witnessing a lot of, you know, we would have parties in our house when our parents were gone with literally, like, 300 people out in the woods in the middle of nowhere. And I would be probably 10, 11 years old, and I'm a musician. That's my main thing, by the way. And I would play piano, play, like, ragtime piano for tips and stuff like that and make a bank at these, like, house parties. At the age of 10, were you that were you that good at the age of 10? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I started out really, really young, and that's pretty much all I was doing was piano and sports and music and stuff like that. So but I think the influence of being in such a huge family in, like, a redneck kind of farm town, you know, your resources are thin, and so drug use is really, really common. So with myself, it started out definitely with, like, drinking, smoking pot around 12, 13. However, at the time too, I was also playing sports year round. I was a wrestler, baseball player, soccer player. I was doing great in school, academically. And with music, I was like had bands I played out with live, was a composer and pianist at a very young age, winning competitions and stuff like that. So the drugs never it wasn't it was never like an escapist kind of thing. It was more like, oh, this is really interesting to me. And I enjoyed, doing it recreationally. And I never saw the effects that were always sort of ingrained in you from a young age of, like, you smoke one hit of pot, you're gonna be a crackhead, you know, and after one hit. And so I was able to function quite well by doing, you know, eating LSD, doing mushrooms, smoking pot. How old were you when you were doing, like, beyond pot and alcohol? How old were you when you started doing, like, LSD or heroin or cocaine? 14, 14 when I was doing LSD. 15, like, freshman year of high school. And then I started the first time I did cocaine and heroin was when I was 16, and it was a score like a complete scourge up there. You know, everyone, lots of overdoses, lots of deaths. But it was interesting to me. And also, at the time, I figured out a way to sort of graduate high school early. I, weirdly enough, one day while I was tripping at about 2 in the morning, I was looking at the school curriculum, and I'm like, I could do this for 3 years. Why are you looking at the school curriculum? Because I was it was it was my 1st week of school, and I just, like, was like, oh, there's an actual curriculum here that you can go through and looking at electives. And I remember just saying, you know what? I could do this in 3 years. So I, drafted a proposal to the board of education and, my guidance counselor saying, hey, if I don't take lunch, and instead take the required electives, I can finish this in 3 years, and I'll be one credit short in which I can do an independent study. And is that cool? And so board of education approved it. And so I just kinda did 3 years, 4 years school in 3 years by just not taking lunch and kind of swindling the administration because even like the independent study, I did a thing tying together like Bach's music with Stradivarius' instrument building and, like, Godel's theorem and stuff like that. And just knew if I stayed one step ahead of them, I didn't really have to do do my diligence. You know? And and, like, were you in terms of addiction, did you feel at any point you were starting to get, like, you needed it to to function? Or or what were you using more heroin or cocaine or LSD? No. No. At at that time, it was smoking pot every day, all day long, pretty much. And then how function, like, in school? Like like like, smoking pot. You know, again, there's always you know, marijuana is now approved in many states medicinally. Nobody's OD'd on marijuana. I'm in favor of legal legalized marijuana. Yeah. Everybody I know has some sort of medical license for it or or takes it or whatever. But it still seems like you shouldn't be able to function in school if, like, you're, you know, totally high. No. You're you're absolutely right. And I don't, I would never be the kind of person who's like, oh, no. I could do everything the same. Like, that's just not true. But, again, at that time, because I was without, you know, trying to sound too arrogant here, like, functioning on a very high level socially, academically, with sports and everything I was doing that it didn't really bother me. And to me, it was kind of like a big game, basically, like, oh, can I still go through and take this calculus test while on mushrooms? Or can I, you know Would you be able to? Like, it seems like you would get everything wrong. No. No. No. Like, a lot of times, it would be fine. Like, academically, I wasn't, I wasn't seeing any real effects of that. And the thing was, my whole reasoning for wanting to finish school early was to go study collegiately music, orchestra composition. And so that was sort of my big, plan. And so what ended up happening was I'd finished up and it at that time, like, I would never have considered myself like an addict, even though in retrospect, it's very easy to see that, dude, you're plying yourself with drugs all day long. Whether or not you need it to actually function physically, you definitely had that mental addiction there. And then what ended up happening was I moved to Seattle when I was 17. I went to a small art school, liberal arts school out there, and I was able to test out of the 1st year of a lot of classes. So I basically went from, like, junior year of high school to sophomore year of college. Out in Seattle when I was 17, I drove cross country by myself with an $800 Subaru. First time even visiting there, had working 3 jobs, taking 22 credits every semester, and just, like, work, work, work, work, work. But, again, the whole time, like, high as a kite pretty much the entire time. And then it wasn't until when I was in college when I wasn't doing heroin out there, because in the West Coast, it didn't come as a powdered form. It was only the black tar, and I wasn't shooting it then. So I would only So explain, like, black tar. Okay. So black tar. Powder, what do you do with it? How do you do it? Okay. So at this at this time, if you have a powdered heroin, which is usually in the northeast region of the states, And then like the China White, sometimes in L. A. And usually like in Europe, it's more of a brown powder that comes as a rock. That stuff is all soluble in either a water base or a vinegar based system that's easy to inject or put on tinfoil and smoke or, sniff. In Seattle, in the West Coast, a lot of times, this was, like, early 2000, it was the black tar heroin that came from Mexico That was more of a ball of vinegar based ball that was not like smokeable as easily. You couldn't sniff it. So I didn't do that. So what I would do because I was so resourceful is I would drive up to Vancouver, British Columbia and go to East Hastings, which is, you know, really terrible, tragically terrible area. But, like, that's where I would go to pick up powdered heroin and smuggle across the border. Do that in Seattle. But I always I was never doing that regularly to the point where I needed it to function, but I started to then notice physical withdrawal symptoms. Like, I always knew that if I got that and it was getting high for a week, 2 days, I was in pain. In 2 days, I, like, couldn't do anything except stay home. What does that mean in pain? Like, were you were is it aches? Were you feeling anxiety? Or, like, what was happening? No. No. You're actually physically in pain. Like, the idea of getting up and walking is you only do that when you have to go to the bathroom or something. It's very like they always say flu like symptoms, but it's that very much compounded with the, really subtle mental agony of reevaluating your decisions in real time, feeling super guilt about everything that you've done. Extreme anxiety and really, really hard to. To kind of explain beyond the physical aspect, the mental aspect and very, very subtle things like your sense of smell, the eyes watering, that are just really, serious indicators, to me at least whenever that would happen of just, like, the s**tty choices I would make, I guess. And, like, heroin is is like OxyContin or even like Percocet. Right? It's a it's essentially Yeah. Yeah. It's an open Yeah. And so when you take it, it feels good because you feel all relaxed, no pain. Mhmm. You feel some some joy in your brain because you're getting, like, dopamine or Yeah. Exactly. Serotonin or whatever. Yeah. And and so when you're addicted, do you still get the benefits, quote, unquote benefits when you take it? Usually, just in that, like, initial shot when you're very much addicted and you're doing it on a daily basis just to hit some semblance of normality in a physical and mental realm, The enjoyment is like you get that shot and you feel kind of normalized, but you're no longer, like, getting high. You're no longer, you know, doing it and passing out or overdosing as much. You hit a point definitely where you're just using it to kind of be normal, like, and that's where the kind of psychosis really comes from, is trying to not get sick and keep that modicum of normality, by having to spend quite a bit of money on getting drugs and time to kind of go get these drugs. But, yeah, you're not really getting, like, high at that point. You're still always just sort of chasing that initial feeling that But but since you know at that point that you're experiencing negative benefits and not as any positive benefits, did you try at that point to say, hey. This is not good for me. I'm gonna try to get off of this. Or or was something making you afraid to do that? No. No. All the time. That was that was the thing is that I would regularly be holing up in, like, motels to kick for a few days away from anyone I knew just to have time to, like, stay away from the drugs. And usually before, like, a tour with bands or before, like, a a move, I would know where I wouldn't be in a location where I'd be able to secure or procure drugs. I would have to do a whole self detox session that was usually just cold turkey and getting over that big physical hump, which by this point would be lasting up to, like, 4 or 5 days of, you know, no sleep and the, just physical misery. But then what tends to happen is even if you even after you normalize from a physical aspect, that mental aspect is there. You have to completely sort of change your life. You have to change everything with people around you, your habits completely. And it's so easy once you get past that physical aspect of it to be like, well, okay. I can do that again. I can do that and just get high this week. And then and then it just becomes this constant cycle like that. So I can remember very vividly this one time telling myself, you know what? I I'm tired of this insanity of the back and forth of trying to think that I have control over things. I'm gonna do this until I die or get arrested and just am, like, physically restrained from it. Like, I definitely resigned myself to being, like, a junkie. And this was And were you able to talk to anyone about it, like your parents or Well, my I with with such a big family, one of the biggest problems is you have a lot of intelligent people that really care about you and a lot of people that think they know what's best for you. But unfortunately, they have no clue. So you just hear a 1000000 different ideas of what you should be doing. And because I also have such a big family, different members found out sort of at different times. So it wasn't all at once. So basically, like, I had a really serious incident in Newark where I had a gun pulled on me, ended up dragging this guy along with me and, like, hopping a curb and, like, breaking the axle while this guy goes flying, and then the cops show up. And I had this great backstory about I was going to n j pack to see a symphony, and this guy, you know, start robbed me, trying to sell me DVDs. And, but I was clearly there for drugs. They thought I was there for drugs, but I was able to play it cool and go through. But then family members are like, what happened to your car? Why am I getting calls from Newark? And they all know what's going on. You guys a cop? My dad was not at this point. So he was actually he was a state cop, but then, you know, it's kinda funny because he's the one who taught me very much to, like, no, you don't respect police just because they're police. Like, he was I work with some of the most terrible people. And he was the one that taught me very much that, you know, you don't respect police officers because they're police officers. You don't respect military because they're military. And he was also a sniper in Vietnam. He was a scout sniper in Vietnam. By all accounts, like, of what you'd think of, like, yeah, America, military and police. But he was both of those and very highly decorated in both of those. But he was the one who taught me. No, you don't you don't respect him just because of that. And so he then eventually actually became an insurance fraud investigator. So he would bust crooked lawyers and doctors and cops, and that was his thing. So but at that point, of course, they knew sort of what's going on, but not the severity of it. And again, if you're able to, I think, as a parent, be like, oh, my kid's doing this, my kid's 20 and in graduate school in the Netherlands at the Royal Conservatory, like you're I feel like there's a part of you that's gonna sort of gloss over that s**tty stuff. And I feel like that could have been sort of the case with them. And then so as I was saying with, like, in increments, people would find out about sort of what was going on with me. And sort of the last straw was when I was in the Netherlands. I was in graduate school at the Royal Conservatory studying with, like, my favorite composer. But also I was doing heroin regularly, working with these Iranian and Iraqi gangs. I would basically, like, push drugs for as a white American to be able to get, like, free drugs. And this was a 2,004, 2005, because I remember it was when we attacked Iraq. So, wait, in the in the Netherlands Mhmm. You don't have to just go to the local store or whatever and get something. There's there's you have to go to Iraqi gangs? Like, how what Well, I live in a place in the Netherlands? In in Skildersweijk. So I lived in, like, kind of a predominantly refugee area with a lot of, Middle Eastern refugees. And this was when we, attacked Iraq, and there would be, like, bush and American flag effigy burnings right in front of my place, all the time. And these people, whenever I would buy drugs on the street, they were I just started to know them, from buying drugs. And then it was like, hey. Can you make a run right here? Can you make a delivery right here? Because I didn't have money a lot of time. So it was finding ways to haggle and what I could sort of do to get money and then became basically a runner for these these groups here of just making deliveries, and that was it. But when that was happening, I was becoming very, very sick. I knew I couldn't sustain my graduate studies. I wasn't doing anything with music, and I had to drop out. When I dropped out, that was when, like, I had to kind of come clean, come back to Jersey with my tail tucked between my legs and kind of come clean to everyone and say, you know, I'm not in a very good space. And that's when everyone kind of knew and there were different feelings as far as what I should do. And I didn't listen to anyone. And instead, I moved to Beijing. I got a job teaching at Daxing Petrochemical University, and moved to I came home for like 6 weeks, kicked drugs and moved to Beijing. And then, of course What were you teaching there? Well, it started out as I got headhunted by a totally bogus company that was supposed to recruit other teachers. And when I got out there, I knew the whole thing was a total sham. Like, this organization was ridiculous. But then very quickly, it was easy to get a job teaching English. And from teaching English, then it was very Wait. Wait. I'm sorry. I have all these questions. No. No. No. Of course. I know this sounds totally schizo with everything going through. They were a scam because they didn't really have a job for you and you had to pay them somehow? Nope. I didn't have to pay them, but the idea was I was supposed to be getting reimbursed immediately with my plane ticket upon arrival. And then I go there, and this guy, named I don't I could use his name. I don't care. Doctor Bob, doctor Bob Lauren. He had this program called 1 year adventure. And as soon as I showed up, I was like, oh, this is a f**king sham, man. He was this. He reminded me of like Clark Gable, like an aged Clark Gable, the way he looked. But he clearly was running like an underage sex ring out there with the people that would stay in the apartment. I'm like, this is really bizarre. And I noticed that he invited all of out of, like, the collective of people, the ones he invited a week early were myself and 3 other, like, younger men that were fairly cute or attractive, I will say, as opposed to the women and the older men all came later. And I realized this is just a total f**king scam. So So I basically So what what, like, was going to happen if you had stuck around? So the idea was he was bringing all of these people together and had all of these jobs placed for, all throughout China for teaching positions. And when you were out there, you quickly learned that, oh, there's a big commissioning process for this. So I can understand where he was coming from money wise, or what he was trying to do by placing all of these teachers. But very quickly, as soon as everyone got there and we started having the group meetings and we started having, like, the schools beat, we realized it was just a s**t show, and we were kind of like an experimental group. So I, within, like, 2 weeks, was like, okay. I'm I'm out of here and just sort of found my own teaching positions. And from that, it turned into teaching music, which turned into teaching chess, which turned into just kinda teaching anything. But also within being 1 week out there, you know, I learned enough Mandarin to be able to go pick up drugs on the street. And and there is where it it's definitely took, like, a serious turn for the worst. Weren't you afraid, like, in an authoritarian regime like China? It's I mean, look. It's bad to get arrested here also. It's bad to get arrested anywhere, but you could get just you could just disappear in China. No. Of course. And that's what happened to friends of mine. They execute dealers out there. They will execute hard drug dealers, and the and and that's the thing is that all of this like, it's not like my brain thinks, oh, jeez, you know, I never thought of that. I never thought I can get in trouble for this. That's the insanity of it. Of course, you're aware of these things. Of course, you realize, the, penalties for this kind of behavior. However, that's the insanity and the severity and the seriousness of this kind of addiction and this drug is that that doesn't matter to you. Doesn't matter at all. Like, the amount of times I've you know, the amount of just terrible situations I've gotten myself in because of this, It's not like I told myself, jeez, I never thought this would happen. No. I very much am aware of the risks. But but I guess, also, I would be afraid. Like, how would you approach someone for the first time and say, hey, where can I get some heroin? Exactly. Well, do you wanna know the the crazy story here? So one week into it, I was at this place in an district that no longer really exists actually in Beijing. It used to be called Saint Littour, which was like a really cool little, like, podunk area with tiny bars and stuff. And it was in the middle of being raised in, like, the mid 2 1000. And I got like the last, kind of blast there. It was super cool. And I'm in this one tequila bar, and I see another white person and I see his eyes from afar. And when you can one way you can always tell someone on opiates is the pinning of the pupils. So that's one thing that always bothers me in drug movies. It's like heroin. You see the pupils get big. Your eyes don't do that. They get tiny. They get super, super tiny. And that's how you can I've ever noticed anyone's pupils before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you definitely zero in on those things. Your junky cells start kicking in, then you're like and so I see this guy, and I just go up to him like, are you American? He's like, yeah. American. Like and we start drinking beers and hanging out with me, him, and this other Belgian dude. And I just ask him and everything about his mannerisms. Like, this guy is definitely functioning on opiates right now. So once we got drunk enough, I'm like, hey, you you know where I can get heroin out here? And he kind of looks at me. He's like, yeah. I mean, yeah, Yeah. Totally. Like, what are you looking to get? And I go, okay. So we start talking and he's like, yeah. Where where where you from? And I'm like, you know, New Jersey is like, oh, crazy. I'm from New York. Then we start hanging out more and more, and we're going to meet this woman, Gullnar. And the interesting thing that I learned later about dealers out there is most of them are are women, primarily from, like, the north like, the the Uyghur regions, like, North, West China. And a lot of the Hutongs, it would be women that would sell hard drugs, and they would do it with their babies in tow. So a lot of times, you'd go and actually pick up a baby and get a bag beneath it and kind of start talking and put the baby back down, take the drugs. And that has to do with China's lack of social service programs, basically. Like, cops don't want to arrest women with babies because they don't know what to do with the baby. I mean, this was the deal in the early 2000. They didn't have, like, you know, here with DIFUS or something like that, taking kids and put them in place. So a lot of times dealers of hard drugs were women and very unassuming women, sometimes gaggles of women with strollers. And so that would be really funny. You'd just kinda go down the street and look and be like, oh, I wonder if these are drug dealers or actually just women with babies. But, anyway, so the guy who I'm with and who takes me to meet Golnar, he goes, actually, that's crazy. You're from New Jersey. I'm actually from New Jersey. And I go, woah. You know whereabouts? He's like, oh, small town, middle of nowhere. You wouldn't know it. I'm like, same here. He grew up 3 miles from me, went to Walk Hill High School, and I knew he was older than me. And I don't want to use his name here, but I asked him. I was like, do you know? And I start rattling off all people from his high school. That would have been his age that I knew. And he just looks at me. And then immediately he freaks out. He thought that I was some kind of government agent that came out there and knew when I had to explain to him, like, dude, look at my passport. Like, this is purely a coincidence. Like, this is just a crazy coincidence. So he is the one who, my 1st week there, introduced me to the drug dealer, which then I got her number, and then we were What was what was he doing there? So he started out going and teaching, but then he became the weatherman for CCTV. So he was the English channel. CCTV International was the only English news broadcasting channel out there in the 2000. And, again, a lot of things I'm saying could be completely incorrect now. Everything I'm speaking about is, like, 2,004, 2003. So he was a weatherman on the CCTV channel. And so there are so many times where I'd be waiting for a phone call from him to go get drugs, and I'd be watching TV and I'd be, like, getting sick and kicking. I'd see him all happy and high on TV being telling the weather in Hubei province or anything like that or in Guangzhou. And I just be like, motherf**ker, man. Come on. Hurry up. Tell the weather I gotta get drugs. You know? And so that was how I was able to initially start out. But then very quickly what was it? Like, very quickly, it was you learn certain phrases that you're able to go around in certain neighborhoods and ask around, but I mainly just stuck with that one dealer the whole time I was out there. And then and then what I mean, did you ever get caught in China? Or I had to flee. I mean, oh my god. This is I I had to basically flee on a dime because my apartment got raided, by police. What While you're in it or not? When you were away? It was while I was gone. So what happens is basically every school you work for usually has a liaison that is sort of assigned to you, and they help you with your visa. They help you with just like apartment things, if there are problems with your apartments, because a lot of universities and schools also provide you with apartments. After I was on basically my last contract with a couple different schools, One was like a Montessori school, one was like a local middle school, and the other was, Dashing Petrochemical University. I was wheeling and dealing to try to get, like, money fronted from as many people as possible. And I thought, you know, again, I'm gonna turn over a new leaf. I'm gonna kick heroin for this week and then start back up in all of these schools and everything will be fine. So I got that new apartment, and I can remember just languishing there for, like, a week, getting through everything and just trying to get over that physical hump to where I can, like, be somewhat normal to come in and, and teach. And then what ended up happening, like I was talking about before, was I got over the physical aspect. Mostly, there was a lot of lethargy and, like, lack of sleep. But then there's just a part of you just says, you know what? f**k this. I don't care. I'm gonna go get high again. And so what ended up happening was I literally skipped my first day of school in the in the one Montessori school, which was like a brand new school. And I was like the token white face to help get a foreign, foreign enrollment there. And I didn't go. And I was just instead went to go meet my dealer, Golnar. I used to sing this little song, Golnar the destroyer, in my head that was all like transformer sounding. Yeah. Sounds like a a viking demigod or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the only English word she could say was no money. Like, if ever I was trying to get something fronted, she just knew no money. I'm like, no money. Sorry. I'll get you next time. So I went out and ended up picking up and then just not coming back to my apartment for about a good 6 or 7 hours. And I get back, and I see a note on the door that says, we need to see you immediately. I open my apartment, and I see stuff is thrown around. I see my needles are all compiled in a thing on my desk. I see empty bags, and I realize my place was completely went through. So right away, I'm terrified because I'm not, now What what did the school, like, call the authorities? This this white guy didn't show up? So exactly. So, what I did was I called, my liaison from that school, and they said, why didn't you show up? There's been a rash. They thought I was kidnapped. So, they brought the police there, and that was the reason to bring me there. But when they went through my place, then they found another problem. So I was told that and said, stay right there. We need to we'll be there in, like, 15 minutes or whatever. So I make a frantic phone call to my one of my brothers at home saying, listen. I'm gonna call you back from the airport. I need to get to the airport as quickly as possible. I'll hopefully call you call you soon. And then this is also pre I didn't have a smartphone then. This is pre smartphone, so I'm calling making landline calls to these people. And then I called my liaison from my other school. Like, everyone sort of had a certain one that you were working with. And I told him, I said, hey. Can you check at the precinct if they have my passport? I have a visa issue I need to deal with. Is it possible to meet me there? And is there any way that I can just, get the passport for a number I need for something? And so he's like and everyone's very accommodating all the time. That's a really funny thing. The liaisons, you'll be like, yo, can you just move this £500 of dirt right over there? Oh, I will find a way to make it happen. I will find a way to make it happen. So he says, yes. Meet me over there. And then I get there, and he's out in front, and he says, we can't give you the passport. And I said, okay. Can you just get it so I can write down a number? And he goes and he goes inside, and he goes in the little precinct, and he gets the passport, and I see him talking with someone. And then he comes out, and he walks about 5 feet out the door. I go up to him. I grab the passport, and I run, and I just start running. And I book it out. I get out into the street. I keep running, and I get one of those red cabs, and I go without my s**t or anything like this. And I go right Why didn't the police go out with him and just arrest you right there? I don't know. I don't know. There's a lot of things that don't make sense about this completely. And in seeing them talking right there, and he goes, you can get it right this because he said specifically, he says, you can't have it, but you can look like, you can look at the number, write down what you have to. So I don't know. I wonder what their plan was. Like, what was their thinking? I have no idea. And that was the thing is that because I also had the other people going to my other apartment, like, none of this makes sense to me. And also, it doesn't and also at that time, I'm completely high and just kind of frantic and and running around. But I knew that I needed to get that to get to the airport, and I was able and I just grabbed it from his hands. And I went to, immediately ran out to the ring and started running down further and hopped in the cabin and went right to the airport. And my brother Timothy was the one who actually bought me a ticket home. And I had to leave, and I left immediately. I've never went back. I bet they needed some kind of approval to arrest you, you know, because you were, like, maybe a different status than the average Yeah. Drug user. And they probably hadn't gotten the approval yet, which is why they're trying to hold on your passport so they would know where you were Yeah. Until they got the approval. Yeah. I really like I said, I don't know. And even a lot of times when I've talked to other people, they go, that's impossible. They go, there's no way they would release that. They go and I go, I'm just telling you exactly what happened at this year. But then the wild thing was when I eventually made it back to the states, I started getting these emails from all of the schools that, like, hacked my contact lists and were like, hey, that money that we fronted you for this, this and that, you need to return immediately otherwise. And then they just had would send me contact lists of everyone. They're like, we're going through this whole list and letting everyone know sort of what's going on. So I had to, like, give basically be able to pay back money and just make a lie about, you know, personal problems, things like that. But I remember getting that email because, of course, you know, you think, oh, out of sight, out of mind. But then I started getting these really wild emails with my contact lists there and the names of family members and everything like that. What what were they gonna do? Like, they were gonna send emails to your friends? I think they were just gonna be, like, send to my family saying, hey, this dude should be this guy was doing this out here. This guy robbed this much money from us. This guy like, you know, just let people know what a scumbag I was. Which at that time was still a little bit tempered to some people. And but that was, yeah, that was sort of the China deal, and that was, like, 8 months out there. And I've never been back, and I always kinda wanna go back. I think I don't think you should ever go back. I yeah. But I also feel like now I don't know. I don't I feel like that was 15, 16 years ago. And people say that a lot. Be a classic mistake. Yeah. That's true. But, so that was China, anyway. So what happened next? Like, you're back in the States? Okay. So You realize bad things were happening? So I'm back in the States. I feel like a huge loser. My family is just like, what what what do we do with you? I have, like, siblings that are like, they wanna, oh, they wanna like me. They want me to go to rehab. They want me to, work. My mom one brother had a business who want me to help him with. And at this point, though, I just what I ended up doing was I was working with my brother's shower door installation company, like, as like a helper. And then I eventually from that, I started kind of staying clean for a while and doing the whole a a n a thing, and that was just not hitting with me at all. The whole idea of, it's all or nothing kind of behavior. It was very possible for me to, like, kick everything and be on the right track. But with that system of sort of equating every substance as if you drink a beer, that's just as bad as shooting dope, which is not true in my brain. But I kind of, went by that thought because, clearly, I didn't know what was best for me at the time. And so that all or nothing kind of approach to it didn't really work for me because a lot of times it was just excuse based. Well, I drank a beer, so might as well drive down to Newark and get and start slamming speedballs again. And that happened, and then I started playing in some metal bands. I started auditioning for, like, metal bands and going on tours with groups. And during this time, it was always, like, getting high, trying to stay clean, getting high, trying to stay clean. And this went on for probably, like, a good 8 or 9 months between working manual labor, touring with bands, getting high regularly. And at this time, I was only, I guess, I was only, like, 22 then. And and let me ask, like, with the music stuff, were any bands did any of them have a potential to really grow big? Or and how how was your music doing? Like, were you incredible at music? You've been doing it since you were a little kid and you were really into it? Have you studied it? Well, at this point, I was just so I think what happened was yeah. I was I've always been good at music. I've always it's always been sort of the main thing I did. I mean, had a bachelor's in orchestra composition. Then I was in, like, one of the best graduate programs for composers in the world at the Konigle Conservatorium in Den Haag, which I dropped out of. And at this point, I felt like such a huge failure that I wasn't really playing much. I would just sort of play whatever I could for certain bands, but I was not focusing on music. Definitely not. And this was the time where I was just basically, my regular hustle was I had my junky friends, and it was finding basically driving down once or twice from Sussex County down to East Orange or down to Newark, to get drugs, to then hopefully keep you up for a couple of days and then do it again. And it was just this routine of back and forth, that being the regular thing. And because of that environment, I was getting arrested down there regularly, getting arrested, come back regularly. And, eventually, during this period is when I can remember making that decision, like, well, I'm kind of useless. I'm just gonna do this until I overdose and die or, you know, get get arrested. And then so I got arrested a bunch of times. But then the final time was a couple days after Christmas where I got arrested in A&P parking lot in Wantage. And that was where I had to go and get locked up in the county. So this county jail, but I knew I wasn't gonna be getting bailed out for a while. Why did you get arrested? So well, this time, I actually swiped my mom's car. She knew, like, I was in a place. Like, I wasn't allowed there or anything like that. And so I had some cash on me, and I'm like, I need to get I had some cash and I had some credit cards. I I swiped from, people's homes that I knew I could like or no. I'm sorry. Not credit cards. Checks from checkbooks because you used to be able to write the checks to cash at a and p and get that cash and go down. And I ended up swiping my mom's car to go down to Newark, and I went down and I came back. And I was in the A and P parking lot. It was about 3 o'clock in the morning, and I see an old friend of mine. And I see an old friend of mine, and this guy, I love. He was like a great childhood friend, great musician, kind of a loner, and I always felt like a real affinity towards, like, everything he wanted to say. I'd always wanna make sure I listened. And so I see him, and he's like, Brian. I'm like, oh, hey, man. How you doing? And he comes and sits down. He wants to play me his whole new album that he recorded at home. And so I'm sitting there, and he's talking my ear off. And the whole time, I'm telling myself, I'm like, you're what are you doing? What the f**k are you doing? Just get out of here. But I just couldn't do it. Couldn't I couldn't, like, kick this guy out of my car. So this happens, then state troopers pull up. 2 state troopers pull up. They surround the car because my mom clearly, I think called, clearly not I think called the police saying her car was taken by her junky son. And they come out, and I remember this guy pulling a gun on me, a state cop pulling a gun on me. And I remember him being very, very tall. And I remember seeing the gun shake, and I remember seeing his handshake. And I always had a routine for when I would be arrested in that. I'd always make sure I had drugs that I could say, these are the drugs that I have on me. And then I always had tucked in my in the lining of my underwear, I would always stuff in heroin cocaine for, like, in case I got locked up as something to sort of wean yourself off of. So Won't they strip search you for something like this? This is this is this is where it gets fun. So what happens is the cops, my buddy, he's like, what is going on? I'm like and I have to explain the cops. I'm like, he has nothing to do with this. His car is over there. He just stopped in, and they're asking him questions. He's like and he's able to show that, you know, he wasn't with me. He just met me, like, 10 minutes previously. And so they bring me to the barracks. And because I was always, I mean, granted, I am a white American that is fairly succinct in my speaking with police and being able to talk. So it's easy to sort of get over on them. So I would always be like, okay, You know, there's needles in the glove compartment. There's a bundle of heroin right there. There's cocaine right there. And as long as you acquiesce with police like that and are just, you know, as like I said, as a white American, it was always very easy for me to kind of manipulate situations. So I was brought to the barracks and not strip searched there. But then I was brought to the county jail, And I'm thinking I've been here before. They're not gonna strip search me. I'll be I'll be okay. But then, sure enough, I get when I get transferred from the cops to the county jail, I get brought into the shower room. And that's where I go in. I'm like, oh, f**k. I'm gonna be strip searched here right now. And he starts out. He's like, you know, take off your shirt. You take off your shirt and hold it in the air. Hold it in the air. Shake it. Put it down. He rifles through it. And the whole time, I'm thinking, like, what the f**k am I gonna do right here? How am I gonna get out of this? And I pull down my pants. Everything's down slowly. Hold it up in the air, drop it. And I'm down to my underwear. And he's like, pull down your underwear. And I pull down my underwear. And as I am, I'm curling the drugs from the inner lining of my underwear into my hands. And I pull it all the way down, and he's like, put, Put your underwear up in the air. Put it up in the air. It's like, drop the underwear. Drop the underwear. He goes, open your hands. Open my hands. Bloop. Heroin and cocaine drops. And he goes, what do we have here? And then he makes me turn around, open up my a*****e flashlight looking through. They think I swallowed it. So because of that, I received institutional charges. So immediately I get put in a camera room, meaning they watch all of your functions for a week straight because they think you swallowed, drugs and are gonna, like, s**t it out or something. What does it mean institutional charges? Oh, so meaning that, I didn't get charged with the heroin and cocaine because they found it on the inside. So, basically, these are now I am within the jurisdiction of the jail charges as if I did something bad in jail. So I had to go to the camera room and then solitary confinement for a month. So I had to kick in the camera room, but that was really, really wild because they wouldn't flush the toilet. And so I had to kick drugs in this spot that was only for myself and for people that couldn't be anywhere else. So they bring in, remember, 2 people in particular, you know, can are charged with murder that just come in completely wrapped up that can't be anywhere else and just sit there locked up while you're kicking drugs on the side. And, of course, you find something to talk about. But the thing that really bothered me was they would never flush the toilet. So I decided I would play this, like, little game. I'm like, okay. They won't flush the toilet because they think I'm s**tting stuff out. So my favorite thing to do once I figured that out was to go sit on the toilet and go to the bathroom and then, like, look around to see if anyone's looking, and then turn around to make it look like I'm rifling through my s**t. And then boom, bunch of people would barrel through, put you on the corner, and then they would rifle through your s**t looking for drugs. And so you have to find these little, like, mental victories just to kinda keep your sanity. And that was my favorite thing, like, knowing full well there's nothing in there, but, this is kind of it feels like a little victory in these trying circumstances. And, and And the murderers, would they have to use your toilet? Yeah. Yeah. Basically actually, no. No. No. They would be I'm trying to think. There were 2 in particular, and the one I remember being completely strapped in and sitting. And I don't and he would he wouldn't stay in there for, like, days or anything. It was more like when they needed to separate them or they had movement to go through, it was like just shove them in the cell for right now. So I didn't spend time with, like, a long amount of time with them in there. It was more just as, like, a stopping place for And and, like, now you're being you haven't have you been charged? Like, why are you now, like, gonna be a a month in solitary confinement? Like, it's just like you've been charged in sentence. So yeah. Did you have a lawyer? Did your Nope. Did your parents come in? Or No. So, so with the institutional charges, you're already in there. You have a bail set. But what happens is once they find the drugs on you like that, you got put in the camera room because you're a danger to yourself, like a suicide room, basically. It's like a suicide watch room. So not until after that, I believe I was in there for, like, 4 or 5 days, and then I had to go to a little, like, hearing within the jail. Meaning, like, there was the officer who strip searched me. There were, I guess, just ranking corrections officers in there to decide what the charge is. But with that, no. There's no lawyer. There's no representation. You're inside the institution already. And then as far as and so because of that, then I was put in solitary for 3 weeks. So it was a month or a week in the camera room, then solitary for 3 weeks. And that was for having contraband heroin and cocaine in the jail. And it was funny because it made the jail look good and made the cops look like idiots for not finding it on me. So of course, they were like, We don't know anything about it. And the corrections officers get to say, like, where are we found? What what the cops didn't find? And then as far as my time in there, sure, I could have been probably bailed out, but no one would bail me out. And I never asked to be bailed out. I kinda didn't want to be. With your brothers, they they knew where you were. Oh, yeah. Everyone knew I would get I would yeah. Everyone knew where I was. I'd get phone calls. I'd get letters. When I was in Saudi wanna come in with money, and how much was the bail? I don't know, actually. I have no idea, but there was never talk of bailing me out, and there was never they never put money in my commissary or anything like that. I had to, they would send me letters. I would get books sometimes, but I had to basically sort of gamble my way through jail on ping pong and chess and poker. And then also, like, I found ways to be able to write music and notate music in there. And it was I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but it was the best thing for me at the time. Absolutely. Another way that was just interesting in how to deal with a variety of people, and also understand that, you know, personality and how you interact with people can go a very, very long way, which I was very, very lucky in there. What's an example? Meaning that when people had okay. I used to write these really goofy jokes and these funny little, like, puns and wordplay things. And so people got around and write these, like, really I mean, kind of gross, but goofy puns and, as like headings for letters, like, kind of like a civil war, like, oh, Mildred, the days are long and the wind whispers your name through. But I would always be like, Brenda, you know, this game of pass the ask can only be handled one more time. Like, all, like, really terrible kind of gross jail humor, but as a funny sort of way to go through that people would read and pass along and think it was hilarious. And so then I would get money for, like, writing these poems for people's letters homes, or I would be the one who would be able to kind of type up people's legal letters. I was able to rent a typewriter from the social worker and have time to go through, or in the way I would play chess and ping pong and stuff like that and actually, like, help people with things went a long way. And, also, my complete disinterest in, like, being a tough guy. I was very goofy. I was very, very funny, but definitely got into arguments, got into fights. Like, could have definitely been destroyed many, many times. But When you say got into fights, did someone, like, punch you? Or just Well, there's a couple of times. So, yeah, one time my roommate, my bunkie in my room, he attacked me at, like, 3 in the morning. And we were buddies. Like, we were totally, totally buddies. But he just got sentenced, and he was just pissed. And we were arguing about stuff, and I said something. He came at me at, like, 3 in the morning, no lights. And he was a big app like, a big guy. One one shot from him might be done, but he attacked me on the bottom bunk. And I was able to I just kind of had his head in here and was able just to kinda get him in a little headlock and just hold him there and just be, like, calm down. Like, you know, I'm not fighting you. I'm not fighting you, and just sort of talk to him and calm him in a way. And even though he was like, I'm not beat for this wrestling s**t. I'm not beat for this wrestling s**t. I'm like, you know, and I'm trying not to use Nate use his name. I'm like I'm like, well, I'm not I like my face the way it is. You know? I'm just I just want to, don't wanna be doing this right now. And anytime he would act up, you just apply a little bit of pressure, and I just had a lucky angle, and that was it. And then it was cool for, like, 10 minutes. He's mad and we talk, and I'm like, listen, man. I understand. But, you know, and we became we were we were friends, and that was the thing. Another time, during movie night on a Friday where I promised myself, I'm like, I would never get into arguments about the TV. I'm not gonna get in arguments about stupid s**t. I'm just not doing it. Everyone does it. But, of course, you start getting in arguments about stupid s**t. You're a product of the environment. You're in the environment. You get angry if someone changes the channel. And so after lunch or after dinner, it was a Friday, and Friday was movie night. And let's say dinner ended at 6 PM, and I just posted up right in front of my cell, which was where a TV was. And then before movie night, the crowds get bigger and bigger. And then I'm sitting in a prime spot and someone comes up during movie night and it's like, Pete at Lawler, you know, that's my spot. And I'm like, sorry, dude. I've been sitting here for 2 hours. I'm not moving. And this is a person that I was friends with on the outside. I wrestled with this person. We played music together. I knew this person since I was a little kid, and he was a s**t kicker in jail. Just a little f**king bruiser that battled everyone. I saw him just beat the s**t out of so many people, and I had no interest in getting my a*s kicked by him. However, you're in a weird spot where you can't completely back down and you can't you also know your limits as a fighter. And so it I can remember sitting there and saying to myself, if we start fighting, they're going to lock down the whole general population. And then there's a target on my back because I f**ked up movie night. So I'm like, I don't want to be the instigator in this. Billy's gonna be the or he's gonna be the instigator in this. And so I was sitting down up against the wall and he's like, beat it. I'm like, no. It's too bad. I've been sitting here. He's like, Waller, what the f**k, man? Like, you know, I'm gonna f**king kick your a*s. I'm like, I'm sure you will kick my ass, but I'm not moving. I'm sitting right here. And everyone's just, like, kind of looking, waiting for me to get stomped. And I'm just sitting like this watching the TV. I'm like, we got 5 minutes till the movie starts. And he comes after me and he just grabs my jumper and pulls me up, but I just go bloop. And I just keep trying to maintain my spot in the ground. Like, I'm not bringing my fists up. I'm I'm, like, waiting to get hit in the face, but he keeps grabbing at me and pulling me up. And I just keep going right back. So he's, like, lifting and I'm just going, lifting, roomp. He's lifting. Throw me a robot side. He rips my t shirt a little bit. He gets frustrated, goes to the other TV talking about how Lawler just punked me out, man. What the f**k, man? Who the f**k he thinks he is? Lawler punked me out, but goes the other t TV talking s**t. And so we were able to watch the movie. I didn't get beat up. However, even the fact that I didn't fight back, I had people being like, yo, man, I can't believe you let him push you around like that. And I go, that's totally fine. Like, in my mind, I was like, that was in the end, like, a balance that I could handle. So what what period is this in? Like like so you were in solitary confinement. Was it Oh, no. No. So this is I'm sorry. This is general population. Solitary confinement was before all of this. Solitary confinement. And then you got sentenced to something or Well, not yet. So what happened was this is the thing. When you're in jail, usually, it's you're waiting to be sentenced or waiting for your trial. That's why a lot of times people that are, you know, convicted of murder, they languish in jail for 6 or 7 years. Don't ever get a prison sentence because they're waiting for the trial and waiting for the sentence and then could get the proper movement to a prison or or whatever. So, at this point, no. I was waiting for my trial date, which was gonna be in, like, March or my court date, which is gonna be in March, and I wasn't sentenced to anything yet. But I had my court dates, and I wasn't bailed out. So after solitary, then you're up in general population. And that's where this kind of stuff happened. Solitary confinement. And what were we gonna be charged for? So I was charged for the So what I did get charged for was, multiple drug charges, heroin, cocaine, possession, stolen vehicle, definitely several counts of credit card fraud, check fraud. It turned out to be, I think, like, 10 to 12 felony convictions overall in, like, the period. I mean, your mom was was insisting that you stole the car? Like, was she pressing charges? Well, she said that, but she wasn't pressing charges, but that was the catalyst for all these other things that came about. And it wasn't just that. Like, that was that arrest right there was after I was already arrested probably, like, 8 other times and waiting on other dates. And so everything just kinda ran concurrently, and it was like Right. Let's not because I used to just get ROR'd, and have a court date, released on your own released on your own recognizance. So that's what used to happen until at this moment. It was like we've ROR this guy way too many times. Keep him in there until he has a set bail after a trial date or after a court hearing. So So so you're in general population. You're waiting for your court date. How long were you in general population? I wound up there, I guess, for 5 months, probably. Wow. Yeah. And what happened was I was supposed to when I because when I got my court date, every single person was telling me they're like, you're gonna get released today. And this was after, like, 3 months in. They're like, you're gonna get released. Like, you're a shining example of a jail citizen. You don't have a bunch of crazy charges, even though all of these things are in a short period of time. And what happened was I went there and if I kept my mouth shut, if I didn't say anything, I would have gotten out that day. But the judge, the prosecutor, they started talking about, sentencing me to mandatory AA and NA and this and that. And they asked about anything to say. And I told the judge, I said, I hope you realize that you're creating a cesspool of addicts that interact with each other that have no interest in getting better. When you blindly sentence people to mandatory AA or treatment and stuff like that, you're not really thinking about that. Because I'll tell you right now, in these Podunk towns that I go to these meetings in, I'll go there a lot of times to get drugs from people that are sentenced here. They have no interest in getting better. But because you sentence them here, that's sort of what happens. So I kinda just, tore apart sort of the process of the prosecutor and the judge. And he goes, well and they kind of made an example. They said, so I got sentenced to 6 months, which means you should be out in, like, a month. I should have gotten time served. But he's like, you're gonna do it and you're gonna do every single day, which I've never done before, which you're gonna do every single day because we don't wanna see you again because we think that you actually do. You know, like, if I just shut up, I would have gotten out that day. But I kind of, criticized their sent their kind of lazy sentencing of drug addicts. And it was like I mean, also, you're just excited to talk to other people. So, of course, I'm going to grandstand in court as long as I can because I'm just like, oh, new people, new audience. I got to talk to people. So you're in there for 5 or 6 I'm just curious. Did you miss people on the outside? Like, like, did you did you miss, like, going on dates or if you I don't know if you did that when you were No. No. When I was like that, I had really no interest in in people. I did. And then eventually the best thing that happened was so I started out as, you know, camera room, basement dweller into solitary confinement into general population. And then I made it to the coveted trustee status, which are the ones whose sentences are gonna end fairly soon, and you can do work. You can actually work in the jail. My first job was the late night cleaning crew where I'd go out by myself from, like, 2 AM to 5 AM with a couple guards and just walk through the jail cleaning up. And I loved it. Like, you get to go through the offices. You make notes of everything. You kind of, you get to go to the inter like, the international section and just kind of rifle out any languages you can and see if anyone responds. And that was super exciting to me. And then after that, I was promoted to the, the cemetery mowers. So I was able to leave with usually people that are convicted of, like, drunk driving. They're like all old drunks. And I was able to go and weed whack and mow cemeteries in my county, starting with the very first cemetery that's right down from where I grew up, 3 miles from my house. That was the first place I had to go mow. And it was full circle because as a kid, I used to make fun of the jail people that would be in there mowing. It's like a kid, you'd ride your bike back and be like but then that was me. And then I was released after doing, I think, like, a little over 6 months. Wow. Yeah. So he really did keep you in the full time. Yeah. It kept me in definitely the the full time. And then what happened? So after that, what ended up happening was I knew I wasn't gonna have a license for a while. I got released. I was feeling great physically, mentally. I immediately knew that I couldn't live in Sussex anymore, but I also knew that I don't have a car. I can't get any, like, real jobs because of the felony convictions. I can't I couldn't work at McDonald's if I wanted to. So I knew I needed to be closer to the city. And so I looked on Craigslist in the weird living situation place and found a guy that was about to die of cancer that wanted a companion to hang out with him in Hoboken, New Jersey. So I went down to meet up with him and he was in his mid thirties at the time and he was terminally ill with cancer, but he was super cool. We hung out all night. He was a big old metal head. We played Iron Maiden together. We jammed. And then he's he wanted me to live with him and basically just keep him company by, like, hanging out with him, playing music with him, talking, watching UFC. Tempted by his painkillers or anything? Well, that's really funny that you you say that because I thought the same thing. I'm like, I can't do this. I'm gonna want to, eat because he's just sitting on a boatload of them. And I was with him for 6 months. And one time after 4 months, I ate, an OxyContin. And that was the only time I remember just being like, oh, nope. f**k this. Not not going back into that. But, yeah, it's it's kinda blows me away because I think about that too myself. Like, at the time, he's sitting on fentanyl patches, but I didn't I one time, after several several months, and that was the only time I remember eating like an oxy 25 or something like that, and then just being like, f**k. I don't wanna don't wanna do that again. And then he passed away. And then from that, then I started my sort of teaching. I teach music to a lot of people, in Hoboken, Jersey City area. And I started working at a studio there, which I still have students from, and I've been kind of posted up in for, like, 15 years. And then what was great was a lot of people that knew me from Seattle and knew my composition work were, like, now directors in New York. And so I started getting a lot of commissions for new compositions, started playing a s**t ton of music, recording, and then that's what I've been doing since. Everything's just been, like, nonstop crazy music. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. So you're you're you're doing what you love. Yeah. You're probably doing well at it. Right? Are you doing well at it? Yeah. Yeah. Actually, yeah. And, like, what's, like, what's a famous show or whatever? I mean, I've recorded Might have worked. Recorded with Beyonce. I just tracked for Goo Goo Dolls. I played on their record. I was touring with Emily Saliers who's, Indigo Girls, was her pianist for a while. I write for large scale theater companies, ballet companies. I'm the pianist for Los Enquitos del Norte. It's a very famous Mexican band that I've fallen into, like, 10 years ago. So and I play in I play in metal. I'm I weave in and out of a lot of different scenes as a pianist, guitarist, bassist, composer, producer. I work with Die Jim Crow Records, which is a label strictly devoted to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. So right now, I'm producing a record of, all vocalists that did, like, 30 years for murder and stuff like that and who's had their sentences commuted. They have a lot to say. And so I've I do very much into, any kind of service for, formerly incarcerated or incarcerated people because it's something I think that's really easily overlooked in our society and the recidivism rate and the difficulty in which people that our are arrested and actually do prison time for them to reintegrate into society is overwhelmingly difficult. And the odds are completely stacked against you both legally, socially. It's, you know, you you fill out any job. They ask, are you a felon? You have to fill that out. And if you say no, they look it up. And there's So I've had to find very creative ways to basically live my life by not, having to deal with other people being in charge of my employment. Like, how do you rent apartments now, for instance? Well, I've been lucky to have the same place, but I'm I'm actually moving in 3 weeks. That's the the kind of weird thing. I'm moving out of the states and moving to Austria, actually. But renting wise, it's been fine. That's been fine because I never I hate brokers. I hate realtors. I hate broker fee. Like, I'm I can't stand that industry. So I've always found places that are, like, people that I meet that have a place, people that so I don't think I've ever properly rented a place where it was like, oh, I gotta pay this proper broker fee. So it's always been through people you know, or kind of stumbling about it. Go on, when you go on, like, a a date with a new person, how do you explain if they don't know who you are? How do you explain your past? I have no problem talking about it, and it's usually something I like to bring up very early just because, it's definitely a huge part of my identity, and it's something that, you know, people that know me well are just always like, oh, s**t, man, the f**king stories this guy has. So it's something that I do bring up pretty quickly. If I'm involved with someone relationship wise, it's something that they usually know about me beforehand. It's sort of common fodder and, that Mhmm. I see. Folks know about me. And then we were speaking earlier, and you mentioned how you were in Dubai for the, I guess, the world chess championship, or what was I forgot what was happening in Dubai. What happened was yeah. I've always I I guess I saw the, Carlson and Cardiac In championship in New York. That was 2015, I think. I I went to I went to that too. 2016. Yeah. 2016. I went on Thanksgiving Day. I went to that game where Carlson equalized it. That was when he was down a 1, and that was the one that he won. And I loved it so much just because there was, like I'm by no means like a new age energy guy, but, like, the energy in the room, it's just a gathering of nerdlings and chestweebs and everyone around. And I I was there that day. I loved it. Oh, yeah. The and I loved it. And something about just the, like, excitement of walking around, of watching like that completely, you know, just the the room where they're playing behind the glass, but then going out and everyone analyzing positions. It was just a really special time for me. I really liked it, and I promised myself I would wanna see a world championship match again. I never went to Dubai. I had never been to Dubai, but I've always been meaning to visit. So when they announced it was gonna be there, I took advantage of, like, cheap tickets and ended up buying a round trip ticket for, like, $400, like, 8 months in advance, and said, I'll make it, like, a nice trip of this. And so, you know, I got a cheap hostel, and the World Expo was going on. I had some friends in Dubai I was gonna meet up with just to say, hey, that live there. And then I just went and watched it. It was that same feeling again. I absolutely loved it. But it strangely turned into like an inadvertent business trip. One thing I do a lot with with my music is I incorporate chess into my music, whether it's I used to build chess sets that have that would have triggers that trigger synthesizers. I have a piece called Zwischenzug, which is for harpsichord and live chess set and vocoders. And it's like I have live speed chess matches going on while I'm playing this music that's set for each round of the tournament with these interludes from a book called Chess for Fun, Chess for Blood. So this was a piece that was commissioned by Little City Books, actually, in Hoboken. I did the premiere of it there. But I've always used chess in music. But now my big project I'm excited about is a midi enabled chess set. So I was working with this brilliant engineer at Bell Labs that I commissioned to build me a midi enabled chess set, meaning that every square has a sensor that I can trigger sounds, lights, and basically program musical compositions on existing games, or play the chess set live while watching people play and sort of drag and drop sounds in based on the this, that she'll play. And so what happened was I started talking about this idea there, and it just took off like Grandmaster's bunch of people way into it that wanted to see, like, more about it. And so because of it, I just started meeting really wild people. And I went from, like, living in a hostel on day 2 or 3 to meeting these people that were, like, these high end headhunters from England that gave me, like, a $1,000 a night place at the Hob Tort Grand. They're like, just take it, man. It's totally fine. One of our clients, we think you're f**king cool. Just hang out with us. Tell us more about this chess stuff. And so I basically decided to hang out with him and, like, drink every night. And, after the chess set, let him know what's going on. And then I just met a flood of chess players, cool musicians, ended up playing a bunch of music out there and just absolutely loved it. But I can show you real quick if you yeah. I can show you. So this is sort of the prototype here, and you can't really see that great. I don't know what this camera. But this is basically the software program where each square here, I can assign pitches, chords. So I don't know if you could hear any of that. Yeah. But, basically, I just before I met you really quickly, I just took some string samples. And then right here so, basically, what I'm doing is each square is a sensor that I just preset pitches on, and sample. Why would you put a different pitch on a different square in the sense that, like, what would would you So the idea would be scale on each file? Or Well, the idea is you could do it yeah. You could do it something scalar wise, or you could do it based on sort of the idea of play, and it's more just an aleatoric way to make chess kind of fun. Or what I could say is, hey, James. We're gonna play a game on this set. Give me 5 of your favorite songs. I could chop up your favorite songs and drop in samples here. So you're playing and, like, randomizing song samples from where you go to play through. And then also fun idea. Yeah. And also because it's a midi, it can trigger lights and things like that too. So my whole goal is to be kind of hosting these speed chess tournaments on boards like this that are sort of a multimedia experience, musically and visually. And so this is the second prototype, and the software that is actually really, really good. But the this right now is super analog and everything is completely, hardwired per square. So the next step now is when I go to Vienna, I have people lined up, to talk about, making it this a manufacturable chipboard that would be easier in smaller systems to be able to do the same thing. So this is kind Is that why you're going to Austria? No. No. No. I'm going to Austria. I usually go there twice a year. I compose a lot of music out there. The last decade, I work I do a lot of durative compositions, like 8 hour operas that I compose and perform out there with a company called Saint Ginais that I've done a lot of work with. And I turned 40 this year, and I promised when I turned 40, I'm getting out of the states again and completely trying to change things up. And I'm just realizing, like, intrinsic value in language and a lot thing a lot more things. Like, I'm busy as hell out here with music. I love it, but I want a completely new environment with great musicians I work with out there. I like the proximity of other countries. I've been passively learning German the last 2 years. I wanna take that more seriously. And just a beautiful city. It's just a really gorgeous city, and the cost of living is significantly cheaper. So, just, you know, it's my, the, what is it? The the Farsi phrase, which is like when you're 40, it's like a big revamp of life. So that's what I'm trying to do. Well, I maybe that's my problem is I never did that at 40, but, I'm still waiting to do that. You're just being influential in writing books and actually making money. I mean, I'm I'm No. At 40, I at 40 that year, I in particular, I went totally broke. Oh, that was the year, but that was but that was the complete but that is the complete Maybe that was the rebound. That is. That's the rebound. That's the the complete revamp in 3 that year. Yeah. Yeah. I was reading because I was not so familiar. Like, I knew of you and I knew about you, but I had a nice little wormhole of checking out a bunch of your stuff this week. And it was really a lot of things that you, you're advocates of that are like as far as just like in the self help or betterment, not self help, but betterment and productivity lifestyle, I really think are dead on. It's really great. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Well well, look, Brian. I hope we stay in touch. You've got such a it's really like an inspirational story in a weird way because look at the success and the stories you have and and your ability to to kinda move forward. I mean, I don't know totally how you were in those worst moments, but, I mean, it was it's such a fascinating story, and I'm glad you survived through it and and creating such success now. Yeah. Like, it's really inspirational to me. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for for sharing the story, and I hope a lot of people really listen to it and and and learn from it like I did. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for taking a chance on a completely unknown person that has no influential power in, your stratosphere, so I appreciate it. No. No problem. And, anytime you wanna play a game of chess, I know. I was just gonna say I'm gonna be Particularly particularly on your board. No. I was gonna say anytime. You're in Atlanta though right now. Right? Yeah. But I go back and forth a lot. Okay. Next time Well, you're not gonna be in New York though in a few weeks, but Yeah. Next time we're in the same city. Alright. We'll figure it out. Thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it. Alright. Thanks, Brian. Take care.