EP 68: Heroin Inheritance w Cavario Hunter

episode of Against the Chronicles. My name is Big Steel with my host James McDonald, and we've got a special brother here to nightmare all the way from Harlem World, the world famous Harlow Boy Cavario. What's correcting with your broke man? Everything is everything, loved one. I'm just head happy to be here and honored to be amongst men over sure, man, I'm glad that we have you in here. Man, I'm a big fan of UM Done. I'm a big fan of Don Deva magazine, man, huge fan. I probably

have about fifty UM. I probably have fifty of the magazines in my closet right now. My wife always gets mad until I don't you throw those magazines away? I got you know, you guys man the source in there, you know, just classic magazines. Man, I figured it would be a value one day. Well the games brother, the information that was captured in Don Diva magazine, Um, it's only chronicle there. There's nowhere else that that. There's no

other historical record. And you know, I spent my time in the midst like like really in the um the point of birth for a lot of things during the time and doing that. So the stuff that I got was very like firsthand and it doesn't exist anywhere else but in my publication, on my formal publication, so you know it's valuable and that you won't find that information and we else. And it's definitely full of information, not just stories, exactly a lot of a lot of information.

And um, I won't lie. When I first started thinking about the richinal like premise for the Gangster chronicles, Don Deva Magazine was one of my blueprints. You know, it's one of my blueprints. I kind of took a blueprint a used proof from from down Devon always get people their credit, you know, from Don Diva from um the where's the guy, Heraldo Rivera just the whole investigative type of journalism thing. And so I wanted a specific skill set when I was looking for the host, you know

what I mean. I wanted specific you know, skill set forward. So I'm like talking to my glass, you talking to glasses alone, and I'm telling him, I'm like, man, I got an idea for this show and we kind of just started perfecting it. And so I'm like, man, I probably never be able to find a host that can pull that, you know, pull that kind of thing off. So I'm looking at YouTube one day and uh, I see this guy right here, and so I'm listening to the story and use, y'all look at something, you know,

you look at people. You kind of getting number to media, you know. So ILL used to look at something for the first two or three minutes and just kind of just whatever. But it's like, um, I'm looking at this guy right here, and it's almost like I got a wondering to his soul. It was just like like I was it was almost like he was having a conversation with me, but it was through the screen. I was listening to it. I said, that's the guy right there.

So I gotta go find him. And when I get in that mode, like I gotta find somebody, I usually i'm using successful. So you know, here we go today. Um damn, I appreciate that. Um I can. I can, honesgely say. I don't look at much stuff like that. I don't. I don't all of this. It happened, but I'm not taking my shop to be big hitted or none of another ship like that. And I'm just the nature of the thing is the nature of the thing, man. Yeah, I'm choking it in. I'm loving it, and I mean

it's good for me. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. It's cool, you know. So in you forming don Dieva, Man, how did you come up with that concept? Like what was your thought? I'm going to start a magazine and I'm just gonna be about the Illers gangster ship ever, like, like what was the premise? Man? You know? It's interesting, right, there's a lot of stories from what I heard really in the periphery because I don't pay attention to the bullshit,

but about how the magazine came to be. And there are stories where somebody implied that it was their idea. It's the furthest thing from the truth. There was no one's idea to create Don Diva magazine at all. I write about that. Uh, the I called the accidental birth of a brand um in the beginning of this this is the Non Divil book or Gangsters and Young Guns. And to give you a brief synopsis without giving too

much away, in that particular thing is um. The product that people thought was a magazine was really a promo for an entertainment company that we intended to go into film and television. That's why the first logo that I created was a half of Film Real and half a CD, or a half of c D and half a Film Real. So if you take a circle, cut it in half, you gotta d make you know what I mean, boom

half the CD boom, half the film Real entertainment. So all of the first magazines say Don Diva Entertainment because that first promo we made for the Don Diva Entertainment Company, That's what the logo was on it. So when people thought it was a magazine, they started asking, you know, we're gonna do another magazine. I was like, oh uh, this was December of ninety nine. Oh, next month, in January two thousand was our first actual, conscious, deliberate effort

to create a magazine. It a little too loud, A little too loud? Is that music I get out? So this magazine and you had, this magazine was floating through the prisons and all that heavy heavy. I had five thousand subscribers in the present system here on New York,

all over the country country. I started in December ninety nine, but the official launch was January two thousand, and I did it from two thousand, January two thousand to August of two thousand and six, when this was like, h this is not going any further than it is, no matter what effort UP put in your money. No, I was making just enough to keep it growing, but not really to support a lifestyle. Listening to this ship and I get a little noise in the factory, Yeah yeah,

I thought that that juju was somebody's phone. But that's what I was thinking, Is it my phone? Because I still hear it. You hear you know, you had the phone that shipping on the floor in the dough. That's cool, but that ain't pick up? Okay, cool cool where um? So officially it was January two thousand that it became Okay, we're gonna do this magazine. But no one that was involved, which was my my, my, my ex of many many many relations, many exes ago at that, you know, at

this point. But UM, my ex and I and a friend of ours, UM named Susan Hampstead, we were the three that started this magazine. Um. The funds that came that were used to get the few pieces of equipment, you know, the programs and the computers to do it. Once we decided this is what we're gonna do. Once it was determined that the intent of the first promo piece failed and people didn't pick up on the fact that it was a promo for an entertainment company, thought

it was a magazine. It's like that didn't work out. It's like, well, wait, it did work out. So that that bread that we initiated came from we initially started when it came from older Jamaican gentleman, a friend of mine named Tyrone. It was a week King Pen and he got popped by the FEDS just before we started the magazine. But my ex at the time was running his record labels, independent record label, you know, so he would hit her with funds like you know, every soul

every night ninety days or so. He just hit her with a few hundred thousand dollars. So he had just hit her before he got locked. And once he got locked, he told her, well, take the money in transferred from my account to your account whatever this and you know, get you know, moved out the way whatever. Happy and so he he just recently told me it's like maybe like six months ago, you know, now this is in. He just recently told me. It's that, he said, Yo,

I left. I left with three thirty five thousand dollars. I know I did, but it was not my business that she worked for the guy, you know what I mean. And we weren't together what it was two years after our relationship was over, you know what I mean. We owned cars and home together whatever ever. But you know, other than that, we're just family. So you guys just kind of just at that point then, no, this is

at the beginning of don Diva. But when I when when I ultimately left, when I left on Diva, that's when I was like, you know, yeah, I'm I don't want to continue to be entangled with this person going forth. So I immediately changed my numb and everything, and you know that was that. Then later we saw the Hip Hop Weekly. This was away from it. There was nothing to it. The value in it was it was the adventures of me. Anybody that knows, Anybody who was around

and saw me saw it anywhere. If you saw it, you saw me. So what you saw in Don Diva was whatever I was doing, whomever I was hanging with, right and when I uh, you know, when I was doing what I was doing. Um, every dime that came in went to the bare minimum of my maintenance and back into the magazine, just just to give it, just to give it this edge. This is this is right here.

It's called a perfect bound. Right now. When I first started the magazine that I had no idea perfect bounds, saddle stits saddle stitches, the one where you see it, it's folded, it's increased end, sharp end, just to go from that look to a more official magazine look and give it this perfect bound. That was an additional three

thousand dollars added to the cost of printing. At that point, we weren't even doing more than fifty tho magazines, but I was selling every single one of them myself out of my own hand, and I wrote a hundred percent of the magazine UM nine of the time every picture did all the distribution myself away from because I know what it's like to start something. I know the cost that goes into it, and I don't think people ever, they don't think about the exponential costs. They don't think

about it. Most people have never created anything. Most people have only worked for other people. They've come to a building. They never thought about how did this building come to exist and how did the businesses within it become to exist. They don't think about that. It's it's just here. So most people never had the experience of taking something from a thought to bring it into fruition. They never had that experience. So you can tell them anything about how

how you got what you have. You can tell them anything, and they don't know what the process is. Yeah, exactly, because you know, I think people they don't think about just like websites, for example, Like we got about ten different websites that we run, and they don't think about how much that cost per month. They don't think about this, they don't think about that. It's just a lot of

stuff that goes into it. So it's not just as cut and dry because it kind of pissed me off from people think, Okay, you just got a podcast, so you just go somewhere every winds they go talking come home. No, it's a lot of work that goes into that through the week, and it's a seven day a week thing. It's not just um at that moment. It's a seventh day a week thing. So tell me, man, So you say you just walked away from it, man, mm hmm. What don't regrets or anything? None. Bro. When I started

Don Diva, I was fresh off the streets. I was you know, my last few years in the street. I spent my time, uh, picking up bread, meeting a cat with a bag in the gym three four hours a day, uh, and and reading four or five hours a day. My last four years in the game. Huh. He was good. Yeah. I was on the block like every day. Like I had spots in different cities, and I was I'd go to blocks and be on blocks. I'll go out there and do twelve hours on the block with my crew.

Everybody knows that. So you educated yourself. I educated myself. I read three thousand books since nineteen and have not been to Nobody's prison, and I read everything what they called polly Man. I read everything. I study everything, every subject, quantum physics, metaphysics, history, biology, chemistry, everything that. I was going to ask you if you had any type of journalism background, because the magazine doing Don div Yeah, because it was very well written. I was doing Don Diva.

But I've always had an appreciation for writing. I always had an attraction to it in my um, in my intro um I opened up with then just to put this into perspective, this is this is my autobiography, right, raised by wolves. I began writing that as like an introspection when I decided I wasn't gonna, you know, sling drugs anymore, right, And I did it very suddenly. You know.

I was home one day, had just come home off the street, and I was like, I was doing my thing in North Carolina and I was living in Atlanta, and I was like, you know what, I'm tired. I don't want I don't do it anymore. It was seventeen and a half years, three generations in. I think the streets have gotten enough of all blood, sweat and tears. And you hadn't got correct at that point. MM hmm. See, so you escaped the game man what they call a

statistical anomaly. Yeah, and that's a till that very few people get to tell, you know, anybody level that you did, because it's not like he was out there just moving zones, you know what I mean? M hm, Yeah, absolutely, you know. Um, and I came from a very organized system, so we were very very systematic in our destruction, you know what

I'm saying. Um. So, you know, when I kind of fall into this whole journalism thing, it all comes quite naturally, and it's like everything that I did before had especially equipped me to be effective in doing that. So when I began writing this as my diary and just thinking about what I was gonna do with the rest of my life, and the self help books which I read everyone that was created between eighty five and ninety five, every self help book there was, I read, right, And

I don't just read it. I studied, like books of my own that I've written in a response to the information I was taking, because a lot of it said engage with the information, you know, meaning you read something that it impacts you know, people highlight Why why do you highlight? You highlight? Because there's something about this particular

sentence or statement that resonates with you. So instead of highlighting right it right the phrase or the paragraph, I've written the whole pages, several of them, because it resonated with me like that. And because I did that, and writing is a psycho neural you know, activity, muscular activity, writing, it imprinted on my sulbconscious it became me. So it wasn't just something I knew it. It came something I did because I understood the connection between what's happening in

here and what I'm doing in the world like that. Dude, most people don't learning can pick up that concept. It would take you so long to even condition yourself to do that. Well, the thing is, I became aware of that right and it became first my unconscious then conscious um drive and motivation to figure out a way two share exposed what I had become exposed to, which was that information was the only thing that was truly gangster. Knowledge is the only thing truly gangster. Everything they think

it's period. So I wanted to um extend and expand the whole concept of gangsterism since I knew they were so so attracted to it. You know, and that's why Don Diva read the way to read. I wrote stories or articles in Don Diva in two thousand about the the chi and chipping plantation and where the chip came from. You know what the chip, who created, what they created for, and what it was then used for after the creator

created it. Remember reading an article? Right, that kind of information never makes its way to uh those of us who will be most impacted by the lack of information. Right. So I knew there was a thousand a million of the means out there who just needed to have somebody who understood that information and understood them well enough that they could convey the information to them and they can understand its relevance in their life. That's all. That is

my purpose. That is the reason I get up every day, to the reason I opened my mouth, because that is most important. That there's nothing. Here's the big problem to that. Solutions I'm trying to and and I'm gonna give you one. The problem with that is a lot of people in the hood today can relate to the way you explain things and and certain things they he he's thinking like this, He's thinking, I don't understand what you're talking about. So

they not let me turn from this. Let me not what you mean you mean, because I'm not saying you know what I'm saying, my nigga, like check this ship out, but do like on some real ship. You gotta think, son, when you're going out there and doing this ship you're doing, you gotta be like, yo, so I'm gonna gona he get this motherfucker back right what I'm saying, like when you go get that motherfucking back, Like just understand something, like, my nigga, I'm only talking away. I'm talking because I

like to express myself in that way. But I'm from that thing like that for real though, Like for real though, So I know who to say what to and how to say it to him to make sure I don't just talk to hear myself. I want the mother to underdig me. I don't him up. That's what I'm talking about. Yes, yes, I mean initially I didn't. So it was a lot of things that I put out there that I thought

would resonate with people. And because and this was the advantage of dogging myself like I did you know, um writing all the articles and doing all the distribution and setting up all the retail locations and you know, just doing everything. You know what I'm saying, like realistically, you know, um um, my partner she handled you know, the stuff inside the office, the business I generated being out on the street. She was there to receive that and manage that.

And she was competent and responsible and capable of doing that, which is why after our relationship I would continue to have anything to do with her, because she had a practical purpose and not for nothing. That's one of the main tenants of gangsterism. If you're around me, you serve a purpose. Period. You could be my girl, mana, whoever, but you gotta serve a purpose because I don't have time for people who don't serve a purpose. I just don't have time. I may love you and everything, but

you will rarely see me the purpose people won't. They're the ones who have my time and attention because I got one mission. Get to the money. That's really what it was, you know, get to the money, and maintained the think I don't care well, you know, I want to go back to a partners. You mentioned something that's deep, man. You said that you were a third generation hustler. Man and talk us talk about that a little bit, because that's deep, man. So that was kind of like your

family trade. You know, you have some families there and um, they may own seven elevens, they may own the chain of restaurants. You guys were into cocaine and heroron distribute cocaine and Erwin distribution, to my correctness, heroin primarily. Yeah, So that means you guys probably go back to the late fifties and sixties with that three generations. Tell me

about that. Who was the first one that kind of got off the boat that because obviously if people weren't getting cracked like that, if you were able to elude capture for that loan, that means you had a hell of a system. I mean, you know, it was a it was a different time. First of all, when we did the things we did, and y'all can relate to this, We did the things we did acting in our neighborhoods.

Who gave a fuck, We can get away with a lot of ship, nobody care, and anybody who was unfortunate or foolish enough to interlope into our space, they would subject to those same rules. Now they were two light of complexion. Then somebody might come around asking some questions, but there was always one of two of them that had the okay to come in and you caught for

everybody else and bring it back to them. So the things that uh, we're being done back then to the magnitude that my family was doing it like it was happening in Harlem. I mean, you talked about the time when they were maybe uh half a million herointics in America, eighty percent of them were in Harlem. This is a statistical historical fact, you know what I'm saying. He was

a whole different animal, heroin man to the devil. And that's why I could never dabble in it man, because there was the German for us who was the company that made it, patented it and then sold the people and told the doctors that tells people that it was for headaches and stress, and people are going and get it over the counter, and then people got strung out. Then they made it illegal after creating a demand for something that it hears itself to you human gooing, so

you can't function it. You figure, heroin is a different drug, and the fact than it sticks to your receptors, so when you don't have it, it's almost like you're burning alive. So because most heroin addicts, they don't take heroinin to get hid the functions. So when you that's right, So when you start out, my sister was the heroin atic. My first cousin of four of my first cousins were heroin addics, you know, like I grew up with it in my home, right, so I lived with this reality.

I overstand it a very personal, you know, perspective like for real, right, running souls and ulcers, the size of pieces and ship like that. Mother could fallen asleep nodding off in Millie conversation, and you're like, I'm hungry. You know. My mother left to go hand love business and got me sitting with my sister to make sure that she don't go nowhere. But she's a dophing right When when that when you first started messing with it, right, you

develop yourself what they're called a little chippy, you know. Right, so you're weaken warrior, you're good, you can function, you go out. You're actually getting high, all right, three or four times in especially back then. We need a thing that was taken, you know, Like I grew up on a hundred fifteen Street. I'm from Huntret Street, sixty Street, fourteen Street, eight Avenue, seventh Avenue. Blue Magic was being sold right on the corner of my block, Frank. But

I know Frank. I knew Frank. And so it would be so much people on the corner copping and bopping. They used to have to run the bus down to Manhattan Avenue to get up past sixteen Street and come back up to the Avenue. There was that much activity, right, So that's that's the environment that these people were in. And it was like that. So if anybody not to get high back then I got one cousin that I know too, that I knew for sure, never messed around.

Everybody else messed around. Right, So now you've got this this environment where these young people are coming up and they don't really know what the heroin is actually doing, you know what I mean, only know is that this is the high and they're getting strong out of the four uses, strung out, you're strong, you're stuck. So it used to be you take it and you high. Then is you take it and you're not so high, But then it's you down. Here is your norm and getting

high is your old norm. Now you're taking it just to feel as good as you used to feel before you started messing around with heroin. And that's where the overdose and that's where the overdoses coming in. That because we're trying to get yeah, because it's really big in the Midwest, and New Orleans has a fifty of the people in New Orleans before I know, before um then trained thing of them were on heroin. M that's huge. And they started as young as nine years old. Oh yeah, man, man,

why why do you think that's so cold? But this like, don't feed larceny. Right, it's a level of larcity that is like unfathomable. Bro, Like you you won't even be to get your mind around about. Okay, right, Why do you think those young people in New Orleans are so cold blooded and vicious some of your if you don't tune into those places, you don't know how crazy some of the crimes that go on there with a pretty

regular degree, you know, a great degree. Well, it's pretty easy when somebody needs to fix, when somebody needs their fixed, it's easy to tell a kid there's thirteen years old. Hey man, I'm gonna give you this, Graham, but I need you to go in there and shoot all the motherfucker's in that room and they're head it's gonna go. Get that's done. Ship, that's done. Right back back, come back, it's still hot. Yeah, come on, let's go all day

teams of them. I just talked to b G and all of them about this way you back twent years ago he was talking them about this like yo like because they was all working around. Yeah, which you know, not to get into the whole thing with baby, because that's actually my man, you know, shout out the bird.

But but that's how Bird was able to kind of keep them dudes at the place where they was at because all of them, you know about if I'm good, I got I got some jewels on, I could dip any time I want to when acase somebody else got my back and all that. I ain't never dreamt of nothing better than this. Are you kidding me? Hell? Yeah? It was good. Yeah, you can get whenever you want to. You know, you got a couple of thousand in your pocket. You know you got a car to ride around. Not

stand the mad because you're the bag. Because I think a lot of people, you know, if you looked at B G. Back then, though, a lot of people thought that was just They thought that that was the New Orleans swagger to be just kind of just like falling asleep doing the interview, and they thought it was just a swag. No them dudes, was they're so cool? Yeah, there was not enough, you know what I mean, It was not enough. They was on that you know, on that show. You you lived on the block watching all

this ship Jo, how you didn't get in? I mean, what you had to to keep you away from all that, um to the degree I kept what you mean in terms of my own use. Yeah, uh, what I just said, just watching swords and just the whole there was nothing attractive about it, nothing sexy about it. See, my generation got the opportunity to see what happens to the people.

Oh yeah, the aids, man, the aids before a wait before hid wow man, but even then before then, man, like you talk about the swords, we used to have them in Cleveland. They will walk around down a hundred and five, man, you would see the most beautiful black women, you know, just the most beautiful black women to be hookers. Like you just walk down a hundred five and see these beautiful, like fine women and they were just different back because you had real pimping going on. So the

girls was just really just they was just fine. You know, they stepped out of the Mercedes or Rose Wars and then you know the man sitting down the block. But then you saw that go from that to where the pimp started getting more raggedy because he was on there. And then you see his girl she kind of just springing it up. Then you see that same dress he had on, his raggedy and she kind of walking like this. It's like they're leaning, man. You know, you can see

people leaning on on air. You see a whole bunch of people leaning on air. You know, a bunch of people leaning on air. They hundred five just like you know, and they just like this, and you know they're running up to your car. You're like, oh no, and they got the things. And then I'm gonna tell you, man, it hit hard in Cleveland to because it was one of them cities. I had a whole bunch of friends

that got impacted by hair and one of stuff. Just really man, this I'm talking about man like eighty five, man, eighty six man, just like I'm talking about young people man, just and you know if you it kind of went from the heroine to the crack because you're talking about something that's easily attainable, and it's a mass distribution, and it's cheap. You can go get a fixed air on for two dollars. Man, you can get for two dollars real quick, you know what I mean. And you see me,

you're going um on the way to school. Man, we would walk past this. You know, you got all the vacant lots in the Midwest, you walk through, take shortcuts right, you know, dunk up under the fence, walked there, needles all over the crown because at nighttime you can just see the lighters flicking. Man, a little music playing. They're back. They're just getting wasted. And that's when the murder rate just And I tell people, man, ocine what nothing like heroin, Dude, nothing.

It's no compati the world. It makes cocaine look like what we do it comparatively giving the shame that the same ship happens. Cocaine take yours, Damn you lose everything, just like heroin. Cocaine is just you mean users or sell users, showers and everybody else, everybody that showed cocaine. If they showed cocaine and got away with it from ten years and went to prison or did whatever. When they come home, they don't have ship, they don't have nothing.

Someone fuckers showed dope all their life right now in the day and they ain't got bailin, got nothing. But but it's it's well, it ain't. It certainly isn't because there's no money in the business. It is because it's because people do not have any sort of financial education. That's that's what it is. It doesn't matter what you give them. You know, my uncle, the leader of our

family man, this guy used to tell me. You said you took every dollar and you distributed it evenly across the planet to every man, woman, child, make its way back to its original owners. People are in the condition they're inn because they don't know anymore to do any better. And what you currently know can only take you as far as it's taken you. Yes, so let's go back

to my question. Man who was the first person off the boat, man who jumped out the car first as far as the hustler man and said, this is gonna be our family trade. We're gonna do it, We're gonna do it well. And we go do it efficient my mother and my uncle's um. To my knowledge, it was just something you guys did. So you just County, just woke up, count like I said, like the guys that may own a restaurant, a family restaurant, or have a business.

It's just it's kind of something that you just adapted to naturally. So if if they had, then I said this in in my book, you know, Amazed by Wolves. I said that if they had been locksmiths, I would have been a locksmith. Now how I would have adapted the skills and the teachers that they gave me. You know, it could have went anyway, but it would have been

around that, right. So if I was a guy that sold people the plans or how you circumvent all lock systems, then you know that might have been an advent of my generational or or neighborhood influence or whatever you know. So they could have been legitimate locksmith, real quick man, hold up, real quil we almost run. You call that a gainst by natures and not my children. No, I thought the whole world was like my world, bro, the whole world where I was totally underfites society, and I

did not know it quick man. Hold on, we go back in this netfleicks. Let me pull it up that really we ganges that on to that, to the to the well. They want us to start doing a different together like they wanted, like you know within the show instead is being cut in. We were doing that. We do the thing now, well we didn't go do it right right now? What is that you're talking about? It's a read, it's a commercial. Oh, I need the money man. You got to get got to get the money man. Yeah,

let me see that. I need something that that catch my attention. I need something good to read. All right, try this on. This is my newest book, my fourth book. And you remember how A We's saying that I engage with the books that I read. I write like I read it, And what if I think about it or feel about it, I write about it. I write my

thoughts about it, or I righted itself or whatever. That had a lot to do with me being able to assimilate and and incorporate the information, not just be aware of it and be able to get check it, gurgetated or you know whatever, you know, like to really become it right like I had become all the information I

had gotten before that from wherever the fun it came from. Right, So this is something that I created after um I started teaching in South Carolina and in the prisons out there after they had that riot when the seven brothers got murdered back in two dollar eight team, And so I was teaching violent offenders in maximum security prisons how to think critically, because if I were able to get through seventeen and a half years of blood mutton ship

and walk away a lot healthy, pin functional, then there must be something. It wasn't the fact I carried two guns everything I never wanted. I would say, Man, it's a good thing I had my guns. Only that never happened. My guns never saved me. They were there, but there were a tool. And you know, every job don't call

for Himmer. Most jobs don't call for him in that game, right, So you know, um I felt that if if I could create a system like you said that they could relate to and it not put too much of an imposition on their attention and their time, they could slowly get into it and start to see how having information being information would be useful. So this is what I

came up with. So these are fifty of my quotes, right, These are fifty of my quotes, And I write the quote, then I write the elaboration, basically the explanation of what it is I'm I'm intending to convey with this quote. And the quotes come from my life experiences. They come from me being around my elders and constantly being in class and being expected to retain the information that they

were giving me. So I'm talking about at like six seven, eight ninety these this, I'm being taught the tenants of gangsters, right, So um, I'm expected to be able to respond to certain ships in a in a way that says you've been paying attention. And it was a lot to keep track of. And you know, there are no more dysfunctional motherfuckers than gagses but forever so there their their inappropriateness had no limits. You know, I'm a five year ol

kids six year old kids. And then after I response, and motherfuckers are talking to me like I'm a midget or something. Organize I'm a child, right, So um, I am trying to keep track of these lessons, you know, and I just as a response and wanting so badly to belong I created a system where they would say something to me and I would take an in turn into something rhythmic, you know, and short to basically like

put a pin in that. So whenever I found myself in a situation where, you know, something like this piece of information, a piece information that I got from them would be useful, my subconscious automatically access that quote and then it was like boom, hit the quote and boom, this is what you do. I didn't recognize that that was happening. I didn't recognize that was happening until I started immersing myself in psychology and Babel science. So you

just evolved. That's what I evolved to the understanding of how we work. You know what I'm saying, So much of what we do is not what we think of this consciously get there, I mean, so do me if this is something I do. When I introduce this book to people, I say, open it. Just arbitrarily, spick a space and just open up and see what court it opens up. To me, it's it's it's the Ganges prerogative.

The hottest hand, the path of least resistance usually leads to the point of most regrets deep right, So when somebody reads that, the purpose of that other page opposite is for them to you know, of course you you can either read my elaboration when I intended for to be conveyed, or you can make your own and then compare yours to mine, and you know, kind of learn from You know what you're being exposed to, how it's impacting you, and you know how to incorporate some more

of this, you know, understanding that's didn't being exposed to. And but they don't know, they don't know that that's what's happening, because I didn't know that's what was happening until one day I heard myself responded to somebody in the way that I was like, who the fund is that that? Where that come from? I don't know where that came from? And I recognized that was what I was doing. And that's that's what you do in school.

The only thing is they give you what they want you to know to make sure that you're a good assimilated worker and not somebody's gonna be a critical thinker and operate autonomously to the system. Right exactly, Well, you know what I wanted take this time, a real quick man to give a shout out to our boy Ray j Man Um ray Kind earbuds. Man, you got yours in the mayor Ray James all the time. You know, It's like it's one of those things. Man, whether you're

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put them on. All right, but flawless. By the way, Man, after a while, you get you you know what I'm saying, You get used to it because you know that at that with you practice. Yeah, exactly, That's really what everything we're talking about. Man, I just I need helping and I'm just so used to talking street. I'm so used to understanding only that. But I try to identify with how you talk and listen and I'm absorbing it. But and I get what you're saying, but I just can't.

I'm gonna tell you that this point that I wanted to fish before, speak to that. Right, if you practice any behavior, you become better at that behavior. When people improving things typically adds to their sense of worth, which makes them more inclined to do it, because that's what ultimately drives human beings, a sense of value, validation exactly. And a lot of times when we improve upon those areas, we actually don't know. It's because I tell James all

the time. I go back and I'm listened to the earlier episodes, right, and I laugh. You don't have a thing, man, I said, Look, listen to James May. I don't want to talk. He's not saying a word. But I see this. You know, I've seen him go from the point of doing that to actually put off episodes by itself, and some of our best performing episodes. So you do pick up that stuff. I was. I was so gang bangage. I couldn't write no other way but in gang writing. Uh,

I got just got a quick story. I remem death Row at the office and we got that exotic cars and all kind of ship. Right, So we had the office phone ring, pick up the phone and I'm writing, you know, a message. So I'm so the dude come in. I said, you you got a message here? So he look what the fund is this hitting up? Like like that's all I knew, my couragey, I didn't do noneing. I had to actually sit down and get myself back

to it, like writing. You know what I'm saying. I was just so far into being a gang member, a proficient game member. For me, it was a graffiti graffiti in the seventies, right and and bro like you couldn't make out anything or what I was writing, like a

schoolwork was already graffiti, and I like to write. That's why I was when I first referenced my my book and my intro and I asked about the writing thing, you know, um, something about you know, the like how did I become you asked about the journalism thing, and basically became profision and the writing or whatever. Happy. But I always had an attraction to write. I was one of those kids with the teachers that we got the writing side of day and I'd be like yeah. Everybody

was like oh, and I never understood why. But I didn't understand that there feelings about things were different from my feelings about things. Right, So, um, I always always liked writing. And when I began writing this as my journal, I began with my earliest memory, right whatever, my earliest

memories were. So it's just random things I remembers. I was just writing them, just writing different And I wrote about when my first grade teacher told me that I could be a writer, and I totally forgotten to bud it into That was first grade, so holy in first grade. First grade. So I was five in the first grade, right, um, twenty five years later, I remember that I hadn't thought

about that ever at all. I remember that when I was sitting there writing, figuring out my life, where I'm going in this beginning, at the beginning for myself and I'm writing about this period in my life and this comes out of me without me having a conscious recall of it. It's just that's what I'm saying, that writing, the psycho neural muscular activity, this ship, it was just happening. It's just coming out things that I had forgotten, should I had subverted. We had a lot of ship, you know.

I mean anything that goes against the preferred narrative we have of ourselves, whether it's be bad, or be tough, or we kind anything that does not fit in that narrative that actually happens in real life. We over time will rewrite that or completely erase that ship from our conscious mind. That's how we as human beings, as mammals, that's how we basically survived, would be we couldn't do that. Yes, natural adaptation, you know you selectively just come times, just

stuff in your memory. Just you ever noticed that cognitive this will go crazy? Yeah? You ever noticed when you go back home sometimes you'll go back to certain places and to bring you to a point. I remember, man, I had this dude. It was a dude. Leon. Leon was about man. You remember, they wouldn't they would hold people back in high school back in our day. This dude was actually about likeab eighteen years old and we

were liking seventh grade or something like that. But he was a grown as man sitting at the desk for being stuff with big Swoll. Motherfucking man. I remember that dude, Man, he would punk everybody. He was. Man, he was my eighth grade he was eighteen, you know, called me quick, motherfucker, come on and hang out with me. And he probably been over there with you button. I remember, Man, its seven grade, eighteen years old. I guess his mama said,

so you stopping to school? You getting that out of here? I remember, man. Anyway, I was walking past this liquor store. I was back at the house, right, and I was back walking past. You know, the little hood story has been there forever, right, same dude, still working in everything. I remember walking past there. That dude Leon had embarrassed me that day in school. Man, I was talking to this chicken shell Morrigan and he just came past me and slapped the shell of me, like from the side.

And I was so mad, man, And so I thought about that the whole day. I said, I'm gonna get this motherfucker, because you know, you get embarrassed. I had a lunch box, and I remember, man, I saw him out there smoking weed in his little weeds outside the store, and I went to cracked his ass and helped my lunch box, and everybody kind of paused, and that motherfucker did like this and blood square if we're out his head.

And then it's like, man, every kid in the neighborhood just started piling on this motherfucker's once they saw me take off on him. Yeah, everybody started just started taking off on his ass. And I was walking by the store and I remembered that, and I hadn't thought about that in years, and I was like, this is what Leon's asked that that day, and it wasn't more asked. What was after that? Why do you think you remember

Michelle's first and last name? Because Michelle lived behind me, Like you know, we got our backyard is right here in her backyard was right there, and we would sit on top of the garage and talk to each other all the time. Yeah, and that was my home, independent school. Yeah, it turned out to be I should think things. I liked it, But she turned out to be just a really good friend of mine. A girl that's a friend of you know, a friend of mine. On this day,

she hit me on Facebook. She married at the homie and they got kids and stuff, and we you know, we're friends, but you know, you think you gotta crush on somebody, and she's like, no, you're my friend. I can't you know what I mean. I got put in the friends on real quick, you know what I mean. So so we just became friends, man. And she was just real cool people, you know what I mean. She's just real cool people. Man. And uh, it's funny man,

that the human mind is something else. Man. And it's like I've had a big educational psychology man, just as far as doing this, man. And uh, that's one of my gifts is to be able to just deal with people on where they're at. I never get mad, I get upset idea what people where they are? You have empathy? Yeah, only empathy can give you that. You have to train in the world. You can't replace empathy. You have to have empathy, though, man, because there are some people they

just are who they are. Man. And I'm gonna tell you once somebody, I think it's the age by the time you or thirty, dude, whoever you are, you can change, don't get me wrong, but you can evolve and grow. You can evolve and grow. We can change. But if we evolve and grow, then what the world knows of us as us changes. Because I'm I'm still the same person.

I'm still the same person. I've just evolved to a person who I sold many more options and recourse that I don't have to like the hammer is the last thing I think about. Well, but that's the thing man, And I noticed man by me always being physically bigger than everybody. I learned very quickly. Man. You know that I could go out there and squad, but motherfuck up. But I had friends that was my size, that was playing that bully ship that was getting gunned down. So

I learned to be more of um. Now I wouldn't back down from the ship. If mother want to knuckle up, we can knuckle up. But I would rather be the type to talk out, you know, like, you know, hey, man, what's going on, Like what's the problem. Let's let's find out what the problem is. That we gotta fight. We gotta fight, but what's the problem. But I've learned, man,

that um people that are gangsters. Man I would rather deal with them over of the so called civilized society because one thing about a gangster, if he gives you his word about something, that's what he's gonna do, and he's gonna remain most most people like like they're true to the nature of that thing you speak of exactly all of those if they're true to it, man, their word is gonna be their bond. Man. You can call him at twelve o'clock at nights and if they're there,

they're gonna be there. And because because it's important for them to carry on, to have their word, their word is everything in their name is their name, you know what I mean. So everything else is passing through a borrowed That right there, that a stick with you. So if your name is good, you can have it all, lose it all, name, and get it back. But if your name and you have it all, you lose it all. You won't get no opportunity to get your ship back

because motherfucker's remembers your name exactly. And I try to make it um even with me. I try to. It's a thing with me. Yeah, I have a thing man with um. Sometimes I like to manage people's expectations because sometimes people would try to force you in position to do something they want you to do, and they get mad because I may not necessarily be biting for it.

But I've became very proficient that looking ahead of things, that being kind of um kind of three steps, you know, six or seven months down the line of where I see, yeah, I can't do this right now because it's not gonna turn out right. If it don't turn out right, nine times the team you could be mad at me. So let's wait until I'm in position. So when I give you my word, it actually means something. You get what

I'm saying. So basically, don't let somebody put you in the position where you're going to be where you can potentially undermined when he hear something right now yea. And they could never be put in a position to do something when he don't want to do. That's only by choice. If you choose to do that, then you accept all the all the back ends and all of that other ship that can win it. A man gonna be a man. My grandfather told me, what you tell this man, and

what did you tell that man? Your word is everything. By say I'm going to rolling with no problem. Nothing else should be said. Don't have the questions. So that's what you that's what we go off and we're seeing the same thing. Brother, Everybody don't possess that. Everybody don't understand that that's that's well. The thing is, we have had experience enough at this point, beyond our developmental stuff to know that, um, that is the majority of humans. And I think a lot of us having what we

have the way that we do. Uh, those of us that are of the thing that we are. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we made to understand. The consequences for anything else are extremely severe. Have you ever been put in a situation that that made you want to go back or revert to how you used to get down? Yeah? Oh yeah, But like I said, the toolbox is much more full now. When I first left the street and stumbled into this don this don diva thing, um, I didn't. I had

a very naive perception of the world. Right, So I thought that squares followed all the rules in their lives are governed by rules, and right that's what I had no clue. I had no clue because I never dealt with them. I never interacted with them, so I didn't have any clue. I didn't have no clue about that, and it didn't matter to me, you know what I'm saying. So at the point in which I got into the space where I'm dealing with these people, UM, I have

these unrealistic expectations. Right, So I'm dealing with def JAM or Universal or whatever the labels were back then or whatever, right, and um we're doing this thirty net thing. So for people who don't know thirty net and you're in the magazine business, it's like, okay, the advertiser, your client, they will um run and add in your publication, and thirty days after that ad hits the market, they pay you

for it. Okay. So you know I'm I'm busting my ass to get this thing, you know, going keeping going, right, I'm writing under the twelve pseudonyms, right, so people don't think it's as small as it is. And so when it's time for me to get my money, you know, old habits prevailed. I still want my money. When I want my money, and I want my money was supposed to show up because you told me that's what you do.

So I told you I would put the magazine, the ad in this particular magazine, it would come out of this particular time, and I did, and it did. I did as we just said. I kept my word as expected, especially for you squares, right, y'all follow all the rules, right, So I did my part. So that check is as good as in the mail. Thirty five days later, my check ain't there. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, up, discivariy man, you when much check at bro every everything,

But no, where's my check at thirty five days? And I knowing they're going, this motherfucker's crazy. What the fun like? How you think that's I got no clear, no idea how it works. I'm thinking, you guys do everything on time. And right, I'm so glad I'm not in the street, no ball, I ain't gonna bust nobody in the head. And you know, trying to figure out my mother. You know that what this is the decent the nine thoughts I'm having. So I'm on the phone. It's like you're

trying me. You've got millions of dollars, so you must be trying me. So my old instincts are let me, let me, let you know where the line is before you get a toll cross that motherfucking lose the leg. Let me let you know. And it took my man Jeff Dixon, who is responsible for ludicrous career from my hood, to tell me you gotta you gotta slow down. Here, you go down, it will black boil your ass. You know what I mean. I'm like, you know, I shoot straight,

bro like. I don't bullshit nobody, and I've never accepted it from other people. I give to people what I want and I don't make no exceptions. And Princess the pulpous, I treat people like people. I treat them like I would want to be treated, period. So it took some you know one thing. Another thing about gangsters. Gangsters are very sensitive, Oh yeah, highly sin and I don't mean in a sissy fied way. I mean highly attuned to bullshit in the slightest degree. And those of us who

are committed, we are very preemptive about bullshit. Minute in a second, save your fucking life, because you seem to be entertaining the idea of going down a dark path and changing the trajectory of both our lives. So let's not do that. Let me let you understand something right now, All the motherfucker's that you love. They love you too. Don't undervalue that ship. I'm committed. Are you committed? I'm ready to go. I live for you. That's what you want.

You want me to live for you. I live for you. That kind of commitment has always been rare. We have all away. He's been rare, you know what I'm saying, Like for real, for real? You know, so this this whole thing about you know, everybody's gangster and everybody's a shooter, and this is mass insanity, bro, mass insanity. Ain't we in a month of the world that that particular genetic trait is suddenly everybody got it. The funk out here,

everybody don't got it. Everybody is doing it. Everybody's doing and then when they got to deal with the consequences, that's when they've been oh wait a minute, that's that's actually not me. And you see it every day because

they break down crime kid on on on Instagram. That one kid, he's about six four and he's standing there, you know what I mean, chest out and the judge that two years and he said, now your lord is standing in the same distance you standing from The judge heard the same things that you got ask what are you saying? You didn't hear him? He said two years, oh yeah, and folded like a shutar Chinese launchy man.

Now anything he knew? They know, yeah, two years And I bet you his big ass was giving him the business on the street though. But she had a big old silk striped down his back when he was running around them off of the street. You know what I watched. I'm a very big friend, big fan of forty eight hours. Oh that's the running nine of the cat that walk in there. I could have went home that night, but they don't because I know he was weighing heavy on

your chest. Brother, come on and talk to me. Don't get it off your chest and be done with it. Well, you know, if I tell you what happened, I ain't going home. But then just they see that that what that in the in the clinical space, they call that cognitive dissonance. That's believing too things that are the opposite of one another to be true. Right, that I can be honest in this situation and go home. And you know why they're so successful to that ship because they are not