The BASIC Show

BRIAN KEITH THOMPSON: Death Sentence to Redemption — My Wildest Story | The BASIC Show EPISODE 2

• Viktorija Pashuta • Season 1 • Episode 2

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From Rock Bottom to Red Carpet Ink: Brian Keith Thompson Tells All

In Episode 2 of The BASIC Show, we sit down with the legendary Brian Keith Thompson — celebrity body piercer, tattoo artist, and owner of LA’s iconic Body Electric Tattoo.

Brian opens up about his incredible transformation — from time behind bars to becoming one of the most sought-after names in Hollywood’s beauty scene. With clients from A-list stars to world-class models, Brian shares his raw journey of redemption, resilience, and building an empire, one needle at a time.

See more of Brian on @bodyelectrictattoo on Instagram

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SPEAKER_01:

If you beat me down, I'm going to keep getting up. Welcome to Hollywood. Yeah, welcome to Hollywood. Being a cholo was like, it was kind of sexy. If you're a gangster, you got to hang out. You got to be in the street.

SPEAKER_00:

You really wanted to test the destiny.

SPEAKER_01:

I wanted that power, dude. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Money, money, money. Like, where does it ever

SPEAKER_00:

end? Another bill, you know? Another drama.

SPEAKER_01:

First time I saw someone killed, it didn't chill me the way I thought it would. Masculine toxicity, it's that power. Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know. In a candy shop.

SPEAKER_01:

Guy in my car gets in a fight with a drug dealer. I said, if anybody calls the cops, I'll fucking kill you. White people are treated the worst in L.A. County Jail. I had to eat on the floor. Put a gun in your face and take your shit. You have AIDS.

SPEAKER_00:

AIDS? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Pick up the phone. You're like, help, help, help.

SPEAKER_00:

If you never ask, you will never get. The

SPEAKER_01:

sun doesn't give a shit about our problems. The Milky Way don't give a shit. Dust and bruises and blood and keeps fucking going. You are your word and that's How can you have success if you've never failed? Just keep swimming.

SPEAKER_00:

So Brian, thank you for coming to The Basic Show. My

SPEAKER_01:

pleasure.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for having me. It's

SPEAKER_01:

my first podcast, actually. Really? I've never done one of these.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm very honored. I'm very honored. I wouldn't do

SPEAKER_01:

this for anybody. I've been asked many times, but I've always liked you and respected you. So here I

SPEAKER_00:

am. Thank you. I really, really appreciate it. I'm really happy to have you because when I read your story, it was so inspiring, but also blood chilling at the same time. And I really wanted you to voice it and share with us. The first thing when I read in one of your interviews was saying that when you came to LA from Texas, you were driving a bicycle and you were stopped by Levi's for a commercial.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So what happened? Yeah, it was my first encounter. I came here in 84. My dad moved here with his wife, his second wife. And I came to visit him and we stayed across the street from the Universal Studios. It's now called an Ava or Ava Apartments, but it used to be in Oakwood. And we lived there and I just fell in love with it instantly. I was forced to be Christian and, you know, I don't know if you've been to Texas. It's a vibe that I wasn't vibing with as

SPEAKER_00:

a kid. Drug drivers and... Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

you could legally drink and drive there. Like you could have an open container.

SPEAKER_00:

That's something I can relate, but okay.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I never really fit in. I've always been different. I've never wanted to beat to the drum of society. If everybody's going left, I want to go right or vice versa. If everybody's wearing Nikes, I'm going to put on Reebok. I'm going to do whatever everyone else isn't doing. So when I came here, I was like, whoa, this is awesome. So I convinced my mom to let me move in with my dad. And I started the seventh grade here and I had a mountain bike and I had long blonde hair. I was, I don't know if you ever heard the term Hesher.

SPEAKER_00:

No.

SPEAKER_01:

So back in the 80s, this is 1985. So if you're into heavy metal music like Iron Maid, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, you're a hesher. And we wore Levi's, faded Levi's and band shirts. And I was a hesher. So I'm riding this mountain bike my dad got me. And I wanted a nice one, but my dad always took me to like Target. Got like this heavy, you know, it was like a tank. And I'm riding it to school and I have my Levi's jacket on, my Levi's pants. And they're setting up. outside, they have like cameras and all stuff. And as I'm wearing back then, the bike racks are in this huge, like gated thing, right? And all the schools in LA back in the day were surrounded by chain link fence. I came from Texas, we didn't have fences around the school. So I ride into the fence. And as I'm riding in, I look to my side, and they're pulling the little trolley and filming me. And I kind of, you know, like you do when you're, I don't even know how old I was, like 13. I kind of freeze up, you know. And the guy says, stop. Hey, come here. He had this English accent. He's like, it sounds better as a New York accent. He's like, hey, kid, come here. You know, did you, do you have your release form? They made us all fill out, you know, if we wanted to, fill out a release form. And I gave it to him through the fence and he told me what to do and I got my bike and I rode back and forth. And then I came out in the commercial. But the funny thing is they removed my head from the shot. It's just my body in the bike. Yeah. Imagine that. You're like, what? They're like, we like it all, but his face. Wow. And I got paid. Welcome to Hollywood. Yeah. Welcome to Hollywood. Right away. Yeah. Bam. Little boy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. But at least it got paid, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I got, I was in two commercials and a video. There used to be a department store in California called Broadway and I was in some video in there and they paid me about$1,500. And in 85 for a 13-year-old, that was a lot of money. So I took it and I went and bought a Honda Spree scooter. That's what I did with it. And I was cool for like three days at school after that. Then I went back to being a dorky hesher.

SPEAKER_00:

So what happened after that?

SPEAKER_01:

After that, I just kept going through school. I was picked on and abused pretty badly in school since elementary school. not sexual abuse, just physically, bullies. I was small, but I had a mouth on me. And no matter what you did to me, I would be telling you, F you. As you're beating me up, then you'd start walking away. I'd get up and be like, F you, whatever. I just wouldn't shut up. I'd get beat up more. And I just never submitted. I've never been the type of person, if you beat me down, I'm going to keep getting up. You've got to kill me. There's just, I'm not going to stop ever. And... It just I never got filled with anger being picked on and abused. It just made me want to be better. So instead of going, Towards violence, like you see kids doing nowadays in school and bringing guns. I just would fantasize of being like so badass. Everybody would like bow down, you know, and I just focused on that. The more people told me I couldn't or I was too little or I was like this little guy. So at 12, I look like I was eight. I'm 53 now. I looked really young and I look kind of like a girl. I was, you know, you know, just when you're really young as boys, sometimes you kind of look feminine. That was me. and had the long hair. And yeah, it was just torture, torture, torture through school. I never liked going to school because of that. And I never told my parents, though. I always kept it in. I just, I don't know. Back then, everyone told us to be a man. There's this one way, and you had to be that man. Be a man. Suck it up. The only emotion you can have is anger. You can't have any other emotion, you know? Be a man. And so I just never told anybody about it. And I just dealt with it myself. And then... I get a job at Target being a cart attendant. And I meet this guy, Jose.

SPEAKER_00:

And

SPEAKER_01:

he changed my life. He became my brother. And he was this tall Mexican dude, Jose Luis Mendoza. He was a guy that would take your girlfriend if you weren't careful. He was that cool. He just knew what to say, man. He just was gifted. He just could talk. You never saw him drunk or out of his mind. He was always together.

SPEAKER_00:

So what attracted you to Jose? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

We just linked up. So he was in Lawn and Garden, and I would go out to Lawn and Garden. And they're like, well, if you're going to hang out here, we got to jump you into Lawn and Garden. So they beat me up to be able to be a part of Lawn and Garden. This is the 80s, man. It was weird, dude.

SPEAKER_00:

Was it like some kind of initiation? Yeah, it was like some stupid

SPEAKER_01:

thing. Yeah. So then we became friends and we hung out every day. And then Jose was in a gang called CPA. And his brother was

SPEAKER_00:

in one. It stood for, I wrote it down, was it like the Canoga Park, Alabama Street? Yeah, yeah. Just

SPEAKER_01:

declared. This is 1988 and I'm this little white kid. And Jose got me to cut my hair and I slicked it back and got me to wear baggier clothes and taught me how to iron my jeans and my t-shirts. Like we would put creases in our shirts, one down the front, three in the back, crease the arms. Being a cholo was like, it was kind of sexy. It was like this care about the way you looked and it was like this lifestyle. And it was actually... really appeasing and attractive to me. It was like this community of outsiders that society didn't want. They were all Mexican. It was very racist. And so I felt like an outsider. So I think that's what really bonded me to it. I felt like this community. I felt seen. And I just, I love to put myself into dangerous situations. You know, when you don't, I kind of secretly didn't want to live. So I was flirting with danger because it was a way out of here. And I wanted off the ride. Since I was a little boy, I was thinking about suicide at nine years old. I would think about it. And I would think, like, if God is real and there's a heaven, then why don't I just die right now and go there, man? It seems way better than this. And it would just perplex me. I was like, well, why? You know, when you're a little boy, you don't, or young, little boy, little girl, whatever, you don't understand the complexities of all that, you know? And I was like, well, why? And, um, so.

SPEAKER_00:

So tell us about the life in the gang. I mean, I can't even imagine. It was a

SPEAKER_01:

slow transition.

SPEAKER_00:

So he introduced you and he vouched for you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

To the members of the gang.

SPEAKER_01:

And this was a

SPEAKER_00:

very. Did they accept you right away? No, no, no,

SPEAKER_01:

no. I mean, it was, yeah. It's like, it's like being introduced to a mob family. You know, everyone's looking at you at first, but, um, I just, I don't know, I just fit in. And slowly over time, I just became more and more with him. And then it just, you know, just became a thing. And then I ran away from home in 1989. And I run to down the street, pick up my friend's phone. You know, we had to, you know, push dial, landlines, and I call Jose. And I was like, hey, I just ran away from home. Jose's first question he asked me was, where are you? Nothing more. Just, where are you? Not what happened. Not anything. Where are you? I'll be right there. He comes and picks me up. And I lived at his house ever since. And his family were immigrants from Michoacan, Mexican Michigan. And yeah, it was great. I slept on the floor. I

SPEAKER_00:

didn't have a

SPEAKER_01:

bed. There was 13 of us in this three-bedroom house. But I was happy. And it was fun. But there was also this other aspect of it. It was this dangerous organization. The police were after us. And I kind of liked that the cops were on us and we'd be hanging out and they would roll up. You know, you'd hear

SPEAKER_00:

their engine. So what did you do? They just get in the car and just cruise the neighborhood? Cruise,

SPEAKER_01:

hang out, yeah. We'd be hanging out in the neighborhood at night with the trunk open, listening to music, drinking beer. Just hanging, dude. That's what you do when you're a gangster. You know, they're like, hey, you haven't been around in a while. Where you been? You gotta, if you're a gangster, you gotta hang out. You gotta be in the street. You got to check in. Yeah, you got to be there, you know? You can't just be at home kicking it with mom. You got to be in the street, you know, or you're not one of them. And I really liked it. I liked the clothing. I liked the... It was just, when we were walking to a party, people would, their eyes would go to the ground. Like, it was powerful. I think that was what attracted me the most as a man. I... Wanted that power, dude, right? Like that's the first thing, you know, when you're in a toxic mental environment, masculine toxicity, it's that power.

SPEAKER_00:

Coming from your dad's side, right? Yeah. He wanted to be the man. Yeah, and I wanted

SPEAKER_01:

to feel powerful

SPEAKER_00:

and

SPEAKER_01:

it made me feel that way. I got beat up a few times, said the wrong things or, you know, not being accepted. The first time I saw someone killed, it didn't chill me the way I thought it would. Do you

SPEAKER_00:

think you were like desensitized? I don't know. Emotionally not there?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I don't know. It was weird. It didn't scare me. It just, I was like, wow. You know, it blew, snapped my head back, but it wasn't like, oh my gosh, I should not be here. A normal person would be like, okay, check. Can I get the check, please? No, I was like, more. Give me some more of this. And it went on for years and years. And then I joined the Marine Corps out of high school. But I still have the gang ties. So on the weekends, I was a weekend warrior then.

SPEAKER_00:

So how did you come up with an idea? You're in a gang in this dangerous environment. Then all of a sudden you decide, okay, you finish school, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I graduated high school

SPEAKER_00:

early. High school early, uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01:

I knew that I wasn't going to go to college. I have a learning disability. It's really hard for me to read information and retain it. I am a visual speaker. It's hard for me to write things. Okay. Like I can't. like emails and stuff or

SPEAKER_00:

whatever. Good for you. It's hard for me.

SPEAKER_01:

You just got to figure out how to make it work though. I could sit here and cry about it and be like, man, I wish this. Or I can just figure it out how to survive here. And that's what I did. And depression gets you because you want to be something more than you are and you're not accepting who you are. And freedom comes once you just accept it and just own what you are.

SPEAKER_00:

And you know, I love it because a lot of people stick to their childhood trauma and they use it as an excuse. And I love it how you've really transformed it and became resilient to it. That made you stronger, right? What happened if you just like gave in to all of that, right? Where have you been? That

SPEAKER_01:

would be true weakness for me. I don't judge anybody. Whatever their journey is, is their journey. And my journey was mine and I figured out what makes me tick. Everyone has to do that same thing. There's no one way. It's dynamic. There's billions of ways to figure it out, right? Like being a man, there's billions of ways to be a man. There's not one way. There's like a woman. How do you define a woman? There's you define being a woman. I define what I am as a man. And it, I just, you know, it, It was hard for a long time. So school was very hard for me. If a teacher was lecturing, I would just start daydreaming. My mind just wanders and goes, and I would start thinking of all these things I want to do. All the ghosts? No, just anything. It just goes and goes. It's just like this wheel that does not stop turning. And I always had, back then you would get your grade and then they would give you S's or U's, satisfactory or unsatisfactory. And I would always have U's and then a comment, talks too much. And that was every report card. And it'd be Ds, Cs, and Fs. And so when I decided I wanted to join the Marines, I wanted to do something. There was a war going on, the Gulf War.

SPEAKER_00:

And

SPEAKER_01:

I wanted to go into combat. I wanted to experience.

SPEAKER_00:

You really wanted to test the destiny. I just wanted to

SPEAKER_01:

feel what combat was like. Like I wanted to taste it, smell it, feel it, see if I could do it, like go into war. I wanted to carry a rifle and assault. You know, I just wanted to do it, you know, as an American and scream USA while I was doing it with the red, white, and blue.

SPEAKER_00:

Was it like patriotic? Yes. Or you really wanted to play with danger?

SPEAKER_01:

Both. I loved this country. I wanted to fight for it. I wanted to defend it. But I was also young. I didn't understand what these wars were. I wasn't really defending the United States. I was defending the interests of politicians. I wasn't defending our homeland. I was defending what they wanted. But I didn't know that. But I But still, I would never take it back. I would join the Marine Corps tomorrow if I had to do it again. I love the Marine

SPEAKER_00:

Corps. Do you think every guy should go through that experience?

SPEAKER_01:

I think a lot of people should. The military is for everybody. It was for me. I think that we all have our place in this world. It's like what makes this production company badass. It's everything and everybody working as a unit together. What's the most important part of your car? Is it the engine? Is it the transmission? Is it the windshield?

SPEAKER_00:

For me, it's the mirror.

SPEAKER_01:

It's the mirror. So you can look at it. But it's everything. You remove some of those pieces and the car doesn't work. You may have an engine and transmission, but you remove the steering wheel. How do you drive? You can't. It's everything working together. So you

SPEAKER_00:

won the Marines. I went to the

SPEAKER_01:

Marines.

SPEAKER_00:

What have you learned there? What was your time like?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I went in open contract. I let the Marine Corps pick my job. I got talked in. I scored so low on the ASVAB. It was like, yeah, they were probably like, this guy is dumb. So they talked me into going open contract, meaning after boot camp in Marine combat training, the Marine Corps got to pick my job. I'm really good at swimming.

SPEAKER_00:

So how did they test you? How did they test you for the Marines? They ask you to do like 20 million push-ups? No, before you

SPEAKER_01:

join the military, they make you do a test called the ASVAB,

SPEAKER_00:

and

SPEAKER_01:

it's a placement test to see where your strengths are. It's kind of like, I guess, an SAT type thing, but not as in-depth, I guess. But yeah, I scored very low. So either I was going to carry a gun or flip pancakes or, you know what I mean? I was going to do the more lower level jobs. But I was really good at swimming in boot camp. I qualified the highest you could qualify. I would never think. So they put me into amphibious tanks. So my job was to dive off the back of a naval assault ship in this tank and attack the beach. And that was a fun job when you're 19, dude.

SPEAKER_00:

So you are in the submarine?

SPEAKER_01:

No, it's It's a tank that floats. It's a 28-ton tank that

SPEAKER_00:

the

SPEAKER_01:

back of the ship opens. They swing the ship around. And then we launch out the back, 13 of us, with 25 Marines or a squad of Marines. You could get up to 20 Marines in the back.

SPEAKER_00:

What kind of uniform did you have?

SPEAKER_01:

It was a... kind of this fireproof jumpsuit thing that I would wear in the tank, the helmet. I drove.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, with a

SPEAKER_01:

helmet? Yeah. Calm helmet. You have three crew members. You're one of three. It was this cool thing because we got to drive on these ships. We'd be on the beach and the ship would flash us with the lights and we would just go driving through the surf motor and then the ship would lower the ramp and we would drive up and then we'd have dinner on the ship and I sailed around the world. I've crossed the equator. I've been to Japan, mainland Japan, Okinawa, China. We sailed to Hong Kong in 1993, Malaysia, and then Australia.

SPEAKER_00:

But that wasn't a dangerous job, right? It wasn't like a life-threatening, was it?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it was very dangerous. It was? Dude, we crossed ships. They told us at night in heavy seas on the equator that we needed to go from the USS Dubuque to the USS San Bernardino. Some... Commander wanted our tanks on another ship. And we're at night in the middle of the ocean. And if someone would have got lost, you're gone, dude. And I was the first tank off the ship and the first one onto the LST. And this is heavy sea. So the ramp of the LST, the USS San Bernardino was coming in and out of the water. Boom, boom, boom. Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

I can only imagine the feeling, huh?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but I never get stressed out on those things. I don't know why. I've always just, it makes me, I like it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you've been prepared since childhood. Yeah. You know, you've been trained for that. I don't

SPEAKER_01:

freeze up. I know that about myself. If something were to go down right now, I'm not going to freeze up and not know what to do. I'm going to fight. I know that. It's

SPEAKER_00:

probably in your instinct already. I don't know. Yeah, it's weird.

SPEAKER_01:

It doesn't scare me. But I did it, and then there was no war. So... I get out of school's battalion, the Gulf War ends. And in 1992, Christmas of 92, they activate us, my platoon, to go to Somalia to secure the food shipments. That's before Black Hawk down.

SPEAKER_00:

Secure to what?

SPEAKER_01:

The food. So people were starving in Somalia

SPEAKER_00:

in 1992.

SPEAKER_01:

So they sent my company in there to secure it. And we were the advance party in Mogadishu. Nobody was really there yet. And 20,000 Marines went in. And... Two days before going to Mogadishu, I get into a fight at the E-Club and get hit on the top of the head with brass knuckles, split my head open. They don't let me deploy. Oh,

SPEAKER_00:

no.

SPEAKER_01:

And it was heartbreaking not being able to go into that combat

SPEAKER_00:

role. And then you said, okay, now I'm going to become a cop.

SPEAKER_01:

So then I sat there until my term ran out. I... got listed for a Navy achievement medal. They downgraded it to a certificate of commendation. And then they tried to get me to reenlist. And I told them, if I knew September 11th was coming, I probably would have stayed in because I would have known you're going to be fighting for 20 years if you want to. And I didn't see anything coming. I didn't want to be in the rear with the gear anymore. So I got out and then I tried to get on with the LAPD.

SPEAKER_00:

And

SPEAKER_01:

the LAPD probably laughed. They're like, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00:

Good luck with that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So four guys in my platoon got shot by snipers in Somalia. One of them came out and got on with the LAPD and then he died in the line of duty as a LAPD. He got killed. He made it out of two wars and gets killed here in Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like same thing with Schumacher, right? You're so safe on the track, but then you go skiing, and then you get in coma in some completely unexpected situation.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, life is dangerous, right? We don't think about it. Our city is dangerous. Sometimes our cities are worse.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. So walk me through, then one day, did you receive a call from...

SPEAKER_01:

So my dad, I'm working at the Burbank Airport refueling airplanes at this private terminal.

SPEAKER_00:

I

SPEAKER_01:

met all these stars. I met Elizabeth Taylor. I met Janet Jackson, Bruce Willis. I met President Gerald Ford, shook his hand. Met the Governor Pete Wilson. I met everybody. And I was this 23-year-old kid. Parking Gulf Streams and Challengers and Robert De Niro. I used to give him directions or, you know, carry his bags or, you know, it was crazy. And it was a fun job, but it made no money. I was making$6 an hour. Can't survive on$6 an hour, dude. So my dad's like, hey, come back to Texas, you know, get on with the police department over here. So I fly and try it. They don't want me either. No one was going to hire me. I was a freaking gang member. I don't even know what I was thinking. I was

SPEAKER_00:

like, what? Do you have a gang tattoo?

SPEAKER_01:

Not anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

Not anymore?

SPEAKER_01:

But, you know, I have a record. Yes, yes. I was arrested for armed robbery

SPEAKER_00:

in 1993. So talk me through that. Yeah, how did that happen?

SPEAKER_01:

So during the Marine Corps, I'm hanging out with the gang still. Yes. First time I was ever arrested. We're coming out of 7-Eleven, and my homie, This drug addict guy's like, hey, man, you want to buy these glasses? And mom, he takes them. He puts them on. He's like, thanks. Gets in my car. We drive off. Just took them. The guy calls the police and said that we robbed him at gunpoint. So the police find us that night and get me. The

SPEAKER_00:

whole SWAT team coming in?

SPEAKER_01:

No, just like three units. Find us somewhere in the neighborhood. Get me, arrest me. I don't say nothing because, you know, there's an old saying, you know, don't do the crime if you can't do the time. So you can't, you get busted when you're a gang member. You better just zip it,

SPEAKER_00:

you know,

SPEAKER_01:

loose lips sink ships, right? So I just zipped it and they dropped, the guy didn't come to court. So I was what's called a DA reject.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

But that was my first thing. I was charged with armed robbery, but they couldn't prove it. And there was no, the victim wasn't there. There was, you know. So let that go in the Marine Corps. I was in the Marine Corps, and they were like, hey, dude, what the hell? Oh, you still were in the Marine? Yeah, I didn't get out of the Marine Corps until 95. So then when I get out of the Marine Corps, I go back to the neighborhood, all the stuff. I move to Texas. I get on with my dad's company, Nortel. It's a Canadian corporation. And then I want to come back to L.A. So I come back to L.A., and that's when I really start hanging out with the guys again. And then in 1997, Jose, my brother, gets killed by the LAPD. He shot him in the head. And that was the moment it floored me. It was tough, dude. I used to not be able to talk about it. Like even this, that sentence back in the day, I would cry. It was hard for me, man. It took 30 years to get over that, dude.

SPEAKER_00:

Wasn't the expression you said, which I really liked, it was something about your friends, like the buttons in the elevator?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that was what the cop told me. So after... Jose dies, I kind of spiral. And I stopped giving a shit. You know, the one guy I looked up to, the one man that was my buddy, is my brother, dude. He was like, we were like, if you saw Jose out, you'd be like, where's Brian? If you saw me out, not without him, you'd be like, where's Jose? We were together, dude, all the time. So I kind of spiral. I get really into the neighborhood, hanging out with him. And one night... I go to buy some marijuana in an alley, and a guy in my car gets in a fight with a drug dealer and shoots him. And they all run. I take off. I go home. I'm pretty close to the scene. I can hear sirens go. The next day, the SWAT team came for me, and they arrested me for first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder. Three counts of armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with a semi-automatic handgun and the gang allegation. They said when I left the scene, I pulled a gun out the car and I said, if anybody calls the cops, I'll fucking kill you. I didn't say that. I didn't have a gun. So when they arrested me, when the SWAT team came, I was getting ready to go see my girlfriend. There's like boom, boom, boom. I opened the door. There's two guys with shotguns and they're just screaming at me, get on the floor. And yeah, changed my life. Changed my life. So they interrogate me. I'm not giving them the information they want. And the next day, I'm getting arraigned. And my lawyer comes into this holding cell. I had the phone up glass and he's like, it doesn't look good, Brian. And I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, they filed special circumstances against you. And I was like, what does that mean? He goes, that's the death penalty. And I remember dropping the phone down to my lap and I looked down at the concrete floor and I just remember thinking, I can't die in here, man. I'm 26. So we go into court. They say they're going to, you know, they're Back in the day, in the 90s, you had to go to municipal court and get bound over to superior court. They eliminated that. Now you just go straight to superior. So they have to throw out the case, and the judge has to say, this is binding over. And the DA, Shelly Samuels, is like, you know, we're seeking the death penalty. And I remember getting into it. My dad is... and his late wife. She passed away. They're in the gallery right there. And I walk out and I look at them. I'm shackled to my waist and I look at them. I put my head down. They put me in the elevator. I just kind of sitting there looking at the floor of the elevator and I'm thinking I'm going to kill myself tonight. I was like, I'm not going through this. I'm just going to kill myself. I'm going to figure out a way. And, uh, um, The sheriff, the deputy sheriff, he's like this. I don't know his name. I wish I did, man, because the guy saved my life. He was like little, you know, belly, you know, wire rimmed glasses, salt and pepper hair. He's got like stripes, you know, been around. And he hits me in the chest. He's standing like I'm in the back of the elevator. The doors are here and the buttons here. And he hits me in the chest. He goes, hey, I see these cases every day. You're going to beat this man. But I want you, and he points to my face, I want you to remember one thing. Friends are like buttons in this elevator. Some will take you up and some will take you down. And then he stopped talking to me. And what he gave me right there was hope. He said I was going to beat it. He told me I was going to beat it because he saw the despair in me. He didn't have to help me, but did help me. You know what I mean? That's beautiful. And it saved my life. And I'll never forget that, ever. And the DA, she actually was awesome. And the judge was a woman, Catherine Stoltz. And they picked me up to take a lie detector test. And they were running late because they had a flat tire. And I'm with, the detectives are with her. And the DA was like, you know, like, just, I could tell she was like starting to believe me. Because I didn't plan this. I didn't know where, this was from an old English common law murder felony back in the day. If you and I go rob 7-Eleven together and you stay in the car and I get out and I kill everybody in there, you could be charged in the 90s with murder too.

SPEAKER_00:

Is it considered accessory to

SPEAKER_01:

murder? But it's not accessory to murder. You could be charged with murder because everybody in the commission of that felony can be charged with crime. So... Yeah, and I fought it for a year in L.A. County. It was in three race riots. Dude, it was nuts in

SPEAKER_00:

the 90s. So for that year, you were in prison.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, in L.A. County Jail, super max. Like, the most maximum part of L.A. County. It was a whole different world, man. Like, you walk in that place, dude, it was scary. So... White, you have to stick to your race, right? So when I get in there, I'm still connected to Canoga Park, you know, mentally.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01:

And they throw me in high power. They throw me in the jail within the jail. And I don't know why

SPEAKER_00:

or

SPEAKER_01:

how I ended up in high power. That's for like inmates that are dangerous

SPEAKER_00:

to inmates. Extremely dangerous. Yeah, it's

SPEAKER_01:

a jail in the jail. Wow. So when you're so dangerous.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like a confined. Yeah, it's just an

SPEAKER_01:

ultra maximum security part of the jail that separates the most dangerous individuals from the inmates. Wow. So you're so dangerous. You need to be in this jail, in the jail.

SPEAKER_00:

But is it kind of good? So you're not interacting?

SPEAKER_01:

No, but check this out. So they throw this red wristband on me and they start walking me in these, I hear these guys in LA County. It's like, yo man, he's high power. And they put me in this high power thing and they get me to the cell, right? You go into this door and it's a small room. They search you. I'm in there up in your Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

says that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. Like, shut up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. And he pushes me in there. And then you have to put your hands through the bars and they undo the handcuffs. So you're, you know, they don't let you go handcuff free until you're locked up. And the next door to me that night, I'm sitting on my bunk, depressed. There's this guy named Scarecrow. That's what he told me his

SPEAKER_00:

name was. Say who?

SPEAKER_01:

Scarecrow.

SPEAKER_00:

A Scarecrow.

SPEAKER_01:

And he was this white boy. And he's older. Sounded Kind of badass, dude. Like intimidating. But he talked to me all night and he's like, hey man, you got to figure out what car you're going to be in. Everything in jail and prison is associated with driving. So if you have the keys, you're running the show. You're the boss of the area you're in if you're in the car you're with a group

SPEAKER_00:

okay

SPEAKER_01:

if you get into a wreck that's getting into a fight so you don't want to get into a wreck on the yard that's starting some shit

SPEAKER_00:

let me ask you this is it true like the first day in prison you have to attack somebody to show no

SPEAKER_01:

no that's just

SPEAKER_00:

i would be probably the first thing i do just freaking pick up this strongest person person strongest woman there just go mess her up

SPEAKER_01:

no what you want to do is just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut

SPEAKER_00:

and what

SPEAKER_01:

Walk with your head high. So it's all like animalistic in there. If you, if I could tell you, if you were in jail with me and you walk in and I look at you and you instantly look to the ground, I know you're weak.

SPEAKER_00:

That's it.

SPEAKER_01:

You're scared. Why did you look at the ground?

SPEAKER_00:

I see. If you,

SPEAKER_01:

if I'm walking past you in jail and you look at me, I just keep looking at you until

SPEAKER_00:

we can't

SPEAKER_01:

look anymore. And then I just keep going.

SPEAKER_00:

But obviously you had the skills from the gang, right? Yeah. So that,

SPEAKER_01:

that helped me. You trained. And the Marine Corps helped me being in these male positions. institutions, right? It all helped me. And then just not being a punk, like you just got to stand up for yourself. You don't have to be the biggest baddest, but if somebody calls you out, you got to fight. You don't have to win the fight. You just got to fight.

SPEAKER_00:

They just know you're going to- You just can't

SPEAKER_01:

not fight. Like if somebody's like, yo man, let's do this. You better start swinging. And if you don't, you're going to be considered what they call a bitch in there or something. And I just don't want to be that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And, uh, so I'm in there for three months and I'm figuring it all out or no, he scarecrow tells me like, Hey man, tonight, I want you to figure out who you're with. Are you rolling with, uh, uh, essays, the Southsiders? Are you riding with the woods, the white boys? Cause there's four races in there back then. It was Paisas, Southsiders, blacks and woods. Asians were white. in their own unit because they had the green light on them in the 90s. So you had to identify with one of those groups.

SPEAKER_00:

Decisions, decisions,

SPEAKER_01:

huh? Yeah, because it's tough. It could be life or death, dude. You can actually get hurt in there. You're the most alone you will ever be in your life in prison. There ain't nobody there to help you. You ain't got no family, no friends. Everybody there is dangerous in some sort of way. And you are alone.

SPEAKER_00:

Especially if somebody is for life, they have nothing to lose, right? I mean,

SPEAKER_01:

it's like what

SPEAKER_00:

I have to lose.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Those guys are usually separated, but you're in jail fighting your case with people that are in there for multiple, like doing some messed up stuff, dude, like dangerous individuals. And

SPEAKER_00:

what was your mindset? Were you already calculating, you know, the strategy or you were just going with the flow and just survival

SPEAKER_01:

mode, trying to survive and figure it out. Cause it's a lot at you at first, right? Right. When you get in there, man, you're it's a whole, what cracked me up about jail and prison is that. You go in there because you can't follow the rules. But then you get in there and there's this whole new set of rules. And I was like, why not just follow the rules out here and go out with a girl on Friday night? Like, you know, be able to poop without someone watching me. It's kind of nice. Yeah, I don't want to poop around 10 other dudes. I'd rather just poop on my own. Like, it's not that fun, dude. It's not glamorous. It's not cool to me. It showed me that I'm really dumb, that I ended up there. But we all make mistakes. It's like getting a DUI. You can get one DUI. If you get five of them, go fuck yourself, man. Come on. Figure this shit out, dude. Come on. Figure it out. Figure it out. You give somebody one chance, right? Not 1,300 chances. So he kind of squares me away and tells me, in the morning, I want you to tell me what car you're in. So that night I sit on my bunk and I'm like, if I go with the Southsiders and make it easy on myself in here, I'm never going to get out. if I make it hard, because there's no white boys in there. And white people are treated the worst in LA County Jail.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Because it's reversed. So out here, back in the 90s, white people controlled everything. You go into jail, it flips that shit on you, dude. You ain't got no power no more. You got nothing. I had to eat on the floor. White boys weren't allowed to eat at a table when we ate our meals. I'd eat on the floor like an animal. So it taught me what discrimination feels like. You can explain to somebody discrimination. I can explain you the principles and why it's not right. But until you are inflicted with discrimination, you will not truly know what that feels like, what it tastes like. Like in the Marine Corps, in the Battle of Khe Sanh in Vietnam, they found this Sea Rat can after this battle. This whole company died in the Marine Corps. And someone wrote on the can, freedom has a special flavor that the protected will never know. It's the same way. You're never going to know what it is until you experience it, right? So

SPEAKER_00:

what realizations, being in those extreme conditions, even though your previous life was so extreme, what realizations, what thoughts... went through your mind while you were

SPEAKER_01:

survival and i had to figure out the dynamics of this game and it is a freaking game and it's just a giant game that has consequences and dangers and pitfalls and i mean everywhere is a booby trap man you say the wrong thing you knock into somebody and don't say excuse me you step on somebody a casual you spill your food on somebody that can cause a wreck dude like instant death just or getting all proud of yourself and start talking too much you know can cause things um

SPEAKER_00:

are there any skills in prison that you think are useful

SPEAKER_01:

that's a good question no one's ever asked me that before um yeah being able to survive on your own like completely on your own wits, by yourself. Because it's easy when you have something bad happen, you pick up the phone, you're like, help, help, help, right? And there, there ain't no help. There's no help. You're

SPEAKER_00:

totally

SPEAKER_01:

on your own. You are on your own. You are alone. And can you survive this? It taught me a lot about myself. I can survive it. And if I can survive that, all this, this little game we play out here, this Fucked up reality thing we're doing. It's all human made. All this drama we have in our lives, it doesn't matter in a hundred years. Nothing we did today will matter in a hundred years. The sun doesn't give a shit about our problems. The Milky Way don't give a shit. Quasars don't care. I like this perception because every day was stressed about so many small little things, which at the end of the day, not even relevant, especially for you.

UNKNOWN:

Like when you went through so much for you, it's like, okay, another bill, you know, another drama.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like, but you still can get wrapped up when you get out of prison. You're like, Oh, nothing's going to ever fail. You know, I'm never going to get stressed out again. You get wrapped back up in it. We're all playing the game. Right. And the people that don't want to, uh, admit that it's a game are the ones that suffer the most. If you're playing Monopoly, but you're not mentally playing Monopoly, you're playing checkers, well, you're not going to do too good at Monopoly, are you? You got to play the game you're playing. Now, you don't have to be a bastard about it. You don't have to be a piece of shit. Just enough. Take care of yourself. I don't want to step on your head to get a little higher. I'm not about just money, dude. I like money. Money's great. But it's not the thing that makes me wake up. It's not getting me out of bed to make money, money, money, money. Where does it ever end? It's just consumption, consumption. More, more. That's how people end up in prison. You just can't get enough. I'm going to take yours now. Now I'm going to put a gun in your face and take your shit give me what you got or i'll fucking kill you that's not a good way to live man but it's also not a good way to live cowering down to everybody that wants to show you know shoulder check you sometimes you gotta grab and be like yo you don't hit me again i'll slap the shit out of you let them know that you're not to be played with but you don't have to be a motherfucker

SPEAKER_00:

you scared me like for a second you know like you have that something in you that little tiger

SPEAKER_01:

huh yeah you got to though

SPEAKER_00:

yeah

SPEAKER_01:

but also you have to know when to tell that tiger to sit the hell down.

SPEAKER_00:

Chill out,

SPEAKER_01:

man. Not everybody is your enemy. So

SPEAKER_00:

speaking about your looks, so the first tattoos you got in prison, huh? I didn't get them

SPEAKER_01:

in prison. I got them out of prison. Say again? I got them from a homie

SPEAKER_00:

in

SPEAKER_01:

the neighborhood. I used to take this dude a balloon of heroin.

SPEAKER_00:

$40

SPEAKER_01:

balloon of heroin and he tattooed me for as long as I wanted.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you remember your first one?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was a smile now, cry later face on my chest. Okay. Yeah, and then I got a collar that said confessing and feeling. Then I tattooed my back, my last name Thompson, but the guy misspelled it.

SPEAKER_00:

He

SPEAKER_01:

left out the M. It said Thompson.

SPEAKER_00:

And I

SPEAKER_01:

hid it in the Marine Corps for a whole year and then we were on ship and somebody saw it. And then they write my name on the board for guard duty and they put an X on the M.

SPEAKER_00:

But because you're on top. You're always on top. You made yourself being on top. And then I

SPEAKER_01:

covered that up with this whole gangster mural. And that's what I went to prison. So when I was in prison, a lot of guys always thought I'd been there. They'd come up to me on the yard and be like, hey, brother, were you in Soledad in 95? And I wanted to say, no, dumbass, this is my first time. I'm not an idiot. One and done, dude.

SPEAKER_00:

Like

SPEAKER_01:

it's not a vacation home, you know. But I was like, no, that's not me. Are you sure? I was like, yeah, pretty sure. Never been to Soledad.

SPEAKER_00:

So you spent two years, right, in prison?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, almost two years. Almost two years. It was sentenced to two years. I got a lot of time served.

SPEAKER_00:

So I

SPEAKER_01:

got shot from L.A. County Jail.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

After I got the murder dropped, they let me get a job in L.A. County Jail. And I was so...

SPEAKER_00:

What did you do? Were you sewing the aprons?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, see, I ended up becoming the leader of the white boys in jail. So I had figured it out so well and made so many alliances in there that the white guys came up to me and said, you're the, it was called the rep. Every race. The rep? The rep. So I was the white rep. So I got to control the newspaper, and I negotiated a table. So I was one of the only white boys in L.A. County Jail in 1999 that had a table. And if I did, I had three seats. There was four chairs, and I would pick at night who sat with me.

SPEAKER_00:

So you became the executive in jail? Yeah, I was

SPEAKER_01:

like the CEO.

SPEAKER_00:

The CEO.

SPEAKER_01:

And one day I'm at the bars on the phone. I hang up the phone, and the cop, He goes, hey, come here, Wood, come here. He goes, how in the fuck did you get a table? And I was like, I asked for it. And he's like, you asked for it? He's like, get the fuck away from me.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a good lesson, though, right? If you never ask, you will never get. And that's what I did. I just went up

SPEAKER_01:

to the black guys and I was like, hey, man, I've been in here a long time with you. I help you guys out. You help me out. I need a table, dude. Come on. And they gave it to me. Imagine you in a month. You have a computer.

SPEAKER_00:

Cell phone. You have

SPEAKER_01:

a phone, everything. Keeping it in your butt. You're like, hold on, let me make

SPEAKER_00:

a

SPEAKER_01:

call.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

We used to joke in there, like, if you were going to stab somebody, you'd be like, hold on, and you'd pull the knife out of your butt. It was so stupid. And we had a lot of fun in there. Like, I made alcohol in there. Pruno went down.

SPEAKER_00:

You made an alcohol there? Yeah, we made alcohol. From what?

SPEAKER_01:

Grapefruit juice, Kool-Aid. So we'd go to the store and buy Kool-Aid. You dump the Kool-Aid in water, the sugar goes to the bottom, you dump out the Kool-Aid. You take the little box of grapefruit juice, you put it in the windows. In three days, they start swelling up. You take the grapefruit juice, cut up the oranges and the apples from breakfast, and then you add the sugar. And it creates a kicker. You take a toothpaste, you cut off the top and you create a valve. So you have to burp it. So it causes the sugar and the citric acid cause a chain reaction. And it starts a chemical reaction and it starts to create gas and it's creating alcohol.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my God, the patients, how long did it take to make? A

SPEAKER_01:

couple of weeks. And we had every night when the cops come in to search, someone else had to take care of the baby and we would lay on it. And hoping that person wouldn't get picked, you know, like you stand, you know, they would just pick a random person tonight, toss their bunk.

SPEAKER_00:

So how many people were involved in making? Probably

SPEAKER_01:

like four or five. Four or

SPEAKER_00:

five. And then you guys shared.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Obviously the cops didn't know. No, no, it's a felony. Because you can go blind. You can kill people making alcohol in jail. It's not very safe. In hindsight, probably shouldn't have done it. And then I got drunk and I was like, hold on, I'm drunk in jail. This is not really that great, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

But I guess, you know, you needed something because I can't imagine being fully sane in those conditions. You have to have some kind of... Well, your whole job in

SPEAKER_01:

there is to get over on the cops and steal anything that's not bolted to the ground. So if you see a paperclip, you see a pencil, you see anything anywhere, you steal that shit. Everything gets stolen. Anything and everything. I mean, everything. You manipulate everything you can because you have a lot of time. And I had a lot of fun in there with guys. I met a lot of cool people. I wouldn't hang out with them now, but in there, they were cool.

SPEAKER_00:

It's so interesting to me because like every day you wake up, okay, you have to go to work, pick up your kids. In jail, you don't have any of the tasks of the regular life.

SPEAKER_01:

You don't have taxes. Your food comes to you. Everything is provided. You don't have to worry about anything except for your safety.

SPEAKER_00:

So you

SPEAKER_01:

have a lot of time to do a lot of things. And there's a lot of great artists, a lot of great, I mean... innovators in there you know guys that were coming up with inventions like lighting cigarettes you take the pencil out of the lead out of the pencil you hold it with toothpaste tooth toilet paper and you put it into the light socket you stick it in the light socket it catches the toilet paper on fire and you light your cigarette with a plug outlet

SPEAKER_00:

a little science class here yeah how did you did you learn from the inmates yeah yeah yeah yeah just

SPEAKER_01:

watch and learn and take it

SPEAKER_00:

so okay so you came out of prison

SPEAKER_01:

I get I go to There are two prisons. I get shot from LA County Jail to North Kern State Prison, which is called Delano. Wasco, sorry, Wasco. And that's a level three reception. So in California, if you're a male, you go to, and you get sentenced to, you get convicted of a felony, you get sentenced to prison, you go to one of two prisons, Delano or Wasco. And that's where the prison decides where in the vast California prison system you will reside off your threat level, off your enemies, off whatever. You know, they rate you one One, two, three, and four. Four being the worst. Four, you don't want to go to that prison.

SPEAKER_00:

I've

SPEAKER_01:

never been to a four. Never want to go to a four. That is where you get hit straight up. Like that's the danger zone. That's the thunder dome. You don't want to go there.

SPEAKER_00:

So which one did you get?

SPEAKER_01:

I went to a level two. Well, everybody goes to a level three for reception. So you go there and I spent 10 weeks there. And yeah, I got into it with my bunkie. I threatened to kill him one night and

SPEAKER_00:

Did you make any friends at all? I

SPEAKER_01:

made some friends, but I also got crazy. So I got shingles in reception. my skin started bubbling off my body. Finally, they keep telling me they're not sending me the medic. And I'm laying in my bed one night and I'm crying and a woman comes on duty, a guard

SPEAKER_00:

woman.

SPEAKER_01:

And I was like, oh, I'm going to go up there and give her the biggest puppy dog face I could do. Oh, man, I did. And I got up there and I had tears in my eyes. And I was like,

SPEAKER_00:

please. Best performance of your life. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

my God. And she sent me to the doctor. I get to the medical unit and they're like, Oh, you have AIDS. And I was like, I have HIV. And she goes, no, sweetie, you have full-blown AIDS. I was like, what? She goes, you're 26. No one has shingles and doesn't have AIDS. And then they send me back to my housing unit thinking I have AIDS.

SPEAKER_00:

I can't even imagine prison

SPEAKER_01:

and AIDS. Dude, I spiraled, bro. It's like, might just go right now. That night, I was like, fuck it, right? I was like, fuck it. I'm playing spades the next day, and I take some bags, and this dude's laughs at me and I stand up and I'm like, what the fuck are you laughing at? And

SPEAKER_00:

he's

SPEAKER_01:

like, Brian,

SPEAKER_00:

chill. I started losing it. But that's kind of good defense, right? Nobody's just going to

SPEAKER_01:

listen to you. AIDS. Don't mess with me. Dude, I was so in shock and scared and emotional and then two weeks later they send me back.

SPEAKER_00:

They

SPEAKER_01:

got my blood test and I'm like, oh no, you don't have AIDS. You were just probably stressed out. I was like, shouldn't you guys have led with that? No. Maybe I don't. Maybe I do. Maybe I don't.

SPEAKER_00:

She was just messing with you.

SPEAKER_01:

God, that was a horrible, horrible two weeks, man. That was like the longest two weeks in prison. And you still think for the two weeks you have. And then in reception, you can't make phone calls. You can only write letters.

SPEAKER_00:

Letters. Because they're

SPEAKER_01:

getting ready to transfer you into the jail system, and it's a compromise. You know, if you're a gang member or somebody could, like, try to break you out on the way to the next prison. So you can't phone. So then they send me from Wasco to Avenal. at like four in the morning one morning they shackle you to your feet shotgun guy in the back like it's this crazy ass bus they call it the the gray weenie

SPEAKER_00:

the great weenie

SPEAKER_01:

weenie yeah the great weenie or catching the chain it's called you're catching hey you catching the chain yeah you're catching the chain and they send me this prison and it was called avenal and it's about 50 miles south of fresno and it is a level two prison so it's like disneyland

SPEAKER_00:

yeah for you yeah

SPEAKER_01:

it's easy to Level two, everybody's going home. Nobody's released. If you just act like a normal person, you're not going to get into trouble

SPEAKER_00:

there. So you came out. I get paroled. My

SPEAKER_01:

dad picks me up. They mess with me when I was leaving. I gave my beanie and some stuff away. And they said I wasn't going to get to leave. So they send me back to my housing unit. And when I get back to my dorm... this big black dude named Sweeney. He sees me and he goes, starts laughing at me. And then I'm sitting at a table and he comes up and he's like, you look like you're going to cry.

SPEAKER_00:

And I was like, leave me alone. You probably would kill them right there. And then the phone

SPEAKER_01:

rings, they send a van and they were just, they were pretending like I wasn't going to get out. So then the gate, so this is a true story. They give you$200 cash.

SPEAKER_00:

Random$200. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Every inmate that gets out of prison gets$200. Give you$200 cash, put it in your pocket. They line you up. The gate goes, starts going opening. There's a tower right there. This dude leans out and goes, I'll see you assholes next month. And I looked up and I said, no, sir, you will never see me again. And he goes, yeah, right. And I walked out. My dad shook my hand. Didn't even hug me. He shook my hand. We get into the rental car. We start driving. And he goes, are you going to look back? And I said, no, I'm looking this way. Let's get out of here. Only forward. We went to In-N-Out Burger. And had a hamburger in front of us.

SPEAKER_00:

Probably the best feeling ever. And that night

SPEAKER_01:

we stayed in a hotel and I spent an hour in the bathroom looking. I hadn't seen my face in a mirror in so long.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's right. Because there's no prison. I mean, no mirrors in prisons, right?

SPEAKER_01:

That's why when I first got to prison, I became the white barber. I don't even know how to cut hair. There ain't no mirrors in there. Nobody can see if you did a bad job or not. So I was like, yeah, I know how to cut hair. True story, I

SPEAKER_00:

actually did. They cannot prove it, huh? No, there's no mirrors. There's nothing to

SPEAKER_01:

see. And so I stood in the mirror for over an hour and I was just like... Looking at myself, how much I changed. And my dad was sleeping. We had twin beds in the hotel room. And I remember extending my arms out to the ceiling while I was laying in bed. And I was like, I'm free, Dad. There's no feeling like that. A cage open and you walk out. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

Something so simple, right? Just being free, we take for granted. And I think we're appreciated more after we lose it. Yeah. Like you lost it all and now you appreciate like, hey, you can just freely walk out, right? Yeah. Take a breather. Well, like in

SPEAKER_01:

relationships, people take each other for granted until a person leaves and

SPEAKER_00:

they're like, oh, man. Exactly. You know, you

SPEAKER_01:

don't know what you got until it's gone, right? It's the old saying. But yeah, it's just human nature. We get wrapped up in our lives and I don't even think it's our own fault. This world is so crazy, dude. Look at it. It's just... And when you die, it doesn't stop going. It just keeps going and going and going and going and going. It will never stop. And you just got to figure out a little bit of happiness and figure out what makes you tick. And that's what I did. I focused that. When I got out, I got back home with my dad's company. And I just worked and worked.

SPEAKER_00:

So you went from Marine Corps to jail to the corporate world.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, to the corporate world. I'm on parole. And the parole kind of kept me busy. pretty straight because I had special conditions. I couldn't drink alcohol and I couldn't associate with gang members. And the DA made me promise if she let me off on this, I would never go in that neighborhood again. And I promised Shelly Samuels and I lived up to it. I never went back there. And she came into my studio two years ago.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01:

She's a judge now. And it was awesome seeing her, dude.

SPEAKER_00:

She probably was so proud of you, huh?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, dude, it was one of those moments. I was like, wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like on the flippity side, right? She said she was

SPEAKER_01:

proud of me and it made me feel good that I was able to change my life and live up to my end of the bargain. Because if someone is going to do something like that, you need to, you can't just be words. So many of us just say words and we don't back them up with anything. You know, like you are your word and that's it. You know, if you say you're gonna do something, you should try at least to do it. Give it your best shot. You may fail at it, it's okay. There's no effort without error. You know, failure is part of the algorithm of success. How can you have success if you've never failed? Have you ever read a book about the woman that did everything perfect and never made a mistake? No, you never want to read. Why would you read that fucking book? I'm perfect, the end. Oh, great book. That made me feel great. No, you want to read about the person that stumbles and keeps going and gets hit and dust and bruises and blood and keeps fucking going. That's what you want to read because it motivates you in your life, right? Because we can do it if we really want. It's painful. Like working out, if you put a lot of effort into it, you get a lot of reward. Vegas, if you go and bet little, you're going to win little. You got to be able to risk it all. Yeah, I don't gamble either. I don't ever win. But so I was on parole and I just kept going and going. And then I got off on parole. I got off. They changed my parole officer five times. And I finally, my parole officer calls me in 2003 and says, congratulations, you're free. The weird thing is you would think that would make me so happy. I got really depressed.

SPEAKER_00:

How come?

SPEAKER_01:

Because now you're just like everyone else again. And you're back in it.

SPEAKER_00:

You lost that feeling that you've been chasing your whole life, the feeling of danger, right? You felt too safe, maybe, no?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and then I got... really depressed, weird. It's so weird how these things happen, these chemical reactions in your brain. You can't even understand it sometimes.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you think you lost your purpose? Because your purpose was survival, right? Yes, exactly. And then you needed something to fight when you needed your purpose. And

SPEAKER_01:

I lost that fight. And now I was just like everyone else. Floating like everybody else. Floating, just going through the motions. And so I got really depressed and I was going to kill myself. And I planned it all out. I was working in Las Vegas. And I went to this pool supply place and I was going to get the hose and put it on my Mercedes and light up a joint, listen to some Bob Marley and

SPEAKER_00:

say, you thought of everything already, right? Yeah, I

SPEAKER_01:

was planning it out. You know, I didn't do it. Vanity. I didn't want people to say I couldn't hack it. I didn't kill myself because I didn't want people talking shit that I couldn't hack it. What the fuck is wrong with me? What is wrong with me, dude? Like what? Vanity

SPEAKER_00:

saved my life. But can you imagine that going through all of that and just like take your own life after you survived and persevered so many, so many times. That would be

SPEAKER_01:

a shame. Yeah. Yes. And I just wanted off the ride,

SPEAKER_00:

dude.

SPEAKER_01:

I just was tired of it. And

SPEAKER_00:

then you were in the gym one day. I

SPEAKER_01:

was in the gym working out. It was the North Hollywood gym. It was one of those last old private mom-pa gyms. They're all gone now. But it was... I remember going in there and it smelled like sweat. It felt like the 70s. It always does. And I was like, yeah, this is my place. Like girls would peek in and be like, nope, I'm not working out in here. No girls would go there. It was like, it was the, we called it the no-ho gym because no girls went in there. There were no hoes in that gym.

SPEAKER_00:

Which is good. You can focus on actually working out. That's the whole point of the gym. I

SPEAKER_01:

meet this guy, Ray, and we become best friends and And then I meet this guy, Gypsy, and he tells me about Body Electric.

SPEAKER_00:

And

SPEAKER_01:

it was on a Saturday, and that night I went down to Body Electric and made an appointment.

SPEAKER_00:

We were like, wow. I don't know. At a candy shop.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I started getting covered up, this covered up with a Japanese dragon, because I wanted to change the guy looking at me in the mirror. I didn't want to see the gang anymore. I stopped listening to rap music because it reminded me of that. It took me years to embrace rap music.

SPEAKER_00:

What did you switch to? Classical?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Susudio. I love me some Phil Collins. I started listening to rock and roll.

SPEAKER_00:

A

SPEAKER_01:

lot more rock and roll. And I started getting my back covered up. And then I tattooed this leg. And then the shop came up for sale. The

SPEAKER_00:

Italian lady, right? Yeah, the Italian,

SPEAKER_01:

Bernadette Fertini. And I was going to buy it with one of the tattoo artists, Adrian. And he decided not to. And then I met with her. And

SPEAKER_00:

then

SPEAKER_01:

within two weeks, I owned two

SPEAKER_00:

shops. It really fascinated me with your story that... If I understand correctly, you were scared, you were hesitant, right? Because it's a big decision. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

dude.

SPEAKER_00:

To use like your life savings to invest something. The

SPEAKER_01:

only thing I knew about tattoo and piercing, I knew nothing about piercing. I only knew how to get a tattoo. And I just knew that I was so hopeless and I was like thinking of suicide so much. I was like, why not? Like risks. I watched a show. a documentary about the original producer of Survivor, the reality show, and I forgot his name. And he was in this interview, and he's like, if you want to be wealthy in this country, you've got to take chances. And if you don't, you can be happy. You have to risk. You have to risk it. And that kept playing in my head. It came up for sale and I was living in a hotel in Buena Park across from Medieval Times. And Bernie came in and we sat in the lobby of the courtyard by Marriott on Marriott stationary and signed the deal. And it was the craziest thing. That night I went back to the room and I woke up in the middle of the night and had a panic attack. I was like, oh my God,

SPEAKER_00:

what

SPEAKER_01:

did I do?

SPEAKER_00:

But do you believe that if you're really scared of something, you have that fear, it means you're on a good track?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, what I do is everyone I told I was going to do this, they told me that I was crazy. That's when you know you're onto something. So the hoi polloi, most people will see something so far off in the future and be like, that's crazy. So if you have an idea and everyone's like, that's a great idea, don't do that. That's a horrible idea because they can see it and it's not going to manifest anything. It's not going to do anything because it's like, you know, whatever. Like you just– You can't recreate McDonald's right now. Like, you need to go above and beyond. And nobody was really, you know, I was going to get into piercing and didn't even know it.

SPEAKER_00:

I remember you were saying that the original team from the Body Electric didn't like you, right? Oh, no, because I was... Yeah, like, who is this guy, right? I was...

SPEAKER_01:

Can I tattoo? I was a... I was an outsider.

SPEAKER_00:

They

SPEAKER_01:

didn't want anything to do with me.

SPEAKER_00:

So if we speak about your artwork... Didn't you say that you pioneered the curated ear look, that you're not... an artist, but you're a decorator.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

yeah. Can you expand on that?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I got kind of forced into being a piercer. Bernadette, she, Bernie, she one day was like, Brian, you must, this is my Bernie impression, you must do something more in the shop and not just be on it. Just be pretty. You must pierce. She's like, go in the mirror and pierce your nose. And I was like, I'm not piercing my nose. She goes, why, are you chicken? I was like, what?

SPEAKER_00:

The best ways to challenge yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm not chicken. Like, never tell a dude. He's the

SPEAKER_00:

biggest needle. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

my. Women, all you got to do is be like, what are you, chicken?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm

SPEAKER_01:

not chicken. We're so easy. Right, right. She got me to do it. She figured you. Yes. And that started the process. So Bernie was very much the catalyst, the launching pad of my piercing career because she kind of forced me into it. And as I started doing it, I started getting good at it. And the more I did it, the more I loved it, the more I loved it, the more I did it. And it just, I don't know why, I was just good at it. I always decorated myself, like clothing, always dressed funky. But yeah, I just got good at it. And then one of my clients, Daphne Waynes, had me, she wanted me to get a publicist. So in 2014, I hired her publicist and MWPR and They helped launch me into– they were like– they were the booster rockets on my rocket. Like they helped me get out of the gravitational pull. They launched me into the, you know, the

SPEAKER_00:

– Stratosphere.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, all of these– These blogs, these blog writers. Right, right. It was just getting really big. And then Refinery29 and Who, What, Where and all these different.

SPEAKER_00:

So you work with so many big names like from Adele and Rihanna and Jennifer Lawrence, if I'm not mistaken. So what was the craziest piercing tattoo you've ever done?

SPEAKER_01:

God, that's such a. Craziest. Tattoo? I don't tattoo.

SPEAKER_00:

Sorry, not tattoo. The craziest piercing.

SPEAKER_01:

I've seen some crazy tattoos done in my shop.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

But piercing craziest, I assisted one of my piercers one time to pierce a guy's uvula. That was really weird.

SPEAKER_00:

The what?

SPEAKER_01:

The little thing that drops in your throat.

SPEAKER_00:

Inside? No, the

SPEAKER_01:

throat. When you open your, you know, the little punching bag you

SPEAKER_00:

got back there. Wow, why would you do that to yourself?

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly, yeah. He was like this crazy.

SPEAKER_00:

He's like, let me find the weirdest part of my body.

SPEAKER_01:

Some people just want to shock people.

SPEAKER_00:

What about the surface piercing? The anchors? Yeah. Is it a painful one to do? No, it's not very painful.

SPEAKER_01:

I did those on Cardi B's. I did a couple on her chest one time for that L cover she was

SPEAKER_00:

on. Yeah, that was beautiful. I did

SPEAKER_01:

her lip and the two I did. She had one and I did two underneath

SPEAKER_00:

it. Yes. What about the buttocks one?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh God, you saw that one. Yeah. That's so funny. Those girls were from

SPEAKER_00:

Brazil. Yeah. I was so shocked.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. How would you... I had more comments on that picture.

SPEAKER_00:

So tell us about that. What is it? It was

SPEAKER_01:

just funny. There's some funny...

SPEAKER_00:

Do you need to get like local anesthesia?

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, no, no. I just use a biopsy punch and I punch directly in and pop it under. It's really easy, real quick.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. But the recovery you said is intense. 30 days. 30 days?

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm. It's very quick because it's a single point. There's no exit. The body doesn't have to create this massive fistula.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. So if we talk about current trends, and I know you mentioned before that trends changed for men, especially in piercing and tattooing. What's like the current trend that...

SPEAKER_01:

Well, men are branching out now. They're doing more. They're doing like cartilage stuff, tragus. They're really getting into it. Like the tragus, the cartilage. I've been doing a lot of guys differently. Back in the day, dudes would just do their low That was it. But now it's changing. It's starting to open up. Nobody owns anything. I pierced my navel a couple of times. Women don't own that. I can do whatever I want, man. Who gives a shit what

SPEAKER_00:

people think? As long as you have enough canvas left to do it, you just go

SPEAKER_01:

for it. And I'm still getting tattooed to this day. I'm trying to finish by the time I'm 55. I would like to be done with it. It hurts a lot now more. And I heal slower.

SPEAKER_00:

And

SPEAKER_01:

I kind of just want to get that chapter closed. I just want to finish my body.

SPEAKER_00:

And the last question is, knowing where you are right now and looking back at your darkest times, what is the advice or what would you say to your younger self back then from this point of

SPEAKER_01:

view? I would say a quote from Finding Nemo when Dory says, just keep swimming. That's all you got to do. Just keep swimming.

SPEAKER_00:

Just keep swimming. Well, thank you so much for this amazing conversation. I don't know if I should cry or laugh. I'm just so excited. Thank you for sharing your story. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Thank you for coming to The Basic Show. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Cheers. Well, cheers to that.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.