Beyond the Tough Guy

0:05 Yo yo, this is BradQuan, host of the Weirdinary podcast and recently I was asked what my favorite restaurant is and without a doubt I said Son of Egg, located at 483 Broadway in Renle, New York. Why Son of Egg? Because every time I step foot in this establishment, I instantly feel a celebration of community, creativity, intellectualism, and humanity. And I mean, it goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway. The food is spectacular. Now, why is this spectacular, you ask? Well, my god. Because whenever I bite into it, I feel like I'm at home. Tappiness on a bay. 483 Broadway, New York. You want to eat? Eat with the best.

1:16 All right. All right. Yo yo. Welcome to another episode of Weirdinary. I'm your host, BradQuan, and today I have a very special guest. He is an author, poet, and storyteller. He is the founder of independent publishing imprint 7709 Publishing. He is the author of six books exploring vulnerability, grief, fatherhood, time, and personal growth. Two of which I have right here with me. One is let me fall apart and the other one is just for today. He is a Amazon top 100 ranked independent author. He is a former lightweight MMA fighter who earned his MMA victory by TKO through punches at Burlington Brawl 3. He is a writer dedicated to helping readers find meaning and connection within life's most difficult moments.

2:19 He's a loyal husband, a dedicated father, a moulder of men who effortlessly flexes his heart as well as both his brain and brawn. Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Engelen, brother, how the [bleep] are you, man? I'm great, man. I'm [laughter] great. Absolutely, man. Dude, it's a it's it's an honor to finally be able to be able to sit down with you, man. Uh, like I told you, the first time I came across you, we we didn't speak, but um I saw you at uh Sammy Photo's uh dispensary, two strains. You were dropping off your book uh this one uh Let Me Fall Apart um and he was selling it there and it uh it stuck out to me then and uh you know, I'm glad that I was finally able to read it and uh really tap in with you, man. Uh, dude, your your story is your story is [bleep] incredible, man. Appreciate that. You know what I'm saying? And just from these from these pieces of uh these this literature you share, I mean, it's poetry. It's it's essentially like affirmations, thoughts, and whatnot. And uh you say a lot of things, and I I I had a few of them that uh I wanted to uh to to kind of tap into before we really get into the questionnaire because this [bleep] really rocked me.

3:40 uh on uh on page five you had a you could go ahead one it's um peace of mind is free but peace of soul is rare and that brought me to it's an interesting [laughter] distinction to make between the mind and the soul right because one can lose their mind but still be very much in tune with their soul right and I want to ask you for you where does the mind end and the soul begins. You know, it's funny like my whole approach to writing things in the beginning was I've changed my my style the last couple years, but I don't have any forethought or then I didn't have any forethought before I wrote. Interesting. So, it would just it come out and I would try to interpret it later. And that's like my my first book, Script of Letters, is like basically a hodgepodge for the 25 to 30 years before that leading up to it. There was a couple new ones in there, but it's weird how you transition back and you read that something that could have been from like 1998 and it comes and makes sense in you know 2021.

4:51 Yeah. with you know the peace of mind, peace of soul thing. It's like you can offer your peace of mind but very rare do we offer our soul our whole piece a quarter a sliver of ourselves to anybody even though we think we might. Mhm. We really do keep ourselves guarded in the sense that we we freely will give our point of view on something or our opinion but we don't dive deep and that's like I do that with most everything like I always look at things like you have the 3D concept of looking at it it's three dimensional but you could also have that pillar over there we see it as a pillar but there could be something behind it that we don't see. And that's like the 4D the 4D world that I kind of look at is like you don't always see what's going on. You don't always see everything that you think you see. So when you offer up your opinions on things, it could be so far to what it's not that I always take like I always stop and think what if I it's kind of like the Facebook thing we've touched on before like I can always throw something on there. Mhm.

6:10 Like I hate the laugh emoji on serious things. Yes. Yes. And uh but most of them people don't understand the whole the whole scope of something somebody's going through and they just want to like laugh at [bleep] or like like dumb down things. And I don't understand that. Like I always take a step back before I judge or do anything like that. And that's kind of like where that that whole concept come from. It's like we offer a peace of mind. we offer. I probably got off the whole topic, but um do your thing between the soul in in in that just like again I always I have a lot of empathy before maybe I should sometimes but I think that I would rather have too much empathy and then understand afterwards and not have enough empathy and feel horrible after fact. That's a fact. And I think it's the total opposite with a lot of people that I come in contact. they could really give a [bleep] about empathy. Unfortunately, it was like whatever. But I think at the at the heart of everybody, man, like I would rather be and it took me a long time to get to where I am. Like back in the day, I was fighting every weekend at the bar and not understanding like I would rather be in a good mood and like like freely give to people and be nice to people than than have a you know have a be an [bleep] Like I I think that's if if any were to say anything about me, that's probably what you'd get. like total opposite of people that grew up with me like my buddy Joe who owns Northern Lights Suspensory and Joe's Pizza. He's seen all aspects. He's seen the you know the can't go out to a bar without worrying about Jay's going to get in a fight and then now he sees who I am now and he's like one of my biggest you know supporters. So anyway,

7:58 [laughter] so you know what? I want to actually use that to uh to actually springboard into the questionnaire and everything else that I have with the book of just I'll I'll move forward. What childhood experience shaped your understanding of your own worth more than anything else? Uh parents divorced 1991. when I was 14 years old. Um around 15, 16. My mother had a couple of different apartments. We had apartment on Queen Street. She would basically go and stay at her boyfriend's house. I'm 16. I got this whole apartment by myself. Oh wow. You know, there might have been a lot of party and there might not have been. I mean, when you're in that situation, you This is like This is the light. This is the light, you know. But that's where I I stopped. And it I think it goes back to no matter what happened with my parents, even though back then I thought I was cool with things. There was a lot of lashing out that I never even [bleep] understood. Mhm.

9:04 But I always had this respect that my other friends really didn't have to their parents where I didn't want to I didn't want to disappoint them with I'm going to go out drinking and leave the house in the middle of the night. I did that a couple times my whole life, but I always felt guilty afterwards. So was there was like when I had that place by myself, I'm always making sure everybody you don't do this, don't do that. Like I was already grown up at, you know, 15 going into 16 years old where I had a place to myself and I could have went a whole different way, but I didn't. And I think that's where it started to shape me where like I didn't want to disappoint myself. And and then and like and that would go back to my parents were both smokers. My father was a drinker. Uh did I say alcoholic? Yeah. Um but I never wanted to go down that route. I've never put a cigarette in my mouth my whole life really cuz I hated the way I smelled as a kid. I just didn't like it. It totally turned me off to like that smell was just horrible to me and still is to this day.

10:12 Uh, I never I had my drinking phase, but I never really got into the thing where I was gonna be like going down that road hardcore. Um, because again, like I went back to like I don't want to disappoint, you know, my family per se, but I didn't want to disappoint me. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where it all came into like I think that's where I started to take shape of the empathy towards things or you know my my take on the world of you know my uncle growing up was um he was my hero to a sense of like music. That's where I learned my my love of guitar and all of different things. But he was in and out of jail in trouble. And um I know I didn't want to go down that route, but I still looked up to him because he was the cool guy growing up, you know, but there was a part of me that was disappointed and there was never an ashamed thing, but there was a like this isn't the way I'm going to live my life. And and that's kind of how I from, you know, that was 19 91 through on. And I think that's where that's probably the part that hasn't changed in me is the the emphasis on not letting myself down and not letting I mean I we all have a couple hiccups here and there, but I think back then is where I knew I didn't want to, you know, take my life on this [bleep] path that I seen certain family members or even, you know, core family members do.

11:47 That's basically where I mean it sounds like what and it's interesting to me because it's because you've you've experienced depression and whatnot through I understand that through your work but there's despite whatever mental struggles whatever mental emotional struggles you may have uh you may have succumbed to you never lost that core foundation of selfesteem you know what I mean which I think is pretty amazing because when I went through depression I didn't give a [bleep] [bleep] about myself. I didn't give a [bleep] how anybody looked at it's it's like you care how you're perceived, but you don't. You know what I mean? And it's like you do these things to lash out, you know what I mean? It's weird, bro. Well, now I can look back now like talking about fighting almost every weekend. That's not and that's not a an inflated number. You can There's been multiple witnesses. We would go to Flubber Busters every weekend. This is Flubber Buster after I graduated high school. And looking back now, like I understand why my friends were kind of nervous to go out with me cuz they didn't know what they were going to they knew what they were going to get. They just And it's not like it wasn't like I went look for a fight. It's just it always found me.

12:57 I broke my hand one time and went back up to the following weekend and got in a fight with the opposite hand like Jesus Christ. Like Yeah. And it was like and then [laughter] go to then go to parties and you know uh break bottles over my head all constantly. Constantly. Some mly crew [bleep] bro. Godamn. Walk through fires. We just I just had a cookout at my cousin's house a couple weeks ago and where my buddy Rich was there and he used to be like the driver driving us around stuff. It's like night you walked through the fire and you had like your skin was falling off your feet and there was glass in it. You never broke. We're dude we were dumping bottle like beer bottles on my feet just to like cool my feet off and it was like in not in the middle of winter but it was cold out and I'm putting my feet on the back of the truck the bed so it would cool them off just [bleep] like that and like you have like one of them you know come to Jesus moments where you're like holy [bleep] man I like now I understand like it made people uncomfortable like but they all still went out with me. I mean, that's some that's some one that's some super punk [bleep] And unfortunately, especially as men and when we're young men, we really glorify people that can like people that can like indulge in like toxicity. Yeah.

14:12 That's deemed cool to a to a to a large extent. We we like to glorify that like, oh, like that guy can drink or that guy can smoke or this guy can really endure pain. You know what I'm saying? It's weird. It's weird how that happens, but y Yeah. No, no, I completely understand. And uh I think I want to make a slight clarification. I don't think I don't think this is Miley Crew [bleep] I think it's Henry Rollins [bleep] Yeah, I think that's a more accur [laughter] that's a more accurate comparison there. Yeah, cuz Henry Rollins was the type of guy that would have a show and look forward to fighting fans. It sounds like that's the type of energy you were on. Yeah. And that was the thing is like it was never I never was one to start it, but there was always that stuff that would happen. And like I I got kicked out of Slob Busters at least two three times where they called the sheriffs. Wow. Cuz [bleep] went bad. And um there was this one time like I look back on just shake my head going, "What the fuck?" But this one time this dude, we walked in, he kicked my buddy in the face.

15:18 I, unbeknownst to me, I don't know that happens. I'm already in the bar. My buddy Daryl, that same kid, starts a fight with him. Well, they all go out the back. There's this big circle and Daryl's hammered. Well, the other kid really wasn't. So we got all our friends are there. I'm standing like away from it. This kid beats the living [bleep] out. Now Daryl can barely walk. He's so drunk. Not one of my friends jumps in to like save him or whatever. So after the fact, see the kid goes sit in the car. One of our buddy goes to talking to him. I'm hearing him. He's like talking like nice to him like [bleep] this. Opened the [bleep] door, ripped him out and beat the piss out of him just because he beat up Daryl. And like that was like everybody went I'm like yeah like I can't one I'm not a if I ever fought I wasn't going to sit there and go back and forth on somebody. I think that's just I always thought that was stupid. I just we're throwing down we're going to throw down.

16:19 So I ripped him out of the car and just beat him up and then afterwards like can't believe I'm like I was kind of like one of them I just fought for the honor of Daryl which has never he's never let me live it down. It's always been brought up at least whatever but it's just like some of them things I look back and go holy [bleep] Like I don't know how I wasn't, you know, probably I could have been stabbed to death probably a couple times. I could have probably been, you know, jumped a couple times, but I think my my reputation got like really crazy. And I was like 160 lbs, but nobody there wasn't anybody that like wanted to like challenge me. But then like you think it's cool back then, but then you get, you know, I'm I'm almost 50 and look back and go Jesus Christ. Like I I don't like Yeah, they guys still think it's cool, but I don't I think I just like I think again that's a lot of lashing out unbeknownst to myself about my parents splitting up and having this like I knew my parents going to split up. My mother told me like a year before she left him because they're just my dad was he get home from work and then go down to his buddy's garage and then wouldn't come home till like 10 10:00 at night. So there wasn't really a relationship there towards the end and I knew it. And then I went and stayed at a friend's house and I come home and my mom had all my stuffed bag. She was like, "We're going to go, you know, live at your grandparents." I'm like, "Okay." But then I think as the cycle went through of I got my own place basically, I can do whatever I want. But I know I had a a girlfriend in high school like the whole I had a high school sweetheart. Um she ended up being a pharmacist. Um little caveat.

17:58 And then I think a lot of my frustration of and I could be just guessing but I think a lot of my frustration with my parents splitting up came out in that type of stuff. But I think the thing that kind of brought me back was my father end up marrying my mom, one of my mom's best friends. Oh wow. Which they're still friends to this day. In my new book, Welcome Home, I kind of put that in there, too. I have a lot of stuff from Welcome the Welcome Home, the fiction, but I added some of my real life stuff in there, like my friend that was killed when I was in high school. he's a character in the book. But I think that kind of all washed it all away and like it's like everybody's still loved, you know, everybody's still cool and you know, but I think a lot of my my issues were, you know, the the family unit kind of disintegrating. Um, and I've t I touched on that like in the counseling and stuff, too. She's like, "Yeah, you you sound like you uh you had some uh some things to get out." I'm like, "Yeah, I guess I did." But yeah. Yeah. I never I cuz I mean growing up, I could definitely see that my parents should have split. They would have been better off apart cuz there would have been things that I wouldn't have heard and wouldn't have seen that would have helped me be a better human, right? You know what I mean, in the real world.

19:27 But I guess something my father used to always tell me. He used to say, "Uh, son, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here." And it put so much pressure on me and it made me look at my mother in such a way. And you know what I mean? I guess when your parents finally did divorce, like what is that like? Does that does that affect your worth? Do you feel like you had do you do you feel like you were supposed to be enough to keep them to together? I guess like would No, I think if my mother hadn't had that conversation, I might have jumped to that. But I think I think my thing was we always want our parents to stay together cuz all my grandparents were still there. I mean, my my father's mother had divorced and remarried and I never really knew his father too much growing up, but I my my stepgrandfather was awesome. Like my family owned the laundromat up in Wall. Okay. He Arv, his name was Arv and they call him Tide because he was Welch. tied his grandfather in Welsh. Um he would bring me down to the newsroom next door and he'd buy me a comic book or a wrestling magazine and then would bring me back to the laundromat, open up the Coke machine and I could grab a Coke. To this day, dude, every time I drink a Coke, I think of that.

20:41 I think of that. And I remember when the new Coke came out with that new formula and me like me and him discussing how like it didn't taste the same and they didn't keep it very long. I think that was like 8 858 ' 86 they switched the formula. Interesting. And uh but yeah, that was that got to be a monthly thing because wrestling magazines wouldn't come out, you know, they would come out monthly and I I can't remember if it was wrestling magazines first or comics, but I still have the wrestling magazine [music] there. That's what's up, man. Describe to me your relationship with your mother. It's uh she thinks I'm ashamed of her because she's really she's never had a job. She's always been the stay at home person. Um she's agorophobic. She doesn't really leave the house. From where do you think that stems if you know? It's it's weird because her brother, her sister, and her other brother, my uncle just passed away. The one I was just talking about. Yeah. They all ended up basically being that way except my older uncle Keith, we call him Berdo, he's starting to get out and do more things, but it's like they all shut down and and stayed in the house and I don't know where it comes from. My grandfather was an engineer on the tugboats. Oh wow.

22:04 He uh he did that for 50 years. I think 50 years. Um so he wasn't home a lot. My grandmother had basically raised them. But when he was home, they got everything they wanted because he was make back in the, you know, 60s and 70s, he was making like $2,400 every two weeks. Yeah, that's a lot. So, that's a lot of money. I mean, built the house. Um, they uh got they wanted dune buggies. They got doom buggies. Uh, anything you can like he bought a whole PA system, guitars, amps, anything they wanted. The boys got My mother and her sister were older, so they didn't really they kind of missed that. that part. But um I think I'm not I'm still trying to understand why they all ended up in that not leave the house type thing. My uncle who just passed away, I think his was a lot of paranoia because the way the outside world looked at him because of the stupid [bleep] that he's done. Okay. Um Oh, okay. Okay.

23:02 My aunt Paula used to be like she was a she was married to a military dude, so they lived everywhere. Then they split up. She got her own place, moved moved, they lived in New Hampshire predominately. My cousin was killed in a car accident when my uncle just passed away in 1990. And I think that's where her life kind of took a like a drastic turn. Like she had said before that, you know, Sean's gone and she still has another son, but um when she like before she died, she hadn't really left the house in years. Damn. She had diabetes about three years before she died. She just said, "Fuck it." And then didn't take any of her diabetes medication. Nothing. Still ate whatever she wanted to. Um she survived throat cancer multiple times. Wow. Um ended up with breast cancer, had a spot in her lung, and then said, "Screw it. I'm not going back to the doctors." And then progressively just, you know, passed away. But um it's a good question. the like trying to figure out why they why this agorophobic thing came because at least I know for the boys when they were younger they they went everywhere like every every memory I have when I was little was going with my grandfather and my mother and my grandmother going to like they used to have lums up where Walmart is was a restaurant we would go to Rutland shopping we go everywhere shopping but that's the things I remember I remember coming to this mall when you could smoke in the hallways and And then you know they had Ponderosa up the road. Uh Ponderosa. Oh wow.

24:40 Yeah. That was the places that they used to like to go. The one in Rutland. Yeah. But uh yeah, that that's one of them things I still don't understand. Like my I with my mother I think she just um just a low self-esteem thing. Yeah. Very very very low. I can to an extent I can understand agorophobia. I mean, I've had a period where I was really depressed when I lived out west and I I was scared to leave the my [bleep] apartment. I would just be in there just drinking. I wouldn't leave unless I was getting booze. Um, how about your relationship with your with your father? What was that like? Um, you know, growing up there wasn't really a super close relationship at all. I mean, his thing was we would take back roads rides and look for cars. He's a huge car dude. We have we have a 66 El Camino basically together. Oh wow. And uh which I haven't driven in six years and I keep getting on him about that. Um he uh it was one of them things where I think his relationship with his dad wasn't that great growing up. Like he his dad left him and you know started a different family type [bleep] But it was work, come home, go to the garage or whatever. Um, and if it wasn't the garage, you'd be at a friend's house drinking. Um, I say it wasn't love, but there was never, like I'll freely say, my dad didn't say I love you to me. Like we talk when every time we get off phone now or leave, it's I love you. But probably a good 16 years. That's the last time. That's when it started. Um, never went on family vacations ever.

26:24 I've never been I've never been to lunch with them. I've never gone to a movie with them. I've gone to the drive-ins back in the day when my parents were still together. Uh started going on vacations later on in life with my stepmother because we all go to Florida. Um they stopped a couple probably about 10 12 years ago, maybe even longer. Uh relationship today is is good. Uh he just got out of the hospital. He's been in a like four year four years ago. He three years ago he ended up with a strangled hernia. Almost died. Wow. Let it go too long. And then a year and a half ago, he had part of his lung removed from lung cancer. And he hasn't smoked cigarettes in 16 or 12 years, something like that. And then this past week, he ended up with the rhino virus, and he has a weak immune system because of the cancer. So, he was in Rutland Hospital for 5 days over there. Um, yeah, but growing up, there wasn't really there wasn't a father son relationship that I would want. And that's where I think I well not where I think where I know where I looked at that and said if I ever have a kid I'm going to make sure we do the things and we make moments of memories cuz I can look back and I don't really have any.

27:41 Um for a little while I I held that against him but now it's just like that's the way he was. That's the way and I think he made up for it in a lot of ways later in life because I think I think my stepmother brought him out of like brought it out of him. Mhm. Um, but yeah, back then there wasn't there wasn't anything. I would go on vacation with like my my buddy who like lived next door or I'd go with my grandparents like and my mother down to Virginia to see my aunt or New Hampshire, but never been to the Great Escape. Never did any of that with him. How did the lack of an emotional connection with your father growing up impact your perception of masculinity? You know, it's funny. I think it my I was a mama's boy so my mom I don't want to say she coddled me but I think to a certain extent she did and I think that flipped me cuz when I was younger I don't want to say I was really sensitive and kind of shy because I was um but I think the older I got the more and more like once I got into like ninth grade something switched in me and they were already split up at that point. Something switched where I just became a dude, but I can't really put my fingers on it. I think when I started really getting into like I was like always asked you should wrestle in high school. I'm like I wrestle in high school. I wrestled when I started training in MMA and like I can teach a little bit of it but when I was I was the football guy like if I I play football and then when I'm not playing football I'm getting ready to play football type stuff and I started playing football touch football

29:30 in fourth grade at the playground and then all the way up into you know I ended up my junior and senior year on varsity on varsity and end up with an award at my senior year which to this day is one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me. The the coach like I was like I was small so my senior year I think I'm 155 lbs. Like I weigh like 193 right now. So, I'm not the biggest guy, but the coach hands me at the awards banquet my trophy, and it's the Butch Fagan memorial trophy. And that guy played basically like an animal, I guess. And he handed it to me, and he said, "If everybody played with the way Jason played, we'd be undefeated." Something like that. And I just thought that was cool because it was like one of the things if I'm in there, I'm not I'm not stopping until the play's over. Like, I would see people like half in, you know what I mean? I'm like 110% the whole time. And I think he seen that and respected it. And when I got the trophy, it was just like I remember verbatim today. It's like holy [bleep] Like I tell my daughter that I still have the trophy. It's still down. It's down seller at my house. But uh I think that's football is the thing that changed me. And then um when I got into MMA, it's when it really I really started to understand my not my masculinity, but my my ability to be able to take pain and not have it like suffer. I've seen people suffocate under being punched in the face or, you know, totally takes them out of everything. But with that stuff, it just never bothered me. Like it never like I said I was breaking bottles over my head and like stupid [bleep] stuff like that and people be

31:20 like can't believe you're doing that like at at that point like I'd done it so many times like second nature to me like people are asking me for tutorials how to do it now how do you hold it like don't ever do it without a hat on and I had to I used to wear a Yankee hat like religiously and I always do it like that and one time somebody did it without a hat on cut their cut their head and I had another dude do it and I said when it breaks you got to let the bottle And he held the bottle on his hand like this. Cut his hand with legitimately down to this place called East Bay Partying. And he's like, "Oh, Jirdie." He calls me J-Bird. I I caught that's really bad. What do I do? Of course, we're all drunk. Look, look, let's get some fishing line. So, so they end up bringing him to the emergency room. But that was a story. I think it's I think I think what's remarkable here is that there wasn't any cocaine involved. No, not back then. Nope. [laughter] Nope. That's It's shocking. Well, we were we were just hardcore drinkers. It wasn't even really like a lot of weed going around back then. There was some, but like I never smoked pot until I was 19 years old. Oh, wow.

32:24 Again, goes back to I didn't want to disappoint my my parents or myself. Like I always watch I'm not doing that. Of course, the first time we ever smoke is out of a copper pipe. Like, oh, this probably not very good. But yeah, it's wild cuz I remember breaking some glass and [bleep] and stepping on it, giving this what I felt at the time was this passionate speech. I was under the influence. It was the It was these capsules. It was uh Molly caffeine and coke. Oh Jesus. So yeah, I was [bleep] off some [bleep] Trying to run everywhere which way. Oh my [bleep] god. So I mean like you're saying this [bleep] and there was none of nothing like that. I'm like, this guy is [bleep] hardcore, man. Different [bleep] There was nothing back then. I remember being like I like when I started to like really take it back and not do it anymore. I was in the Flubber Busters bathroom and I can't remember who was in front of me. They were at the urinal and there was nobody in the bathroom for me to be even doing this. And I took the bottle and went whack. [bleep] shard of glass shot out and cut them behind the ear.

33:29 And I'm like, "All right, yeah, that's like I'm getting I'm wounding people now." Like it it got it went drastically back from there. But every that was like a a request thing. We be on a party like you going to break a bottle tonight. Like no, not tonight. You going to do you going to walk across fire? No. No. So using that as a springboard, I'm curious. When did you first learn that showing pain could make you feel unsafe? 8th grade. I'll give you the exact time. My mother's apartment. The apartment was two stories. Place is abandoned now. It's in my home. It was two stories. We had this I had a party there. Get up around. It's like a stairway went up and around and then there was a you know the whatever you want to call it. Not the fencing, the handle or whatever you want to call it. Okay.

34:32 Everybody's up in my bedroom, which was upstairs. I come around the corner. I'm like, I'm going to dive through it. So, I jump like head first through the like bunch of different flats or whatever. dive through it, disintegrate the whole thing, head first down the stairs and, you know, hitting shoulder first at the bottom of it and everybody going, "What the what the [bleep] are you doing?" Now, mind you, I'm only in eighth grade, so there's no drugs, there's no alcohol, there's nothing involved, just pure adrenaline. Just pure adrenaline. And I seen my the reaction and I understood like I kind of like this feeling, this pain feeling. Wow. And that's like exponentially got where it went. It just got worse and worse and worse. Like I remember I was in I was a 10th grader. We were um scrimmaging the younger kids on the football field and I hit this kid so hard. His name's Tim Durst. He's actually passed away. He ended up being a good buddy of mine and I hit him so hard I knocked him unconscious I almost knocked myself unconscious and that was like the first concussion I got and I remember thinking like wow that's pretty [bleep] cool and I remember driving home that night cuz I'd blow my knee out basically on the same way and I'm my right knee and I'm driving my car with my left foot trying to get home and I'm like like I hate like I should be hating this pain but I kind of like the feeling of I it always made me like even to Like my first experience sparring, like getting crack [bleep] really good.

36:16 Like it brought like made me feel alive. Like I think the last 5 years of my life, not being able to train or even teach a basic, you know, jiu-jitsu move or, you know, submission, like I think it's kind of I say it's made me depressed, but I like I yearn for it. There's days where I like really really miss it. Like I I always like watching people grow. Like a fighter comes in, they don't know what the [bleep] he's doing and then he becomes something. Like one of my most my proudest moment as a coach um is one of my students, Nick Johnson, end up he he's one of the trainers at Extreme Couture out in Vegas now. Oh wow. He started with me, ended up going to Matt Secore school. He's a black belt in jiu-jitsu now. Now he's training out there. Always tell him I'm proud. Always message him. Ran into him last right before Christmas. Um, always gives me props. Um, then there's the highlight knockout of one of my dudes on um was it Access TV? One of them on satellite. Okay.

37:27 They got like knockout of the night and it was [bleep] amazing. One of them things. But sure. Um, going back to the pain thing, it's just like now I as I grow older like and I try to tell students back in the day like you got to do this if you want to do it. Like if you want to become a fighter, you're going to experience a lot of [bleep] injuries. You gotta not you don't have to necessarily like pain but you can't shy away from it because I think that's the biggest definition or the biggest distinction not definition between somebody who becomes a real fighter and somebody who's just in it for you know playtime or whatever. You can see it take their humanity away from them when they get punched and they are they already think they're this tough person and then they realize, oh [bleep] like I don't violence might not be for me. Like I give you an instance and I don't get off topic again, but we had a gym over in Castleton, Vermont. Mhm. After I was training like maybe four years, this kid from up to Tyonderoga comes down u big tough guy. Apparently, it was a beat his girlfriend, whatever. So, we welcomed him down. We're going to, you know, humble him.

38:44 Yeah. Well, he comes down. He does the warm-up and basically almost dies during the warm-up. Not really, but he uh he couldn't handle the warm-up. So, he didn't last very long and we kicked him out. He was like all couldn't I'm like you couldn't last the warmup and you didn't even get to the to the real the real part. And I like that's a watching a lot of people be humbled like that. They a lot of guys don't want to be um taken out of their comfort zone where they think they're really badass and they find out that they're not. And jiu-jitsu has humbled a lot humbled a lot of people with that. Like when they think that they can do something and they're at the will of somebody who they think they can easily dominate and it you watch it just come out of drain out of their eyes. I mean, it's I don't take pride in it, but it's like a lot of people that think that they're, you know, this alpha and then they be they really find out they're they're not. It's a humbling experience and I've never done it maliciously, but I could tell people before they even come in that they're not the type of people that are going to want to understand fighting the way that, you know, I understand it or my peers understand it. Um, and again, it goes back to the pain thing.

40:13 They can't take, they love to dish it out, like, you know what I mean, but they can't take the pain from somebody else. like you know a good liver shot or a good gut punch or I mean I've been elbowed in the nose like my nose been broken 15 times like um that type of [bleep] just pulls you out like and I think a lot of people like on the outside like funny story I'm in Buffalo Wild Wings this is probably like 10 years ago it might be Buffalo one of them things but it's one of them things you hear a guy go, we're watching the fights. Get up. He can get up. Why ain't he getting up? I get right up off of that. And I'm like, like that's my biggest pet peeve is just like people think it's so easy. You're just going to get up. But again, I'm off [bleep] topic. But um back to the like, yeah, the pain thing is like I've always it's always been not an issue for me. like my when I knew I had a pain tolerance, I put my arm through a window, got in a fight with my girlfriend, punched the window, ended up with a I end up having plastic surgery and then Oh, Jesus.

41:26 Cut cut the uh whatever and I missed the tendon or whatever. Artery was it? No. Did you cut your artery or No, no, I missed the artery, but there's a like a fascia of muscle that goes down through and there's a hole there now. Uh, so when I did that, I ended up in the hospital and they had to take a metal probe and stick it down to make sure that I didn't cut a tendon. And when they did, they slid it down and it touched the bone. And I'm 100% awake for this. And I'm not like, they shot, you know, stuff here, but it touched my bone. And that's like the deepest pain I've ever felt in my entire life. And I after that, like my dad is like holding my hand and I'm in like I'm a I'm in senior in high school. He's holding my hand while they're doing this surgery. Of course, I'm I went in and I was in shock when I did it. I pulled away and it's like dumping all over me. My dad's like, "What's going on?" I'm in nothing but shorts, no top on. It's pouring all over me, going all over the floor. Run into the kitchen. He puts me puts my arm in the in the sink. It's still coming on me. So, I stick my thumb in it.

42:36 I start to go in shock. Then, oh my god. He calls the ambulance. The ambulance comes. They put like a splint on it. Uhhuh. They put my one of my dad's um uh what the hell? Plaid plaid shirt coats on. And uh they bring me out in the ambulance. They get me to the hospital. My blood had dried onto the thing. So, they're trying to like pull it off and my arm sticking to it. Bring me to the thing, go into plastic surgery. They end up doing that and my dad's holding my hand and I looked at him and I said, "That's the most deepest [bleep] pain I've ever felt. I don't think I'll ever feel anything like that." And I haven't since. The only thing that will come close to it is like I was sparring with one of my students and I kicked him and I caught him with the the the inner bones of my foot like between here and your shin. Uhhuh. I caught his elbow and like in the middle of class had to like go in the corner and like whimper like I was almost to the verge of tears. But other than that like broken nose broken noses, all my fingers, all my toes just I I just have a high threshold for pain.

43:49 Nagging pain on the other hand is [bleep] annoying. Like with my shoulder that I'm dealing with, I have to go Wednesday for an MRI. I've already had knee surgery on this once, but I kept putting it off for the second one and I'm like when I did the comedy festival a month ago, I walked around like 19 miles and it just destroyed my knee. So, I'm going to get that done again. Waiting on second surgery for this. But, uh, yeah, 15 concussions and 15 broken noses. An addiction to pain. How does God damn it's like because I mean I can under I I I've been addicted to a lot of things. It's just it's just an escape from Is it like a form of escapism? Back then it was not to now it isn't. I think leading up probably the mid 2000s it started to go away because I broke my hand at Flubber Busters found out my girlfriend was cheating on me. Punch punch one of the pillars so loud that they could [bleep] almost hear it over the music. Like four people turn around going, "What the [bleep] was that?" I had boxer fractured it, so it turned the bone sideways.

44:56 Fast forward, they my cousin comes and picks me up because the guys I was with wouldn't drive me because they're drunk. Brings me to the emergency room. They bandage me up, put a cast on it. Fast forward two days later, I have to go to the doctor. He uh leaves it like it is, and I'm like, "This ain't right." So, I go to a second opinion, cuts that cast off. He's like, "We got to rebreak your hand because my this bone is like this." Yeah. So, he rebre it and my dad takes me, they inject here and here, but they don't really do much here. And I'm like, I don't really need it. Just do it. So, I felt the whole thing. Pops it back in, puts it in. Well, that starts a addiction to pain meds for about about a year. I was taking about 26 hydrocodone a day. Oh, wow. uh with a little bit of I was either drinking uh Keystone ice or regular Keystone. I had my own apartment all the time. This is when my I end up having a nervous breakdown in all that time. Um but again, pain ends up leading to some [bleep] stupid uh quit cold turkey. I've had pain meds since with no issue whatsoever.

46:13 Um, my dad actually came in when I was having a nervous breakdown. Um, cuz back then 2001, if you watch all these documentaries, that's when they were giving hydrocodone like Candy. That's when they freely gave, you know, I had 10 refills of 100 pills every time. So, it was just like, okay, I'll just keep, you know, and then after that, like it gets cloudy where I don't even know where I was getting the pills, but I was getting them because I think back then the majority of people were they're just [bleep] all right, you broke your toe here, you know, here's a script for 60 or of a hundred. My come to Jesus meeting was with my buddy Jeff picks me up. Now, cell phones in 2001 were just barely coming out. I had a cell phone. at a house phone picks me up. We're going to go for a ride. Forgot where we're going. Picks me up. They get halfway down the road and he says, "Hey, get a hold of whatever." So, I whip the phone out and it's my [bleep] house phone.

47:16 And that was so [bleep] up that I didn't even understand like that I had my [bleep] house phone until it was in my hands. And then after that, like I quit cold turkey, too. I probably [laughter] I could have died like how I just it was 26 a day and it was just like I didn't even like it was it like to my recollection I could have weaned myself off but to my recollection it was it was cold and I remember being in my [bleep] living room with nobody around sweating puking [bleep] like every five minutes to the bathroom cold like um wouldn't let anybody in my house and came out and said that's never going to happen again. Explain that nervous breakdown to me. Um a lot of [bleep] going on. Um I had lost my No, I still had a job. Uh girlfriend issues. Um went from like one girlfriend to the other. the other girlfriend pulls me off or out of a, you know, real deep depression out of the other one because, you know, she's the one that tells me the other girl's cheating. End up with her, you know, thatoric [bleep] love bomb. Like, it's the greatest [bleep] in the world. And then come to find out, same [bleep] thing with her. Um, you know, doing stupid [bleep] getting in fights again. um went up to Flubber Busters one night with her, get into a get into a fight with one of her exes, end up um I'm outside of clubs going back and forth. Um ended up I'm like the

49:07 stairs are here, other dudes in the doorway. I'm going back and forth. There's like four bouncers. One's my cousin. And I'm standing there and somebody comes up, one of the bouncers and grabs my belt loop and pulls me. And we all go down the stairs, miss every stair, and [bleep] land on the bottom. And I'm on the bottom of the pile, break my rib. I get up, start [bleep] screaming, yelling. My girlfriend at the time puts me in the car, drives me home. We get in the house. He's like, I can't do this. Leaves me. comes back at like 7 o'clock in the morning. My I'm feeling the rib injury like now. Like I'm basically in the [bleep] shower crying. She opens the counter. She's like, "Not doing this anymore." I'm like, "What do you mean? I'm not doing this anymore. We're done." That was it. End up a real bad stage of just again [bleep] doing stupid [bleep] drinking with the pills, and then correlation like called my buddy Bill lived up the road. like I don't I don't know what's going on right now. It's just like everything starts to go like couldn't control like uncontrollable crying. He calls my dad at work. My dad leaves work. Comes flying over to my apartment. I'm on the [bleep] floor like sitting up against the chair and we had these huge huge huge mirrors in this apartment. Like they're still there to this day. My family's still in the apartment building. And I'm just like staring into it ungodly crying. My dad's like sitting like some do I need to bring you to hospital? I'm like I'm so like incoherent. I don't even know what the [bleep] to say. Finally gives me some water. Um I don't know if Xanax was involved but I ended up being calmed down and that's where like again I quit cold turkey. I didn't drink for [bleep] I don't even know how many years. Yeah.

51:00 And come out of that. But that's a story that and I can anytime I hear the song Blurry by Puddle of Mud, that song was [bleep] playing when I'm having my my my breakdown. So every time that comes on, I even like I think I've told my wife like, "Yeah, I had a nervous breakdown of this song." Jesus, I'm have to tap into that one. Um, what part of yourself did you begin hiding during adolescence in order to feel accepted? Um, I started probably hide a lot of my there was a lot of I say not feeling good enough, a lot of self-doubt. Okay. um knowing who I was but not understanding why I like I said I was shy at some point then it all kind of flipped like having a girlfriend changed a lot of stuff my identity at that point in high school was just you know I'm her boyfriend and she's my girlfriend that's all that really matters like you know my friends were doing their thing and I'm doing my thing and hey you going to come no I'm going to her house tonight blah blah blah Um, but in the background being like, do I deserve her? Like, do I deserve this? Like, and that still plagues me sometimes to this day. Like, I've done a couple podcasts where I talk about imposttor syndrome a lot where I don't feel like I deserve any of this stuff like like there's times where

52:47 I start to like really absorb it and really, but then I feel like like as anybody knows me knows I don't have an ego. So then I like, "Oh shit." Like, "Oh, I got an ego now. I got to kick that back down." Then I have like a lot of people that I know are like, "No, [bleep] go with it, dude." Like, you're doing a lot of cool [bleep] Like that's not ego. That's like you're This is you. This is what you do. It's not a [bleep] bad thing. Especially like the I'm plagued by the imposter syndrome a lot. Um, not so much as like I was before, like with the first book that like like that was hard, you know, being naked in front of the world and not your feelings and all that type of [bleep] Um, but once that kicked off, like I'm starting to enjoy it and then I'm like, do I deserve it? And like even with like I told you with the with the Tik Tok and having, you know, 59,000 followers, like do I deserve that? But then you get I get a message saying, "Oh man, that really resonated with me. I love that." Blah blah blah blah blah. And it takes me out of it.

53:50 But then I go back into it. Um the last probably the last year things have changed where it's like I'm it's a slow process where I'm slowly accepting like and I've done a video before where I talk about everything that I've ever pictured in my mind I've achieved. Like I wanted to become an MMA fighter. I became an MMA fighter. always wanted to own a gym and teach MMA. I've done that multiple times. I wanted to start a fight promotion. I've done that multiple times over. You know, I wanted to write books. I've done that multiple times over. My my next step is I want to do I want to do like a [bleep] public speaking thing where I'm, you know, and I I want to do book signings. I want to do this. I want to do that. But it's funny like my mind never [bleep] stops. So it's just like you know I got the book that I'm working on now. It's done. I'm do setting up the audible [bleep] But then I'm like I got to do this. I got to do that. So for shits and giggles the other day I asked chat GBT, hey am I doing way too much [bleep] right now with this? And comes back with yeah you need to slow the [bleep] down. It says that you just [bleep] mine I mine's name is Paulie. That's my grandfather passed away. Uh and I use it a lot for like especially with the books like I don't know a [bleep] how to put a period at the end of like where it goes and how to you know paragraph. It's helped me a lot with the last couple books. It's a good tool. Yeah, absolutely.

55:29 Especially with that stuff where I don't understand like if you read that there's no punctuation in the but I did that on purpose because I don't in my mind when I write there's no ending. The ending is the line and it goes to the next line. I don't want the punctuation because I want it to be mine. And that's like the way I did the first book. Um the last couple I put it in there because of chat GPT. Like where do I put it? Cuz I don't know where to [bleep] put it. Especially with the fiction book. Like I don't know how to break down a paragraph and put this into that. So when I write it, it's just all slop and like put it together. That's why there was five rewrites because OJ don't know how to [bleep] put grammar and you know punctuation and you know all that type of stuff in but so I asked him like am I doing yeah way doing way too much [bleep] [bleep] So try to dive like dial it back concentrate on one [bleep] thing and then you know go from there like finish this because with a lot of my books I never really did a lot of press and a lot of pushing it out there. I've done a podcast with my buddy Mike from, you know, from that aspect, but I really haven't pushed, you know, things out, you know, as much as I should. Like I I've done one book signing was at Sammy for my first book. I've been asked to do other things, but just trying to co, you know, to coordinate it. And now I found out like even though I'm an independent, I can do it at Barnes & Noble because I have a book on Barnes & Noble.com.

56:59 That's what's up. That's that's my my like my bastard child book. It's, you know, it's the sequel to Let Me Fall Apart. Um it's called Today There Is No Tomorrow. And it's basically this picture, but he's coming out of the woods into the light into into the um uh I can show you a picture. Please, please, please. See, that's another thing is being able to Google myself. It's pretty [bleep] awesome. [laughter] Especially having a a website now, which I designed the whole thing. Did it myself. That's what's up. Like learning how to do all like the copy and paste stuff where it goes to where it's supposed to go. Of course, it ain't going to load cuz I'm going to show you right here. Now, my first three books were available on Barnes & Noble.com for a while, but that's with the extended thing through Amazon. I think they just throw it out there. Oh, wow. That's beautiful, man.

58:02 And that one I've I maybe sold like 20 books on that one. Barnes & Noble doesn't really do what Amazon does. Like, and my first book, it picked up so much traction because it debuted so high. Amazon will push it without you having to pay for it. M so if it gets a good rating on the like the new release like um most of them have and they just push it out. So if like you're scrolling something it'll come across the top of something you may want to read. You don't have to pay for that stuff. Barnes & Noble is just like throw it on the table and whoever picks it up looks at it then boom. H interesting. But that one I call it my bachelor t because I don't really ever think about it until after I'm like oh wait I still got one of Barnes & Noble which you know I think all total between everything I've got 10 I've got two um notes like where you can write down your thoughts two journal things and then I think it's eight eight full books now that's what's up bro I'm just starting to transfer these over I'm going to do the audible.com calm stuff, which all that said, diving back into uh into your fighting uh just to help understand uh the uh what came before uh Jay the writer, what did fighting allow you to express that you couldn't yet put into words?

59:32 A lot of it was to just [clears throat] I always when I first started fighting or training to fight, I was in my grandfather's basement 2002 hitting a bag. Had done a little bit of boxing in the '9s. Um, nothing competitive or even like sparring really. Started hitting the bag for a good, you know, four or five years doing that by myself. bring in. It's funny because I would bring in my cousin's friends. I had the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu tapes, DVDs, and I just practice [bleep] on them on a rug. And that's how it all started. And then on a rug, on a [bleep] rug, burn and I I ended up the neighbor next door to my grandfather where I was living at the time. He was the athletic director and the baseball coach. So he hooked me up with little couple freaking, you know, cut up wrestling mats where I put it around the pool and eventually I end up getting a really a nice a goodiz mat. Well, before that I would bring in my cousin's friends and just [bleep] practice on them and got wind of Burlington Brawl.

1:00:40 I contact Burlington Brawl, then find out somebody that I grew up with is fighting in Burlington Brawl. We hook up. We ended up starting this fight team called Warren Industries Fight Team, which I still have the Gmail to this day that I still use. Come up with that name. We trained in my base, my grandfather's basement for a while. We end up getting uh a gym over in Castleton, Vermont. It's in the basement of a chiropractor over there who's then he was the wrestling coach, Paul Diko, and he would have USA wrestling practices down there, whatever. So, we start that. Um, for me, when I first started like sparring and fighting and stuff, it was just like after a good training session, there's nothing left in you that could be anything violent, abrasive, confrontational, no malice, nothing. It's just all gone. Yeah. And I love that feeling of just being fully drained of anything of violence because I had lived it but not understood it. You know what I mean? So when I started training, it's just like I put it all into this thing and I could express myself, not get in trouble, one, two, have this huge, huge release of like driving home from the gym sweaty, beat up, but with a smile on my face and having nothing left over to where like somebody could cut me off or drive me off the road and be like, "All right, okay, no big deal." And I always I've said this a hundred times.

1:02:28 After you've been punched in the face for basically a living, there isn't anything anybody's going to say to me to knock me out of my lane or to piss me off. You could call my mom a name. You could call You could say like the most degrading [bleep] to me, but they're words. They don't they're not going to affect me in any which way, shape, or form. they're not going to take me out of where I'm going and try to put me into this this pissed-off space. And that's like ever since then I let that's totally flip-flopped from like before like again I wasn't confrontational but if it happened to happen but if somebody said something stupid to me I'm not even to say no I'm going to punch you in the face and it totally took me out of that where it was like just a total drain of anything in me. H and I would go home in such a great mood and like that shower afterwards I just I can reminisce now was just like total total release total I would say ecstasy but a total like you know drain of anything and anything that's ever bothering you. You just walk out of there and it's like why I fell in love with it and it's why it's like it's become my identity in so many ways. Now I'm kind of transitioning away from it, but you know, I have, you know, everybody that I've been in this business with for, you know, going on 20 years sees me as Jay the MMA guy, which it's funny cuz I've never seen myself like that. Like I'm still me. Like I never took a hardened look of, wow, this is what you've done and this is what you're doing. Like again I like I'm so sh like afraid I'm going to get like this ego and but a lot of it it's like a lot of my friends going you deserve it like [bleep] run with it. I'm like, okay. Like, and then I'll be like, you know,

1:04:21 and the again the the uh that whole the whole thing of, you know, not being where I should be when I walk. You know what I mean? Like I am where I should be. You know, that the whole identity thing. This is your identity. Run with it. It's like enjoy it. And I have a lot of again a lot of fights in my head about that. But again, the last year I've really taken myself out of, you know, the imposter syndrome. That's what's up. What truth about yourself became impossible to avoid during young adulthood? Being the guy that was unpredictable. Fair enough. and not and not understanding that I didn't make everybody comfortable like they just wanted to go have a good time or do this and they again I never started a fight but it was like it's going to find Engleston it's going to anywhere we went someone understand that I was uh I would always hang out with my friends at the time we would just gather up at my one friend's apartment and uh you know we all would smoke but I'd be the only one usually that would drink, right?

1:05:41 And I would just be on bullsh [bleep] all the time and I just eventually develop a reputation of somebody being unpredictable. I remember joking around with the cat one time just, you know, not I'm not actually going to be aggressive with the cat, but like I was, you know, jokingly a aggressive with the cat. And one of the guys was like, "What the [bleep] Chill out, man." I'm like, "Dude, I'm not going to do anything to the [bleep] cat." But because I'm always drunk and [bleep] like that and I joke around in such ways, these [bleep] don't know. You know what I'm saying? And I had to like I had to like think to myself like Jesus Christ. Like this this is really how people view me. They have no because when you're a wild card, people would have no idea what you're capable. Oh yeah. And that's like I look back at some of the stupid [bleep] like I would be unpredictable with my really close friends. We'd be like wrestling around like when this is probably like 8th, ninth grade, my [snorts] poor buddy Micah got the brunt of a lot of that [bleep] We'd be wrestling around. I just [bleep] turn [bleep] beat the piss out of him for no reason. Like I put his braces into his lip where he had to pull his lip down and pull him out.

1:06:48 Oh my god. just because we were just wrestling around and like my buddy Bill used to call me the roid ranger back [clears throat] in the days cuz he's like you just lose you just [bleep] go off and I'm like like I don't like not like I knew what the [bleep] I was doing like back then and then it transitioned into like again we would be at a bar. I wouldn't pick the fight, but if I seen a guy treating a girl like an like, you know, or somebody being an [bleep] to somebody, I would just [bleep] go up and [bleep] beat the [bleep] out of them. Wow. And then that transition over like that just ended up we could be talking and somebody would [bleep] come over and just start [bleep] running their mouth and again I don't like talking. Like I think that's in my mind it's just a big like that's what [bleep] do. We're just going to jawjack back and forth and it's not me. I like you're not going to that was never me like and I just haul off and punch you or take your butt. My my my move was to take my hand on the side of your neck and then sweep you and just throw you on the ground. And that was a humility thing to a lot of people and 98% of them didn't get back up and do anything. But um a couple of them would throw a couple punches and it was just like but again like I thought that was cool back in the early 2000s and as I got older I'm like this is just [bleep] stupid. Like it's funny you bring up the talking thing, the going back and forth thing cuz I I I I'll meet a lot of I I know a few people was like I don't do the back and forth. We either going to fight or you're going to shut up. And then I I look at it I look at these individuals and I'm like you say you don't do the back and forth but you do [bleep] that causes a back and forth. Yep.

1:08:31 So what the [bleep] would it be talking you know what I mean? Just or just like people who say like they don't like confrontation they generally do [bleep] that causes confrontation. So I'm like I don't know. It's just it's just an interesting contradiction. You know what I mean? like, "Yeah, I want to do this, but I don't want to deal with the result of it." You know what I mean? I I'll tell you a quick story. I was at a party and this kid was stealing CDs. Okay? The two dudes are basically having the party or watching this kid stealing CDs. Now, these two dudes are supposed to be tough guys. They know my reputation. So, there's like, "Hey, the kid, his name is Joe, I believe. He's like, "He's he just stole the candle box CD." And I'm like, "Oh, really?" He's like, "Yeah." I'm like, "All right, we'll do something." Well, won't you go grab him? Okay. I walk over and he's sitting there and I grab his jacket, reach in like, "Huh? You got a candle box, huh?" Yeah.

1:09:37 I bring I bring that with me when I go to parties. And I'm like, "No, we they just watch you [bleep] steal it." No, I didn't steal it. I swear to God. So I go, "All right. So if I go grab I go grab the [bleep] the case." I go, "So I'm going to go open that. The case going to be in there, right? Or it's going to be in the case, right?" Yeah. Well, it's not in there. So I turn back to them guys. It's not in there, guys. This time I'm being an [bleep] So okay, [sighs] grab him by the [bleep] coat, bring him outside, throw him on the ground. He gets up, starts to [bleep] throw at me. I throw him [bleep] back down on the ground. Gets back up. I punch him once. [bleep] crumbles in between him. Like then I end up leaving the party and getting in a fight with one of my friends cuz I'm just I'm already amped up at that point. And then the next day I have this realization. I'm like these guys are supposed to be the [bleep] tough guys but they [bleep] asked me to do their dirty work for him. So like now I'm pissed. Like I just beat up this dude that didn't really need to give they could have done their own work for them. And now I'm like thinking is like is that what I'm going to be known for?

1:10:39 like I don't I don't do it. Jacob [bleep] do it. That happened a couple more times where people would start fights and then look over at me like you ready. And I'm like for what? Well, what you call it was running his mouth and now he can't he's going to get his ass kicked. I'm like oh Jesus Christ. So now I'm in a fight again. But but the thing the thing is is like you develop this you develop this reputation and you think it's cool but eventually like you become a jester of sorts. Yes. You know what I mean? And yeah, I mean, I dealt with it myself, you know what I mean? Being a being a drunkard and everything and just I my my self-esteem was so low that I masked that by being the class clown in school and it and it translated into being the entertainment factor around my friends at the time. Yep. And you know, it's cool at first, but then people look at you like, "Yo, make me laugh or whatever the case may be." You know what I'm saying? And yeah, you know what I I mean, you're the tough guy. People want to, you know, people talk their [bleep] or they do this or that.

1:11:41 Like, I don't got to deal with it. Yo, Jake, go deal with that [bleep] You know what I mean? It's like, dude, what the the [bleep] You know what I'm saying? But it's like, you don't break the bottle over your head. Walk across that. Yeah. You know what I mean? You don't you don't realize that like, you know what I mean? You put yourself in these in these position. It's like, dude, like you you created the circus that you're the main attraction in, but you don't even [bleep] realize what you've done. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? That [bleep] is wild. Yep. And I it's transferred over to where confrontation is basically like zen to me. It's very calming. Like if something goes down, I'm so calm where it's it's like second nature. I don't know if it's because of the way I I'm I'm comfortable and I I know I can protect myself if I have to, but me and my buddy Leo went to Vapor Nightclub one night. A fight breaks out. before I even know what's going on. I've already handed him my drink. I'm in the middle of it breaking it up. So, I went from the guy who's in the fights now. Now, I'm breaking up with the fights. And I've done that multiple times. Mhm.

1:12:46 But I'm so calm and it's so relaxing to me that it always afterwards I'm like like this is where like I wish I was calm back in the day when this stuff was going on because then I would have broke up the fight instead of being in it. So it's like everything comes full circle and it's like I look at a lot of things coming for a slow curve. I started you know I started writing when I was in basically seventh eighth grade that comes full circle. The fighting came full circle. We actually made some money out of you know out of doing it. Um and now it's just like what is the next step? Writing's great, but I want to have even if I do it once, just one speaking engagement where I can explain again talk about my backstory, go in depth like in writing how therapeutic it can be. Most people are afraid to put it out into the world. But I think once I did that and felt like the humility that it could have been and how well it gets received and how it can change people is just like I don't give a [bleep] if I made a million dollars on it wouldn't matter like if somebody and it has come up to me and said you know this one really really really hit me that really changed things and I read it over and over and like I understand it and that's changed me. Like that's more than money could ever buy. And that's, you know, if one one of my poems or one line from [bleep] something I did radiates for the rest of [bleep] eternity, that's the coolest thing on the [bleep] planet to me. Yeah, absolutely.

1:14:31 Like having my book available in multiple languages still blows my mind. Like I could Google it and it comes up in this weird language and I'm like, "Holy shit." Like I've sold a book in not Zire begins with a Z not New Zealand not like but I've sold Zimbabwe over something like that. Interesting. That was my first book because it's available all over the world. That's what's up. It comes up in my thing and begins with a Z. It might not be zero way, but like I think that's like somebody around the world without, you know, without the the internet explaining it to them. They have a book in their hand instead of reading it online. That's what's up, man. God damn. I love that, bro. Which which version of yourself did you have to grieve before you could become the man you are today? Probably the the MMA guy, the tough I say even tough, just the guy that my whole identity was built around being like the coach, the MMA fighter.

1:15:54 Because my identity at the end of the day is dad. I was going to say, yeah, cuz you're a girl dad, right? I'm a girl dad. Yeah. Yeah. I have a, you know, my flesh and blood daughter's 17, my stepdaughter is 19. Then my stepson is 16. But once I became a dad, I didn't I had a couple fights scheduled after Sage was born, but they never panned out. I think I had like six or seven, maybe even more. It just didn't pan out. I get injured. Opponent got injured. Couldn't couldn't train enough. But I think that the way it was supposed to happen because my last fight I got such a bad concussion, broke my nose, broke it and came out here. This was all like Sage was only a couple months old. And uh I came with I fought in Burlington, stayed in Plattsburg, took the uh ferry across. They kept passing out on the way back over which was wasn't good. I ate a knee is what broke my nose.

1:17:02 Um guy beat me who everybody pegged me to beat and that's the only time I've been overconfident and I hate getting beat. Uh I trained a lot by myself in that fight though. Like I didn't have a lot of training partners. I cut weight by myself. um a lot of factors that contributed to it, but I think it was being not cocky, but even before the fight, everybody's coming in, got this one wrapped up, Jay, this is going to be easy fight. Yeah, no, no problem. I get out there and [bleep] went his way. But I'm actually good friends with the guy still. But oh man, but now overconfidence, he'll he'll do that. There there have been been times where I've gone into situations overconfident and and and was very surprised by that result, but that [bleep] but everything happens for a reason. It need you need to be you need to be humbled, man. You know, and I and I welcome that type of stuff. It's like I've again like I always went into fighting. I didn't give a [bleep] if I won or lost. And I always told my fighters and the people I train, don't worry about winning and losing. Experience it. Enjoy it. It's not the end of the world if you lose. And I've seen guys like totally get destroyed by losing. And I'm like, I just love to to have that experience. Like I got to fight in front of almost 2,000 people my second fight or my it might have been my first one anyway. Like 99% of the people can't say that. If I won it, I lost. It doesn't matter. like that experience. You never it's not ever like nobody ever wakes up or you know is born into I'm going to have this experience and this is going to happen. Like I I relished in it and I never gave a [bleep] if I won or lost because I wanted the experience. I

1:18:49 wanted to be you know be able to tell myself that I did it. Challenge myself and if I won I won. If I lost I lost. Never we got two losses and never cried about it. Never got mad about it. Never never even had like a real second thought of [bleep] I would have should have done that. Okay, it's over. Can't run back and you know do it. Like my first fight was at 185 lbs. I walked around at like 172. Legitimately put the weights that go around your ankles while you run. I put them in my jock to weigh so I wasn't enough away from him. Okay. And end up fighting him. He was 6'4. You know, I'm 5'6. They actually made, you know, them inspirational posters. They did a mockup of one of them and says, "Usually distance is measured in inches, not feet." And it's like, "He's up here and I'm down here." I thought it was the funniest thing in the world. People are like mad about it. I'm like, "Okay, he beat me. I don't give a [bleep] We're friends." Like, yeah, but you're going to go back into like my identity is dad like for a long time like even after Sage was born like I was the MMA guy but the last you know the last six probably close to 10 years it's like I want to be dad like I want everything I want everything to be dad like I enjoy going here like I'm going to miss not going to wrestling practice here or wrestling meets for whether or, you know, helping her pick out, you know, a dress for this or go to that.

1:20:28 Like, I'm I'm having a real [bleep] hard time with that. Like, that's that's like stuff I didn't get to do. Or, you know, my dad went to all my football games, but my mother didn't. Um, again, that's why I said like if I'm going to be a dad, I'm going to I want like we've gone on I can't even count how many vacations we've gone on, right? Yes. Just to have that experience. And I I told her I said, "Do you realize that a lot of that most of them times we were experiencing that together?" Mhm. I hadn't experienced it before you. We were doing that together. Yeah. Like I brought her to We did a solo trip to Florida, me and her one year, drove my car down, ended up getting there. They gave my hotel room away for the week. uh slept in my car in the parking lot of another hotel and the lady said pull up close to the the uh the office just in case. So I'm like, "Oh [bleep] what the [bleep] going to happen?" She thought that was the greatest thing in the world. She used to love stopping and sleeping at like rest stops on the way down just I like being in the car, dad. Legit blah blah like I didn't get that when I was growing up. So like again that there was a lot of first for her or a lot of first for me. There's that old saying of I was you were you're experiencing being a daughter. I'm experiencing you being a daughter as you're experiencing me being a dad at the same time. I wasn't a dad before you weren't. You know what I mean? Wow. That type of thing.

1:22:00 So, just being dad and even being a dad to, you know, my stepkids is good. Like, um, stepdaughter's doing great things. My stepson, I haven't seen him in a little while. He's got a full-time job at Pizza Place. Sage is just being a, you know, typical 17-year-old kid, you know, trying to figure out her place in the world, trying to figure out what she's going to do next year after she graduates. Um, other than that, like that is that is it for me, man. Like, if I like my uh my whole life, I I think I always wanted to be a dad. Like, just because I didn't get the dad thing that I always wanted and I knew my dad didn't have a good relationship with his dad growing up. So, even before I ever had kids and like I was always good with everybody else's kid, like you're going to make a good dad someday. I'm like, I can't wait.

1:23:00 Then when she came, man, like even when my her mom was pregnant, I talked to her and sing to her in her belly and like I got to hold her cuz my her mother had pre-clmpsy and toxmia. So, she was born a month premature. She almost died. her like they ended up taking her. Um Blair was [bleep] really in like really bad sorts. They bring her back. Blair's got to, you know, rest and like every 15 minutes she had to move so she had blood clots. So Sad's spent the majority on my chest sleeping that night. Um, but that's the being a dad's probably the I always say it's the greatest achievement. Best thing I'll ever do in my life. Yeah. Being her dad. That's what's up, man. I love dad. What is the darkest part of yourself that you've had to learn to face without allowing it to control you?

1:24:05 That's a good one. try to the darkest probably going back to the the violet the violet me back in the day. Mhm. cuz it bubbles up underneath sometimes, you know, like road rage or wanting to flip out here. But I've done a really, really, really good job of controlling stuff the last, you know, 20 years of my life, whereas before, like I said, I was like, not unpredictable, but I just didn't I was I didn't take [bleep] Like some said it was a good thing, some said it was a bad thing. And now I look back again, it's like I'm not ashamed, but I just shake my head and go, "What the fuck?" 30 years, not even 20 20 and 30 years.

1:25:10 But going back to the the violent guy or the guy who would like my one of my dad's best friends had the best saying in the on the planet and I like it was me at 2. It's like I never uh was it I never never looked for a fight but or no I wouldn't drop at I wouldn't fight I wouldn't fight at the drop of a hat but I' sometimes I'd be the be the uh guy throwing the hat. I wouldn't fight at the drop of the hat. But sometimes I'd be the guy throwing throwing the hat. [laughter] Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. I never I never be the guy to fight at the drop of a hat, but sometimes I'd be the one to throw that hat. Yeah. Like, yeah, that's that was me. That's funny. Oh my god. I my like, you know, hindsight's always 2020, but I got out of them some of them situations like again, I could have killed somebody. I could have been killed myself. Like I could have been in jail cuz there's a couple like if cell phones were still like back then, dude, they It's like there was a couple like really bad ones.

1:26:24 Like when I beat the [bleep] out of that kid after beating up my buddy, that was a bad one. They were going to go back and get the whole town of Granville to come back and fight us. There was only like seven of us. Wow. Um I got in a fight with my buddy who owns a pizza place. We're at a bar that's no longer in existence, but bunch of college kids in there. I'm talking to this girl. They ended up coming over and talking to her and then I just [bleep] grabbed one of the dudes that thing right off the bar stool. They all jumped me. Of course, I'm in the bottom of the pile. [bleep] like three, four guys punching me and [bleep] Joe's got to get into it. People that like weren't even my friends are helping me. And then we get out and Joe's like, "Jesus Christ, she wasn't even into you." I'm like, "Yeah, okay." But looking back, I'm like, "If I was by myself, how would that have turned out?" Or why even like like stupid [bleep] like that? I just again, I'm not ashamed, but that was my identity. And that's where I just like shake my head and go.

1:27:36 you you have this underlying empathy of things, but then you're always in these violent situations almost every weekend of your life for a good seven years. It just like where would I have been if I channeled that stuff back then? I could have took my writing and done something with it then or got into MMA a little because MMA was still in the infant stage back in late 90s. But once I turned, like I said, once I got into MMA and like you can't hide from that, you can't pretend you're anything but you're either going to get drasticked, you're going to learn. Like my trainer who trained me was a professional kickboxer at one point is ranked like eighth in the world. And his training method was tough love. He beat the living [bleep] out of you. Like there was no if ends or butts. He he beat me really really good. That was a humbling experience. And then, you know, I remember Joe Rogan in an interview when he was talking to somebody was like kickboxing. They would just like have like a [bleep] carpet and they just like beat the [bleep] out of each other and just the way he described it just sounds so [bleep] rugged. I'm like, "Oh my god." Yeah. Yeah. He uh about two weeks out from my first fight, he broke my nose.

1:29:02 About a month before that, he separated my rib. Now, mind you, we're in the middle of He had a little boxing ring set up in his basement. Wasn't even a ring. It was like bail and twine and he had corners and no mat on the floor except like a like a throw rug type [bleep] Yeah. So he separates my rib in the first round and we're doing three rounds sparring. He makes me finish the next two rounds. I can't barely breathe. My rib is like popped out and my training partner at the time is just I remember him in the corner just going, "Oh my god." He's like, "Come on, man. If you're going to do this, you got to push through this type of pain." And I'm like, "Okay." So I end up that heals up in about h maybe maybe a little over a month. Then he breaks my nose and I got a fight in two weeks. So I hid the broken nose. Did best I could. I come home the night he breaks my nose. It's the only time I've only been I've almost been knocked unconscious in and doing that. He kicks me now. We never sparred with sneakers on that night. We decided we were going to for some reason. He kicks me, breaks my nose. I come home. I [bleep] you not. Sage's mother. I walked through the door and she's like, "What the fuck?" And I go, "What?" She's like, "You have a sneaker imprint purple in your forehead." And I went, "Swear to God, [bleep] it." Look, I got the sneaker imprint and my nose is all [bleep] [bleep] up.

1:30:30 What kind of sneaker was it? I don't remember. But probably New Balance cuz he was the old dad. Oh my god. Yep, dude. Holy [bleep] I remember going to the bathroom, sitting back down on the the in the chair, and she's like, "What the [bleep] were you guys doing?" I'm like, "We didn't we never spar with sneakers on." And he did. What happened was he I thought he was going to throw a roundhouse. And when or no, I thought he was going to throw a kick coming at me to the stomach. So, I went like this and brought my guard down and he come up over the top of the roundhouse and caught me in the face. I went all black, couldn't see nothing. And I hear basically sounds like a faucet and that's my nose. I'm [bleep] gushing blood. Get my sight back and again there's my buddy, my training partner in the corner going with his eyes wide and going, "Oh my god." So we get in the car and he's like, "Are you okay?" I'm like, "Yeah, I'm fine." I drop him off and then I go home. But yeah, it was an experience and that's tough love. Like and that's the way he trained people. He was the awesomest guy on the planet.

1:31:38 But when he trained you, it was like he turned like visceral like you're going to learn the way I did. I'm gonna beat the living [bleep] out of you and you have to escape that. He's like cuz if you can do this, whatever happens in the fight is going to be easy to you. And that's the way he trained us. And I always said I would never train my guys the way he did. I would take some of the things where like his training method is like do a thousand Hindu squats or you know not a thousand like a hundred or do this multiple times or do this and do that to where your cardio is your most your biggest mega weapon because a lot of people get gas in fights. That's a fact. Yeah. And uh when we would again when we spar you'd be deliver [bleep] out of you. So when I was teaching, I would like bring it like maybe 40% of what he did because and I'm having flashbacks the whole time going, "All right, I don't want my guys to even have to endure any of the things I said." And then my my buddy who was my training partner end up being my business partner and we opened the gyms and all that together and we would always say like, "You don't want to you don't want the pure check method because Tom would beat the living dog [bleep] out of you." And he would even come in later on when we opened the gym, he would come in and like do like training sessions with us and he'd spar with like the tough the tough guys that thought they were tough.

1:32:58 Mhm. And a couple of them would [bleep] spar with him. Like I don't want to spar with him. Like okay, I I will I guess like but yeah, he like body shots. He like throwing like 100% kicks. And I've had a couple training partners that didn't. Sage is actually a wrestling coach. used to be used to come over and train with me and then he was the wrestling coach at one of my gyms. So it can't come full circle on that. Mhm. Telling her a story. I'm like Steve doesn't have like all right we're going to go 20%. No Steve goes 100%. So Steve is going to give you a judo throw. Guess what? You're getting thrown to the wall or Steve is going to punch you in the face. He's going to punch you 100%. But no half measures. Yeah, there's no half measures. Yeah, getting away from the violence was is something that like if I did it in a percentage, say there's like 15% of me that's still if I have to be I could and I push it down sometimes like my wife would look at me like in road rage like she's like don't worry he they're going to be not in front of us in a minute. You'll go around him. Okay. All right. Yeah, I'm good.

1:34:09 chill out or sage a bit. Dad, chill the [bleep] out. Okay. And it brings me back down to whatever again. But shout out to the man. Goddamn. I love it. I tell you something, only like my wife and I don't know if Sage knows it at all, but there's sometimes where I'll be in like these really bad moods. Yeah. And I'll walk into Walmart. I'll go to Walmart just looking for somebody to start something with me and I know it's not going to happen. And that's the thing is like I'll go like I'll look for somebody like treating their wife like [bleep] or that type of stuff where somebody's just being an allout [bleep] to see if they'll start a confrontation. It never happens but it's just like my way of and I haven't done it in a couple years but just getting I don't know like trying to put myself back in that space to make myself relax. Interesting. I don't even know if that makes sense, but it's I it's I've done it. My wife is like, "You're just [bleep] stupid.

1:35:10 You're just crazy." I mean, thank God. I mean, thank God. I mean, but the reason that it hasn't happened is because it's I clearly it's not supposed to. You know what I'm saying? Oh, god. I mean, but they say, you know what? like you there was a saying that goes like um if you want to go around acting like you're crazy, you're going to meet somebody uh pretending to be sane or some [bleep] like that. Something like that. You know what I mean? You got to be [bleep] care. You got to be but you got to be careful out here, man. You never [bleep] know, man. Oh, yeah. You know, [bleep] go out here crashing out thinking it's cool and they meet somebody like you. Yeah. You go out thinking it was all candy and you come back with a broken nose. Like what the [bleep] dude? It was all good just 20 minutes ago. You know, I had a road rage incident probably 15 16 years ago. I was in for New York heading back to White Hall and this guy kept [bleep] riding my ass like and I'm like freaking what the [bleep] why is this guy riding my ass? Does he think I'm somebody else or something? I mean like and uh so we get to the Ford end red light. Okay.

1:36:23 Jump out of my car, start walking to his car. I mean [bleep] guns it like a good thing nobody's behind him cuz he [bleep] like 25 miles an hour. I'm like what the [bleep] did I do? This [bleep] old guy gets out. He's like, "I didn't know I was." I'm like, "You didn't know you're [bleep] I'm not I'm I mean, we're like that." Wow. And I felt bad cuz the guy's like stuttering like like like you could tell he was like like like felt really bad. And I'm like, "What the [bleep] are you doing?" You're like, "You are almost like 2 inches from my bumper." And like and I like that's a moment I'm like you got two different types of people like ones that don't like I always go to like back to the Walmart thing. You can go to Walmart and some people have no understanding of their surroundings. There's no situational awareness at all. Like somebody will come off an aisle and run into you or like like back into you or just stand in front of you while you're trying to get around them and have no situational awareness whatsoever. But like I had a lady [bleep] run into the back of my Achilles tendon with her cart one day. Like talk about [bleep] almost losing my mind. Say my daughter's done that to me like 800 times. Horrible. Um, but the situational awareness and that guy just that like you could tell he had no awareness of what he was doing until somebody actually [bleep] was screaming at him. And then I felt bad. He gets back in his car. I get back in my car and I'm driving back to White Hog going I'm mad, but I I feel bad for that guy cuz that guy has no clue what the [bleep] he just did. Yeah. Yeah.

1:38:03 But then I'm thinking that guy shouldn't probably be on the road if he doesn't understand that he's like so close to that. Like I mean he was probably in his like 60s but still like I got out wanting to beat the piss out of him. I see him. He gets out of the car and it was like this old older dude. I mean he was bigger than me but I still was like I didn't know. So that type of stuff but [bleep] man. I mean yeah you know. Yeah. I mean maybe hopefully he's you know learned from that situ. That [bleep] sounds [bleep] wild bro. Yeah. But the situation awareness thing is one of my pet peeves. Like especially when I go to like Walmart or a Target like where people don't understand that there's other people around them. Yes. Like you know block the aisle or you know run into your car or like that stuff like I'm always paying attention to everything. Like that's like one of my down [bleep] faults. Like even when I'm driving I'm paying attention to [bleep] everything. And I I handed that down to my daughter too. I said, "You're coming up to a a green light. You look both ways. Slow down a little bit. Still never know." Yeah.

1:39:12 And it's like when I'm walking and it could be like my wife hates this too because of my background in MMA and stuff. I would go into a restaurant and I'll make sure I'm where I could see everybody like the situational awareness thing. Mhm. where you get like I'm always scoping out where the hell I am, where the [bleep] I'm doing. Um, like if the [bleep] goes down, can I if I have to fight, do I that guy's pretty big. What the [bleep] would I do to him or that type of stuff? The last couple years, I don't do it at all. Like I'll sit anywhere now, but when we first got together, it was bad. Like like I'd be scoping out like, "All right, the [bleep] goes down." And then [laughter] I the funny thing is I go to I go to the the Godsmack concert. This is probably like eight years ago with my buddy Jeff. I'm like and it's one of the hottest days ever. I'm in jeans and I'm in boots like he's like why are you wearing [bleep] jeans and boots? I go in case the [bleep] goes down. He goes what [bleep] I go in case a fight breaks out and I got to have my boots on. And he's like we're going to the [bleep] concert and we're sitting up in the bleachers.

1:40:22 like what's going to happen? I'm like I don't know. It's just it's not a paranoia thing. It's just like I want to be ready. There's nothing to be ready for on go mode. I'm Yeah, it go mode is has gone in the last I've been with her four years. Probably last three and a half years it's gone. You'll find a lot of guys are the same way. Like they want to sit where they can see everything and like I have it a little bit where I got I'm always scoping out things and that's just my nature anyway. But I would make sure that all right no we can't sit in that booth or you got to sit over here I got to sit over here and I'm like why I go cuz I got to and then she got into the point where she would get like already had it set up where I would sit so I could see and I'm like but this kid I used to know said uh be ready before you have to be getting ready or some [bleep] like that. Yeah, that's like that you like you like literally exemplified that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but not for nothing, dog. You never know. You never know. You know what I'm saying? That's the The world is an unpredictable place, man.

1:41:27 Um, but all that said brings me into my next question, my friend. Um, has turning your pain into poetry helped you heal, or has it simply taught you how to describe the wound? Helped me heal big time. Fair enough. Totally. totally healed a lot of stuff. Um, I've let go of a lot of a lot of things that used to bother me or a lot of things that I didn't know how to express or I would internalize them so much that I would turn them into something they weren't even close to being. M with writing again a lot of my writing in the beginning was I didn't understand what I was writing and it just there was no forethought. I'm going to write a poem about this. I'm going to write a poem about that. It would just come out and I just put it on paper and then I try to interpret it afterwards and then come to find out you know read it 20 years later and it correlates with what's going on in life now. Truth is timeless. Yes.

1:42:31 Yeah. And I would write and it would just come out. And now I have a little bit more cerebral approach where I think about stuff, but you can go on my phone. I think I have like 5,000 notes where I'm constantly jotting down things or ideas. Um just like the other day, um something sparked my thing where cobwebs and I'm like, you know, we all have cobwebs on certain memories that we forgot till we find them again. that type of stuff. Or co like I was going on cobwebs for a [bleep] hour just you know riffing on that. Um, or sometimes I'll I'll just be driving and be like, what if I took this quote that I've heard before and I go go back to the 4D thing and find like the road behind it and what it means like if you can't see the rest of it and then I'll write my own interpretation of it.

1:43:33 That make sense? or you know um like the Metallica song to live is to die a couple weeks ago. I'm like to live is to die. It's actually an ending to one of my to I I wrote a poem a few years back. It was the first thing I wrote in 10 years. It's called to live and I said the the last the last line was to to live is to die. Yeah. Yeah. And I like I took that and just went like again I in my mind I pictured walking behind it and you know looking around at what are these pieces that make to live is to die as like normal like people that aren't entrenched in like writing they could look at it all right that's just what it means to me I want it to mean it could mean more so I want to like you know discover what's what could be behind it or add to it or that type of stuff. And that's again that's way my mind is just if I'm not thinking about writing.

1:44:39 I play guitar so I'm thinking about a riff of that or like how I could, you know, learn this or that. Like sometimes I really hate or I can't shut it off. But my mind with writing is always looking at something. I could watch a movie and go, "All right, what if I turned this story into into this or I wonder why they wrote that part?" And then I'll like one little line in a movie and I'll be like, "Oh, I could take that and I could write a whole a whole uh you know, quote off of that or I could, you know, try to understand that a little bit." Like it's weird how like it's t it sucks watching movies. It sucks watching certain things because I dissect them so much now. It's like when I first learned how to play guitar and I listen to a song and I don't listen to it the same anymore cuz I'm listening to like, oh, he's playing that that chord and then he's going to go to that chord. How would he get to it? Totally takes me out of the enjoyment sometimes. The cursive intelligence. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

1:45:47 Yep. I gotta I gotta learn to turn that [bleep] because I I'm I'm I'm the same way. I just gota I'm like, "Yo, listen. I love art. I'm not about to sit here and ruin this [bleep] for me. I got to tell myself to just shut the [bleep] up and you know what I'm saying? Sometimes you got to do that, man." Like, you know, but no, I get it, man. I I definitely understand, you know, cuz I'll I'll sit here and listen to some rap songs and I'm like, "Why the [bleep] did he say that?" Like, that's just killer. Yeah. Unnecessary. Like, what the [bleep] And I'm like, dude, it's just just [bleep] Dude, shut the [bleep] up. This song is a bop. Just just vibe. Same here. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. There's no diss. Like, again, going back to listening to guitar. I'm like, just listen to the [bleep] song, man. Yeah. Oh, I could probably play that. No, you don't need to play that. Why do you want to play that? Just [bleep] listen to it and enjoy it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Sage hates it. She I'm like, "Yeah, I think that's a I think he's doing in Is that a G?" She What are you talking about? We're I think it was Leonard Skinning. She's like, "What are you talking about?" And I'm like, "I think that's a G." What do you mean? What?

1:46:52 Shut up. Okay, I'm shut up. [laughter] Which reminds me, uh, getting back into some of the some of the pieces you wrote. Uh, you said some other things that really stuck out to me. Um, page nine. Um, every time you lied to me, I wish you could have told the truth so maybe I could too. And I was just curious like to whom was that in reference? X. An ex. Every time she lied to me, I wish I could too. Saying, I wish I could lie as much as you, basically. Okay. Yeah, that [bleep] cuz I I mean it made it just it automatically like brought me to like some like parental [bleep] You know what I'm saying? I'm I'm like cuz you know you can go so many different you know what I mean? That was that was I could pinpoint exactly when I wrote it. Like I it was thinking that somebody's telling you the truth and all she's just doing is lying and then me going well I wish I could just lie just like you.

1:47:52 Yeah. But I tell the truth and that's the I guess that's my downfall because you know I thought your truth was truth but it was actually lies. Lies. So I'm buying your [bleep] and I guess I should have just gave it right back to you. But I don't I can't do that. Like that's my again like some say I'm too I'm too truthful. I'm too honest. That'd be my wife sometimes. I need to shut up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Same. Same. It's it's a gift and a curse. But I'd rather you not [bleep] with me because um I'd rather you not [bleep] with me based on the truth than rock with me based on a lie. Mhm. You know what I mean? That I'm comfortable with because then the imposter syndrome is going to come out anyway. I'm like, listen, I'm not who the [bleep] you think I am. I just not comfortable in that situation. That's actually one of my quotes. The truth only hurts when you don't want to believe it. That's another one that hit me yesterday. It made me I'm in Blaze Pizza. Yeah. reading this [bleep] and I'm like [bleep] like uh I'm dude I'm tired as hell cuz it's been a week like two videos went viral. I got all this [bleep] coming up, man. Everybody's talking to me. I got [bleep] for my full-time job.

1:48:58 I'm constantly editing videos and [bleep] and I'm just finally I had two interviews back toback yesterday. So, I'm chilling and I'm getting some food cuz I'm starving and I'm reading this [bleep] and it's the truth only hurts when you uh when say that again. Truth only hurts when you don't want to believe it. It brought me back to to some [bleep] and I remember when I was in Vegas and I was talking [bleep] to the friend of mine and I got into an argument. A [bleep] said some [bleep] to me. I had Blaze Pizza at the time, bro. I couldn't even finish I couldn't even finish the pizza. You know what I mean? I'm like, "Yo, my god." You know, but that bro it it it you know that [bleep] will make your heart fall to your [bleep] You know, [laughter] I'm like, "Yo, Jay is out here [bleep] preaching." Yeah. One one of my favorite quotes is, "Success whispers as failure screams. It's all in how you listen." Uhhuh. And it that was that was one that I was just [bleep] driving. I just I legitimately [bleep] pull over and put it into my notes. I can't forget that one cuz that's like beautiful.

1:50:03 And I when I told my buddy Joe who owns a dispensary, he's like, "That's one I'd like to put like on the wall." Yeah. That way you look at it and cuz it's the truth. Like certain people, you know, there's success this little whisper and then when you [bleep] you know, you're losing or you, you know, you're unsuccessful, it's screaming. Failures are screaming like failures. People are you look he failed. Nobody's screaming your success that you know the people that you want maybe, but nobody's [bleep] running around going, "Yeah, look how good he did." In today's society, it's everybody's like his book [bleep] didn't sell or know he ain't doing [bleep] with his life. Like them are the people that are so like so uncomfortable with their own life that they have to make this whole charade and then they look at other people's lives that are actually successful and try to find every little anything any little thing to nitpick or pull down and when they can't they throw a laughing emoji on it. Yeah, I I've I've been on both sides of that [bleep] you know what I mean? I hated that version of myself, but it's a version of myself that I had to accept in order to heal from, right? You know what I mean?

1:51:13 Um, misery loves company, man. And you and you'll look for it in the strangest [bleep] places, dude. And uh it'll make you turn on some really good people. You know what I mean? If you really allow your demons to, you know, lead the dance. I mean, I don't give a [bleep] how good you are at dancing. You dance with the devil, you're never taking the lead. You know what I mean? Some people are only happy being unhappy. I was talking I I was having a conversation. We So, I've been conducting a lot of interviews at the New Hope Recovery Center. I I I I love the people there and I really wanted their stories cuz I've been in that situation with addiction and [bleep] And uh I was talking to one of them and it's like after a while when you're addicted to whatever drug, it's not even a drug that you're addicted to. It's the [bleep] chaos. And you get to a point where you finally come to a place of peace and it's so uncomfortable. It's like, "Oh, no, no, no. I got to I got to get back into this shit." You know what I'm saying? I remember thinking that one time. I was coming out of a wild depression. It was after my pops died.

1:52:20 And uh I mean at this point I'm like I'm suicidal. I'm homicidal. I'm I'm I'm nuts, right? And I remember I came to a place of peace and I was like, "Oh no, no, no. This isn't what I need." You know what I'm saying? So I'm think I'm like I got to go right back. I got I think I got a four loco. You know what I'm saying? And [laughter] I'm just like, how do I throw myself back into the mud, you know? Um but you know, it's it's but it's that it's that insanity, man. It's nuts, bro. But, you know, you you have to understand why. You have to examine that. You got to put that [bleep] under a microscope. And a lot of people don't want to they don't want to understand the why. They just want to go about whatever they're doing. I I always look at the the mentality, and I've looked at this most of my life, believe it or not. I never wanted to become the robot. I didn't want to go to a job, be the robot, come home, do the same thing every day for the rest of my life. Yeah. And I've never done that in a sense, but I've always kept my anonymity mostly where I never I like I always looked at people and I just like not in a bad way, but I don't I'm like I can't do that. Like there's something in me that doesn't allow that. Like, and that's where like all this, you know, [bleep] flows out of me. And I wouldn't be able to do that if I was trapped into some robot job like going to do this and do this and do this and the same thing every [bleep] day of your life. And then you look back and you're like my dad or you know like my grandfather 50 years, he had amazing experiences, but he missed a lot of his kids' lives doing that. And I always said when I had a kid, I didn't want to miss a [bleep]

1:54:09 moment, nothing. And I'd done pretty good at that, not missing like like the milestones and [bleep] And she knows it. You said something else. You lie to yourself out of fear. I lie to myself out of love. Explain that to me. I think a lot of people lie to themselves thinking they can't do something out of fear. I back when I was writing that I was lying to myself out of love because I kept myself trapped in this like I told like a stupid situation looking back at it now and I kept lying to myself know that thinking I'm in love but I wasn't like I was in love with the fact that I was doing something shouldn't be doing first and foremost. Okay. She was li she was lying to herself out of fear because one, she didn't want to let me down. Two, she didn't want everybody else knowing even though everybody did.

1:55:18 And then it just put this whole huge like when I tell you it was like such a [bleep] up thing. It was just like there was so many lies to try to cover up to not hurt this person's feeling, not to hurt that person's feeling. And she's in the middle of it. And at that time, I didn't understand. I was just like, well, why don't I? But I was in love with the situation more than I thought. I was in love with a person because there's this feeling of getting away with something that you shouldn't be getting away with. And then you get away with it. And then you're in then you just there's a realization moment after it's all over going there was a lot of people's lives involved here that shouldn't have been involved and I'm going what the [bleep] are you doing? You've done this a couple times now. Don't do this like again. You've fell in love with this rush of doing something you shouldn't be doing and then after it wears off you go that's why these [bleep] that's that's that's that but that's oh god it's the it's the forbidden fruit is the 100% Yep.

1:56:26 Yeah. It makes me wonder exactly how that apple tasted to Eve, [laughter] you know, because I I think about that [bleep] all the time. Like it's the these chicks that like I shouldn't have been [bleep] with that. It that [bleep] just felt so good. Or it's like when you're when you're drinking or you're doing this or doing that, it feels so incredible because you know you shouldn't be doing Oh my god. Like I've done that way too many times. But then when you're in the when you're in it, you're you don't think you're the bad guy. And then when you're out of it, you're like, "Holy shit." Like I'm a I'm a piece of [bleep] Like I there was times where I was just like put my head down. I'm like, "I can't imagine how other people perceive this." And then of course like small towns are they forget it you know the next week but you can't just because you know I had to tell myself like I beat myself up about these things I did and I'm like bro like yeah in the moment people will be talking about that [bleep] but next week next month man that [bleep] is ain't nobody talking about somebody else.

1:57:29 Yeah. Ain't nobody going to remember it until you bring it up. You know what I'm saying? Like nobody's that important. You know what I'm saying? But it's like but it's like you know like we're we are our favorite topic. Yep. You know what I'm saying? So when you're mine that front page headline is that's just exists in perpetuity. Oh yeah. You know what I'm saying? So it's nice to be able cuz I know everybody goes through this but everybody doesn't want to talk about it. Oh yeah. So it's nice to have that reassurance with people especially with somebody such as yourself that's that's far more seasoned than I. You know what I mean? I think a lot of people do the they layer it to the bot. They just keep pushing it to the bottom and layer upon layer upon layer. So if they don't talk about it, it doesn't exist. Yeah. But certain people just can't put it in your back pocket and think about it other times where I dwelled on it, wrote a book about it and basically, you know, exercised the demons that way. got everything out where, you know, I poured it out, put it out into the universe, still felt guilty, but got them feelings out as opposed to lashing out and getting in fights or doing something stupid.

1:58:47 I learned to just you put it on page, you become naked to the world with your feelings. You can't hide behind them because you they're right there. Like I can freely say like you could bring up one and I could be like, "Yeah, I remember what that correlated to and why I wrote it because that's my thoughts and my feelings on paper for everybody to read." And another one I found really interesting, page 30, we eventually realize we keep falling in love with ghosts. What's that one? We keep falling in love with the with the people we think they are. The idea the idea of what we started out as and it just slowly dies and then you're just left with you know it started out as the memory of ghost and then I changed it. Um, but she just I think a lot of us do that even with relationships that we still might think are like, you know, on good terms like with friends or whatever, we're still we still look at it as the old relationship when a lot of that person is probably lost or gone and become a ghost. Yeah, I looked at it as, you know, the person that I started out this journey, stupid journey with was um and it's not all about that ex, but that person that I thought and eventually the more lying and the more stuff happened, that person just became a ghost.

2:00:26 It just be that was the person I thought you was and now it's just you've died and become this this ghost. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. No. And and and unfortunately, you become com you become comfortable with that illusion. Oh, yeah. And that and that desire for it to be what it was. And that comfort overrides your awareness. And and that's the part about relationships, too. When when people break up and things go bad and you go your separate ways, the beginning when you don't want it to end, it's not so much you're in love with that person. You're in love with the whole world as of the things you did, your habits. You're comfortable with sitting on the couch and that you know that's going away and you don't even really think about it or the family unit or that. You don't want that to end. Some relationships where there's no love and affection, but they break up and it's the end of the world. We're like, "Well, you didn't love her anymore." Yeah, but it's just it's so familiar. I don't want that familiarity to leave. I think that's where a lot of people get hung up and stick like stay in these relationships. And I've been there.

2:01:42 Same. You know, like we get hung up on the familiarity and we might even not even give a [bleep] about the person the way we did when we first got into it. And then, you know, it's like, do I really want to put do I really want to step into the unknown of what life is outside of this situation? Do I really want to think about having to Yeah. We're afraid to rebuild. We're afraid to We're afraid to jump back in to another Yeah, man. another Well, I got to do this again. and I got to do that again. But it's just easier to stay here. We do it with jobs, too. Yeah, bro. Yeah. No, it's real. You know what I mean? You got to you got to you got to you got to be willing to throw yourself into the unknown, man. But change is change is scary. And so often it's a fourletter word. It's not always good. Nope. You know what I'm saying? At least not initially. And that's where we go back to everybody wants to be comfortable. They a lot of people don't want their their feathers ruffled. They don't want their day [bleep] up. They don't want to have to think beyond five inches in front of them.

2:02:52 That [bleep] is that [bleep] is crazy. You know what I'm saying? And I don't think anybody nobody wants that. But the key is just the key is just being open to it. Being willing to walk through the flame. Yep. You know what I'm saying? That's the key. But um my last question to you on a wrap up, my friend. Um who are you becoming now that survival no longer has to define your identity? Becoming now was just somebody that I'm not I've about a year and a half ago, I just stopped worrying about outcomes. I'm not I'm not hanging up on outcomes anymore. Whatever happens happens. And if I can't change it, I'm not going to spend this huge exorbitant amount of energy to try to sway it back my way. Wherever things are leading is that's where they're supposed to lead. And if they don't lead there, then there's a different way to go. When a lot of the times I would try to hold on to it or control it, now I'm I'm just not attached to outcomes. And it's changed my whole view on life big time.

2:04:06 Um, I just like I'll come up with a fake scenario. Say I'm hired to do a promoting job and everything's going great. I think it's heading somewhere. We're going to do big business, blah blah blah blah. Out of nowhere, somebody comes up and says, "Hey, it's really not working out." I don't even need an answer. Okay, I know that's not the end of the world. I know I'm going to go do I go do something else. I I don't want to to be so caught up on an outcome of where this is going. And I've had this huge [bleep] problem of not enjoying the journey like I should. I'm always nitpicking and worrying about this or worrying about that that it kind of deludes the excitement in a lot. Like the first book when I wrote it, dude, like I was such in a bad mood the day before. Like I was like the girl I was seeing at the time, I was just pissy towards her and like because I was so scared like tomorrow this book comes out. I got this many pre-orders. This is going to happen and I'm going to be naked in front of the world. These are all my thoughts. How are people going to perceive it? Are they going to laugh at me? Are they going to do this? Can I do that?

2:05:26 That I didn't get to chance to enjoy it like the night before should have been like we all went out to dinner. We're all supposed to be having a good time and I'm over there [bleep] pissy when I should have just went whatever happens tomorrow happens. And after I got released, guess what? It's successful and everybody's, you know, doing this and doing that. I just let go of all right. Okay. and that it's progressively got to within the last couple the last three books maybe four where it's like how were they come out and how were they perceived or received I'm cool with that. I don't have any I'm I'm not I'm not going to be like sitting on my couch checking social media or like checking my sales worrying about how things are going to turn out. Like we have had hiccups with my wife where I was so worried about blah blah blah blah and then one day again I changed like wasn't I'm not and I'm not so attached to whatever the [bleep] going to happen here. Like if we had to do this or we had to go this way or this way, okay, I'm going to be all right at the end of the day. If I know my daughter loves me and everything's [bleep] cool in the world, I don't give a [bleep] about the the rest.

2:06:48 Vanilla Ice had a quote. You might have heard this, you might not have. I have my wife, my friends, my kids, and my close family. The rest of it is just entertainment. Yeah. The rest of your life is just entertainment. And I've always loved that quote. Like, and if you think about it again, like there isn't anything that's going to I go back to after being punched in the face, what else is going to happen to my life that's going to be like I have to totally change the inside to match the outside? And I won't I can't do that. Like I don't want outcomes to be ruling things. Like I don't want to wake up again another quote is I don't want to wake up today already hating tomorrow. Mhm. And that's how I came up with that one. Like like every everything like I'm finding like the last couple books, everything fits into where my life is and where I'm trying to like the grief book. This one. Yeah.

2:07:51 Like that was written in conversation with me and one of my best friends, Justin. He's lost he lost two friends growing up in high school in really bad ways. I lost one, too. And I had always these grief quotes already written out. And then after we talked, I wrote even more. And that came out last year almost about almost a year ago. Mhm. And I've helped quite a few people with that one, too. So Oh, man. Dude, I was going to ask you to sign this [laughter] [bleep] too, man. Of course, man. I already did it. Oh my god, dude. Thank you. But yeah, going back to everything I I'm not attached to outcomes anymore. And I it's made this freeing non-anxiety feeling that I used to have. And and I think taking my writings now and turning to more like I want to go down the fiction rabbit hole a little bit more. Like even with this this new book, I put some things in there so I could write a sequel and nobody would even like after like cuz it's the way you read it. you read it and then you're going to see things or read things then you're going to go back and go read it a day again and go holy [bleep] he put that in there and that like I wanted to write something like might Shyamalan and I [bleep] busted my ass and I did it in that like as opposed to like the dad clock being my my greatest writing for my daughter like that [bleep] welcome home thing having my one of my best friends John Howard Bigalow died when I was in high I got hit by a train. Having him as one of the characters, a couple of the stories that are real life that I put in there to have him be a part of it, like I get goosebumps thinking about it. Um, and to rewrite it five times, like that's the way it was meant to be because I I look back at

2:09:41 some of the first drafts and it wasn't even close to what it is now. So, going forward writing wise, I I want to do more fiction, but I already have a fight quotes book that's done that I've shelved. I finished back in [bleep] July, end of July. I'm going to release that probably maybe a little bit before Christmas. But after that, I'm going to go back into the fiction thing cuz that it's a learning experience. I like that whole mind thing like I got to think of like I can create this. Oh [bleep] With this stuff, it's different because I'm creating it out of feeling and emotion that I want other people to feel comfortable with. With fiction, you can create a whole world and go wherever the [bleep] you want. And that creatively, like I needed something to do after th this book and the and the flight quotes one because that [bleep] comes easy to me. Like I don't have to think about that. Just it flows. Like my website, you should have a website where people you ask you to write quotes or like stuff for the wedding and you cuz like I can hammer them out. No problem.

2:10:50 You ask give me a topic and I'm I could have it done in [bleep] five minutes. With the fiction, it's just more cerebral. I got to approach and like this character can do that, but I got to like you can make them go this way. Like it's your own little world. you can populate and depopulate and you know add this to it and like it's so cool to me like that welcome home book like I've listened to it back with Bert Reynolds doing the or doing the uh the uh audiobook two times now and I've started to read it back but like that's part that's the problem like you write something you already read it 58 [bleep] times like with these books I want to keep them away from myself for a little bit then I'm going to dive back in and read them again and like relive certain moments which I think is cool too. But again, back to the fiction is just like that whole that's what gets me excited like fighting and watching the UFC and going to fights being part of that doing commentary postfight you know interviews and all that [bleep] like I've been doing it for almost 20 years so it's just like it's second nature it it's it's gotten mundane. has gotten to where it's like the UFC's kind of been diluted with their fight cards and there's not like anybody that jumps out where I want to like, you know, hitch my wagon to and and and follow and stuff because it's turned into the UFC. The brand is bigger than any of the stars. When when it first started, you had Cam Shamrock and all these guys coming up that people wanted to see, but there's no like huge stars anymore. So, it's kind of like, eh, I've done the regional scene for 20 years. Like 150, maybe 160 shows I've been involved in in some way, shape, or form. It's kind of like, all right, that was me. Now I'm get involved into the whole comedy promoting thing with my

2:12:39 buddies and like that's a whole new realm. Like, I bring my my promoting, you know, not expertise, but my, you know, my mind to stuff. And with this last one, I helped them out a lot with [bleep] they didn't understand. Trying to understand the whole like how to set up a comedy show. I'm never going to like do it, but you know, beats of comedy and how to do that. That's that's inspiring. But writing the fiction book has got me that's what gets me up in the morning. Like what? Like I have like like legitimately probably 25 ideas of the next book, but I got to [bleep] hone it down. It's like shut the [bleep] up. you're gonna you need to write that or let welcome home gain some traction and promote that and go like do some signings and [bleep] like I got to calm calm it down and that's that's my biggest thing is like that's the ambition you know I mean yeah and that's the thing is like when I got injured at work 5 years ago with my shoulder blew my shoulder out it's been horrible and I've been out of work that long but in that span I've written eight [bleep] books so it's not like I wasn't do like I think people think I just [bleep] sat like oh I'm going to collect a check and not do a [bleep] thing. No, my creative process is [bleep] went a thousand% cuz I wasn't going to sit on the couch and feel sorry for myself.

2:14:01 I've done everything that I've had to do by myself with my injury with the government. I hired a lawyer that's done absolutely [bleep] nothing. Jesus. Um I just won my a case for social security for for that. But I wasn't going to let myself [bleep] sit and do nothing. Like I wanted like these books are my, you know, my proof that like my creative juice [bleep] shot through the roof. That's a fact. Like and still going like and that's where I used to be afraid of like what if I don't have any ideas? But once the fiction thing come in like there's I could write fiction to the end of the end of time with the quotes. is just like again that's second nature to me and it's it's not so much boring anymore. But like I I have a backlog of quotes for like the the type for the first two books. Like I could write probably four more books and not have to put to write anything. I just transcribe it one more.

2:15:05 Like I have I'll send you pictures after. I I've got folders from 1998. I have notebooks from high school and I graduated 30 years ago of just doodles and stuff like I would take Mega songs and change the lyrics be like the same concept but I would write write a song or a [bleep] poem off of it or come up with just [bleep] out of like my my two favorite movies on the planet are Back to the Future and the and the crow. I've written like massive amounts of poems about Brandon Lee and the Crow like that I still have to this day that I could put on paper or put in books. It's just there's so much stuff that like I don't know what to put and what to put where. But I think that's a good thing. Not have enough would really bother me. But having too much, I think that's a good problem to have where I've just got to sweep through [bleep] and like like I'm very like picky when like I'll read something and one day it's like I think that's cool. The next day I'm like that that's not cool. Then two days later like that is cool.

2:16:10 That's how my first book came up. That's why it took 20 something years to get that book out. But I will give the ex that's the majority of that book part two credit. She's the one that pushed me to release my first book. and we had split up like right before it came out. But without her saying, "You've got a lot of stuff here. Do it, do it, do it." I probably might not have ever done it because I always wanted to do it. I was buying pull-up market books from Barnes & Noble for like 15 years before I ever did anything. Doing nothing with them. I could I could publish it with that. And I had like a couple things published here and there and like a paper or um what was it? I forgot the name of the company. They used to scam people and it was a under a quick silver moon. One of my poems got it published in this book, but I had to buy the book. Oh wow. Like something Green Mountain Arts it might have been. Okay. They used to do this thing where you could publish it on the internet when the internet was like new. Yeah. Your book has been submitted or it's going to be in this book. A quick silver moon. All right. Well, you got to give us $60 to get your own copy. I got to pay for my own work. No, I'm not doing that. So that's how it all it all started come to fruition. And like once I started to learn the first book, the second book, and now like I could publish a book in under probably 3 hours.

2:17:35 Do the cover, the cover art, do the inserts, the back page, all that [bleep] The first book took me probably 26 days just to figure everything out. But now it's like this this cover and everything. Boom. Uh, three days. Three days. Wow, dude. I'm I'm I'm I'm eager to to tap into this, man. Yeah, that was a There's a lot of uh a lot of personal ones in there that I always like after my uncle died last year. Um I think like 20 maybe 10 of them came after that really that I put in there. Yeah. But [bleep] Jay. I I very much appreciate you giving me your time today, man. This this has been this was everything I thought of being more, man. I appreciate that, bro. Thank you. We'll do this again, too. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. I'd like to get a I once I get a copy of the the fiction book, I'll send it over to you. Please. But I think you get I think you'll like it. I I don't ever again I'm not I don't have an ego, but this is one thing I'm like I think it's cool. Like I again I always want to do if I like when I started brainstorming about doing the fiction the might Shyamalan turns and things and then like reading it and then hearing Bert Reynolds [bleep] read it back to you. Like it's it still blows my mind.

2:19:02 It still bl like I have a hard time again the uh you know the imposttor syndrome but I have my moments where that's [bleep] cool. Oh yeah. again. Like I'm supposed to do a signing at Sage High School this year. I was supposed to do it last year, but I'm going to go in probably do a pre-sale. I'm going to be in the library all day and then they can come in, talk to me and sign books. And my all my almost all my books are the library up at the school, which I thought that was that's [bleep] amazing. Yeah. And Sage Sage just took a couple pictures like that. Look, there's your book. Oh, and every time I go in the library, somebody has at least one or two of them are out. Um cuz her aunt's the librarian. She always tells me it's like that's cool. Like you couldn't have told me when I was, you know, in school 30 years ago that this was going to happen. But that's [bleep] amazing. My my dream is to have it where I walk into a Target or Barnes & Noble and I see my book on the shelf. Like I will 100% agree or admit that I will cry like a baby. But I look forward to it. Like that's my thing. Like I want my book to be in a bookstore just to to be like that's like the icing on the cake. This is all good. It's been they're in a couple different stores before. So like Sammy had it, my buddy had it, but to have it in a mainstream store, which I'm working on Barnes & Noble. The problem with Barnes & Noble is when you're an independent author, you have to be able to issue returns, which is easy. I would return the money, but the pay the paperwork in the back store, like it's just a pain in the ass.

2:20:44 But I would really like to have it in Barnes & Noble just to be like, holy [bleep] The culmination of and and to be able to take a picture with it with my daughter or my anybody with me like would be [bleep] I could probably just let it go there. Do time, man. Absolutely. Just commenting. remember, bro. I was telling my mans this one time, bro. We got to be able to beat our chest sometimes, man. Got to be able to take pride in our accomplishments and ourselves, bro. It's, you know, it's it it's okay to tell yourself that you're the [bleep] sometimes. You know what I'm saying? For real. I'm getting there. [laughter] every time I get to it. Like I did a podcast with my buddy Mike and I'm like we're talking about, you know, imposttor syndrome and at the time everything was I'm kind of out of it and then I went back into it. But then it's like I'm slowly coming out of it and then I'm be like, "Oh [bleep] I don't deserve." Yeah, you do. Okay. But yeah, there going to be the culmination of taking my pow.

2:21:52 Absolutely, dog. I'm looking forward to what every step of the way for you. Absolutely, man. I appreciate you, man. And that is