Latest / The Bootleg Kev Podcast / #420 - Estevan Oriol

Transcript

#420 - Estevan Oriol · The Bootleg Kev Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up? This is a Steven Oriole check me out
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: on the Bootleg Cab podcast.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Yo, Bootleg Cab podcast. The legend is here that Steven
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Oriole is in the building. Ladies and gentlemen, I would
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: like to say I'm a fan. I've been a big
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: fan of your work for a very long time. We
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: have had mutual friends for years and years and years
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: and somehow I've met you like in passing at random things,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: but like never really like had like the fool like hey,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: how you doing. Yeah, but uh, it's good to finally
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: be able to, you know, meet you and have you
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: on the show man. You're a legend. So yeah, I
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: was so happy a few years ago when the La
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Originals documentary came out because there was so much about
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: you and cartoons story that like I kind of knew,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: like I kind of I knew you had like gotten
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: your start with like Cypersille and those guys, but I
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: wasn't like fully aware you kind of fell into like
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: the photography thing, right.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: It wasn't like a like you didn't do it on purpose.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: It was like they need they needed someone to take pictures.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I can kind of break down, like because your original
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: role with Cypress was something else, right.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I met Mugs in eighty nine and then through
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the clubs and all that, I used to work at
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the door and at nighttime and I did construction during
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the day. And then around ninety two he was like, hey,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I got this job that I want to you know,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I think you're perfect for. And I was all psyched up,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: you know, because I've been kicking with Cypress from eighty
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: nine ninety ninety one, and then you know, here comes
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: ninety two. I like, all right, cool, you know I'm
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: gonna be rolling with it. He was, but it's with
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: these other guys, a new group I'm starting. I was like, oh, fuck, well,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll give it a shot. Anyways, I'll listen,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: you know, hear it out and there was a house
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: of pain shots ever last year, and he goes, uh,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: you know ever last I go, oh, hell yeah, because
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: you know, from working the doors. He used to always
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: come with a rhyme, synd a kid and iced tea
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and all those guys. So it's you know, the job
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: is called road manage or tour managing, and at that
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: point in their career there was nothing. There was just
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: like a demo tape and the album.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yet it was just it was just a demo.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah, it was just like it was just
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: just getting pressed. And we're gonna go do a press
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: run in a van with different label reps, and we
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: go around to college radio and do in stores and
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: record stores and it's different, you know, the people different. Yeah,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: people don't even know what I'm talking about.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Like a serious bunch of guys in a van going
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: across the country shaking hands.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, shame, same sharing rooms, you know, going into record
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: stores and and they and they play your song and
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you have to like perform it there, but like maybe
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: ten people in the store.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: You know. The record store meet and greets are such
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: a just a I'm yeah, because you'd be able to
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: see your like the underground rap group that nobody really
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: knew about in your hometown.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they might.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Pop up at like a Zero Records or Tower Records,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: and you'd be like, maybe there's twenty other people there
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: to meet them, but you get to meet them, you know,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: get an album sign, get a poster sign, get one
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: of those black and white pictures signed.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so you would be lucky if it was
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the Tower records. Most of the time. It was like
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a little strip mall record pop spot. Yeah, and you're like,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: oh man, you know, like but you had to do it.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: That was part of the That was part of the deal.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because if you did that, that store might give
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: you better real estate with where they put your album right.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they might put you right front center or so
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: when everybody walks in, you're the first record they see,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: or you know, they might suggest your records. Oh you're
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: like this, well you check out check opinion.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: That used to be a thing. You would actually trust
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: the employees at the record store, yeah, to recommend shit.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: And they knew their ship too. It's crazy.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they did.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Like you could go in there and go, you know
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: that song like you might get this is They're like,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, let's jump around ye you know, and then
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: you're like, damn, how do they know like lyrics from
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: every song to where they could just direct you to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the record.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Super lost art form being like a like a record
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: store employee.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was that was the ship. So that's basically
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: what it was was taking them to the insource, taking
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: them to you know, radio shows, making sure they catch
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: their flights and they're be on time for you know, interviews,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and then it was if they have to perform, you know,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: help them out with all that. So I was like, yeah, yeah,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: no problem. The thing was, it was like the only
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: catching it all is there's no pay, but you do
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: get your travel, taking care of your hotels, and you
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: get this thing called per deems, which is thirty five
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: bucks a day for food. So if you save that up,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: you get two ten a week and then you're living
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you know, you're living on their yeah, but you have
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: all your bills back home, so it's like you still
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: have your rent and all your shit to do back home.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: So luckily write it. The beginning of that jump Around
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: took off and we started, you know, really kicking in.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I think at the end of the summer, the band
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: was making like a GS show and just to play
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: jump Around and the intro is like a seven minute
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: DAT tape. And so for every thousand they would get,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: they'd give me a hundred, So it's like three hundred,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: three hundred, three hundred for the three guys, one for me.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So sometimes we do two three shows a day, so
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: that I'm getting you know, two hundred, three hundred bucks a.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Day plus, right, yeah, so it was cool.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I was like, man, this is great. I might never
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: have to go back to construction or working in the
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: door with a bunch of drunk dayheads. You know, they're
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: all on the guest list, so it's cool. I was like,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: fuck y, I like this shit. And then we were traveling.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: And meeting see the country to meet people, going to.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: All the the the record when they call them the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: back in the day Jack the Rapper.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: All the conventions, music conventions. Yeah yeah, yeah.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: So now you're seeing everybody that you ever listened to
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: all in one place, and everybody's like going to these
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: little showcases. And I was like, you know, I was
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: like I found the.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Junta just the fact to get paid to do that,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: And like, I don't I feel like that level of
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: I think that people who want to get into the
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: music industry these days aren't impressed. Like like when I
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: was growing up, I worked for free at the radio
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: station for two years because I just wanted to be there,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Like I was like, how
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: can I figure out a way to just pay my
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: bills through hip hop?
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: This is all I want?
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: That saw all I love, you know, so I would
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: have been happy just you know, with ten percent of
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: the success I've had in my life, you know.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So it's.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Like like you said, like, Yo, you can leave a
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: regular job, see the country, meet some of the people
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: you are fans of, and like do something cool and
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: and not have to worry about all the normal bullshit.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: So and then every night you're listening to dope music
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: for sure, and then every day you're in the behind
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: the scenes of the guys, some of the guys that
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: are making the hottest music out there, Cypress Funk, Dubious,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: House of Pain, like our crew was fucking stead right then,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: you know. So from there it went to, uh, you know,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: we did a tour of the Beastie Boys and we
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: got kicked off because we're a little too rowdy for them.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And wait, wait, you.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Guys got kicked off tour with the Beastie Boys. Yeah wow,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: is there an incident?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, it was a little incident and we got
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: kicked off. And then the kar Lewis was our booking agent,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: who's still doing her thing. You've heard that, you know,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: on the songs. So I always used to love to
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: say that, you know, like who you know, who do
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: you guys do shows. I'd say, Karen Lewis is our
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: booking agent, you know from from The Pain and Full
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And then she was like, that's kind of like a
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: blessing in the skies because now I can book you
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: guys one off shows and you guys can do your
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: own thing because the song is blowing up. So we
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: started doing our own thing. And then we went into
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the Sol Assassin tour in ninety three and that was
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a funk dubious house of pain Cypress Hill, and opening
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: up before them was The Hooligans.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Which is Alchemists and Scottie Khan.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: So that whole tour was off the chain, like crazy.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Everything that could happen happened and it was one of
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the best experiences of all of our lives for sure.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: And then just.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Real quick, what was it like being around Alchemists as
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: a kid, Because obviously for people wh don't know Scotty
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Khan is, you've seen him in tons of Hawaii I point.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's in a ton of movies. He's a
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: legendary actor. His dad's obviously resting peace of his dad.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: He's a legend as well. But Alchemist as a kid,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: you know, one of the most prolific, just minds, musical minds.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: We've ever seen one of the goats when it comes
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: to production. What was that like having them on tour?
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: It had to be kind of like a rowdy tour.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was definitely rowdy. It was off the chain.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: And they were young, right because they were fifteen. Yeah,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: they were kids, So like what was that?
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: He was like my little nephews, you know, like I
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: had to look out for them and and uh, you know,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: kind of they were already doing their thing. You know,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: they're already partying and hanging out with girls and stuff.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: So it's always like there was no uh, you know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: you have to hide her with the kids over here,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and let's go smoke weed over here or whatever, or
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: you know, don't let no girls around them there yet
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: or whatever.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: They were already doing their thing.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was that was way past that point. So
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: now its just showing them how to do it the
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: right way, you know, Like I kind of had to
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: just take Alchemists under my wing. And then he started
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: coming on tour with us after the Hooligans, and he
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: was like our he was rolling with us. He would
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: help Mugs with the production stuff and he'd help me
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: on the tour stuff, and we had little like side
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: hustles that we'd do on the road and just me
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and Al you know, we asked the guys, hey, is
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: it cool if we do this this? And you yeah, yeah,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: go ahead and get your money, do your thing. And
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, would I ever think like, oh, Alchemist is
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: gonna be one of the great greatest producers of all times? Right?
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Probably not? You know, just saw he was a youngster,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: little kid, you know, but he was He wanted to
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: learn so bad, and he was so on it, and
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: he was like on point, even like helping me. He
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: was like right there like hey, oh can you do this?
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Can you do that? He did everything right. It wasn't
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: like nowadays there's you know, there's a new generations and
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: they fuck up and they're like, oh, my bad, Oh
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I did I just fucked this whole thing up? Bad,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: my bad? That That wasn't no accountability, Yeah, I don't
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: give a fuck. Yeah, but Al there was no my bad.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: He was on it, you know, so you could tell
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: he was gonna do something, you know, big, But you know,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: you never would know. You never know of anybody's career,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: like they're going to be a Grammy nominated or whatever,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: you know. But to see that, it's just such a
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: like proud moment, you know for us older guys that
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: were around him when he was a youngster. Like I mean,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: so leg you know in uh in a good way,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: in a good way because now that word is that
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: word Jesus.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Uh So, so that tour happens, the soul assassine war happens.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: How do you kind of walk me through how you
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: end up taking pictures?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Well, I was all so. I bought a sixty four
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I Paula in nineteen eighty nine, and I had it
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: as like an every day you know, was every day ride,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: yeah bucket you know, kind of had like rest spots
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: and stuff, and had these like rusted out like mag
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: rims and I just put sounds in it. Spent like
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundred bucks on the car. I probably spent another
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: fifteen hundred on just the sounds. And I'll just roll
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: that car around and just you know, be smashing in it.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And then I had a little work truck that I
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: bought for two hundred bucks. Somebody told me like, hey,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I got this truck. I want to get rid of it.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: It's making this weird noise. The guy didn't know shit
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: about cars, and oh yeah, I'll take it off your hands,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: you know, And I took it to my homie. He
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: did like a major tune up on it, another two
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: hundred bucks and it worked perfect for ten years. Crazy,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: So I use that as my work truck and then
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I put the Impaula away my homeie DC Donnie Charles,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: he passed away in ninety four. He helped me strip
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: down the Impala and put it all into the right
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: shops and then I just used my work truck for
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: construction every day. But he was a He was a
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: manager of w C in the med Circle back then,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know that was cool et Crazy Tunes.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: C's brother rest in peace. And then uh, another guy,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I think his name was Jim, but there was four
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: of them, and Donnie Charles was the manager of them.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: He had a thing called Hoodrat Records and a car
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: club called Hoodrat Car Club. And then so he helped
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: me take my car apart. And so from building the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Lowrider and joining a car club in East LA and touring.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: My pops was like, hey man, you're doing a lot
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: of cool shit. You should take photos. But at that
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: time you know, cameras are like this big.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: They're big, you know, big, clunky.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yet to learn shit, you know, you couldn't just
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: like cheat and look, you know, get it to the
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: perfect place where sure digital screen is like perfect photo.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Then you go, okay, it's perfect click. You know, you
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: just had to go with your instincts.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: You had to develop a whole role of film and
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: hope three or four were great, right.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you got one, you were happy, because what
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: can you do with thirty six good pictures of one
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: role in the film of one ship? You know. So most
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: people would always say full time photographers if you get
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: one shot per role, like you're winning. Yeah, And so
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: my pops put me onto taking photos. So I would
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: do that on my spare time from tour managing. And
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I never really thought of you know, I didn't really
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: like the camera because I thought paparazzis or tourists carry
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: cameras around, you know, it looks kind of weird, right,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: So I would always keep it kind of like to
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the side, and then if I saw something cool or
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: if the homies were there, I would be like, hey,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: let me get a flick, you know, and I would shoot.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I start off shooting all my homies from my car
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: club and that that world, and then shooting us probably
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: on the the Sol Assassin tour. I started taking a
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: couple of flicks here and there.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Right just for you, yeah, just for me, And then.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: The homies would see the pictures, like we'd all kind
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: of compare our pictures after and be like, oh yeah,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: let me see what you got. Let me see what
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: you got. And I would always notice that my pictures
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: were a little bit different than theirs. I would see
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: theirs and be like, oh, man, like like, we're right
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: next to each other. How did he get that picture?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. But I didn't want to say nothing. I
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: don't want to hurt nobody's feelings or whatever. So I
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: just kept doing it little by little, and then as
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: more people would see it, they were like, hey, this
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: is this is pretty good. And the lady at the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: photo lab, she she dealt with all pros. She was like, hey,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: can I blow some pictures up and put them in
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the in the lobby of the photo lab. And I
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: had noticed that she had done that with all the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: pros before, and she did it, and she sold eight
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: out of eleven of the photos. And she goes, you
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: know what, I've never sold that many photos here in
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: the lobby of the photo lab even of the big guys.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, cool, Like I didn't know
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: what that meant. You know, she was telling me you're
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: onto something, you know, stick with it. So I did
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit more,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: and then I found the Because I was a tour manager,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I was the one dealing with all the magazines, the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: record labels and everybody that was coming through photographers, you.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Know, the line of defense between the gatekeeper.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, so I would set up the interviews, like the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: record label would send me a fax. I don't know
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: if people know what that is.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Frequently like frequently asked question FAQ or no facts? Is
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: a fact like a fax machine? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: So you get this like prehistoric paper.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'd come through like this machine with the phone
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: and it was kind of like an email before an email.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you get a fact, yeah, the paper email.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what it was.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's on a crazy ass paper, Like I
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: have some of the factes from back then.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: They do so crazy how they come into.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with the noises and ship on the machine. So
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I'd get a fax and it say four interviews an
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: hour an hour long, so you schedule a time with
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the guys when they want to do it, So give
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: each person fifteen minutes. So I do the sound check,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: then we do press for an hour, then we'd do dinner,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and then we do the show and then we leave.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: So the for the four interviews it's fifteen minutes. So
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I had to, you know, be like, Okay, cool, we're done.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Next you know, I'm bringing the next interview, right. But
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I would feel bad for the photographer because the interviewer
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: would take up ten minutes, you know, talking to these guys,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: which isn't that much time if you think about it,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: but everybody knew the deal, so it's like, you know
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: you're going to get this amount of time the photographer,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and I always see the photographer struggling, like where am
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I going to shoot this classic picture of these four
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: guys at the hottest rappers in the world and we're
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: backstage at a concert for a four page article. And
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I would see them going like, fuck man, poor guys,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: you know. But then I was I started feeling bad
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and be like, hey, if you guys need any photos
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: of the guys backstage or on stage during the show.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I have photos, and most of them would look at
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: me like, yeah, fucking sure, you look out of here,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: you know, Roady or whatever the fuck you are. So
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: then I had these little little books with my photos
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm They're like, you take these, and I go, yeah,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm telling you. If you want to use
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: my pictures, here check them out. So then they started
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: paying me to use my photos. Magazines yeah, and I
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, we'll give you two fifty five hundred bucks,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you know, a thousand and fifteen hundred to use the photos,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: depending on the magazine and how big they would put
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: it in there. So I was like, fuck, I could
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: do this. This is pretty cool. This is better than
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the other shit we were doing, you know, the moving
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: little things of weed or whatever. You know, Like, this
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: is cool. So I started getting a little bit more
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: serious into that, and I was taking more pictures of
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: my homies at the Lowrider shit, more pictures of the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: touring stuff. And then I learned the language with the magazines,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and then I started learning about the videos and got
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: into doing videos, and it took off, you know, slowly,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: because I wasn't pushing it because I had a job,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: because you were doing the other shit. Yeah, but in
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: two thousand and five, those guys are tired of touring.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: They're like, hey, we want to take a little break.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Is that cool? I'm like, yeah, you know, you guys
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: are the you're the boss, you know, like whatever you
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: want to do. But they were getting money from music.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: But if you're not touring and you're you're not tour crew,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: yeah yeah, you're out. So they're like you're good. Go yeah, yeah,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I'm good. You know, like what can I do? So
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I just said fuck it, I'm going all in with
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the photos and directing, and uh it worked out. I
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: never had to go back out on tour again.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: What was uh one of your early videos that kind
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: of that you were able to direct it because because
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: uh directing a video back then again, Yeah, things are
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: different now you can get it. I mean anybody you
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: can make it. You could literally shoot a video with
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: iPhone and it looked decent. You know, back then there
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: was so much more that you would put into it.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, twenty thousand dollars video budget was nothing.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: That was like disrespectful video.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Fact, they're like disrespecting you giving you twenty grand
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: to shoot a video.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: So what were some of your early videos that you
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: were able to initially kind of be behind the lens and.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: The I mean I did videos for Mugs and Bee,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: their side projects, and then I would say the one
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: that I did well for sen it was called Ssex ten.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: It was a majority black and white video. Back then,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: all the videos were shot on film. It was a
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: whole process. And I showed that Ssex ten video to
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Dennis from Interscope, who works with eminem, and he was like,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: I got a D twelve video for you, and I
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, cool, And so I remember getting all
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: excited because it was going to be fifty two thousand
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: dollars video budget, you know, right, and it's for eminem. Yeah,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And so I was like, let's do that, you know.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: So I went to Detroit and shot, Uh it's called
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: all Ship on you. I remember that song. And because
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: they could never play it on the radio or well,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: they could never play it on the.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Screen or bet or any Yeah, they had a cuss word.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: And back then there's no YouTube really.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, so it wasn't like yeah, if you weren't
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: on MTV or the.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Box or whatever it was, even the Box back. I
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: think by that by that time, it was BT and
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: MTV by that time. Manh, I think the box is done.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: So if you weren't on there, you you're asked.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: You might end up on a DVD.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the cussing DVDs.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So. But what I noticed was anytime there would be
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: a news story about eminem, they would use the footage
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: for my video because it was not seen right, and
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: it was cool. It was black and white, it had
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: him performing. So I would say that one probably hit
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the biggest right then. And also Doctor Greenam did did
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a pretty big And the challenge with that one was
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: here's a song all about weed, but you can't show
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: weed or show that there's anything that has to do
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: weed related. So I made up this like Mad Scientists.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Remember that video as a kid.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So it's like I made up this mad
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Scientist idea. Uh. And it was based off of this
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: old school movie. I can't remember the the name of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the movie. There's a lot of you know, touring.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: And now it's that Mad Scientists is all over dispensary.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Merch, weed bags, everything. So that video took off from
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: me and that that uh sent me into another strategy. Yeah,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and then I started. Uh, I met up with a
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: really good homie my name Skinhead Rob.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Shots to Skinhead Rob. I loved him and Travis Barker
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: and the homie from the rantid that what was the
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: name of that side for the Transplants. That first Transplants
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: album was fucking raw.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: So he brought me in on that and I did
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the press photos and that fucking album was so good.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: We ended up doing the whole album packaging because we
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: had like a little art department.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Great job, and.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Ended up doing two videos for them with the bo Tribe.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember, yo, Fuck, dude, I got is that
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: I gotta I haven't listening to that album in probably
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: fifteen years.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I gotta find it on Spotify.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because there was some ship on that album.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: So then Rob brought me in to that, and then
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: he brought me into Blink and then did you.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Do expensive Taste stuff too with him and Paul?
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was an Expensive Taste with Skinhead Robin Paul
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Wall that was Travis and Travis.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Fuck, that's a whole era of ship that I just
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: forgot about. Yeah, and I was a fan of that's crazy.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Rob's been in like four or five bands, and I
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: did all the photos for all the bands.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: What was the band it was? Was it just the Travis.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Wasn't there a Travis Yellowl album that that was a group?
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah? What was the name of that group? Fuck? I
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: don't know if it was a group.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: But I just it was one project. I did thee
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: with half of the faces. Damn, that's crazy. Shout to
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Travis man, he's a real one.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: So you were able to do some Blink stuff.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I did. My biggest video to date was one
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: called Down and I look at That was off the
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: self title. Yeah. Yeah, we did all the artwork for that,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: did the merch and we did the video. I did
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: uh six videos off of that album, but one was
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: uh well, actually I did seven I think one was
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Down And then I did five videos that were on
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: a CD ROM only.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: So it was like the deluxe album you bought.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Right, you get the plug in the computer and you
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: can play it as a DVD two and then I
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: did not Now at the end of that that tour
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: that we were doing.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: That was a great album. Down's a great record.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the but the cool thing was with those guys.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: They were just like, do whatever the fuck you want
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: to do, like I wanna trust you, and like for down,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I just had this idea that I wanted to do.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I was like making a little movie, and uh, you know,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I had that little thing going on. Then I had
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the performance going on, and this one girl, like you know,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the net bangers and stuff. They go, what does this
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: have to do with the song? What the songs about?
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: And I was like, Oh, what a bitch, you know,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: like fucking bitch talking shit about me? And then uh
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and I was like, well, yeah, what what does it
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: have to do with the song? Like this has nothing
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: to do with the song or anything. But I remember
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: that the reason that it was like that was because
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: they just said, do whatever you want. And I made
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: up this little story that I wanted to make. This
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: basically as a guy who he's on like parole or
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: probation or whatever, and the cops come to this party
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: and he was like fuck that, I'm not supposed to
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: be here. I'm out of here. He jumps the wall,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: hops in his ride and takes off and gets into
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: a police chase.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: And so that story is happening while it's going back
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: and forth to performance shots.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it has nothing to do with the song, but
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: to me, he's down.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: He's down, that's all.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, motherfucker's down right here. So he makes
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: it and he gets away, which never happens never, So
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I was like, I want to do that. So I
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: did that, and that led to a film agent name
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Chris Smith. He was at this agency called Paradigm. He
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, you need to do movies. And I
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, all right, cool, you know, like another
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Hollywood thing, like somebody telling me you should do that,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: an how about let's do this or that, so it's
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: just another thing. I was like, yeah, yeah, okay. But
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: he kept on me and finally I gave in. I
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: was like, all right, fuck it, so I go, what
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: do you want to do? And then he just started
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: introducing me to all these movie companies and I ad
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: met Brian Grazer through an art show that we did
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: at uh this Nike house in Venice Beach. It was there.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: It was called the Blue House Nike about it, but
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: it was the original house where Jim Morrison lived on
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the boardwalk. So I was like, man, this is cool,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Like we're doing an art show in Jim Morrison's house
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and we used to listen to the Doors and our
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Low Riders all the time, like our Low Writer Club.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: It was the thing that was that we're known for
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: was when we pull into a car show, we're listening
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: to led Zeppelin, the Doors or Jimmy Hendricks that classic
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: rock just blasting out of a car that's two inches
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: off the ground going five miles an hour. It's crazy,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: you know, Black Sabbath, like you put on like war
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Pigs or something.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Because you would think, like, you know, the typical low
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: rider club was probably bumping like Zapp and Roger and.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah like some old y you know, some Marvin game
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: something like that.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Or you're placing and grew up and war Dog.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, war Pigs were just like damn, just like everybody's
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: just like looking, what the fuck is that? It sounds
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: like evil, you know, and then you just see the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: car just creeping and it's like, yeah, it's a great feeling.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: But we did that that show. We met Brian Grays there.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Probably, Like Brian Grays are a great Instagram follow if
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: anybody doesn't follow him.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: He's funny, Yeah, he's hilarious and uh, you know Ron Howard,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: which was cool, Like we got to meet Richie Richie
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Cunningham from Happy Days and at that time, who wasn't
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: a fan of Richie Cunningham. If you grew up in
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: my era and you didn't watch Happy Days, there's something
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: wrong with you.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: For sure, I watched it. I didn't grow up in
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: your era, but I saw the reruns my dad.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So to be able to like work with Richie Cunningham, like,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: come on, man, for sure you made it, you know.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: So I got to meet those guys and they ended
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: up we had a documentary we were trying to put
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: out called Ink, and they're like, we love the documentary,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: but we don't want to do it. We want to
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: do a movie. So we're like, okay, cool. So they
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: go for seven years, you we're gonna sign this deal
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: with you, a three movie deal. So for these next
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: seven years, we want to do three movies. With the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: first one, it was like seven years of rewrites on
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the script. It was like one rewrite a year for
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: seven years. So by the seven years is over, we
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: still didn't have a movie. They're like, hey, thank you man,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the deal's gone. That was still get paid, no, because
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: you don't get paid to the until you do the movie.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I'm not hip to the film game. Like you know
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: in hip hop, they're giving advance right, you know.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: So he gave us like a thirty grand advanced for
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: seven years, you know. Yeah, yeah, divide that up and
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the Yeah, the writer got paid every every time he
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: turned in the script. So there were seven of those
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: he made, you know, his money. And then at the time,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: the people universally they didn't understand like Chicano culture, low
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Ride or anything. They're like, we don't know, we don't
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: know how to do it, but we don't we don't
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: get it. So that deal went away, and Brian kept
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: pushing that he wanted to do the low Writer culture.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: So we're like, well that's cool, you know. He was like, hey,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: you know, the deal's over. You know, sorry about that, guys,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: but I still want to do a movie with you guys,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna take control of it and try and
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: push this other direction and let's see what's see what happens.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: So we ended up going from a twenty five million
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: dollar movie to a five million dollar movie, and uh,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Bloomhouse put it out and it's called Little Writers, and
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: it went to the theaters and did you know did
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: this little thing in there?
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: And for people don't know Bloomhouse is known for They're
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: probably known for the horror movies, right right, they got
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: huge horror.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Franchises, the biggest probably.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. Do you feel like, you know, I
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: feel like the wave and hip hop is turning and
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, when I was growing up
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: outside of Cypress Hill and you know a few others,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: but I grew up in Phoenix, so Chicano rap was
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: really big, right, So like Little Rob and like mster
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Caponi and EMC Magic and then be Rioters and all
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: those guys, and it was very if you weren't like
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Cypress Hill, everybody could enjoy were they just happened to
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: be Latino, right. But then there was that way where
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: it was almost like if you weren't really connected to
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: the Chicano culture, didn't understand it, you might not appreciate
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: the music like the people who did appreciate the music.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Right now, I feel like, man, there's this this Mexican
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: wave in hip hop specifically, is it is rivaling anything
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: we've ever seen? You know, there's a guy like that
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Mexican ot who's going crazy. Uh the La in San
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Diego scene of Mexican rappers are just killing it like
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: it's it feels like all of the major labels are
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: now trying to sign Mexican talent, which I've never seen.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: I've never seen it because I'll hear people like a
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: lot of my homies, like there's have you heard a
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: group called Coyote two Brothers. They're amazing. They put a
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: record out with Shaq not too long ago, but like
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: everyone's trying to sign him, you know, and any of
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: my Mexican rapper homies everyone's trying to sign like it's crazy,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: like and I feel like like your movie might have
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: been like before, it's time.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: We're all we've been before. It's time with everything we've
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: done for sure, And uh, you know even with the clothing.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: We had Joker clothing back in ninety five, but me
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: and Big Lucky we had a store on Melros called
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: super Max. Then we is that way?
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Is that the same? It's Big that's not Big Lucky
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: works the cookies it yep. Oh, that's my guy, man,
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: that's my guys. He's the coolest motherfucker ben Yep, he's
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: such a.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Cool dude, I'm going to meet him right now. He's
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: so cool. Man right after this, Yeah, shout out to him.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Bro, he's killing it.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Man. We're getting the you know, more movie stuff.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta go on his podcast. We keep talking
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: about I gotta, I gotta make it over there man,
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: that guy.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be. Everything's about to turn right now.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Everything's about for you know, bigger and better things. So
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: where were we We're.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Talking about that? So the movie got made by Bluemouse little.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Right, and then I got my footage back from the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Ink documentary and we met a guy named Sebastian Ortega.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: He came here to work with these He came here
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: from Argentina to work with these other Argentinas. And his
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: thing was, I'll work with you, but I want to
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: meet Stellan a cartoon. So I went to meet him
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: and he was like, I want to do I want
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to do the Ink documentary. What's up with that? And
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: I go, that's funny you ask, because I just got
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: the footage back. It had been ten years locked up
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: you know, a shelf. So I just got the footage
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: back and he goes, can we do it? I go, well,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: you know it sounds good, you know, but what are
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: we talking about here? He goes, well, let me fly
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: you to Argentina and show you my facility and see
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: what you think. And he's like, you know, I'm the
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: perfect guy to do this with. And I'm like looking
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: at him, like, okay, he's covered in tattoos from the
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: neck down. He's wearing Chucks Dicky's T shirt from Argentina,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: from Argentina, and he goes, check this out. He shows
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: me on his phone he has two low writers. He's
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: the only guy in Argentina with with a lowrider and
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: he has two of them. So I'm looking at it.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: He's going, yeah, I'm the you know, I'm probably the
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: perfect guy to do this with them. Yeah, I think
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: you are. You know. In my head, I'm thinking like
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: out of.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Everybody, obviously understand the culture.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah you get it. Yeah, And he goes, you know,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I got into this business because of watching you guys.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh man, that's cool. You know
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: you guys inspired me. Shoots me a first class ticket
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: fly down to Argentina, picks me up. He goes, We're
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: gonna go to my facility, and I'm thinking, like, you know,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Our office was crazy. We had like twenty Low Riders
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: in there. There was three warehouses down to.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Downtown in the Young Club.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: It was like, you know, we had our offices in
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: there at Tattoo.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Is this this was in skid rowdy.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, say studios. We called it solo assassine Studios. And
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: then so I get there and I see this huge studio,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: like a film production studio, not like a studio, like
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: this is.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Like shoot everything in there, like some ship you drive
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: by in Burbank.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Burbank or Paramount or Sonya. I was like, what
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: the fuck? And he goes, what do you think, man,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: And as we're walking through that, mister Taka, do you
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: want to coffee? Mister take did you need to? You know,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: like they're just like loving him, and he's he's the
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: main guy there, the owner of it all. And I
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: was like, man. And then he takes me to his
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: pad and out in the country in Argentina where he
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: has his lolos and we go cruising the Lowriders. I
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: was like, man, this is fucking said fuck, like, this
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: is a no brainer. We're doing this ship. So he
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: has like the number one show in in Argentina on
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Netflix and we do like a little cut and show
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: them and they like it. And then he's they gave
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: us more money because he put in a pretty good
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: chunk and they liked it so much. They're like, they
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: showed Netflix. I guess it's like Latino Netflix.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean if you go, depending on where you
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: are in the world, if you turn Netflix on, sh
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: it's different.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, way different. So this is like Argentina Netflix. They
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: showed it to the main headquarters over here and they're like,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: let's go. So they gave us the rest of the
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: money to finish it, and then it was we changed
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: the name to.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: La Originals, which came out fire.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: So such a great fucking you guys killed that ship, dude.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was proud of that one. And then then
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: the pandemic came. We were supposed to go to south
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: By Southwest Film Festival. We're the headliners, the main pick there.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: A week before they canceled it for the pandemic and
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: the COVID you know, so everybody's like, hey, Holmes, what
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: did I do? We had like thirty homies going with us,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: what do I do? You know? I got my fucking
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: plane ticket, the hotel, Airbnb, like, how am I gonna
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: get that going, homie?
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know, like go out there and hang out.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: What do I look like? You know, like fights were
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: canceled everything, so, you know, the airlines, everybody gave their.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Everybody everybody was getting refunds during that time. But it
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: was kind of you know, scary, like yeah, for sure,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: it was unknown.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: We never yeah, there's that pandemic, then you don't know
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: if you canna get your money back, and just looked
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: like luckily that that week, everybody is locked down, They're
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: in home and they.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Just I remember I was, I was supposed to south
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: By that year. Yeah, I was like, well, I guess
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: that ain't happening.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody turned the channel on and there.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Everybody was just at home watching fucking the news, fucking
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: scared to go to the grocery store. I remember I was.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: I had to go to seven eleven. I put gloves
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: on and ship. I was like, oh man, I don't know,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: maybe you really need this.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Shit was crazy.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: It's crazy, and it's funny like now that we like
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: look back and like realize, like we probably overreacted, you know, like.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well was fucking we didn't know.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: We didn't know. We didn't know. It was the first
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: time it ever happened. Yeah, was safe and sorry. Hey,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you, you know, for people who
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: don't know, when you land in LA and you go
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: to the airport, in the gift shops, one of the
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: most ripped off. I know that in the gift shops.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: The LA is officially yours.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but in general, your iconic image of those tattooed hands,
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: it's probably the most pirated, ripped off and hip hopcal.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Ever, and it's the most tattooed.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: And it's the most tattooed. But when I tell you, man,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: I see that ship everywhere. Yeah, and it it's crazy, right,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: So it's like for you, it's like, uh, the double
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: edged sword. Can you tell me the story behind that
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: specific photo.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was in downtown and I was doing a
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: little photo shoot that I was doing for my clothes,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: and I was shooting a woman, you know, game member,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: and she was throwing up her neighborhood and I was like, hey,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: can you throw up something you know, more universal, so
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: that like, you know, we didn't want to be branded
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: to just one neighborhood. And the picture come out, Yeah,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: it says the name of the brand. But the photo,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: you know, she's throwing up her hood. It could be
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: any hood, you know, but with that letter, you know.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: So I was like, let's let's do something more universal,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: you know, let's let's throw up to LA. And she
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: did it, and I was like, usually back then, I
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: didn't really know anything about photography. That's nineteen ninety four,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: you know. I'm telling you. I got my camera like
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: a year before probably, so I'm just shooting like from Afar,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: you know, like maybe ten feet so you could see
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: the whole building and everything. And I wasn't really into
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: shooting details. But for this one time, like two shots,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I went in and I just shot the fingers, you know,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: just the hands. And I didn't really put it out
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: there like that for a little while, maybe a couple
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: of years, because I was more into the whole environment,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: like the whole photo. So when people would ask me
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: for I would do an interview or whatever, they would say,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: can you send us ten of your best photos that
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: you like the most, And I I was noticing that
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: I was shooting just wide full frame shots like a
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: girl with a house or a guy with a house
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: with a low rin.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of your photos are like storytelling for real.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I wanted to change it up, and I
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: wanted to show some detail shots, like just the rim
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: or just the fingers or just the face, you know.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: And I started sending that around and seeing the reaction
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: that it was getting, I was like, fuck, I'm gonna
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: send it again, you know. And I just kept sending
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: that on everyone. I would change maybe the other nine
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: photos out of the ten they wanted. I would change
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: those other ones, but I always send the Ellie fingers
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: and people would always print that one, you know. They'd say, like,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: send ten and we'll pick four or five or whatever.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: That would be the one that always want to print.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, either was the main part of the story with
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: my you know Ellie photographer. You know, boom, there's that photo.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Then the interview or they wanted for the cover or whatever,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: and uh, I noticed that shit was just the one.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: So I just kept putting it out there here and
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: there for thirty years, been putting it out there.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: You kind of said it's like a gift in a curse, right,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: because it is such an iconic photo. But it's also,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: like you said, I mean, like if you walk through
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Santi alley. Yeah, you're gonna probably see your ship, oh
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: for sure, everywhere. Then it's everywhere you see your ship.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: You're like, that's my ship.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: But you also if you go to Lax, there's the
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: official ship, right, you know.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: So that's what I'm trying to do, is get the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: official ship out there enough to where people don't have
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: to buy the bootlet ship. Right, scumbags down there, you know, yeah,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: fake shit, no disrespect to the name boutlet, but no,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: it's all good, you know, the bog shit. Yeah, yeah,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: those guys. You know, it's like that's my that's my ship.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: You know, like I've been promoting that that photo that
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: I took for thirty years, and you just fucking go
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: and make a shirt of it, you know, and cash
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: in on my hard work. You know. It's a fuck
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: up feelings.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: It sucks too, because I do feel like that's kind
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: of the plight of photographers is some how, you know,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: you've obviously been able to break through and be one
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: of the goats, but like somehow photographers man, and even
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: videographers and graphic designers. I feel like those three, but
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: photographers more over than anybody somehow, always man just don't
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: get the appreciation because I feel like people who don't know,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: they don't really understand, like the work right the like
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: like you said you were you were on tour with people,
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: and you guys might have been standing right next to
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: each other and you would see their photos and you'd
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: be like, how the fuck did you get that? And
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: I got mine and we were standing in interest from
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: each other. This is not like you know, there's just
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: so much that goes into it, and like, you know,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: no one thinks about the photographer when they print printed
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: a picture. I mean that happened with Cameron. Cameron was
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: selling merch of the picture of him on the phone
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: wearing all pink and didn't credit the photographer, and the
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: photographer suited him in one. Yeah you know, and it's
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: like you got to understand, like that's art or art,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: you're the artist.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like you're taking one of their songs to
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: get paid. Oh they get hot, Yeah, it's gonna get hot. Motherfuck.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: You can't use my song, don't use my photo. Yeah, yeah,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: that simple. But everything's just so twisted now, it's like
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: so crazy, like that whole thing, you know, But.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure that that photo has been such
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: a blessing for you.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, well yeah, because every time they use it without asking.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: It's ceasing. You must have a great fucking lawyer.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the season assist doesn't. Isn't that great because you're
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: just telling people to stop doing what you've already been doing. Laws.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: The better one is like at the end of they
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: made all that money and then you're like, hey.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: Did any of the big because I always see like Fashion,
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Novachine some of these like uh bigger companies that are
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: like manufacturing in China. Did they ever steal your ship?
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah? They got to pay too, so they don't get
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: so you sue them. They get they got to cut
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: it check, you know, so.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Who who took who? Who was one of the bigger brands.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: They don't let me say it.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay, you know that's part of it. But but
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: they had to cut motherfuckers had to cut a check.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I got my residuals or what do they call
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: the music industry.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: And residuals you're oh, you're royalties.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had to get my royalties.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: We're on a hip hop shows. Yeah, of course I
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: had to get my royalties.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: That's dope, man, I think it's just so cool every
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: time I'm a lax and I see your ship and
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: the Mahmi Franco does your merch. Yeah in Burbank. So
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: I'll be I'll be at the factory and I'll see
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: all your ship.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So my boy Mike Missix, who is next door
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: to him, Barbara know him. No, he was next door
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: to the building next door.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, got you, got you, got you.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: He took me over there. Mike Missics was one of
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: my old oldest friends in like Hollywood. He was one
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: of the first guy to do raves and he dj'
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: and he did the clubs, and he was one of
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: the guys that I used to work the door with
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: door for and then he got me into DJing and stuff.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: So we'd go to DJ like fraternity parties and weddings
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: and King Sinas and bar Mitzvahs and all that. So
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: he was like big in the LA scene back in
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: the days with like delicious vinyls and all that. Like
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: he was around the times of all that and one
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: of the bigger DJs of all those parties.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: You you do a lot like like you know when
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: when you do street photography, like you've done. It could
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: probably result in you being in some dangerous situations. Yeah,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: you've done a lot of dope ship with gang members
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: and skid Row. Like I want you to kind of
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: like what's like one of the more sketchy situations you
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: found yourself in.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Just rolling around skid Row. Sometimes there's and this is
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: like old school skied rook Row is what.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know which one's.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Worse now for sure A thousand times where do you drive.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: Through skid Row. There's just fires in the middle of
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: the street.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: And ship and that's nothing. They all got guns, you know,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: like there's foods down there with guns, Like I don't
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: know how they get them because they can't bare to
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: afford the next fucking.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Because I remember from the La Originals documentary, like you
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: have like a pre you have good like you guys
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: were there, so you had good relationships with.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're we're cool with all them down there,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: you know, like we've we become you know, you have
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: to adapt to where you are, you know, so if
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: you're moving into back then it was a skid row.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: Where we were was an extension of skid Row. Right
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: now it's called the Artists district. They put everybody more
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: in a compact area. But back then, you know, they
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: were they'd break into our cars like every day, and
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: and sometimes we'd catch them and and uh, you know,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: explain to them, this isn't the right thing to do,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: and uh they got yeah, yeah, they got the message.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: And then uh, we made friends with some of the
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: ones who we see every day.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Look out for our ship, yeah yeah, and we'll look
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: out for you.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: So we'd give him like clothes, food, break him up
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: at money here, and then yeah, and so then uh,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: we became really tight with a guy named Pepper. They
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: he called himself the Mayor's skid Row. He was like
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: one of the only white guys down there. And he
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: told me that he got his name Pepper from he
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: got jumped and that he got a hold of some
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: pepper spray and went back and you know, gave him
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: a little issue of the pepper spray when they were
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: sleeping in tents and stuff. So that's he got his nickname.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: But uh, he was cool as fuck. You know, he'd
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: always look out for us, and and he had the
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: respect of all the guys down there, so he would
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: just be like, hey, these are the homies. You know,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: if you guys want break in the cars, just don't
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: break into these ones. Yeah, And everybody from then on
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: everything went cool and smooth, and so we'd hire him
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: for like, if we'd have an event, we would hire him,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: and a couple other guys would just be like, hey,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: you guys be over here on the outskirts.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, make sure none of the bullshit gets over.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Here, right right, And they would and they're so cool
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: and like and they would tell those guys like, hey,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: these guys are the homies. So at eleven o'clock when
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: it ends, you guys can come back and we would
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: give them, you know, all the.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Food, yeah, whatever leftover, and catering whatever, yeah, come through.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: It, drinks whatever. So we just would look out for
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: them like that. And then we started doing little things like,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: you know, we'd go buy like a couple hundred hamburgers,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: you know from McDonald's or Farmer Brothers down there, take
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: a couple one hundred burritos, right, and then we just
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: started getting into that whole thing of giving back to
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: the community. This back then the right right right right,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: and that felt good, felt great to like you're in
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: somewhere and you see the struggle every day.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: You're a part of the community to in the middle
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: of it, you know, you have no choice.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: So it's a good feeling for us to give back,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: you know, on a on a regular basis, not on
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Thanksgiving or Christmas, just which everybody does, you know, Like
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: you go down there on skid Row, now there's like
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: fifty vans people giving out food to where the guys
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: are rolling around with like four to go trays full
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: of food, and it's like, what are they going to
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: do with that? They don't have a refrigerator.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of that's going bad.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to going bad in two days. The
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: rats are gonna get it. So we would do it
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: on all the off days, you know, like on a
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: normal days it's Monday. Yeah, it's Monday. It's freezing, you know.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: And this is pre fetanyl obviously, this is.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: This is pre everything everything twenty years ago, thirty years ago. Yeah,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: so we got into that whole thing and you know
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: taking uh we we used to take our low writers
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: down there and take like two cars of lowriders and
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: two cars of the food and stuff just to try
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: and give them like a you know, make them feel good.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: Right, cool.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: You know, everybody, every one of them had an uncle
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: or their dad or whatever had a low writer, you know,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: back in the days. So they're like, oh, yeah, my dad,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: just that one of these bah you chop it up,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: and you know they uplift their spirit over there. I
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: mean you're down there every day, you're.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: You could get psyched out.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like the rest, the yeah, the negativity and just
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: a dark you know, being in the dark place all
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: the time twenty four to seven can be you know,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: good for you know, it's it's like the perfect remedy
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: for mental health.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: I got more questions, but I have to take a piss,
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: So let's take a quick pick.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Go piss break, all right, put that one up.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: We're back.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Sorry, you can see it. You can see all the
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: way over here.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: Just a white It's good. We're back, all right. So
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: we were talking about you on skid Row. I was
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: curious because sometimes as an interviewer, there will be stuff
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: that gets talked about on my ship that I'll know
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: I won't put out because were there ever any photos
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: that you got any flack for releasing, or any backlash
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: or just with the politics.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: You know, you never know, no one girl, tried to
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: come at me for a photo that was in the
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: the thing because she says like deflammation her or whatever,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: Like come on, man, I looked at her her Instagram
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: or Facebook.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: Sweetheart, your Instagram's worse than this.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this photo is like blessing you, you know, and
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: you're you're it's twenty years old, so you look a
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: little bit better than that. So come on, man, like,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: just take take take that one. You know you got.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: You got a good photo of me when you were
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: in your prime for free, and now you're right now
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: you're not in your prime. You're far from it, and
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: you're I don't know what the fuck you think I'm
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: ruining about your image, Like look at your page right
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: right right for y'alls about it, you know, like the
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: rest everybody loves all the photos I've done on them
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: rather family members.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: I can say. When you meet a guy like Baldacci,
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: that guy's like made for your camera, right like you
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: guys for people don't know about Dacci's a rapper. He's
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: a uh really nice guy. Sweet dude. I've had him
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: on the I mean he's not a sweet guy. He's
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: a nice guy. Yeah, it's definitely not sweet. Serious guy,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: but very talented dude, very nice guy. He's a rapper
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: from LA but he's also his instagram is the face
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: of LA because his entire faces.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: So when you meet a guy like that or you're like, yeah,
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: we gotta we gotta take some pics.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so sometimes you know, sometimes you can see how
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: they are and there might be on a sick one,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: you know, so you're like, yeah, I'm cool, you know,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: like you don't want this dude calling you every day
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: or like you know photos. Yeah. Well then once it's
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: a food like the so what's up with the next thing?
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: And you know, like on you you know, so you
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: meet somebody like Baldacci was like he's you know, all
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: covered in tattoos and everything, but he's all about the business.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: He's a very very just buttoned up dude.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like super respectful. He was raised the right way
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: by you know, the right people in that world. And
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: he's a stand up guy you know, all the way around.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: So when you meet guys like that, you're like, this
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: is this is cool? You know.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: You're obviously, Uh, there's the the exhibit that's is the
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: hip Hop's Infinity, yeah, which is mass Appeals putting on
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: how what how much of your work is on display there?
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Me and me and mass Appell go back to.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: The magazine before now his own mass Appeal. It was
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: a it was like almost like an underground magazine that
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: like certain little record stores would have. Yeah, it was
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: dope photos, high quality, high integrity.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a badass that magazine.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: Even the paper was like different, the cover was like
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: a different times.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was high end, like you said, you know,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like these cheap magazines. It was dope. And
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: then uh, I had a a section there called Rides
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: and Rims. It was a two page section. We'd feature
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: cars in there, the car culture, because they they didn't
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: want it to be too much East Coast, so they
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: wanted to spread it out, you know, throughout the States
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: and La New York, the Bay. You know.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: It was a very East Coast republication for sure.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: You So we ended up uh having those two pages
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: in there, and ended up doing other features for them.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: I shot a cover of Eminem and rock Him for them,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: and uh, a couple of you know, different spreads, you know,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: mixed throughout the years that I worked with them, And
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: then it came to I did a documentary like some
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: consulting on the LA Riots with them, and uh. The
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: next documentary I did with them was called Insane in
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: the Brain is a documentary about Cypress Hill. That's time, yeah,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: and that was like, you know, I think couple years. Yeah,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: So that was like another perfect movie for me to
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: follow up with LA Originals. And the next thing was
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: this art show and they they've been doing it around
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the world and other places, but this is the first
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: time that's had this much of my work in it.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: I have my own room towards the back, and it
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: said they asked me to put my elements of what
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: hip hop means to me. So I did one wall
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: of memorabilia that I have of me and Cypress Hill,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: like the jerseys and the clothes we used to take
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: and the Golden Platinum records and the dat tapes from
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: the shows and different things like that, and then I
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: did a wall of Nipsey Hustle. My friend Downtown Daniel
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: did a mural Never nineteen fifty nine. He also did
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: a mural of Nipsey, but the one of Downtown Daniel
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: has the actual reference picture that he would look at
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: and test the colors on that and then he do
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: the mural on the wall downtown off Fourth and Alameda.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: So I have the original photo, the reference picture, and
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: then I have a photo of him doing it, and
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: then I have his first painting that he's ever done
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: for like galleries, and that's it's all the same image
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: of Nipsy. And then I have my bike in there,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: and another wall I have low writing, like memorabilia from
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: all the years I've been low writing, and the other
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: wall is like a gangster wall because to me was
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: sets La hip Hop aside from other cities is low writing.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of always a lot of lowriders in
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: our videos and our imagery, and there's the gangster element.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: The gang culture is starting with n w A. You know.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: So on that while I have letters and envelopes and handkerchiefs,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: they call them panos that my homiees Big Lucky and
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Lepki would send me, so you can see all that
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: prison artwork. Then I have the original tattoo that a
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: machine that I made for cartoon. He tattooed me the
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: very first cartoon cartoon tats in a box with some
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: top ware cups that were sent to me from prison.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: And then on the side of that, there's a whole
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: wall of Teenagel magazines, which was the old gangster magazine
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: that you could pretty much only find in La or
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: the Bay. Wow, and uh, it's it's you know, it's
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: it's instinct now or what do they call it? Circulation?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: And then a teen Agel died some years back. So
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: but I have a show coming up with teen Angel
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: and Beyond the Streets in June, So that's gonna be
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: a what.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: Was like for you? Like, uh, you know, it was
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: nit I mean, obviously Nipsey was from a different generation
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: than you in terms of just like his come up,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: but you know his impact was so crazy. How did
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: he kind of like like what was your uh what
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: was it about Nipsey that you respected, enjoyed?
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: You know, just how he carried himself. Yeah, you know
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: he was real respectful, real calm and like mellow and smooth.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: But you could tell he was with the business, you know,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: like at any moment or something, you know, when when sideways,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: you know, he would he would get your back or
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't let it happen. You know.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: So you also have like a high he had to
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: have a high respect for photographers because His manager was
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: j Yeah, who is also a dope photographer and a
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: dope logo guy created the all money in logo and
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: the logo so he I feel like Nipsey had like
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: a real high regard for dope photography.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he did.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: Those.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: The photos that I did for him was for an
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: old magazine called Ryan Magazine, La hip Hop magazine, And
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: at that time I had the kind of relationship with
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: magazines where they would say, what do you want to
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: do and I would say, you know, I want to
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: do a story on this guy, this guy, this guy,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: and they didn't even know who they were, but I would.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: Still they would trust you to curate.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: So at that time, Jay Rock's album had come out,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Nipsey's album hadn't come out, and who else was there.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: I shot some early pictures of Kendrick because he was
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: with Jay Rock when I did his photos, and there
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: was one more guy that I was I was always
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: pushing to magazines that the news I just wanted to
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: show like that here comes a new wave of LA guys.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: And I didn't only have connections here in LA, but
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I had or New York in the States. I had
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: foreign connections like in Germany, hip hop's huge over there Australia,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: just different places where I had a relationship with the
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: magazine that I could do stories on these guys and
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: send it over to them and it would come out
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: and you know, a lot of that would help the
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: artists out.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: For sure, to get expanded to a new place here.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: So there was a a lot of that happening back then.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: I got to shoot and Nipsee a couple of times
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: for a couple of different things before he had ever
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: come out with a record on a label. And then
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: I think that that deal that we're going to do
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: made it to where he was like, I'm not even
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: gonna do stuff with a label no more. I'm gonna
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna just go independent.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah left epic. Yeah, Nip was like a one of
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: one man.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So but I had a big plan friend that
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: we were going to do. At that time, one of
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: my best friends, Casey from Known Gallery, had a gallery.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: I was already doing stuff with Nick Diamond. So my
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: my idea was, let's do your like an album cover
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: photo shoot and then we do an art exhibit at
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: the at the gallery on Fairfax, and then we do
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: a clothing capsule released with Diamond and that would be
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: the listening party for the album. Is the album would
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: be paying in the gallery where all the folos from
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: the whole Day in the Life of Nipsey would be
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: on display and then the clothing capsule people could go
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: in and buy merch and the album would be playing
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: in there. And that wasn't thought of back then. You know,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: there's two thousand and eight, I think crazy.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: So.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: You know, then the deal didn't go with the label,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: and then he went on and just started putting stuff
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: out on his own, so we never got to do that, you.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: Know, or you know, obviously that first Print show mixtape
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: and which he yeah, kind of set up a blueprint
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: that a lot of artists have been following since.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: So shout out to nip you when you have a
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: mutual friend our boy Ritchie and he was telling me
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: that you do the cold plunge and you do the
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: you do the cold hot therapy. Yes can you?
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Uh? I?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: Because for people who don't know the benefits of that,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: why do you do it?
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: What are the benefits? What's you know? And is that
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: something you do every day every day?
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: And it's we have a couple, I have a couple
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: of guys come over. Who got me into the sun
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: and coldpluch thing is a friend of mine named Marlin.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: He used to have a brand called Sneak Tip.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: I remember Sneak Tip. I used to have some of
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: their T shirts.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And another good friend of mine Pat from RVCA,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: which was Rucaye and Pat would take me out to
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: Hawaii during the Pipeline Masters every winter for thirteen years
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: to shoot all his the people that he sponsored. It'd
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: be like twenty of the top world fighters, twenty of
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: the top world surfers, skaters and street artists. He'd fly
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: them all out there, rent a few houses, put everybody up,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: and you and I would just take picts of the
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: team fire. And it's during the Pipeline Masters, which is
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest surfing competitions in the world, the best,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: the coolest, funnest and uh, I was just documenting all
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: that for a book. And you know, I wasn't really
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: into health or working out. I was eating like what
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: people say, eating good, but really eating like shit, you know,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: just a lot of and a lot of it. You know,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: it's like two sixty five, you know, just getting fat
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: and out of shape. And it wasn't feeling good, you know.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: But everybody's telling you, Oh, you're eating good, you're living
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: that good life. But it's like, really, you're not.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: You're You're even worse.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: You can't breathe because you fucking eat so much. You
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: need a wheelchair to fucking take you out of the restaurant. Yeah,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: the food is good, that's why you're eating so much much,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: but it's not good for you. So once once a year,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: I'd go out to the North Shore with pat in
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: them and we'd work out every day and do the
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: sauna and a cold plunch. And I just got to
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: the point where I was like, man, this is a ship,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: you know, Like I want to do this back home.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: So I bought me a little sauna off of the website.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: They shifted to my house. My boy, he hooked it up.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: He built like the patio, put the sauna on there.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: Then we built like a little roof over it because
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: we want to mess it up. And we got a little,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: you know, cool little thing there, got a bunch of weights,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: started inviting some homies over and we made it a thing.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: And now you know, we do it every day, and
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: I feel bad when I don't do it. I feel like, man,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I feel guilty, like like I fucked up
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: that day.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: How how long did I mean, you probably never get
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: used to the cold plunch thing, but how long did
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: it take you to be able to tolerate it.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: The first time? I had to? Because I see, like.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: Because for people who don't know, when you when you
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: immerse your body in that cold water going to shock,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: it almost feels like your heart might jump out of
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: your chest.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it still feels like that, but you know what's coming,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, but imagine twenty like all tatted up,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: ripped UFC fighters and world class.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: They're all doing it.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: They're all doing it, and you're there, so you got
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: to everybody thinks like, oh, you're the cool guy from LA,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: like you're not a pussy right, No, hell no, right,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: go go ahead and get in that fucking bucket full
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: of ice. Then you like.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: When you get in, man, that shit hits you like
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: a ton of bricks. Yeah, you're it's it's but it's
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: also like it's like a shot of dopamine. Yeah, it
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: almost like better than any cup of coffee. Yeah, for sure,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: better than.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: It feels incredible when you do it.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: When you get out. Yeah, it's just it's rough. It
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: is rough. It's not easy. It is rough, like you like,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: you know, but it's it's so it's like a drug almost.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I do it every day. I've been taking a
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: hot because I have the shower outside. I haven't taking
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: a hot shower in my house for a few years
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: ever since I started doing it.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: So I just wake up in the morning, hit the
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: cold shower.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love it. It's like a way to wake up.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: And you know, you don't die doing it.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: It's not but you get out of that shower and
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: you feel alive.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you feel live.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: You take that hot shower in the morning. Yeah, and
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: it doesn't it makes you almost want to go.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: Back to bed. Yeah, you're just sitting in there.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: You're sitting there like like you know, I put some
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: water in my eyes.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like all that. I just get in there like well,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: you know, like you're just taking Yeah, you just starting
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: the day, man, you know for sure. But it's a
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: great feeling, man, So you do it every day every day? Yeah. Wow.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: How long you sit in the sauna.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: At least fifteen minutes up to twenty minutes depending on it.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: If I have to go do something, and if people
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: come late and you're waiting for them, and you.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: Know how many folks do it with you every day.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: We have There's enough room in there for six people,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: but we've had up to ten, and you just rotate
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: people like, you know, these guys go in, these guys
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: go on the ice, these guys you know, well, these
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: guys are in the ice, these guys are in the sauna,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: these guys are working out, hitting the weights.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: Is there anything obviously you said Joker brand is barely
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: just getting you guys are obviously still very much a
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: Joker brand. I don't think a lot of people knew
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: you were behind Joke Brand. I didn't know that until
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: I watched the I feel like I found that out
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: in the last few years. Yeah, because you'll see Joker
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: Brand everywhere.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I be Real Ship Me and be Real started. Okay,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: we got it.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: I remember the like ads in the Source and ship
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: double XL back in the day.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was me shooting be Real. So it was
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: a cartoon and Sucker Mike and these two friends back
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: then they were in our car club together and they
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: ended up doing Sucker Brand clothing, but as an offshoot
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: they did Joker, and it went to a couple of
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: trade shows at the Magic a couple of magic shows.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: Magic was cracking, right, So they ended up not wanting
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: to do it no more. So they had all this inventory.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: I was coming out of this clothing brand. I had
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Not Guilty with Lucky and Everlast, and this lady shut
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: us down because she had a worldwide trademark. We didn't
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: know we got it incorporated. We thought like, oh, we
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: got we owned the LLC. Yeah, we own everything that
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: says not guilty. But like, we didn't go to school, nothing,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: We didn't know anything about business. Got this not Guilty
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: incorporating and this lady goes, well, that's great, I have
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: the not Guilty trademark worldwide. Get the fuck out of here.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: So that was over. And then these guys had all
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: this inventory, and b ro was like, we should do something.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: I go, well, let's go get that inventory. It's already there.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: So we went and bought the inventory off of them
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: and all the artwork and started just taking it on
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: tour with us everywhere we went. And then every time
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: I'd do a photo shoot, I'd bring a box like
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: to a mob Deeper my fabulous or whoever and be like, hey, Holmianes,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: you know, thank you for you know, having me do
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: this shoot with you guys for this magazine or whatever.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: Here's a box of our gear. And they'd be like, oh, fuck,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: can we wear We're like hell yeah, Like you don't
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: have to wear it for this, I'm not bringing it.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: Like hey, here's my shirt. Put it. You know. It's
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: like you could wear it later on when you get
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: back to New York or whatever, but just as a
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: respect thing, they wear it in the shoot and come
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: out in the magazine and we're all over the place.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: And so that just like grew up organically.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: Any projects coming for you and that that you got
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: coming out working on, I'm sure you're always working on something.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm working on a documentary with the Bua tribe
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: because I feel like, you know, that story needs to
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: be told. It's a la story, and I agree, if
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, and if you don't, you should.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: So I'm working with Gotti and Cobra, the remaining brothers.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: Uh that's Godfather rid Mosco rests in peace. Big story
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: to tell, man, and it needs to be you know,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: like those dudes, you know, we're there from the beginning
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: of LA hip hop.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: And like I just feel like that area, like the
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: Carson area of LA. I don't think people fully understand,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: you know, like the Pacific Islander or the Samoan or
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: the oos like culture that comes out of there, and
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: how it also can be wrapped into like the street
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: side of things as well. It's just like, you know,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: it's it's it's just it's crazy because if it's it's
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: almost like a tribe is out right now active like
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: they were in the nineties and ship like with the
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: with the allure of gang culture nowadays on the internet.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: It's so fucking crazy. I don't get it. But it's like,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: it's dope that you're doing that.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then the Cobra's son, D Boy, he's wrapping down.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: He's bad, He's sick with it.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: That's dope. So that's oh ship, So that's that's gonna
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: be dope.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's bad. I have a home for that project,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: not yet, we're just getting interviews together. I went with
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: D Boy to UH New Zealand. They did a tribute
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: to the tribe out there at this festival. He performed
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: and then they a bunch of the older guys from
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: that didn't music with them came out and did like
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: a tribute show to them. So that was like some
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: you know, cool footage that you just can't get for
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: any other group, right, you.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: Know, that's dope, that's super dope.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: I got the Joker and the Steven Orioles and Zoomies. Now,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: so where you know.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: Go support a Zoomies.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you trying to have it somewhere where you know
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: the regular folks can get it.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: Have you guys done a collab of cookies yet?
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: I did you? Yeah? Steven oriol Yeah, I did a
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: That was one of the things that kept me going
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: in the in the COVID because I did a couple
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: of collabs like Food's Gone Wild, Cookies, Trollo, Fit Coeper
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: and Born and Raised, and those things are what kept
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: me going during the COVID because I couldn't go outside
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: to shoot nobody because when I shoot people, I'm like
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: very close within ten feet. So my whole job got
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: shut down also, you know, along with everybody else's. But
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: those collaborations kept me afloat that Stipe man.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: So, uh, go support if you're in Zoomies, yeah, if
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: you uh? If you uh, what's the official website that
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: people can just go.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: To purchase Mistellanil dot l A or Joker brand dot com.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: So go support, go check out the exhibit.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: It's in l A.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: I think until March.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: You know, they extended it. They did, Yeah, because it's
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: been doing great. Kids.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been telling Alan show, I'm gonna take my kids.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: To go check it out.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: Oh it's cool, man, I've seen photos. It's it's because
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: it's been at least a month and a half or so,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: it's been there.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been there for a while. So go check
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: it out. Go check out your you got a whole
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: area of it. Go follow this guy.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: You're a legend. Man.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you for seeing what you got up your sleeve. Next.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's coming there.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: It is, man, that's appreciate you, brother.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you guys.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: Boom