Latest / The Scene Projects / Alter Above: Overcoming Struggles, Embracing Music, and Building Community

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Alter Above: Overcoming Struggles, Embracing Music, and Building Community · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Welcome into this powerful episode of the scene.
• 0:04
  I'm your host Bubba Starts, and with me today is Altar Above.
• 0:08
  He is a producer and poet living out in the Black Hills right now, but just told me he's
• 0:14
  from Fairbanks, Alaska.
• 0:16
  So we got a lot of ground to cover, little brother.
• 0:19
  Yeah.
• 0:20
  Actually, we do.
• 0:23
  Amazing.
• 0:24
  Actually, you know what?
• 0:27
  Alright.
• 0:29
  Well, tell us a little bit about, you know, where where things started from for you before
• 0:34
  we get into everything that you're working on.
• 0:36
  I know you're working with my little brother, Lil Devereaux Mhmm.
• 0:39
  And, doing a lot of things.
• 0:40
  So tell us a little bit about yourself, and we'll get into the conversation.
• 0:44
  So when I first decided to start rapping, I was actually locked up.
• 0:51
  I was I was incarcerated when I was 17.
• 0:57
  And so I kinda, like, tried freestyling.
• 1:01
  I was completely terrible at it.
• 1:03
  I mean, it was it was so bad.
• 1:05
  Like, everybody was telling me to just stop doing it.
• 1:08
  Like, it was it was just terrible.
• 1:09
  It was awful.
• 1:10
  So I in my free time, I was like, you know what?
• 1:15
  Like, maybe they don't wanna hear it, but I'm gonna just you know, I'm gonna keep on going,
• 1:19
  and I'm gonna keep on doing it.
• 1:20
  And then I realized, like, I feel like I'm just way better at writing.
• 1:24
  You know what I'm saying?
• 1:25
  Because I'm more creative, and so that's why I just started writing.
• 1:30
  But, yeah, I worked with mister Valentine.
• 1:33
  I don't know if you know who that is by chance.
• 1:36
  He goes by Vic, but he's really a he's really good producer.
• 1:40
  When I was in jail, when I turned 18, he told me he was like, you can come over to the
• 1:47
  studio, you know, and being an official like, being to the you know, having an official,
• 1:52
  someone to come to whenever you wanna talk about something or, you know I'm saying, just
• 1:57
  get, like, therapeutic about it.
• 2:00
  So I was like, okay.
• 2:01
  Well, I'll try.
• 2:04
  And so we started doing it.
• 2:08
  The freestyling stuff is just not for me.
• 2:10
  You know?
• 2:10
  And I I just can't I can't do it.
• 2:12
  I I just realized I was like, I think it's just way better if I just write.
• 2:16
  So, yeah, that's kinda like, you know, like, life story wise, just a lot of crime, a lot of,
• 2:23
  you know, negative behaviors, a lot of drinking.
• 2:26
  Alcohol has played a crazy part in my life, and it's only that's the only thing that's ever
• 2:31
  gotten me into trouble.
• 2:32
  When I'm sober, I never get into trouble.
• 2:35
  You know?
• 2:35
  So it's kinda, you know, a little I was a little menace, but I'm working on, being a
• 2:42
  little bit more motivational and and, be a good influence on people, especially from my, like,
• 2:49
  my siblings and stuff.
• 2:51
  And I gotta take care of them when mom's not around because mom works all the damn time.
• 2:56
  I mean, like, she busts her ass every single damn day, and I respect her, and I love her so
• 3:02
  much that I I'll just I'll always take over something if she can't do it.
• 3:06
  You know what I'm saying?
• 3:07
  I'm I'm really about my mom.
• 3:08
  So
• 3:09
  Shout out to your mom, brother.
• 3:11
  Amen.
• 3:12
  There's so many similarities in your story to my own, and we kinda touched base yesterday.
• 3:19
  You are a fellow early riser for those for those listening in and watching on YouTube at
• 3:26
  all hours of the day and night.
• 3:28
  This is shot at 6AM, five AM in the other time zone that my little brother's in here.
• 3:34
  And, yeah, man.
• 3:36
  Alcohol absolutely, played a part.
• 3:40
  Drugs for me.
• 3:40
  Right?
• 3:41
  I have bunch of substances, man.
• 3:43
  And, it just dims that light that's inside of you.
• 3:47
  And it and it you know, not only is it is it killing you in the body, but it but it's
• 3:53
  killing that spirit too, and it's crushing that.
• 3:57
  I did I did some time too, buddy.
• 3:59
  Two years that I was in prison, and our listeners know my story.
• 4:04
  And, I feel you.
• 4:06
  I'm not a freestyler, but I am a songwriter, and you are a songwriter as well.
• 4:12
  And that's why I kind of I asked you before we started.
• 4:16
  Right?
• 4:17
  Are you rap?
• 4:18
  Are you hip hop?
• 4:18
  You know?
• 4:19
  Kind of
• 4:19
  what do you call what you do?
• 4:21
  And for me, you know, hip hop and that that culture, I feel like is a writing culture.
• 4:29
  Right?
• 4:30
  The notepads and everything where rap rap is I mean, we're rapping right now.
• 4:35
  Right?
• 4:35
  Like, that's the the slang and the lingo is just talking off the cuff and and kinda going
• 4:41
  with that.
• 4:41
  So, I always kind of I always kinda say hip hop artists for for those that are are writers and
• 4:48
  and of music.
• 4:50
  You're a songwriter, brother.
• 4:52
  Yeah.
• 4:52
  And on our songs, our words, they have power.
• 4:56
  They have great power.
• 4:57
  I'm gonna shut that.
• 4:57
  It keeps on going on and off.
• 4:58
  I'm shutting that light off.
• 4:59
  Can't do it.
• 5:01
  And, it it's amazing to me that, you know, how they can shape and change our own lives.
• 5:10
  Yeah.
• 5:11
  And not necessarily writing for not writing for fortune and fame.
• 5:15
  I'm writing to get these feelings inside of me
• 5:18
  Yeah.
• 5:18
  Out of me.
• 5:19
  And, obviously, you know, having little siblings and moms working all the time.
• 5:24
  Right?
• 5:25
  You don't have a you don't have an easy life.
• 5:27
  Right?
• 5:27
  And so there's a lot inside of you and all these emotions that you have that they have to
• 5:32
  come out in some way.
• 5:34
  Or
• 5:35
  or we or we tend to let them overwhelm us, and then we start to use substances because we
• 5:41
  don't know how to deal with it.
• 5:44
  Right?
• 5:44
  And I think that was for me, I had a lot of anger.
• 5:47
  I had a lot of anger, a lot of a lot of that attached to my dad, a lot of it attached to,
• 5:53
  you know, situations and people that stemmed from, you know, other things.
• 5:58
  But I I I've never I've never been, like, an angry person.
• 6:03
  Right?
• 6:04
  But when I wasn't able to get out what was inside of me, eventually, it would manifest in
• 6:13
  this abuse of substances and all of these things.
• 6:16
  So it's, and I was a lot older than you when I when I figured it out, buddy.
• 6:20
  I mean, I went to prison when I was well, I got out when I was 32.
• 6:25
  You know?
• 6:26
  So seven years ago, I I was in a prison cell.
• 6:29
  Right?
• 6:29
  So I was 30 years old when I went to prison and finally started to, rethink the way that I
• 6:37
  wanted to live my life.
• 6:39
  Yep.
• 6:40
  So the fact that you are how old are you?
• 6:42
  I'm 21.
• 6:43
  Brother, you are a baby.
• 6:45
  You are a you're you're a baby.
• 6:47
  You're just beginning.
• 6:48
  And the fact that you have so much of this this knowledge and this this spirit inside of you
• 6:54
  that and you know what you know, you're able to identify some of these these problems.
• 7:00
  Right?
• 7:00
  And you go, hey.
• 7:02
  Alcohol is a problem for me.
• 7:04
  And I quit drinking back in October, man.
• 7:06
  Haven't haven't really touched a drop.
• 7:08
  My wife made me kinda sip hers, and I don't have it like that where I'm not in AA and want
• 7:12
  one drop.
• 7:13
  And but I just know that for me to go and drink and to have one beer, it can unfold, into so
• 7:20
  many.
• 7:20
  Right?
• 7:20
  I don't know how to have just
• 7:21
  Oh, yeah.
• 7:22
  Just one.
• 7:23
  Yeah.
• 7:23
  You have that I yeah, man.
• 7:26
  Yeah.
• 7:26
  Brother, one of the times I was arrested I'll share this story with you.
• 7:31
  I was out in Oregon, and I was out there, and I kinda just I didn't run away, but when I
• 7:35
  graduated high school and then went to, you know, I went to college out here at SDSU in
• 7:43
  Brookings.
• 7:43
  It was a semester, but I was just kind of ingesting anything I could there.
• 7:47
  And I read Jack Kerouac's on the road, and it's all about, you know, nineteen fifties kind of
• 7:52
  beatnik culture and just hitting the road with a backpack and going, hitchhiking, and doing
• 7:58
  those things.
• 7:58
  And granted, this was the early two thousands when I'm reading this, so it was a different
• 8:03
  world then, you know, then than it is now, but or even that it was, you know, twenty years ago
• 8:09
  now, but the, it drew me to the West Coast.
• 8:13
  And and once I got out there, you know, I I call them the kinda the fun drugs.
• 8:17
  Right?
• 8:18
  It was a lot of mushrooms and acid and molybdenum.
• 8:20
  Yeah.
• 8:22
  Right?
• 8:22
  And partying all night and listening to loud music and the beats, and I I just I found it.
• 8:28
  Right?
• 8:28
  I found not necessarily a happiness, but I found a community of other a lot of people that
• 8:33
  were my age.
• 8:34
  Obviously, out here, you know, South Dakota's very rural and not that where I I mean, even in
• 8:40
  where I lived in Oregon, Bend, Oregon, I mean, the town was, like, eighty, ninety thousand
• 8:44
  people.
• 8:45
  Right?
• 8:45
  And I grew up in Deadwood.
• 8:47
  I didn't grow up in Rapid City, and the and the town's much different.
• 8:50
  So I'm used to a very small circle.
• 8:52
  You kinda know everybody.
• 8:54
  And I thought I was very fortunate to find a community out there, but that community was
• 8:58
  full of broken people.
• 9:00
  Broken people that were ingesting massive amounts of substances.
• 9:05
  So one night, we were out.
• 9:06
  My friends threw a big rave party out in the middle of the Desert East at, like, an hour
• 9:12
  east of this of the town.
• 9:14
  And we partied all night.
• 9:16
  Sun comes up.
• 9:17
  My buddy's going to leave, and and he's got a flat tire.
• 9:20
  And I'm like, I'm a be the king.
• 9:21
  Brother, I had I had consumed probably close to a grandma molly.
• 9:26
  I just in the morning, I started drinking Black Butte porters, or a real dark beer.
• 9:31
  I'd probably put down a 12 pack of those.
• 9:33
  And, like, my my tolerance for substances was way up here.
• 9:38
  Right?
• 9:39
  I don't even know how, dude.
• 9:40
  How how in the world could you even?
• 9:43
  Well, I didn't.
• 9:44
  And here's here's where the story turns.
• 9:46
  Right?
• 9:47
  Bro, dude.
• 9:47
  Was gonna be the hero, and I caught a ride back into town with another guy.
• 9:51
  I pretty much passed out right as I got into his vehicle.
• 9:54
  Right?
• 9:55
  I kinda got back in and and fell out.
• 9:57
  And then, when we got into town, they dropped me off at another friend's place.
• 10:02
  And the way he told the story was that, yeah, man, you just you walked into the back, and I
• 10:08
  kinda have a foggy memory of this of, like, getting there, still had two Blackvue porters
• 10:12
  in my hands because I wasn't going empty handed.
• 10:14
  Right?
• 10:15
  Right.
• 10:15
  And sat down in one of the camping chairs in his backyard, like, loaded both of them up in
• 10:21
  the thing, and then I must have fallen out again.
• 10:25
  And he's like, man, all I did, I popped in the house, took a Xanax, and took a shower.
• 10:31
  You I couldn't have been gone more than, like, twenty minutes.
• 10:34
  And I was like, bro, you were probably gone four hours before you came and checked on me.
• 10:38
  In that time in that time, little brother, let me tell you, I had managed to to get into his
• 10:46
  neighbor's house.
• 10:48
  I came to I came to with a spread on this island and some woman I didn't know freaking
• 10:58
  the fuck out.
• 11:00
  Right?
• 11:00
  She comes out of her back, and she is freaking out.
• 11:04
  I am raved out too, dog.
• 11:05
  Right?
• 11:06
  Like, I I got my I got one of those, like, alpaca sweaters.
• 11:09
  I got a fuzzy brown hat on.
• 11:12
  I got pictures.
• 11:12
  I'm gonna have to dig up some of these pictures of my
• 11:14
  Facebook and send them to gonna have to send those
• 11:16
  to me.
• 11:16
  Oh my gosh, dude.
• 11:18
  That's party.
• 11:19
  So I and I can't talk.
• 11:20
  We've been partying in the desert all night.
• 11:22
  I'm totally dehydrated.
• 11:24
  And, so I just, like, put my hands up.
• 11:28
  Grant, I got all of her leftovers out on the freaking counter.
• 11:31
  Right?
• 11:32
  Like, I got a spread on the counter, and I had to unlock her front door to get outside of the
• 11:39
  house because I just, like, know where I'm at.
• 11:42
  Don't know where I'm at.
• 11:43
  I'm getting out
• 11:44
  of here.
• 11:44
  Did did she call the cops?
• 11:45
  Oh, yeah.
• 11:46
  Yeah.
• 11:46
  Yeah.
• 11:47
  When the cops came when the cops came, I flagged them down because I got out of her
• 11:51
  house, and I had no idea where I was.
• 11:53
  I, like, I wasn't I was more scared that I didn't know where I was than, like, I'm gonna
• 12:00
  go to jail.
• 12:00
  I was like, take me to jail.
• 12:02
  Please.
• 12:03
  Please take me somewhere safe before I get myself killed because I don't know where I'm
• 12:09
  at.
• 12:09
  You know?
• 12:09
  And even the this town is in my hometown.
• 12:12
  I'm not walking out and going, oh, well, this is it.
• 12:14
  You know, I'm still so so out of my mind on these drugs that it doesn't matter.
• 12:18
  I think I had, like I had a bunch of molly on me at the time.
• 12:21
  I had a whole, like I had a half a vial of acid, and the the cop pulled it out.
• 12:25
  He's like, oh, what's this?
• 12:26
  You hash oil?
• 12:27
  And I was like,
• 12:29
  yes, it is.
• 12:30
  Yes.
• 12:30
  Yes.
• 12:31
  It is.
• 12:31
  I can't talk.
• 12:31
  I got I got nothing.
• 12:33
  Right?
• 12:33
  And, brother, they I was locked up for five day.
• 12:36
  I was on probation at the time.
• 12:38
  That I was out absconding on probation at the time, and the the five days that I was in that
• 12:44
  jail cell, I could not stop laughing.
• 12:46
  Because I'm putting the the whole night because the party was awesome.
• 12:50
  The party was awesome.
• 12:51
  Man, they had a guy out there with a flamethrower that was shooting flames, like, 60
• 12:55
  feet in the air.
• 12:56
  It was That's That sounds like so much fun, dude.
• 13:00
  Well and I and I had brought a lot of those people out there.
• 13:03
  So I just I mean, obviously, I'm a good promoter.
• 13:05
  Right?
• 13:05
  So Right.
• 13:06
  Yeah.
• 13:06
  Yeah.
• 13:06
  I was out at all the different parties.
• 13:08
  I always called myself kind of a chameleon.
• 13:10
  Well, especially with different groups, and I wasn't from there.
• 13:13
  So I would bounce in and out of all these different groups while I'm telling everybody,
• 13:16
  man, you gotta come out to this party.
• 13:17
  You gotta come out and.
• 13:19
  So when I'm out there and I'm hustling, right, because everybody's
• 13:22
  like, hey, man.
• 13:22
  We just got here.
• 13:23
  Where's all the where's all the drugs?
• 13:25
  Right?
• 13:26
  So I'm hooking everybody up.
• 13:27
  It's all those good vibes all night.
• 13:30
  And then, yeah, you you kinda wake up in someone else's house going, what the hell are
• 13:36
  you doing?
• 13:36
  And and to this day to this day, I don't know how I got in there because this woman's house
• 13:43
  wasn't next door to my friend.
• 13:45
  It was like catty corner behind it.
• 13:49
  Behind it.
• 13:50
  And she has a full privacy fence.
• 13:52
  Brother, I'm convinced I'm convinced that I teleported into this woman's fridge.
• 13:57
  I just got the wrong fridge.
• 14:01
  I knew immediately.
• 14:03
  As soon as, like because, like, I woke up, I kinda came to to the sound of her voice.
• 14:07
  And then as my eyes kinda peel open, that's the the top of the cabinets are all decorated and
• 14:15
  all, like, this is not your homie's house.
• 14:18
  This is not your friend's place.
• 14:20
  Right?
• 14:21
  And, it it was that, you know, and I didn't stop using substances at that point, but that's
• 14:27
  how crazy I get.
• 14:28
  Right?
• 14:29
  That's that's how out of my mind that I was trying to get in.
• 14:32
  It's like how dark of a place do you have to be in your spirit to to do that?
• 14:38
  Right?
• 14:39
  And and to to be there.
• 14:41
  And I honestly, I did less time that time than than the first time that I was arrested in
• 14:47
  Bend, which was, like, a year earlier for, for weed.
• 14:52
  Right?
• 14:52
  Like, I sat for ten days before they PR'd me out, and out there, they have what they call a
• 14:57
  personal recognizance.
• 14:58
  So they don't you don't even pay a bond.
• 15:01
  They just I don't
• 15:02
  even know what you're doing.
• 15:02
  Yeah.
• 15:03
  You're low risk.
• 15:04
  You're low risk.
• 15:06
  But it's it's like it's the same thing as a PR.
• 15:08
  Right?
• 15:09
  It is PR.
• 15:10
  Yeah.
• 15:10
  Personal recognizance.
• 15:11
  Yep.
• 15:11
  And I'd never gotten one of those before.
• 15:13
  I didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
• 15:15
  Yeah.
• 15:16
  Yeah.
• 15:17
  I was laughing.
• 15:18
  So, actually, it was funny that they put me in there.
• 15:20
  I had a cellmate that was a, older gentleman and, just a homeless guy, man.
• 15:26
  He'd just get arrested for being a vagrant, essentially.
• 15:28
  Right?
• 15:28
  And or or an open container or whatever number of things, and he'd been in and out for a long
• 15:34
  time, but he didn't have his glasses.
• 15:36
  They wouldn't they wouldn't give him his reading glasses, so I read out loud to him for
• 15:39
  for four days in there.
• 15:42
  And What was his name?
• 15:43
  I don't remember.
• 15:44
  I dude, it was fucking twenty years ago.
• 15:46
  Yeah.
• 15:47
  I guess you're right.
• 15:48
  Waffle.
• 15:48
  Yeah.
• 15:49
  Wait.
• 15:49
  So what I wanna know real quick.
• 15:51
  So did your what did you and your friend ever have contact after, like, they took you to
• 15:57
  jail?
• 15:57
  Or
• 15:58
  Oh, yeah.
• 15:58
  They were like, what the fuck, dude?
• 16:00
  You were supposed to come back because I was supposed to go get the bring help.
• 16:04
  And event I think they ended up catching some charges because eventually the freaking, the
• 16:09
  park rangers and shit came out.
• 16:10
  We were on BLM land or something, and they ended up catching a little bit, and he kinda
• 16:15
  was like, you were I was like, dude, you you knew how out of my mind I was in like, when I I
• 16:22
  was like, what do you what did you expect?
• 16:25
  The dude high on Molly and freaking plowed on porters was gonna save you?
• 16:32
  What?
• 16:32
  Like, eventually, dog, that's on you.
• 16:36
  Right?
• 16:36
  Like Yeah.
• 16:37
  Yep.
• 16:38
  Yep.
• 16:38
  Just like how you made your decision to go out and and for some reason I don't even know.
• 16:43
  Like, was that even, like, a controlled decision?
• 16:45
  Because there's no way you had any, like like
• 16:47
  Bro, I think I I think I unlocked that extra part of our brain, and I tell her we're into
• 16:51
  this woman's.
• 16:52
  There's no way I would have gotten there.
• 16:54
  Because I went back to my friend's house, and I was like, so, like, where is that neighbor's
• 16:57
  place at?
• 16:57
  And he's like, she's back there.
• 17:00
  She's back there.
• 17:01
  And she's got, like, a razor wire fence around her plate.
• 17:04
  Right?
• 17:04
  Like, she has a privacy fence around her house.
• 17:07
  There's no way because how would I have gotten in and gotten all of this stuff on the table if
• 17:12
  I had to come through the door as as high and drunk as I was.
• 17:16
  Right?
• 17:17
  Like so, unfortunately, I can't duplicate that because I was so messed up if I did teleport
• 17:24
  there and unlock this next dimension of our of our brain that I have no idea how I did it.
• 17:31
  Right?
• 17:31
  I think I was just hungry.
• 17:32
  Right?
• 17:32
  I was I was hungry.
• 17:33
  My body was just like, we gotta eat.
• 17:35
  You know?
• 17:36
  But I I had to unlock her front door.
• 17:39
  And I say, so when I got in there, when I got to jail the next day, they kinda brought me my
• 17:43
  charges and everything.
• 17:44
  I had first degree burglary.
• 17:46
  I had freaking it all got dropped to trespassing, and I say she dropped the burglary
• 17:50
  charges because I left the sandwich.
• 17:54
  Wow.
• 17:55
  Wow.
• 17:56
  I bless that woman, man, because I scared the shit out of her.
• 17:59
  But I had all the leftovers out on the freaking island.
• 18:03
  Right?
• 18:03
  She's probably back in her bedroom and just like, what the fuck is that noise?
• 18:06
  What's going on?
• 18:08
  And comes out, like, someone in her someone in her house.
• 18:13
  Like, I feel bad.
• 18:14
  Out of your mind.
• 18:15
  I feel bad.
• 18:16
  Right?
• 18:16
  Like, I I and then, obviously, there's a no contact order.
• 18:19
  It's not like I can go and be like, look.
• 18:21
  I'm really I'm really sorry.
• 18:23
  You know what
• 18:24
  I mean?
• 18:24
  I don't
• 18:24
  know I don't know what happened.
• 18:26
  But when the cops came, yeah, dude, I saw the headlights coming down the street, and I'm just
• 18:31
  like, hey.
• 18:33
  Like, I'm in the middle of the street.
• 18:34
  Pick me up, please.
• 18:36
  And, like, should have ditched the Crown Royal bag that was in the pocket, but I was so messed
• 18:39
  up, man.
• 18:39
  It didn't it didn't matter.
• 18:41
  It didn't matter, but it was just it it's it is what it is, right, at this point.
• 18:45
  Right.
• 18:46
  I'm hell, I don't know.
• 18:47
  I might still be on probation out there, dawg.
• 18:49
  I don't know.
• 18:50
  You still wait.
• 18:51
  So wait.
• 18:51
  Wait.
• 18:51
  Hold on.
• 18:52
  So if you go to a different state, does that probation even matter?
• 18:55
  Or what
• 18:56
  I tried to get it transferred.
• 18:57
  I was like, hey.
• 18:58
  Like, obviously, things aren't going well for me here after this because I the like, I wasn't
• 19:04
  I was homeless, right, or or bouncing around and couch surfing or whatever.
• 19:09
  I had a few good situations that I screwed up, but I didn't know how to, like, go and get a
• 19:14
  job and work that and to do those things.
• 19:16
  And, you know, I I had, like, you know, it was $40 a month or something in the probation fees,
• 19:21
  and then I had, like, $1,100 in fines or something.
• 19:24
  Right?
• 19:24
  Well, at that time, brother, it might as well have been a million dollars to me.
• 19:28
  Right?
• 19:28
  Like, seemed like that insurmountable of a of a thing and then selling weed to pay your fines
• 19:34
  and then being in treatment and constantly failing out of treatment because you're selling
• 19:40
  weed.
• 19:40
  Like, you're not gonna sell weed and not smoke it at points.
• 19:44
  Right?
• 19:44
  Right.
• 19:44
  Yeah.
• 19:44
  So failing treatment, catching more things, and getting myself in more like, it was a vicious
• 19:49
  downward spiral that I was on, and it was only going to get worse.
• 19:53
  And I just I just had to get free.
• 19:57
  I had to come back home, and not that that helped.
• 19:59
  I just ran it.
• 20:00
  Right?
• 20:00
  But I wasn't learning anything out there, and I needed my family.
• 20:04
  I needed, I needed to be closer to people that loved me because, you know, I'd gotten beat up,
• 20:09
  one jumped by a big group of guys at a party one time, and, you know, I once again, knocked
• 20:14
  unconscious, came to in my buddy's truck in town.
• 20:18
  Like, what happened?
• 20:20
  My head is pounding.
• 20:22
  Right?
• 20:22
  So it was just I just didn't feel that love.
• 20:25
  Right?
• 20:25
  And when you're surrounded by broken people, how can you?
• 20:29
  Right.
• 20:30
  Yeah.
• 20:30
  No.
• 20:30
  Straight up.
• 20:31
  You, you are what you surround yourself with sometimes.
• 20:33
  You know what I'm saying?
• 20:34
  That's a that's a thing.
• 20:35
  You know what's crazy is that, like like, when it comes to, like, charges, like, when I had
• 20:40
  just turned 18, right, I had screwed up my life, caught a felony, like, right away.
• 20:45
  The first charge I ever had, and I beat up a police officer because alright.
• 20:50
  Now I gotta tell you the story.
• 20:51
  So me, I was drunk as hell, and my cousin was drunk.
• 20:55
  Right?
• 20:56
  And me and my cousin got into a altercation.
• 21:00
  Right?
• 21:01
  And he was man, my my mom is enjoying this shit.
• 21:05
  I mean, she's sitting there recording it, like, recording it.
• 21:08
  She's like, Alex, you need to stop or else he Nikolai's gonna hit you.
• 21:13
  And and so and and I was just like, I that's what he wants to do.
• 21:17
  He wants me to fight him.
• 21:18
  I'm like, I don't I'm I'm a do this shit.
• 21:20
  Blah blah blah.
• 21:20
  Right?
• 21:21
  And he's like, you can fucking hit me.
• 21:23
  I gave him focus set for him to hit me, blah
• 21:25
  blah blah, like, on the on
• 21:27
  the phone or whatever.
• 21:27
  Right?
• 21:28
  She grabs the chair and, like, moves it out the way.
• 21:30
  And he was like, go ahead.
• 21:31
  Go ahead.
• 21:31
  I'm like, boom.
• 21:32
  Like, initial first hit, I broke his fucking nose.
• 21:35
  Right?
• 21:36
  Like, off the bat.
• 21:37
  And so, bro, like, you we're just so drunk.
• 21:41
  My mom told me to stop, and then he drunk drove to the hospital, right, to go, like, to see if
• 21:49
  they could help him with his nose.
• 21:51
  Right?
• 21:51
  And then, he went over there, and then, I guess that the nurses or whatever reported him being
• 21:59
  drunk and him Right.
• 22:01
  Driving back.
• 22:02
  How how did you get here?
• 22:03
  Dude, drove.
• 22:05
  Dude, so drive back.
• 22:08
  Like, he's staggering.
• 22:09
  He's a tall dude.
• 22:10
  I mean, he's a really tall dude.
• 22:12
  Like, he was just waving around and shit.
• 22:14
  Right?
• 22:15
  So he goes on a speed chase back home.
• 22:18
  Like, the cops are following this dude.
• 22:20
  Right?
• 22:21
  He parks at the top, and I've seen, like, I've seen red and blue lights or whatever.
• 22:25
  I was like, that's a little sus.
• 22:28
  Who could it be?
• 22:29
  I'm drunk as hell.
• 22:30
  I already know that my cousin was drunk as hell, and nobody in lead, which is next to
• 22:34
  Deadwood, ever, like, is is, like, gets crazy like that.
• 22:38
  You know what I'm saying?
• 22:39
  So I run up there.
• 22:41
  Right?
• 22:41
  And, I see this cop had his gun pulled at my cousin.
• 22:46
  Right?
• 22:46
  And he starts, like, slow like, he he moved or whatever back.
• 22:50
  Right?
• 22:50
  He put the cop put his gun back into his holster, grabs my cousin, picked him up, and,
• 22:56
  like, slammed him.
• 22:58
  Like, it was screwed up.
• 22:59
  Like, he like, it was it was like, you didn't have to do that.
• 23:02
  Like, you know what I'm saying?
• 23:03
  Like, that was really, like, an unnecessary use of force.
• 23:06
  I think he was just taking advantage of what he could do because of maybe the
• 23:09
  power that he had.
• 23:10
  I'm gonna stop you there because this police officer and lead is probably someone that I
• 23:14
  know personally.
• 23:15
  Absolutely.
• 23:15
  This is
• 23:16
  I I went to school there.
• 23:17
  So but I wanna give you the other side.
• 23:19
  Right?
• 23:19
  I wanna give you the other side.
• 23:21
  You don't know if this man has a weapon.
• 23:23
  Yeah.
• 23:23
  Right?
• 23:24
  You you you he's obviously intoxicated.
• 23:27
  We know how intoxicated people get.
• 23:29
  His face is all busted up already, so he obviously has no problem with violence.
• 23:34
  Who knows what he said or did at the hospital already?
• 23:37
  So you have to understand it from the other point of view.
• 23:39
  Thank god he put his gun away.
• 23:41
  Right?
• 23:41
  Yeah.
• 23:41
  That's true.
• 23:42
  You know what I mean?
• 23:43
  But how especially if your if your cousin's a real tall dude, he's a big guy.
• 23:48
  I don't know what this cop looked like, but Right.
• 23:50
  You know, they ain't always the biggest strongest people inside or outside.
• 23:55
  So Yeah.
• 23:56
  You know, it's it's tough, and I got a little more sympathy from it.
• 23:59
  So because my my in laws and my my wife, right, are all COs.
• 24:05
  Like, I met my in laws in the prison that I did time in, which is actually just a few miles
• 24:10
  down the road from where I live now.
• 24:12
  But so I've taken a much different approach to when you are the sober one and you have to get
• 24:18
  control of people that are that
• 24:21
  Yeah.
• 24:21
  Intoxicated, sometimes you gotta be a little excessive because you're not trying to get in a
• 24:25
  fight.
• 24:26
  This dude probably didn't have any backup out there, and backup out there is is ten minutes
• 24:31
  away at a minimum.
• 24:32
  It's not that far, though.
• 24:33
  Right?
• 24:33
  Well, but still ten minutes away for backup.
• 24:36
  A lot of shit can happen in ten minutes, little brother.
• 24:38
  That's true.
• 24:39
  That's true.
• 24:40
  Just wanna, you know, give you the other side of where this police officer is at too.
• 24:43
  But, anyway, that is your cousin.
• 24:45
  I'm sure you're intoxicated.
• 24:47
  That makes you feel a certain way, and and and we get to your side.
• 24:52
  So keep going.
• 24:52
  Yeah.
• 24:53
  So he picked him up, slammed him.
• 24:56
  I didn't like that very much.
• 24:58
  So Yeah.
• 24:58
  That triggered you.
• 24:59
  Yeah.
• 25:00
  Oh, yeah.
• 25:00
  I ran all the way to the cop and hit him with the nastiest left hook ever, bro.
• 25:05
  And he he fell down.
• 25:07
  I got on top of him.
• 25:09
  I got tased.
• 25:10
  And
• 25:11
  You deserved
• 25:12
  it.
• 25:12
  I was You
• 25:13
  I said you deserved it.
• 25:15
  Yeah.
• 25:16
  Yeah.
• 25:16
  No.
• 25:16
  Was lucky he didn't shoot you.
• 25:18
  Yeah.
• 25:18
  Very yeah.
• 25:19
  Well, I didn't know any better either.
• 25:21
  Like, 18.
• 25:22
  You know what I'm saying?
• 25:23
  Just dumb, being young and stupid.
• 25:25
  That's just
• 25:26
  Yeah.
• 25:26
  But that's dangerous.
• 25:27
  Right?
• 25:28
  Like, you could you
• 25:29
  could have really messed him up too, man.
• 25:30
  A running, flying, and, obviously, you got some pop in those hands.
• 25:34
  Yeah, dude.
• 25:35
  You know?
• 25:35
  So you knocked two dudes out that night.
• 25:38
  Yeah.
• 25:39
  Yeah.
• 25:39
  Like, my hands are broken, man.
• 25:41
  18.
• 25:42
  From that night or from successive?
• 25:47
  You wanna know the worst part about that night is when I when I went to the deal.
• 25:52
  Right?
• 25:53
  This is in Lawrence County.
• 25:55
  You know?
• 25:55
  You you Brother.
• 25:57
  Brother, I
• 25:57
  spent four months there when I came back from Mexico.
• 26:00
  I didn't get to my my time before that.
• 26:02
  I was in Mexico for a year before I came back and did my two years in prison.
• 26:06
  And when they picked me up, they took me to Lawrence County, I was there for four months.
• 26:10
  Brother, it was like a reunion.
• 26:11
  I know all of the CEOs there.
• 26:13
  I know all of the like, I grew up in Deadwood.
• 26:15
  I don't know if you know this, but, like, that's my hometown.
• 26:17
  When we moved from when we moved from Illinois, that's we moved there.
• 26:21
  So like I said, all of the characters in your story, I know
• 26:26
  Probably.
• 26:27
  Probably.
• 26:28
  Know everybody, dude.
• 26:29
  Go ahead.
• 26:31
  Man, so I I I we go I go into the jail.
• 26:37
  Right?
• 26:38
  Man, there there's no mattress available.
• 26:42
  All of them taken.
• 26:44
  All of them taken.
• 26:45
  And I don't know if this was coincidental, like, with that whole room, like, drunk tank
• 26:51
  was filled with everybody.
• 26:53
  Right?
• 26:54
  They go in there.
• 26:55
  It's my first time in jail.
• 26:56
  You know what I'm saying?
• 26:57
  In adult jail.
• 26:58
  I'm scared as fuck.
• 26:59
  Like, I'm like, man, but I've already done juvenile time.
• 27:02
  This is probably going it's gonna be the same way.
• 27:04
  So being, yeah, being locked up wasn't unfamiliar to you, but your first time in an
• 27:08
  adult jail with grown ass man.
• 27:10
  Yeah.
• 27:10
  Yeah.
• 27:12
  So, they slammed the door.
• 27:15
  You know, I'm sitting here.
• 27:16
  I'm like, where the fuck am I supposed to lay?
• 27:18
  It's nighttime.
• 27:19
  Everybody is sleeping.
• 27:21
  Right?
• 27:22
  Everybody's passed out.
• 27:23
  It ain't even sleeping.
• 27:24
  Everybody has passed the fuck out.
• 27:26
  Do you know in the drink?
• 27:27
  Yeah.
• 27:28
  So do you know the the in the drunk take that, like, tiny table that they have?
• 27:33
  I don't know if you remember, but I I had a hey.
• 27:37
  I sobered up in there.
• 27:39
  Yeah.
• 27:39
  I sat there on that table for hours until the morning.
• 27:46
  They made me stay up because they wanna give me a mattress.
• 27:49
  Right?
• 27:50
  And there was this old dude in there that turned he has, like his nails were, like,
• 27:54
  painted pink.
• 27:56
  Right?
• 27:56
  And he comes he's an old man.
• 27:58
  Like, he looked at me.
• 27:59
  He was like, you can come sleep over here with me if you'd like.
• 28:02
  And I was like, I need to get out of here.
• 28:04
  I need to get out.
• 28:06
  I was freaking out, bro.
• 28:08
  I'm like, no.
• 28:09
  I'm not trying to lay down with you, sir.
• 28:11
  You know?
• 28:12
  I'm like, oh, man.
• 28:14
  That could have been the worst thing for me to hear.
• 28:16
  Like, that was the first thing and the worst thing for me to hear being in an adult prison
• 28:20
  for the first time.
• 28:21
  Okay?
• 28:22
  I was freaking out, bro.
• 28:24
  I was like, they're gonna rape me.
• 28:25
  My ass is gone.
• 28:26
  I'm I'm getting raped, bro.
• 28:29
  So, yeah, after that, man, I I just remembered I I was there for a while.
• 28:34
  They put me on probation, and I'm still on probation for it, man.
• 28:38
  Like, I I thought I I tried using my suspended position.
• 28:41
  I screwed that up.
• 28:43
  You know what I'm saying?
• 28:43
  Because running away from probation.
• 28:46
  You know?
• 28:46
  That's what I I used to do the same shit.
• 28:48
  Like, you literally listed everything that I, like, am doing on probation, which is crazy to
• 28:54
  me because you know what I'm saying?
• 28:56
  Like, we kinda have a relatable, like, situate like, we had that relatable situation, man.
• 29:01
  I was sitting there.
• 29:02
  I I fucking up my piss tests.
• 29:04
  You know they get piss testing for alcohol, man?
• 29:06
  I didn't know that they could do that.
• 29:08
  I I didn't even know that is that was even possible.
• 29:10
  Brother, you've you've drank enough times.
• 29:12
  You can smell it.
• 29:14
  Yeah.
• 29:14
  You can smell it when it's coming out of you.
• 29:16
  So, yes, I believe that.
• 29:18
  Yeah.
• 29:18
  And don't worry.
• 29:19
  I used to go there.
• 29:20
  So when I got out of prison, not that my parole officer was drug testing me all the time.
• 29:25
  I have a I have a son that that his mom lives back there and, you know, she I mean,
• 29:32
  warranted.
• 29:32
  Right?
• 29:32
  I was a drug addict that in our custody agreement to get visitation with my son, I was
• 29:38
  doing three a month.
• 29:40
  I was doing three piss tests a month for a period of time.
• 29:44
  I think I did them for, like, nine months or something there.
• 29:46
  And but, yeah, I was in there pissing all the time in the in the intake.
• 29:50
  I'd go in Yep.
• 29:52
  Yep.
• 29:53
  Yeah, man.
• 29:54
  Yeah.
• 29:55
  I know I know all of these these rooms, the the the people, the all of it intimately, man.
• 30:00
  My same story.
• 30:00
  I was 19.
• 30:01
  I I got locked up in or 20.
• 30:03
  I was 20.
• 30:04
  It was, a few months before my 20 birthday, and, my buddy was, he was, like, nine months
• 30:10
  older than me.
• 30:11
  So he had been getting in the bars for a while.
• 30:14
  Well, I just start hanging out with him, and then everybody's assumes that I'm 21.
• 30:17
  I think I had, I think I had walked up a a whole, like, little bartender was trying to
• 30:25
  haul, you know, in the bodega, how it goes up a few levels
• 30:27
  I know where that is.
• 30:28
  Over there.
• 30:28
  You know Devon?
• 30:29
  The the bar used to be what's that?
• 30:32
  You know Devon Schumacher?
• 30:33
  Oh, yeah.
• 30:34
  Yeah.
• 30:34
  That's that's my brother.
• 30:36
  That's my brother.
• 30:37
  So so one of the bartender and this was years ago.
• 30:40
  Right?
• 30:40
  And everybody's kinda moved on, but I had, I had seen her.
• 30:45
  She's, hauling this a whole dolly full of cases of beer and, like, trying to pull it up.
• 30:50
  And I was like, hey.
• 30:50
  Hey.
• 30:51
  I knew who she was just from being in town.
• 30:53
  And I was like, hey.
• 30:53
  Like, let me help you.
• 30:54
  You know?
• 30:55
  I'll pull those up.
• 30:55
  And it was like, oh, cool.
• 30:57
  Well, come in come in later tonight, I'll buy you a beer.
• 31:00
  You bet.
• 31:02
  Bet.
• 31:02
  So then I was in on that side.
• 31:04
  Nobody nobody ever carded me.
• 31:06
  Right?
• 31:06
  Yeah.
• 31:07
  Yeah.
• 31:08
  So one night, me and my buddy are in there all night.
• 31:11
  The last thing we drank, like, a fifth of Bacardi before we went downtown, drove
• 31:15
  downtown.
• 31:16
  Right?
• 31:16
  Fucking idiot.
• 31:17
  The last thing I really remember is, throwing the keys.
• 31:20
  I didn't I didn't lose the keys.
• 31:22
  I lost my whole damn coat.
• 31:24
  I threw his keys in my coat, and then when I got into jail oh my god.
• 31:29
  These these mugshots gotta be out there.
• 31:31
  We should look this stuff up after we get
• 31:32
  off camera.
• 31:34
  But I kinda, like, came to in the jail again.
• 31:37
  And my I had, like, a white dress shirt on.
• 31:39
  I was dressed up.
• 31:40
  We were going out.
• 31:40
  It's covered in blood.
• 31:42
  It's covered in blood.
• 31:44
  My mugshot from that night is brilliant.
• 31:45
  All my other mugshots, dog, I'm smiling.
• 31:48
  I am cheesing.
• 31:49
  Right.
• 31:49
  Cheese.
• 31:50
  This one, I am unconscious.
• 31:53
  Unconscious.
• 31:54
  It was.
• 31:54
  It's so bad.
• 31:56
  So bad.
• 31:56
  But, I mean, the cops that night saved my life because we had gotten in a fight with some
• 32:01
  dudes and wrestling around, and we were getting rowdy and I mean, you drink that much alcohol,
• 32:05
  you're gone.
• 32:06
  Right?
• 32:06
  Oh, yeah.
• 32:07
  The cops found me at the top they found me up at the top of the city stairs up to Washington
• 32:11
  Street, up to the backside of of Deadwood.
• 32:14
  Right?
• 32:14
  So you pop out the backside of the bodega and through the alley, and then they got that, you
• 32:18
  know, two level batch of stairs.
• 32:21
  Yeah.
• 32:21
  It would be, like, west of the parking ramp.
• 32:24
  They found me at the top of that just sitting there.
• 32:26
  Bro, it was January or February.
• 32:29
  Like, it was negative.
• 32:30
  I was going to die.
• 32:32
  Right?
• 32:32
  Like, eventually, when the alcohol wore off Yeah.
• 32:35
  I was going to freeze to death.
• 32:36
  Yep.
• 32:37
  Mhmm.
• 32:38
  They saved my life that night.
• 32:39
  And you know what?
• 32:40
  I mean, I shout out to officer Hayman.
• 32:42
  He was our DARE officer, and, I don't know if he's still on the force out there, but, I mean,
• 32:47
  they saved my life that night.
• 32:48
  I probably wasn't a lot of trouble for them when they were trying to take me in because I
• 32:51
  was half probably half frozen.
• 32:53
  You know?
• 32:54
  But, yeah, man, these cops the the these cops and situations, right, they've they've saved me
• 33:00
  more than I've been like, oh, they dicked me over.
• 33:03
  You know?
• 33:03
  Yeah.
• 33:04
  I'm not happy in the moment, but even the last time I got arrested, we got arrested and pulled
• 33:08
  over on the way out of town.
• 33:10
  Brother, I had been smoking meth all freaking night, and I was headed trying to drive to
• 33:13
  California to go pick up 40 pounds of weed.
• 33:16
  And I had the time before that, I just shared this on an episode, that on the way back the
• 33:20
  last time with 20 pounds in the truck that I had fallen out behind the wheel and came to as
• 33:27
  I hit the rumble strips and corrected the reflector the reflector took off my side
• 33:32
  mirror.
• 33:32
  I'll never forget that sound.
• 33:34
  Right?
• 33:34
  I was that close.
• 33:35
  I mean, it took my mirror off.
• 33:37
  Right?
• 33:37
  Jesus.
• 33:38
  It took my mirror off.
• 33:39
  Didn't wreck anything of the rest of the car, but just, you know, I came to, and it was,
• 33:43
  woah, and I just slid it back.
• 33:46
  And yeah, man.
• 33:47
  And God saved my life that day, but I didn't wanna listen.
• 33:50
  Right?
• 33:51
  I didn't wanna listen.
• 33:51
  Yeah.
• 33:52
  And then, you know, a week later, after continuing to just get loaded on meth and just
• 33:58
  that was a sadness, man.
• 33:59
  I wasn't seeing my boy at that point and just and that's how I coped.
• 34:02
  I couldn't deal with my emotions.
• 34:04
  I couldn't deal with the sadness, and I felt so alone like nobody cared anyway.
• 34:09
  Right?
• 34:10
  Like, what what what did it matter?
• 34:11
  Right?
• 34:12
  And I wasn't drinking I wasn't drinking back then.
• 34:14
  I mean, I'd have a few beers, but I had learned my lesson at that.
• 34:17
  I'm like, look.
• 34:17
  You're not a good not a good drinker.
• 34:20
  Right?
• 34:21
  And and but drugs have always been an issue for me.
• 34:24
  And now, man, I've been I've been clean.
• 34:25
  I got a medical card, but I've been clean off any hard drugs for almost a decade or a die
• 34:29
  since that day.
• 34:30
  Right?
• 34:31
  Like, I never gone I mean, maybe in Mexico, blew a little cocaine and stuff.
• 34:34
  But even then, it was like, oh, I don't I don't like this.
• 34:37
  I don't like this feeling, especially being somewhere where nobody speaks the same language
• 34:41
  as you.
• 34:42
  And, I mean, we were in the heart of Mexico, dude.
• 34:45
  Heart of Mexico, dog.
• 34:46
  Yeah, man.
• 34:46
  And and I'm sharing all this stuff with you because I don't want you to walk this path.
• 34:51
  And not just you, all my little brothers, all my little sisters out there that are that are
• 34:56
  dealing like this is I lived all of that life so that I could come back, and I can live this
• 35:01
  success story now and tell you, hey.
• 35:03
  Hey.
• 35:03
  You can make it.
• 35:05
  You can make it, but you gotta start making better choices.
• 35:07
  And you gotta get out.
• 35:09
  Whatever's inside of you that's causing that, that's causing this, and and making you want to
• 35:14
  use these substances, obviously, you know, I haven't heard you, you know, speak about a
• 35:18
  father, so I'm assuming single parent family.
• 35:20
  Yeah.
• 35:21
  Right?
• 35:21
  You know, you you got a lot of anger inside you.
• 35:23
  I even, you know, listening to your music.
• 35:25
  I did that.
• 35:26
  I'm sure you got doubters and haters all around you.
• 35:29
  Right?
• 35:29
  And growing up and juvie and jail and all of these things, like, you know, the system and
• 35:36
  life has told you that you're worthless.
• 35:38
  You ain't worth nothing.
• 35:40
  And I'm here to tell you that you are.
• 35:43
  You are worthy.
• 35:44
  You are worthy to the most high.
• 35:46
  I see you got that beautiful painting up on your wall, actually on the wall.
• 35:51
  And, you know, not only to to to God and to Jesus Christ, but to me.
• 35:57
  Right?
• 35:57
  You are worthy to me.
• 35:59
  And if you ever feel that ain't nobody in your corner, brother, you got me, and that's who I
• 36:05
  wanna be for this.
• 36:06
  That's why I had a conversation with our boy, little Devereaux, yesterday.
• 36:09
  Mhmm.
• 36:10
  He's kinda going through some drama.
• 36:11
  Not my place to get into all the details there, but I had to let my brother know, hey.
• 36:16
  You gotta let all that noise go.
• 36:18
  You gotta let all that noise go.
• 36:20
  Look.
• 36:20
  Because I'm about you.
• 36:21
  And if I'm about you, can't nobody be against you?
• 36:23
  Yeah.
• 36:23
  And I have a I have a piece of art here in in my room.
• 36:28
  It's on my altar that I keep right next to my right next to my studio and my microphone.
• 36:33
  I call it my battle station here.
• 36:35
  Right?
• 36:35
  You know,
• 36:35
  I got I got everything right around me.
• 36:37
  And, you know, my altar is over there.
• 36:39
  I go and pray every day.
• 36:41
  I I read my book.
• 36:42
  You know, I read the bible when I was in prison.
• 36:44
  It's it's okay.
• 36:45
  Right?
• 36:46
  Good.
• 36:46
  Get some good lessons in there.
• 36:47
  Got really into the gospels and, read the gospels, loved the teachings of Jesus.
• 36:52
  Yeah.
• 36:53
  Love what he was trying to show the world.
• 36:55
  I'm so appreciative that, you know, two thousand years later, we still have, you know,
• 37:01
  a history of these teachings and how much they changed our world.
• 37:05
  But, you know, I I think it's deeper than that.
• 37:08
  And I think that what I've found in in what they call star knowledge, through the teachings
• 37:15
  and some of these books, of my of of what people I consider family now, that that it it's
• 37:22
  deeper.
• 37:22
  There's a deeper spiritual connection to this earth and to the stars and to all of this that,
• 37:30
  that that have helped me.
• 37:31
  Right?
• 37:32
  And I'm out I'm out walking.
• 37:33
  Before we got on today, I I went out and walked a couple miles underneath the moon and praying
• 37:37
  and and thinking about, you know, our conversation that we're gonna have and and and
• 37:42
  what my purpose is in this life.
• 37:45
  And, it it's to it's to help the next generation and the generation after that and,
• 37:52
  like, say the seven generations.
• 37:53
  Right?
• 37:54
  Yeah.
• 37:54
  To
• 37:54
  to to break these generational curses that we've all had because I come from a long line
• 37:59
  of alcoholics.
• 38:00
  My dad's a real addict.
• 38:01
  He ain't never gonna admit that, and he ain't never but but he loves substances too.
• 38:06
  Right?
• 38:06
  And I and I get this from from that, but we we need to make better choices for us.
• 38:12
  And I know you got a baby boy.
• 38:14
  Right?
• 38:14
  And you gotta make those choices for him.
• 38:17
  And and to better yourself and to get off of the probation and and to break those chains,
• 38:23
  right, in every single way.
• 38:25
  And I will tell you right now, man, even though I have a medical card, I quit smoking pot a
• 38:28
  week ago.
• 38:29
  You know?
• 38:30
  I I quit because I had a conversation with a with a gal who had had a near brain or a a near
• 38:36
  death experience, traumatic brain injury, couple of bad accidents.
• 38:40
  And she had been using it because they lived in Colorado to to kind of cope with the physical
• 38:46
  nature of what she was dealing with.
• 38:48
  Just edibles.
• 38:48
  She wasn't even smoking it.
• 38:50
  But Mhmm.
• 38:50
  She started digging into her brain because she was having brain issues.
• 38:53
  She's do looking up studies in this, and it's, you know, cutting off oxygen to the brain, and
• 38:58
  and it's doing these things, which we know.
• 39:00
  We call it a head change for a reason.
• 39:03
  Yeah.
• 39:03
  We we know it's having an effect on us.
• 39:05
  I told her, you know, like, every time I smoke weed, I pick up my guitar and I write a new
• 39:09
  song.
• 39:10
  What the fuck is that?
• 39:11
  You know?
• 39:11
  Like so while I am while I am in this moment and season of my life, I'm not really trying to
• 39:18
  use those substances.
• 39:20
  I'm appreciating this sobriety that I found now that, that I'll say that I won't go back to it,
• 39:28
  but but to use it as spiritual medicine, I think, is more what I'm trying to to get it to.
• 39:34
  Not being something that I've just used as a crutch and and as a you know, it was just a
• 39:38
  habit really.
• 39:39
  You know?
• 39:40
  But it just dulls that shine.
• 39:43
  Right?
• 39:43
  And we can't be we can't be dull in our shine right now.
• 39:46
  And you especially, you're just at the beginning stages of your life, 21 years old.
• 39:52
  You know?
• 39:52
  Now you got now you got free rein to get in the bars and do that, please.
• 39:56
  Yeah.
• 39:56
  Don't don't go back.
• 39:57
  Don't don't convince yourself that you can drink.
• 40:00
  Brother, I will tell you, if that's how you get when you drink, you can't be drinking.
• 40:05
  I know.
• 40:06
  My girlfriend said the same thing.
• 40:08
  She's like, I don't like it when you drink alcohol because she hates the the feeling that
• 40:13
  I have when I wake up in the morning.
• 40:15
  I'm sitting there dizzy, lightheaded, throwing up everywhere.
• 40:20
  Like and I do it to myself and, like, I remember that, but, like, every time I see a
• 40:25
  drink in a moment, I'm like, damn, man.
• 40:27
  I just I really just wanna just grab this and and feel that buzz again, man.
• 40:32
  It sucks.
• 40:32
  It ain't even about that, brother.
• 40:34
  It's about this pain.
• 40:35
  It's about something you're carrying inside of you that needs to get out that you don't have a
• 40:41
  ceremony or a something else to get it out, so we cope.
• 40:44
  And we think that that's going to help.
• 40:46
  I'll tell you right now that it doesn't.
• 40:48
  Right?
• 40:49
  What they say, you know, in this in this circle that I'm in and our star knowledge, say go to
• 40:55
  the hill and pray.
• 40:56
  Sweat Lodge.
• 40:57
  You know, I'm at Sweat Lodge as often as I can.
• 40:59
  At least once a month, we we try to get together, more often this summer probably as
• 41:05
  the weather gets a little nicer.
• 41:06
  But Yeah.
• 41:06
  Yeah.
• 41:07
  Having those spiritual experiences, man, and connecting with your spirit, that's so
• 41:11
  important.
• 41:12
  It's so important, and it's it's something that we don't have anymore.
• 41:18
  Like, especially the native cultures of this land, the indigenous cultures that they they
• 41:24
  had those ceremony.
• 41:25
  They they did pray.
• 41:26
  They pray all the time, and that's where I've I've kinda trying to pick this up.
• 41:30
  And and I don't my family's from Eastern Europe.
• 41:33
  Right?
• 41:33
  My my family's Croatian and English, and I you know, it's nothing but but the like I said at
• 41:39
  the beginning of this that the this prayer, Right?
• 41:43
  Like, we are all related.
• 41:45
  We are all the same blood.
• 41:47
  We are all the same spirit.
• 41:48
  We are all connected to one another.
• 41:50
  And knowing that knowing that has what is kind of let me grow into the person that I'm
• 41:57
  becoming now.
• 41:58
  This man and a leader, a leader of young men to say, hey.
• 42:02
  It's so like, I know I know that culture and society that we live in says that, oh, you can
• 42:08
  have a few drinks.
• 42:09
  Oh, you can smoke that.
• 42:10
  Oh,
• 42:10
  you can
• 42:11
  do this.
• 42:12
  You can do a little bit of that.
• 42:13
  You can do a little bit of this because a a little bit always turns to a lot of bit, and it
• 42:18
  might not be that day.
• 42:19
  You might be able to have one beer today, but if you convince yourself that you can have that
• 42:23
  one now, then even if it's a month or two months down the road, you're gonna convince
• 42:27
  yourself that you can have another one then.
• 42:29
  And then it's gonna it's gonna grow, and it's gonna escalate.
• 42:31
  So I I hope that you find the strength inside of you to to be sober.
• 42:39
  Right?
• 42:40
  To be clear because you're powerful.
• 42:42
  You're a powerful young man, and you got a you got a bright future ahead of you and and you
• 42:47
  have you have a lot to not just live for, but I think to teach.
• 42:52
  You've already lived enough.
• 42:53
  Yeah.
• 42:54
  You've already lived enough to be able to go back to other young men and be like, look,
• 42:57
  little brother.
• 42:58
  Don't do this.
• 42:59
  Don't do this, man.
• 43:01
  Like, it's only gonna lead to your ruin, and and we want you to live.
• 43:05
  We want you to thrive and to break these curses and and imagine the things that can be if
• 43:11
  you're not killing yourself both physically and of the spirit.
• 43:15
  So, man, woah.
• 43:17
  What a powerful conversation we're having this morning, buddy.
• 43:20
  Absolutely.
• 43:21
  Yeah.
• 43:22
  No.
• 43:22
  What I was gonna say, though, is, man, I, me and me and Devin have a bunch of different,
• 43:30
  like, songs that we're making right now.
• 43:32
  We have, like Devin's got a beautiful singing voice.
• 43:36
  I mean, his his singing is so, like, so good.
• 43:39
  And I honestly, like, when I have, like, melodic instrumentals, I I I want him to hop on
• 43:46
  it.
• 43:46
  Like, you know what I'm saying?
• 43:47
  Because everybody that I know out here, like, that I know aren't as good as Devin at singing.
• 43:54
  And so, like, I'm like, I I really like I love his talent.
• 43:58
  So when I heard that he got kicked off, the Lone Stars, I was I was really pissed off about
• 44:04
  that because that wasn't cool.
• 44:05
  You know what I'm saying?
• 44:06
  I just
• 44:06
  Well, yeah, recency bias to that too that this just happened yesterday.
• 44:11
  Right?
• 44:11
  It was recording this.
• 44:13
  And I I heard the anger just in your things, and the first thing I saw was like, oh, man.
• 44:19
  This this young man is just angry.
• 44:21
  And and how do we use that to to transmute that anger into something beautiful?
• 44:27
  What I told Devin yesterday, and I don't know if y'all connected after after I spoke with
• 44:31
  him, but y'all need to get in the studio and start making music right now.
• 44:35
  Use this use this as a as a catalyst, right, to to and then to dump fuel on it.
• 44:43
  Right?
• 44:43
  Now you got a spark.
• 44:44
  You got something, and not necessarily that you have to be out there making a bunch of diss
• 44:47
  tracks.
• 44:48
  Right?
• 44:48
  It ain't about that.
• 44:49
  Yeah.
• 44:49
  It's about turning it into you tried to steal my shine, and you thought that you could steal
• 44:55
  my shine.
• 44:55
  Right.
• 44:56
  That ain't happening.
• 44:57
  I'm telling you right now, it ain't happening to either one of you, and I'm gonna make sure
• 45:00
  of that.
• 45:01
  And I don't like, I and what I said to him is, like, what do these people even do for you?
• 45:05
  Like, I don't I'm not trying to sign you, but if you being signed to my label that I don't
• 45:10
  have makes you feel better and makes you feel like somebody, then you're signed, brother.
• 45:16
  You know what I mean?
• 45:16
  Like, if we if you wanna draw up a contract that says you are signed to the scene projects,
• 45:22
  okay.
• 45:23
  Do it.
• 45:24
  I'm not trying to control you.
• 45:25
  I don't even know what the hell that means.
• 45:26
  I don't want any I don't want any of your success, but I do wanna help you be successful.
• 45:31
  And and what that looks like is going to be that's gonna be told now.
• 45:36
  Right?
• 45:36
  We're writing this story.
• 45:38
  Yeah.
• 45:39
  Yeah.
• 45:39
  Absolutely.
• 45:41
  So do you have any, like do you are you curious, like, what kind of questions, like, do
• 45:46
  you have for me?
• 45:47
  Like, if you could, like, come up with some, like, out of the box questions because I wanna
• 45:51
  I wanna, like, try to tell you something more about me, but it's kinda hard to, like, you
• 45:56
  know,
• 45:56
  see shared so much about you and who you are.
• 46:00
  The fact that you're up at 5AM to to get on a Zoom call Mhmm.
• 46:05
  With with some crazy podcaster.
• 46:08
  You know?
• 46:09
  Not crazy, but yeah.
• 46:11
  Oh, no.
• 46:11
  No, brother.
• 46:12
  I'm crazy.
• 46:12
  You should see some of the other episodes I post up.
• 46:15
  Dude, I might have to take them out, man.
• 46:17
  I might have to take them out now, man.
• 46:19
  Bro, you gotta go, check out my Patreon broadcasting network on YouTube.
• 46:23
  I got a show called you're not crazy here, and we get into the conspiracy stuff that I love.
• 46:27
  But because I know that's truth too.
• 46:29
  Right?
• 46:29
  And I I kinda separated that from the scene, but Get Better Together is another one.
• 46:34
  The Get Better Together project is something that is real I mean, this is more of an episode
• 46:39
  of that more than it is the scene project.
• 46:41
  Yeah.
• 46:42
  And and this is this is the deep stuff.
• 46:45
  And I'll probably release it as a get better episode to be perfectly honest and throw the
• 46:49
  other intro on it because that's what we're trying to do.
• 46:53
  And the people that tune into that one are gonna are gonna resonate with this with this
• 46:58
  program.
• 46:58
  And we can shoot another one.
• 47:00
  We can end this show, I'll come we can start another Zoom, and and we can ask some music
• 47:04
  questions because I am interested in that.
• 47:06
  I am interested in your, you know, your musical history a little bit, but I knew we had, you
• 47:12
  know, not a limited amount of time, but, you know, you you got a life.
• 47:16
  You got a baby boy.
• 47:17
  You you got things that you gotta do too.
• 47:19
  So I think, what I'll have you do is maybe you and Devin get together over the weekend.
• 47:23
  Y'all write some new songs Yeah.
• 47:25
  And do your thing, and then we'll come back out, and we're gonna talk about the music, at a
• 47:30
  later date.
• 47:30
  How's that sound?
• 47:31
  That sounds perfect, man.
• 47:32
  I love that.
• 47:33
  We could do that for sure.
• 47:34
  Go ahead and tell everybody how they can find you, though.
• 47:38
  So if you, I go by I don't I don't even know where I I mean, to be honest, I just just look
• 47:49
  up my name.
• 47:50
  Nikolai Barnett.
• 47:51
  You can look me up on Facebook.
• 47:53
  For platform music wise, I'm on every single platform you could think of.
• 47:58
  So I go by Altair Above, a l t e r a b o v e.
• 48:02
  You can look me up on Spotify, Apple Music, a bunch of a bunch of other stuff too.
• 48:08
  I don't even know what half the other music stores are because, like, they're, stuff that
• 48:12
  you've
• 48:12
  never matter, man.
• 48:13
  Stick stick to YouTube.
• 48:15
  Put it out on YouTube.
• 48:16
  That's a good one.
• 48:17
  Obviously, you gotta be on Spotify and some of the other stuff, but I think we're gonna start
• 48:20
  printing we're gonna start printing records again.
• 48:23
  Yeah.
• 48:23
  I got connection to vinyl record producers, and I got a connection, obviously.
• 48:28
  Yeah.
• 48:28
  You know what?
• 48:29
  I'm I'm a help you all out, because you don't need to be spending money on DistroKid and all
• 48:32
  these other things and
• 48:33
  That's what I need.
• 48:34
  You don't need to you know, don't don't do that, man.
• 48:36
  Cancel that.
• 48:37
  The because there as soon as you do cancel, they're gonna take all your music down anyway.
• 48:40
  So take all your music.
• 48:41
  You're gonna bring it over to another thing.
• 48:43
  It's called 1rpm.com.
• 48:45
  Look them up.
• 48:46
  It's all free.
• 48:47
  It's all they're gonna take the same the same royalties that Distro's gonna take anyway, but
• 48:53
  they ain't gonna charge you.
• 48:54
  And maybe they're not doing the the distribution.
• 48:57
  It goes out on all the platforms, but then it's on you to spread the word about your stuff.
• 49:01
  Right?
• 49:01
  You're not gonna get paid.
• 49:02
  But most people aren't getting picked up on the different, like, oh, we're gonna spotlight this
• 49:06
  and that.
• 49:06
  And then Yeah.
• 49:07
  No.
• 49:07
  They they pay extra money for it, and then they get no traction anyway.
• 49:10
  So we're gonna save you money because you got a baby, and I you ain't got no money anyway.
• 49:15
  You know?
• 49:15
  Yeah.
• 49:15
  There ain't no good jobs out there to to work and to, you know, to to provide for your
• 49:21
  family.
• 49:21
  Right?
• 49:22
  Working in a kitchen for, you know, $15 an hour, maybe.
• 49:25
  I don't even know what they pay people out there now.
• 49:28
  But it it was it was not great when I was there.
• 49:30
  We moved from out there.
• 49:31
  When I paroled out, we came to the hills.
• 49:33
  And that's where I met my wife and everything.
• 49:35
  But even working in a factory or I was working as a welder, Bro, I started at $16 an hour.
• 49:41
  Yeah.
• 49:41
  You know what I mean?
• 49:42
  As a skilled worker and now granted I moved up to 18 by the time that I was leaving, but when
• 49:47
  I came out here to Yankton, the Yankton area, the first job I got for a nobody, you know, guy
• 49:53
  just had a shop.
• 49:54
  It was 19 an hour.
• 49:56
  And then I went to another shop.
• 49:57
  It was 21 an hour.
• 49:59
  And then when I left, I was making almost $26 an hour.
• 50:02
  And it still still wasn't enough to live on because of inflation and all those things.
• 50:07
  So Mhmm.
• 50:08
  I'm help you.
• 50:09
  I I love you, little brother.
• 50:11
  And I love
• 50:11
  Devin, and I got a I got mad love for you guys, and and I'm gonna help do everything I can to
• 50:17
  to pump you guys up in your music Yes.
• 50:19
  And to keep you on this path.
• 50:20
  Right?
• 50:20
  Yeah.
• 50:21
  That's and you're gonna be you're gonna be a leader in your community to other young men and
• 50:26
  and to other young women as well that are that are doing the same thing.
• 50:30
  Right?
• 50:30
  And we're gonna build a community of strong strong, healthy leaders, and we're gonna teach
• 50:37
  people how to live a different life.
• 50:38
  And, it starts with us, and it starts right here, Yep.
• 50:43
  Absolutely.
• 50:45
  Altar above.
• 50:47
  My brother, thank you for jumping on with me today.
• 50:50
  Mythokui Oeyassee, we are all related.
• 50:53
  We are all connected, and and I'm glad that we've been connected in this physical way with
• 51:00
  one another, and and we're gonna do some great things, buddy.
• 51:02
  So have a great day.
• 51:04
  Yep.
• 51:04
  And, I'm a I'm a catch up to you.
• 51:06
  Alright.
• 51:07
  Sounds good.
• 51:07
  Text me.