Mafia vs. Aryan Brotherhood: Former Leader Reveals All

➡ The text discusses the process of joining and rising through the ranks of the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison gang. To join, one must prove themselves, often through acts of violence, and then undergo a year-long trial period. If accepted, they sign an oath of blind faith commitment. The gang’s hierarchy includes ranks such as prospect, full member, junior lieutenant, senior lieutenant, captain, and general. The text also highlights the importance of writing skills within the gang, as higher-ranking members are often judged by their ability to write well.
➡ The text discusses the speaker’s experiences in prison, including his role as a ‘speaker’ for his race on his cell block, his time in solitary confinement, and how education changed his perspective. He explains that a ‘speaker’ represents a group within the prison, but it’s not an official title. He spent over six years in solitary confinement, which he initially saw as a badge of honor, but eventually realized was a harsh reality. His time in solitary led him to pursue education, studying various subjects including math, which he credits for changing his life and perspective, ultimately leading him to reject his previous lifestyle.
➡ The speaker discusses the harsh realities of solitary confinement and its long-term emotional effects. He shares his personal experience of turning his life around through education and faith, while also highlighting the struggles of reintegrating into society after prison. He emphasizes his opposition to the death penalty due to the risk of wrongful execution and argues that solitary confinement is a form of torture. The speaker also recounts his decision to leave a prison gang, emphasizing that it was a strategic choice for a better future, not a moral awakening.
➡ The text is about a man who chose to change his life after serving a long prison sentence. Despite still having wrong impulses, he decided to do the right thing and not return to a life of crime. He now uses his experiences to help others in similar situations, offering support and understanding. He has also found success as a writer and fitness enthusiast, proving that it’s possible to turn your life around no matter your past.
➡ The speaker discusses the importance of finding constructive outlets for thoughts and emotions, such as writing. He also mentions the shift in media consumption among older men, who are now more inclined towards podcasts and YouTube. He expresses his desire to revive the 80s action movie genre for this demographic. The speaker also shares his hope for a movie deal, emphasizing the importance of pursuing dreams. He commends a person named Rex for overcoming a tough lifestyle and becoming a positive influence. The speaker also discusses his surprise at learning that a Texas chapter of the Aryan Brotherhood was not racist, contrary to his initial beliefs. He reflects on the romanticization of the Mafia in media and how it stands out among other criminal organizations. The speaker concludes by encouraging listeners to be determined and make positive changes in their lives, using Rex as an example of successful transformation.

Over anything, including the guards, to show that you will only do what you want to do. If I go in this cell, it’s because I chose to, you see, and it’s, it’s only after doing that long enough that you might be approached. And even then they might not like you if you’re, if you’re a little off, maybe a. They call them JCATs in California. If you’re a little crazy, they might not accept you. You’re just unhinged. But if you will stand up for yourself, not pay protection, fight anyone, snitch on no one and act like you’ve got some sense like a gangster, then they might approach you.

Hey, we like how you carry yourself. Maybe you want to be one of us. And. Okay, so, so let me ask you now that you make a decision to want to become a, an active member of that life, is there any kind of like in our life, you know, we’re proposed, somebody has to sponsor us, bring us in. And they were in a recruit period where we have to do whatever we’re told to do to prove ourselves worthy to become a member. And then we take an oath. I mean it’s a very, a solemn ceremony, I would say, because they wanted you to understand the seriousness of what you were getting involved in.

And that’s when you become a formal member. Is it anything like that in the, in the Aryan Brotherhood that you were involved in? Absolutely. You have to be proposed and you have to have a year long prospect period. In that time you have to do whatever you’re told and then you have to be voted on. And if you’re accepted, you have to sign a blind faith commitment, an oath. Do whatever you’re said. You literally sign. Wow. Yep. And I don’t know what happens to those. I sent mine to my general. I don’t know if they go in a file, but yes, you was not official until it was signed.

Wow. And during that prospect period, you really, you don’t know what’s going to happen to you. It’s. It could go either way and you really learn a lot. Let me ask you, is it required? And I’m not trying to put you on the spot, I’m just again, because I’ve talked about this a lot. Is an act of violence required or it can go different ways. They will tell you that. Yes. But sometimes they will say, we’re gonna defer that you still owe it. But we’re not gonna have you do it right now because different reasons. Strategy, we don’t want to lose you.

We’ve got something else in mind. Maybe you don’t have a lot of time to do. The. The guys at the top who have done a lot of time, they’ve been down there 20, 25 plus years. They’re able to think very long term. And they know, okay, look, you got 10 years, you’re gonna get out. We need you in the streets. We don’t need you in here. You got a little sense, we’re gonna try to hold on to you. Now, violence comes with prison, and so if you can go a year or two without committing any violence, I kind of wonder whether you should be in a gang.

Violence was regular for me. I never went anywhere without fighting. I’m not a. I’m not a violent guy in the streets. I say only because I know truly violent guys. That doesn’t mean I never got my hands dirty. I just don’t put myself on the level of guys like, you know, I always. I’ve heard you say this before. There’s a difference between a gangster and a racketeer. Yes. I always saw myself as a racketeer. And the gangster side was kind of a bully. Side is not really my nature, but it’s big in Texas prison, and so you have to kind of put that hat on whether you want to or not.

So I was in fights regularly and hit somebody with a lock, hit somebody with a jack, Matt can slice somebody it. I had been in juvenile a lot before I went to prison. I wasn’t fresh, and so nobody doubted me ever. Because by the time I was a prospect, I already had plenty of fights and wins under my belt. I’m not a small guy and I was an athlete, so. And I grew up around a lot of black guys and ran around with black guys in the street. I learned the street from the black side. So you didn’t have any.

You didn’t have any animosity or racism towards blacks? You didn’t get involved with Aryan Brotherhood because of that. You didn’t have that. And that wasn’t required as part of being part of that organization. No, that’s right. And honestly, probably half of the guys didn’t. Now, it’s funny, because guys will hide that and they’ll only listen to country music and they’ll only listen to rock and roll because they don’t want to get criticized. They don’t want to get caught listening to rap music or something. But tons do, even back in the 90s. But there is this. That’s not our culture.

You. You. There is some cultural pressure to not talk black, not sag your pants, not, you know, act like a white man. Absolutely. In the same with the Mexicans in those days, they had their culture. And even if you listen to rap music in the streets, in prison, we listen to tejano and ortegnos, we don’t listen to rap music. And so you just kind of accept this as like, this is the way it is in here. But no, I, I did not have animosity to anyone. Okay, that’s, that’s interesting. So you’re a prospect for a certain amount of time.

You prove yourself worthy and, and now it comes a time where you’re formally inducted into the Aryan Brotherhood. How did that, what was that like? You know, I’m. This would have been 1997. I used to have it tattooed on me. October 18, 1997, I got my patch. There were no ranking members on that prison at that time. It was maybe a handful of prospects. So the official word had to come through the mail. They had shipped all the rank off Texas and I think like California, they ship you around all the time. If you do any amount of time in Texas prison, you might touch 10 or 15 different prisons.

And anytime you get in trouble or they suspect you of anything, they ship you to disrupt operation. It’s really effective. So at the time it was, it was actually pretty quiet. It was not a big elaborate ceremony or anything. I think I just got a letter. It was like, you’re, you’re good, you’re one of us. Carry on. And I would imagine that would be a cryptic letter because the, you know, the administration does read the mail or they have act. They don’t read every letter, but they can. And so you don’t want something like that coming in to identify you, you know, that, that definitely I would assume, absolutely.

The mail was probably the biggest threat. And my eventual downfall was the mail. And it’s funny because the high up guys are all in administrative segregation, solitary confinement, and all they can do is write. You never meet these guys. I’ve met, I’ve met some, but generally. And you never meet them. And so they judge you by how well you write. Your intelligence comes through and it, it all you start splitting apart as a prospect. It’s just like in the military, you have enlisted men and you have officers and the two really never meet. They split kind of early in their careers.

And if you’re enlisted, you can move your way up through the non commissioned ranks, but you rarely will become a commissioned officer. And the big difference is pretty much college degree Education. And it works a lot like that with the prison gangs. If you’re a knucklehead, if you’re a soldier, you follow orders, but you’re not very good at giving them. You will be a crash dummy and commit violence. That gets you a lot of trouble. You’re a soldier. The officers have more sense, more cunning, and it comes across in the letters. Anybody who’s done this lifestyle will tell you that the guys at the top are brilliant in their writing, their letters.

That’s fascinating. You know, in our life, we tried to keep everything off paper and not keep notes. So we’re told never to write anything down, never to talk on the phones. You know, we were. We were very cryptic like that. But I gotta ask you, is there any other rank? You said there’s a general. That’s the highest rank, correct? Correct. And what are the other ranks? Are there officials? Are there officers or soldiers now? Well, 25 years ago, when I first joined, it was a smaller organization. Organization. And it went from the bottom up. Prospect, full member, junior lieutenant, senior lieutenant, captain, which is when it gets more serious.

And then general. Later they added major in between captain and general, and they changed the junior lieutenant to sergeant at arms, or sergeant. Excuse me, maybe just sergeant. That was after my time. And what about shot caller? Is there. Was there. I saw the movie Shot Caller, which I thought was great. Yeah, That’s a generic term. Okay. I don’t remember us really using that word. The politics gets complicated because you have these guys you call speakers and you say this guy speaks for those people. And those people could be an official family, a traditional prison gang.

It could be a certain race from a certain city. It could just be a race on a certain cell block. So let me give another example. Anywhere that I went, once I had attained the rank of senior lieutenant, whatever prison and whatever cell block I was on, I typically spoke for the whites on that cell block. And a lot of times on a whole building, there’s really no white. One white dude that speaks for all whites on the whole prison. Because you’ve got multiple different gangs and you definitely don’t speak for them. But block by block, the wood pile on that block will get together and say, hey, man, you should speak for us.

It was this guy. But now it should be you. Because when you speak, you care. You bring the weight of your organization with you. And that matters. If you’re just an independent guy and you’re trying to talk to the Crips or the Mexican Mafia, unless you’ve got some bodies under your belt, they’re not gonna respect you. But we never called it a shot caller. We just said, oh, he speaks for us in the Mexicans are black. Same thing. So you could say he calls the shots. He’s a shot caller, but it’s not an official title. Have you seen the movie? I have.

I have, several times. It was a good movie, actually. It’s a great movie. Yeah, I enjoyed it. Really accurate. That’s good. That’s good to know. I did a review of it and I liked it. I saw it twice too, but my viewers liked it too. So let me. You end up doing some time in solitary. What kind of an effect and how much time did you do in solitary and what kind of an effect did it have on you, if any? I did six and a half years straight. I’ve done a little over seven years altogether, if you count county jail, juvenile fights.

Just add it all up. But I eventually got confirmed in California. They call it validated, where they go through a process and classification files, paperwork saying, you are an officially designated member of this security threat group. And at that time, you are sent to administrative segregation. And in those days, it was indefinite. There were guys back then that would do 25. Let me ask you this, Rex. So just when they designate you or identify you as part of Aryan brotherhood, you automatically go to the hole? Automatically, yes. It’s automatic. Okay. You don’t have to do anything else.

There doesn’t have to be a violent act, an escape attempt. Not just you are a member of a designated security threat group. You go to high security. And do they find that out either by the letters or by an informant or how do they. How do they make that determination? You know, every unit has these gang intelligence officers, and it’s their job to identify the gang members. Their whole process is secret. I got flagged due to mail. A guy sent me a letter. It was very open. In fact, it had a copy of the gang constitution in it, the whole thing.

I. I was very upset that he sent that to me in those days. Cost me six and a half years and solitary confinement with his. Bad choice. But that, and I do believe probably some informants. There’s probably more than one thing required. But once I was under investigation and I knew they had me, I started getting tattoos. I didn’t care anymore. It didn’t matter. As I said, I used to have big, big lightning bolts on my neck, a big patch on my chest. I probably have some more I don’t even think about. But, um, yeah, once I was under investigation.

I, I got the tattoos and they were happy to photograph those and add them to my, to my jacket. Well, you know, I, I’ve often said this, that we have certain defining moments in our lives that, you know, things or experiences, events, things that happen, that have such a dynamic impact on our lives that it can change the course of our lives. And I think something like that happened to you and as a result, you started to make a different decision and follow a different path in life. What was that all about? Well, it was going to seg to solitary.

I went. When I went to AD seg, I was as committed a member as anyone ever. I loved it, I lived for it. I wanted the glory. I wanted us to be the top dogs. I was ready to go to war with anyone at any time. And at first they call AdSeg the promised land, because if you’re a gang member, you’re going to end up there. And so, as strange as it sounds, I was both petrified of going because who wants to go to solitary confinement? But I was also excited because I knew I’d finally get around the old schools, the guys that were around from the beginning.

And the first two, three years, no, two years that I was in Adsaig, I was still gung ho and we were at war with another organization. And I played a part in that. It was proud to do it. But in parallel to my gang activity, I was stuck in a cell, a 5×9 cell. You know, I could touch both walls. I could sit on my bunk and kick my feet up on the wall and there’s nothing to do but read, read, draw, exercise, sleep. That’s it. Talk to your neighbors a little bit. I know it well.

I spent not quite as long as you, but 29 months in a six by eight. So a little bit different dimension, but I, I, believe me, I get it. When you talk about. It’s same square footage. Yeah, same square footage. And you know, when you talk about it, you can envision it. It’s like you’re right back there for a moment. Awful. Yes, you’re exactly right. But while I’m doing this gang activity, I’m going back and I’m reading and it’s opening my mind. I could never cover all the subjects that I touched on, but they all played a part in my maturing past.

Where I was at mathematics, I could, I could talk for an hour about how studying math changed me, changed my life, eventually gave me a career. And just. And it was the thing that I was scared of most growing up. I hated math. Absolutely. I was, I wasn’t scared of anything but a fraction. But sitting down and facing these things going, you’re not afraid to go. Face the worst violence, but you’re afraid to do a math problem. What sense does that make? And then once I did that and I conquered that all the way up through calculus, I was like, there’s nothing that can stop me.

Why did I ever hold myself back? And I got into economics, finance, studied how to write, studied philosophy, every subject that I could. I treated it as my college education. And it’s really impossible to go down that path of education and continue to act like an idiot. It just, it just doesn’t work. You. You start to see yourself and go, warren Buffett would have never done this. And that’s what I was reading. And none of my neighbors or cellies or had any idea about any of this stuff. Nobody taught me anything. And I would see them year after year stay the same.

They’d listen to the game, they gamble, they just. Year after year, these guys would remain exactly the same. And I had neighbors in, guys that I knew that had been in seg for 25 years. A boy from the Mexican mafia, Rick, who was falsely accused of being me. These guys had been in seg 5 by 9 cell, no air conditioning, no human contact, 25 years. I was in my early 20s and just really facing the fact that these guys went into solitary at my age and now they have gray hair and they’re still in solitary confinement with no hope of getting out.

How could you not open your eyes to this horrible mistake that you’ve made and go, there’s, there’s nowhere to go here. I either, I either get out of this when my 10 year sentence is up, or I get ready to go to death row because my next best option is to die young. Because I just could not see spending a life in solitary confinement. And I was around hundreds of guys who could see it. That was their life. It’s. It’s impossible to convey to people who have never been there how insane. It’s like being in an alternate universe.

It’s like waking up in a nightmare every day. And to know that there’s people that accept it is just sad. And it’s like you only live once. It was this gaining knowledge that helped me to realize I could do something else while at the same time witnessing what others had reaped from the lifestyle that we were living. It was, I know to the average civilian, this is like, obviously, obviously that’s stupid to do that. But when you’re in the lifestyle, it’s not so obvious. No, I get it, Rex. You know, when I spent, there was a lot of guys that, you know, for me, it was a little bit different.

I mean, I became a person of faith, and it was really an education in faith that turned me around. But, you know, I saw a lot of guys that didn’t do well, and I didn’t demean them. I understood it because it’s a form of torture. There’s no doubt about it. And when I speak to young people, and I speak to prison officials all the time, and I tell them young people should not be in solitary, there has to be a different way because it could ruin them emotionally for the rest of their lives. So, you know, the fact that you were able to see that and, you know, between educating yourself and realizing that a life of solitary confinement is really no life at all, you know, Rex, I think you’ll support me on this.

When people say, you know, I’m deaf, I’m against the death penalty across the board. And the reason I’m against it, it’s not because people don’t do such heinous things that maybe you believe that they shouldn’t live, but because the government sometimes gets it wrong. And they do put innocent people to death. And any civilized government that would. That would execute an innocent person, if you do it one time, it’s wrong. But what I also say is I think people think that solitary confinement for the rest of your life is a walk in the park. Some people would rather say, hey, just put me to sleep.

I know I would have rather said that, hey, I don’t want to live like this. I’m in solitary now. I’m 40, 41 years old. I got to live the rest of my life like this. I got to have my wife and kids try to come and visit me. Who wants that? Put me to sleep. And, you know, I don’t think people realize that it is a form of torture. And, you know, again, you know, fortunately, you were able to recognize that between educating yourself and understand that, you know, five, a five by nine or five by eight is not going to do it for you.

I. I have learned how much it scarred me from these talks. I never wanted to face it. I’ve been free for 20 years. September be 20 years. And for 18 years after I got out, every time I went to sleep, I was back in that cell with time dragging slow. And I’d wake up and I’d have to shake it off and get dressed and Go to work and act like I didn’t just do another five year sentence or something in that seg. And now that I’ve started to speak about these things, a lot of guys have reached out to me who went through the same experience and they say the same thing.

I’ve been out all these years. Some have only been out a few, some have been out longer than me. And they’re still struggling with just the trauma of spending so much time. The guys that get out from AD seg directly to the streets, it takes them years to even function like a normal person. And they feel terrible about it, but the anxiety. One of my buddies, he did 26 flat. I don’t remember how much time he did in seg, but he was in seg when I was there. I met him in 99 and he only got out a couple years ago.

He talked about how he was riding in the van to the halfway house and he hadn’t moved in a vehicle in so long that the motion sickness was overwhelming just to. Just to move in a vehicle. Then he went into a gas station. All the bright colors of the packaging, the chips, the cookies, the. It’s just red and green and orange and neon. Almost made him sick. It scared him to death. But it was just so much color and action. He’s been staring at a blank wall. Grays, whites, everything’s very drab. Your brain actually becomes rewired.

Especially if you go to prison young. Your brain becomes rewired and then you come back out and it’s a shock. I don’t remember how I dealt with it. I went to work. Let me ask you this, because at some point you made a decision to walk away. I would assume that’s dangerous. You can’t just. When you know, have all this information, they just don’t let you walk. I mean, how did that occur? When I quit, it wasn’t because I had problems. I have nothing against those guys. I’ve never had a problem with them. I tell them all the time.

I still talk to some guys. I got nothing but love for those guys. And I left because a mission didn’t go the right way. And we were all placed in a position where we could have gotten a ton of time because of the mishandling of a higher rank. And he’s dead now. So that’s one of the reasons why I talk about it a little bit. Was this in prison or outside of prison? In prison. In prison. I’ve talked about it before. We were going to hit three guys and the higher Rank above me, who’s passed on now.

He leaked the whole plan to an outsider, and that outsider I had no reason to trust. And the guy who was supposed to pull the trigger, so to speak, didn’t want to do his part. It all came apart, and it became an opportunity for me to walk away. And the higher rank who ordered the whole thing, he also walked away that same night. So the whole. My whole kind of chain of command left at the same time. Was this before you went into solitary or it was against solitary? In solitary. I got it. Yeah, it was in solitary.

Ad Seg in. In Texas, at least in those days, was still very active. We were. We were still about the business. And there was plenty of hits that happened in Seg. There was hits that we orchestrated from SEG in general population, on other units and things like that. So we were. It’s not like you get to go to Ad sig, and now you’re retired. They don’t want you to do that. Not my day. We were all right, now. Now you’re active. Just here. But I. I waited until that. We weren’t at war. I didn’t have any active orders.

I didn’t owe any money. And I just. It all seemed that night like the writing was on the wall. It was like, you can either walk away now or this is the rest of your life. And how. How did you formally walk away? Did you just tell them I’m done or. I. I told my reign. I always point up because he was. He was in a cell right above me, and so I sent him a kite. And I said, for these reasons, I’m out. I. I never signed up to be a crash dummy. I know a lot of guys, probably people want to hear that I had a change of heart.

I became a good guy. I. I had a spiritual awakening, which came later, but that’s not why I left. I. Or that maybe I got crossed out, I had beef with somebody, I got kicked out. None of that’s true. I could just see where this was going. And while I’m studying philosophy and economics and seeing a future for myself over here in the square world, I couldn’t see one anymore. In the. In the gang lifestyle, there was no money being made, not to significant amounts. It was just. You’re. One day you’re gonna have to do something that you’re not gonna get away with, and this will be the rest of your life.

So I was. My life was over either way. Once. Once you’re confirmed, and I’m still confirmed to this day. If I go back to prison, I go back to, say, from the streets to solitary confinement. I can’t do that. I. No, thanks. I’m doing fine. I have a regular life. What’s the benefit to me or anybody else? But see, the higher ups will throw you to the wolves. They’ll let you be that crash dummy. It’s a feather in their hat. Another notch on their belt. But. So let me ask you that. Did they have a. They put a hit out on you? They say you can’t leave.

Were people upset with you? Did you have any trouble on the street? Any of that? I did not. I did not. It came back later that we were okay. It was understood because like I said, my, my major also quit behind the whole thing. And the thing is, and I love those guys. I really want that. I love those guys. I never have anything against them, but I just couldn’t rock with them anymore. I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to be a criminal anymore. And that’s a lot of my message to this day is, you know, they say, they say courage is not a lack of fear.

It’s acting despite the fear. You still feel the fear, but you just go ahead and do it anyways. As my wife says, just do it scared. Yeah, I agree. And that’s the thing about crime. I wish I could say that I had this complete spiritual transformation and became a saint, but that’s not true. It can’t be true of any of us. We’re all flesh and blood. I’m still the same man. I still have wrong impulses, but I do the right thing despite the wrong impulses. Do the right thing even if you have wrong thoughts. That’s what I came up with.

It was just a rational, logical choice of, I hang out with these guys, my life is over. I got one more chance. I ride out this 10 year sentence and I never look back. And then I’ve got a chance at a life. What are you, what are you going to do? Solitary confinement. Now they have a program where a gang member can renounce his membership, go through a program, leave solitary confinement, go back to general population. And many, many have done that. It didn’t exist in my day. It wasn’t an option. They started it my last year and we started to hear about it, but there was a waiting list.

It was pointless. I had nine years done on a 10. I might as well just finish it and go home and never deal with this again. And that’s. I talked to guys about that and I’m Like, I don’t really care what your beliefs are. I don’t care where you’re at spiritually. We don’t have to get into that. If that helps you to do right, that’s great. But even if you don’t believe in a higher power, you should still do right. You’re gonna be punished here on earth sufficiently. You don’t have to wait for hell in the afterlife to regret your bad choices.

Because I just. I’m reading. I’m reading Fortune magazine, which I know you were in, in your days, you were one of the highest earning in your field at that time. So I’m looking at these truly success, successful men and going, I’m not one of them. I have failed. I have potential, but I failed and I need to fix it. There’s just no honor in being a low performer. And if you’re in prison, you’re as low a performer as you get that. Just be honest. And so when I talk to guys who are 40 plus years old and they’re still kind of glorifying the prison mentality, YouTube’s made it really bad.

And they’re, they’re trying to brag what prisons they were on and stuff, as if Ferguson unit was an alma mater. It’s like, no. And. And being in a prison gang is not the same as being in a fraternity. You have no connections. You have failed. The only thing to do is walk away and go join the civilian world. Work hard, be smart. You know, and that’s. It was just became obvious to me like this. This crime path is filled with failures. I’m surrounded by failures. I’m seeing guys get out and come back, and it’s like, you did 10, 15 years, you got out, you started doing heroin.

Two, three years later, you’re back. You don’t even want to talk about it. You don’t even want to tell us what really happened, because you’re ashamed. And so you puff your chest out and you act like you’re a tough guy and you just don’t let anybody tell you what to do. But deep down, you and I know you regret all of it. Your life’s a failure, and now you’re just old. Absolutely. You know, I. I said that so many times. I’ve gone into prisons and spoken to gentlemen, and they’re 50s and 60s, and they’ll turn around.

You know, I was in Angola prison and a couple of tough ones, and they look and they say, michael, look, whoops, I’m 50 some odd years old. I’ve accomplished nothing in My life, I’m spending the rest of my life in prison. What did I do? Before you know it, you know, you’re in a situation you just can’t get out of. You have nothing but regret, but that’s your life. But, you know, you’ve overcome that. I’ve overcome that. And from what I understand, you know, you’re, you’re a successful writer. You write crime fiction. Right now you’ve also, you have a show on YouTube, you know, the Rex Holiday Show, Holloway Show.

And you’re. What is this created executive power building fitness program. So you’re into fitness, which I have a little bit to talk about because my whole family, my daughters are fitness experts and my wife is into fitness. My younger daughter, they’re all. I’m surrounded by fitness people. So I have to stay in good shape, which I’m glad. You look great. Thank you. But you’re doing very well for yourself, Rex. And I know you speak to a lot of men also, right. Try to put them on the right track. I do, I do. I would say for every interview that I post to YouTube, there’s probably five current and former prison gang members that talk to me, you know, privately.

A lot of phone calls, a lot of multi hour marathon phone calls with guys who are distressed. They’re trying to figure it out. They, they don’t want to go back to prison. They’ve been out a few years. They’re struggling emotionally, psychologically, and they hear my story of, you know, I, I know guys that 10 plus years in AD seg and I only did six, six and a half, but they can tell that I get it. It’s long enough time for me to understand that you’re never really the same after that. No. Nobody that hasn’t been through it will ever understand how you never feel like you fit in again.

Once you’ve spent that much time in solitary confinement, it changes you. And a lot of guys get out and they know that they’re changed. They know that it’s, they’re traumatized, they’ve got PTSD or pics, they’ve got issues. And just to sit down and explain them to someone who gets it is hugely therapeutic to them. Yeah. And so they really just want to vent to me. And then they call me a week later and they go, I feel so much better. Yeah. Like, it makes sense. It’s great to talk to somebody that’s been there and done that.

And, you know, that’s why I’ve had, you know, a measure of success over the years because when you’re talking people going through a certain situation and you’ve been there, done that, and you’ve been able to come out of it, it has impact. So I understand where you’re coming from. And, you know, I applaud you, commend you for the work that you’re doing. And listen, six years into, you said you didn’t do that much. Six years in solitary is a long time to be in solitary. Trust me, I did 29. And, you know, people turn around, they say, michael, how did you do that? And I said, well, listen, they don’t.

They don’t actually give you a choice. They don’t say, you can be in solitary or not be in solitary. You’d be surprised what you do when you. You have to do it. So. But, you know, you came out of it, I’ve come out of it. And if we can use those experiences to help other men, I think we’re. We have a responsibility to do so. So, you know, I’m happy with the work that you’re doing. And, you know, what is this about? These crime stories that you’re writing, Are you continuing to do that? I am. I.

It. What a trip. I knew I would be a writer when I was little. I’ve always read books, loved them. And solitary gave me time to read everything I ever wanted. And I guess in a way, I’m thankful for that because I would have never read all those books otherwise. And as I said, I wish that I could say that I changed into this saintly man, but that’s not true. That’s not quite true. You know, once you know things, you know them, you can’t unknow them. You can only control them. Well, let me. Let me tell you this, Rex.

I’ll sum it up for you. You can take the boy out of Texas, but you can’t always take Texas out of the boy. For you, it’s Texas. For me, it’s Brooklyn. So I get it. We still have those same thoughts, you know, we still have the same impulses, but we’re able to hold them off and not act on them. And when you do that consistently for a long enough time, then that becomes more of who you are than the person that you were. That’s right. And I just decided to channel those thoughts into stories. Why act on them when I could just write about it? If I’m.

If I find myself, and this is hypothetical, but if I found myself contemplating a bank robbery, and I would, and say, well, I’m going to do this, and then I would do that and then I would do that. Well, don’t do it. Write a story about it or write a story about somebody else doing it and then that’s legal and I don’t have to worry, you know, and it’s, it’s, it’s partially therapeutic to, to channel these thoughts and give them some purpose. That’s not destructive, but it’s more. And I think a lot of middle aged guys in older will agree that sometimes the current media is not really for us.

It’s sometimes difficult to find something to watch on the streaming services. And so we’re seeing more older men watch podcasts, you know, YouTube, and I’m just, I’m hoping to tap into that old 80s action movie genre, the Arnold Schwarzeneggers and Sylvester Stallone movies, Clint Eastwood movies, and tap into that kind of old action hero that we grew up with and just keep it going for the benefit of us older guys who still remember that stuff. And it’s a shame men don’t read anymore. It’s just non fiction. They read a lot of non fiction, but fiction is mostly dominated by women now.

So, yeah, I hold out for the day that maybe I get a movie deal. That’s, that’s really my goal is to, I think I write, I write stories for the big screen in just one day. Hey, it’s, it’s all about pursuing your dreams. Well, Rex, look, I, I really commend you. You know, you’re one of the very fortunate ones that’s been able to come out of a tough lifestyle. I could certainly relate to it. And listen, I wish you all the best. I really do. And continue to do the great work that you’re doing and be a positive influence on people.

You know, I always say this to those of us who have been given much, much is expected in return. And, and I think we feel that within us that if we can be of help to someone, we, we do our best. I mean, we can’t do it all the time, but we do it when we can. And I commend you for what you’re doing. I wish you all the best and just keep up the great work. Thank you. That means a lot. It really does. Thank you so much. All right, my friend. All right, people. Well, there you have it.

You know, I tell you what was fascinating to me. You know, you think of the Aryan Brotherhood. What do you think of white supremacy? You think of the Ku Klux Klan. You think of, you know, they hate, you know, blacks, they’re racist. But he said that Wasn’t the case, at least for that chapter in Texas where he was. And he wasn’t a racist himself. He said that he dealt with, you know, blacks on the street. So that was, you know, really interesting to me because I had just the opposite feeling on that. I thought that they were very racist, but he said no.

And it was very interesting to me in that they wrote letters to one another, you know. You know, totally opposite of what we ever did. We don’t want to put anything in writing, you know, in the mob, because of no Mafia, but they would actually their initiation, they had to sign a contract. I mean, I don’t get that. How you sign a contract for an organization that’s dealing in criminal activity. It doesn’t make sense to me. But, you know, and he said one of those letters got him in trouble while he was in prison. So it’s kind of fascinating to see how these groups were.

It really is. You know, and I got to say this. You know, people have said all the time, michael, you know, why do you think the Mafia was played up so much? And, you know, why is it like, the thing that everybody talks about? You don’t hear them talking about too much about the Hells Angels or the Aryan Brotherhood or the Mexican Mafia or even the Russian mob to that extent. But Italians, come on. Ever since the days of Al Capone, they’ve romanticized that life. They’ve done everything they possibly could. You know, they’ve made movies about it continuously.

It’s in the media all the time, you know, And I think, because we just carried ourselves in a different way. What could I say? You know, I don’t want to get too far into it, but we just did stand out. I’m not saying we’re the most powerful. We had the most money, but we did stand out as a criminal enterprise. I hate that word, enterprise. I think of RICO right away. I had three RICO statutes lodged against me. But you have to say it. You know, when Hollywood got fixated on the Mafia, on causing oyster in America, not necessarily anywhere else, but in America, and figures like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, even Meyer Lansky, even though he wasn’t a made guy, he was closely associated.

Vito Genovese, Joe Colombo, John Gotti, Sonny Francis, all these names, you know, for some reason, the media really got fixated on all of this. And when they stopped making movies, movies, and you start seeing, you know, magazines and everything else, boom, blows up. And that’s what happened. But you don’t see it about anything else. But again, I’M blown away by that. But, hey, in the hole in solitary, he said, was very, very difficult. And I get it. I spent a lot of time there. But it was during that time that he really started to think about his life and about his future.

And now he was able to make that break. It wasn’t that difficult for him. You know, he was able to make that break difficult. As far as him leaving now to change his mentality and all that, that’s different. He said that to you. And in essence, you know, again, you could take a boy out of Brooklyn. You can’t always take Brooklyn out of the boy. So he struggled. I get it. But he’s a businessman, he’s an author, he’s a public speaker. He’s turned his life around. He’s got a family. He’s doing the right thing. So all those of you out there that say, it’s too late, or I can never do it, or my mentality is different, no, you can make a change.

Number one, you got to be determined to do it. It’s up to you. Nobody’s going to grab you by the hand and bring you along. You have to be determined. It’s like a drug addict. I don’t care how many rehabs you send a person to, how much you try to drill common sense into their hand, whatever you use to get them off the drugs, when they’re not willing, ready, willing and determined to do it on their own, it’s not going to happen. Same thing when you’re coming out of a bad situation and you want to change your life around.

It’s all about determination, the will to do it, the commitment to do it, putting yourself around the right people and getting it done. Rex was able to do that. So it’s another good story, you know, another transforming transition story. And hey, whenever somebody has that, I like to give them the platform to come out and talk about it because it’s good influence on people. It’s encouragement to people, and these are the kind of stories we need to hear. You can’t think it’s hopeless. You can’t think I can never have a shot at it. So it’s people like Rex, to a degree, myself, other people that have been able to come out of a tough lifestyle.

That’s why I have a platform. That’s why people still want to listen to me after 30 years, because it’s encouraging. If you can do it, I can do it. That’s what it’s all about. How do I always leave you, my friend? Same way. Never going to change. Be safe. You know the drill. Be healthy. You know the drill there, too. Eat right. Exercise, especially when you get older, get that bottom part of your body moving. You older. People my age, 74, we can’t sit around, we can’t say, oh, I can’t do it. No, you can do it.

Walk, do yourself. You got to get that lower body strong. It’s important. Be safe. Be healthy. God bless each and every one of you. Your families, your loved ones, your communities, and yes, God bless America. I’ll see you next time. Take care.
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