Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: I'm Alex Stone, former military service member and law enforcement officer, now CEO of Echelon Protected Services, one of the fastest growing private security firms on the west coast. And this is ride along, where our guests and I witness firsthand the issues affecting our community.
I believe our proven method of enacting meaningful change through compassion and understanding is the best way to make our streets a safer place and truly achieve security through the community.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: G'day. My name is Dan Green. I'm a stand up comedian from Australia based in Los Angeles, California. And today I'm out with Alex on the Ride along podcast.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Hey, Alex Stone here. Welcome back to the ride along. Today's guest, Dan Green. Dan Green. He hosts several of his own shows. Dan, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience and let us know a little bit about yourself.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: G'day. My name is Dan Green. I'm a stand up comic from Australia who now lives in LA. I have a podcast called the Verbal Gym, where we show developing comics in LA and another show called are you my Veggie mate? Where I take well known comedians from across this country and give them their first taste of the australian classic vegemite.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I noticed that you brought some with you today.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: I know, mate. We're going to get you on this vegemite at some point today, man. That's for sure.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: I'll take a mouthful, but not right now.
So we have a kind of a similar background, right? Both. Even though you're from Australia, you spent a lot of your time in Houston, Texas.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: I spent 17 years in Houston, Texas.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: And during that time you were a bouncer.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: And we actually bounced during the same time together.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Across the street from each.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And as soon as I saw you, we have a mutual friend in my cousin JJ. He goes, remember this guy? I'm like, I do remember this guy. I think I had to wait in line several times to get this guy to let me.
So we called you up. You're gracious enough to fly out here and actually do the podcast, which I really appreciate. I mean, I know you're a busy guy, you have a lot going on right now.
Let's kind of go back in time. Kind of what we do here at the podcast is we talk about the intersectionality of our lives and how it comes down to living in community.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: And so going back to the security days, why did you choose security and what was your favorite thing about it, mate?
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Originally, when I got out, I came out to America to play semi professional rugby.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: That was why I first came out to America. I just got done doing un peacekeeping with the army back in Australia.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: And we'd been given a couple of months off, and I ended up in the security business because basically it seemed like an easy way to gravitate and pick up work in America when I first got there. And once I got into it the whole nightlife way, I kind of fell in love with it straight away.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Pulls you in, it pulls you in.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: You think you can quit it, but you never can.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: It's like a beautiful mistress, man. She's always there for you.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: It's always there.
I met a girl and I came back out, got out of the army and came back out here and moved to Houston. Unfortunately, I married a woman I met on a Monday night in a bar. Don't do that.
Not a good way to work. Didn't work out in the end. But you know what? We're still here. That's what it comes down to.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: That's wonderful. So while you're bouncing, tell us just a little bit of your theory, your method behind how security should work in that environment.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: My dad, I watched my dad growing up. My dad was a policeman growing up back in Australia. Back in Australia, he worked a one man police station, basically what you would call the Inbac, just before it drops off to the outback.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: And so this is national police?
[00:04:10] Speaker B: No, it's state police.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: State police.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: State police. And I watching my dad with no backup deal with a lot of domestic violence situations, that kind of thing. I learned a lot from my dad. My dad used to work with a very strict ethos, which was strong words, softly spoken. I mean, he said, the angrier you get, the quieter you get. Never really give it up too much in that regard. And that kind of moved my way onto security. I mean, you've got to be calm with people. As long as you're calm and very direct, people always understand what you want.
And if you can control a narrative with everybody, I mean, the minute you give someone too much time to dwell on or think about what's about to happen, if you're very clear and go, listen, these are the paths that you have going forward. You can do this and this will happen, or you can do this and this will happen. Very clear on what the outcomes are here.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Being clear, direct. Right. Keeping your emotions in check. Oh, 100% people, a little bit of agency, you're giving them some choices. Right.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Well, that was the good thing, doing the UN work. I did UN peacekeeping in East Timor, and as a young fella, that definitely gave me. I mean, the UN are all about escalation of force as much as those jobs are what you would call peacekeeping, a wank sometimes in some countries, for want of a better term.
But they do teach you a lot about escalation of force because you don't have a lot of force to work with. So you've really got to ramp your way up to using that, because at the end of the day, you see people do it all the time where they balloon up to where they have nowhere to go, and then you've got an unarmed person walking towards you going, well, what are you going to do now? You've pulled everything out that you've got. What are you going to do, hit a guy with something because he's walking towards you? No, you should have already escalated that down. And I think that was something I learned from a young age and I bought that to what I did in Houston as well.
Yeah. Obviously, if you have to do what you have to do, you'd be very quick and with the least amount of force you can.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: And get it done.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: So currently you're a comedian.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the fun part.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Changed your career path.
Did you ever bring humor into your bouncing and into your security?
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Constantly.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Yeah. How did that work? How would you do that?
[00:06:31] Speaker B: You've got to do that.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: Taking the piss.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: I worked as a doorman as well. So it's a three hour roast.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Constantly out there. You're doing six conversations at once. Some of those clubs I worked for, you're by yourself out the front and you're basically doing six conversations at once.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: And you worked at the best, most premier places in town. I mean, places where there would be a line of 100 plus people every night.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: There was one club, I made 90 grand in tips in one year, I believe, working 12 hours a week, and it was insane. It was one of those things where people used to come up to you all the time, be like, oh, you make $20 an hour dormant. I'm like, I'm going to Costa Rica every fourth week just because I'm bored at this point. I said, I don't think you understand what's going on here.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Yeah, people don't know. No, people pay a lot of money to get in those clubs, but, yeah.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: But at the end of the day, you got to treat people with a little bit of dignity at the end of the day, but you end up projecting and humor helps. It breaks down everything. The australian accent helps a lot. Helped a lot.
Yeah. You've got to be able to take it, too. I think I've been called fat in about nine different languages at this point.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: That's great. Just nine.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Just nine.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm used to that. I think I've had every insult you can possibly have thrown at you, but you can't let anything get to you. And then that's the thing. I think the hardest thing in this country is there's so many people in jail because they felt disrespected by somebody that they'll never know the name of. I'm like, how can you possibly feel disrespected? I got someone the other week, one of my guys at the club I work at now was, he said I was disrespected. I said, no, you weren't. The guy never respected you to begin with.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: You haven't lost anything. You never had.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And he didn't respect himself.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. At the end of the day, I've just met you now, right?
[00:08:17] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: If you were to call me an idiot right now, it wouldn't bother me that much because there's no level of respect.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: We started at zero.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: We started zero just now, right? I mean, we met each other a long while ago, but we don't actually hang out now. In six months from now, if you call me an idiot then that's going to mean something at that point. Now I feel disrespected at this point.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: That's a great way to look at it. Actually, I'm going to bring that up with my employees because that's a huge deal. Because we're disrespected on the streets here all the time.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: But people bring too much into that. They're like, they wear it. Oh, man. He said something about. Said something about my family. I'm like, doesn't even know your family.
I walk up to people, I go, what's his name? And they go, I don't know his name. Well, why do you feel disrespected then? How can you be disrespected by somebody? You don't.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: You're letting their ego take over.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Exactly right. And prisons are full of people like that doing five to ten for assault because they punched a guy in the face in a club because they were disrespected. And I'm like, no, you won't. You just couldn't hold your shit together.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: That's right. So you're working in comedy, right? Tell us that transition, how it worked for you.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: I almost had a heart attack. That's how it worked for me.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: I spent five days in the cardio unit at Methodist hospital.
Still haven't paid you guys, by the way, but got to get off that medical debt. But no, I was working four jobs at the time and still doing security work, still doing security work.
Running the candle at both ends. A little too hard, too much drinking, too much partying, and I ended up self diagnosing what I thought was a heart attack in a strip center parking lot in Houston. And a budy of mine, I called a budy of mine who was a doctor, and he said, just drive to the most expensive hospital you can find.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Wow, good advice.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: I said, why is that? He goes, because you can't afford the cheap hospital, so you might as well get run your debt up at the expensive one. And I was like, that's good advice.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: That's actually great advice. That's hilarious. That's so true. Well, it's great.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah, if you're broke, folks don't drive to urgent care. Drive to methodist.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: So you drive straight to the emergency room.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Drive straight to the emergency room. They put me in the cardio unit. My blood pressure was about 220 at the time.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Wow.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: And, yeah, four days in the cardio unit. And they sat me down and said, you need to make some changes. I had a friend of mine named Fadi Malcolmch who was out here in LA, and he just started doing comedy, and he said, this is easy, dan. And people have been telling me for.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Years to do comedy, and I imagine this was a dream of yours. While you're doing that security work, paralleling that, is that desire to comedy, right?
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I had people come by all the time. They go, why don't you do stand up? I just watched you sit there and roast people for 3 hours in front of a club. You can do this. This is easy. This is something you should be doing. And my dad had been suggesting me to do it forever. He said, you should try that. You're funnier than most of these comics I see on TV. And I'm like, all right. And then it came up, and I was like, I called my budy. I said, do you think I can do this? And he said, come out here and have a look. And sold everything I had.
I sold two handguns and a shotgun. I think I'm the only comic in America who sold his guns to pay for his first two months of comedy.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Wow, that's amazing.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: And that paid for the gas and my first month of accommodation in LA and got on stage and got the bug straight away.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Really? So what was the first place you did your stand up routine?
[00:11:32] Speaker B: At a place called Burt's back room.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: And where is that located?
[00:11:36] Speaker B: That used to be located on Melrose in LA. It was a little workout room. Oh, wow. Run by a lady named Rachel Cuthbert, who now lives in Austin.
And I got on stage there with about five people from a writers group that my friend Farty was with. And when I got off stage, I looked at him, I said, do you think I should stay out here and keep doing this? Honestly, I need to know now because I'm about almost run out of money.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: And he said, yeah, I'm like, cool, no worries. And then I ended up drinking my way into the door job at the laugh factory.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Oh, that's excellent.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Then, yeah, I got an intro with a comic named Jay Davis, who was the booker there at the time, and gave Jay some war stories about bouncing in Houston and stuff like that. And then suddenly I had the job. That's awesome. The rest is history, so to speak. To this point, I'm still at the laugh factory right now, and things are going really well.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: And so you and I share something in common.
You're living your dream right now.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I am, actually.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: You are, because you're one of the happiest people I've ever know. Truly happy people are only those people who are living their dream. Right. And I feel like I'm living my dream. And in order for me to get to where I am today, it took me having to live in my vehicle for two years. I lived at a McDonald's, actually, we'll drive by there later today.
I lived in a vehicle in that parking lot. I chose that McDonald's because they had the best Internet. Free Internet in the bathroom. Yeah. And a great bathroom. Yeah. 24 hours a day. I did that for two years because I had to be able to save money to build my company.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: And so it kind of explained how you ended up living in your Ford Explorer.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I lived in my Ford. What sort of car did you have in McDonald's?
[00:13:21] Speaker A: I was blessed. I was very lucky. Unfortunately, my brother had just passed away and I inherited. Or I purchased his sprinter vehicle.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Oh, you're in a van.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: I was in a van. I was in a sprinter van. And that's the van we do the ride along in. So we'll be in that van today. I have his dog tags and a couple poppies hanging from the rear view mirror in there.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: That's really cool.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: And so it's a 2016 sprinter. My brother passed away 2017, and I bought a futon mattress, threw it in there, and lived out of that van. Yeah. For two years.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I'd been staying.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: That's luxury compared to what you have.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: I'd been staying on a couch in West Hollywood, and then the bloke who had the couch sold his house, and I ended up living in my car about a month before the pandemic. I'd been living in my car before COVID Before COVID Wow. And I'd been driving around in the back of the explorer, and I was like, all right, okay, this is happening. Okay, this isn't optimal at this point.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Why am I pursuing this dream?
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Right? I'm driving to open mics and doing all this stuff, and then I ended up parking. I got the job at the laugh factory, and I ended up kind of covertly parking at the laugh factory at nighttime, trying to pull it off in their little. They have an apartment building across the street, and I was parked in the back parking lot. But here's the kicker.
I was also on a CPAp machine.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: So I had to keep the engine running all night to run the CPAP machine, which was plugged into the car to run that. I've been there because I was 150 pounds heavier than I am now, and I couldn't sleep and die. If I didn't have the CPAP machine, I'd choke myself to death. So I'd heard they've got a little apartment complex there for comics, and I'd heard a rumor.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Really? Yeah.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: I'd heard a rumor that someone might move out, and I thought, you know, what? If I kind of just hang out here and someone leaves, there's a chance they might go throw this guy in apartment.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: So you're sleeping in your Ford Explorer.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: On a CPAP machine. So I got to run the engine at nighttime for 8 hours a night. I got to run the engine to keep the thing plugged in. So it's bad enough sleeping in your car.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it's hard.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: But when you've got to sleep in your car with the engine running, that brings all sorts of flies around.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Too much attention, bro.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: Way too much attention. So I'm sleeping there with my engine running.
Then global pandemic hits, and I'm like, shit.
And, you know, when the pandemic started, everybody was sitting there just going, you know what? This will be two months.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: Yeah. No, two weeks.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: Two weeks. Two months. And you're like, oh, no. And I was thinking the guy was going to move out after three months and I was a chance at this. No.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: Well, because of the pandemic, I'm sure he probably ended up staying.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So I spent ten months living in my car in the laugh factory parking lot before somebody sleeping with a CPAP. I was lucky. After four months of running the engine every night, someone who had an apartment there ran me a line out.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome. Wow.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah, nice lady named Kelly ran me a line of extension cord out from her apartment. Then I could turn the car off. But, yeah, man, I can tell you right now, too, I'm six foot three. And at the time I was a lot fatter. I was about 380 to 400 pounds. I just fit in a Ford Explorer.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: But, yeah, I went and got a best $180 ever spent. I went and got a piece of foam cut perfectly for the back so I could sit there. But I never slept in the car during the day because at no point did I want them to think that I was sleeping in a car during the day. I wanted to make it look like. Well, I wasn't fooling anybody, but I didn't want them to think that I was camping in their parking lot. I wanted to make the look that's as temporary as possible.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Very smart. Yeah.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: But also, when I was bouncing, I was wearing a suit. Living in a car, which is tricky as well.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: So how did you maintain all that?
I had a shower in a bathroom of my first contract in that room, I would lock it up at night. Luckily, there was a floor drain. It was more of a commercial industrial area.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: I did what every struggling person in LA does, planet fitness. $10 a month.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: $10 a month of planet fitness? Mate, I'll tell you right now, planet fitness showers look like San Quentin.
80% of the people with a gym membership at Planet Fitness are taking a shower and that's it. No one. I mean, when you walk into planet fitness wearing flip flops, they know you're not working out. Yeah, and I'm too broke to have two sets of flip flops. So when I come back past ten minutes later, I'm squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeaks. I look at the guy, I'm going to do arms tomorrow, buddy.
He's like, you're an idiot. Yeah, I almost got stabbed in the bathroom in the showers at Planet Fitness once. I mean, I'm sitting there and I had a buz cut at the time, and I could hear two guys fighting outside. And those showers, they don't clean. Those showers at Planet Fitness. I mean, the guy getting paid $15 an hour isn't going to go in there and get on his hands and knees and scrub that. No, it's horrendous. Yeah, it's bad. So there's no five second rule when you drop something? It's a 1 second rule. When you drop things at Planet Fitness, you're in some trouble.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: So you're almost living that prison life.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Yeah, no, my towel dropped down. I've dropped out, and these guys go get the skinhead. And I looked around and went, where? Oh, shit, that's me. You want to get. No, no, just grab my stuff and get out of.
Yeah. Planet fitness. Until they shut the gyms. And when they shut the gym, because of COVID Yeah. Then I had to basically go, okay, this is how I started doing stand up out of my car. Then because I had to finance every four days, I got a hotel.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: So how did that work doing stand up out? You just pulled up at a random place?
[00:18:58] Speaker B: No, what I would do is I would do a live stream out of my car every two weeks.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Really?
[00:19:03] Speaker B: And for two weeks, I'd write 20 minutes of original material every two weeks. And then most of it just premises. And then expand them organically in front of a live audience. So I'd write down 24 premises, which I was pretty sure would last 20 minutes because 1 minute on each premise. And then I'd just sit there and expand these ideas organically in front of an audience, usually. And I was making about $800 a live stream off those things. People in Houston were.
I can't thank the people in Houston enough who supported me during that because people were very supportive. They understood how hard I was working. I think I almost set myself on fire once. I covered myself in Christmas lights for Christmas once.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: And plugged myself in. I love it.
That wasn't the best idea into the line.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: That's running out of your friend's apartment.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm wired in, basically.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: But, yeah, I did get to see some. There's some real scenes of desperation. There was a couple of times where I thought I'd drop the feed, and when that's literally, the feed is your feed for the next two weeks.
I now know what I look like when I panic, because I've seen that look of panic in my eyes when I thought, I've just ruined this two weeks of work right here, and it's gone. And then you get people back and you're like, oh, wow. There you go.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Growing up, and I've always been entrepreneurial. I've always heard stories about people who created their business. You watch that movie pursuit of happiness. You watch him live in a bathroom stall, right? Like at a subway station with his son. And I never thought that that would be me, because I always was smart enough, intelligent enough, and good looking enough to get a really good job.
And I realized that in order to achieve what I want, I literally have to create it out of nothing.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Frustrating when you find yourself in that situation.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it is.
There's a sense of belief that we have to have in our DNA that literally manifests our destiny. And I'm not one of those new age people. Right, right.
With your own belief, you're literally talking it into existence and believing it into existence. And it takes everything that we are. It takes every little ounce of faith and strength and mental capacity, emotional awareness. It literally takes everything to do that. And it sounds like you kind of went through that metamorphosis, that process.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: I didn't have a backup plan.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Yeah, you can't have one.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: No.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: If you're truly about the game and you're about it and you're doing your thing, you tell yourself there are no options.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: I had to get worse. But talking to people who are watching this from the outside, I had to tell them I had a backup plan to make them feel better about it for me.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: Wow. Isn't that the truth?
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Because they were like, oh, so it was after that three month period and that guy didn't move out of that apartment. I kept telling my parents, and I kept telling other people. I'm like, you know, this. This apartment's gonna open up. I had no plan at all. I had a ticket, actually, home to Australia. A friend of mine had bought me a plane ticket back to Australia, and I hadn't seen my parents in four years. And my dad. And this is the big thing that did it. My dad was never really proud of some of the stuff I'd done back in Houston, back in the day. I mean, he said he was, but I know he wasn't that proud, but he was proud of this. He really appreciated what I was trying to do with the comedy. And he said, if you come back and visit us right now and you get stuck out here for the pandemic, then all this is gone, right? And I said, yeah, it is. I'll lose the job. I'll lose the opportunities that come.
All that momentum, gone. And he goes, stay.
And I finally got to go home for the first time in seven years. Last Christmas, and I hadn't seen those guys in seven years. And, yeah, my dad's health, it's reasonable, but my parents are in their 70s. There was a chance that I may have missed a chance to go and see those people, but my dad was like, no, stay where you're at. That's amazing. And the fact that the self belief that he had in me at that point, I was like, well, if he believes I can pull this off, then I can pull this off. And that was a big thing for staying. Yeah, you learn some things living in your car, that's for damn sure.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Yeah, you do.
We discover who we really are and what levels we're willing to go to achieve our dream.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: I had a leaky sunroof as well. I had a plywood sunroof. Plywood, sunroof, plywood, plywood, sunroof.
And then the summer was the worst. I remember I took the cargo netting out of the back of this Ford Explorer, and I turned it into a NASCAR window. You know, like the netting windows. I thought, you know what? I can still get stabbed by this, but he's going to have to work a little harder to stab me.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: Well, it turns out for airflow.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: Yeah, for airflow. So it turns out that if you put a netting window on your Ford Explorer, it creates a natural jungle gym for raccoons.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: I woke up at 03:00 in the morning. I woke up 03:00 in the morning. It was August 19, 2020. I remember exactly when it happened because it's the first time I've ever seen a set of raccoon nuts.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Wow. Oh, my God.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: Because a raccoon was hanging on the roof rack of the car. Basically, I woke up to getting tea bagged by a raccoon.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Nice.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: And, mate, you're like, you know what? Okay, I'm going to use this for material one day. This is going to work out.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: You can't make up a raccoon tea.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: Bag in your back, so you're doing comedy now, right? And obviously you're no longer homeless.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: Not at all.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: That's great, man.
Eventually, you get to the point where you decide you're going to start a podcast, right? You're going to get a show going, and this show is doing really well.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I do two shows. I do a show called are you my veggie mate? Where we take this good stuff here. Australia's national food vegemite. I've been eating this since I was three. This is in 80% of australian households. Basically, this is Australia's way. I equate it. This is Australia's bologna sandwich.
Okay. We don't have bologna in Australia, but there's a reason this is in every australian home, because it'll last about four months. A jar of this with two kids.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: I mean, it's the best white trash food in the entire universe.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Oh, great. Okay, so it's like American Mac and cheese.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: It's American Mac and cheese. Yeah.
I mean, I grew up on vegemite sandwiches in my lunchbox when I went to school.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: So I basically take american comics, and there's been a. I'd say it's probably 30% enjoyment rate.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: I mean, there's a couple of comics who really got into it. I mean, Jamie Kennedy, Adam Ray, those guys. Adam Ray licked this out of the jar.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: And I'd never seen anybody go that hard before. Jamie Kennedy asked me to send him another bottle. But then you got guys like Dean Del Rey who bought the thing back to the club just to get it out of his house. He told me, get this shit out of my house.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
So it's a love it or hate it type of deal, mate.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: It is.
Let's just find. You want to find out?
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. Let's go. There's no better time than now, right?
[00:26:22] Speaker B: All right.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: Look at that.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Let me get you a cracker.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: The consistency looks like a puddle of congealed engine oil at the bottom of a grease trap in a 50 year old mechanics shop.
Would that be correct?
[00:26:43] Speaker B: That seems a harsh description.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Slightly harsh.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Seems slightly harsh.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: That seems slightly harsh, mate. But I think.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: Are there any health benefits for this?
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it's huge in vitamin B. It's like a hangover cure on toast, how they make this stuff, how they discovered it.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Vitamin B, okay?
[00:27:08] Speaker B: It's what's left in a beer vat once they've taken all the beer out. It's the leftover yeast on the outside of the vat, inside the vat.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: I mean, look, there's nothing to be scared of. Look, I'll raw dog this stuff right here.
It's fine.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah, but you're crazy.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: I'll do a bucket load of this stuff. Now, the key is you don't want to go as strong as peanut. Think half the strength of peanut butter. So if you're putting peanut butter on this cracker. Okay, put.
All right, I'll give you a demo.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: Oh, shit. Okay.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: Fuck that one up a little bit. Let me go with a second one. I've gone a little hard on your cracker. Don't worry. I'm going to eat two of these anyway, so I can come back to that one.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: And this is how it's typically eaten on a piece of.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Usually eat it on a bit of toast with a bit of butter.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: So this is a morning meal.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: Oh, this is definitely breakfast.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: But breakfast. Okay.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: This is the breakfast gear.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Is this what you would have with tea? I mean, I'm not trying to say that everyone in Australia drinks tea, but is this a tea thing?
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Not necessarily.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: I mean, you don't need to have tea with this. My parents. Okay. You know what I caught my dad doing yesterday? My dad sent me a picture yesterday. He's cutting onions with a set of fucking swim goggles on.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Oh, that's brilliant.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: He thought it was brilliant. I said, you look like you're ready to be put in a home.
So you're looking to do that.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: You'Ve got enough there. You've probably gone a little strong.
Well, you know what?
[00:28:37] Speaker A: I feel like a painter.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: We're going to do a car crash on this anyway.
We're going to do it. We might as well do it right. Oh, jeez, you've gone strong. They're going to hate me. Australians are going to go way too strong. You know what? I'll do your trade. Give me that one.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Okay, you give me that one now I'm worried.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: And you take this one.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: It literally has the consistency.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: Of afghan heroin. I mean, I feel like I should be smoking this. I don't know, mate.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: We're friends at the moment. This may be about to change right now. This may be about to change, mate. See, this is what we come say on my show. This is what we say. We say, right? This is where Australians around the world and in America, we find out, mate, are you our veggie, mate? Cheers, budy.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Yeah, cheers.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Bottoms up, man. Just give it a big bite.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: It's on my lip.
It's on my lip.
The flavor grows as I continue to chew. And as I'm inhaling, I can really.
I've never tasted anything like this in my life.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: It's in our army ration packs.
That's a big deal in the ration pack. Bit of vegemite or any crackers.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: So it tastes like.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: It doesn't taste like anything you've ever had.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: It doesn't taste like anything I've ever had.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: It's salty.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Very salty.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: It'll kill a leech.
You want to pull leeches off. If you get leeches stuck on your jungle, a little bit of vegemite. Pop right off.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: And you learn that in combat, jungle warfare training.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Jungle warfare training, yeah.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: You find out the hard way, you wake up with a leech on your forehead. Yeah. Pop a bit of vegemite on it.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: I was in the army, right? Oh, yeah. I could definitely see that.
I'm going to get that taste out of my mouth. Is that okay?
Ha.
It's very close to eating a very bitter coffee bean, but more salty, and it's really earthy right now.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: I put that on a pizza just recently, just vegemite. Vegemite. Me and my dad put vegemite.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Pepperoni, cheese, tomato sauce.
Yeah, we put everything on. It was great. It's fantastic.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: The aftertaste, the tones are almost like a beer. I can kind of like a stout, like a really dark.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: There's a comic name. Josh Adamayer said exactly the same thing. He's like, it tastes like beer. He's like, I can taste it.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, you just finished a Guinness, and it's been, like, five minutes. After that kind of aftertaste.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: It's not bad now, by the way.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: I don't think it's bad. I would eat it again, but I don't think I'd want to eat it just by itself on a crack.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: I had a truckload of this when I lived in my car.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: I'm sure you did. They probably thought you were smuggling heroin. Well, who's this heroin dealer in this Ford Explorer?
[00:31:58] Speaker B: There's a very funny comedian named God.
[00:32:01] Speaker A: 20 kilos of heroin in the back.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: Very funny comedian from New York named Godfrey. And Godfrey, I gave him a jar of it, and he took it on the road with him. He goes, Dan, I'm going Toledo. I'll take it with me on the plane, and we'll do it from the hotel TSA. Stop him at Newark. And they're like, what is this? And he goes, I don't even know what it is, but it's in your bag. He goes, yeah, no. And I go, can you open? He goes, I don't want to.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea. That's awesome.
I'm sure they opened it.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: No, they let him through. They didn't open it. He goes, this australian, mad Australian, sent it to me.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: I'm not going to assume that everyone I know has smelled heroin, right? But have you ever smelled heroin?
[00:32:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: So it smells like vinegar, right? Has that vinegary smell. It almost has that type of smell.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Little bit. Yeah.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: To it.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: I'd never put two together before, but it smells like.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: Almost like vinegar, like apple cider vinegar and yeast.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: Yeah. I can see how you can make that comparison. Yeah.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: And I don't think it's bad. Right.
It's just different.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: It's definitely disarming if most Americans see it and think Nutella.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, no, I can see that.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: I'm surprised I didn't think that. Yeah.
[00:33:12] Speaker B: So they were expecting something straight away that tastes like that, and they go, oh, jeez. The shock value of that is just.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: No, Nutella is like a beautiful mistress. This is like having a good relationship with your ex wife right here.
If you had to take break down in a relationship term, what it's like to have vegemite. It's like a nice ex wife who can no longer push your buttons.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: Like child support on a cracker.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
If you have ten children. Right. Yeah. And you're paying a lot.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: That's exactly what that's like, mate. I tell you what, I think you've kept it down. That's the main thing. And you didn't.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: I'm trying to be strong for you.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: And most of the guests I have on my show are over. Zoom.
So you're the first one in person. I was worried you might have reached out and choked me, like Homer Simpson choking Bart there for a minute. But I was like, no, thank you.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Because what the audience doesn't know is, prior to this, he showed me a simple hand lock that he would do to subdue someone at a nightclub. And my thumb actually still hurts, and he barely did it. I got tiny little hands, too, man. I know better. In fact, it looks like I've been handling heroin. I even had the tiny little brown residue.
[00:34:28] Speaker C: The heroin residue.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: I appreciate that. I love cultural experiences. I've never been to Australia. I've been to New Zealand. I'm wanting to go to Australia very bad. My wife is always asking me if we're.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: Oh, you've got to go, mate.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I promise you this, the next time I'm in your part of the world, I will eat this and I'll ask my wife to join me.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: What you need to do when you're in Australia is go to a bakery and ask for what they call a cheddar mite scroll.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: A cheddar mite scroll.
This sounds like a dragon curse that some wizard.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: It's a pastry scroll. And what they do is they put pastry, vegemite and cheese and they bake it all together and it's like salt on salt.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: That sounds.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: But it's fantastic.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: And how do I say that again?
[00:35:13] Speaker B: Cheddar mite scroll.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Cheddar mite scroll. Okay. Cheddar mite scroll.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: So you walk in instantly and you look like a local.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: Now, is there a shortened term for this? Like sunglasses are sunnies and is there any for vegemite? No, just vegemite.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Vegemite is the one thing we don't shorten. It's funny you mentioned nobody's ever bought that up. That's the first time I've ever heard it. Because we do short Australians. We shorten the shit out of everything.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: And you'd swear we'd call this veggie because we call everything else as an I and e or an o. Yeah, exactly.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: That's the only way I know someone's on a kiwi. Everything's dictatorship. It's almost shortened so many times. I don't know what the hell they're saying.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: Kiwi slang is a whole different thing. Don't worry. Don't start me on kiwi slang. I mean, Kiwis.
Kiwis have some of the weirdest terms I've ever heard in my life. Obviously.
You guys call a cooler a cooler.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: We call a cooler an Esky.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: Okay. Like an Eskimo.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah, like an Eskimo eski.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: See how it's shortened? Yeah.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: They call a cooler a chili bin because it's a bin that keeps shit chilly.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: And then you've got speed bumps, which you guys are speed humps. We're speed bumps. And they are jitterbars.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: Jitter bars.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Because that's the sound your car makes when it drives over.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: It's called a jitterbar.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: I did not know that. Jitterbar.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: So goddamn funny.
Because people always get the australian accent and the New Zealand accent mixed up. And they're all. Only Americans who say that to me. And they're so different because Kiwis can't pronounce their vowels.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: No, they're all completely different. And they speak very more soft. You know, they have a soft.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's their eyes. They can't pronounce eyes, so their eyes come out as U's.
So if you ever want to make a kiwi laugh, just ask him what comes after five.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Four.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: No, sex. It's sex.
Five sucks. Sucks, mate. Sucks after five.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: And I'm like, God, I only have sex after five.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: It's not fish and chips with Kiwis. It's fush and chop smut fashion chops. And then you've got the South Africans, and they're a whole different thing. We all get mixed up together. Yeah, I mean, the South Africans, their accent is so different to ours. We always make fun of them anyway.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Yeah, you got to.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: Well, we call Afrikaans the language of love, because nothing sounds good in Afrikaans. I mean, even their word for good is liquor. And, yeah, everything is either good or bad, which is liquor or kick. And you're like, mate, you're like, look at the liquor, little puppy. And I'm like, you didn't make it sound good, mate. You sound like you're about to eat it. I don't know what you're talking about.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Yeah, so I'm really pumped up about the vegemite stuff.
Your interaction today has been amazing. I'm really curious about what you got going on right now. I know you're involved in some nonprofit work. Can you kind of give us some details on that?
[00:38:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I've started helping some friends with something. There's a bunch of Australians in LA who've just started, primarily a really sweet lady named Shane Evans and a super generous guy named JJ. Wolfpie. That's his name.
[00:38:18] Speaker A: Wolfpie.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Wolfpie.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: He runs Australians, man.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Runs a company called Aussie Pies and sausages, and they sponsor my veggie made show. But he has a bakery down in the middle of skid row.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: In the middle of skid row.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: Well, it's not a retail bakery. He's just got a warehouse down there where he bakes out of. But what these guys have done is they've come up with a new nonprofit called the Mateship foundation.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: The Mateship foundation.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: Their logo is fantastic. It's two hands, and one of them is an american flag, and one of them is an australian flag. And what they do is they go down to skid row once a month and have a day there where they feed the homeless meat pies. Which is what? Australian meat pies.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Is it lamb or is it beef? I mean, what kind of both.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: And they're vegan ones as well, because obviously not everybody's a meat. Meat eater. That kind of thing. Hand out hygiene packs. Hand out. Really hand out everything we can, basically blankets in the winter, things to keep people water and everything to keep people cool in the summer.
Yeah, that's what they're trying to do. There's 35,000 Aussies that live in LA, and we're trying to mobilize community. Yeah. But we're very spread out. So they're trying to mobilize that together, and it's working out really well. So what Shane and JJ have done down there is amazing. And I've started to get involved with them just recently. And, yeah, it's been really cool. It's been definitely an eye opener of what we've seen down there. I mean, skid row is.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: It's a different level of homelessness.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: It's something that stuns you that it can occur in a country like America, and it shouldn't. And it was something that I realized the other week, the big one.
I now dehydrate myself before I go down there.
And someone said, well, why do you do that? And I was there with a couple of our volunteers, and one of the volunteers come up to me and he said, where do I go? I need to go to the restroom. I said, well, you need to go home.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: And he looked at me and went, what do you mean? I said, well, there are none.
There's one two blocks away.
But if you've got to go to the restroom, mate, get in your car and go back to your house, because there's nothing down here. That's the problem for these people is there's nowhere for them. That's why it looks like the way it does.
And it gave him a quick eye opener, and it gave the guy I was talking to a quick eye opener into what the actual problems are down here. I said, yeah. Now, times that by every day of your life down here, and now you can see what these people are dealing.
So those guys have been doing a fantastic job down there, and, yeah, I can't get behind them enough.
Shane and JJ, you can find those guys. Yeah, the mateship foundation, all over Instagram, and they're based out of LA there.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: Yeah, they're doing a real good.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: To. And I want to check that out. In fact, I would love to take the whole film crew down there and go out and do this with them once a month, maybe try that out. I would love that.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
I'll put you guys in contact with each other.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: That'd be amazing. I'd love that. We do this every day, right? That's the type of work we do every day and means a lot to me, so that's great. What about your podcast? Where can people find you?
[00:41:34] Speaker B: I'm on iTunes, Spotify, and everywhere you get a podcast, there's a podcast called the Verbal Gym, where I showcase comedians who are just about to break through in LA, and we go through what it takes. The hard work and the hustle to break through what I think is the toughest stand up comedy proving ground in America.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: What does it mean to make it in comedy?
[00:41:56] Speaker B: What does that mean in LA?
[00:41:58] Speaker A: Is that getting a Netflix show? Is that being the top of a.
[00:42:03] Speaker B: Key of a.
I think in LA, it's one of those places where.
[00:42:08] Speaker A: How do you know you've made it?
[00:42:09] Speaker B: Well, here's the crazy part about doing comedy in LA, or comedy period. You can be in a room, all three of you are trying to audition for a club, and you're in a room with three different kinds of people who want three different things out of this. One guy wants the Netflix special, the other guy's just doing it for therapy. And one guy just wants to do backyard shows. And you can't tell because no one's wearing different colored t shirts, so you can't tell who's who in the room. But they're different levels of ability. Some people, and sometimes the guy who's just doing for therapy probably should have a Netflix special, but he doesn't want to go any further than that.
[00:42:44] Speaker A: So he's that funny.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: His routine, his comedy is that, but he just has no aspiration to go that far with it. Whereas you've got a guy who is doing it every damn day who will never make it, but he's out there doing every. It's like trenching. That's why it's called the grind. It's trench warfare at that level. It really is, until you get over that first hump. And then now you're getting booked by clubs. Now you're a regular at a club or something like that. Okay.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: And so you're scouting these individuals. You see them, you know them.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm in the trenches with them. So you can see the people who are putting the work in. You can see guys who are breaking through. I mean, episode two of my podcast is a guy named Saul Trejillo. And when I interviewed Saul, he'd been doing comedy, I reckon, at least ten years, I think he's from Sacramento, and two and a half years later, they just put his name on the side of the comedy store.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: Oh, that's great.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: He's doing great. Wow. He's getting success now. I mean, you're watching these guys just work their way through.
That's called the verbal gym.
That's on itunes and Spotify. And obviously. Are you my veggie mate? You can find that on.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: I've actually watched a couple of these Facebook.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: YouTube.
Yeah, it bounces around a little bit on IG as well. My Instagram is Dan Green comedy. You'll find that out there. But I just started producing my own shows in LA. I'd been producing my own shows in Texas for the last two years. I've been flying comics from LA every six months out to Texas.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: And putting shows on in Houston and that's worked out really well. And now I've taken the jump in LA and gone, well, I haven't given myself enough to do around here. I know, right? Yeah. You're a very busy guy, so let's do this. But it's a nightmare. It's like doing comedy with a gun near head because nobody in LA does anything till two days before your event. So you got to fill a 70 person room and no one's bought a ticket, really. And then for the last two days, you sell them all and you just got to believe that they're going to come out if you push it hard enough.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: So that's called down under comedy LA.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: Down under comedy LA. So if anyone's in the LA area, check out Dan Green. Check out Mateship Foundation.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: Mateship foundation.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: Support these Aussies and their support of working with the homeless community directly. Yes. Check out what comedy clubs are you typically at?
[00:45:06] Speaker B: I work the front door at the laugh factory.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: So if someone wants to go see a good show, they should come up to you and shake your hand.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: Come up to me, shake my hand, ask me what's cracking.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Okay. I love it. Okay, perfect. So right now we're going to transition from being in the studio. We're going to go right along with a gentleman named Michael Bach, and he's one of our directors. He oversees a lot of our training and emergency medical technician. We have a lot going on. I do want to understand. I want the show to understand and everyone out there, this is dangerous. Yesterday there was a shooting just in the neighborhood right behind us where we're at, and one of our guards was able to respond within 10 seconds and get a tourniquet on this lady's leg. It was a random drive by.
A crip was killed at a park. There's a memorial there. There's been a lot of gang issues, and so it's dangerous. But we're going out, I think, at a good time where we can kind of see what's going on and we're going to go and just talk to the homeless.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:46:04] Speaker A: Is that something you feel like you feel comfortable with?
[00:46:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm into that.
[00:46:07] Speaker A: All right, let's go.
We're hitting the streets, checking it out. He's never been to Portland before, so kind of showing him the sights a little bit. Taking him by a couple camps, and we're on our way to meet up with Bach. Dan, anything you're thinking of right away thing you're noticing?
[00:46:26] Speaker B: Well, what I am noticing is if this is the van you were talking about, it's a damn site bigger than my explorer.
[00:46:32] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. No, yeah. This was my brother's van. This is his dog tags, actually. Right.
You know, I was homeless. I lived in this van. It's a winter van. When it comes to being homeless, I was on the upper crust, right?
[00:46:46] Speaker B: I almost bought a mini. Pretty lucky I didn't do that, eh?
[00:46:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
How would you bring home a date to a mini that doesn't work? Right?
[00:46:53] Speaker B: You can't bring home a date to an explorer either, mate. Don't worry.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: No.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: No one's coming home to hang out with a guy. Explorer. Believe it or not, living in your car with a leaky sunroof and a plywood sunroof will ruin your tinder chances.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: Yo, so this is Bach right here. Hey, Buck.
[00:47:11] Speaker B: What's up, green? How you doing, man?
[00:47:13] Speaker A: Michael Bach.
[00:47:13] Speaker C: Dan.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: Yes. Michael. Good to meet you, Michael.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: Dan.
[00:47:15] Speaker B: Good to meet you.
[00:47:16] Speaker C: I've got some equipment and supplies.
[00:47:18] Speaker A: I know you. Let's roll.
[00:47:19] Speaker C: Open it up.
[00:47:20] Speaker A: Let's do it.
[00:47:23] Speaker C: Is that Mr. Burt? I'm so sorry. Do you know Mr. Burt, by the way? Alex.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Why?
[00:47:28] Speaker C: Okay, so we're looking for Mr. Burt. Mr. Burt is a houseless individual. He's got one eye, and he was severely beaten.
[00:47:38] Speaker A: I've arrested him twice. He's ethiopian.
[00:47:40] Speaker C: He was severely beaten within the past week. So much so that he's essentially blind right now.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: Oh, so his other eye has been affected?
[00:47:49] Speaker C: Yeah, and he's almost unrecognizable at this point. So, heard this morning that we've got some services lined up for him.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:47:56] Speaker C: And if we can find him, we can connect the dots for him and help him get into some.
[00:48:01] Speaker A: His name is additional.
[00:48:03] Speaker C: That's right. Tespaye Bert. Anyway, nice guy. I've never had a problem with him personally.
[00:48:08] Speaker A: And Amharic Bert means cold, cold, cold. Like Bert, alas, means it's cold right now.
[00:48:14] Speaker C: Additionally, there's another gentleman who I ran into earlier this week, gave me his name and date of birth. Said, hey. I said, do you need anything?
He told me that he really just needed to get home. And we started talking some more, and he explained that home was actually in Alaska. I did some legwork on that, spoke to a couple of people with resources, and we have gotten connected with somebody who is willing to fund his ride home. And so now he's agreed to meet us at Blanche house at 1130.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: So 1130 at Blanche, 45 minutes.
[00:48:50] Speaker C: And if he's there, then we can connect those dots.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: All right, so we're here, Bach, we're going to meet your 1130, hopefully to get them into a shelter. Yeah, that's the goal.
[00:49:01] Speaker C: Probably going to be an issue with one of the guys who's outside waiting in line. He pulled a knife on what is today? Today's Friday. He pulled a knife just recently, this week on us.
And he was sold to take a break till the end of the month. And he's back in line waiting for food.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: Who's working that lunch today?
[00:49:20] Speaker C: So saying he's right over here. And so I'm going to go talk to him too, about that. I'm going to go say hi. I'll be in touch. I'll see if I can find that guy.
Shane, 705, I'm joining you. And we're going to need to have Stephen leave. He's in line.
[00:49:39] Speaker A: So Bach is helping someone out. Oh, hey, Tiffany.
[00:49:43] Speaker D: Hi, how are you? I'm here today for an 1145 appointment. I'm looking for two unsheltered individuals.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: We've been looking for them. Bach is actually over here in the lunch line looking. I'm assuming you're looking for Tesla.
[00:49:56] Speaker D: Correct. Nicknamed Taz on the street, looking to get him an appointment with aging disability services.
[00:50:02] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:50:02] Speaker D: A contractor for loving one another. And what I typically do behind the scenes is making sure that we provide continuum of care. We find someone on the street that needs help, we make the connections. And so today we have an unsheltered individual that needs. Who is recently blinded and he's a victim of the street. So I'm working with Good Samaritan Hospital, city team, as well as myself and Blanche House. And I made him an appointment with aging disability services. So we have a case worker coming down to give him an assessment. I asked the caseworker to meet us at Blanche House because this person does not have a phone and is unsheltered. And typically what we do is we find areas where they feel safe, like Blanche house for a meal at lunchtime, serving right now to do the assessment. And hopefully the outcome of the assessment will provide him services to get him connected off the street.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: Tiffany is always this serious.
[00:50:54] Speaker D: Just so you know, I am Tiffany is.
[00:50:57] Speaker A: Not only is she the glue that literally holds everything together, she has a background as a registered nurse. She's a community leader. She's a business owner, but she's very respected here in the Portland area. I wish you would run for city office or something. She's not going to.
[00:51:11] Speaker D: That's it. I actually provide real solutions at the street level. I care about the unsheltered as well as the businesses in the area. I care about old town Chinatown and the viability. And so what I do is I work part time to make sure that those folks get connected services.
I will be a full fledged registered nurse next month, reinstating my license. But I got my bachelor's in science in nursing. Right. Just down the street at Linfield Good Samaritan hospital. My subspecialty was community health nursing. So I look at our areas, and I see this as a health crisis.
[00:51:45] Speaker A: It's an urban refugee.
[00:51:46] Speaker D: Correct.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: With a whole health component, both physical and mental health.
[00:51:49] Speaker D: And part of reinstating my nursing license is providing these services right now for my clinical hours. So what I'm doing today is making sure that since we are in a health crisis, I see someone at the street level and I see what kind of services they need. It could be drug detox, it could be mental health services. It could be medication stabilization. It could be narcan, like harm reduction. It could be sanitation. It could be all myriad. And actually, just looking at the person, I could think of what they need, but they also need to tell me what they need as well. So we work together as a team. It's a big respect factor. But also, too, I think one of my strengths is knowing when someone is in crisis, if they're a harm to themselves or society. And that is where I take the next step up. And, like, two weeks ago, I dealt with someone right here that was in serious cris, correct? Yeah.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: So Tiffany was integral to making sure that we got Sam proper care.
She got him the.
I think he ended up in three separate places.
[00:52:58] Speaker D: Yes, he did.
[00:52:59] Speaker A: And she secured those beds in those locations. While we were with Sam on the street, she was able to get those locations secured.
[00:53:06] Speaker D: What's happening in Portland is someone is in crisis. And if they're harm to themselves or society, typically society needs to step in and safely get them off the street and connected to a 72 hours hold or a hospital where they could get the care they need to get stabilized. We can't just allow someone to go through our neighborhood, like, right now, because what happens is he was going from one escalation to another in our neighborhood.
[00:53:33] Speaker A: He actually attacked Bach?
[00:53:34] Speaker D: Yes, he did, physically. And he got bare maced because his body was not stable any longer. He wasn't able to make good judgment. He was a harm to himself and society.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: But just hours after that attack, with your help, we were able to stabilize him. He was coming off of a drug high, and we were able to get to a detox center. And then the day after that, we got him into a shelter. By. I mean we. I mean you.
[00:53:57] Speaker D: Yeah. So generally what happens is when I saw him, I immediately noticed that he was a threat to society and himself, and he was suicidal as. So I called our typical line as project respond for Portland. But they failed us. They've been failing us. Amr has been failing us.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: Everything overwhelmed, and they lacked the staffing and resources.
[00:54:18] Speaker D: It was a Friday, and I said it would be up to 4 hours before they would come out. So if someone's in crisis, that doesn't work. And so what we did was compassionately calmed him down, used deescalation techniques, provided him things that he needed to get to that calming place to make the decision to transfer him to unity, which unity was able to hold him for 24 hours on a hold.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: Unity is a 24 hours, seven day a week mental health facility that does actual intake, not just for law enforcement, but almost anybody.
[00:54:49] Speaker D: Yes, exactly. And unity is our workhorse in society. Without unity, I don't know where we'd be right now. And then once he became stabilized at unity, we got the phone call. He said, I'm now ready for detox. And so I filled out the paperwork for detox. And then. Sorry, I just have to, like, every day, you have to watch behind you because there's an escalation here. Spencer. Anyway, thank you so much, you guys. He was a great, successful outcome from the street, becoming a member of society again.
[00:55:21] Speaker C: Would you like a cigarette?
[00:55:23] Speaker D: So in this case, this gentleman right over here, he is starting to show signs of aggression in our community. As someone like myself, I would stand back, respectively. I'd watch him. I'd probably call Portland street response because he is exhibiting behaviors where he might need our city's interventions. Whether he gets Portland street response or not, it could take hours. So what we're doing is we're sending in Michael Bach, who's really good at providing compassionate help, because this gentleman could be acting out for unknown reasons, like maybe something he might.
[00:55:57] Speaker A: Tiffany is giving the clinical understanding of what's occurring right now on a street level. What just went down was that this dude just put up a tent on a new block, on the corner of a new block. So he's going to be peacocking. He's going to be showing a demonstration of ownership over territory to see if he's going to be challenged or anyone off the street around in the area is going to challenge his authority properly.
[00:56:22] Speaker D: Most importantly is I make sure that anytime an officer or an outreach officer intercepts someone on the street, we make a compassionate decision and the right decision, and I get them connected to the services that are most appropriate for that individual.
And that is what our city lacks right now. It's making sure that we make the connections.
[00:56:40] Speaker B: You're awesome.
[00:56:41] Speaker D: Yeah, she's amazing. And it's expensive, too, to make those connections as well. We spend on average $500 a month transporting people to the proper place to get care. That's crazy. And that's what we offer that no one else offers.
But I'm going to go try to go over there right now to see if I can find Taz because it took me a lot of hours to get that appointment.
[00:57:01] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:57:02] Speaker D: Yeah. And also, he's not over there.
[00:57:04] Speaker C: And the guy wanting to ride to Alaska.
[00:57:05] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:57:06] Speaker C: Haven't shown up yet. He showed up for breakfast.
[00:57:08] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:57:08] Speaker A: It's a real compliment, but he's still.
[00:57:10] Speaker C: Got another half hour.
[00:57:11] Speaker D: We got someone stranded that wants to go back to Alaska. We make it happen. Right.
[00:57:15] Speaker A: Every interaction is a training evolution.
[00:57:17] Speaker B: You're evolving your processes going forward. Yeah. You don't necessarily have a set of rules, but you're working off guidelines, and those guidelines are more flexible than rules.
[00:57:25] Speaker A: We're working off guidelines and values and we're taking every. Every action is a training evolution to adapt to our situation.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. You're getting wins, and that's the cool part. And when you get wins in this community, that word spreads fast.
[00:57:41] Speaker A: Wildfire.
[00:57:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a real good thing. Obviously, people are going to see those wins and go like, okay, these guys, this sprinter van. Yeah, deal with these guys.
[00:57:52] Speaker A: Yeah, those guys are legit. We had a lady who walked up to us a week ago and said, aren't you all loving one another? She goes, you all get people to shelters. I went into a shelter. They just knew. They saw us and they knew, and we had her in the shelter. Two days later, we bridged her with the hotel.
[00:58:08] Speaker B: See, that's amazing, man. I mean, the next person she runs into in the street, she didn't tell them the same thing. Yeah. These guys actually gave shit and fixed my problem.
[00:58:17] Speaker A: Exactly. They didn't just tell me to screw off.
[00:58:19] Speaker B: Got my problem. And that's the thing. Just get off my block and go and be somebody else's problem. Yeah, and that's the problem. What every city in America is doing right now is get out of my city. Go and be the problem next door buck.
[00:58:33] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:58:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:58:34] Speaker A: Sit rep.
[00:58:35] Speaker C: Okay, so just a few moments ago, there was a disturbance inside Blanche house.
[00:58:39] Speaker A: I see that.
[00:58:40] Speaker C: That was the female who punched a 16 year old and sent him into a seizure. It was the same gal. Wow. So we squirted her out of the building. Everything's fine. Now, the individual that we've been looking for, who we'd like to get sent home to Alaska at his request, we've not been able to find yet. And we're still looking for the other guy for connective services.
[00:59:01] Speaker A: So you're looking for the Alaska and you're looking for Taz.
[00:59:03] Speaker C: Yep. And straighten out so far on both of them.
[00:59:05] Speaker A: Okay, so I think right now at this point, we're going to break. I'm going to get some vegemite from my friend. I don't want him to die.
[00:59:12] Speaker C: No dying, bud.
[00:59:13] Speaker A: That's right, man. We're going to get my vegemate some vegemite.
We're going to come back and we're going to find these guys. We're going to get you some resolution on these stories again. It's kind of like we're in the middle of chaos. There's 100 people we could be helping right now. And so that's kind of every day here.
[00:59:31] Speaker C: We had a good line on those three, and we're still out looking for them. And so we'll see what happens.
[00:59:36] Speaker B: I think that's the best way. You guys are making real impact with those people.
[00:59:38] Speaker C: Yeah, well, we've already got a connection with them. We know him by name, and now it's just a matter of finding him. I think that hopelessness and then hope kind of comes back and forth, and we just hope to catch him on an upswing. He said he would be here during lunch, but he hasn't shown up yet.
Anyway.
[00:59:53] Speaker A: Awesome. All right, man. We'll see in a little bit.
[00:59:55] Speaker B: Great job, man.
[00:59:55] Speaker C: Talk.
Don't get hit. Don't get hit.
[01:00:00] Speaker B: Good. Damn shame you get hit by a car now, man.
[01:00:02] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
[01:00:05] Speaker B: Hit by a car than the train.
[01:00:20] Speaker C: Of the shade. Real quick, boss.
That wheel looks like it's getting rough.
The wheel is not going to make it to Alaska. Hey, Sonny, it's my friend Tiffany.
[01:00:31] Speaker D: Hi, Tiffany. Nice to you.
[01:00:39] Speaker C: What's that you right now?
Not the news. It's admiring you.
[01:00:46] Speaker D: When you were in Blanche house upgraded today.
[01:00:48] Speaker A: I did have a shopping car before this.
[01:00:50] Speaker D: Well, what can we do for you today?
[01:00:53] Speaker C: You're stopping a fire truck, bro.
[01:00:57] Speaker D: Do you want to go back to Alaska? I'm your gal. Okay.
[01:01:00] Speaker A: I wasn't supposed to be stuck here. I was just stopping by here to see a best friend that I grew up with. Yeah, and my phone took crap the night before I would fly out from Reno. And when I wasn't able to call and tell him for sure I was coming, he wasn't going to drive towards Mellensburg to pick me up.
[01:01:17] Speaker D: Sure. What's your first name?
[01:01:19] Speaker A: Sonny.
[01:01:19] Speaker D: Sonny. Well, Sonny, in order to go back home, we might have to have you downsize a little bit. I can get that ticket figured out today for you, but I'm AK 49.
[01:01:29] Speaker A: If you can get it through Alaska Airlines.
[01:01:33] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:01:34] Speaker A: Most of these bags are glued free.
[01:01:35] Speaker D: Okay.
Nothing that can't fly.
Okay. All right.
[01:01:41] Speaker A: Same stuff I flew down here with.
[01:01:42] Speaker D: Let me make a phone call right now to my guy. His name is Omar. He's the one that's going to make arrangements for your ticket. I'm not 100% how he said ticket home to Alaska. If you got to fly, that's probably it.
[01:01:53] Speaker C: You got your ID with you, right?
[01:01:56] Speaker D: Did you get him that idmb paperwork?
[01:01:58] Speaker C: No, he said he has ID.
[01:02:00] Speaker D: Okay, can I take a picture of it? And by the way, just for records, when we're on the street, we give respect to the street for Hipa as well. Any information we collect is for the intended purposes of helping the person get connected to services, and that is it. So if I do take a picture, are you okay with that? We got the process started. We got you a 02:00 appointment. They're going to have you fill out the paperwork. I'm sending over your driver's license now to get the ball rolling. TPI window. I've got a guy that does tickets to home and that's what he does.
[01:02:31] Speaker A: TPI window.
[01:02:33] Speaker D: Yeah, but we'll go with you.
Yeah, but we'll make sure you get there. Is Blanche House's lunch hour already closed? Yes. Okay.
[01:02:42] Speaker C: He's had lunch.
[01:02:43] Speaker D: Okay, good. Because I said, well, I want it to fed. I need you ready to go. Do you need any clean clothes or anything for the voyage?
[01:02:49] Speaker A: I would love to go take a shower. I haven't taken a shower the whole time.
[01:02:52] Speaker D: Let's see.
[01:02:53] Speaker C: That's pretty legit. That's a pretty solid move.
[01:02:55] Speaker D: I agree for the voyage.
What's the day of the week? It's Friday. I'd have to look at the schedule. It might be health center. It might be over the eight to eight one. Yeah. Let's do this. Because that's closer to TPI.
[01:03:10] Speaker A: Someone told me that it's really easy to go.
[01:03:13] Speaker D: Okay.
[01:03:13] Speaker A: They've got a lot of showers there and everything.
[01:03:15] Speaker D: How good are you with time? Like, are you able to get yourself there or do you need us to check back in?
[01:03:21] Speaker A: I'm a lot better if I have a phone that works.
[01:03:23] Speaker D: Yeah, you don't have a phone, do you? That's half of the battle of the street is not having a phone number that works. And then we have to do search.
[01:03:28] Speaker A: And rescue to find but sim card. I just don't have a working phone.
[01:03:32] Speaker D: That's fine. I don't want to lose you, though, to the street because I don't want you to miss your 02:00 appointment because chances are it'll be.
[01:03:40] Speaker C: In other words, sonny, do we need to stay with you? Because if we can stay with you through this process, we don't want you to miss a flight home.
[01:03:46] Speaker A: TPI is right there. Well, I'm just going.
[01:03:49] Speaker C: TPI is right there.
[01:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm just going and taking it.
[01:03:52] Speaker D: Do you have to make an appointment for that shower? No. Okay, now check this out. It's 1238. You have an hour and 20 minutes. You got to get that shower in now. And I'd love you to be there at 02:00 if not 155, because there's probably a line out front.
[01:04:07] Speaker A: The only reason why I got hung up at lunch was freaking dealing with this, trying to get in, trying to screw me up.
[01:04:12] Speaker C: I think the speed is going to be dependent upon the luggage. I think that's going to be a slowdown here for us.
[01:04:18] Speaker D: Does this all have to go with you?
Okay, let me talk to Omar really quick about downsizing.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: When I fly, these are still partly empty. I throw these other bags in there.
[01:04:31] Speaker D: Okay.
So that goes into this bigger one.
[01:04:34] Speaker C: And then does the cart. The cart be loose.
[01:04:37] Speaker D: I might have to help this guy downsize a little bit. What's the travel policy? How many bags.
[01:04:45] Speaker C: Can you get it down to? 250 pound bags.
[01:04:49] Speaker D: Really? All of the baggage?
You are amazing. Thank you, Omar.
Okay, I'll talk to you in a bit.
He's going to put you on a flight. He's going to pay for all the baggage so we don't have to downsize in this case because it's not greyhound. Yeah, you're lucky.
But here's the deal. The hold up. You might not be on a flight tonight or tomorrow morning until we get confirmation, your sister is going to accept you.
Is that a sister who's catching you on the end?
[01:05:25] Speaker C: It was Julie.
[01:05:29] Speaker D: Okay, we just need to verify she has a physical address.
[01:05:32] Speaker C: She gave it to me. And a phone that was in the one that.
[01:05:35] Speaker D: Yeah, and I gave that to Omar. But he has to call just to make sure that they're.
Yeah, they want you. Right, okay, so. But we got to get you to 02:00 to fill up that paperwork. Okay? I sent Omar that screenshot. Let me go ahead and do. How about we make an appointment for 150 and you be back at there?
[01:05:56] Speaker A: Can we trust you if you're not 15 minutes early?
[01:05:59] Speaker C: It's an hour right now. Yeah, that's 1 hour.
[01:06:01] Speaker D: Can you do it?
[01:06:02] Speaker C: It's 1245 right now.
Because if we do the shower afterwards, because he's staying the night all the time in the world and I need to eat. I need lunch.
[01:06:13] Speaker D: Okay, we'll meet you.
[01:06:16] Speaker C: You could meander your way that way. Do you need water or anything between now and then?
You got water? You got snacks and everything? You're good to go. You need a cigarette or anything?
[01:06:25] Speaker A: I'd love freaking cigarettes.
[01:06:27] Speaker B: You said before when I was talking to you over there that you're done with Portland. Is that the way you feel about the place? Yeah, man.
[01:06:35] Speaker A: The people here are horrible. I got treated like shit just because I was freaking stranded here.
[01:06:41] Speaker B: That's not cool.
[01:06:42] Speaker A: Back in Alaska, we don't treat people like that.
We're really welcoming and helping.
Everybody's out to help each other here. It's like dog eat dog. If you ain't got nothing to offer me, you can fuck off or I'm going to get you.
[01:06:57] Speaker B: That's what you ran into in the last two weeks out here?
[01:06:59] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:07:02] Speaker A: Out for themselves.
I didn't leave a damn thing. A single person. They were just telling me what they thought I wanted to hear so they could get one open every fucking time.
[01:07:15] Speaker B: Oh, might be ran in this big bug right here, man.
[01:07:18] Speaker C: I haven't been called a bloke before, bro. We just checked off a box.
[01:07:24] Speaker D: For a second. I thought that was testing right there.
[01:07:26] Speaker C: But no, it's not.
[01:07:27] Speaker D: I saw a hood.
[01:07:29] Speaker C: All right, sounds good. You guys good for breaking for lunch, and then we'll come back and meet you at TPI. That's unreasonable. Tiff.
[01:07:37] Speaker D: Yes. Hey, I might be out. You're in good hands with my guy, Omar. I've dealt with Omar for a while now. I might try to show back up because him and I have been working together a while and it's always nice to see people non virtual, but I also have to go help. I'm going to call Portland street response for this guy.
[01:07:54] Speaker C: Fine.
[01:08:01] Speaker B: Dude, I'm fucking pumped for you, man.
[01:08:06] Speaker C: We'll see you in about an hour, maybe a little hour. Hour, 15 minutes.
[01:08:09] Speaker A: We're back in the van. The guys were able to help facilitate the transition of an individual to get back home to Alaska. Great job.
Fantastic.
We're about to meet up with another gentleman here at a local nonprofit, and hopefully we can get that squared away as well today.
[01:08:28] Speaker B: Get sonny back to Alaska?
[01:08:29] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:08:31] Speaker B: Do you see him anywhere?
[01:08:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't see him anywhere, but it could be inside.
[01:08:35] Speaker B: Would they let him drag? I don't think he would have made it through that.
[01:08:41] Speaker C: Know. Hi, I'm here to see Sonny and Sonny and Omar. Omar works here? Sonny does not. If you've got Omar, I'd love to say hello. He's working on something with me already, and we're trying to connect the dots, make sure it all gets finished. Thank you.
[01:08:57] Speaker A: We're here, TPI. We're waiting for Sonny to show up. Hopefully he'll be here soon and we can make this happen. Right?
[01:09:03] Speaker B: Sonny even have a fucking watch?
[01:09:05] Speaker A: Probably not.
[01:09:07] Speaker B: How the fuck does he know what time it is too?
[01:09:09] Speaker A: I don't know. He probably has a phone, though.
[01:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah, he doesn't work. That's the problem. That's why he's stuck in Portland.
[01:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah, we transitioned to a lady the other day, and we just went ahead and bought her phone with three months to be paid so we could get in contact with her.
[01:09:19] Speaker B: Tiffany was saying, once people lose them, the only way you can find them is driving around a block.
[01:09:25] Speaker A: Oh, it's like salmon in a river, man. You don't know where they're going to be next. Yeah, it's impossible.
[01:09:30] Speaker B: Can you make it?
[01:09:31] Speaker C: She's getting Omar right now, but I haven't seen him around. Maybe he's already in there.
[01:09:38] Speaker A: Maybe no phone.
[01:09:40] Speaker C: No, no phone. He's not here yet. Gotcha.
[01:09:42] Speaker B: Well, maybe he's right behind.
[01:09:45] Speaker C: I always play for batchick craziness, so let's give him, like, 15 minutes. Okay?
[01:09:50] Speaker B: Yeah, man.
I would say do you want to.
[01:09:53] Speaker C: Come in, but then he wants to be out here. Yeah, I think I'd like to do an area check and see if I can find him.
[01:10:00] Speaker B: What's the deal, Mike?
[01:10:02] Speaker C: He hasn't shown up yet, but I'd like to do a quick area check for him.
[01:10:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:10:05] Speaker C: And just do a quick area check. And then Omar said he would call me or text me. Yeah. And likewise. So best we can do is just do an area check, and hopefully we can find him and say, hey, here we go.
[01:10:16] Speaker A: The connection's been made. Unfortunately, Sonny's not here. So we're going to jump back in the van and we're going to check the area, do a little grid search. Hopefully we can find Sonny and get this wrap up for him.
[01:10:27] Speaker C: All right.
[01:10:34] Speaker B: How is this going? Hard.
[01:10:37] Speaker C: You might have to go talk to the guard.
His name's Sonny.
Fedora hat. Yeah. And one of the wheels is broken. Super nice guy, but if you see him, man, point him, say he's going the wrong way, you're going the wrong way. You got to go to TPI. Okay. Howdy. So thank you very much. Got a chance to talk to the security guard there. He said he knew who we were talking about, said, that's amazing. Great time. We will look out for him, but he's not here.
[01:11:07] Speaker A: We're waiting for Omar here at transition projects across the street, and we saw a guy slumped over, and the position he's in stops your lung capacity. So the concern is that he could actually die if he's overdosing. So we're just crossing over to check in on him.
[01:11:22] Speaker B: Hey, brother.
[01:11:26] Speaker C: Hey, buddy.
Hey, I'm Michael.
[01:11:30] Speaker B: Looks like he's all right.
[01:11:33] Speaker C: Hey, man, you're not in trouble, but I just want to make sure you're okay.
It looks like.
Are you all right, my man?
You want a cigarette?
Can you stand up? I'll give you one. Watch out for that needle.
[01:11:54] Speaker A: Awesome. So we're down here in old town. We've been looking for sunny for at least another hour.
Since then, we took a call. We had a guy overdosing. I think he's still behind us.
He could hit the ground any second. Hopefully he doesn't. Ultimately, this is a win, but we can't get the results that we want today. We're hoping that there's still several hours left in the day. Sonny's going to be able to show up and get with Omar here at, you know, one of the employees at TPI, they told us, and this is pretty common, you got to make time for the chaos, right? The chaos of. Maybe he wanted to get high. Maybe there was a friend he made on the streets he wanted to say goodbye to. Maybe he had an item in a friend's tent he wanted to take home with him. He mentioned wanting to go get a shower. So things on the streets are rapidly evolving. They're always changing. And I know that he will eventually get here and we'll be able to get him home. So, Dan, mate, I just want to.
[01:12:54] Speaker B: Thank you guys for letting me see what you guys are doing down here. I think the level of empathy that you guys are bringing to this situation is something I've never seen before in a private security firm.
[01:13:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:13:06] Speaker B: What we said before when you were talking at lunch, it's basically a brick by brick solution. And that's what people need to look at. This is as a brick by brick solution. There's plenty of bricks and you need more brick layers. We do need more people with the same mentality that you guys have opted with this. I mean, what we saw with Sonny today is whether it didn't get done today, it's going to get done tomorrow. We're going to get that guy back to where he needed to go. That's going to happen. It took us giving a shit about the guy. It took us caring about the guy to get that done. And that's what it's going to take is people can make a difference as long as they get down on street level, get their boots literally on the ground.
[01:13:41] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:13:41] Speaker B: And getting it done.
[01:13:42] Speaker A: Yeah. I think what people could hopefully take away from this show is that there is a solution. And the solution is, like you said, being on the ground, making real connections, building those relationships and helping one person at a time. Well, I appreciate you coming on the studio today. I enjoyed our conversations. I'm glad to say that you're my vegemate. I got to say, if you haven't had vegemite, talk to your doctor. Those are personal decisions you need to make about your own health. But I think I'm fine. I don't feel like my pulse is fine. I'm still alive. So maybe try it out. If you do make a sandwich on a cracker or some bread or toast.
[01:14:28] Speaker B: Add some melted cheese.
[01:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And while you're eating your vegemite, check out Dan Green. Dan, tell the people your shows again where they can find you.
[01:14:35] Speaker B: They can find me on Instagram at Dan Green comedy. They can find my shows at the verbal gym on itunes and Spotify. And if you search YouTube and Facebook for are you my veggie mate? You'll find me as well. Also look into the mateship foundation in LA. That's Aussies helping. We're laying bricks. One brick at a time down there in LA.
[01:14:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Appreciate it, man. Thanks, everyone at the ride along. Thanks for joining us today. We'll see you back on the street.
[01:15:02] Speaker C: Have a good day.
[01:15:07] Speaker B: You got him off.
[01:15:15] Speaker C: You all right, my man?
Yes. You can go to Blanche house in a little bit. You know where the blanche house is, right over here. Get you some food there. Okay, buddy?
[01:15:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:15:26] Speaker C: Keep moving around, though, okay? I need you up and breathing. All right, buddy?
All right.
[01:15:32] Speaker A: Hey, so we were just wrapping up the show and Sonny showed up at TTI, literally walking away. So we can get him over here on screen.
[01:15:41] Speaker B: I'm sorry.
[01:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Box over there. Let's go join him. Let's at least down this side. Hey, we're doing it, man.
[01:15:46] Speaker B: That wheel is going off.
[01:15:47] Speaker A: Don't worry, we're not supposed.
[01:16:00] Speaker C: All right. What's wrong with your knee, budy?
[01:16:07] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:16:11] Speaker B: All right.
[01:16:12] Speaker C: Can you guys maybe back up a bit? I'm pretty sure they're going to be uncomfortable with camera.
Can you back up a bit?
Okay, well, can you back up a bit, though?
[01:16:24] Speaker B: Just lean on it, man. You don't go anywhere, mate. You made it, brother. Fuck yeah, man. We'd get you back home.
Sonny, this is Omar. He's going to make sure you get on.
What's that wheel? It's going to go at the edge.
[01:16:45] Speaker A: I got everything else.
That'd be great.
So we're just inside the gate. Y'all are across the street for everyone watching the camera cruise across the street. For Hipa reasons, they don't let people in here. They have a personal medical record. They provide mental health here. So it's kind of a locked down, no camera area. But we're literally just inside this gate right now. Is he like this?
[01:17:14] Speaker B: He was real lucid. He was in a good place earlier. He was with it. I don't know if he might have.
[01:17:19] Speaker A: Took something between here and people like.
[01:17:21] Speaker B: To use right after lunch.
[01:17:22] Speaker A: It's so hot. People don't want. There's nothing to do during the day.
[01:17:25] Speaker B: Good luck pushing that with a bit of fentanyl in there.
[01:17:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. You're awesome. Thank you. Well, we work at a nonprofit called loving one another. We transition about 150 people a month in the downtown corridor into shelters.
Yeah. And so we have a partnership with Echelon. And they called and said, hey, this guy needs to. He wants help. So we're here working with Omar to.
[01:17:51] Speaker B: Get him back to Alaska.
[01:17:52] Speaker C: So we showed up at TPI. We're in the courtyard of TPI. We got all of the paperwork signed by him and he is so intoxicated, he's falling out of the chair. It is going to be clear or heroin or it's something. Okay, he said clear, but he's acting more like a downer, not like a. So now. So we've got the paperwork signed. Okay. But we've got him in his condition, and he's badly broken right now. Like, he's really tore up. So what do you need?
No Omar standing right next to me. I got Tiffany on the perfect. Yeah, yeah. So we're trying to come up with a solution that involves him getting sober enough to get the second half of this drama solved. What do you suggest? Come on out here.
[01:18:45] Speaker B: Right here.
[01:18:46] Speaker C: Stop. Just lean and get. Lean right there. There you go.
Hang on, hang on. Trying to light this cigarette for you.
[01:18:54] Speaker A: Sorry.
[01:18:58] Speaker C: What are we doing?
[01:19:01] Speaker A: We can bring that stuff out.
[01:19:04] Speaker C: Sort of looks like. Yeah, it's definitely not methamphetamine.
[01:19:09] Speaker B: Actually rolls pretty easy.
[01:19:11] Speaker A: Sit rep.
[01:19:13] Speaker C: He arrived.
He wants to get home. He really does.
[01:19:18] Speaker A: He's really high.
Can we narcan him? Will he give us permission to Narcan him?
[01:19:24] Speaker B: Sonny, are you still there?
[01:19:25] Speaker A: Did y'all get that?
[01:19:26] Speaker B: There we go.
[01:19:26] Speaker A: I basically said, hey, will this guy give us permission to Narcan him? Because that way he can get his processing done and make sure everything's good to go.
[01:19:34] Speaker C: I think you need some narcan.
The reason is because you're not able to comprehend what we're trying to tell you right now. You're not able to carry a conversation, and you keep falling over. We're trying to help you get home to Alaska.
I know, and I want to help you, but you've got to be sober. How do we get you home if you're not sober? How do I help you if you're not sunny?
[01:20:05] Speaker B: Stay awake, Mike.
[01:20:08] Speaker C: He's still sunny. And refusing an ambulance. It might be a help. I can't drag him across the line. He's got a step.
[01:20:19] Speaker A: Does he want to be transferred to unity? What's his plan for tonight?
[01:20:23] Speaker C: Let's go find out.
Thank you. Omar, can you text me, please, so I can have your contact?
Okay. Thank you.
[01:20:35] Speaker A: So let's say, hey, what's your plan?
If you can't go anywhere, you need to be a block or two away for the next three days, because Monday we're getting. They have a planting for you.
[01:20:44] Speaker C: Let's talk for a second. Boss.
[01:20:47] Speaker A: Today's Friday.
Your plane tickets for Monday.
August 11 is my anniversary.
So Saturday, Sunday. What are your plans? You don't want a shelter you don't want detox, right?
Can you survive on the streets over the next two days?
And then we'll find you Monday. Blanche, health, lunchtime or breakfast, either way. Yeah, so, Blanche, lunch. We're going to be ready to get you to the airport on Monday, okay? Monday.
[01:21:28] Speaker C: We're going to meet Monday, right? Okay. Where at?
When?
Right.
Monday. 1130. Right.
[01:21:39] Speaker A: Plane ticket?
[01:21:40] Speaker C: Plane ticket home.
All right.
Okay.
See you then.
[01:21:47] Speaker B: All right, Sonny. Sonny, get home safe. All right, buddy.
Remember, Monday.
Sorry.
You got nothing to be sorry about, man. You got nothing to be sorry about, man. It's just a shitty day, okay? All right. Monday, you're going to fix you and get you home, all right?
No, he didn't. He's cool, man. We'll see you on Monday. Okay? See him on Monday. All right.
No, we're good.
[01:22:23] Speaker A: He doesn't want to be narcanned. He doesn't want to go to the hospital.
My friend doesn't want to go to shelter.
[01:22:30] Speaker B: All right, see you Monday.
[01:22:33] Speaker A: Shelter in place.
[01:22:33] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:22:34] Speaker C: Where?
[01:22:34] Speaker A: He is on the street till Monday to meet us again in Blanche. By that time, this organization is going to be able to secure him a plane ticket. They're going to contact his sister Crystal in Alaska. They're going to make sure that he has a safe place to go. They're going to meet all that criteria by contacting his family. Once they're able to do that, they're going to secure a plane ticket for him. We're going to meet him at Blanche House on Monday. We'll have a new guest idea. It'll be Charles Joe from LAPD SWat. And so hopefully we can meet him on Monday with Bach and we'll be able to get him to the airport. So that's the plan right now, as.
[01:23:07] Speaker B: It stands, I think what you're saying is that you guys are building that family structure for him here while he doesn't have one.
Well, no. It's almost like a short term adoption, what you guys are doing. And that's what needs to be done.
[01:23:24] Speaker C: He needs it.
[01:23:25] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, takeaways. This shit's hard, man.
[01:23:29] Speaker C: Hard.
[01:23:30] Speaker A: It needs to happen. Someone's got to do it, and we're doing it. And we don't care because we love it. And this is the ride along. We'll see you back on the streets. Hopefully next episode, you'll see a different sonny on a plane going home to Alaska.
[01:23:42] Speaker C: I like it.
