From Tent To TikTok: A Sober Rise With Bryan Blackmon

A cardboard‑covered car on PCH. An eight‑man tent on the library lawn. A blue and yellow Lamborghini in a grocery lot. Brian’s journey threads through these unlikely scenes on its way to something hard‑won and beautiful: 780 days sober, a home, and a community built on service, humor, and relentless hope.

We open with the early hits—beer at 13, heroin before graduation, the long carousel of rehabs and cells. California was supposed to be the dream; Venice Beach made the spiral faster. Brian refused to “decorate the tent,” knowing comfort could become a trap. Then Huntington Beach cracked the story open: a red‑haired landlord who felt like family, a mirror that finally got the truth—“I’m tired”—and a stranger who called his supercar a “gift of sobriety” and pointed him to a 7 a.m. meeting. What followed was raw and real: a brutal 30‑day detox behind a bedroom door, employers who said “we’ve got you,” and a daily gratitude ritual that rebuilt a life one morning at a time.

The twist you won’t see coming is joyful. A porch moment—Elaine, a hose, and two sandy surfers—went viral and introduced millions to their odd‑couple magic. Brian started live streaming from the Huntington Beach pier, telling the truth about recovery, feeding neighbors, and letting people name the crabs that danced across his screen. The Crab Crew was born: resilient, adaptive, sideways‑moving when forward is blocked. We talk about faith as a steady nudge, the danger of living in fear of the next shoe, and why simple acts—a bottle of water, a held door—create ripples you’ll never fully trace.

Come for the wild ride from tent to TikTok; stay for the tools that last—community support, accountability, service, and daily gratitude. If you need proof that your worst chapter can seed your best work, this is it. Listen, share with someone who needs it, and if the message lands, tap follow and leave a review so more people hear they’re worth it.

Thanks for taking the time to listen in. Please leave us 5 stars on Spotify & Apple Podcasts with a review. THANK YOU!

Transcript

New Season, New Setup, Big Story

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Brian Blackman. Well, hello. Take three? I think this is take three. Yeah, whatever. Welcome to the podcast, man. Thank you so much for coming on. Well, thank you. Thank you. Beautiful new setup, which is giving us a lot of problems right now with our uh video recording, but we're figuring this out. We're working through it. Yeah, we're working through it. Just working through it. Yeah, we're working through it. But you are our first episode uh in over a year on our fifth season. So thank you for coming on and doing this, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Thank you. I'm excited about it.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Yeah, I really appreciate it. Hopefully the cameras don't overheat anymore. My gosh, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Then if it does, we'll just work back through it again. I don't I don't know.

Early Addiction And First Rehabs

SPEAKER_01 0:48

I got the other ones. I can use the old school ones. I'll just we'll be good. But dude, thank you so much for being here and helping uh working through this stuff with me. But uh man, you got a heck of a story. Um I saw on what you gave me 778 days sober, but it's more than that now.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

780 days sober today.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

That's I love that sound every time I hear it just gets me pumped.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

When you get one of these, your program will rewind. You can make so many sounds of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, I could have fun with it. Well, dude, it honestly, congrats. I'm proud of you, dude. I know it sounds probably weird for someone to say, but no, no, you know, coming rising from the ashes is not easy, it's hard. Uh, I've had my own failures and mistakes and addictions and problems, and dude, it's it can be a tough go. But not giving up, dude. That shows a lot about your character and who you are. But dude, how we met is funny because um I saw you in all tides first. I was cycling, right? Yeah, and I stopped at Huntington Beach Pier, and then there you are. It's like, who's this guy? He's got like a bag, and he's he's handing out food and water bottles to homeless people, and he's being super cool with them, and you look very genuine. You weren't trying to do it for you, whatever. You know, some people just want the the clout of helping people, but oh man, I just enjoyed it. Um yeah, and then I talked to you, and you were just like, Yeah, I was there once. And I'm like, Okay, this guy's cool. I I I want to get this guy in a podcast. We exchange numbers, and yeah, dude, here you are now. But as far as you, you know three, four months ago, maybe long ago. Oh, that was uh yeah, three, probably three or four months. Yeah, I kept telling you, hey, you're gonna come on. I'm I'm building, I'm building. You could see why it took so long.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yeah, because this is super, super awesome. Like it's a very professional. I feel right at home. I'm not gonna lie to you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Oh well, well, that's the goal, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

I want people when they come on to be comfortable. No, I kind of want to just prop my feet up and just kind of hang out, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Um, but dude, what okay? So we've we've talked about, we I kind of know, but so people know, like what led to you being the homelessness and alcohol, alcoholism? How deep you want to go? Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

I mean 40 minutes. Well, if we're talking about just California, um I just had a dream to move here since I was a little kid. Um it all started, you know, watching MTV when it first came out, and my dad and I were watching MTV, and it uh it was quite right, bang your head video, right? I come from a musically inclined family. And at that moment, uh I started like that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to play guitar and be a rock star, right? And uh you see Motley Crue and Poison and Guns N' Roses and all these guys, you know, the running the sunset strip. I didn't really know what that was, right? But I remember telling my dad after that video, like, I want to play guitar, I want to be a rock star, and him telling me it's one in a million, you'll never make it. I think subconsciously at that moment, something was planted in the strangest way. Like it took me till um, I just turned 48. So it took me till I was, you know, 47 years old to really realize that this went so far back to I've I'm pretty confident that it was that moment. Because after that, dude, I just went wild, went nuts uh all throughout my my childhood and um into my teenage years. And it really started when I turned 13. Um, you know, just drinking a beer for the first time at my aunt and uncle's party.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Dang, 13, my man.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Well, you know, my parents had already I was already in so much trouble, dude. My parents had sent me to live with my aunt and uncle after they got a divorce. I just I went, I mean, just all out. And uh at that moment, I I realized I was really not comfortable with who I was from a really young age. Like my emotions, I just felt them like crazy.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Yeah, right.

Venice Beach Descent And Tent Life

SPEAKER_00 4:28

It was it was overwhelming. And I I didn't understand it, obviously. I was too young. But once I drank that first beer and kind of got this little buzz from it, and it was I think it was 13, something changed in me. It was like I could breathe. And it didn't start, and it really started when I was um in high school, 15, and um started you know drinking with you know high school friends, and again that feeling of of calmness just came over me. But it also brought out this wild, fun, just crazy side of me. And it just progressed from there. It it started my uh sophomore year doing heroin and cocaine. You went for it. Yeah, my first rehab was um I think I was 17, maybe 18, but um you know, from heroin addiction already at 18 years old. So it to lead up to now, it it just progressed my whole life, in and out of rehabs, um, sober living homes, jails, prisons, the whole nine yards. Um then I had this um this moment where after I got out of prison, I was working with my aunt and uncle um at this mobile lab company that they had started. And uh I I just decided the family business wasn't really where I wanted to go. And so I had this idea, like, why don't you just go to audio and video school? You already I started playing guitar, you know, at a young age and played bands my whole life. And like, well, let's just do something with that. So I ended up graduating and was like the oldest person, the second oldest person at the artist and two to Dallas. Never too late. All these young kids are by me, like just zipping through stuff. I'm like, dude, slow down, help me out here. So I get this degree, and um long story short, in the shortest way I could possibly make it, I I have this friend that lives in Dallas that was um living out here in California for a while and came back. And her and I were talking, and she said that she had a friend in Venice Beach that was doing this audio and music stuff in the studio, and she said I should really hook you guys up. So I flew out here, hung out with him for a weekend and told him I'd be back. Give me a year, and he was like, you know what, whatever. So I went back to Texas and just kind of started making a plan, and that whole thing is another story in and of itself. But the homeless part came in once I moved in with him at Venice Beach. Now I've partied my whole life with rock stars, dude. I've lived a wild crazy life, and nothing in this world that I've done could have ever prepared me for Venice Beach, California. That is no lie, bro. I mean, I'm in California, dude, in Venice Beach, the the famous Venice Beach uh boardwalk, and um, that's when things just went so far into my addiction and alcohol and partying and and girls are just it probably took you farther than you ever thought you probably wanted to go, right? Man, yeah, but and the thing is is I've liked to push that limit. That's just always been my style. You know, if the line of sobriety and like death is right here, I want to see how far I can get to that. My whole life I've done that, you know. And so it ramped up hard. Him and I had a falling out, as you could imagine, we moved into this house in Venice together, and uh things got really, really bad, and I had nowhere to go. So there was a hostel um that was on Venice Boulevard right by the beach. So I moved in with him. It was during the wintertime. It was super cold, you know, cold because of the ocean air, not cold as in like 30s or 40 degrees, but colder than you know any kind of thing I was using.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

It's cold down by the ocean, man.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

It does, it does, it does. And so I started staying in this hostel. I had no money left. I was doing this whole bird scooter thing, you know. I'd I'd bought 25, 25 bird scooters with uh half of the money that I brought with me. That turned into a mess beyond my wildest dreams. Homeless people are stealing them. I mean, left and right, you've got homeless people coming in. Dude, it's a racket, dude. It is just nuts. They try to steal them, take the batteries out of them, charge their cell phones, throw them in the the Venice Beach canals, right? There's literally, we had grappling hooks that we would pull these scooters out of the Venice Beach canal with grappling hooks. Um it just it was a nightmare. That didn't work out. So now I'm literally broke. Summer hits as I'm staying in this hostel and the prices raised, and it it left me with nowhere to go. Strange thing happened right before that is um these kids from Colorado had come to stay at this hostel for the weekend. Well, when they're leaving, they asked me, I'd kind of been talking to them all weekend and off and on, and they said they had this tent that they couldn't take on the plane with them. And uh, do I want it? I was like, what am I gonna do with this tent? Well, I had a storage room in Venice because, you know, being in the uh drug world and and methamphetamines especially, you tend to trade and barter and and just accumulate stuff as as you go. So I had this storage room and I just I said, sure, I'll take it. Little did I know that I was gonna actually need uh this tent uh the next couple weeks. And so how long were you in that tent? Well, the tent, I was in the tent for probably I don't know, two, three months.

unknown 9:44

Damn right.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

But here's the thing. Right there in Venice, right? On the library lawn. Right? So you got north and south Venice Boulevard. The um the uh hostel was right here, and here I am. At the time, there was only a handful of tents that were on the library lawn. It up and down Venice Boulevard is where you have the the Winnebagos and just all the different cars that people are sleeping in and tents. It was just a nightmare. Nothing could have prepared me for Venice, by the way. Nothing that I've ever done. It's a wild place, my friend. Dude, it was nuts. And so I started popping up this eight-man tent right there on the library lawn, looking like I mean, the richest homeless person on the planet. The Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal of Venice Beach homeless tents, right? And so the thing is, is that I had stuff I had to do, right? I was moving and shaking, trying to get all these, make these things happen. And you can't leave your tent up with your things in it unless you have somebody else there with you to watch it, and I didn't have any by myself. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Of course, someone's gonna take it.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Oh, in a heartbeat. Yeah. Right, right. You know, people just, you know, crack attic, you know, just going everywhere taking everybody's stuff. Um, so I had to set it up at night, break it down in the morning, scurry around, you know, Venice Beach, trying to just move and shake and do whatever I could. And that went on for, I don't know, every bit of three months. Met a guy that um had an apartment in Santa Monica. Was like, dude, I'll give you a chance. I met him through an uh just another guy in. So he lets me rent a room from him. He's an even worse alcoholic than I am. We start bickering and fighting nonstop. Things get really bad. I was there for maybe a month. And so I leave there. Turns out a friend of his that I'd met, this girl had an apartment in uh Culver City. So she lets me move in with her. All right. Things didn't work well with her. I'm partying. Um, and at this time I had got my first job in California with um an audio and video company, right? So now I'm kind of using my degree, if you will.

unknown 11:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

So I'm like, I was spent, dude. I had like nothing left. I did I forgot to mention that I had gotten a check from uh the state of California for COVID. You got some cash. So I got a little bit of cash, yeah, right. And um, so she let me move in. I got this job, and things just we just did not mesh whatsoever, right? I like to think that I didn't mesh with her, but the thing is is that I probably didn't mesh with anybody really because I was so messed up all the time, right? Just I was out of control. So I leave there and um this maybe went on for a week. I'm kind of just in and out of my car. Um, I didn't really do the tent thing anymore. I was kind of past that point. And a friend of mine from Texas knows a girl that has a house in um in Woodland Hills. Okay, just broke up with her boyfriend, lets me move in with her. She's got a kid. Now I'm working three jobs doing the same thing. Right, driving back and forth to LA from Woodland Hills.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

All while you're doing drugs and everything.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

I hadn't slept since '82. You know?

unknown 12:55

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Girls, girls, girls, you know, Motley Crew album. I hadn't slept since then, I don't think. So I move in with her, and she's got a uh a young boy there, and you know, I'm just a a mess. Yeah. She kind of picks up on this, and I was there for a few months, and she said, Hey, my office is in Canoga Park. If I'm gonna try to help you, I need you to go stay there. My boyfriend's office is empty. You know, I can't have this crap around my kid. She never really mentioned like she knew what I was doing, but she knew things weren't right.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah, I mean, you can't, I mean, you can't hate her for it, right? She's trying to put her kid first.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

It was pretty obvious. Yeah, you're yeah, that I was understandable. Right. Yeah, yeah. So I got that, no problem. So I move into this studio of hers, this office, and it's her like storefront in Canoga Park, right? And why am I not thinking that she's got cameras and stuff everywhere? So here I am. You can only imagine girls, uh all the debaucheries being filmed. Dude, everything that I was doing was just walk around the office.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Bro, that's embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

That's a little that's rough by boxers or half naked, you know. Oh my gosh. So she catches all this on camera and it's like, dude, you gotta go. Yeah, you gotta go. I did my best.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

You ever wonder how much she watched?

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Thought about it a million times.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

You poor saw, dude.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

The things that she Yeah, the things she first saw. Yeah, oh my gosh, dude. It was like that, bro.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

God, uh so you went from there, where'd you go from there? From Canoga Park? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

That's a really weird story. Uh I'm I met a girl on Instagram that had I just responded to her funny comment on one of her posts. Oh, that's right, right. Not knowing who she was, what she was about, nothing. And um we started talking, and not like that kind of talk, but just like I don't kind of get to know each other.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yeah, banter on social media, whatever.

Santa Monica To Culver City: Spiraling

SPEAKER_00 15:00

So um, she tells me that she lives in Huntington Beach. And this all happened right before the other girl kicked me out, right? This is like just maybe, I don't know, a very short time before this happened. So she told me one Saturday afternoon that her and her friend were going to eat um downtown Huntington Beach. I've never been to Huntington Beach, didn't know anything about it. Yeah, didn't even know which direction it was from Canoga Park. So I said, Well, how about I just drive out there and meet you? And she was like, I don't know you. You're not coming out to Huntington Beach to have lunch with me and my friend. And I was like, No, I'm on my way. I'm on my way. So that's exactly what I did. And uh So you showed up. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Uh hey, like, what do you got? What are you doing? Yeah, yeah. I mean, dude, just a nod in a good place, right? Tweaked out, dude. Yeah, exactly. You know, just smelling of alcohol and just tweaked out. So I sit down next to him, we get to talk and we hang out, and then she tells me I have to leave the the girl I was staying with and and her um at her studio or her office was like, dude, you gotta go. So whatever it was, um, I do I come from a really religious church background in Texas, but um I left a lot of that behind and I've always stayed in tune, in touch with my spirituality, but um not anything much more than that. So I say that now because when I look back on it, I know that there was a reason in my heart, my intuition that guided me to look for a a new place in Huntington Beach. Like, let's get out of the LA area and um see what else I can I can make happen. So I moved into this house that was uh owned by this mother and and father's husband and wife, and they had a kid that they had left this house to. They got a house on the beach. So they were it was a three-bedroom house, super nice, super dope place, right? Pool, hot tub, super nice. So they asked me um to come meet with a dad and wife so they could interview me to see if they were gonna allow me to come stay in this house. So I pulled it off. However, I pulled it off. And next thing I know, I'm moving in. I was there maybe three months, four months total, and it cost an arm and a leg to move into this place. I mean, just about everything that I had saved up again. And the dad was always in and out. Like they didn't live there. I had a year lease, but the dad was just always walking in the door, just doing things around the house all the time. It was like an invasion of privacy.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Wait a minute. So so this guy would just come in whenever he wanted.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not right. No, it's like I I know you own the house, but it was just like weird. It just didn't make sense. They're why are the parents walking in another house just all the time when it's supposed to be our place? It was just it didn't make sense to me. It was just weird. So one day I'm in the kitchen making a sandwich, and they actually knocked on the door. I go and answer the door, and they're handing me eviction notice papers out of nowhere. Blaming me for um turning the pool heater on at night and partying. Well, I wasn't doing any of that. I don't even know. Yeah, it's just wanted me gone for whatever reason. Could have been for many of reasons that they could see in me, but you know, I wasn't doing anything like that I shouldn't be doing, yeah, except for in my bedroom. So they wanted me gone, and I knew that you'd that's not right, you can't do that. I've got a year legal agreement here. So I get in my car, I'm driving around the neighborhood calling every attorney I can in Huntington Beach, California to tell them the story. And finally I get a hold of this guy and I start to tell him it was the actual attorney that I called, and he said, uh, wait a minute, wait a minute. You've got a 214 telephone number. Are you from the Dallas, Texas area? And I said, Yes, sir. And he said, Well, my whole family's from Texas, Dallas actually. Um, big Texas people gotta stick together. How can I help you? I was like, perfect. So I tell him the story. He said, I want you to do me a favor, text these people and tell them that um that you want to move out and you want all your money back. And I was like, dude, they're gonna laugh at me and tell me to go F myself. And he said, Well, if they do, give them my number. So that's exactly what happened. They called him a few minutes later, the attorney calls me back and says, You've got till next. This was on Friday. Oh, wow. And he said, You've got till next Friday to find a place and get out, and they're gonna refund you all your money.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Let's go, baby. I love Texans. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Exactly. Love it, right? So I'm excited. I'm like, okay, this is great. Well, I spent all week looking for a place, and it was either too expensive. Any any place that I found was either just, I mean, ridiculously expensive to live in, to rent a room, and it was just for like nothing. And or I just didn't vibe with the people that I went and met with. I didn't vibe with them, or they didn't vibe with me because I was, you know, not in a good place. So that Friday comes around and I'm back homeless again. I couldn't find a place.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

And did how's okay? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but like ahead, ask that. That sounds so stressful.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Well, it was super stressful. And to think that I've got all this money now, because it was like$7,500 roughly. That it was like the deposit first uh month's rent and the last month's rent, and it was not cheap to live in this house. So I got all that back, but I knew that if I went and spent it on a hotel, I'm gonna be dead broke again. I'm working three jobs, but it's still, you know, I'm I've got storage rooms in like two different places at this point. I've just got every dollar's going somewhere, and then my party, and I just left enough room to pay my rent to feed myself. So there was no savings.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yeah, what I mean that's a how okay. What's the time period of this? Six months, yeah?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

That whole this whole home, the whole homeless um from Venice to a home and you were eight, nine months of just pure fighting to survive. Dude, you're you're wild, bro.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

That is that's tough, dude. How do you I mean I mean, because like you gotta think about a lot of people would probably just give up and say, F it. It's over, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

I mean You know, I'll I'm gonna share something with you. Going back to the spirituality part, yeah. There were times when I was literally in that tent in Venice Beach crying. There's a whole other story that the the the shoreline Crips were trying to take my tent from me every night. Um it got really scary.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

That's dangerous, dude. Oh, it was really scary.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Did it be alive, bro? It was not a safe place. And when you're when you're a one person by yourself in a in a tent like that, you know, they assume that you've got a lot more than they have. Um so things got really, really scary. And I didn't, you know what? I don't have a gun, I don't have any protection, there's nothing I can do. I had a pocket knife, I think. You know, and they're like seriously going, hey dude, this is our tent, get the F out, you know. It was just it got really scary. And I remember laying in that tent in a sleeping bag, freezing cold, with tears pouring down my eyes, saying, I can't do this, like I've got to go home. I'm gonna have to go back to Texas. But I refused to go. There was something inside my heart that just kept saying, Not yet. Not yet.

unknown 21:59

And I

Huntington Beach Eviction And PCH Nights

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Remember it just hitting me so hard. I didn't know what it was, what was going on, but something just kept saying, Not yet, not yet. So there's there were those moments, right? And and I I used to make this analogy, I've shared this with a few people that I would watch people that you know people would throw things away in the trash, and these homeless people just go grab couches, chairs, you know, just whatever to decorate their tents with to make it feel more like a home. And that weirded me out. So it was like I'm gonna go hang a shan get a chandelier that somebody threw away to hang in in my tent to make my tent more of a home. I didn't put any chandeliers in my tent. Yeah. I didn't go get things to make it more comfortable. I knew the second I did that that I would be giving in to that lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Dude, that's deep. That's a good point. I didn't think about that.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Right. So the second that I start getting comfortable in that situation is the second that I look up and it's been 10 years. And I'm right there. Right. So that's there was that fear in me of that. I was smart enough to know that. And then on top of that, that that voice in my chest that would say, Not yet. Not yet.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Well, you never, I mean, is that camera still on, by the way? It is beautiful. We're doing good people. When you say spirituality in that voice, I mean, are you do you think that's God in your personal life? Without question. Okay. Yeah, I say that because, you know, we all have a story. And I talked to you about that. You know, we're up here chatting. And um I have not lived an upstanding life. And I've made a lot of mistakes. I've made a lot of good decisions. Um, but I didn't care. I was raised in a Christian home too, and I ended up just walking away. I'm like, you know what? Screw all this, dude. This is ridiculous. Like, I'm over it. And you know, I can use the excuse of church hurt. Some people say, look, the reality is you have imperfect people running a church, right? And like, I'm not gonna base my faith off people anymore. So I I learned it's a relationship with the Lord, and I hit rock bottom, man. I really did. I was dabbling in things I never should have. Um, and it there was no amount of sex or drugs or anything that I was doing that was bringing me happiness, dude. I was a broken man, broken, broken man. And uh I remember giving my life back to the Lord in this room. That's the funny part, the bed. And I I remember just being so broken and I cried. I'd hurt so many people through my actions. Sure, and it is it really does come down to selfishness, right? That's what it's all about. Oh man, I was just like oh yeah, I'm gonna do what I want when I want, and I don't give a shit who I hurt.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Right. And and the thing, the strange thing about that is not even wanting to hurt anybody else. It's what you're doing to yourself hurts the people around you so 100%, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

And dude, I I look back on that time and I there's there's a lot of regret there, people in the lost friendships in a marriage because of my actions and even the shame and disappointment I brought on my own family. And I didn't even talk to them for like a year and a half. I just blocked them all. I'm like, forget you guys. I don't want to hear you say I need Jesus, and blah, blah, blah. You know, I'm like, screw all that. And man, I'm gonna tell you right now, um, I've lived life without Jesus, and I've lived life with Jesus in my life. 100% different. I will never go back. Now, it doesn't mean I'm a perfect person. I still have my own struggles, I still cuss, I still say the dirty jokes or this and that. I'm out of church every Sunday, but I'll tell you what, I 100% believe that Jesus is real and he died for me because he changed a man like me. And if he can change a man like me, he can change anybody. And that's why I ask about that spirituality because I, in a way, I get what you're saying, because even I look back and Brian, it brings me to tears sometimes when I think of like the places I've been, or when you're on the streets, when you're addicted to alcohol and I was doing drugs, or just trying to get the next high, and the positions that I put myself in to be in some real serious trouble or even get killed. Right. And I look and I see that, I'm like, oh my God, you were protecting me and running after me the whole time. There's this song called Um Running to a Runaway that came out, some Christian artist. And dude, every time I listen to it, it gets me emotional because it's true. I was running, I was running from everything. I was just trying to find the next cool thing and be high, yeah, and survival and all this.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Survival mode.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Yeah, dude. And I'm that's not a good place to be.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

No, it's a dangerous place to be. Everything, in my opinion, is frequency and vibration. Like your your brain is always firing, right? That sends out of a frequency. It sends out a frequency and a vibration. Your heart is beating, it's sending out a frequency and vibration. So that light that I was given was so dark and so dim that you don't realize, I didn't realize all the people I was hurting, I knew I was damaging myself. You know, I knew that I was just running, just just trying to stay in a just surviving, just in the the a ditch, literally. And to dig my way out of it, I had to realize that there was there was something bigger at work. But I couldn't put a a name or a face or even a thought to that. I just knew coming from this um religious background that there was something other than myself. And I and I always understood that from a young age. The intuition and the feelings I had about things and life and just in general um confirmed that. Like there's never been a excuse me, there's never been a time in my life where I questioned if there was um a God. The whole Jesus thing and stuff, I have to leave that to someone else uh uh during those times. That was never my thing. I just always knew that there was something greater and but I lost track of all that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

It's so easy though. It's so I mean it's you know, I I think we said it on one of the recordings before this because the camera's overheating, but dude, it it's so true, and I heard somebody say this that um your sin will take you farther than you ever thought you could ever go. And bro, when I heard that, I'll tell you. So true. Dog, like I've been to some places I never wanted to go. Yeah, I'm like, you're 100% right.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

You're 100% right. And is it interesting though? Did you did you ever um did you ever go to those places and then go back even further?

The Red‑Haired Landlord And A Second Chance

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Oh, 100%. That's almost like that. Yeah, well, it's almost like yeah, I told someone this um he's a real cool guy because he was struggling with some things and just going through divorce, and I could see him going down a route. I was like, hey, I I love you, dude. I'm gonna tell you, you probably need to stop because you're gonna start destroying your life. You don't want to do certain things here. And um it's almost like I told him, I'm like, dude, once you start and you, you know, whatever it may be that your vice is, it's like you're chasing that first high when you first, you know, that first taste of a good whiskey or that first freaking high off weed or whatever you're doing, or you know, you do psychedelics, like it'll never be like that first time, but you're chasing it something. You're going hard, right? And you're changing that you're well, and it goes along that that what I what you know for me in my relationship with the Lord, I I I learned, and and this is like, and I say this because I have worked hard for what I have, right? And it is a blessing. Um, but it's like I've been able to achieve a lot of things that I wanted to, and yet I was still unhappy. Right. Okay, I have properties, I've had the cars I wanted, motorcycle, you know, I all these things I've traveled, freaking whatever you want to say. And I'm like, so is that it? Like, there's gotta be something more. Oh my gosh, there's gotta be something more. And I realized, like, excuse me, I was chasing things or sex or whatever it may be, or promotions and careers, or a big bank account. And every time you get it, you're just like, oh, cool. Like, then it's over, and you're chasing it again. And I realized like there's this, there's this hole in my soul or in my heart that truly only God could fill. And yet I was chasing after so many other things for years, right? For years, just living in the dark, living a double life. And man, I I you know that's why I have so much respect for you, Brian. Um, because a lot of times people don't understand that um so many times our greatest falls or failures are setups for our greatest success. When people say, Oh, I hit rock bottom, and I'm like, Well, I you know what I found out? God was the rock at the bottom. You know what I'm saying? I think, dude, it changed me. Yeah, I'm like I had nothing else. I I lost friends, I wasn't talking to family. I remember just feeling so utterly alone. And it I mean, that's a dark place to be. And I can see where people go down, do things that they could never take back, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:11

And well, when you depend on something to keep you going, yeah, like you know, heroin or or alcohol or whatever it is, without that, you are you're thinking about those withdrawals and going through that, and you're never to a point of like, oh, I can just when you get that far down, it's not like oh, I can just control this. Instead of having a 30 pack today, I'm just gonna have 12. Yeah, right. So um, it just keeps getting darker and darker and darker and deeper and deeper. And it's so interesting that you said that a minute ago about getting those things that you wanted. I was explaining this to somebody the other day. It's like your favorite car is a Lamborghini, right? You get that Lamborghini, you've worked so hard for it now, you get that Lamborghini. Well, it's not long before you walk out and get in the garage and it's just a car that you drive. Dude, let's go. You know what I'm saying? Dude, it's true. It's so true. You you know, your goal is to make$20,000 in the next month. Yeah. Get to that$20,000, and it's like, okay, I did that. Can I do it again? Right. But you you kind of just for me, I've gotten to this point where I wake up and I literally, before my feet even hit the floor, before my feet hit the floor, as soon as I open my eyes, I still lay there and I talk to this spirit, God, creator, source, love, whatever you want to call it. But I know it's there. And I say, um, I'm grateful for five things. Thank you for giving me another chance today. I'm on this side of the dirt, right? I've been given one more chance.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Go.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Um, I have a roof over my head, I have shoes on my feet, I have clothes on my back, and I have food in my stomach. And when I look at those things now in my sobriety and think about all the the things that I've gone through and and the things I've had to do to get where I'm at today, um those simple things in life go so much further than anything that I've ever put into my body to try to change um, you know, my feelings or emotions. Um and there's a lot more that led up to, you know, my sobriety now and and me meeting Elaine, the lady that you know I live with now. And um but it it it's so true for me and and what I've seen in everybody else and every rehab, every um street, every person I've ever met that was suffering from you know what's interesting is that it doesn't have to you don't have to come from a family of abusers or drug addicts or drunks to end up. I didn't. Same. My family was not a bunch of drug addict alcoholics. Yeah, I was just born different. There's just something in me that never felt comfortable and never felt at home inside.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

And and uh Yeah, it's um it's wild, man. I it's definitely giving me a heart for people now. Sure. Knowing Absolutely because I look, I tell people having children now are about to have another another child. Um I don't have to teach. Yeah, my wife's pregnant with my little boy. Congratulations. Yeah, my son.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

So you got a girl, and now you're about to have a boy.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Yeah, my son dies. My son will be here in June, dude. Congratulations. Yeah, I dude.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

I just how do you afford kids in California?

SPEAKER_01 34:31

I do have that question for you. We just do have taxes like we spent how much of these kids on my dog? I'm like, dang, dude. Dude, expensive. Having children, like having what I have now, uh, I am just I'm in this different part of life because I'm almost 40 and you know, I'm very bug. Oh, part of my body. Dude, I've it's brought me to a place of gratitude and thankfulness to have what I have because once I became a a true believer in Jesus, like I that feeling of I don't deserve this. I know who I was, I know who I can be. I know that that that evil uh person that I can be is inherently there. I don't have to teach my daughter to be bad, I have to teach her to be good, right? Your kids, it's just in us, man.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

And knowing uh knowing that about myself, like now when I handle friends or people and people say, Oh, I can't believe this person did that. But I'm like, I'm not shocked. They're a human being. All of us are capable of doing anything a hundred percent. You just it just depends on circumstances of what's happening. But man. Let me ask you a question now, though.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

You said something that and I hate to interrupt you, but you I don't want to forget this. You just said that you don't feel sometimes that you're worth it.

“I’m Tired”: Meetings, Detox, And Day 30

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Um the no, not not worth it, but I don't feel worthy of having what I have. That's where it's it's almost like um knowing that grace and redemption of what Jesus did for me, for you, for everybody, whether you want to believe it or not, um, it's so undeserving. Like, why would you do that for me? Where I've been, everything I've done. Like the creator came down to save what he created, and he didn't have to. It's wild. And then when you actually look at, I I watched this whole in-depth thing on Jesus on the cross and actually like what he went through, and they they compared it to that shroud of turn. I don't know if you know about all that, but like the passion of the Christ that Mel Gibson made, that's child's play compared to what truly happened. Like you see him on the cross on pictures and stuff like that in the movies, they're crucifying him. Like, bro, that shroud of turn. You can see that one of the whips that cut a nine-tiles, it looks like with the blood trail that's left on that shroud, it got his eye. It went in and ripped back. And you can see where his eye was pretty much ripped out. On top of, they didn't just tear apart his back and tore it open so bad that his muscles and bones were showing, they flipped him over and tore apart his privates. No one talks about that. When you actually go in this deep dive on what with how he was tortured and what he went through in the crown of thorns and then being nailed to the cross for me, the per the second Adam, the perfect man who lived a sinless life. And when he came down here, he didn't judge anybody. Look at his disciples. Look at the woman at the well. I mean, you're talking about the worst. If you want to look at how the people in the Bible, if you compare them to people today, they were the worst of the worst, dog. I mean, you're talking about fishermen, women who were sleeping around their husbands, or we call them whores, whatever you want to call them, right? And he went to him, he said, Right on, I love you. Don't do it anymore. You're fine. I got you. Just believe in me. Right? And my my favorite story that um in the Bible that's truly stuck out to me is Deus. Dissimus was the thief on the cross next to Jesus, and he told Jesus, remember me when you go into your kingdom. And Jesus said, Today you will be with me in paradise. Powerful. That guy never went to church, he never donated money, he didn't feed the poor, he didn't go to small groups.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Jesus was here to start a religion.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Yeah, right? He didn't do all those things that people would say, we, you know, which is good things, whatever, to do, right? Whatever. I don't want to go down too far down that rabbit hole, but he didn't get baptized. He did none of that. That tells me that salvation is instant. It's instant if you just tell him, like, please forgive me. I believe in you, like I'm a horrible person. Uh I can't do this without you. He's like, I got you. Right. Your life has changed. You're a new human being. Your past is now gone. Your future is with me. You're gonna be good. It's not gonna be easy. You're gonna have trials, temptations, it's gonna be hard, it's gonna suck, but I'll make a way. And I realized a lot of times for me, when I look back, and I just speak on my life, and the Lord loves us so much, he gives us free will. That's why we you and I gotten to certain things we never should have, right? Sure. But he loves us enough to let us fail, to let us realize we're all he's all we need. He will provide, he will make a way, and it's gonna hurt, it's gonna suck. Maybe these lessons need to be learned because it's gonna build your faith, make you a better person, whatever it may be, or lead you to a point where now someone like you are helping other people who are in the same situation, or guiding people who might be going down that route to stop and knock it off. I mean, dude, we can't take any of this stuff with us, right? You know what we can't take with, yeah. You know what we can't take with us? Our family, our friends, human souls. Like, there's a we have a beginning date and we have an end date. Right. Right? We don't know when that end date is, right? And when I get to the end, I hope I've will have made an impact. Like, we truly won't know. These people that you're helping, Brian, you have no idea what like what you're doing is massive. Huge because you are putting hope into people, and hope is massive in itself. Hope is what keeps you going the next day. Hope is when your heart is broken. I'm gonna keep pushing because you know what? Tomorrow I know that the Lord's gonna do something, He's gonna heal me and bring something greater. So many times in my life when things were taken away and I was sad or hurt or I made a mistake and things happened, I look back now and it was almost like it was a setup for me to learn from that situation and bring me into what the Lord has called into my life.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Well, I don't think it was a setup, I think that's exactly what life is, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:28

So if um sorry, I didn't mean to get all freaking weird.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

No, no, no, you're good. You're good, you're good. I I personally that's exactly how I was brought up with that belief, and um it I st I still struggle with all that. I I really do just have to look at it as um for me. I just had to look at it as you know what? I know that there's something greater than myself, and I know that it is it's guiding me. Period. And end of discussion. I the whole rest of everything that you were just talking about completely respect. For me, I had to let all of that go and just realize that the the power that is, it definitely has a hand in my life.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

100%.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

100%. And so I'm already real ADHD and real crazy in my brain, and it's always spinning 90,000 miles an hour. So for me, I had to just leave all of that behind and just know that whatever it is, it has a hand in my life. But only when you start for me, when I had to start really realizing that all these things that were happening in my life, it it it's all inner perspective. So am I homeless? Yeah, but why am I homeless? Poor decisions, right? But I couldn't see the future clearly. Right. If I would have known that I had to go through all of that to get to where I'm at now or on the path that I'm on now, yeah, it wouldn't have been too much of an experience or or a tough road, should I say. Now, when I look back on it, I'm so grateful for being homeless. I am so grateful for being a drug addict. I am so grateful for being an alcoholic. I am so grateful for the family I grew up in. I'm so grateful for every single bad choice and wrong turn that I made. And there's one reason for that. It's because when I look in the mirror today, I'm so proud of me for the first time. Let's go, baby. That when I look in the mirror, I can actually look at myself and smile while I'm brushing my teeth and go, dude, I had to go through every bit of those struggles to be the person that I am today. And that's it, it's the only time that I've ever been real proud of myself. Not real proud of myself, just proud of myself in general. So all these things that that happened, me getting the uh degree, me moving to California, me being homeless, finding this girl that took a chance on me or tried to help me, that um I ended up being in her place, that I got a job in the audio and video industry, setting up concerts, you know, all these little things that during this path have led me to the story that I have today that we haven't even touched on. This may have to be a part two. Oh no, we're gonna get on it, dog. We can do that too. Um, it for me, I I just truly understand that I have to stay grateful for that opportunity because I never know when that last breath is gonna be taken. Right? It's so short. It's so short, man.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

I mean, time is the one thing. We don't know how much of we have.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Right. And I will not let one person, one place or one thing destroy my peace. Yeah. Um, or or let me not be grateful for for what I've been given. And and like I said, all that stuff that that I went through and you know, still go through. You know, just because I'm sober doesn't mean everything's perfect, happy, and huggy dory, and it works out all the time because that would just be a a lie. It's just I I've I've able to flip my perspective. perspective on my life and and things that happen. So if I'm going through this situation, am I being punished? No, I don't know what's on the other side of it. So I have to step back, stop, breathe, and think, okay, you know, whatever it is that I'm going through, the other side is just going to make me stronger. Whether it's teaching me patience, whether it's teaching me love, whether it's teaching me um just to grow a little bit more, whether it's to have a 1% better day than I did the day before, that's how I kind of just have to keep my brain focused and stay grateful.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

You're doing good, my friend. It's not easy, but it's no, it's not. And I think for me, like my biggest uh struggles here. Oh absolutely. This is where the mental game is what gets me. You know what I mean by mental game? What's that?

SPEAKER_00 44:43

His name is Doug. I read somewhere. I read somewhere, yeah, that if you name that voice inside your head, sometimes it's easier to um to drown it out. So when I get those, I I tell people in my lives all the time, look, if you can think negatively, you can think positively. But sometimes it becomes well, it's it's just the truth. If I can sit here and tell myself, oh, I'm not worthy of it. Oh I'm too old. I'm too young. No, I'm the right age to get this started because I had to go through all this to learn what it is I'm about to do. Or I don't have enough money. Okay, well, how much do I need? I need this much. Okay, well, do I need to do to get this much? There's there's always a way, but you have that that part of your brain that's telling you you can't, right? And so I I heard that or read it somewhere that if you name that voice inside your head you can recall to it and and kind of almost argue with it and tell hey, you know, knock it off. So I call mine Doug. So I'll I'll have some kind of Stephen thoughts I'm like Doug go away bro I'm way stronger than you. I'm gonna have to name mine and let you know just have like a name I can yell at and go like Doug knock it off bro.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Well dude you're you're you're a huge I I love what what you wrote especially on your your packet and stuff like that. And um recovery advocate community builder and you're the founder of something called Crab Crew Movement. Crab Crew Life.com Crab Crew Life dot com. Okay what is that?

Viral Videos And Elaine’s Internet Fame

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Talk about that okay so you know I I do TikTok live streaming right yeah speaking of which another little side note you have 23 million views on TikTok yes sir what okay we're gonna go back to the crab crew what was it is one video multiple what multiple my whole entire account blew up after the one video of of me and my landlord so to backtrack a little bit when I left that place and and that home in Huntington Beach that when I moved into and couldn't find a place yeah um so that's when I started sleeping in my I was homeless again sleeping on PCH with cardboard up around my car. So everywhere between Sunset Beach or Seal Beach all the way up to the Huntington Beach Pier is where I ended up sleeping. I knew that if I took the money that I had that I got back on the rent from that house that if I stayed in a hotel or anything I I would just end up not having any money once I found a place. So I'm back to being homeless again and that lasted for about three months and somebody told me that if I would go start on the numbered streets, I'm driving back and forth to LA every day from work and I get home or get back to Huntington Beach and I just started driving and walking up and down the numbered streets and every single sign that I saw in those people's yards I would call it was either so expensive or I just didn't vibe with the people. Again I'm yeah I'm literally taking showers in the shower the surfer showers down by the pier. Yeah for you and in that bathroom down there at sunset? Uh no right there at the Huntington Beach pier. Yeah I got you okay yeah yeah yeah there's that little shower right there by Zach's yeah I would wear my bathing suit and I would just rinse off there and then go to that bathroom that's on the other side of the pier and just smoke a ton of meth and slam a fifth of of you know vodka or whiskey whatever I had and then get in my car and drive to work in LA come back and I would do that all over again. That was just my life for three months and nothing ever panned out and then one day I came on this one of the numbered streets and I parked on the corner and I looked over and I saw a um a sign in the yard that said room for rent. It was this beautiful house upstairs looking um you could just tell I guess that's where the room was and so I called this number and I'm like looking at it going this there's no way there's no way this one would work out you know so I called this number and I could tell it was a little old lady. I could just tell by her tone, her voice just everything about her I could just tell that she was an elderly woman and I was just grungy dirty from work you know tattoo shown in a short sleeve shirt and she said that she had somebody that was going to come look at that place in the morning. But she would well she was out to dinner and would let me come look at it when she got back from dinner. So I called that girl that I'd first met when I moved from Canoga Park, she would let me come over take a shower once or twice a week and maybe eat you know once or twice a week and so I called her and I was like hey I need to come over and can I please take a shower and and uh kind of clean myself up before I go look at this this room and she said yeah sure so I did that got to the lady's house she opened the door and my favorite family member for most of my childhood was my great grandmother she played the organ for our church she played the piano she was just my favorite lady she taught me how to play guitar so I she was just a little bitty short lady with red hair and the lady who answered the door was this little bitty short lady with red hair. No way and immediately I was like mind you I had just smoked a bowl of of speed before I walked into this I was saying to get you emotional but yeah you're you're on one yeah and my face is sunk in I just have circles that I just look like walking death and I put a long sleeve shirt on and this lady takes me upstairs shows me the room and uh tells me the price and I was like I could pull this off remember I've got this guy that's coming to look at it tomorrow morning. Now my mom at this point had no idea that I was homeless again. She thought I was um still in that that house that I first moved into in Huntington Beach. My mom I've put her and my family through so much stuff over my life I just couldn't bear to tell my mom that I was you know back homeless. So I was really struggling man and so she said that she would call me that next day and let me know. So what I did was I got in the car she tells me this whole story about her heart transplant and and her two grandkids that passed away from drug addiction her daughter her oldest daughter passed away from drug addiction she's telling me all this crazy emotional stuff she's in the kitchen I'm on the other side of the bar and I'm like just sitting there with fighting tears going why is this lady telling me all this stuff just nuts it I I just knew something was happening. I just didn't know what or why so I get in the car across the street I get on the phone with my mom and I call my mom tell her that I'm homeless and this is what had just happened and she's bawling like Brian what are you gonna do? Why didn't you tell me yada yada you know I'm worried about you so text messages from my mom all the time were hey where are you? Why aren't you responding? Please call me I'm worried where are you at? So I didn't want to put her through any more of that and um I told her what was going on and she said what are you gonna do now and I said well I'm gonna get in my car and go back to PCH and put cardboard up over my windows and go to sleep and get back and drive to LA to go go to work the next day. So my mom's word please call me as soon as you hear from her so I get up I go to work and I never heard from this lady all day long. Drove back from LA pulled up in front of her house again and called her and I said hey it's Brian I you know I met you yesterday and I never heard from you she said oh yeah it was one of my daughter's friends from high school so I'm just gonna let him move and basically have a nice life after this lady had just told me this whole her life story and all that stuff and I was like going this is gonna work out you know um so it didn't so I just sat there dude with tears rolling down my face. I'm sure you know like not in a giving up way just kind of like oh my God something magical happened here. Why did it just fall through that was what was hurtful I was like I don't understand like we just connected in this weirdest way why would this be yanked away from me okay fine I'll call my mom tell her what's going on that it didn't happen. So that's what I did. My mom starts freaking out like what are you gonna do now? What are you gonna do? And I said mom honestly it's just another part of my story. I've pulled myself out of being homeless before multiple times I'm not gonna let it happen again I'm not gonna be homeless forever I'll just go to sleep get up go to work come home and start on the next street she said you know I don't know how you do that you know you're by yourself I wish you wouldn't wouldn't have done this and you know that's the only way I can describe it it's just another part of my story. I hung up the phone with my mom and 10 minutes later my phone rang and it was that lady get out of here she said are you looking for long term or short term and I said uh ma'am I'm looking for a place to rest my head like I'm tired. Yeah I'm tired.

Live Streaming, Community, And Purpose

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Yeah and um she said okay well that guy was looking for short term I'm looking for long term how about I call you in the morning and and let you know and I was like just why can't you just tell me just tell me now tell me now tell me now you know and uh so I said okay I went across the street to PCH got in my car fell asleep and uh passed out got up to my phone ringing around seven o'clock that morning and it was that lady and I said hello I sat up as quick as I could you know yeah try to sound like you weren't sleeping exactly trying to sound like I'm not sleeping in the back of my car which she already sleeping tangled up here so I said no ma'am I'm I'm not and she's like don't lie to me I said yes ma'am I'm I'm in my car and she said um well why don't you get dressed and get over here I've never gotten up and gotten dressed so fast in my entire life I didn't know what was I don't know what was about to happen but I pulled the cardboard out my windows threw on some clothes jumped in my car went right across the street to her house and I pulled up out front and she's standing there in her robe basically welcome home now go get my money I was like I'm on my way what a blessing my man I mean that that just to experience that I mean that gets you emotional just seeing her out there I mean just to she's not family she doesn't know who you are and let's let's be real people like that nowadays because the culture we're in things change but like don't exist that's rare that's that's very very rare and especially an elderly woman like that I mean with she her husband had passed away several years before this so I mean it was just her yeah right she didn't know I had tattoos she didn't you know I didn't show her any of that you didn't feel judged by her or anything did you no not not at all not until I took my shirt off for the first time around her then she was like oh I didn't know you had all those tattoos I probably wouldn't let you move in she seriously said that to me I don't know if I would have let you move in how to saw all those tattoos you have a picture right there of her in your um yes in the newspaper yes we were written up in the Los Angeles LA Times yeah uh hold that up dude it was easy get that on camera here third page and that's that's her right there wow but what caused this um so she takes this chance on me and and um you know finally I feel safe yeah um called my mom told her of course she was super excited and I moved in upstairs and it my addiction and my alcoholism took another level of of darkness oh yeah I don't know I don't know anybody there I'm still working three jobs at the time so I'm bouncing around all of LA I would be home maybe an hour drive from LA back to Huntington Beach uh just party chill out for a little bit wash my face off brush my teeth eat something and go back out and do another concert and then just going from place to place and then coming back and um staying awake and well I saw okay you moved up there and you're living with her and it got worse how did she handle did she help you change yeah she didn't know I hid it really well because I've been doing this my whole life she had no idea um excuse me and then one day man I don't the only thing I can say is that it was um a God thing if that's what you want to call it that's how I have to look at it.

The Birth Of Crab Crew Movement

SPEAKER_00 56:44

Um I was brushing my teeth one morning and that was 780 days ago today and I looked in the mirror and I was brushing my teeth and I said I can't do this anymore back up back up. A couple months before that I'm on my way home from a job in LA and I stopped by Rouse on Golden West my favorite car is a Lamborghini it was probably nine o'clock at night I go into the store get a couple things come out and there's this beautiful blue and yellow Lamborghini that had just pulled up right in front of me and I was like dude that car and I was dude I don't even remember the last time I'd even taken a nap dude I was so just whacked out. This guy gets out and he's an older gentleman I said that's a beautiful car he says uh oh yeah thanks you know just starts telling me about it I'm like they're my favorite car blah blah blah he's showing it to me and he said yeah it's a gift of sobriety oh I was like it took me a while to figure out why he had actually brought that to my attention but he you know he probably smelt and saw that I was a little tweaky tweaky and a little messed up he knew yeah he just offered you know the fact that it was a gift of sobriety and he told me that he goes to a meeting that he's been sober well 25 years a place in in Sunset Beach called Thursdays and uh you know you should you should come check it out one day and I was like yeah yeah yeah okay a couple months later I wake up brushing my teeth I looked in the mirror and I was like man I can't do this anymore I literally cannot do this anymore I made a decision right then there that I was going to go to that meeting that morning so I went to Sunset Beach and walked into Thursdays at 7 a.m not knowing anybody turns out that guy was there and some people shared and then all I I just raised my hand and all I I remember exactly what seat I was sitting in still to this day and I raised my hand and the only thing that could come out of my mouth with tears rolling down my eyes was like I'm tired. Yeah I'm just so tired man and I was just crying and um so from that point on I I knew that I I what had happened was I realized that I was worth having a better life and then the fear set in of like okay am I going to go another 40 years if I make it that long and look back and still have been doing the exact same thing that I've done my whole life and that started to put a fear inside me. Yeah that's a that's a hard reality dude yeah that's a hard hard reality the viral thing on TikTok I know that was the long way around your question but you had to know the the history of how her and I, how all of that happened. So I told she didn't have any idea right so what I did was I told her I started calling my insurance and I was like hey I need a sober living home or rehab or something I can go to for 30 days. So I kept getting up and going to those meetings every morning and um my insurance said okay we found you a place but it's gonna be a week it's in Santa Ana so I just kept going to those meetings and finally I told them I was like hey man I finally got a bed it's gonna be seven days excuse me and I'll come back in 30 days. And that guy with the Lamborghini said if you make it 30 days I'll um I'll take you for a a ride I'll take you out to you know lunch or something you know in the Lamborghini we'll go to like Laguna or something and I think cool drive all the way down the PC. And I was like right on absolutely well I had to call the union I had to call the owner of the two other companies that I was working for and I said hey man look I've got a real problem and I need to take care of myself the union could have very easily said too bad and I've worked so hard dude for oh yeah 17 months 16 months at this time I was so close to becoming a union member and I'd worked so hard to get into it and if I miss one day of work in a 30 day period they could have just let me go. But they understood the guy that answers the phone you have to call in for work every day at 5 p.m to get work for the next day when you're a level group five and for some reason this guy just took a liking to me just on the phone just over the course of 15 16 months and he said Brian go take care of what I've never met the man don't know what he looks like just said I don't know why I'm getting emotional here another person in my life that knew nothing about me except for the phone said hey go do your 30 days if you make it to 30 days I'll act like nothing ever happened and I'll give you I'll let you keep going to get your time that's so awesome. Right so still good people out there man four days into me being in this rehab there's people relapsing all in front of me I couldn't deal with I was I was going through withdrawals so bad was some of the worst withdrawals I've ever had and I've had some bad ones and this one was really scary. So I checked myself out my neighbor actually came and drove to Santa Ana picked me up dropped me off at my house and I went upstairs and I just dropped on my hands and knees man and I was just bawling just I had bruises on my fingertips just claw on the carpet so bad I was just shaking. I was like I can't do this and just take me away just now I can't I was afraid to be alone and so I called that same neighbor and I said can I come down to your house please like I can't be alone right now she said absolutely still good friends with her today just an amazing human being her name is Susie and um I stayed there till about midnight and I went home and I locked myself up in Elaine's house in my room for 30 days and I did not come out except for to use the bathroom and take a shower and to eat whatever I could I literally just on your own on my own. Yeah it was a nightmare did I will not suggest it to anybody I knew my body I knew what I could push radical yeah I mean every orifice of my body was something was coming out of it shaking I was it it was rough well how many years do you think uh from the time I was 31 until 46 45 um was just balls to the wall. So you're talking what 15 16 yeah and the only other time I was sober before that was the 18 months of prison that I was in. Wow and before that it was 13 until 28 28 to 30 prison I had um four months four years of uh parole but I was passing drug test you know because I had doctors notes working with my aunt and uncle in the medical industry so I wasn't sober so it was it was just really scary you did it though bro yeah I I could dude mad respect mad respect 30 you did 30 days on your own after 15 16 years yes sir uh dude I literally was begging God to just take me I I can't do this and I just kept pushing I just kept going I just I would not give up I I before that I before I met that guy with the Lamborghini I tried a couple times I think the longest I went was eight days and I just I did that two or three times I just kept failing um so you know until I met that guy something kind of just stuck.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:24

So after that 30 days though like did you just kept going to meetings you just kept going to meetings and I just every single morning at 7 a.m um I started like just taking jobs.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

I just had a little bit of money um just from working so much. So I kind of just took a little bit of time off work and um union gave me my job right back. That's cool. So I still held my time right they love it. And then I got the Lamborghini ride all the way into you know into Laguna Beach and I just kept going. Sometimes it was um the 7 a.m meeting the noon meeting and the five o'clock meeting um but it was about I don't know took me three or four months before I really started coming out feeling normal.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:05

Yeah and I'm did you even forget what normal felt like oh I don't know what normal was right I mean it took 16 years like is this normal am I good? Like so going to those meetings after you those 30 days along was it the accountability that also helped you is this is was it seeing other people who like oh like they're kind of just like me or there's I'm not alone in this like were those things that kind of because I I saw that in what you gave me with and I I loved it was uh responsibility vision um and that was in in in the some of the stuff that you sent me and at least for me for my change it was finally like I need to own this right I I need to own it I need to be responsible and I'm not gonna tell everyone like what I did right but I found probably there's about two to three people that I know that are friends I've known for a long time. They're like the only three people I can tell them anything and nothing gets out. Right. And it's like it's good to have those people oh yeah it's rare it's it's rare right and it's finally like okay I need to own this I need to change like I hate my life I hate my I hate me even to the point like my wife it's it's beautiful dude but when we both changed because we were together even at this time and um even coming to her and finally just be like there's a part of me that you don't know I need to talk to you about and it was one it was it was a hard conversation but we went through a lot of counseling together um and even coming clean and it was like it's almost like you just drop this weight off dude it's like I I'm tired of hiding right I'm tired of having a double life here's things that you I've done that you don't know about and I I just need to I need to lay it out there. If we're going to be engaged and get married and continue with our life like you needed I want you to know. Gotta come clean. Yeah and dude it was one of the most healing most difficult beautiful conversations I ever had of course there's counsel in the room sure and instead of even just turning away uh my Wife was like, it's gonna be all right. Like, I didn't know. You got a real part of that, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:04

I've never experienced that, so I don't know if I can well yeah, and it's like because she changed too.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:09

She, you know, we all have everyone has issues, their own stuff that they've done wrong. But for someone that, you know, I was so afraid, but I'm like, I'm just gonna be honest here and I'm gonna put all out there. And for my friends, these three people to not turn their back on me, to not bat an eyelash to tell my now wife, and she's comforting me and tell me it's gonna be okay. And like, wow, I had no idea like you're involved in all that stuff or did these things, but thank you. Like, let's let's get through this. It almost like it's open. You have something to build on, yeah, dude. Yeah, yeah. It brought in a way that that brokenness and change that happened for both of us brought us closer and changed. Changed us a big time, dude. A big big time, you know? And and that's why I ask you what's at the accountability because I love what you put and wrote that. That's why I wrote it down. I was like, dude, it's true. You gotta own it. You gotta own it, you gotta have people.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:05

No, there's no one of the person I can go, you made me do this. Nobody held a gun to my head, bro. You know, I just I I just wanted to keep from feeling. Yeah. And once the cloud started lifting and and things started coming back, um, I again, I don't know what normal is.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:27

I don't know who Brian Blackman is. I I just don't. I know that he's a stand-up funny guy. You know, he's he's cool. We can party with the best of them. He, you know, he's dependable. If you need him to go work, I'll show up, that'll be early.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

But besides that, you know, I I I've always been, like I said, the class clown. I've I've always had a fun personality, but it was all fake. You know, it was just me trying to entertain people, or you get this idea that, you know, you need people to like you.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

Oh yeah, I was stuck on that for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And because I didn't like myself, right? So if I could find somebody else to to like me or or think I'm this cool guy, you know. Um which you said something a minute ago, and I don't remember exactly how you worded it, but it you you said that you came clean to your to your wife, or you told your your three best friends they knew all this. Everything, right? Yeah, um, so when Elaine, because I haven't left Elaine, this is a year and a half into me living with her, we've gr grown to this really cool, amazing, fun, you know, tenant, landlord, 45, 44, 45-year-old guy, and this 87-year-old lady, right? God bless her, dude. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what I said, you know, this little old lady just took a chance on me. She had no protection. She hadn't, God knows what somebody could have done to her. Right, right. And she she reached uh her heart and her handout. Um but when I went to the rehab, it was the first time I'd ever left her, besides going to back to Texas to visit for, you know, Thanksgiving or Christmas. And at this point, we'd already grown so much together as like this friendship and her depending on me and me kind of depending on her to have this safe haven. I thought I had to figure out something to do for 30 days. I couldn't tell I was going to rehab. Yeah, yeah. So I told her that I got an opportunity to go on tour with this LA band all the room up and down the coast of California and Northern California and back down the coast. You son of a bitch. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And it worked. It was a good one. It was a good one. It was pretty much a legit store. We love you. We love you, Elaine. Yeah, exactly. So, and and then it was 15 or 16 days into what I was going through. I finally went downstairs and told her, and I was like, hey, this is what's going on. And she told me, right. I was afraid that she was gonna kick me out. But I will tell you this right now to kind of answer that question about the responsibility part of it. I knew that I was going through it so bad and that I wanted it so bad. For the first time in my life, I knew that if I was gonna do something, I was worth it. I was worth having a better life. Absolutely.

unknown 1:10:03

Absolutely.

Service, Hope, And Daily Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 1:10:03

So that's where the drive and the determination and the strength really came into play is I didn't care what I was going through or how bad I had to go through it. I knew that there was something worthy on the other side to do this now. And when I told her, she said, I love you. I'm here for you. Just go upstairs and and do what you gotta do. I'm here for you. So the union didn't kick me out. My other two jobs let me stay. And then when I told Elaine, you know, she didn't. But I was ready. If she was gonna kick me out, not let me stay there, I would have packed my stuff respectfully and left. Would I have stayed sober? I I I I can't answer that. I don't know, but I know at the time I was so determined and willing to do so. That very well could have been the catalyst of um me knowing, okay, now I'm in a safe place. I I don't have to worry, I can do this. Yeah. And I just I just kept going, man. I just I just would not stop. And my whole life has been either 150,000 miles an hour or not at all. Yeah. It is either balls to the wall or excuse my language, but fuck you, I'm not doing it. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:05

Um, and so when I decided to do it, it and you asked about so to kind of speed up what happened. I started kind of coming to my senses and and kind of getting some my bearings together, and I just started making TikTok videos about her and I. I'd already had a not success, but like 4,200 followers. That's great. Um, I'd had a video in Venice, hit like 150,000 viral, and then another one that was my very first video I ever posted on TikTok before I ever started doing this whole thing. I think went up to 300,000. I get into an I get into an Uber in Dallas, and I get in there, and the guy uh doesn't have any arms or any legs. And he's my Uber driver and he turns around and pulled up, I know, I know it's horrible. I know, but it's that funny. 300 something thousand people thought it was hilarious. So I pulled up my phone and I was like, what the heck is going on? And I was I'd been up all night and um I just started a video, and he goes, Hey man, are you uh are you okay with being in the car with me? I don't have any arms, I don't have any legs. So that video kind of took off, but it only led me to like 4,200 followers. Yeah. So just it's just this time I was like, there's something special about Elaine and I was related. It's just oh yeah, good humor. It's just it's authentic. There's nothing really that I have to do because you never know what she's gonna say or do. And I was wanting to get to 5,000 followers just so I could start doing the TikTok shop just to make a little bit of extra money. I'm still driving back and forth from Huntington Beach to LA.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:26

And um, she likes a garden. I'm always helping her in the garden. So I was like, you know what? I'll just get some some seeds or some plants or some gardening tools or whatever, and you know, just start doing the TikTok shop. And um, one day, it was maybe six months into me being sober, right at about six months. We're sitting on the front porch, and you know, we live fairly close to the beach. And these it was on a Sunday afternoon, and I was getting ready to go to the five o'clock meeting, AA meeting, and these two young, good-looking guys with just their bathing suits on walked by, and Elaine goes, Hey, you want to use my water hose to get all the sand off of you before you get in your car? And they were like, I I sure and I was like, What are you doing? And she pushed, I started to get to get the water hose, and she literally pushed her hand on my chest and goes, Don't worry, I got this.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:11

I love it. I freaking love it. She's how red she is. Yeah, she just had she's like that confident.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

Like, don't worry, Brian, I got this. Yeah, and she grabs the water hose and starts spraying them off. And the second something just hit me, it's like Brian, did not not get this on video, like right now. So I just started videoing it and uh I'm dying laughing in the background. She gets done. I put my phone, I put it in the drafts. Um I put my phone in my pocket, I go upstairs, I change clothes, I drive to the meeting, and I'm sitting in front of the meeting, about to go in, and I just added that song to it. Uh, y'all ready for this? Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. I put that behind it. I added a little text to it. I walk in the meeting, put it in my phone in my pocket, walked into the meeting, and uh they asked me to lead the meeting that night on a Sunday night was just packed, and I was like, uh, okay. So I'm sitting there, I've got my phone literally right here, and I'm just starting the meeting, and my phone just starts going. Oh, I was just like nuts, just like going crazy, and I was like, what the heck is going on? I get out of the meeting an hour and a half later, and it the video had already hit like 100 something thousand views, and I was like, Whoa, what is going on? That's wild. Right. So I drove home and I'm I'm an early bed guy. It was like 8:30. My friend calls me from Texas and she goes, Are you watching this video? And I was like, I don't know, it already hit like 100,000. I'm tired, I'm going to bed. I woke up that next morning to go to the 7 a.m. meeting, so I got up at 6 and I hadn't even looked at my phone, didn't even think anything of it. Got to the meeting. A couple guys were already following me on TikTok because they thought the whole thing with the lane was interesting. And I walk in the door and I grab coffee and everybody goes, Dude, are you watching your video right now? Are you seeing your TikTok? And I was like, I haven't even looked at it this morning. They're like, dude, you might want to check it. And I sat down and I looked at my phone and I went from 4,200 followers to 23,000 followers in just like six or seven hours, and it already hit like 700 and something thousand.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:59

And I was there 30 minutes early. So I'm there at like 6:30. And by the time 7 a.m. hit, I looked at it again and I was at like 32,000 followers. Turned my phone off, meeting goes an hour. The guy was sitting next to you, goes, You see if it's hit a million, see if it's hit a million. And I looked at my phone and hit 1.1 million by like 805. I love it. And it just kept growing.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:21

It just so you just kept making videos after that, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:25

So I started reading the comments of this one, and so my account just started going kind of crazy. Yeah. Um, and the comments were just through the who is this lady? She's my spirit angel. Like, she is just the comments were so awesome. Yeah. And I was like, what is happening? And so I had this crazy idea. I was like, I want to create Elaine her own TikTok account.

unknown 1:15:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:49

Go show her how to read these comments and see if she'll get a kick out of it because she has no idea that she's going viral right now. I mean, like literally going viral. So I set up the phone in my little studio and I said, Hey, I'm Brian. I was a guy that's laughing in the background. You know, I was the one that took the video of Elaine hosing these guys off. I'm gonna go get her phone, create her own TikTok account, and then go show her and we'll see what happens. So I knew how to get into her phone. So her boyfriend was there. I went downstairs, stole her phone, created her own TikTok account. When he left, I went downstairs and showed her all of it, videoed it. Right? This is two days later, that other video, it already was like at three something million.

unknown 1:16:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:25

I make that video and post it, and it just blows that one away. I think that one's at like 14, 13.8, 13.9 million. The other one's at 7.3 million, I think, right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:35

Isn't it amazing the reach that social media has? I mean, I I have a TikTok. I'm rarely on it. I should probably use it more. I mean, again, this past year I took a break from every even social media just to enjoy being a dad, but yeah, yeah. I've been starting. Yeah, put other stuff up, but it always amazes me, like, gosh, you never know what when something's gonna hit, dude. You never, it's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:56

Never know. I didn't there was no goal to go viral. There was I was just truly enjoying. I come from a audience.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:03

You're creative, dude. You're you're a you're an artist and a creative, and I appreciate that. Right.

Reflections, Faith, And What’s Next

SPEAKER_00 1:17:07

And I just enjoyed making videos of her and just sharing, you know, the funny stuff that happens around our house. And so it it just was overwhelming because TikTok will show you you got 99 new followers and you've got 99 plus new messages. It doesn't show 102, it doesn't show it, it just shows 99 plus 99 plus. And so I'd my friend in Texas, she was logged onto my account. We were both just sitting there for days, refreshing, clearing it out, dude. It would just go right back to 99 plus, 99 plus. It was just it was overwhelming. Um, and so then people are like hitting me up going, dude, you're going crazy. This is going nuts, dude. You're so viral. And I was like, what do I do with this? I'm trying to stay sober, and I'm just enjoying life for the first time in my life, really. I don't know what to do with any of this. And um, it just that's when I looked at my all my videos were just they went from uh seven, eight hundred thousand, twelve hundred views to fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, eighty thousand, seventy thousand, just a hundred and three thousand. Just they just kept growing.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:11

Well, and the good part about this is that did this also make kind of a pathway where you don't have to work as much, right? It created the pathway. Oh my goodness, man. Let's go, dude. I love it. I forget so. Like, is that is that kind of also you know, so people know, is that helping you with feeding homeless people and the doing the outreach and the things that you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:33

Right. So it that's what started it.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:37

That is my life literally changed overnight.

unknown 1:18:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:43

Um in in seven hours, my life went from driving back and forth to LA to work um to literally having this audience.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:57

And a friend of mine that was already live streaming on TikTok had had called me and said, Hey man, you really should start like live streaming and uh telling your story. And I was like, I don't really want to.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:07

Okay, so is live streaming like the next big thing to do, or has that always been something? I sound like a boomer right now. For me or just in the just in the TikTok realm or social media, because I kind of heard that. Someone was talking about on some video I watched. They're like, watch, the next big thing that's gonna be happening, it's not reels or posting videos, it's gonna be going live.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:24

That's exactly what has happened. Um, it's it's a way for you to show off your talent or just share your story or just sit there like a bump on a log and battle people for money, which has not been really a big part of my story by any means. Um, but it is a way to to make money and have fun with some cool people. But for me, that it it was never about I I I couldn't have asked for this. I I I didn't this was it's just now the way I have to look at it. It's just it's just my story, it's just the way my life has turned out. Um, but I I told my buddy, I was like, I don't want to live stream, I'll just keep making videos. And at that point I became a part of the creator reward fund. Um, so you have to have 10,000 viewers, or 10,000 followers, and you have to have a video that hits a hundred thousand views within a 30-day period to start getting paid for your videos from TikTok. Well, I know a lot of people that are fighting to get 10,000 followers. I was just trying to get five. And then you have to have if you get the 10,000, then you have to make a video that goes 100,000 viral within 30 days, and that's not easy. Right. Even if you know how to do it, it you can't just predict what video is gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:40

And you have to you have to sit there and you gotta be creative, you gotta make content. And people don't understand. I know it just from doing the podcast and putting stuff up on YouTube and social media. Brother, it's work. Oh, it's it is work, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:52

The interesting thing for me though is it just came so natural. It it was fun for me to it's still is fun to make videos with Elaine and I. Yeah, this lady's just she saved my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:04

Yeah, that's so cool, man. It really is.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:07

It gave me a chance when no one uh else on this planet was willing to even give me the time of day. And she took an alcoholic drug addict into her her beautiful home in Huntington Beach, California. And um really gave me a uh two big chances. The first time, and then when I told her that I was, you know, a going through what I was going through, she still didn't kick me up. So to me, it it was just all fun, and and now it's becoming grateful to have this situation. Well, my buddy was like, dude, you should start live streaming, just kind of tell your story. And I was like, Man, okay, I'll do it. So one day after a morning meeting, I just grabbed my phone. I didn't have a a stand or microphones or anything. I just went to hand 17th. I I went to 17th Street in PCH and sat on one of those benches at like nine o'clock in the morning feeding squirrels with like seven people watching me. I love it. Hey uh I'm Brian, and I I'm just I'm here in Huntington Beach, California, and uh I've got I don't know, uh six or seven months sober, and uh I'm just feeding there's some squirrels right here. I I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know what I was doing, I just started doing it and then the next day I did it again, and the next day I did it again, and it was 10 people, and then it was 12 people, and then it was 15 people. And I remember getting up to 20 people in my life. I was like, oh my god, there's 20 people out here to watch me. This is crazy, this is so exciting. Yeah, and I just I just kept doing it, man. It's just something about it felt right to me, and and then it allowed me to share all the things that I was kind of going through at that moment and during that time, and I was just so recently sober, you know, seven months into it, maybe at this point. And it just it it felt natural for me to just talk about what was going through my head, you know, a lot was going through it. I'm still learning today about who I am. You know, you you you take 25 plus years of drug and alcohol addiction and not knowing who you really are. There's some things that you start thinking about and start looking at deep down inside on a different level. Yeah, yeah. And so it's just been a way for me to really be grateful. And so that's when I know this is the longest way around that original question, how the crab crew thing happened. But five. All of that had to be told for you to understand what my life is now with with live streaming and the and the crab crew. So I'm live streaming, I always do it from the Huntington Beach Pier most of the time. And uh you know, you got the ocean behind me and the pier behind me, and then it it a lot of it led around all Huntington Beach. Uh now it's become a morning show and an evening show. But stop it. Yeah, really? I do two hours of live streaming in the morning at uh 7 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:40

and crab crew is like its own thing. That is so great.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:44

Yeah. So what happened? There's always these people watching me on the pier ride through. I was like, dude, they know me now. Yeah, but in the beginning, they're like, what is this guy doing? And uh so now you know I'd invested in a gimbal. I've got it set up, and you know, I've got this whole thing going on. And well, these gifts that you can send virtual gifts, um, make your screen do something cool, or you know, these lions will come up and roar, and you know, that's how people make money.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:09

It's through these virtual gifts. Well, this one girl, her name was Kari, and she sent me this crab gift. And this crab comes and it dances on your head and kind of does this little claw thing, right? And me being the goofball wack-a-doodle I am, I said, Oh, really? Now I've got crabs. Really, Kari's giving me crabs right here in front of everybody in Huntington Beach, California. This is, you know, and I just started being the goofy, weird, fun person that I am. Um, I saw people laughing, and then the chat, everybody in there was like laughing, and then everybody started sending it to me. So I started yelling out people's names. So-and-so just gave me crabs, and some dude would do it. And I was like, Really, Bradley? Yeah, thank you. You're giving another dude crab. I mean, like, what's really good? And it just became this thing. I set up a P.O. box and I posted it to my um my TikTok bio. And next thing I know, man, I've got people from all over the world sending me crab socks, crab boxers, crab bubbles, uh bubble blowers, crab keychains, crab socks, uh just booties, beanies. Everything you can imagine, crab. And so I started opening them on the live and saying it was from Kathy Graves or it was from, you know, this person, whoever. Um, it just became the same. Well, I started looking at it and I was like, well, what is a crab? Well, crabs are super resilient, they're adaptive. They don't let life get them down, they can move sideways, they can just step back and and take a breath, and they figure out how to maneuver through life right without ever giving up. I started thinking, well, that's exactly how I've had to be in my sobriety, is resilient and adaptive to a completely new world that I never understood in the first place. And so I'm having to learn these things for the first time in my life at 46, 47 years old. And uh so we just started calling it the Crab Crew. And then on my 500 days of sobriety, I went and got this tattoo and live streamed it. And then um on I don't know, I can't remember what the other date was. Maybe it was I don't know, a thousand days or something like that. I forget exactly, but I went and got Crab Crew tattooed on my knuckles and live streamed that. And then uh on my two years of sobriety, I went and got the California HB. That's sick, where my heart is. That's um, and then it's got my sobriety date, January 7th, 2024, on it. And um, so yeah, that's how the Crab Crew thing all started. And um now I've got this amazing community and family that show up every single day. They follow me to every different platforms that I've tried to live stream from when TikTok went crazy. I did it on YouTube, I did it on Favorited, and now I'm on a new app called Um Epic Studios. Um, TikTok just kind of became this toxic place for me um over the last couple months and since the new ownership. I'm not here to crap on TikTok, I'm just saying for me, yeah. Um since the new ownership, they started taking a lot more of the creators' money. Like they started taking 62% of all of it. 62%? It's always been 50-50, and I was fine with that because that's just the way that I've known it since I started doing this. Um, but then they started, so I get paid for my video content and then for live streaming through the virtual gifts because people just support, they have a good time and and they enjoy what I do. And I've been so grateful and so blessed, man, to have so many people that are there every night and and and every morning that just love what we have built. It's it's not about me anymore. Yeah. Um, and it's I've learned so much about my sobriety and who I am just by learning how to speak to so many different people and just be myself. And I'm oh they they call me a wackadoodle, I'm crab daddy wackadoodle. Crab daddy wackadoodle. Yeah. Yeah, I love it, dude. Yeah, and I own it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:52

You know what, man? Uh I'll tell you what. Um the the community is important, and I'm glad that you have that and you're doing it, it's so successful. It, dude. Because you just I always say this, you never know who you're gonna touch. And I I always say it's that um that rock in the water effect, right? When you see that ripple pond, that ripple, dude. You just drop that one, that thing starts going out. Like I don't think we'll know until the day we die how many people that we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:14

I share that with you know with that ex that very analogy with so many people. Yeah, it's it's so holding a door open for somebody. Yes, everything is frequency and vibration, right? You never know what that next person is going through. 100%. They can have a smile on their face, have nice clothes on. It doesn't mean a thing. Nope. It really doesn't mean a thing. You don't know what that next person is. So just by holding a door open for somebody, saying, Oh my god, those are I used to have those shoes. Those are my favorite shoes in the world, dude. Where'd you get those? Just something. That ripple effect, oh my god, nobody's held the door open for me in so long. That that's just in their brain, right? That's a thought. They go out and hold the door open for that next person. That person thinks they say, Oh my god, that was so nice, that person did that.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:58

And you never knew how far it was. I tell you what, dude, working, you know, being in the fire service as long as I have what, 18 plus years now. Oh, thank you for your service, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:05

Because it no, that's that takes guts and strength and something that I would have never ever been able to pull off. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:13

Yeah, it's it's it's been a good career. It's a lot. We see a lot of good things and the bad things. But what I've I've come to realize, and even with my own struggles in life, and now, you know, a lot of people because of the podcast and me being honest, I get a lot of messages and phone calls, and even people that worked that openly talk to me with their struggles. And I appreciate it. I don't share their information, but it it it's come to show me that, dude, everyone's struggling with something, or everyone's at least everyone's going through something, and you truly don't know. So it's so important to be kind to people. How you treat people matters. I don't care whether you're the richest person, yeah. We're the richest person in the city or you're the poor and destitute. What why I like still being in the fire service is because we don't care who you are, we don't care whether you believe Satan, atheist, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:59

You're there to save and help.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:00

You don't care if you're kids, transsexual, we don't care about your political views. Yeah, absolutely. When you need help, we got you. Right, right. It's one of the rare, like few jobs besides maybe police or the military, right? We're like, we're truly here for you. We don't care what you what you do. We don't judge you, not that. We go into jails and help people, right? You know, and dude, it it just it how we treat people and how we serve others is it's important. And you know what you're doing here and and you are you still going to those meetings and talking?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:30

I stopped going to the the AA meetings. Okay. Um, I go on like specific dates. Okay. Like um, but I I for me it's gotten to the point where I learn so much and I grow so much just from doing what I'm doing that I kind of had to walk away a little bit. I'm not here to bag on meetings. They help me, they help me get sober. Um, I don't I have this mentality where I found where I found a lot of people in that community um were kind of struggling to get all of the things back that they've gotten and then still live in fear. And that I I was feeling like an eight or nine when I walked into these meetings and then coming out an hour later feeling like a five or six. I couldn't figure out why. And I was like, I can't think like I don't think that way. Not only have I dug myself out of a deep, deep hole, yeah, I I'm so grateful for what I've been able to get back and and how I can give back. I I I'm not interested in a shoe dropping, a shoe's always going to drop. Yeah, how are you gonna deal with it? Yeah, stop living in in fear. And again, this is not every AA meeting. I'm just saying the one that I got accustomed to. I started seeing that a lot in in people. And so I started learning just so much more about who I am just by talking to people through a screen. I learned patience, I learned to care about other people, I learned how to give back, I learned how to show up, I learned how to be um resilient, I've learned how to be adaptive. Um I've learned how to just be more patient and love myself through this whole community. And that to me is amazing. And I I want to rec go back to something that you just said. Um all those things about helping other people and and not knowing what they're going through and just holding a door open or saying hi or smiling at somebody, two things. You know, it takes more muscles and your face to frown than it does to smile. That's right. You want to go back to God? Well, obviously he knew what he was doing. Right? So here's the other thing it's free. That's right. I love it. It's free to maybe make somebody's day, year, month, whatever, hour that much better than it was before. You know, those homeless people that are out there, um, there's a difference between the ones that don't give a rat's ass and don't want your help, and you know and then there's ones that they're just out there, they they maybe made some wrong decisions, they may have you never know, they may have had a really nice house and a nice car and a nice job, lost a job, lost a kids, lost a house, lost everything, it's gone. And now that's where they're at. You just don't know their story. If I can go give you a a a neutral bar and some water or a a a a three-dollar cup of coffee to let somebody know that, hey dude, how are you? It's gonna be okay. And that's why, you know, I I always end my my morning live and my evening life with with four words that have become my entire motto. And that's you are worth it. It doesn't matter. I don't care what color you are, I don't care how old you are, I don't care how dirty you are, I don't care how smelly you are. So I've had people see me give hugs to these homeless people and now look at my chat, and people are going, Oh my god, like why didn't you touch him? So you deal with you know, I've learned how to be patient and and and keep quiet during those kind of moments. So to tie that into um how live streaming has changed my life. I've grown so much, dude, and I've been able to be successful at it. But not because of money or or or that's not what I do this for. I'm very blessed that that's what it's turned out to be. But man, I just love helping the next person, dude. I just love putting a smile on somebody's face, showing somebody the beach of the ocean. There's so many people that don't get to see that. Um and if I can just wake up and and stay grateful for those little things that I have in life, those those five things. They're not little, they are the most important things. And I can't go get a job without a shoes on my feet, without a shirt on my b on my back. Um if I'm malnutritioned then or malnourished, I I can't be successful. And if I don't have a roof over my head, I can't get good sleep. And so all these little things they're like the fundamental, the rudiment, rudimentary like part of my life. Um extend so much further and just staying grateful for the things that I have and and and learning how to to be a better person every single day, just a little bit. Um really gives me a purpose now to wake up and and be a part of something greater than myself. I may be the wackadoodle that's hosting this whole thing. No, dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:16

Well, even just meeting up telling you right now, I knew something was different. Watching you, um, you know, being again in the career field I'm in, I have to learn to understand and predict and read a lot of different types of people. We deal with all types of people. And I immediately knew I'm like, this is a man with some purpose here. I want to know what his purpose is, and that's why I asked you, why are you doing that? Yeah, what's going on? There's something different about you, which is good, and that purpose will drive you, dude. And it does, dude. You to have that type of impact and to be encouraging people and doing what you're doing on TikTok, dude. It's worth its weight and gold, man. Don't keep going. Don't freaking stop, bro.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:53

It led to the LA Times, it led to ABC 7.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:56

Dude, you know, it's gonna lead you to even more.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:59

It's been wow, it's been a great.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:02

I'll tell you what, we're gonna have to bring it back on because we we went over on time. It's like how's that camera? Is it still on?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:08

It's still on. Oh, we did it great on from this from this angle. I mean, I'm looking good. I'm not gonna lie to you. As good as I looked at it.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:14

Oh, dude, thank you so much for coming on here and being so open and honest and real. It's refreshing for me. I'm glad this was our first episode for our fifth season. It's been a long, you know, a year since we've been back, but who better to have on here than you, my friend? Thank you so much for keep doing what you're doing, and it it just goes to show you that uh it's never the end. You know, even your worst day can turn around and turn into one of the best, your you know, best moments of your life. You just gotta change it. You just never know. You know, and I I fully believe that grace, love, forgiveness, and redemption is for everybody. That is my that that's firmly what I believe, and you're a living example of it. I'm a living example. We have so many other people, and I I I just wish people could see that. And I hope from people hearing you talk on here today, they they can see that. That thanks, man. It's never the end of it, baby.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:04

It's any day, no, you are worth having the best life in this world.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:09

Any day above the dirt is a freaking good day. It is, it's no matter how bad it is, dude. Indeed, my favorite. I'm proud of you, man. I am so glad to call you a friend, and you have no choice, you're coming back on here. I'll just too much more we're gonna talk about.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:20

There's a lot more. There's a lot I know I'll be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:23

Absolutely. But uh, we should do this. We haven't done it in a while, but let's do let's go on through. You ready? You got it. One, two, three. Let's go. Bye, everybody. Bye.