 Spray me with you. Welcome to the Shakedown. I am here with special guest Malone. And if you don't know, I am Ryan, AKA Rainforest. I spent six years in Texas prison and I got a degree in sociology, specializing in social welfare while I was in there. And that's where I met Malone. Yeah, exactly. We do know what that's worth. We're gonna discuss that today, actually. And that's where I met Malone, who spent 30 years in prison. And along with being a professional artist now, he is also an expert in orangutan cage fighting. And we also have another special guest who does not like appearing on camera tonight. And that is Dave Brown. Here he is. Here he is. He's coming. Here he is. Yeah, that's him. There we go. Who just moved into his new place where they are live from tonight. And so, yeah. Kind of. Kind of. And tonight we're going to talk about accomplishments. So, let's go ahead Malone. All right, I gave you the intro. What did you wanna say? Well, first of all, I'm talking about accomplishments because I really, like I mentioned earlier, feel like I'm rather light in the accomplishment category. I mean, I've done some very basic things that pretty much all humans that are my age do. And those feel like accomplishments to me. Which is kind of sad. I mean, because as we know, it wasn't too long ago that I couldn't even find my way back from the quarter store. There's less than five minutes from here. And so, that's why, you know, talking about accomplishments doesn't sound like something I should be done. And Dave and I were both, both got on Malone's case because Malone actually has a bunch of accomplishments. But I am. Okay. All right. One is just a simple fact that he's had a job since he's been out of prison this entire time. Which not many people can say for themselves. They also have an apartment. Oh, yeah. They'll have an apartment. I don't know, but when you first walking out of prison, you know, he didn't even have to go to a halfway house or any of that shit. I will say that I was told by everybody in prison whenever they would ask me what I planned on doing, I was getting out and I told them, you know, we're on your own. I'd like to give them a place, my apartment. They all laughed at me and told me it's impossible for me to get my own apartment. No apartment will ever rent to me. Because of my, you know, haven't been in prison. And I have gotten two apartments. Right. I've already turned down one apartment. And so has Dave now. So that is pretty badass for everyone involved. And I've gotten a place too, which I did not, I, unlike you, did not get a place, an apartment when I first got out. I spent the first part of my time out with my lovely mom. So yeah. Having survived that is also an accomplishment. That is an accomplishment. That is true. Come on. Yeah, surviving a Jewish mother is always an accomplishment. Miss Forrest, don't, please don't take it. No, she knows, she knows what, this is what she expects when I talk about her. She, she's waiting for my mommy Dearest book to come out any day now. Oh, come on. You can't be that bad. No, she's literally expecting it. Notice I'm drinking Monster out of a pink can. Notice on my new iPhone. That's right, Apple and Monster. The shakedown is currently looking for sponsors. So if you are looking for. I don't normally write stuff, but when I do, I use a Sharpie. Nice. Y'all experience any surge in sales. And if you ever want to cut somebody, fish maze is the way to go. That's going to hit the editing room floor. Oh man, yeah, we're going to be rolling in sponsors every day now. You know what's great for a nice, great snack? What are you doing, podcast? Del Monte can pineapples. Oh yes. That sounds like a perfect snack. I'm just going to pop one of those cans open whenever I'm feeling a little nip-ish. Did you get in touch with your inner Hawaiian? Yes, we can clearly see the Hawaiian. I don't know if I'm quiet. Exactly. Because I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. Or you can see clearly because he has his glasses on. It's true. So, all right, a comp. So one thing we brought up to, you talked about Moe, who like, well, first off, the reason we brought up Moe was because before the show, which in the pre-show, which we will actually have a little bit of, that I can release online now, which will be fun. But we can. Much better than the real thing, the pre-show. Yes. The pre-show where you can see what we're like. That can be it. Off the camera. That can be great. Much better than the real thing, that could be an advertisement slogan for a male sex toy. Much better than the real thing. Oh, that would be a great, yeah, looking for sponsors. That's, yeah. Yeah, we're going to go down that route. That's right. We are definitely going under the explicit header for this episode. So we're going to, so we talked about, Malone is actually, he's become a professional artist since getting out, which was one of his goals. And which is awesome. Oh, yeah. One of my lifelong goals and dreams. Yeah. In fact, he designed the shirt I'm wearing right now, the Warp Ranger hoodie that I'm wearing right now, that you can even purchase online and support Malone's hustle. How come we can't see your Warp Ranger hoodie? Well, you may not be able to, because you're looking at a camera from a camera, but the audience at home can see the Warp Ranger designed hoodie. And that was designed, that was drawn by Malone and inked and colored in by yours truly. So it's, yeah, so that is something as well. What was that day? I said he likes to color. I do. He's going to be sick whenever I start dropping these pages on him in the near future. I can hear now is going to be, I remember how frustrated he was with that one. He's acting now. He's all proud of that. But whenever that first happened, he was like, I have never, you're going to have to find someone else. I buy a tablet, something, he was, yeah, it was, he swore he would never do it again. There was, it wasn't inking in this. It was doing the lettering for the comic. That's what broke my soul. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Somebody was actually asking about that just the other day on Instagram. Right, the lettering on the comic, that was a severe pain. And I have yet to find a better way to do it. There's, there might be a better app, but that's a whole different tangent, which speaking of which, another. He didn't even get credits for it in the comic book. No, yeah, yeah, there's two names on the cover and one of them is Malone, but the other one definitely isn't Rainforest. And that's, you have to go flip to the back cover. He has a special mention. Yes, special mention to the guy who published the book. The buy of those two names in the back of that comic book, he probably appreciates that it wasn't him that was on the front cover, who was on the front cover. Yes. But speaking of. He'll have a moment in the sun though with the next issue, trust me. Right. But here's the thing, the speaking of accomplishments, you also, both of us actually, we had a table and hosted a panel at Fan Expo, which. That was so huge. I felt like such a rockstar here in there. I mean, I've shown that video to people here and they think like they love it. Everyone who watches that video is super impressed and they love watching that video and in hearing about everything. And I can't wait to sign up. I'm gonna sign us up for at least three panels to do three panels at the next one, which that's another thing we're gonna have a really. Three, one each day, which. I think maybe you, I'm sure you guys have seen how cool would it be. Would you mind turning down your phone, Dave, please? We're in the middle of a broadcast here. You might be biting off more than you could chew. Maybe you might be disappointed with the outcome of that. I mean, I was shocked that anybody showed up at all for the first one. That might have been lightning and a baller or whatever the tone is. So one thing. Cool. So those of you, if you wanna watch that panel that is in our, like you can look at our podcast. There's us at Fan Expo. The shakedown at Fan Expo. That is the episode we're talking about. And you can actually watch it on our YouTube channel and see what we're talking about. And for those of you, you can't really tell in the video how big the audience is, but we were actually the last panel of the entire convention. When we got done. The last panel, we were in the second to the last hour all together of the convention. I mean, everybody's going home. Right. And whenever we got up, there was, we were looking in the room of the people that were before us. And there was like two people in there all together. I just knew we were gonna be speaking to an empty room. Right. When we were doing those, that panel, like, yeah. So two people came out of the room at from the panel before ours. Then our panel was the last panel of the day. There were no, there were not going to be any panels during that last hour because that, the people who put the panels together, they were actually packing, they were gonna pack up the rooms while for that last hour. And then they just left the convention floor open for that final hour. And so when we finished up our panel, we had 10 people come to the panel, which I was at Fan Expo the year before, 10 people at a panel. That was like, that was like a medium-sized panel, a medium-sized audience for the panels at the last one. And so I was surprised that we got that audience. And then on top of it, what happened at the end was that every single person, including the volunteers who were there just to monitor our panel, all went upstairs and bought comics from us. Two of them bought more than one comic. Right. Because they know that Aaron Malone is going to be one day be making all sorts of comics all over the place once he has some time to do some more drawing and spend time on that. And maybe once I have some time to do some storytelling. Break away from the day job. Right. I appreciate it. No, go ahead. No, no, no, I'm just making it now. I didn't want it didn't want to sound like I don't have deep gratitude towards my employers because they're keeping me alive. I understand. I understand the gratitude that I it is notice in the fact that you have been so loyal to them for so long. I am the one who gives them crap. I will take full on that one. But yeah. So so those are some big ones. And then so what we talked about afterward, like Malone hasn't been able to do, like be a professional artist full time. And he brought up that another another inmate Moe who we had was in our was in the Jewish community over on the Stringfellow unit. And and what were you saying about Moe? Can you get a job as an engineer? Right, I'm saying that, you know, degrees and so we were we were mentioning how people live with all these fancy degrees and so forth considered that to be such an accomplishment. But I was debating whether or not that is such an accomplishment considering how many people we know with master's degree are more than that cannot find employment in their particular field. They have they have the paperwork, the diploma. I mean, they have the black and white so having accomplished all that and they paid for it, but they can't do anything with it. So I mean, is there really all that great of an accomplishment that was coming on the heels of another discussion we had because I was saying I was I mentioned that. I mean, how hollow the accomplishment is of just being gangfully employed because really, I'm leaning very heavily on a friend of mine, another guy that we were that I was locked up with and was also part of the Jewish community that I knew for a long time who was in a similar position to me, we were both locked up in the early 90s as teenagers and he's up on the out and I don't think I would still have that job at all because I am terrible at this job. I am all I would have been fired 20 times but had not been for the fact that I personally know these people that own that owned the business. And of course, Asian David said, well, no, that's part of the course because pretty much everybody that gets in positions in life generally does though through people they know and not necessarily through their own personal merits. But you can even bring that person, people in prison, like the people that have like, you could get it on the crack shop. You're just coming over here in the camera, David. So you're not just a disembodied voice. Everybody wants to see your pretty face. They're going to have to get over here. Come on over. Come on over. Hello, fellow, come on over here. Let's get my balls head right there. That's it. But he was saying that it's that way in prison as well. And he's to a certain extent, right. I mean, prison of Rainforest has some very firsthand experience with how you get jobs and how jobs are maintained and so forth in prison. And it's not to the merit of how well you do your job. It's generally because of how well you manipulate the people that you work for. Don't ruin the kitchen. That's all I'm going to say. Yeah, yeah, we saw we watched that or at least I got to watch that with Dave. Yeah. But. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. It's a lot of it is not necessarily it's not necessarily about merits, about knowing people. But also that is a skill. That is you you got to know part of like. They got to know you Malone, too. You have to realize is they understood what type of person you are. And even if you didn't have the basic skills on whatever you're doing, they knew that they could rely on you because they got to know you. So that's a big part of it. And and the other part of it. And Roger, my boss, my direct boss, the guy that's over. I think we're going to laugh himself into a joke here that you just said. Anyway, let's keep going. Well, I would say that. And the other thing I would say, too, on that is that the is is basically is about Moe. The thing I really wanted to say was about Moe. So you also brought up the fact that we don't know what people are in for. And I can totally attest to that. I don't know. I didn't I haven't looked Moe up. I haven't done my research on it. But what I will say is the stories I heard about Moe is the fact that he had gotten so ridiculously many DUIs. I did not see what happened. What the heck happened? For those in the audience, you don't know, Dave has some of the worst farts going on right now. And apparently they're really bad. And they are destroying Malone. I'm having to sit there and try to keep a straight face. Well, this guy is just marinating me in the mustard gas. So I can't actually do it no more. I wish more tolerance. I'm 30 years old and you think I'd be able to tolerate some gas. Nope. Wow. No, you're not. You're not in. Yeah. Even after I've. Yeah, even after Dalhart unit where I was trapped and next to a pig farm and had to like remember those nights like tucking myself under the covers, trying to breathe that. Yeah, one one well timed part will knock you out. Oh, I'm pretty good at that. It seems like it seems like. Um, oh, I have accomplished making Malone sick. So I have made I have achieved a goal today. Dave has another achievement other than his many achievements. I didn't realize it was in it. It was going to be a goal or an achievement until recently, but it worked out pretty well. He didn't know how it went until he realized just how satisfying it is. Just me to my core. I'm such a child too when it comes to farts. Just when it comes to farts like. One particular place I can escape them. Nice. There we go. Perfect. All right. Now I. All right. Let's get back to Moe because we're getting on the last five minutes here. But, uh, all right, but what we were talking about, we just, you were using that as an example because he is someone who has a master's degree in electrical engineering, but he couldn't use it. Well, he said he couldn't find a job in electrical engineering. And as well, you know, he had to become a simple mechanic, you know, which is something that you can learn to do with a simple trade. A high school diploma, most likely does not require a master's degree. Right. And that's what he did. And I will, this is the thing I'm going to say to that is that I was, when I first went to school, I went to school for computer engineering and which is half electrical engineering and half computer science. And a lot of people, what they did with their electrical engineering degree is exactly what I did with computer science or, and actually electrical engineers, he hadn't even brought a range because computer engineering was specifically for, you weren't, you were going to make circuits like circuit boards or circuit or on computer chips when you get out. And, but you were going to make a lot of money when you got it because not many people had that degree. And then on top of it, uh, electrical engineers, they could, they, they could work on, like, um, the, the government and everything. They were constantly looking for electrical engineers. There's all sorts of jobs that are looking for people with electrical engineering, uh, degrees. Really? Yeah. And the reason I was going to say that Moe couldn't, wasn't going to find an electrical engineering job and why he was having issues with it was because of what people were saying was this issue, which is that he got multiple, multiple DUIs. And if you let him out, if you let him out tomorrow, he was going to go drink again. So, which he bragged about many times. So that's the reason why he had a hard time with employee employment. Like that's the issue. I think that all, I think that his, uh, original. Applicate. I mean, he actually applied for a job as an electrical engineer. He, at one point, I think he, he did have a job as an electrical engineer, but it didn't last very long. The company, uh, laid him off. They had too many electrical engineers. And after that, he couldn't find employment, uh, doing it ever again. I remember his story correctly. I don't think that, no, I don't think that had anything to do with it. I don't think any of that had anything to do with it being drunk because he didn't have that record yet. I want to go later on in life and he was already, um, uh, invested heavily into the idea of just being a mechanic. Cause of course he eventually opened up his own shop. I look, I've been laid off as a computer scientist and I've been able to find work again, like, I mean, it's, I took, like, I got laid off in 2008 when the, when they weren't hiring again. There was a hiring freeze at that time and computer scientists compared to electrical engineers where a dime a dozen, um, there were way more computer scientists in there where electrical engineers at that time. And it, and so I, I hear it's just like the, the, I really do you, do you agree with a Asian days statement that most, most of these people that do have those jobs, it's a matter of not necessarily their merit or their accomplishment, but just who they know. Or do you think that, you know, I could, I mean, do you think that it, it would pan out for most people and they so decided, okay, they set their heart on it. How many kids grow up and tell you, I want to be a marine biologist. They want to be able to, you know, while they're in swimwood dolphins or something and study, uh, um, killer whale behavior. I mean, how many of them that get those degrees that go to college and become that actually ever get to do anything with it? I mean, there's can't be that many people out there getting paid to be a marine biologist. Well, I will, I, I will tell you that it's a combination of two things. And it's, and this is actually the, the formula I've heard for success in life. And one is it's, there's a large chunk, if you hear a lot of people who are really successful and famous and things like that, they will tell you the story they'll always automatically go to is their, their lucky chance, their lucky break where, um, they met this person or they got this, the, this opportunity opened up or, and it was just by pure chance, they had, it was no merit. Um, there was no, there was no skill involved in it. It was just being at the right place at the right time. But the thing was, is that they had been doing the thing that they had wanted to do for so long and been pushing so hard at it for so long at that point, that when that opportunity popped up, they were ready to take advantage of it. If you aren't ready to take advantage of it, then that luck, that lucky break means nothing. You won't gain, gain anything from it. So it's a combination of the two. I'm not hearing that's a combination of the two because it doesn't sound like their merit as, as, um, in the skill that, that is associated with whatever field that they're trying to get into. It sounds to me like it's just more of the determination, but do you think, I mean, are you, are you really telling me, do you think that, that everybody that's employed is a matter of, or the majority of people that are out there that are employing these jobs, these big positions, uh, are there due to some kind of lucky, uh, uh, happenstance? So just, they were dedicated to it. They really wanted this job and, and so, you know, they stuck it out and the opportunity arose and that, and so you're suggesting that everybody in life do that. All these marine biologists, all these little girls that want to go out there and play with Shamu are going to be able to eventually do that if they all stick with it. No, I'm not, I'm not saying, what I'm saying is, is that there's a, it's a build up, like there, it, it stinks. This is one of the things they talk a lot about in sociology is that people, it's a build up, it's, yeah, it's a build up of, of better, no, no, like, let me, like, it's, yeah. So the reason, the reason you get to know, get to, like, you know someone well enough to get that awesome job is because you've already had, like, if you were born in New York City in the, like, in Manhattan and you lived already, you're already immersed in this super connected group of wealthy people. So you're going to already have a bunch of advantages that other people don't have. And you're going to have connections just because you're living and was born in that area that, that people don't have access to. And because you're living there and you're, you're around these people all the time, they'll get to know you. And then you'll, you'll get to see, see these opportunities that other people just don't, they don't even know exist. And like, if you go, like, one of the biggest advantages people say about going to an Ivy League school, it's not the, the, the quality of the degree. That's not the thing that's really the advantage. The advantage is, yes, it's the connections you make while you're there. I can, I can see that equals who you know, right? Who you know. It falls in the who you know category. I'm waiting on is for you to pick a, to pick a side in this debate and stick with it. Yeah. You keep on, you don't join a fraternity. You join a fraternity for one or two reasons. That's all I think between the two either make context or because you're gay, one or the other. That was excellent. I love that. Um, I just, I'm shaking my head on that. Thanks for scratching my head on that. I didn't get there, but Malone, there's, uh, you, because you weren't exposed to many fraternities and thank goodness Malone, because they would, they would corrupt that hell out of you. Um, well, it's almost better than I went to prison. Yeah, no, right. Right. We have to wrap this up. Just laughed. I think you're right. I remember his fist bump too. You got that one fixed though. Hey, Dave, come on here and let's show the world. Oh gosh. That's how he fist bumps. One more time. There was first and foremost, he had, he had the wrist thing wrong. He held his wrist wrong and he would go in and he would scoop up when I read this bucket. So you go to him, hey, what's up, man? And you put your fist out like that. And he, uh, not to mention, not to mention he had a disco Yamaha that was like fluorescent. Ah, then I stole from Hudson. That was great. Oh, that was dope as fuck dude. That, that's so fit him because I mean, it just looked so right on all that red head thing he's got going on with it. Oh my gosh. Guys, guys, we have to, of course, he never had to worry about getting shot while he was hunting. We have to wrap this up. This has been an awesome episode of the shakedown. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Malone. Thank you, Agent Dave. Thank you all of our, we'll be more serious next time. And thank you for all of our future sponsors and good nights. The shakedown was produced at Longmont Public TVL and our theme song shakedown was brought to you by Envato Elements. If you want any shakedown merchandise or you want to support the show, you can go to waywardpress.com. That's W-A-Y-W-O-R-D-Press.com.