Drugs, Chess, and Rock & Roll | Brian Lawlor

[00:00:07] Drugs, chess, and rock and roll. Brian Lawler has all three. I didn't include the sex part because I don't know. But he's been to jail. We talk all about that and how, why, when. But I was concerned, how did he survive?

[00:00:21] And part of the way he survived, interestingly, was chess. So we talk about his experiences in jail. And again, the stories he tells are riveting and valuable about survival in general. And then we played a bunch of games. I'm not including the games in the podcast,

[00:00:42] but he surprised me with his skill. And we'll do a video on that later. But here's Brian Lawler. This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Well, first I want to hear, Brian, how did you go to jail?

[00:01:13] Well, no, you knew. I mean, I went to jail for basically being a drug addict in anything sort of related to drugs. Meaning being arrested for car theft, credit card fraud, or being pulled over and having drugs on me.

[00:01:28] But so there's, I've been in and out of jail several times. But the longest- Where was this? In the US? Yeah, in the US. Sorry, this was in New Jersey and New York City. So I've been locked up a couple places in New Jersey,

[00:01:43] a couple places in New York City, like the tombs down on Church Street and Far Rockaway. But the thing I was telling Jay about was, when I was in jail longer term for like six months in New Jersey, that chess was one of the big like jailhouse games.

[00:02:02] It was chess, ping pong, and poker. And I basically dominated in chess and ping pong and was a decent poker player. So it was able to eat and get like commissary by making these lopsided chess bets. Where say if you were like a decent chess player

[00:02:19] or someone new, James, if you came on the floor, I would seek you out and say, hey, we're gonna play five games of chess. If I beat you in all five games, I get your lunch today. If you beat me in one out of the five games,

[00:02:34] I will give you a week's worth of dinner trays. So you create these lopsided bets to sort of lure people in so you could kind of eat better and have like things to gamble with. Now, is it segregated? So like are you challenging kind of like, let's say,

[00:02:52] are you challenging people who look like you or people who don't look like you? No, I mean, it's everyone. It's everyone that plays. Actually my main person I would play, I don't wanna say his name on here, but he was Muslim from the Middle East

[00:03:06] and we played a bunch together, turned into a great friend and would study and analyze things together. But no, it's in general population and everyone looks like everyone is the best way to describe it. So there was no delineation. Kind of the myth of jail though

[00:03:21] is that you have to kind of beat someone up in order to establish your reputation. Yeah, there's a lot of those things and also it should be noted the difference between jail and prison. Jail is where you go when you are either awaiting trial for something

[00:03:40] and or if you get sentenced to anything under 365 days. So within jail, there's a lot less movement and a lot less structured activity because it's implied that it's a short-term stay. And so things can be a little bit more wild there,

[00:04:00] but a lot of the, yeah, walk right in, punch the biggest guy in the prison yard, those are very, very archaic kind of perceptions of what these penal systems are. So it's- Why is it archaic? Is it because police enforcement got better

[00:04:19] or guard enforcement got better in jail? No, no, I think it's just the development of times and humans and people. It's just, I don't think with my experience that any guards were particularly getting better or things are sort of more structured. I think just a lot of myths

[00:04:38] that sort of surround incarceration while obviously are based in very serious truths is not necessarily the norm for every person that's in there. And yeah, it is something that before you go in, you always have those media-infused ideas of what the experience will be

[00:04:59] and there's truth to a lot of it, but the one thing I would say is take everything that you know about functioning as a rational human being and the way you interact with people and throw it out the window because once you're in there,

[00:05:12] it's a completely different set of social rules and understandings and always kind of being on your guard about certain things. In what sense? Like what's a specific example? A specific example is like even just being friendly with someone,

[00:05:27] like just saying, hey, what's up to someone you don't know, which I very much am. I'm very much a friendly person. I talk to strangers. I am in general a very helpful person to other people. That can be misconstrued as a weakness

[00:05:42] or as you trying to get over on someone. No one takes things at face value. There's always multiple levels of not necessarily altruistic behavior. And so you can never really take things at face value and one particular example was even like, I think one of my earlier days

[00:06:04] when I got into general population was just first seeing someone play chess and then walking up to the table and be like, whoa, what's going on? And they're just like, what the fuck are you talking to us for? Like don't, you don't just come up

[00:06:15] and start talking to us and talking chess about us. We don't know you, we don't know anything. And so things like that where naturally, if you're out in public and you see people playing chess and you might wanna go and ask them about their game

[00:06:26] or watch it, they're not gonna say to you, what the fuck, get the fuck out of here. In general, people will be a little bit more accommodating on the outside with things like that. And can you ever get in trouble beating someone in chess?

[00:06:38] Yes, I mean, this is more of a ping pong story, but this is where I very much had to watch myself because this didn't happen with chess, but it happened with ping pong and I don't know if I'll go into the full, I'll just tell the full story.

[00:06:54] So in general population, I used to play ping pong during rec and during ping pong, I would do the same bets where I was pretty decent ping pong player and can beat most of the people. And the reason I would have to make these bets

[00:07:09] is because most people when you're locked up get something called commissary. People will put money in your account from the outside that then you can use to buy goods like other food or clothing that's then delivered once a week. I never had money in my commissary account.

[00:07:28] No one ever put money in my account. So I was forced to do a lot of these things in order to be able to eat and kind of get some type of status. And so this is how I would be able to get more food

[00:07:41] is by making lopsided bets on things that I felt mostly confident in winning. And so I have to be very careful about who I select to do this with because if you beat the wrong person, they will beat the shit out of you

[00:07:57] when you're trying to collect your food. And so this one time, it was a guy who I was like friends with. He was totally okay. And again, I have to watch myself. Normally I'll say names of people if it's like in person,

[00:08:09] but here I don't want to do that. Where I was playing ping pong and this one guy who was a wild card, he yelled across, he's like, "'Lawler, I want those odds!" Meaning he wanted the like five games to one winning odds, dinner tray, lunch tray.

[00:08:28] So we ended up playing and as soon as we start playing, I know I'm in trouble. I go, I could lose this, but I really can't afford to lose five dinner trays. I go, but if I win, he's gonna be a dick about me collecting the lunch tray.

[00:08:43] And if you win and say, hey, don't worry about it, it's okay, then everyone else is gonna start expecting that from you. Exactly, exactly. So what happened with this was he started beating me and I was kind of keeping it low key,

[00:08:57] but then he just started talking shit, like, you're not so good, blah, blah, blah. And that just like kind of made me snap and I just turned up the heat and just ended up smoking him as everyone's sort of watching the game to see what's gonna happen.

[00:09:10] And then I beat him and he gets pissed, starts taking his paddle, bashing it against the wall. And he comes up to me, he just grabs me, he goes, you just try to collect that fucking lunch tray today. And I'm like, oh no.

[00:09:26] And so what happens is normally after rec, for general population, you have to go back into your cells and do what's called a cell count where everyone goes in their cells, the guards come through, just make sure everyone's there. And while I'm there, I'm there with my bunkie

[00:09:41] who we became good friends and really, really great guy. And he of course was loving it because everyone loves drama, any kind of drama or tension or impending doom for one person, everyone kind of feeds off of and gets excited about.

[00:09:57] So we're in the room for count and he looks at me, he just kind of has this shit-eating grin, he's like, you got yourself a real pickle, huh buddy? Yeah, and so what we do is it's like, well here's the deal.

[00:10:11] I can go and collect the lunch tray. If I do that, this guy by all accounts, like I'm not a fighter, but I can handle my own in situations and have handled my own in several situations, but I'm also grossly aware of my mortality.

[00:10:27] And so this is someone that I've seen just mow down so many people over the littlest things. And so it became kind of a struggle of like, okay, if I do not collect the lunch tray, then all of my bets, all of my deals before

[00:10:43] are completely off because I'm no longer a person of my word because I didn't go collect what was mine. If I do go to collect, this person will beat me within inches of my life, no problem. And so with my bunkie, we formulated a plan.

[00:10:59] Can I ask a question about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like if you came up, like he would start punching you and you wouldn't be able to avoid it, like you wouldn't be, he would chase you around? Like if you- Yeah, it would be like, well, this was,

[00:11:09] I mean, that's a great question because this was the result that happened. And this is another example of just sort of the difference in your thinking when you're there. I promised myself I would never like get in arguments over TVs or just bullshit things.

[00:11:23] But by week two, of course you're arguing over bullshit and you just feed into that mentality of the institution that you're in. And so I decided, I said, well, you know what? Fuck it, I'm taking this lunch tray. And in my mind, I thought the best thing was,

[00:11:40] as a testament to what you were asking with like being chased around and stuff, I thought I maybe had 30 seconds before guards would come in if there's a big problem. And so my bunkie and I, we literally sat there practicing.

[00:11:54] Okay, so swipe the tray with your left hand and then I was gonna just take a fork and just jab him in the eye real quick, just like a quick stunt, like nothing that would be looked at as attempted murder, but just more of a quick,

[00:12:06] I just need like a stalling technique. And so it sounds weird. Wait, wait, wait, wait, how do you kind of half jab someone in the eye? Well, quick jab, not half jab. So he basically grabbed the tray with the lunch hand, boom, just a quick shot,

[00:12:20] boom, with a fork right there in the eye. So I thought that I could swipe the tray while doing that quickly and then move fast enough to when he's just like, what the fuck happened? Comes after me, but the guards might come in and I might be okay.

[00:12:34] So this is what I decided I was going to do and this is how we practice this during a count. And so count ends and there's still about maybe an hour and a half before lunch, but you can feel like the tension.

[00:12:51] And to be fair, I was very much liked by both inmates and guards. I had lots of friends, even this person was technically a friend, but none of that is sustaining or viable on a day-to-day basis. But even if people like you,

[00:13:09] you still wanna see sometimes these people get fucked over. And so I could feel that sense on the floor of everyone, just, oh, Brian's definitely gonna finally get fucked up. So I'm curious to see what's gonna happen. And so we get let out of count.

[00:13:26] There's about an hour and a half. Oh, and I'm sorry I interrupted. No, it's okay, please. But getting fucked up, does that mean you're gonna need to go to the hospital or what does that mean? Usually if you get the shit kicked out of you,

[00:13:39] sometimes yes, you would have to go to the hospital, but you'd be separated from the floor. And the person who did the fucking up would also be separated. So usually you have like general population, you have something called ad seg,

[00:13:52] which is where people that come in there are like, I cannot be in general population, I have problems with these people, I will be killed if I'm in there. So that's usually where like child molesters or people with any kind of crimes with children

[00:14:07] or serious physical bodily harm and murder would probably stay. And then you have the trustees, which are the people that have like jobs and that are low risk offenders. And so yeah, you have different sort of levels and stages of where people would go.

[00:14:24] And in this case of like someone getting fucked up or fighting, they'd both be separated. You'd probably go to solitary confinement for the person that was beating up the other person and the person that got beat up would most likely go to ad seg.

[00:14:37] But how hurt would you be? I mean, it depends. It completely depends. I've seen people get seriously, like within inches of their life or I've seen people just get cracked in the face. So there's all different levels, like anywhere from just a simple bruising to death,

[00:14:55] basically, you don't know. But I was sort of preparing myself for this and before lunch, about 40 minutes before lunch, the guards come on the floor and they bring in new inmates. And this was kind of weird because normally they'd only bring in new inmates

[00:15:16] after lunch, like around like two or three. Whenever they would bring new people on the floor, it was always around the same time. And this time they bring in people beforehand. And so about six new people come in

[00:15:31] and this one person again, whose name I'm not gonna say, gets on the floor. And as soon as he gets on the floor, someone yells, gun shopper. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? And the person who, it's hard to tell without names,

[00:15:50] the person who I beat in ping pong that I was supposed to collect the lunch tray, who I was worried about, as soon as he heard gun shopper, he runs down from the top, sees the gun shopper, takes the guy's head and just starts bashing it

[00:16:05] against the railing immediately. Then the guards come in, they take him off. They take the person whose head he was bashing off. And I no longer have to collect my lunch tray because the guy was removed an hour before for beating up someone else.

[00:16:19] And every single person was just like, motherfucker, Brian, you lucky little Irish leprechaun, motherfucker, fuck, this always happens to you. You're the luckiest motherfucker. And it became a thing that was both simultaneously what the fuck, man? Only you would have this luck.

[00:16:37] Of course you would have this luck. But wait, who was this gun shopper? So first of all, what this is is gun shopping. It was a term used for when someone, when a guy would look at dicks in the shower, they called him a gun shopper.

[00:16:52] And so this person apparently was a known gun shopper in a prison that was with some other people. And so when he came on the floor, he got called out as a gun shopper and this guy took it into his own hands

[00:17:03] to immediately kick the shit out of him. I wonder if he did that in order to avoid the confrontation with you. No, no, no, no. I think it was just pure instinctual response of an incarcerated person. Like, wait, what is the problem?

[00:17:19] No, I don't think he had anything to avoid with me. So I never collected that lunch tray, but then I also never saw him again. And then I remember reading in police blotter a few years later, he died of a drug overdose. And- Oh my gosh.

[00:17:38] Yeah, I mean, but just as a example of, I don't know, I don't wanna say no empathy, but I'm very empathetic, but I can remember reading that and the very first sentence that came into my head was, well, I guess I'll never get that lunch tray now.

[00:17:56] I'm just thinking, Jesus Christ. That's probably what I would think. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It means so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at altature at gmail.com

[00:18:15] and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks. So I have a bunch of questions, but like first, you know, after, you know, so you were in jail, I guess you mentioned earlier car theft. Was that what you were actually sentenced for? No, no, no.

[00:18:39] It was a bunch of different things. So basically I got arrested a bunch of times for drug possession, various traffic violations, credit card fraud, car theft. And while I was waiting for court dates on several of these,

[00:18:55] one time I got arrested with a bunch of heroin and cocaine in a stolen vehicle. And then I was taken in then and they didn't give me bail or anything like that because I had so many pending charges. So it was a combination of lots of things.

[00:19:11] And I believe maybe like 12 different felony convictions, but all having to do with acquiring drugs, either possession of drugs, possession of paraphernalia, check or credit card fraud in order to get money for drugs. Yeah, so it's a variety of things. That run from-

[00:19:30] Can I ask, how'd you start getting into drugs? Well, this is from a very young age. And from a very young age, smoking pot or drinking alcohol was kind of normal around 13, 14. And then some of the harder drugs would come into play around 15 or 16.

[00:19:51] I would eat LSD a lot. I would start doing cocaine or heroin around 16, but always casually. And because I always had my shit together on pen and paper and seemingly like academically, sports-wise, music-wise, I was always doing things that it never felt

[00:20:09] like the drugs were an impediment in any way. But over, and especially because I would see so many people and so many friends tank very quickly from it, where I thought I was kind of arrogantly invincible for a period of time.

[00:20:23] And so my addiction and problems really, really progressed over a very long period of time. And because, like I said, that on pen and paper, I was a seemingly productive member of society, it was easy for me to dismiss at the time

[00:20:44] a lot of signs of, oh, this is getting really, really bad because I still just didn't really experience the effects of, or the negative effects of doing drugs in a sense that like I have to change my lifestyle or change my behavior or anything like that. Yeah.

[00:21:04] But then when you started having to do things that broke the law and you were risking jail, were you nervous about going to jail or you really just couldn't stop doing these things? Well, no, at some point,

[00:21:17] and there's so much to sort of unpack here with a lot of it and sort of the trajectory of what I was doing at the time, school-wise, music-wise, work-wise, is that the idea, like there's always that perception from people that don't understand this lifestyle,

[00:21:34] like, well, don't you know you could go to jail? Don't you? It's like, of course, I know I could die. I know I could go to jail. You could do those things. Like, that's, I'm not stupid. Like, of course, I know that these are

[00:21:44] the possible repercussions of this, but the addiction is so strong that none of that matters. And so I was always on this precipice of trying to stop doing heroin and would stop doing it for periods of time, but then just always fall back into it.

[00:22:03] And I was always on this kind of precipice of trying to do good, doing well, but then falling back again. But before this last arrest, I was straight up running every single day for four months. Like my routine would be basically to have to hustle enough money

[00:22:21] to be able to get a car to drive from North Jersey down to Newark. And get drugs. And that was my day to day. And I remember making the commitment and I said, okay, I'm just gonna keep doing this. Like, forget trying to get better.

[00:22:36] I go, I am going to keep doing this until an external force either kills me or incarcerates me. I go, because I'm in no position at this point to clearly rationalize my behavior or have any desire to change. And so this last arrest-

[00:22:53] Is that because, like let's say you get some heroin in Newark. Yeah. Is it just so great that, or is it a physical addiction or is it like so great the pleasure from it or is it so painful getting off of it that you just, like what's the-

[00:23:08] Yeah, I mean, at first it's one of those things where of course you're chasing that high, you're chasing that feeling. But then during this time it becomes you actually just need it to function. And you're no longer doing it for the pleasure of it,

[00:23:26] you're doing it to maintain a modicum of normality to do regular activities. If I didn't have it, I physically couldn't do anything for at least a week. I would be holed up in bed vomiting, diarrhea. The idea of walking up a flight of stairs

[00:23:44] seems like a monumental task. And so with addiction to opiates, eventually it hits a point where no, you're not doing it for day-to-day pleasure. You are still always trying to chase that by doing more and more, but more you need it just to function physically

[00:24:02] and mentally as like a normal baseline. And so you're always trying to get yourself from sick to normal, from sick to normal. It's no longer from normal to high, normal to high. It's just you're trying to get right, as they would say.

[00:24:17] Just try to hit your normal operating baseline basically. I feel like it's sad that people go to jail for this. So you're in jail there with murderers and rapists and whatever, and you're having what's considered an illness. And I'm not being overly progressive or liberal by saying this.

[00:24:39] No, no, no, no. It's a different thing. I get it with, I mean, I've never been through that, but I understand addiction's a different beast literally. And of course in some states it's more legal than others, and there's different types of sentences.

[00:24:54] I mean, people used to go to jail in New York for 20 years just for marijuana. I know, it's insane, absolutely insane. I think we'll say the same thing five years from now, 10 years from now about what you went to jail for.

[00:25:07] Now driving in a stolen car is another thing, but still it's all related. These are all things related to the illness that you had, the addiction. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. The incarceration rate due to misdemeanor drug crimes and felony convictions based on that,

[00:25:24] and the repercussions and recidivism rate of people who are felons because of that and how it severely sets you up for failure for the rest of your life. And then it makes it significantly difficult to reintegrate into society for something like marijuana possession.

[00:25:42] This is very much a reality of people that have maybe been busted as teenagers for marijuana possession that have a felony on their record. With that felony, you cannot get a job at Walmart, at McDonald's. Any of those applications you fill out for jobs always specifically ask,

[00:25:59] have you been convicted of a felony? And you could lie. And what if you lie on those applications? You could lie and say no, but now especially, you could lie and say no and get away with it maybe 20, 25 years ago, but with the ease of searching people's background

[00:26:13] in criminal records right now, what's going to happen is you're gonna get found out by HR eventually. And it could be a month, two months down the road. You could be comfortable and happy in your new job. And then you get a notice that says,

[00:26:26] hey, you're a convicted felon. We don't care what it is. It doesn't matter what it is. It's just you have convicted felon there. And of course, people that don't really understand a lot of that just hear the word felon and it's like, oh, terrible person,

[00:26:40] probably beating up old ladies or murdering people. The general populace's perception of what a felon is perversely incorrect most of the times. And that's a reality like I've had to live with. You get your voting rights stripped and you could look at so many elections in America

[00:26:59] where things are close. And if we look at Gore Bush 2000, and remember Florida, Florida was the big turning point there, right? I believe at that time, Florida had 200, and my statistics will be wrong here a little bit. So feel free to correct or look it up.

[00:27:14] I believe there were maybe around 225,000 convicted felons whose voting rights were stripped at that time in Florida in 2000. And if you look at the difference in what that was, but it came down to hundreds, if convicted felons were allowed to vote, most of the time the percentage-wise

[00:27:34] would be overall Democratic. And so this was a very obvious effort to suppress voting rights of people from one side, mostly one side. And so many times you could look at elections and see that if convicted felons were able to vote, things would have gone very clearly

[00:27:57] in other ways a bunch of times. So these are all like actual repression tactics that were legislated and very much implemented by politics to suppress voting rights of a mostly minority populace. So- And so what can you do right now? Well, right now, I mean, well, I decided,

[00:28:20] I mean, I have to take things into my own hands. And once I realized that, I've lived this life of like a lot of wheeling and dealing and hustling. And I'm very, very open about this. I'm very, very open about sort of these crimes,

[00:28:35] but it precludes me from a lot of things. It precludes me, like I would be offered a lot of these teaching positions in schools and universities that I'd have to just decline because I go, I just don't wanna deal with all the bullshit that's gonna come with like,

[00:28:53] hey, I'm a convicted felon, this is a thing. And so everything I do is very much self-generated. I don't work for anyone else. I'm not on anyone else's payroll. And that's something I've had to- Maybe that's for the best, because who wants to be on someone's payroll?

[00:29:10] But sometimes you have to be. No, I mean, I would love to be sometimes. I would absolutely love to be sometimes. But this came out of a sense of necessity of so many decisions I made when I was out of jail

[00:29:22] was based on what I was stripped of that would make it hard to live the life I was living. So I wouldn't have my license for years. I knew I couldn't vote. I knew I couldn't get a job in any kind of normal place.

[00:29:38] And so it forced me to have to do kind of some funny things and funny living situations to be able to get into places where I could start doing music again. And, I'm sorry, go on. Like what? So when I came out of jail, I realized,

[00:29:51] okay, I can't live up in Sussex County, New Jersey, which you need a car to drive everywhere. Most of the jobs are manual labor jobs. I knew I needed to be closer to New York. So on Craigslist, I found a living situation

[00:30:04] with a guy that was dying of cancer that wanted someone to live in his place in Hoboken rent-free in exchange just for hanging out with him. And so I saw this my like first, second week out of jail and I go and meet him and we became friends.

[00:30:21] He was super cool. He was only 35 at the time and had terminal cancer. He was into heavy metal music. He was a Santeria priest and I would hang out with him and watch MMA, talk fighting, talk Iron Maiden,

[00:30:34] play a bunch of metal with him and just hang out with him. And then I had an apartment in Hoboken. I had a room I could stay in with this guy and his mom. And all I had to do is hang out with him

[00:30:46] for like four hours every day and just talk and that was it. We became really good friends. Sometimes I would help him with his doctor's visits. Okay, so now that I'm close to New York, it's easier to go for all these kinds of music things.

[00:30:58] I really quickly got hired by a music studio for teaching and then everything just started blowing up from there. Then I started to run into, I'm sorry here, I ran into friends that I knew in Seattle from undergraduate. I ran into on the street in New York

[00:31:18] and the word on the street was, hey, Brian Lawler's out of jail and apparently is still alive. And then these all were like directors of plays and stuff. And so I just got started getting hired to compose a lot of stuff.

[00:31:30] And then I met friends that actually Jay's friend, Ryan, that was like studio engineers. I just started getting a ton of work. And then funnily enough, that studio in Hoboken I started teaching in became very big, very quickly. And then I had to tell the bosses

[00:31:48] because they became friends of mine too after like six months when everything was blowing up and I was sort of like getting this reputation as a teacher for like Wunderkind, especially like really smart prodigy kids for piano, guitar, bass composition.

[00:32:03] And then I had to tell them as things were getting bigger, I go, listen, here's the deal. And I told him everything I went through the last couple of years with drugs and stuff like that. And I said, I'm only saying this

[00:32:13] because of course some parents are gonna be looking me up and be like, what the hell? This guy was just locked up until whenever. And so I'm like, I'm just doing my due diligence as an employee and a friend to let you know this

[00:32:24] and to say that I'm absolutely fine if you have to fire me right now, it's totally cool. But I don't feel comfortable now that we're friends as well like keeping this from you. And also, because it might cause problems down the road.

[00:32:37] So of course they thought I was joking because they did not, they thought I was like, ha ha ha ha ha, and I go, no, this is completely serious. And then looked up everything and they go, holy shit, we never pegged you as that kind of person.

[00:32:50] We appreciate you telling us. And then we just had an agreement that was like they'll plead blind ignorance and if it comes down to something, I'll just sort of admit it and then I'll go. But then I ended up working there for 15 years.

[00:33:03] And yeah, 15 years and even to this day, like I have students that I've taught since they were four or five years old that are now like brilliant musicians in their mid 20s. I'll hire for projects, good friends with them and their families and maintain these great relationships

[00:33:18] as a teacher and friend to lots of students and families in there. And then it became more and more known as I would talk about my background. And it just became something that everyone pretty much knew and it wasn't a problem. And I think that-

[00:33:31] It's kind of funny that because you were forced to, you could only basically pursue your passion because this is something where your skill and talent so rose above the average person that people were able to hire you and it didn't require the normal application mechanism.

[00:33:51] And where would you say you are in the field? What's your latest projects? Oh, I mean, I have a bunch of things. I mean, right now I'm gearing up for, I have a new eight hour opera going up here in Vienna. It's eight hours straight, no breaks.

[00:34:06] There's this performance group from Seattle I've composed for for about 15 years now called Saint-Gene. And we do large scale durative theater and opera works. And we've done a couple like eight hour operas out here in Vienna already. And this is the third installment of one.

[00:34:24] So right now that's the big thing I'm doing as far as just staying home and composing. Then I'm also doing film scores regularly. I do things remotely. I will still teach maybe 10 to 12 hours a week. Some people in New York and Hoboken and then people in person here.

[00:34:42] And you teach instruments, you teach music theory? Yeah, I teach piano, guitar, bass, composition, theory. How'd you learn all these things like when you were very little? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I was very little, I grew up in a house with eight brothers and sisters. Everyone played music.

[00:34:55] We had instruments lying around all the time. And at a young age, we had a player piano, one of those old like ragtime bar saloon kinds of things that you'd pump the mechanisms. And I remember falling in love with that when I was like eight years old.

[00:35:08] And then I started teaching myself piano from that where I just watched the keys go down and then just started playing like ragtime and boogie-woogie and stride piano. And then took lessons, but from a teacher that by all accounts

[00:35:25] like fostered my love of like ragtime and stuff like that, but didn't like teach me properly. He just more saw that I could replicate anything. So he'd just kind of come over and play and then I would learn. So I never got like proper training or technique.

[00:35:38] And then I got really into guitar and bass and then 10, 11 years old started playing bass and like playing in like punk bands and stuff like that and ska bands. And then got like kind of really into composition around 13 or 14, but was just always playing music

[00:35:51] and doing music from a young age. What kind of composition? Well, I had these older friends that really got me into sort of, you know, the classics like Mozart, Bach and stuff like that. And I got really into like Shostakovich and Prokofiev

[00:36:06] and like the 20th century Russian composers around 15 or 16. So I started writing very, you know, just like basic either Baroque sounding stuff or classical sounding stuff. Or when I matured a little bit and started like writing more serious pieces around 16 or 17, my teachers would always say,

[00:36:25] oh, you clearly like Shostakovich and Prokofiev would write these very kind of sarcastic, technical, goofy pieces with a lot of material crammed into just a little bit of time. Yeah, so it's just, musically I always say like I'm a mutt. I'm not your first call for anything,

[00:36:46] but I can easily get by and do well in a lot of things, both instrumentally, stylely. This opera in Vienna, you'll make money off of this? Like there'll be a performance? No, no, I mean, of course there'll be a performance,

[00:36:59] but this kind of stuff, no, these are not money makers. These are things that, you know, if you look at the amount of time I put into it, it's like worse than, you know, minimum wage, but it's something to be able to do,

[00:37:13] I enjoy doing and I'm able to do to live not like a life of luxury, but a comfortable life where I don't have to worry about much, but I also don't require or desire much. And it's nice to be able to do it by saying,

[00:37:30] yeah, I literally am here just doing music all the time. It's nice and I don't, but I am not, I know a lot of the people that you deal with are financial wizards. I am not one of those people whatsoever.

[00:37:44] No, I don't deal with a lot of financial wizards. Just people think that. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. No, I, yeah, these are not big money making things. Like honestly, the things more money making wise are like quick studio session work I'll do

[00:38:00] where someone just needs like a bass line or keyboard line or guitar line for something. But nothing I do is overtly, hugely money making. I'm a terrible, terrible representative for the music business world because I very much don't like that because it destroys.

[00:38:18] I'm very impressed though you're able to do your talent and work enough that you could then go to Vienna and do an opera that you're just doing for the creative joy of it. And by the way, it's a big jump from punk composition

[00:38:34] to composing an eight hour opera. I mean, punk I almost think of as no composition is involved in punk music. Yeah, I mean, it depends. You're absolutely right. It depends on the style of punk or what you're listening to. But I just have, if I,

[00:38:50] the only thing that keeps this a reality for me is the fact that it can be all different stuff. If I was like just a jazz pianist or like just playing classical or just a guitarist in a rock band or something, I couldn't sustain that.

[00:39:05] So I need to always be doing different things to keep both the element of excitement and to maintain that intrinsic value of music that I loved as a kid and still maintain that even though the older you get, you see more of just like the absolute bullshit

[00:39:24] of the music industry and sort of how things function. Do you see like for instance, taking elements of classical music, like whether it's Shostakovich or Mozart or whatever and combining it with other musical styles. Oh yeah. Like, do you see an opportunity there?

[00:39:56] Like, it seems like pop music has gotten so dead. Like it's the same chords, it's a formula. I know, but I mean that, first of all, yes, I do that myself all the time. I actually even have an album. It was for a theater show

[00:40:09] where it's all Prokofiev and Shostakovich songs. It was something I composed for like a Russian futurist lab in Brooklyn, maybe 14 years ago called Explodedy by director William Burke. But the whole thing is arrangements of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, all just for like punk band.

[00:40:28] So I'm playing it all on guitars and basses and I got my drummer friend Brian Turner by track the whole record playing all the guitars, all the basses, no keyboards. And they're all pieces from Shostakovich and Prokofiev because when I hear that, when I hear those orchestra pieces,

[00:40:45] I can hear that so clearly as in tandem, like this is like a sludge metal song. Like I know this is a ballet with a bunch of strings, but I totally hear this in just like a sludgy metal style. And so I did a record like that.

[00:41:01] And when you talk about like with pop music, the thing is is what makes pop music pop music are all of these progressions and chords and stuff that you're hearing. I could sit here and show you, yes, this exact progression you're hearing right now

[00:41:13] is also what you hear here in Vivaldi, is also what you hear in this section of Mozart, is also what you hear in this section of Brahms. These- By the way, that would be a great set of videos to do

[00:41:21] to take a song, like a top 10 song and break it down like, oh, they took this from Vivaldi, they took this from Mozart. And there's a million videos like this, I'm sure. I'm sure that you could find all of these things. Like even looking at something like,

[00:41:36] you know, Pachelbel's Canon, you know? Yeah, right now I've seen those videos. Yeah, that progression is one of the most sort of very, very common ones utilized in all styles of music. And then people will sample classical music a lot

[00:41:49] and then put it in either hip hop beats, pop music. And so you hear this integration happening and it does happen. It's easy to kind of hear certain things and be like, oh, well, this is stale, this is that.

[00:42:02] Now with pop music, it's so much more with texture and sound and what's going on rather than like just chords. Like I'm always amazed with pop music is just the production element that I'm an idiot with. I'm very much an idiot with,

[00:42:16] I don't have the patience to be like a good- Like what's a good pop song to listen to? I mean, right now I am absolutely in love with Red Velvet, which is an all-girl K-pop group that is some of the most sophisticated pop writing

[00:42:31] but with some of the coolest instrumental music. And funnily enough, one of the last songs they released, as soon as it came out, I mean not last song, they released it like a year ago, as soon as it came on, I go, holy shit, it's a Bach sample.

[00:42:46] It's the Air on the G-string sample that they use and then it's manipulated and it's done really tastefully and some purists will, you know, some people will, oh, why are they sample this? But it's a gorgeous composition. It's like vocally and everything.

[00:43:00] So I am, and when I try to share that with certain friends of mine, they're like, you listen to this shit? I'm like, yeah, it's really good. I'm gonna have to listen to it, I've never heard of them. Red Velvet, yeah.

[00:43:13] And what's your favorite band of all time? Who do you think is the, not your favorite, but what's the best band of all time? My favorite and best band of all time and most influential band for me is Rush. Absolutely, hands down. So I could, that isn't mine,

[00:43:26] but I could see why that would be someone's. Yes. Like they're great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So as like a little kid, they were the ones who got me into playing guitar and bass. I first saw Rush when I was 10 years old at Madison Square Garden.

[00:43:37] And to this day, I still listen to them. They're biggest influence on me. And I get made fun of a lot by people by saying that because it's a very specific kind of group of nerds that like that. Like thinking about it,

[00:43:51] I just didn't like the people in my school who liked Rush. Yes. That's why I never really got into them. Yeah. But like the spirit of radio has to be like one of the best songs of all time. Yeah, I love it.

[00:44:02] Just thinking about this now, like I wouldn't. Yeah. Yeah. Like how do they even compose that? Yeah, no, I mean that's, yeah. That's a thing for a three piece in what they were doing at the time. And yeah, and the span of their career.

[00:44:14] It's, I could talk about them forever, but I do. And how did you? Oh, go ahead. No, no, go on, go on. How did you get so good at chess? Like I see your rating. I'm looking at LawDog's screen right now. Your rating on chess is good.

[00:44:27] Like you must've worked at it at some point. I mean, I, so when I was younger, we had to learn chess in like this advanced math class. And I remember in fourth grade, teacher's name was Mr. Karnas and we had to learn chess and I really liked it.

[00:44:41] I thought it was super cool, but we didn't, you know, learn anything properly. And then I remember like playing in some tournaments in school and I became like the school champion in seventh or eighth grade. But at this time, mind you, this is no studying.

[00:44:55] This is not like understanding anything about strategy or really the game at all. It's just very casual playing. Nobody in my family played. And then it wasn't until later, probably around like 16 or 17, where I started reading books and actually studying it and becoming really, really fascinated with it.

[00:45:14] I believe it was, was it Sillmann's Reassess Your Chess? Yeah, maybe that was one of the first books I read. That and then another one by Yasser Sarouan that I can't remember. That I would always just, and even like chess for dummies,

[00:45:27] that I would just read these beginner books and realize, oh my God, I'm missing so many basic skills. And then I just got into sort of self-studying and starting to play tournaments. And I just really liked it. And it's one of those things that I've never really like

[00:45:45] actively studied properly or went through, hey, this is, I'm devoting a few hours each day to studying and playing. It's just something I really like that I have seen slow incremental progress over a long period of time, rather than usually what happens with me

[00:46:02] is I'll get good at something really quickly in the beginning and then just fizzle out or plateau. Were you the best in prison? In jail, when I was in jail, I was the best during my time there. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you must've been,

[00:46:19] unless there was like just a real good tournament player. But I think, yeah, I think if I was in prison though, usually they have a lot of really good players in prison. And that's why they have like correspondence chess

[00:46:31] was a big thing where you mail your move back in the day. And every day you get a move and you send out your move via letter. It's pretty cool. And then, yeah, so then I started playing tournaments around 17, 18 casually.

[00:46:44] And then I started to incorporate it a lot into my music. I started using chess games both as a way to generate compositions and for actual performative compositions where I play chess and I rig up the chess boards with microphones and contact mics

[00:47:00] to get the clicking and the hitting of the clock to use those clicks to trigger other sounds and create these like small semi-theatrical musical performance videos based off just chess games. Wow, that's amazing. And there's a history of that.

[00:47:14] Marcel Duchamp and John Cage like would do this in the 50s. Famous artists, famous composer that would also do this. And so I had some references of people that have kind of integrated this in music before. But I always have a thing where outside interests

[00:47:32] definitely determine a lot of stuff I do musically. I like to incorporate it. So I use ping pong in music, I'll use chess in music. I've been learning Morse code. I use that a lot in my music. Well, A, it's fascinating you're learning Morse code

[00:47:45] but all of these things like chess, ping pong, Morse code also have some relationship to EMDR. Like I've seen videos, people using like the moving chess pieces and the hitting of the clocks is like an EMDR thing, which is... I don't know how to describe EMDR. I don't...

[00:48:00] No, not EMDR. What's the thing where it's... ASMR? ASMR, like the sound of it? Like... Yeah, yeah. And it's like the clicking and it makes you like... puts you in this sort of hypnotic state. Yeah, the ASMR. That's the word, I believe. Is that what it's called?

[00:48:16] ASMR is like very soft, like what Brian said. But I didn't expect... It's like a very soft talking like this. But I think also I've seen it in the context of like the clicking of chess clocks and stuff like that. Oh, okay.

[00:48:29] Yeah, like if you Google ASMR chess, there's all these videos. Oh, ASMR, okay. Yeah. Yeah, for sleep, for relaxation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something about the sound and the clicking that makes you relax. Yep, I definitely love that. The sound of a chess clock, right?

[00:48:46] Kind of click on the chess clock and the pieces hitting the board. So I'll run contact mics and then take those sounds, then process those sounds and make little extra sounds out of it. I think I sent you something a while ago.

[00:48:59] This is a piece Zvizhen Zool gets for live speed chess tournament and synthesizers and vocoder. I think there's like a... There's a kind of a rough video online from a TEDx conference in Jersey City like seven or eight years ago. But yeah, I love it.

[00:49:15] And so it's one of those things I go in and out of both as a distraction and something to kind of ground me again. So I can tell, I could use chess a lot of times too to kind of test my mental state.

[00:49:30] If I feel like, oh, I'm a little too overactive or I might be getting depressed. It's do I feel like playing bullet chess or do I have the patience now for a long game? So it's also a really neat way to kind of check in with myself mentally

[00:49:44] and see sort of how I'm feeling is based on sort of what kind of chess matches or what kind of chess games I feel like playing right now. Yeah, like if I'm ever like... Like I'm very, I don't want to say introverted

[00:49:57] because people almost don't believe that when I tell them that but if I get too overwhelmed, like let's say I'm out at a party. When I get home, I almost have to play like chess just to like zone out. And usually it's bullet chess. Yes.

[00:50:11] I'm like completely get that dopamine and zone out in another world. I know. But that's what's so funny is I say the same thing and people are like, wait, you sitting here playing one minute bullet chess is calming to you or like kind of relaxing?

[00:50:25] I go, yeah, there's just... Because they just see me huddled in the corner with the iPad. Fuck, oh shit. I can't believe you do it with an iPad. Yeah, I do it with an iPad and it's just... Which I know is not, like I said,

[00:50:36] I'm only going to hit a certain level this way. I can't. I think my highest was like 2138 or something on lead chess at bullet playing on the iPad but... That's better than me on bullet. I just can't do. Yeah, there's something I very much love about it

[00:50:53] but I know that it's not good for my game at all. It's destroyed my long-term calculations. But one thing I'm trying to do now is actively, I force myself every day over lunch to either watch a chess video or to play like a 15 minute rapid game,

[00:51:08] which is, you know, feels like a snail's pace for me. And who do you watch? Well, I actually love Agadmator. Oh yeah, he's good. He's very instructional. I was going to say, there's something about the sound of his voice and his demeanor that I really like.

[00:51:24] I know he's not the best player. His analysis are usually just sort of engine lines but there's a comfort to watching him that I really like. Hikaru, I love sometimes but I mean his playing, I love when he goes on his bullet runs and his explaining.

[00:51:43] His disrespect runs. It's amazing, absolutely amazing. But there's something, and I know this sounds ridiculous. There's something about the cadence of his voice and the sound of his voice sometimes that I can't listen to. Because everything he says kind of ends like this.

[00:51:56] Everything kind of goes on downwards at the very end. And when I hear that, it kind of bothers me because it reminds me of people that complain. And I know that's like a very specific weird thing. And then Ben Feingold, another guy who's very great to watch,

[00:52:11] but I can't watch him. He disgusts me for some reason. It's the slurping. Ben's great. He's great. No, no, he's like, I love watching his lectures. I love watching his lectures. But again, this is a sound thing with me and it's embarrassing to admit this sometimes.

[00:52:28] But with him, when he's doing in his apartment or his home and when he's drinking and eating, I can't listen to it. I just can't listen to it. No matter what he's saying. That's funny that you're so sensitive to the sound.

[00:52:40] Yes, I'm very sensitive to the way people deliver things, the cadence of their voices and what they're doing externally when they're going through. And while I do not think Agamottor is by any means like the best analyzer or necessarily runs through the best lines besides engine lines,

[00:53:00] I do think there's a comfort to his voice and just his very low key, no ego presentation that I absolutely love. Do you listen to Naroditsky at all? Naroditsky, I... Okay, so Naroditsky, I do like watching when he's playing

[00:53:19] and when he's playing his blitz runs and going through. I cannot stand him as an announcer. I cannot stand him because it feels like he went to broadcasting school and now I've got to, oh, and we really got them on the ropes now.

[00:53:35] It sounds like he went to something in the last two years. He went to like a sports broadcasting school and he lost any of his neat inauthenticity and then now he's just like trying to be a broadcaster. And again, I know these criticisms seem weird,

[00:53:49] but these are just very much how I process these things. And with Naroditsky, I can't listen to him analyze games. I think Svidler and Lenko are the best combination when they're Peter Lenko and, or yeah, Peter Svidler and Leko. And when those two are analyzing tournaments together,

[00:54:08] that's my favorite combination because I think they're both really on point with not trying to make things exciting that aren't exciting and just see. What about Eric Rosen who has a very mellifluous voice? Eric Rosen, I haven't watched enough of. I haven't watched enough of his own.

[00:54:28] It comes up on YouTube, but I haven't watched enough to gauge. I have seen him a couple times for tournaments where I would see him speak, but I don't have enough experience with him to evaluate. Sorry. Yeah. Well, would you want to play a couple of games?

[00:54:45] Yes, I would love to. No, you didn't tell James, sorry, where the drug dealer just walked into your chess tournament. Oh my God, the Liberty Bell opened. Okay. Oh my God, Liberty Bell opened. Let's hear it. Okay, Jesus. I forgot about this.

[00:55:00] And I mean, I still didn't even tell several chess stories, but the Liberty Bell opened. So this would have been, are you familiar with that tournament? Liberty Bell open in Philadelphia. Yeah, I think I played in it. You okay. So it's usually always like in February, right?

[00:55:14] This, I'm curious if we were at the same one. This, I believe I'd have to look it up. I think this was 2004 or. Oh no, I definitely wasn't. I stopped playing from 1997 to 2021. Oh man, holy. Okay, so I didn't know you had that much of a break.

[00:55:34] That's amazing. So Liberty Bell open, this is at a period of time after I was in the Netherlands and China. And this is after like I dropped out of graduate school at the Royal Conservatory in the Netherlands. I already lived in China teaching at Daxing Petrochemical University,

[00:55:50] a junkie in both these places. I ended up getting, escaping China, which is a story I think I talked about on your podcast. And that's, so this is this weird purgatory of me being clean post rehab, family knows everything, everyone's very much like trying to help me out.

[00:56:08] Everyone's kind of breathing down your neck and I'm what, 24, 23 or something. And I started playing with a local chess club to just re kind of just rediscover that interest I had in chess that, oh, I do like doing this. It wasn't just because of drugs.

[00:56:26] It's like, no, I love doing this. And so I started studying again and playing again. And I went to play in the Liberty Bell open, which I believe was a three day tournament, two, like two and a half hour time format each player or something like that.

[00:56:41] And I was really excited. You know, I got like the hotel package and went down there and my family and friends were kind of nervous because I wasn't on my own and I'm going to Philly and everyone knew that every city I'd go to,

[00:56:53] the first thing I do is find the shittiest area and find drugs. And so I can remember there was like some trepidation on the part of friends and family about me going down there. So day one, I get down there and I lose my first two games

[00:57:07] on day one, like absolutely crushed. And I, and mind you, I believe at this time, like I'm playing in like class D, like under 1500 easily. And- Did you cry? No, but what I did was I was super bummed

[00:57:22] and I went out and I decided I was going to get drugs and I relapsed. I relapsed after losing two- Because of chess? Exactly, you could say because of chess, but we're always looking for dumb excuses to do drugs again.

[00:57:36] It's not because of chess, it's because of my own stupidity. But the thing is Philadelphia, I never actually bought drugs there, but would buy things in Camden on the Jersey side. So what I do is I just drive to South Philly

[00:57:50] and I'm in this truck and driving around until I see just like what looks like bombed out war zones, like total ghetto area. And I get there and I start looking around. And usually if you're like a white person in these places,

[00:58:04] like they'll know and you'll get what I call the yo, yo, and that's kind of drug dealers like seeing if you're looking for something. But I couldn't find any like proactive drug dealers. So I see this obvious junkie on the street and I go talk to him.

[00:58:20] And normally when I only wanted a little bit of drugs for like that night and maybe a spillover for the next day, I would always tell them, hey, I'm in town for this long, I need a good connection, can I just get a little bit?

[00:58:33] And if this is good, then we can meet tomorrow and I'd like to buy at quantity. And so I said it to this guy and he's like, yeah, sure. And he asks to look at my arms. At this point, I hadn't done anything for a year.

[00:58:44] So I didn't have like any marks, but I had some like leftover holes basically. And he was really nice. He's like, wait, you're clean now? I don't know if I feel comfortable getting high with you. And I'm like, hmm, like that's really sweet.

[00:58:58] But I'm in control of this. So we get in my car, end up, I can buy like a clean needle off of him and I end up injecting in my truck with him and then immediately sort of kicking him out and then going home.

[00:59:15] And of course you feel good, but you're like, it's funny too, because I can remember it's like a combination of I fucked up, I'm doing drugs again, but it's like, oh, I fucked up those two games today. Why couldn't I focus?

[00:59:28] So go back home, go to my, or go back to the hotel. I go to sleep and I wake up day two. And the first match I'm paired with, I wanna say, and I think you can probably look at chess, USCF and probably find these in the database.

[00:59:46] But I wanna say that the kid was probably six years old, six year old Chinese kid. And both of his parents were standing behind him like this. And this kid- Now they don't let parents in like that anymore. And this kid was fiddling with a Mandarin,

[01:00:05] just sitting there playing with a Mandarin and would move immediately. No matter how long I took, he would move immediately. And so there was this one time middle game, the kid is just sitting there fumbling with it. And I took probably like 15 minutes where I'm going through this.

[01:00:21] And again, I'm also on heroin now. And so I'm just like, taking a long time to think, would make a move. Then the kid would just put his head up and go back to his fumbling with his Mandarin, just playing with it. With his parents just looking stone-faced.

[01:00:35] And it's very intimidating. I very intimidating. Just get you're getting the floor mopped with you with by like a little kid that's not even putting any effort into it. And so we're in the big tournament hall where there's a couple hundred people. And as I'm getting destroyed,

[01:00:51] I look down the hall and to my horror, I see the junkie guy from the night before walking down the hall, looking around. And I'm like, what the fuck? I clearly, like I told you when I would tell people like,

[01:01:08] hey, I'm just getting a little bit of drugs by Equinox. I clearly told him I was playing in what hotel I was staying in and was playing in a chess tournament. And so I'm there getting smoked by the little kid

[01:01:20] as he comes down and then we make eye contact and he just yells, I kind of like lumbers towards me, straight up very homeless junkie looking and sits down next to me while everyone's just kind of looking at him.

[01:01:34] He's like, hey, you know that thing we talked about? Yeah, I can get that. I just need the money right now. And so I have to request a bathroom break to bring this guy out of the hall to then like placate him by giving him like 30 bucks

[01:01:49] knowing full well, I'm not gonna get anything but just to get him out of there. So I had to deal with the relapse, the hangover of heroin, getting beat by the kid after losing the two games and then at the, while this is happening,

[01:02:03] I have to deal with a drug dealer from the night before coming into the tournament hall sitting next to me and I have to- And were people looking at you when you came back into the room? Of course, of course.

[01:02:12] Everyone's just looking like, what the fuck was that? And then I lost to the kid. I believe I even, I don't even think I played my next match. I think I just left. Like I just kind of realized I completely fucked up, felt really terrible.

[01:02:31] I think even, not even I think, it did happen. My sister Aileen visited and she knew I was high and it was just like everything just absolutely kind of crumbled at the Liberty Bell open where I was going there in the attempts

[01:02:44] to like do something good, have some autonomy again, have some confidence playing chess and not doing drugs and all of that came crashing down, yeah. Yeah, and you know, you can make money potentially if you won under four, you know, whatever it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:03:00] You could if that happened. The only time I think I ever made money at a chess tournament was actually the North American open in 99 but it was like tight because do you remember that? They would have it in Las Vegas. It was always like a huge-

[01:03:14] Yeah, they still have it in Las Vegas. They do, okay. Yeah, I went there I think in 99 when I was 17 and I think I tied for fifth but it still, I still wound up like it paid for the whole trip and everything. It was really, really nice.

[01:03:26] Oh, that's great. And you know, I see you played in the 2005 US team. Oh yes, actually, I was, yeah, that was at the Persephone Hotel, right? I don't know. Yeah, so that used to be the hotel in Persephone. Yes, Persephone, yeah. And this was, that was 2005? Yeah.

[01:03:46] That was, so then the, okay. That was 2005 in February. Yeah, that was, I wanted to play in that team tournament because I knew there was a lot of heavy hitters there and there was like this group of old men that needed like an under 1500 player to round out

[01:04:03] because I believe it's like a group average of everyone. So usually you'll have like a grandmaster, an IM and I was like the low level player to even out the average of the team. And I remember actually not, I think I don't know what I did there,

[01:04:15] but I remember I had a fun time. It was really, really great. But that was the one where I saw Hikaru lose. Yeah, I see Hikaru scored six in a row there. But no, Hikaru lost one of those games there. Can you see his record?

[01:04:29] I believe he lost to someone that was only like 2200 in that tournament and he wouldn't sign the card. I have this really dis, It looks like he won all those games. So maybe it's a different tournament. Maybe it was a different one.

[01:04:42] Okay, cause I have a weird memory at that time of Hikaru being at a tournament and not signing the card and losing to someone like way lower than him. He was probably a teenager then. Yeah, no, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, Hikaru was there definitely. I don't know.

[01:05:00] A lot of people I know were there. Is this the USCF database you see right now? Yeah. So does it have a tournament in Portland in like 2000 maybe? It should have the North American Open. There's Westfield Swiss in New Jersey. Oh yeah, the Westfield Swiss.

[01:05:16] I would go down there and play. Oh yeah, there's something February Game in 60 in Oregon. Yeah, it was in Portland. I can remember doing that. Yeah, Portland. Is the Liberty Bell open on there? Yeah, Liberty Bell opens on there. Yeah, and in Portland,

[01:05:32] it looks like you lost the first two and then you won the next two. Yeah, that was one of those ones I remember that was just an open tournament that I drove down when I was in Seattle. I drove down there to visit friends and play.

[01:05:43] I remember the first two games playing really, or I thought were really good players and then, yeah. But I just do tournaments kind of intermittently. I always tell myself I'd like to start doing it again because there's a real excitement and buzz I get in those places.

[01:05:57] When I go into like just a chess tournament hall, there is just a palpable energy you feel and I love it. I absolutely love it. I like it too. Those types of big tournaments are very strong. People prepare and they're excited and they go and it is exciting.

[01:06:15] And you kind of just lose yourself in that world for a few days. And I like that. But I also get disappointed in myself if I lose a bunch of games. My wife always says, have fun no matter what. And it's just not fun when you lose.

[01:06:38] Nope, absolutely. You could say that it's a really good way to sort of process defeat. Yes. It's a really good way to kind of deal with those emotions that come from losing. And that's what I like. And also, it's a really good tell of other people

[01:06:56] and seeing how they deal with loss and defeat. Yeah, that's true. Well, should we play a game or two?