In today's bonus episode, Taylor talks with formerly incarcerated firefighter Brett Crawford. We reached out to Brett from a comment he left on a very 'gotcha' headline from the NY Times. He graciously spent some time with us to talk about his experiences in prison and in recovery. In times like the LA Fires the news is so hectic and we hope this can help us all understand our shared humanity just a little bit better. Follow Brett here - https://www.instagram.com/brettcrawfordinc/ https://www.surr3al.com/ Learn more about the Delancy Street Foundation - https://www.delanceystreetfoundation.org/
In today's bonus episode, Taylor talks with formerly incarcerated firefighter Brett Crawford. We reached out to Brett from a comment he left on a very 'gotcha' headline from the NY Times. He graciously spent some time with us to talk about his experiences in prison and in recovery. In times like the LA Fires, the news is so hectic, and we hope this can help us all understand our shared humanity just a little bit better.
Follow Brett here - https://www.instagram.com/brettcrawfordinc/
https://www.surr3al.com/
Learn more about the Delancy Street Foundation - https://www.delanceystreetfoundation.org/
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: On today's bonus episode, we interview artist Brett Crawford
>> Taylor: Hi, friends, it's Taylor from Doom to Fail. On, today's bonus episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brett Crawford. Brett is a artist who lives in Southern California. He does amazing paintings and sculptures. You can find him on Instagram. His handle is Brett Crawford, Inc. And Brett used to be in prison, and while he was in prison, he was part of the firefighting program in Utah and in California. I found him by looking at comments on a New York Times article a few weeks ago during the LA fires that the article headline was, you know, very, meant to grab your attention. The LA fires are being fought by incarcerated inmates. And I thought, there has to be more to this story. So I did a full Doom to Fill episode on conservation camps where people go in and learn how to fight these wildfires. And then I saw Brett's comments, and he was talking about how when he was in that program, how, you know, he didn't feel like he was being mistreated. He was happy to do it. And also, it wasn't the thing that changed his life. It was just like a stepping stone. So I thought that was really interesting. And I reached out to him and he was very gracious and spent an hour with me talking about his experiences. So I hope you enjoy Find Brett on Instagram and let us know if there's any questions you have or anything else that you need from us. We're@doomtophillpodmail.com thank you.
Taylor Pinero covers historical fires for Doomed to Fail
In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA09.
>> Brett Crawford: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Crawford.
>> Taylor: and my name is Taylor Pinero. I am from Doomed to Fail.
>> Brett Crawford: Brett.
>> Taylor: just to give you a little bit of what my show is, I do it with my friend Fars. we've been doing it for about two years. And we started off doing, like, relationship disasters that. And I do like history. So I did like, Catherine the Great and, like, Cleopatra and things like that. and then we were like, there's so many cool disasters in history. So every week we do a different story. So every week I dig into something and I'm like, I wish I could write a book about this thing. I wish this could be my job because, there's so many interesting things, you know, but I've done actually a couple on fires, so I. In historical fires in particular. So I did the Great Fire of London in 1666, Chicago and San Francisco and the San Francisco fire is different because it came from the earthquake. but the Chicago and the London research, I think, prepared me for the LA fires to be like, firefighting in itself hasn't changed a ton. Like, you still need to move the water, and that's still hard. And it's still the driest it's been and the windiest it's been. That's like, that's the tale of the oldest time.
You responded to an article about incarcerated people fighting California fires on Instagram
So I wanted to talk a little about the la, about the LA fires. And while I was like. And this was while it was happening, so while I was looking at it, I learned that about, incarcerated people fighting the fires in la. And I learned from those, like, gotcha headlines, like the. I found you on Instagram because you responded to an article, an article from the New York Times. And I, I looked up the headline. The headline is, for just Dollars a day, inmates Fight California's Fires. And I'm like, what do you want me to do with that? Do you want to be mad? Like, do you want me to be excited? Like, I don't know. So I really appreciated, and you have experience doing this, so I'd love to just, you know, hear. That's kind of where my background is, just, you know, researching little interesting stories and trying to put the pieces together to understand what's going on right now, you know, and that was really cool.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, I think, those kind of headlines drive me crazy, for a number of reasons. so just so the people who are watching, I. I was kind of a career criminal. I got started in crime and drugs when I was really young. And then I went to prison when I was 19 years old. And when most kids are off to college or trying to trade school or trying to figure out what they want to be, I was learning how to be a better criminal. Because in most cases, when you go to prison, it's not a bunch of people sitting around singing Kumbaya. How are we going to fix our lives? It's like, what did you do? How did you do it? How did you get caught? Who's your connection? All the different stuff that's, I would say, from my experience, is the general consensus. It's not a lot of, you know, trying to fix your life. It's trying to figure out how to win at the game. Because in my case, I didn't really, you know, I just got it in my head that's all I could ever be is just kind of a criminal. And I didn't see a way out of it. So part one of the sparks that helped. That is. I got an opportunity to be a firefighter when I got. I took my show. I'm from California, but I took my crime show on the road and I got caught in Utah and I had to do four years, and five years really, but I did four of it in Utah State Prison. And part of their program, they had a very unique program there unlike any other in the. In the nation, where they had all three crews. They didn't just have a handline crew like California does, which is guys who kind of go around, they cut fire lines, are very helpful. They do a lot of the hard backbreaking work of using what's called a Pulaski, which is like an ax with a hoe on the other end of it, cutting line in the dirt and falling trees into the fire and things like that. and a lot of cleanup. And in Utah, we had the pumper trucks, which are people who do. They go along with these trucks with big water in it, and they try to knock down fires that are on the side of the roads, caused by mufflers or whatever, different things. and then they had a handline crew. And then I was part of. I was in really great shape, so I. And. And I was really into it. So, I got to be a hotshot firefighter. And that. That program called Flamin Goes was the only hotshot crew inmate hotshot crew in the nation. And it ran from 1991 through 1998. And I was there 1994 to 1998.
>> Brett Crawford: And so what I think most people, when they see that kind of headline that says incarcerated firefighters for a dollar a day, I think a lot of people just think they snatch some people out of prison and they say, go fight fires for a dollar.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: And that is not the case. It's just like being. Becoming a firefighter for a civilian is very difficult. It's really difficult for inmates to become a. The most base part that most people don't think about is most people who aren't diddies or these other folks who go, you know, to prison, get put in protective custody and they're out of, you know, away from. Right. Most people go to general population. I always went to general population. And within general population, there's a lot of drama that goes on there between races and gangs and drugs and all the other madness that's part of general population prison.
>> Brett Crawford: and violence and all kinds of stuff. And so in order to become a firefighter, you have to get your points down low enough by not getting in those kind of fights, which can be problematic when someone's trying to steal your stuff or just all the craziness that can go on within.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: So if you're lucky enough to get your points down from general population and get to go from a general population to a minimum security yard, then you have the opportunity to ask to go be a firefighter. And if you're accepted, then you have to go to fire school. So both in California and all the different places that have wildland firefighters, you still have to go get fire training. So you have to learn fire behavior. You have to take a physical test, you have to take a written test. You have to do all the things that a billion forestry department fire crew would have to do. M. So it's not like they're making you do it. Most people want to do it because a, it's better food, better treatment, better. it's better than sitting in your cell rotting and doing. And so when I see these kind of headlines that, especially this one in particular, I felt compelled to make a comment that actually really blew up much more than I thought it was going to. people are very divided. The bulk of people are like, oh my God, we're so grateful. This is a crazy tragedy. We're so grateful to have these guys out there working their asses off, risking their lives. Yes, obviously it would be great if they got paid minimum wage so they can have some. A nest egg for when you get out of prison. Because what most also the general public doesn't know that when you get out of prison you get like 200 bucks and a kick in the ass.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: And if you're very lucky, you have family that'll take you in. But most of these people, me included, have burned every single bridge they've ever had. They've fucked over lots of people. They've been an asshole because they're easier to drink. This isn't for everybody. Like, I'm not, I always want to say this. I'm not speaking for the poor small percentage of people who are in prison who didn't do it or the wrongly accused or the. They beat their. They did something, but it wasn't whatever in their case, case was wonky or whatever and they shouldn't be in there in the first place or the, you know, the exaggeratedly sentence people who had a piece of a dime bag of weed or whatever and they got 10 years.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: I'm not speaking for those guys.
I did crime repeatedly. I knew the consequence of doing Crime would be prison
I did crime repeatedly. I knew the consequence of doing Crime would be to go to jail or prison. I did it. I got caught. I was doing time and I wanted a more comfortable situation than being in my cell learning how to be a better criminal. And so I went and I. What I didn't expect was, is that I only ever saw myself through the vision of I'm a villain, I'm a minister of society. I knew what I was knew M. I just didn't know how to be like a person.
>> Brett Crawford: But when we went out there and we were fighting fires in the community and we were out with the other firefighting crews, other forestry department people, Bureau of Land Management people. All the other people.
>> Brett Crawford: Who do tug of wars against these other people. I don't know that California gets to do that and stuff, but in Utah we would have. We had a lot more interaction with wildland firefighting crews and the way they treated us with respect, the way the community treated us.
>> Brett Crawford: This is a word M. I can assure you most people don't think of themselves as in prison. Like heroes.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: Like they are heroes. The guys who are in LA right now, working their ass off. It's people can't imagine what kind of backbreaking work wild and firefighting is. You're.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: You're carrying a 60 pound pack backpack that has a gallon of water on it. You're wearing no max like crazy hot.
>> Brett Crawford: Insane clothing. You have your Pulaski. In my case, I was a Sawyer, so I carried a 30 pound chainsaw on top of my Pulaski and my backpack. And you usually have to hike for 4 to 10 miles in.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: To get to the fire. Right before you start working.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Brett Crawford: Then you work in eight hours. But that's for everyone. That's not just for inmate crews. When you see the other parts, you'll see people say, oh, they work 48 hours shifts, everybody.
>> Taylor: Firefighters, Those kind of shifts, those M.
>> Brett Crawford: That's what makes them heroes, is you're out there, you're going to try to do as much as you can. You don't work for you. You have your cat naps, you sleep on the dirt like everybody else. That is life on the fire line. You're sleeping on intense sometimes out in the wilderness because there's no like going out and coming back. Sometimes you get stuck out there. You have your little tent, you have your little stuff. So it's. It is really insanely hard. But people want to get a chance to go there. I mean, and they want to have that feeling of I'm A hero. And they, they hear from their kids and their kids are proud of them and.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: And things like that. And it's a, for me, it didn't, it didn't fix my life.
>> Taylor: Right, right.
>> Brett Crawford: My life was really a mess. But, but the first time that I can really remember feeling like I might be able to be something different. It was like a, you know, to use it, the metaphor, it was a spark.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: Like a spark that ignited something else. And now I have, like, I'm, you know, I'm the poster child for rehabilitation. Like I have the best life. Like, unbelievable. You know, but it took a lot of work and a lot of other things had to happen. Like I, I left there, got in more trouble, ended up going to Pelican Bay State Prison, which is the highest, security prison in California. And while I was there, because I had been a firefighter in Utah, they allowed me to be a structure firefighter, which is the kind like 911 type firefighters, you know, everyday people who come and save your house, the guys who are battling all these fires in la. And so I had to go through all that training how to be a structure firefighter, how to do that. And you know, prisons are made out of concrete and steel.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: Not a lot of fires or except for the riots and sometimes people catch themselves on fire because they just can't deal, you know. Yeah, yeah, that kind of madness. So we didn't really fight a lot of fires. But what did happen for me, coincidentally is 911 happened while I was there and the captain, Captain came in and woke us all up and said, come on, you got to watch this. And we went as firefighters and got to witness this awful thing in New York.
>> Brett Crawford: As firefighters and you know, we weren't fighting the fires, whatever, but I felt like it gave me another. Stronger understanding and empathy for those guys who are risking their lives there. Just like. Yeah, in LA are. So I've been talking a lot. If you want, you can always cut me off.
>> Taylor: No, I really, I'm just, I'm listening. And I think that it's, you know, I think it's very beautiful that like it took a spark of like humanity. That prison is not designed, it's designed to take that away from you. I think in a lot of cases. And you. And with the, with joining the program, you felt like, okay, maybe I can be a hero, a person again. Like I can join and contribute. I feel like that sounds very nice. Yeah, thanks.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, that's.
Whenever we have these things saying about things, people are split
That brings up a. So going back to what I was saying about the split. So there's the. That big group of people who are like, oh, my gosh, thank you so much. You're heroes. And there's a smaller, A much smaller group that is banging the 13th Amendment drum.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: I understand it. It's. It. It has a flaw in it that these, you know, when people say they only get paid a dollar, eleven a day or whatever, they don't have to pay you.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: Maybe in California, there might be an amendment somewhere in here to that for the statewide. But in the constitution, in the 13th amendment, if you're convicted of a felon. Felon. Which is very ironic right now, but, if you're convicted of felons.
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Brett Crawford: Felonies. you, They can make you work for free.
>> Taylor: Yeah. I didn't realize that until I was researching this. Like, I. I knew the first part of the 13th Amendment, but I did not know that second part.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah. The good part, you know, trying to abolish slavery. so that's my. That was one of my points on my comments, is that I never felt like we never inevitably. Whenever we have these things saying about things, people are split. And there's the people who are saying it's great. There's a searching. There's a million people who are saying it's slave labor. And then there's the very smallest group m. The very smallest percent say, screw those guys. They're felons. They deserve it. They should work for free. They're lucky to get to walk on free soil to help us save our communities. So there's, you know, I understand all these different points of view. I'm more for the. You know, because I experienced it. Congratulations. So happy for them. Yes. I would like for them to be paid a little bit more, but money isn't the answer. I can tell you. Most people, I can give it from my perspective because in Utah, we were paid minimum wage. And in California was. In Pelican Bay, I was paid 11 an hour a day. And what people did with their minimum wage, which was like $7. It was from 94 to 98. It was like $7 an hour. What most people did with that money is they bought sou.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: And canteen and whatever. They made their life in prison a little more comfortable, which is fine, whatever. But it's not going to fix your life. And that's like me, which I did save a lot of my money as money to just get out to. Because like I said, in most prisons, they will give you whatever you have on Your books.
>> Brett Crawford: Or in California, they'll give you $200 and say, good luck.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Brett Crawford: And. And I, as a person who's been going to prison since 1987, not anymore. I'm a. Just so everybody knows this far into it. I am, retired. I'm a retired criminal. I don't do that no more. I, in fact, promote the opposite, now. But, there used to be a lot of these kind of work programs that taught you construction and things like that. And again, people will say it's slave labor, you're doing different stuff. But what I always saw it as, and most people did, is if you're working in the kitchen, learn how to be a chef, you're working in construction, learning how to do this and some of these other textile jobs and other things like that. You know, I don't know how much you're going to go and learn how to do if you're making license plates or whatever, you know, that kind of stuff. But I always felt like those kind of work programs were good because they were teaching people job skills and, and the, the only way to fix your life isn't by giving you more money.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: Because most people are going to get out, go buy some dope, start selling dope or overdose on dope or whatever. M. If they have this money. So I would like to see them paid more. But it's not the answer.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: At all.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Because the stats are like, you know, coming out and like being a firefighter are very low, you know, so there's, it's not like you're going out and getting those jobs immediately. So there's like, there has to be something else, I feel like afterwards. And I also kind of went into, I kind of went in a circle in my brain about it because I was like, this is really good for people to be doing. They're learning a skill, they're contributing, but then like, you know, they're getting, they're not getting paid, hardly anything. So then I have like that conflict and then a, another conflict for me was like the incentive to do this.
You can get your record, the last thing you were in prison for, expunged
And I mentioned this in our, in our messaging, that, like the, that, that, law that will. You can get your record, the last thing you were in prison for, taken off your record. if you do it, like, I wonder if that's like a, it feels like a kind of a dangly carrot of like a dangerous job to get that. Does it feel away for you? I just don't want.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, I think that like the percentage of people. In my experience, the percentage of people who are in there who. Who have the kind of record where they could get something expunged, is really low. my friend Joey Craighead, for. I always like. I always like to mention this because it's such a tragic story in Utah. It was. He was. Him and his cousin were boys. They were like 19 years old, and they got a fist fight over a girl they both liked. The same girl. They were trying. They were. Got an argument over. They were cousins, they were best friends, got in a fistfight. They hugged it out over the fist fight. They went. They went home. The one his cousin got, a blame breed died. And then Joey got charged with manslaughter. And although both sides of the family, like, these guys are best friends, they were just being dumb knucklehead boys fist fighting over a girl.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: And he died. He lost his best friend. Please don't send in prison. They sent him, and he had to go do five years. He was in. He was in firefighting with me. I think it would be great if, he could get that expunged off his record.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: It might be a difficult one. Manslaughter is a really tough one to get expunged. but just to kind of segue off of this, I went to a place called Delancey street foundation. And it's a really hard corporate, rehab. Most people who go to prison, especially in California, have heard of it, and they're terrified of it, because Delancey street is a model where they push you every single day to be incrementally better than you were the day before. Not a lot, just a tiny bit. And a lot of that includes peer pressure on each other, calling each other on their behaviors, going into groups, kind of yelling at each other in groups. And in order to get in the group, you got to write down on a piece of paper what they did, which gets a whole, like, don't be a snitch. You know, it's all this kind of things you have to get past in order to get through to Lancaster, the street. And for me, I was facing 12 years. I stole a couple more cars. So just. So for people who are watching, there's no Diddy stuff on my records, just an who was doing drugs and stealing stuff to get drugs and trying to win at the game or whatever. most of my things are, like, theft and selling drugs and, you know, dumb stuff like that. But, I went. So I got caught again. At this point, I had, like, a lot of felonies. And the judge gave me an option. His name is Judge Parsons. I stay in contact with him now that I fixed my life. But he said you can either go back to prison for 12 years or there's this program called Delancey Street Foundation. That's two years. And I'm not great with math, but I could do that math.
>> Taylor: So I said I'll take two shorter. Yeah, right.
>> Brett Crawford: And I didn't think it was going to fix me because I thought I was just forever broken and I couldn't imagine it doing it. And what happened is I felt I got there, I fell in love with the people. I fell in love with the ideology. I fell in love with watching other people around me fix their lives. I started to feel like I was changing my life. I stayed for five years instead of two. So I stayed an extra three years. I became like the right hand person to the people. The woman who started, her name is Dr. Mimi Sober. And her and I traveled all over the nation talking to judges and DAs and governors, and mayors and ah, cor. officers unions about the way ways we change the criminal justice system within the prisons. Because for the small group, I would like to say this for any of the people who are watching that are that really small group that say you're a criminal, you're a jerk, you should, you get what you deserve, you know?
>> Brett Crawford: Who care? Who cares if you have rehabilitation in prison or education in prison or the things that might.
>> Taylor: Right. You'll always be a criminal.
>> Brett Crawford: You're just gonna be a criminal. What I would say TO that is 95% of the people who go to prison are not lifers. Most of them are going to get out between one and five years. M. There's a smaller percentage that stay for longer than that. But if we don't find ways to help these people, I'm going to say these people, I'm talking about myself, learn a different way. We're going to get out and we're going to go do more crime. We might odd you might sell something to someone else who might od.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: Might steal your car. so it, it just saying throw them in a cage they deserve. It doesn't help anybody, it doesn't help the criminal, but it also doesn't help your community. And I hope is my hope that if you have that stance that one of these guys doesn't get out and hurt you or your family.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: Themselves. And I really push and hope for a day when we can Reintroduce. More rehabilitation, more education, more programs that help people to learn that they can be a different way. M. whether that's a religious program or AA program or a hardcore one like Delancey Street.
We don't believe that getting your record expunged is important at all
Where we going? Circling back to your point about the expunging record, we don't believe that's important at all.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's super interesting you said that.
>> Brett Crawford: We don't believe that getting your record expunged is important at all. And for me, I will tell you, I got out of Delancey street and I left San Francisco and came down south to be closer to my sister. And I went out and it wasn't because I had a felony that I couldn't get a job. It was more that I was like 45 years old with no real life experience or job experience or anything like that about, you know, I didn't. I just wrote no to be honest. I mean, I want to kind, of live an honest life, but I, you know, after going to Chipotle and pick up stakes and writing yes and they didn't answer me back on the next one. I just said wrote no. And I felt like, well, they're either going to spend the money to check my record and find out that I have a bunch of felonies and not give me the job, or they're going to give me a job and give me a chance and I'm going to work really hard.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: That's was m. That was my case is I got a job as a printmaker and a big printing printing company. And then I worked like we do in Delancey Street. I never looked at my phone. I worked through my breaks, I worked overtime without extra money. All the things it took to. To be able to stay on and work my way up through that company and build the life that I have now, which is like insane.
>> Brett Crawford: so I. I don't think it's my belief, talking for myself, that I don't believe that getting your record is expunged is as important as it is teaching people job skills and teach people how to have a bank account and teaching people about taxes and teaching people about. Teaching people about how to be a person. And I think that after being in Delancy for five years and only dealing with knuckleheads like me, like most of the people I dealt with at Delancey street, and I'm talking about hundreds and hundreds of people and going in and doing interviews at Folsom State Prison and doing interviews at San Quentin, doing and getting people to come to Delancey street and fix their lives. Most people have never tied a tie.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: They've never really made a real bed. They've made a prison bed because they made a makeup prison bed.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: They don't know how to like, they don't know the value of dressing well. And I mean, I'm wearing my. I mean, I'm in my studio, I'm a painter, I'm wearing a hoodie right now. But when I go to events, I dress nice. And you learning the value of how you carry yourself and learning about how you speak to people and. And learning how to communicate without screaming at someone.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: these things are vital. So much more important than getting your record expunged. M. Because in the end.
>> Taylor: Yeah. In technology as well. Right. Like, if you like, the technology is moving so fast. Like, can't just give someone a phone and expect them to like, know what to do, you know?
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah. It's like, like insane. When I got, when I left, I'll put it this way. I went in, in 2000, 2005 is when I went to county jail, was fighting my case, went to Delancey street at 2007 and was there until when I graduated. And when I got my first phone, I was like, what? And my sister had to like, walk me through it. Like, how do we even use it? Like, I was. I'd been away from the. The world for seven years.
>> Brett Crawford: And I spent 18, like total time. 18 years of my life in. In prison.
>> Taylor: Totally.
>> Brett Crawford: I mean, like, you become like, socially and you know, like, I don't know what kind of word to use, but like. Inept.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. It's like you're a little stunted because you haven't been able to. To grow. And especially if you're in. Like you were saying at the beginning, like in prison where people just want to like, learn how to be a better criminal and they're still. They're not talking about, like, they're not being vulnerable and being like, well, I need to do X, Y and Z. What do I do when I get out? It's basically like, find this guy and he'll help you, hook you up to do it again.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah. Yeah. You robbed the bank. How'd you do that? What did you do wrong? Yeah, all that dumb stuff. And I'm not saying that everybody does it. There's lots of guys that go there who, who got caught. They got caught with some stuff. It was their first time. I wouldn't say lots, but there's There's a fair share of people in there who are, that I hope will get a chance. But I think that, like, if we can reintroduce these things. because it was, there was a time when there was more, and then.
>> Taylor: Oh, no, we're good. Okay.
>> Brett Crawford: You can, you can go through this and edit it out if you want. Long, long bits. But, yeah, that's my hope is that we can find ways to reintroduce education and things like that.
Um, the point of you reaching out to me was that comment on
the point of you reaching out to me was that comment on, New York Times where I never felt, even though the pay was low, in Utah, it was minimum, but for the work you do, it's really low.
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Brett Crawford: And in California, when I was in Pelican Bay State Prison and it was really low, I would. This is me. It's the truth. I would have done it for free. And that's the. God's honest. True. I don't, I don't want to. I don't want to promote that. I want to promote. I do hope that they get more money. I do. It would be great. The money is there. The people. One, you know, inevitably, when you make that kind of comment, it blows up. There's people who come after you or whatever. and I have a couple different people. One guy made this comment and, you know, this guy said. He compared me to Winston from George Orwell's 1984. So beaten down and brainwashed.
>> Taylor: And I was, you know, doing the.
>> Brett Crawford: Thing where you're like, fast, fast. I don't know how very fast. Text. But I was right. In this whole thing, he'd make you feel smart. George R. This is my life. You know, I mean, and then I, I post. I sent it and then I delete it because I just like, whatever, man. You know, I mean, yeah, I know that. I'm not brainwashed. I know how great my life is right now and I know how, how much work it was to fix my life. And, you know, I don't need to be a rebel.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: I'm happy. Please pull me over. Guess what I do. Pull right over. Yeah. Are, you on probation or parole? Like I, I tell. I always say this. I go, not anymore. Which always, like, you know, piques their interest. And then I go into a thing and I will tell you, a lot of police officers have given me a. That said, you know what? Be careful. Yeah. We don't. You roll through that stop sign at a Trader Joe's or whatever the time One was. And they've never been crazy things, you know, whatever. They pull me over. Speeding over.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: 10 miles an hour. And I tell them and they, they, they, a lot of them really give me passes. You know, I mean like, you know, good job, keep up with the good work. You've been out in the world for now. It's been 13 years that I've been out here thriving.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: You know what I mean? Like thriving. Like my life is awesome.
>> Taylor: So cool. No, it's amazing.
Mike says calling wildland firefighters slave labor demeans both firefighters and inmates
And I think the one more thing about your comment that struck me is that you were like this, saying this diminishes the plight of an enslaved person because like they had no control over their life. And you at least doing that, that was a choice that you made. And you know, you were doing it because you wanted something more productive out of your time in prison.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, that's. I mean that I do, I think that it demeans, I think calling it slave labor demeans both the guys who are out there risking their lives right now. And I believe, I definitely believe it, demeans and makes light of how terrible slavery was. I wasn't part of slavery, but I only. Even, Even if you just try to imagine a little bit understand how insanely awful slavery was, I think they're calling what those guys are doing. Because I can tell you as a person who've been on the fire line, you eat great people, treat you nicely, treat you like heroes, you know, I mean it's not that. And there's other industries I'm sure, across the world and throughout time where you're breaking rocks into little rocks and things like that there. Yeah, there's still people in some of the southern prisons that are out, doing agricultural work and picking fruit and stuff like that for pennies and. That's, that's terrible. But I don't think that being a wildland firefighter, as an inmate or Mike falls, in that category.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: Because they are, they're really treated well. They do work really hard. But everybody is out there busting their ass. Everybody, every wildland crew, every structure fire crew right now that are in LA right now are all working crazy, you know, 18 hour, 24 hour days with m. Little, little naps in between and getting back out there and they want to, they want to try it is, I compare it like. So I always want to say this part too. People who are like, they should be able to go be firefighters, while they're in firefighting is like Being a professional athlete.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: You will see some old timers. Like, I was in LA this weekend. I stayed at the Marriott. I had to go do some stuff. And, the Marriott was, the. One of the host hotels for the wildland firefighters. There was hundreds of them. And if, when you look, when you scan the crowd around firefighters, you will see a very small percentage of people over 35 or 40.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: And those guys are crew bosses and strategic guys and things like that, but the majority of them are young men. Because it's really. It's like being a professional athlete. It is not. It is not for the faint heart. It is really hard work. And. And so I don't know that it is for most cases something that they want to do for a career other than a launchpad for you can be something different.
>> Taylor: Exactly. It's like, it's a means to an end rather than an end just being like, you can contribute and feel good about the stuff that you do, whatever way. Yeah. And then I feel like I get also feeling like you get that the. I mean, I know that they're in. They're trained to firefight and do the wild, the wild firefighting, but they want to be out there. Like, that's what they're trained to do. And I feel like when you tell your 911 story, you're like, why can't I be there to help? You know? And I feel like that's what firefighters across the country probably felt, on that time as well. And I was actually late in College in 911 in New York, so I saw a lot of firefighters, like, firsthand, doing stuff. And I mean, they were just the most exhausted people I've ever seen in my whole entire life. And the emotional toll of doing it, plus, like your, you know, your. In la, those LA fires, like you're watching people's entire homes be destroyed just to like the absolute ash, you know, so there's. There's a lot of that that I think is work that they'll have to do afterwards as well to be like, I don't know how you go to bed without looking at seeing flames for rest of your life. You know, stuff like that that they have to do next.
There's nothing that doesn't become politicized these days with wildfires
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, I do think we should, like, I hope we can talk a tiny bit about just to dispel the myth, because every. There's nothing that doesn't become politicized these days. and I can tell you from person who's been in like insane wildland firefight, like, I've fought hundreds of Fires throughout Utah, Idaho and Nevada where there is crazy canyon where the winds come up like that. Ah. And they, and places you're supposed to avoid because the way the wind can push the flames up and stuff. There's not enough water.
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Brett Crawford: In 10 reservoirs that would have made it possible for our guys to stop this. And if you live in California in particular, and I know that there's some people who will be here. I saw one fire captain said she was, you know, hamstrung by, you know, I possibly also saw lots of other captains say it's impossible. If you ever notice when one house gets caught on fire, how many trucks show up? Two to three trucks show up to put out one house fire.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: And when you have all of a sudden 100 houses on fires, a, ah, thousand houses on fire, 5,000 houses on fire. There's not enough water in the municipal lines. There's not enough water in the, in 10 reservoirs to put that out. and more importantly, the things that can put those kind of. This isn't a wild land. It is now some of that, that new fire that's just started is more of a wildland firefighter. But these are, these are wildfires that are fires that are driven by brush and trees and palm trees and you know, all the different, you know, foliage that people put around their house. But more importantly is the wind, the insane warm Santa Ana winds that are like, you only have to watch if people pay attention. That one video where it shows the McDonald's thing, which, yes, everything is going.
>> Taylor: Like this and it's like a hurricane of fire. Yeah, right.
>> Brett Crawford: And what people don't miss is the. One of the biggest tools and people see it now as it got going is the airplanes, the helicopters, the bucket drops, all those things. You can't do that in 45 mile an hour gust winds, 100 miles an hour gust winds. You can't be up there with, you know, a ton of water hanging from your helicopter and those kind of winds. So they, those guys, if nature hamstrung those guys and by the time they were able to get up there and do the thing that they are supposed to do, drop, flame, retardant, drop the water, drop all those things to help the fire cruise on the ground, it had already gone past that point. So, you know, it is weird to see all the news with people's. The arson that's going on. And I don't know if it's like, if, you know, I, I don't know, the mentality Of I haven't had a lot of experience with arsonists. that's like a mental. Mental illness.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: That people who like fire and then they see fire and then it ignites something in them.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: And then you put the tinfoil hat on and you think is some of this started intentionally by. And. And then when it becomes politicized, I will say that there's nothing to gain from Mayor Bass or Gavin Newsom to have these fires happen. This isn't going to help either one of their. For the, for the people who have the opinion that this is. They did this on purpose.
>> Brett Crawford: That's. That's insanity. That doesn't help either one of their careers. Whatever. It doesn't help the people, it doesn't help the communities. It doesn't help anything. So it's. It's like saying we weren't well prepared enough for a hurricane or well prepared enough or it's like saying the south isn't well prepared enough for that. I saw a video of someone on a truck sprinkling salt on the grounds and like in Florida.
>> Taylor: Florida. Right.
>> Brett Crawford: Louisiana. It's not going to do anything. They have all that snow. They can't move anywhere. That you can't stop nature. And. And then for the people who say why is wasn't the brush cleared out? The way brush gets cleared out just for some fire knowledge for you is a couple things. Nature takes care of business and it burns it.
>> Brett Crawford: Or as a firefighter we would do these back burns where you catch things on fire in a circle. You burn it down, you knock it out, you bring in crews to cut it cut. A lot of the things we do on the offseason would come in with chainsaws and, and pull brush out and get rid of it burning in piles. The problem is the more populated areas get and you start putting in these million dollar homes, million dollar 500 million homes out in wooded areas and in areas like this it puts the forestry department and the BLM in a really crazy position. Like okay, we're going to do this backburn. But if this backburn gets away then it burn these people's.
>> Taylor: You know because they're so close to where they would do it to like stop it from going into the forest area.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah. you risk their lives, you risk their property, you know, risk their pets. There is all the animals like that. So it's. It you get in this situation where, where even in the Midwest where we. By fighting fires and by putting out fires and not clearing the brush out and not being able to do the back burns. We want to you set the stage for these super fires. And that's what this is. It's a super fire. And that is not just for California. It's the same as it is in Nevada. It's the same as it is in Idaho. It's the same as it is in Utah. The more we want to try to save people's property and save m. People's animals and save the animals and save you stop these fires and it's nature's way that they clear all that out and start new regrowth is by letting the fires burn.
Delancey street hopes people will have more empathy for California wildfire victims
>> Taylor: Do you think there's just places where people aren't going to be able to live or shouldn't live?
>> Brett Crawford: I think that you can be really proactive. Like I, I'm very lucky that I fixed my life and I own a home in San Clemente and my, where my studio is at, where I'm at right now is in Laguna Hills. I. Because I understand there's no foliage around this place.
>> Taylor: There's no.
>> Brett Crawford: My, my place that I got is made out of concrete and steel.
>> Taylor: Yeah, totally.
>> Brett Crawford: Maybe because I'm institutionalized, but it's very like steel, you know, concrete and steel. And I, I purposely look to make sure I. There's a couple of videos that are out there right now of guys whose homes survived.
>> Taylor: And then we'll say a couple. Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: You know, because they were trying to be water conscious of the drought and stuff. They got rid of all the grass, they got rid of all the bushes, they got rid of all the privacy hedges and all that kind of stuff. And they just had kind of cactuses and, and rocks around the house. I think that is in the highly populated areas. You know, in California where there's droughts as the weather continues to get warmer, as the Santa an winds get more crazy. You m. Could be safe to. To a certain point. But if you're going to surround your house with privacy shrubs and, and those things are going to get dry and you're not watering them M. and you're not building your home out of like fire resistant stuff. All these homes are really old. You know, especially in Altadena, a lot of those homes are really, really old.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: I don't know. I think that there's a safety is a kind of like you have to. If you want to live near the water and you want to live near. In these beautiful areas.
>> Taylor: Yeah. My friend lives in Chicago and I Always tell her she's going to live in the last house in America as it just gets like worse and worse on the coast. Like the Midwest will be the only place you can live because it won't snow there anymore of global warming. So that'll be it, right? Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: So m. Yeah. I don't know. I mean I don't know that I just would say. I, I hope that people will have more empathy for everybody. The people who are losing their homes. It's really sad to see people scream things like, you know, the people who've never been to California say really awful things about the homes that are burning, they deserve it and it's God's right, all kinds of nuts, stuff like that. I think I just wish that people as a person who's been really. I understand all the stuff as a person who was at one point had lots of walls up and lots of like hardness about him and things like that and less empathy. but you know, I think that the best gift that Delancey street gave me was learning how to feel.
>> Brett Crawford: And so now I feel empathy. I learned how to feel sadness and deal with it. I learned how to feel anger and deal with it. I still have flare ups in traffic.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's fair. I mean that's not easy. It's not easy to say that I'm gonna stop being hard about this thing, you know, just, just stop. And, and that's, that's not easy. And yeah, I think the way we.
>> Brett Crawford: Don'T though is by talking about it and by the response that from that one comment I made seeing lots of people and I got a ton of messages from people saying wow, you know, I never really thought about it that way. Thank you. And then I got a couple messages but whatever. There's always going to be who are in pain and who are sad or who are, who don't know how to feel empathy. Who can't feel the pain that people are feeling from this right now. And I would just say to them, I hope, I hope you get there.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I think that really. I totally agree with that. I think that like a big part of like ah, the anger around the country right now is like people are, are lonely and they're afraid and they don't, they're afraid to figure out how to you know, have that empathy, look at other people and they don't, maybe don't want to but like it is a great way to like try to figure out how to, how to survive every day without feeling that because there's so much going on.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah.
>> Taylor: I mean this was just like last week that we were talking and I'm like, oh, that was just last week. Like, and it's, it's January. It's not even the end of January yet. So yeah, we're just going to keep living and things can keep happening and you have to just like try to react to them and those guys will.
>> Brett Crawford: Be out there fighting fires for however long it takes. And you know, a lot of this, part of this, it's not a positive, but part of this is we'll learn from this, we'll get better from this. And nature is doing what nature does right now and tearing up, getting rid of a lot of that brush that was going to burn. It was going to burn right. At some point. And I think that the, I think that we will find from what I understand from talking to folks who are in, in the industry right now, that they think that it started on the hill, that they put out the one fire that they thought that the kids started.
>> Brett Crawford: And not didn't start their fireworks. Whatever.
>> Taylor: Sure.
>> Brett Crawford: And you know, just being kids. Unfortunately. And that fire, I'll tell you, as a sawyer who cuts down trees on fire, like I've. I've been cutting down trees that were on fire and flames shooting out of my chainsaw that had gas and it has a special kind of gas, the M oil in it and stuff. But yeah, you drop those trees back into the fire so they don't fall over and start more fires. But what happens is they get so burned on the inside that the burn goes down into the roots and those roots can, can stay alive and travel underground and come back up somewhere. Especially when there's crazy winds and blowing the ground. And even though the wind's going across the surface, that wind penetrates the ground and those, those root systems that are on fire burn over and can reignite someplace else and take off. And that's that so far has been. Besides the people who are the arson people.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Wow.
>> Brett Crawford: Which is very small percentage. The consensus is that that that might be where at least the Palisade, fire started. And then once it gets going, you know, ripped in embers and things like that.
>> Taylor: But wow. Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, yeah. Because they just get on fire and it.
Many firefighters die fighting wildland fires every year and they don't get recognition
And they don't run out of oxygen. There's still oxygen in the soil.
>> Taylor: Right, right.
>> Brett Crawford: So.
>> Taylor: And it makes sense that it would. I don't know. I'm not. What I know about trees from being in elementary School. It like, makes sense that, like, the fire would go down, like the living parts and it would try to like, move through it. Right. Like the tree would like, doesn't.
>> Brett Crawford: I think it's a very. I think it's really rare that it can travel far enough to do it. It can stay burning in that area and then that ignite other stuff. So.
>> Taylor: Yeah, it's.
>> Brett Crawford: Fire is very, Crazy.
>> Taylor: Very crazy.
>> Brett Crawford: It wants to. Fire is like everything else. It wants to live.
>> Brett Crawford: It finds ways.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Wow. Well, thank you for doing those jobs like that. Just. It. It sounds very, very hard and. Yeah, very difficult. And thank you for, for, you know, taking that opportunity and, and doing that and for all of the fires that you fought all over. All over the West.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, it's wild.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: In the mountains where it's all shaly and stuff like that. It's like, you know, and I. I lost a really close friend of mine and a bu. Guys too, by the wildest thing. Like beat a wildland fire. You never know. I talked to a good friend of mine. His name is Michael Bishop. I always like to say his name too. He was on the construction crew in Utah State Prison. I said firefighting's amazing. He joined the firefighting crew. He was on the handline crew. And they were about a mile away from us where we were fighting, doing kind of cleanup. And it started raining because of the thunderstorm and they were on a rock cropping that was wet. They got struck by lightning and 13 guys died. And my really good friend Michael Bishop died. And so, you know, people die from that every year. Both, you know, inmate crews and.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: Civilian crews. And what I would say is that I want the inmate crews to get paid more, but I also would like, the Wildland firefighters across the nation, civilian crews, to get paid more and to be recognized more because they die every year and they don't necessarily get the fanfare that this. You know, I'm not saying one against the other, but I'm just saying I don't feel like they get the recognition or the fanfare that goes along with, being structured. Ah, firefighter is. And I think both. Both sides are heroes. But I sometimes, unless a movie comes out about it or something like that, we don't realize that there's guys, you know, there's three crews. Actually there's four crews in Wildland Firebird. The most advanced one is the craziest ones is called Smoke Jumpers. And those psychos go up in an airplane when there's Thunderstorms huh? And they watch for radar for when a lightning strikes the ground and a fire starts. They jump out of an airplane with their. With the packs and all the things and. And these crazy gear that protect their neck. Because they have to parachute into trees.
>> Taylor: Oh, my gosh.
>> Brett Crawford: And sometimes they get impaled in the tree, but they have this suit that is really heavy duty that they don't fight fires in.
>> Taylor: Uh-huh.
>> Brett Crawford: That protects them from getting impaled by a tree.
>> Taylor: Right. Because it's going to a forest.
>> Brett Crawford: Then you get caught in the tree. You have to climb down, take off your gear, climb back up the tree, get your parachute, get your stuff, come back up, pack it all up. Then you hike three or four miles to the fire to try to put the fire out. And if you're not able to fight the fire, put, the fire out. Then you call us the hot shots, and we either hike in or helicopter in to the spot, get it and fight it before it comes bigger. And if it gets bigger, then you start calling all the other people, but.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God, what a wild job it is. That is crazy. good for them, man. Someone's got to do it, I guess.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah. They are the elite psychos.
The Big Bear Fire has burned more than 22,000 acres already
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: Of the firefighting world is the smoke jumpers.
>> Taylor: Like, what did you do today? Oh, I jumped. I followed some lightning out of a plane.
>> Taylor: Yeah. I'm always amazed at how, like, the fire when there's a fire near me. So, like, the by Big Bear, there was a fire in the fall. and. And things like that. They're always like, you know, 20,000 acres, you know, and that's just such an unfathomable amount of space as well, you know? But, like, when you see a house burning down, you can, like, you can quantify that and, like, understand what that means because you're like, it was a home, whatever. But if I think 22,000 acres, I'm like, I don't know what that means. Like, that just seems like there's a huge. I don't know how many people are there, how, people are fighting it like that. It's hard to even wrap my head around that it's happening. Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: When it gets those, like. Like one right now, I think it's burning. It's like. I think it's 5,000 acres already or more. there's not. Other than doing the other part of it, which is also, ah, the dangerous part of. And you'll see these guys on some videos with these canisters that are kind of it looks like they're flinging fire. That's how you do the back burn. So you go, you try to get ahead of it, you try to predict where the wind's going to go. You cut a fire trail sometimes with the bulldozer or sometimes with hand. You cut that and then you start lighting it and it'll be like four or five of us walking in a row lighting this fire to try to get it to burn back towards this giant wave. So that to you have to get rid of the fuel.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: And, and, and you can drop fire retardant around and then try to catch these things on fire and kind of make it burn into itself. Yeah, there's, there's many different techniques of fighting those kind of big fires, but it is a big, big undertaking and it's, and it's not, it's pretty rare that it's happening in January. I will tell you.
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Brett Crawford: Anywhere in the world. So. I know, I know that's why it's not lucky. But the reason why Mexico can spare people, Utah can spare people, Nevada can spare people. All the different people who are candidate can spare people. M. Because this isn't fire season.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Brett Crawford: This isn't typically these guys, most of a lot of these guys were like doing community service or not community service but cutting fire lines and cutting.
>> Taylor: Right. Doing other things and doing your.
>> Brett Crawford: Doing your off season stuff.
>> Taylor: I know that's not, doesn't bode well.
>> Brett Crawford: But it's not lucky. But it's lucky that they're able to spare the. Spare the cruise.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, I know here we're like two hours from la, but they sent a lot of our firefighters there. So they cut our power for a couple days like during the day so that we wouldn't have fires here while people were away.
>> Brett Crawford: That's what. Yeah, that's the thing is that you know it here. We all knew before the fire hit we were getting texts on the coast that these winds are going to be crazy. PG&E was going to be putting an SDG and E was going to be putting out in my area. We're going to be cutting the power so that the wind, these 45 to 100 mile an hour winds can't whip the power lines so that they fall or explode the transformers, you know, because the gusts of wind, so that these fires start. So they cut the power so that doesn't happen. And, but once it gets started, once.
>> Taylor: It gets started, I mean the more, the more people trying their best, definitely the better.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah.
>> Taylor: And if someone could figure out how to make water not weigh anything, that'd be great because then that would really help as well.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, I mean, you know, a lot of those lines and infrastructure and the plumbing in these cities was set up. It's not to fight wildland fires or wildfires, but this to fight structure. Firefighters of one house at a time. Maybe two houses at a time.
>> Brett Crawford: Max three or four houses.
>> Taylor: Not the whole city.
>> Brett Crawford: Not a hundred, not five hundred, not a thousand like this. Nothing can stop it.
>> Taylor: Yeah, totally. well, thank you. It's been, it's been an hour. I really so appreciate talking to you, Brad. This was super fun. I'd love to have to close out.
Tell me what you're doing now and where people can find you
Tell me what you're doing now and where people can find you.
>> Brett Crawford: Oh, I'm an artist. which is also another really terrible career choice. Until it isn't. I mean I got out and I was a printmaker and I waited tables at night and on the side I would do my little drawings and then I would go to LA and I'd go look at my drawings.
>> Brett Crawford: I was a 45 year old man with no CV and no shows and no gallery representation. And I got snubbed a lot. and you know, lucky for me in this time, it's the best time to be alive to be an artist. Because of Instagram and Facebook and Tumblr and all the different kinds of, you know, tick tock for however long it lasts and things like that, where you can show your drawings without going to a gallery. And I didn't give up. And about five years ago, after going through several different galleries that some work, some didn't work, somewhat of me be, stuck with them or not stuck with them, but committed, only to them. M. And working through all that, learning education about how to deal with galleries and how to deal, how to learn how to sell your work and sell your work online and things like that. About five years ago my career really took off. And it started when I created a new story Based on the 19, the 1800s version of Pinocchio by Carlo Colidi. But I wondered what happened to that little boy, Pinocchio when he grew up. And I really relate to the story of Pinocchio because If you ask 10 people who Pinocchio is, nine of them will say he's the liar.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: And I remember by reading the book and also even seeing the Disney version, I remember him as, or even now the Guillermo del Toro version. He was brave, he was adventurous. He was kind. He made some friends. Some of his friends weren't so great. He, got in some trouble. He was drinking, he was smoking.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: then some of his friends who were drinking and smoking started turning into jackass jackasses. Which is a hilarious metaphor.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: then when his father got swallowed by the scary monster monstrose, Pinocchio didn't give up. He literally dove into the water and searched for his father so the whale could swallow him and Jiminy on purpose, so that he could save. Not only by the way he saved himself. Speaking of fire, is he caught the boat on fire, which you think about, he's made out of wood, right?
>> Brett Crawford: You know, everybody burns, but. Yeah, whatever.
>> Taylor: But don't stick your hand in a.
>> Brett Crawford: Fire without thinking about himself or whatever. He catches the boat on fire, makes monsters spit them out and saves himself and his father and his friends. And for me, I, the, the work I did in Delancey street, the work I still do, where I talk, go talk to guys and tell them, hey, this isn't how you have to be. The, interviews I did in this, you know, I taught a civics, class at Stanford and talked about the way we change. Helping other people fix their lives, helping myself fix my life. I really relate to the idea where Pinocchio said he wanted to be a real boy, he wanted to be a human. And for a really long time when I was in all my drug addiction and crime and going in and out of prison, I just didn't really even see myself as a human. Like, I just didn't know how to be like a regular, hard working, honest, kind, honest human. And so I've built this new story. I never knew my real dad, so I. My story of Pinocchio doesn't have a Geppetto. my story kind of mixes Greek mythology. The goddess Leto was. She's the goddess of the forest. Lonely. So she kissed an acorn, planted the acorn, and then Pinocchio carves himself out of the tree so they could be together. So this is a good example. This is the toy we made of that, of him carving himself out of a tree.
>> Taylor: Oh my goodness.
>> Brett Crawford: Is a vinyl toy. So. And I've done several paintings of this to go along with that theme.
>> Taylor: But he's building himself. I love that.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, so that was me. I didn't. A lot of people relate to the idea. This toy was called self made. The idea of entrepreneurship or business, whatever. For me, it was more like building my life, building myself, becoming human. And so I'm really attached to it. I'm really lucky that art collectors throughout the world have really latched onto it and my career has really like insanely taken off. So now that I can have this studio, I have another studio next to this. I have a, you know, really big workload. I have like a two year wait list for my paintings with 45, 45 paintings in my queue and huge success with big galleries both here in the United States and in Asia. And I bought a house in California.
>> Taylor: For real? That's amazing. Yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: Because, you know, for good or bad, the houses in California are really a lot of money. And I bought it from my. For money I, you know, made, and earned and so, I feel really proud of that. I feel real proud of being a hard working, honest, kind, member of my community and law abiding and a, retired. You know, I went on that cnn, on that CNN thing, first thing says you're a career criminal. And I for. I missed a great opportunity to say retired.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Brett Crawford: You know, it's always that thing when you're done, you're like, I should have.
>> Taylor: Said something, should have said something else. Of course.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, I should have just said. I just went, yeah, I'm, a criminal.
>> Taylor: Yeah. They were tired. Yeah. And you, you're, you turned it around and it wasn't easy, but you re rebuilt out of what you had.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Super, super cool.
And I just, I'm so honored you spent an hour with me
And I just, I'm so honored you spent an hour with me. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I have.
>> Brett Crawford: My pleasure.
>> Taylor: We're very small, but I really, really wanted to talk to. Really appreciate it.
>> Brett Crawford: Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah. And I, because it is important to me. I do, I would, I could talk about recovery and talk about inmate firefighters all day long. So thanks for asking.