An Army of Normal Folks - Shawn and Inga Arvin: Love City (Pt 1)

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Inga Arvin felt called to move to the challenging Louisville neighborhood of Portland, but her husband Shawn didn’t want to because he used to buy drugs there. Their obedience strangely led them to get a house for free if they bought a community center, which of course led them reinvigorating it with over 200 kids playing basketball, a 400 person fish fry, a school, and a thrift store. Welcome to Love City, who’s beating heart is neighbors loving neighbors.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

And so I go past the 22nd Street exit, which is right there in Portland. And it just, it was one of those things where like, it wasn't like an audible voice, but it was like a, we're moving to Portland. Like God saying like you're moving to Portland. And I was like, okay, I don't know what that looks like, but all right. Now remember I'm not from Louisville. So I go down to Sean and I say hey you know I think we're supposed to move to Portland and he was like you mean Oregon? I was like no no

in Louisville and he was like yeah no. That's not where you're going. No we're not doing that. I don't know what you're talking about but that ain't gonna be where I'm moving to. We're not doing that. Because that's why you spy my drugs in that neighborhood. I knew like this is not the neighborhood for us to move to. And she was adamant. She was like, no, we're moving there. And I was like, okay. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.

I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis. And that last part somehow led to an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. Y'all, that's us, just you and me deciding, hey, you know what, maybe I can help.

That's what Sean and Inga Arvin, the voices you just heard have done. They felt called to move to a challenging Louisville neighborhood called Portland and have since reinvigorated a community center and a fish fry, opened a school, and a thrift store. All of it is part of their nonprofit called Love City. And to them, it's as simple as neighbors loving neighbors. I cannot wait for you to meet the Arvins right, we're talking about a big question.

How much can one guy change? What will change look like for energy? Drill, baby drill. Schools. Take the department education closer. Healthcare. Better and less expensive. Follow coverage of a changing country.

On the NPR politics podcast, listen on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Snakes, zombies, sharks, heights. Speaking in public, the list of fears is endless. But while you're clutching your blanket in the dark, wondering if that sound in the hall was actually a footstep, the real danger is in your hand, when you're behind the wheel. And while you might think a great white shark is scary,

what's really terrifying and even deadly is distracted driving. Eyes forward, don't drive distracted. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Eyes forward, don't drive distracted. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Inga and Sean Arvin, welcome to Memphis. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Thanks for driving down. You drove down last night. It was raining, was it raining? Katsumawa, was that something? Not a bad trip. It turned beautiful as soon as we got to about about Jackson and you're from the booming metropolis I believe of Portland, Kentucky Yeah on the outskirts of Louisville. I mean just

they were about the same years when they were incorporated and then Louisville took took them as a metro. So yeah took took them as a metro. So yeah, and it's people in Portland. Do they just most of them just say I'm from the Louisville areas that close? Oh, no. Portland is that close. But they're they're from Portland. I see. So Portland is it's distinct thing. Exactly. It's no different than like here. We've learned it just in the last little bit that we've been here.

You all have all kinds of like names. Yeah. Germantown, Carriville. What's this called? Lake something or what? We were just at Starbucks and she called it White Haven. White Haven. Yeah, White Haven.

It's like that in Louisville. Matter of fact, we were talking about this last night. We were like, man, because we rode around a little bit, just wanted to get the feel of like where we're at. It feels a lot like Louisville, Kentucky. I mean, even just the layout and the... Louisville and Memphis are similar cities. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would say that.

For sure, for sure. Well, welcome. Thanks for coming down. Yeah For our listeners you guys founded Love City, which is a crazy story and we're gonna get to it. Sure But first we got to kind of unpack you and We got to give a shout out to Terry Holland Which is how we know you and it was a quick message and it said And we got to give a shout out to Terry Holland,

which is how we know you. And it was a quick message and it said, hey Bill, I would like to share the story of two people, Sean and Inga Arvin and their journey of establishing Love City in Portland, Kentucky. You gotta check them out. So shout out to Terry, who's Terry? Terry is most definitely one of our good friends foremost. And

then she also does a ton of volunteering at Love City and loves to work with the kids and reading. One of the deficits across America, not just in Portland, Kentucky is kids can't read. So we're trying to teach these kids, uh, basic skills of reading to make them lifelong learners. And she's a board member now, uh, and her and her husband are highly involved in love city. Uh, they're amazing people and just ordinary people trying to change the world.

In Memphis you're a Memphian. If you're a Portlander, what's a Portlander? They do call that. They use the word Portlander. Oh, I just made that up. So I guess Terri is a lifelong Portlander. No, she's a little villain. Is she really?

She lives in the world. She actually rides over. Yeah, she crosses the boundary. She crosses over. I don't know about here in Memphis, but crosses the boundary. She crosses over. I don't know about here in Memphis, but in the segregation parts of like how the layout of Louisville is the west end of Louisville was predominantly the Empire's area. And we have a street that's called the Nice Street. And it's actually a big

thing in Louisville, Kentucky. I grew up there my whole life. Inga, she grew up in Washington, DC, and Coastal Carolina, Coast of North Carolina. But there is a divide, and it's called the 9th Street Divide. And literally, people who live on the east side of the 9th Street will tell people,

don't go past that. The proverbial other side of the tracks. Don't go past 9th Street. And you will literally, if you're down in that area, you'll see people slam on their brakes. Yeah, freak out, oh my God. At 8th Street and freak out and be like, oh, I can't go down there.

Or they'll accidentally cross over and be like, how do I turn around? Because those poor people are going to kill you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's ridiculous. OK, so let's to get to love city and to really understand how this happened. We kind of got to go back a little first to set it up. Yeah, I totally would agree.

So one might start that story some for you. Yeah, I want you to start your story and Inga. I want to hear your story and then how your stories collided and you met. And then we'll go from there. Yeah, sure. For me, it's a whole different story from from the perspective of I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. So I lived there mostly my whole life. I have traveled around the world and there was a period of time I was in the military. But mostly I've grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, my whole life.

By the age of two years old, I had already been mentally, physically and sexually abused. My mother was a prostitute. I had no father and it was just just a free for all. It was in the seventies. I was born in 67. So the seventies was just like wild. And I grew up seeing a lot of things I probably shouldn't have seen and grew up way too fast.

By the age of eight years old, I was already an entrepreneur hustling, living in the projects. And I would take out people's trash because nobody wanted to walk all the way to the dumpster for a dime. So I started a whole entrepreneurial like how to how to raise a couple bucks, you know to go to the corner market and then throughout life. I went to 18 different schools. I was man just probably when I graduated I still own a couple of grade points and then I joined the military and then I was a hot mess in the military. Did that for about eight years, traveled around the world, served in

Desert Storm with the 101st airborne. Uh, and decided I was going to get out of the military in 92. Um, and, um, at that period of time, I had just got married. I had just had a son and it was man, just trying to figure out life. So you have all this trauma from your childhood, then you have all this trauma from the military. And then you try to mix. It's like the worst storm, you know, and then a lot of people don't realize,

you know, you have all this trauma. So you're trying to find false love. So you're running around and then I get out of the military. I have a new wife, a new son, and I'm working five, six jobs trying to go to college. It was just a mess. And then I got into drinking from the trauma and then got a divorce. And then I started man doing some drugs

and got into drugs and loved cocaine. It was my like thing that like kept me partying so I could stay up. And then on the weekends that I didn't party, I had to be a dad. So on the weekends, I was a dad. I would be Disneyland. Dad, you know, I would it was never showing them like what a father really was and what it's supposed to look like.

And then I got into just by hustling got into different streams of like employment and secure the job, being a buyer for a pretty large company. And then went up through the ranks in it pretty fast and people love a hustler, right? And we helped grow a company from about $70 million to about $2.2 billion. And watch it get sold. And we were doing a lot of acquisitions

back in that period of time where we were just man gobbling up companies. It was just like, it was wild. It was just fun, jet setting. Man, it was just crazy. And I loved every minute of it. And 2013, yeah, 2013, in January of 2013, we got sold out our company and then lo and behold,

man, they came in and they let me go. And all my identity that I had wrapped it in my whole life, man, just come crumbling down. And I was just in a terrible, terrible dark spot and started contemplating suicide and just thought, man, I don't want to do this anymore. This thing called life and man, all the things from my past, my childhood, the military, all the things I did after all that. And man, I just, it was really super hard. It was really a crazy part.

And when I say I was contemplating, I actually went into detail of like how I was gonna do it. And one of my friends who lived in Miami, Florida, his name was Colin, and he knew that I just had lost my job and I had just went to like a culinary school to become like a chef. And he was one of my instructors and he had moved to Miami and he was like, Sean, why don't you just come down here and hang out with me for a little bit? And I was like, yeah, sure.

So I bought a cheap ticket, went down to Miami and hung out with him. And I didn't have no clue what I was going to get into. I have no clue of like what we were going to do. Just hang out. And I get down there and he goes to work that morning the next day. And I go hang out in this park and I run into this dude named David who was homeless and he was from Dayton, Ohio and David had left his wife and had become addicted to crystal meth and

Man, we just spent a whole day telling each other's life stories. I mean details you don't even tell people you know intimate details about like this happened to me and this happened to me and it was so similarities and it was about six o'clock that night we we I mean this dude even had like in his backpack a beer can and we started a fire beside the ocean and cooked up man some hard boiled eggs and ate I mean we just like just hung out for the whole day and it was about six o'clock at night and I really wanted to go with him you know because he was going back to his homeless camp and he was like nah Sean you can't go with me man it's going to be too crazy there for you. And we were separating ways. And I said, well, maybe I'll see you in the park again.

And he was walking away and I was walking away and he yelled out my name. He said, hey, Sean, I got something to tell you. And man, when he turned around and he said, man, I still remember this day, he said, I just want you to know that God loves you and I was just like This is crazy. Who are you of?

Man, dude, do you see your life? Do you see who you are and and you to tell me God loves me and it was probably one of the most craziest times God loves me and it was probably one of the most craziest times from the perspective of I was so mad that he said it, but it was the very first time in my life. I ever felt loved and I just thought man. What is that feeling? I've never experienced that in my life and man, it was just so overwhelming that I went back to my friend's house

and I stayed up about the whole night just trying to figure out like, what is that? What was that? I didn't grow up in this thing called church. I didn't grow up in this thing called, where people, man, this thing that other people call it, or I didn't know about God.

I didn't know about Jesus. I didn't know about Jesus didn't know any of that and fast forward over the next two weeks man had so many encounters with just people one after another telling me about God. It was just so overwhelming and amazing and on my last day there. I was in Coconut Grove and it's right outside of Miami. And we were at a culinary show and there was this big art fair going on. And I just felt so much anxiety and overwhelmed.

And I was just thinking about all the things I just had been through. And I was just trying to figure out like, what is going on with me right now? And I walked across this open field I told my friend Colin I'm having dude I'm gonna have to leave for a little bit and walk across something feeling there's this tent and this dude selling Art and he looked like Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead. Yeah, and I'm walking in and I'm thinking to myself You know, man, I don't want to get approached. I don't want the sales pitch. I just wanna look at the art that you have going on there.

And he had all these big, huge posters and it was about how to be happy. And it was that he had created. And I walk in, I'm looking at him and I'm not paying attention, but I'm zoned in on this one. And it's talking about, man, connect with your creator and man, lay in a field and absorb the sun

and eat a donut and laugh. And man, just the simple things about life. And I was just like, man, is that really how life is? I never experienced that. And before I knew it, I looked over and he was standing right beside of me. And he was looking at this poster with me. And I said, I'm not here to buy anything.

And he said, I know. I said, wow, man, this is really powerful what you wrote here. And he said, yeah, you know, there's two sets of eyes you have. I was like, no, I didn't. He said, you know, there's one that looks outward and you'll never find what you're looking for. But if you'll use the set of eyes that look inward and you'll find everything you're looking for. And that's when I started to cry.

And I thanked him for coming over and talking to me. And he said, Oh, I didn't come over here for me. But God sent me over here to tell you that he loves you. And you could be set free. And I was just like so overwhelmed, I just fell on my knees and started balling. And I was just like a little child again, you know, the kid that I never got to experience. And it was so overwhelming that. I couldn't hardly even get up and he helped me up and he said, man, I used to be you.

Do you can be set free? And I ended up walking across this field and there's this big stone right there in coconut grove this wall and I'm sitting on it and I'm over looking the ocean and I'm just like, what is going on in my life? I don't even know what this is. And then this woman comes and she sits beside me about the next two or three hours. And we just she sits beside me about the next two or three hours.

And we just have this crazy discussion about the living Jesus and who he is and like not the there and man I have this encounter this epiphany where man I have the living Jesus actually appear in front of me and he says John if you'll let go of your past I will set you free and man ever since that day that's what I've been doing is I've submitted, surrendered to Lord, whatever you want to do wherever you want to go, whatever you need, man, I'm here for you. And, you know, some people can look at that story and say, man, I was in a space in my head where I needed something like that. But man, there's been so many encounters leading up to where we sit or sit sitting today, where there's no doubt that man that do is real. And he for real talks to me. And he for real has a kingdom of heaven here on this

earth. The question is, will we repent and walk into it with him? That's a little bit of my story of like how I fell in love with Jesus and how we got to where we are today. Then I think it'd be great. Maybe a finger tell some of her story because she grew up in it and then we can tell of like how we connect it. I got some questions about you. And then we can tell like how we connect.

I got some questions about you first. But before those questions, a few messages from our generous sponsors. Lately on the NPR Politics podcast, we're talking about a big question. How much can one guy change? What will change look like for energy? Schools? Healthcare? Follow coverage of a changing country?

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Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. The trauma of growing up as a young boy with a mother is a prostitute. And then going straight to Desert Storm. And if you were born in 67, then you're 57 years old so that was the first year in one month older than you how do you even know that that's guys saw on line that you're August 24th right good yeah July the 24th really the It didn't affect your memory, well done. It feels to me like, and I get, completely get, not feeling like, and I don't mean this as a victim, but being robbed of a real childhood a little bit.

Sure. I understand that. And then as a young man going straight to war and Then coming back and trying to do what you're supposed to do quote supposed to do get married have a kid all that No indoctrination it back into the real world because they don't do that for better right understand. They don't do that right and then Your identity becoming this this job and this growth business and then it being stripped away from you at must have been about 44, 45 years old. 45.

And you're talking about having planned suicide and having not only suicide tendencies but actually having thought out how to do it. I gotta believe that that job was your world, was everything it was because you really didn't have an identity other than just chaos up to that. That was probably the only organized semi positive thing that you'd ever experienced in your life. So when the company got sold, and when companies get sold,

oftentimes they look for economies of scale and synergies. So if the company that bought you had that position while replicated with you, we gotta cut costs, and so you're gone. So not necessarily anything you did, but I gotta believe that your entire foundation of what you were able to Somehow hide all of this trauma in your life behind because you had that one positive thing when it was ripped out from under you You had to have felt like you lost life

Yeah, I felt like And then you don't even realize it right because you've built this like facade of like I have this five-bedroom House, I have these three cars outside. I have these you were making good money. Yeah decent money. I mean Life was what I thought was like what it was supposed to be You know one of the stories that the crazy parts that and we'll get to that. But right after I fell in love with Jesus, I came back to Louisville and there's a bunch of stories, you know, tip before this. But how I got there.

Woke up one morning. It was Derby, uh, day Kentucky, Kentucky Derby. And, uh, I had all these plans in my head, you know, like I'm gonna go hang out with all my friends. And the crazy part is I'm, I, the part that you hadn't been told yet is like, even though I barely graduated from high school, on time, very first person from my family to ever graduate from high school. And then you fast forward,

and then I go to culinary school and I meet this dude named Colin, and in the process I'm like, well man, maybe I should just, instead of getting an associate's degree, get a bachelor's degree. And then I decided I'm like, well, man, maybe I should just, instead of getting an associate's degree, get a bachelor's degree. And then I decided I'm gonna go ahead and get a bachelor's degree, not knowing how to read.

At 38, I taught myself how to read, for education, for knowledge, not for just. You could read street signs, but how to read and comprehend and learn. Yeah, to actually absorb something. And I taught myself how to read it like 38. And then that's when I went to culinary school. Then then I get into my bachelor's.

I graduated top of my class with like a three point nine seven and bachelor's. And in 1992, when I got out of the military, I had a part time. One of them part time jobs was a security guard at a local college called Bellarmine University Which is a very? Prestigious school it's a private school in Louisville, Kentucky small liberal arts Yeah, and I when I used to walk the hallways there is the security guard I used to dream like man. I'd love to go to school here and

Knowing that man, I couldn't even read, you know, but you could still dream right and then so when I'm finishing up my bachelor's degree, I decide man if I like apply to Bellarmine and if I get accepted, then I'll go get my masters, my MBA. And lo and behold, I got accepted into Bellarmine. And going back to what I was gonna talk about before that was, you know, I had no dream of like, this is how my life would be. You know, I had no dream of like, this is how my life would be.

You know, I had no dream. I thought I was going to get an MBA so I could advance in that corporate world. And I had no idea that all that identity was just gonna be just like stripped away. And you know, really, if you think about scripture, there's a verse I love and John 10 10. It says the enemy comes to kill still seek and destroy but

Jesus comes to give us life of abundance and I can tell you Bill I could look back and I can dwell in that 45 years of what I would call living in hell where I lived in hell. Yeah, oh that's part of my story, but I believe that God used, let me experience every single bit of that so I could be where I am today. It's not a story of It's not a story of, whoa, it's me, but I needed all that. Every single integral detail to be able to relate and to be able to love people where I'm at today. Inga, kind of beautiful, isn't it? Yeah.

What's your story over there, girl? You hadn't said a word yet. Different. So I was born in Fairfax, Virginia right outside of Washington DC. Really nice. Very nice actually. Yeah, very nice.

But two of my kids live in DC and work in DC and one lives in DC, the other lives in Virginia just across. Which a lot of young professionals do. I mean, I love it. I mean, I love the DC area. So I was born in 1979, and when I was born, I appeared to be a healthy baby,

but then three weeks later, I was still nine pounds. And my mom took me to the doctor and I was in open heart surgery within two hours. You're kidding me. So I was born with a, it's called a VSD. It's a hole in between, you know, you got four chambers of your heart. So I have a hole that's in the middle, like where all those chambers come together so The oxygenated versus on oxygen all the blood was going the wrong way and not the way it should be and all that

And then my aorta was pinched shut So I the reason I hadn't gained any weight is because my heart had expanded To fill my almost entire chest cavity because it was trying to pump blood to the right places and couldn't keep up. So I had my first open heart surgery at three weeks. That was like, let's just put a patch on it and see if we can't like stop the bleeding, so to speak. Then I had another one at three months. then I had another one at one year, and then my last aorta repair, I was five. So I was born in this kind of bubble window in time

where if I had been born a couple years earlier and had what I had, I wouldn't have survived because they weren't doing open heart surgery then. But if I was born five to six years later, they were catching it in the womb and like being able to fix it and then not having to go through any surgery. So I'm in this like little micro population of people. Lucky, unlucky. Yeah. Lucky they could, unlucky that they didn't have the advancement. Right. So now there's like this group of us that are now adults that have congenital heart

defects. And so it's a very small specialist for a cardiologist. So I still go to children's hospitals. No kidding. Yeah, to see my cardiologist because there's not that many adults that have. They're the only ones that understand you Yeah, yeah, so I still go to I go to Norton Children's For my my PD and my cardiologist is a pediatric cardiologist. I had it's not really funny, but it's kind of funny

Yeah, it's kind of like actually pretty cool because I got Legos So when you know, doctor? Yeah. So, so when, you know, so my, my mom, so my, my mom's side of the family is all Catholic traditionally. And so my mom, when I was a baby, just sort of handed me over to God and was like, there you go. She's yours. Whatever you want to do. And then I don't think when she did that when I was a baby, like she had any kind of idea of what that actually ended up doing in my life. Even for herself.

Like, you know, I don't think she realized that he was gonna be like, no, no, really, you need to let go. Like, you gave her to me. Like, stop. So I had a relationship with Jesus, gosh, the first time I can actually remember talking to him, I don't know, I was like five or six,

really, and like having conversations. And, you know, grew up my grandmother. So we, they all are traditionally Catholic. But now I like to say we're all Catholic refugees, because, like my grandparents were divorced. And so you're traditionally Catholic, but now I like to say we're all Catholic refugees because like my grandparents were divorced and so you're out. So I grew up in the Episcopal Church, Catholic light. And my grandmother though, you know, she met Jesus actually when I was born also so she was like in her 50s and she went to a curcio which is a It's like a retreat. It's like a Catholic retreat where you know people actually meet the Holy Spirit and so she came back from that both her and my grandfather and

She had remarried by the time I was born. I think that's a lot like the Protestants walk to Emmaus. Yes, very much, yeah. Same type thing. Yep, same type thing, yeah. So they came back from that, and they had both had encounters with Jesus, and if you talked to her about it,

she would say all my health problems were happening simultaneously that that cursio was scheduled. And so it was all kind of like a catalyst in a way for a lot of people in my family to really meet Jesus and get to know who he really is. And so then I grew up, my parents divorced when I was five. And so we went to go live in coastal North Carolina, closer to my grandparents. So I became extremely close with my grandmother. We spent, I mean, I spent all, there was no camp.

Like there was no like, there's no money to go to camp. So I just hung out with my grandparents all summer, every day, all day. So we became very, very close. And then my mom got a job with the government in DC again to go back to that. So I went back to that area for high school. So I went to Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia, which it's so funny. I moved to Louisville when I was 28 and I didn't really understand a lot of the Louisville culture. So when I first moved there, everyone would ask me where I went to school. And while in college, I went to William and Mary

in Williamsburg, Virginia. So I would go, I went to William and Mary. And they're like, no, where'd you go to high school? And I was like, why do you care? Did they do that in Memphis? That's the way it is in the South, everybody. When you're from it in Memphis, people do the same thing. Where'd you go to school?

Ole Miss, no, no, no, Where'd you go to school? Ole Miss. No, no, no, where'd you go to school? Yeah. Right. So, and it was, and the more, you know. Dictates like where. Yes, it's a social. Your demographics.

Yeah. That's right. That's the economic thing. You evoked Whitehaven. Yeah. I mean, people will say Whitehaven, Carriville, whatever, but I get it. So.

But it tells you like how you grew up, or like it's the weirdest. It does indicate a lot of where you come from. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like later on in life when I was in the corporate world and I had to do training on like interview etiquette and what's an illegal question to ask,

where you went to high school in Louisville absolutely isn't an illegal question to ask, because that immediately gives that other person an idea of like your financial status, your background, your education, all of it. So that was very like, I mean, because for me, I went to Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia, which like all the public high schools in Fairfax County were in the top 15 public high schools in the country. You know, so like, well, and obviously you went to William & Mary,

so you're well educated. William & Mary is no slouch. Yeah, so I went to William & Mary. What'd you major in? I majored in political science and Middle Eastern studies. Of course, why not? So I was born in 79, so I was in college, fall of my senior year, 9-11 happened.

Wow. And my course load that day, because everybody always, if you were alive and not 10, like you remember where you were and what happened on the day of 9-11. So on 9-11, my course load was, I started out with American government, then I went to Arabic language class. No, no.

Then I went to Middle Eastern history class. Then I went to Arabic language class. Then I had Arabic language lab. And then I finished the day with women in Islam. That was my course load on 9-11. Yes. Well, aren't you an interesting person. So, and by then, like that was my senior year so by then

I had had summer internships at Marine Corps JAG, at Camp Lejeune, State Department. I was about to say with your background especially after that your particular skill set was probably how they sought after was it not? Your particular skill set was probably how they sought after, was it not? It was. And I did go there. So I I ended up. That's really, really interesting. I ended up spending five years working for the CIA out of college. No kidding. We'll be right back.

Lately on the NPR Politics podcast, we're talking about a big question. How much can one guy change? What will change look like for energy? Schools? Healthcare? Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made, promises kept. We're gonna keep our promises.

On the NPR Politics podcast, listen on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Snakes, zombies, sharks, heights. Speaking in public, the list of fears is endless. But while you're clutching your blanket in the dark, wondering if that sound in the hall was actually a footstep, the real danger is in your hand, when you're behind the wheel.

And while you might think a great white shark is scary, what's really terrifying and even deadly is distracted driving. Eyes Forward, Don't Drive Distracted. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. When I ended up leaving, I had to get my resume cleared. So there's things that I can talk about and then there's that are on my resume. And then there's things that are not on my resume. Well, everybody listening right now says, tell us one juicy thing I can talk about that are on my resume, and then there's things that are not on my resume. Well, everybody listening right now says,

tell us one juicy thing you can talk about. So the things that I can talk about is, I ended up working for the terrorist watch list program. Really? So what happened on 9-11 is, obviously, the big issue was a lot of these agencies weren't talking to each other. So CIA knew who all the hijackers were. State CIA knew who all the hijackers were,

State Department knew who all the hijackers were, TSA had no idea, and Customs and Border Patrol had no idea. What about the FBI? FBI had no idea. And there was no Department of Homeland Security at that time. A lot of people listening to us need to understand

that Department of Homeland Security was born from 9-11. Yeah, when you tell people our age, about your age, because I'm sure you travel. But the craziest part about all that for me was there used to be no check. You can just like walk to the gate. Well, the greatest thing in the world. Yeah. Well, that's.

Oh yeah. If your loved one was flying in, you go down to the gate and meet them. Yeah. Right. Oh yeah. We're leaving. They just walk them to the plane. Why you go down to the gate and meet them. Or when you were leaving, they can walk you to the plane while you were going on the plane. That's it. When you tell people that today, they're like, ah, my neck really hurts. My kids can't even imagine a life where you don't have to be cavity searched to get into the airport.

But all that was, yeah. So, you worked on the job of connecting all of these departments. That had to have been fascinating. It was, I mean, it was to a certain extent. So like when I started, well, so the interesting thing was I actually never was a government employee. So I worked for a private company

because the intelligence community had been so decimated under previous, you know, multiple administrations and cost cutting and all that, that when 9-11 happened, they literally could not hire people fast enough. And my security clearance took 13 months. The old government independent contractor. Yes. So I... That's like a dark web world. It is. It is. It's crazy.

It's crazy how it works. I mean, you know, like they were hiring contractors to do the work of government employees because they couldn't hire government employees fast enough. And so that's how I ended up there. I was doing the work of a government employee, but being a contractor, getting paid three times what a government employee in that role makes. And I was 23.

Wow. But the old political science and Middle Eastern studies thing had a pretty nice ring to it. So after that, how does this end up in Louisville? So- We gotta go back a little bit and tell about like you worked,

when you were in high school, you worked at Camp David. Oh, that was college. You got your hair done. Yeah, so I, so like- And you were a member of parliament, worked on the parliament. Yeah, right, yeah.

What? Yeah, so. So by the time I, by the time 9 11 happened, right? Like I was a senior in college, so I'd had three three summers to do internships. So one summer I was with the JAG office at Lejeune because for for a hot minute, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. And I was like, you know, I don't want to do that.

And then especially a JAG type deal. Yeah, that's a whole different. Yeah. Yeah. And then the next summer, I worked for the State Department in their Arabian Peninsula Affairs Office, and that was in 2000, which was Clinton's last attempt to do peace between Israeli and the Palestinians. So I worked the Camp David like peace talks

where he's so being there. Yeah. I mean, I was like I was I was a driver. Like I was it doesn't matter. You know, whatever. We're around it. Yeah. So I was at Camp David going back and forth every day. And then I my junior year of college, I went I studied abroad in London college I went I studied abroad in London and worked for a member of Parliament who was a crazy Scottish dude who well that's redundant Scottish and crazy yeah his name was George Galloway he was yeah it was it was one of those things where like you know the internship program that I went with only had two connections in Parliament and you, we're trying to figure out where we

want to go and all this stuff, what we want, what job we want. And they're like, we have this part, this member of parliament or this member of parliament. So I researched them and they're like, biggest issues were like sheep grazing rights or like, and I'm like, and then I picked up a newspaper and there was this huge article about this MP from Glasgow had brought back to the UK this woman named Layla Ahmed who was part of the hijacker group in 1973 in Heathrow and he brought her back for a speaking tour and it was all this controversy and all that. And I was like him, I want to work for him.

And so I went to the advisors and I was like, send my resume to him. And they were like, oh, we don't know him. And we don't. I'm like, just, just trust me. Just do it. So I said, just fax it over. So they sent the resume and he called within five minutes because I knew that on my resume was Arabian Peninsula Affairs Office State Department, Camp David, Peace Accords, Jaga. I was like, just do it. Yeah, y'all were ham and an egg. Yeah. So he called me in. I might steal that.

So he called me in for an interview and he was like, you know, we don't have this thing in the UK like Americans do, like internships. Like we don't do that. Like you get a job, right? We don't, you don't come work for free. And I'm like, I get that. But this is part of a program. I get credit, all that kind of stuff. And he was like, okay, well, he said, he sat down and looked at me and said, well, you have to look me in the eye and tell me on your honor that you're not a spy for the US government. It was all I could do not to bust out laughing. Because I was like, I'm not a spy for the US government. He's like, okay, you got the

job. I was like, I'm not a spy for the US government. He's like, okay, you got the job. I was like, all right. Little did he know you did that for the CIA. Yeah, two years later, that is where I was. So I had all of that on my resume. So I actually, when I graduated college, I actually applied to be with like full on with the agency. And I went halfway through their like interview process

and they do like a phone interview and then they do like all kinds of you know questions and surveys and then they bring you in for a briefing and you got to sign this like confidentiality thing you're not going to talk about what they say at the briefing and so I signed all that and they just tell you what the jobs are at the briefing that's all they do they're like you know I'm so and so and I do this and I'm so and so and I do this and so when I was in that briefing first of all I was like okay so I'm looking around everybody else there and they're all like straight out of West Point Navy cat I'm like they all look like white military dudes like y'all

know where like the major problems are here, right? Like, like we're not sending any of you all to the Middle East. Like you're not gonna blend in like at all. And so I'm just kind of like, well, this is interesting. And then everybody that got up to say what their job was, they're like, I'm so and so, and I do this for the agency. And my spouse does this for the agency.

And I was like, that's a little weird. I get it. Like I get it. Right. But it just didn't sit right with me. And I remember coming home and talking to my mom about it. And I was just like, I don't, I just don't feel like this is what I should be doing because it was one of those things where like you sign up and you're in it's like the military. Like Like there's no like, like, oh, it's going to be done in three months, you know? So I actually self-selected out of the operative interview process. And then I answered a classified ad in the paper for a research analyst with a private company. And I went to their office and it was one of those things where it's like, there's nobody there. It's a two room

office with a guy sitting at a desk. More dark well. I go in and I'm in. He's either gonna hire you to do some spy work or sell waterless cookware door to door. One of the two. So I go in and I'm sitting there and he's like, well, you know, we do all of our contracts with the agency

and I was like, oh, well, I just came from there interviewing. And so they hired me. It took 13 months to get my clearance. And then the main contract that they had was going back 15 years worth of agency records and looking for names that we may have missed. And then sending them to this newly created thing called the National Counterterrorism Center,

which put all those watch lists together to make sure that we weren't missing people. And so we were going back and reading, you know, agency communications 15 years. And so you gotta think like 15 years prior to that, that was all Saddam Hussein and Iraq and all of that. Even the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Yeah, all of that. Going back that far. Yep, all of that. So, you know, that was the project that I started on. And then from there, I moved over to the other side of where we were sending the information and it was getting put onto the watch list. So what happened when 9-11 happened and they did the study and they were like, okay, we screwed up big time, let's fix it, is they created the counterterrorism watch list. The intelligence, the information gatherers would send information to the watch list. It would get sort of declassified

and then the information consumers would get a feed from it, right? Meaning all of the law enforcement agencies. Meaning TSA, FBI, like everybody, right? So the watch list now, if your name gets put on the terrorist watch list, there's a version of your name and information that goes all the way down to local PD.

So if you're getting pulled over for a traffic ticket, your local PD may not know that that's what's getting pinged, but the watch list is getting pinged when you get pulled over for any traffic, anything in the US. So Customs and Border Patrol gets a version, TSA gets a version. We are way off the subject. I find this unbelievably

fascinating and candidly I could do an entire series of podcasts on this. I find it amazingly interesting. And by the way, David Bella via, who is the only living Medal of Honor recipient from the rock has been a guest on the show. And he's a buddy. He went door to door in Fallujah. Yeah. Door to door, right?

And gotten hand to hand combat with some insurgents. He won the Medal of Honor, he's a phenomenal guy. Anyway, he also worked at Camp David. You don't win a Medal of Honor. Yeah. Bill still can't get it right. Recipient. Yeah.

Recipient. Yeah. Sorry. I know you don't win it. I say it all the time wrong. I tell you that because I didn't trouble with Alex for it constantly. He's the recipient. Yeah.

Yes. Well, I tell you that because he just passed away a couple years ago, but I'm great, was great friends with Woody Williams, who was the last surviving World War One. No, World War Two Medal of Honor recipient. It's amazing. Yeah. Is he from Louisville? Huntington, West Virginia. And he was a flamethrower operator. I know his story. Yeah. OK. Hold it.

We're going into me. Sir, people are trying to follow. Yeah. Okay. Hold it. We're going into me circles Yeah, so right friend of mine So what I wanted to ask you and this is so far off the subject, but I don't care And I think people listening will find this interesting There have been for those of us who read way too much and Who care about our history and who care about our independence, our liberty, that little document that formed

this wonderful republic we live in. How much work was done when you guys were doing this work? I've always wanted to know this answer. I cannot believe I get to ask this. Completely off the subject, and we're getting to Love City, guys, but maybe. Maybe. We're getting there.

And it even makes Love City more fascinating given the divergence of your backgrounds, but we'll get to that in a second, but I just wanna know this, so it's a complete side note. I worry deeply about people's civil liberties with regard to be putting on Big Brother's list. George Orwell had a lot right when he wrote 1984,

and I have seen, we all now take for granted in our lives, cameras, getting tickets in the mail because you're being watched, and all of these lists. And I understand the balance of keeping our public safe versus how far do we go into people's backgrounds and lives? But when you hear putting on a government list, I can't help but bristle a little. How much attention was given to that

as you guys were doing this work? It's a great question. I can give you two stories to explain the answer. And this has nothing to do with Love City and Alex is probably going crazy like bill get on with the story. But this is vastly interesting. So and I can only speak to when I was there.

So we're talking 2003 to 2005 generally. So when I started on that program, we were coming through all of the records. I was 23 and I was given a team of like 25 to 30 people who that's what they did all day was sit there and read stuff and look for names. And we had a criteria list of like what were the things you were looking for in order to qualify as a name to get on the list, right? And then we're going through the list and I'm looking at the criteria and there's this name that kind of, and I was the last quality control check

before it went to the list, the list, right? So I'm looking at my quality control check and I see this name, Yusef Ismael come across and I'm like, okay, yeah, funding, yeah, providing, okay, yeah, mm-hmm, okay, check. Okay, yeah. Okay, check. Yep. meets the list. Send it over. Two weeks later, on the news, Kat Stevens detained at the airport for being on the terrorist watch list. He's also known as Yusuf Ismael.

Kat Stevens? Does Kat Stevens know that this 23-year-old kid got him picked up at the airport? Are you kidding me? Is that the God's honest? That is absolutely hilarious. Are you going to tell me the next story is about Led Zeppelin? No, no. So I preface that story because that was the part where we were like at that point Did that go to you? Wow, I got to be more careful or did that what did how did that affect you?

So what happened was I? Looked at it and I was like Is this real and I did my due diligence and I checked all the evidence and I'm like, yeah according to our criteria This is what meets it so What the trigger of what that ended up doing is made us, because at that point it was like, man, we're looking for every possible name.

I don't care if you sneezed towards a terrorist man, you're on the list, right? So when that happened. Which is dangerous. Which is dangerous. And it's wrong. Yeah, when that happened. But it's also the knee-jerk reaction to,

we just got in, we just had more than 3,000 Americans get killed. We have to do something. Honestly, I gotta believe there was some of this mentality is, we'll deal with civil liberties later, let's deal with our safety first. Yes, and so, and I had 25 people who, a majority of them were retired case officers from the agency that had come back as contractors, right? So they had lived in this world of fighting the bad guys their entire careers.

And so they were all like, man, we got to put everything on the list. So when Kat Stevens got picked up at the airport, then all the higher ups went, okay, maybe we should refine this criteria a little bit. Yeah, maybe. And because, and that's how you got the differentiation between like no fly and select D. So everybody was on no fly originally. And then we looked at it and we were like, okay, well, that doesn't make sense. Let's do some select D. Let's scream the crap out of them before they get on the plane, but they can still get on the plane. Right.

And so then it just got refined from there. And then I had, you know, there are another story. So the second story I have is another communication came across my desk to check. And it was four Somali college students in Richmond, Virginia. And they had like the right visa to come to school and they came into the US and they over extended their visas and local law enforcement couldn't find them because they overextended their visas. Now that's spooky. So initially. Initially and so when it came to me it came to me as submit to put on the terrorist watch list. And I looked at it and I said,

there is nothing in here that says they had anything to do with terrorism. Like there's nothing in here. Other than overstaying their visas. Other than overstaying their visas and they happen to be from a country, like there's nothing in here. Like there was even like communications going back

to stations in Somalia going, any info? No, they're just kids like, you know, they're fine. And so I said, no. So I said, no, we're not gonna put them on. And I had a lot of backlash from the much older people that were working for me at the time going, but you don't understand.

I said, but you can't just say he's Somali and he's overstaying a visa. They may just want to live in this country. Like we can't say that they're terrorists and then brand them for the rest of their lives as terrorists because once you get in that cycle, it is hard to get out. How about? Like, no, we can't do that. So there was a constant sort of like. Did you ever find them?

Yeah, they did, they found them. They just were hiding out because they wanted to stay in the country. They weren't. They weren't doing anything illegal. They were just trying to get a job. You have, I mean mean you talk about getting, I get off script sometimes,

but you have taken me so far off script. We're gonna get to Love City, but I just wanna take. Thank you so much for that background look into what that, that is really, really bad. I swear I could sit here for four hours. And then there were a lot of other stories, you know, like they're in, overseas what you'll find a lot

is when you have business competitors and they're trying to compete for contracts with either US companies or the US government, they will walk into an embassy and say that their competitor is a terrorist to put them on the watch list. And so then that's how the whole redress system got started because we started seeing a lot of that happening.

And then I would work redress cases. What a bunch of jerks. Using a system to protect lives to try to earn business. I mean, it's just this unscrupulous experience. I mean, that happened a lot. Like Latin America, they do that. Africa, they do that. And so I took a lot of people off.

And I'm like, this is clearly what this is. I love it. All right. But we would say the same thing that you just said. What's up? That what a bunch of jerks to use a system to get people to do something different. That's how we see religion.

Yeah. Explain that. I just rode just down the street down here. It's the same thing in my neighborhood. There's those buildings they call churches on every corner. We have that many than why we have so many problems. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Sean and Inga Arvin. And you don't want to miss part two that's now available

listen to as we will mostly talk now about Love City. Together guys, we can change this country, but it starts with you. I'll see you in part two. Lately on the NPR Politics podcast, we're talking about a big question. How much can one guy change? What will change look like for energy, schools, healthcare, follow coverage of a changing country? Take the Department of Education close. Healthcare. Better and less expensive. Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made, promises kept. We're going to keep our promises. On the NPR Politics podcast, listen on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Snakes, zombies, sharks, heights. Speaking in public, the list of fears is endless. But while you're clutching your blanket in the dark, wondering if that sound in the hall was actually a footstep, the real danger is in your hand, when you're behind the wheel. And while you might think a Great White Shark is scary, what's really terrifying, and even deadly, is distracted driving. Eyes Forward. Don't Drive Distracted. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council.