Kitbag Conversations - Episode 20: The Underworld With Danny Gold

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

You asked for him and here he is. This week I am joined with Danny Gold: Producer. Correspondent. Writer. docs & articles on war, crime & politics @ everywhere. Pulitzer center grantee. reluctant podcaster @underworldpodcast. Danny and I talked about: - Alex Jones  - His career as a journalist  - The underworld podcast - And culture in general 

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Croatone Report, a podcast dedicated to delivering quality information to the community level. This week I'm joined by Danny Gold, a producer, correspondent, writer, journalist, filmmaker and reluctant podcaster. How are you today Danny? I'm doing well man. I'm doing well. It's been a pleasure having you.

I really appreciate it. Oh, absolutely. I've definitely been a fan of your work for a little bit, so it's really good to get a conversation in there somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's so much to talk about, right?

I feel like you've touched on, or you've touched on a lot of subjects that I'm familiar with. I have a podcast myself that we talk about, like organized crime, not so much conflict oriented, but of course, you know, when you're talking about the emergence of organized crime groups and gangs in general, whether domestically or internationally, a lot of politics and geopolitics and conflict plays into that. You can kind of see the origin stories in a lot of, like, you know, take something, we did an episode on the Vietnamese gang born to kill that rose up in New York in the late

70s, early 80s, and obviously that gang was originated by Vietnamese refugees who came over here because of the Vietnamese war. So, I mean, the war in Vietnam, so you have, you know, these things are all interwoven in a way. Yeah, it's really hard to separate, you know, government from local level, because everything is almost gray these days. It goes all the way back to, say, your Roman, your Greek times, or anything from a politician hires a goon.

And at that point, he's got a little, his own little criminal organization brewing, and so it can grow, it can get crushed. It does all these crazy things. So for people who don't know who you are, if you could just give a quick, like overview of your resume, essentially, because I know you've been all over the world, you talk about a lot of great things, and I guess like a quick wave top. Yeah, I mean, currently right now, I guess the main thing that I'm doing is I have a podcast called The Underworld Podcast, which is about international organized crime, and

I run it with a British journalist named Sean Williams, and we kind of switch off episodes. You know, telling these stories about groups or people or phenomenons. Some could be current. You know, we talk about Capcom and Syria and the drug trade there, or the gang wars in Sweden, or, you know, something along those lines. Sean did a really great episode on hunting for billion-dollar meth labs in like the Burmese jungle, right? So stuff like that.

And then there's also historical stuff that we bring up. We try to focus on stuff that, you know, isn't as, I think, well-known or popular, or give angles for stuff that is well-known that people don't really talk about, you know, because I think there's a lot of now, I mean, when we started this two years ago, there wasn't that much stuff on organized crime. You know, everything was true crime, which was, you know, some guy in the trailer park kills his wife's weekend-dater sister and the bubbling sheriff messes up the DNA. And essentially, and there was just like a million podcasts like that, and they had

a huge audience, and I'm not interested in that really at all, you know. So I figured, what if we do something similar to that vein where it covers crime that, you know, people obviously find crime very sexy and interesting, but it was about actually interesting things, you know, organized crime and how that plays out throughout the signing. I thought there was a huge appetite for that. So we dive into that, but we'll do stories on like historical stuff too. So something like, I just did one on the Burger Gang and the Shelton Brothers, which are two gangs in Prohibition, Arizona, Southern Illinois.

One was led by like a Jewish Mafioso in the rural Illinois. One was led by, I guess you could call them, you know, like Hillbillies, Rednecks, that sort of thing. I think you're still allowed to say that, right? Oh, absolutely. They actually ended up teaming up and fighting the KKK because the KKK was rising up in Southern Illinois in the 1920s, and they were very big on enforcement prohibition and law and order and all that.

So these two gangs teamed up, fought them off, and then fought each other. So that's one of the stories we tell. And a lot of it too is that, you know, Sean and I have a long career of reporting on this stuff in person. So I'll do an episode on MS-13 because I spent a lot of time, you know, Salvador reporting on MS-13, and I can bring, you know, personal anecdotes and histories and interviews that I've done into the subject matter, but it is a storytelling podcast. Before that, I've been a journalist for more than a decade now.

You know, I started off working for newspapers in New York, basically doing, you know, your daily reporting where I was never in the office. I get a phone call. There was a murder scene here. There was a robbery here, or even there was a press conference here. Go there, interview people, talk about it. So I got to know the city and then crime, covered crime a lot and got to know that very well. When I started taking freelance reporting trips overseas, I did a lot of work in Iraq

and Syria and Turkey. And then eventually I got a fellowship to report in Burma. And then shortly after that, I got hired when Vice News was just starting out, they wanted to bring in, you know, sort of real reporters into the company because I didn't really have that at that time. So I got hired to do that. And while I was there, I quickly switched to doing video both on camera and production and did that for a few years.

And then I guess the last five or six years now, I've done basically everything you can think of when it comes to video, writing, I guess now podcasting. And my main kind of specialties were conflict and just general catastrophes with some crime mixed in there. And I've kind of just been running on that ever since. I think the last assignment I did was I went to Ukraine for six weeks in April and May and that reported on the war there. So that kind of, I think, brings everything up to speed, I would say, in my background

and my resume. Yeah, I just actually earlier today, reread your Vanity Fair article for your time in Ukraine when you talked about, you know, how the Russians came in for 35 days and essentially just terrorized local civilians in Ukraine, just essentially because they could. So that was definitely areas where everyone suspects. But just to read it, have you have do the interviews and put everything on paper. It's, you know, eye opening. And then I know you also talked about guys and like Ecuador and then there's all these

things going on in Burma or Myanmar or Harvard. It is today. And I know you talked about Syria a lot. And it's just, yeah, just a huge portfolio. And then just to have almost like a side gig or just, yeah, any time. Absolutely. It's a, and honestly, just to have the, the underworld podcast, just like, oh, yeah, by the way, this is my voice.

This is what I like to talk about, not what I'm getting paid for. So it's, you know, it's just fun things real quick. I mean, I do want to add in like we are trying to get paid off it, you know, I'm on. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn't mean that well, but it's that's the thing that happens when you get a little older in history, right? You know, you can't really make it a labor of love if you want to have a

sustainable income with freelance journalism, independent journalism. It's a, you know, Jake, Henry had a popular front is a, is a good friend. And we talk about all this as well. It's like, you kind of have to, you know, you got to earn, because it's different when you're 25 and you're just trying to make a name for yourself. And when you're 35 and you want to like have a stable income and a family and a house and all that, you know, so like the, the underworld podcast is not like, it's not something I'm doing for, for passion or for, for joy.

Like I enjoy the kind of work I'm doing. But if I wasn't getting paid for it, I would, I would stop doing it. And we do want to get paid a lot more for it. So patreon.com says on the world podcast, if you, uh, you know, if you're looking to get some bonus content and things like that. Absolutely. Uh, when did you first cross paths with Jake? Cause I heard you guys have been friends for a little while now.

You know, we didn't, I don't think we met until 2015 when I was passing through, uh, London. I had been on assignment in Iraq and Sinjar and was editing my piece there. But we started talking a couple of years before that. Jake's just really good at, um, you know, he's, he's really good at getting in with people before he meets them through online, you know, stuff in general. And he's just a fucking fascinating dude.

He was very smart. He reached out to me. He really liked the work that I've been doing. Uh, he hadn't been to Syria then and he really liked the work that I am doing, um, in Syria and some of the reporting I had done out there. So we just started talking by that. And he was just like, you know, a young, like really hungry guy who, who wanted to be just kind of working, was just starting out to do it.

And he was super talented and we just kind of connected on that. And I think we, you know, we don't, we're not, um, 100% of everything. We share a lot of similarities in how we view things. And, uh, you know, just kind of went up from there. And I've been really impressed with, uh, you know, he started popular front before we started underworld. We started doing the Patreon thing and then the sort of independent reporting thing in that way.

Um, I think before a lot of people, and I think we're all just really impressed with what he's built. And then when I was getting started, he was someone that I turned to for advice. You know, it was kind of like a reversal in that way because he, you know, built this thing out of nothing. And he knew how to handle Patreon, editing, all that stuff. And we started underworld with like, you know, we weren't backed by him. We had nothing, you know, it was just me and my apartment and Sean and his and

going off some of the work that we'd already done. You know, I had a friend who, my friend Dale, who was an audio producer, was actually on the last episode cause Sean couldn't make it. And, um, you know, we can start from nothing and it's really beneficial to talk to folks like Jake, who we're able to build this thing up. Even when it comes to the getting merch and stuff like that, you know, he's someone who is always quick to, to offer advice and also, you know, he built this huge audience and he was more than happy to like, um, you know,

he's not going to promote you for enough for, for like, if you're not doing the work or if you're not doing anything good, but you know, he was someone that I felt comfortable bringing on the podcast and reaching out to to help us get our name out there. And he did that. And, um, I still, you know, to this day, I people be like, oh, I found you guys through Jake. So, um, like forever grateful for, for what he did with, uh, with all that.

Yeah. Jake's ability just to reach out and give you a pointer is definitely humblings. Like, thanks man. I really appreciate it. Like two, two weeks ago, I did a podcast with Sam Black. He's the guy that does the music for, and I posted it. Yeah. Phenomenal music.

It's just to find out he does it on like a demo music maker on his computer. Just in bed, it blew my mind, but Jake hit me up through the popular front account and went like, Hey man, fix your mic. You know, it's great, great content. You just need to sound a little better. And I was like, Hey, thanks. Like I'm going to take the advice. It's not, uh, something I'm going to blow off real quick.

I just, uh, it's more like an American focus, organized crime. Yes or no. Hatfields and McCoy's cause that was just two families going at it. Was that organized crime or is that just something? You know, I, I don't know exactly if that's something I've looked into too, too carefully, but it was, I think just this like, um, you know, I just read this book, um, I think it's called American nations and it's a distillation of, of the different regions in America and how they came to be and why they are what they are.

And it talks about how, you know, in Apple age, you had these people coming down. He calls them borderlanders that were in the fringes and the borders in the United Kingdom, Scottish, Irish, British on all those borders. And they just come from like hundreds of years of, um, you know, of war and, and fighting and battling for everything. And they were a fiercely independent people and they brought that sort of clan structure to the U S and, uh, the Hatfields and McCoy's were a reflection of that, that mentality.

Um, suddenly it wouldn't necessarily organize crime, but it's kind of like, uh, you know, it is a product of this environment that these people came up in generations and, uh, they brought that with them to the U S. I don't know. I've always been fascinated by that, that aspect of the U S and Apple age. And just in general, people coming over here from other countries and how that contributes to, to the society and how it raises up. And we do a lot of that work, especially like I do a lot of stories on, on gangs

in New York, right? Throughout history, whether it's like, uh, murdering in the 1920s that were Jewish, Italian, born to kill, like I talked about, um, the Chinatown, the new Chinatown gangs of the 70s, early 70s, or like the ghost shadows, or even the earlier Chinatown gangs, the Tongs, uh, you have the Russians that came over in the nineties and the Albanians are on the same time. And it's just really interesting to see, you know, all these groups that come over here and, uh, and, and you could look at it as like, uh, like, uh, it'd be

the kind of thing that people point out to, right? And they want to cause, um, people to target ethnicity or a group, right? That always happens. But in reality, I think of it as like a unifying force, right? All of these groups come over here for various immigration patterns, and they're all, you know, very poor and marginalized. And they all don't, no one gets hit an opportunity in New York, right? When you come to New York is a fucking grind.

And most of these groups come in 90%, 95% of the people that come from these groups are law abiding and just trying to make it any way they can. But you do have this, this underworld that creeps up because people are, their opportunities are shunt data and they're poor and they're stuck in these crummy neighborhoods and poverty. And it, this is something that's gone on for hundreds of years in New York, right? And I'm sure in London, I'm sure it's the same other cities as well. And you see these groups rise up and they bring their organized crime

groups with them or they, they, they generate here. And I don't know, I've just always found it really, uh, really fascinating. And, um, it's almost like a clashing of cultures because you have, say you have all of Western Europe or just Europe in general, and they're just mixing in New York. And this confined little area where it's safe, historically, the French and the British didn't go along and the Italians and the Greeks didn't get along. If they move over to the USA in 1870 to like 1920 or something like that,

they're going to go, wow, I guess it's everyone or me versus everybody. I got to find someone else who's like me. So it's just, and what I did culturally, it's just comforting to have like historically like, Hey, you know, if I'm Italian, I'm going to have to go hang out with the Italians because no one really seems to like them over in Europe. I'm going to have to find someone here. And it's just, you know, that big window of 1870 to like 1930 before everything got crazy in World War II.

It was, yeah, especially in New York, you know, just a lot going on there. And then it's bled over and say like Chicago or Detroit or LA or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you see it in all these, it's not just then too. You know, it's like different, different time periods have different immigration patterns and that sort of, you know, that's one, that one thing would organize crime and just what these people go through.

It always sort of holds, you know, they're always, you can look at what people say now about, about Mexicans and, and like, you know, Dominicans or whoever else, and they were saying the same thing about Jews, Italians and Irish a hundred years ago, or the same thing about the Chinese 40 years. You know, it's all just everything follows these very similar patterns. I've always been fascinated by that. And we try to, you know, obviously with a crime podcast, you want, people want it to be sexy, right?

You want to talk about cocaine trafficking and violence and what else, but we try to sneak in some of those, um, some of those, those insights along with like terrible jokes and the people seem to enjoy it. So that's pretty good. Yeah. One thing I always think that's very interesting, especially like post war World War one is the fact that a lot of veterans came back almost disillusioned with the country that they came back to and how the government

was treating them and say, like the show, Peaky blinders is largely fictionalized, but it's definitely a real idea that Irish men were under the crown before World War one, went to fight in France, came back. What do you mean? I don't have a home. Guess I'm living in Birmingham and I got to slug it out because the English certainly don't like me and I don't like them. So you got to carve out your own little area and it's, you know, it's

anything from post-American civil war, organized crime, you know, moving south with carpetbaggers or heading out west, creating your own towns or, um, shit, I mean, post Vietnam, everyone coming back going, Oh, well, guess the government doesn't take care of me. Guess I'm going to get really into drugs. So it's just, are they ready? Are they ready into drugs there? You know, but that's a big, uh, 100% when a lot of them came back and, um,

yeah, it's, I don't know, man, all, everything's interconnected and it's just, it's fascinating too. I actually do enjoy doing this research and learning about this stuff. So maybe I was, I was being, it was adored a bit later when I said I don't, but I do enjoy reading all this stuff and diving into it. Um, I, of course, you know, I say reluctant podcaster cause I, I, I think I'm the only thing I like doing is being in the field. You know, I'm actually doing the real work as opposed to like gathering

sources and putting it together, um, from, from the comfort of your own home. But, uh, you know, it is what it is and you got to do what you got to do. It's definitely better than phoning it in. Just rehash, rehashing everything you already know 60 times and you're like, hopefully people like this one. So many of these vid YouTube things and podcasts are just like basically one article or like Wikipedia and they're just very low effort. Mm hmm.

So it's like my background is all source intelligence analysis and you can't base any form of thought into a single report. So it's like, you need at least two or three verification. Yeah. Of course, like you're a journalist and understanding things, but it's, you go on Instagram or YouTube or any podcast and they're just, like, or like a true crime or like, here's a rumor that, and then they just jump to conclusions and try to make it fluff it up and makes it look

sexy for everybody, which is probably wrong. But yeah, yeah. And we'll be pretty, we're pretty honest, I think on the podcast, like if something is like, we might miss things here and there or get a few things wrong, but we'll always own up to it. And then we'll also, we can't verify something. We'll be like, yeah, we couldn't verify this, but this is what people are saying.

So, you know, although present both sides, you know, someone says this thing happened and someone says this thing happened. Not only like, oh, both sides thing was like, you know, not to do anything like that. I'm talking about when it comes to crime stuff or like motives for this crime or who they think did it. Uh, so we tend to be, I think we're, we're pretty honest with that. It is a lot of work though, you know, the reason I, I brought on a partner

like Sean is cause he can write his own episode. So you think about it like, you know, these episodes will come to be 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 word scripts. If you need to research a topic, gather notes and then write it up. Like you're talking about a minimum of a week of work, you know, and these aren't full-time jobs for us. We're not earning enough for it to be a full-time job. So, you know, I try to do two a month, Sean does two a month.

We throw in some interviews for the bonus Patreon and stuff like that. But it is, uh, it's excessive. You know, so we can't do the level of like pristine fact-checking that I would like to, but I think on the overall, we do a very good job of it. And we're very conscious of like, you know, we still are journalists at heart. And we're pretty conscious, conscientious of not, um, not exaggerating, not being hyperbolic and not getting things wrong just because it'll make the story better. Yeah.

You just want to fudge the numbers, then your credibility is diminished because you were trying to like fluff the numbers. So, but that, so I've been reading a book recently, or I've been reading a book this week called Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Maybe you may or may not have heard of that one. I have. Yeah, I read it a long time ago. Yeah, I'm, I've read it a few years ago, but I'm rereading it.

And so it's just the idea of, and this is like the full scope. We were talking about it earlier, the government meddling and creating organized crime of a conscious ejector getting hired by, you know, the peace corps on behalf of the NSA to go bankrupt countries. By the idea that it's a, oh, it's not government meddling. It's just a private company that got in way over its head. Like, what is the right and left for something like that? Is that organized crime?

Or is that something completely to that? Like industrial espionage, industrial overreach? Like that's one of those weird gray areas where, um, we, we Americans, Westerners, we're very good at that post war. And then today the Chinese are very good at it with their belt and road initiative. So it's, yeah, you just throw different titles on it. I think, you know, I read that book. I remember being somewhat, I think there was a certain level of, um, of, uh, I would

say criticism leveled out at some of the things that he said. And, and, and, you know, I think he, he, he got a little carried away in some stuff. Um, and it also read to me like this thing where like this guy was just trying to be like, uh, you know, people, people will do 20 or 30 years of like horrific shit and then write a book about, oh, how they're really sorry about it. And actually everyone else involved is evil, but I'm, I'm the guy exposing it to you right now. So it kind of read like that to me.

You know, like, uh, yeah. Like in the first chapter, he says how he wants to be James Bonnie is like, and then I became James Bond through this when I went to, uh, you know, Borneo. And I'm like, all right, man. But when I read it years ago, I was superficial going, yeah, I read reviews. And there's a lot of people in the NSA or former government employees going, this guy's full of shit. But then as I look deeper into China's current actions in Africa, I'm going,

actually, I think this guy is probably 50 to 75% truthful about what he was saying, because a lot of it's just adding up these days. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, I mean, I, I don't know. I, uh, I would, one thing I always make sure to do when I, when I read a book like that, um, you also notice too, that books don't get fact checked. Most books don't get fact checked.

So one of my likes to do when I read it, when I read a book like that is, um, as soon as I finish, if I really buy into it, uh, or if I'm like blown away by something, I'll, I'll go and I'll look up criticisms of it and, um, and try to make my, my value judgments that way. You know, so I'm not, cause it's very easy coming from someone who, who has made doc and documentaries, your documentaries are so full of shit. Half the time, like coming from someone who, who, who's made them in minor news oriented, right?

So it's not like, uh, true crime nonsense or some, some, you know, something like that. Are you saying you fluff the numbers to make the documentary better? No, I don't, there's not much opportunity to do it when you do like news reports, you know, but like there is such, uh, uh, method now and it's become endemic too with podcasting of selective fact breaking of selective editing, just trying to make sure that everything conforms to the narrative because people, you know, under pressure to make this into a story or have the narrative that they want

to get out there. Um, and I've always thought the markup, like a good journalist or a good writer was, you know, you might have your point, but you're also going to bring the stuff that contradicts that. Or that maybe, you know, and people will make their own conclusions. If you're right, you're right. But if you are cherry picking facts and hiding stuff that, that contradicts your narrative, you're just a bullshit artist and you're not a

journalist. I think you see that a whole lot in, in the documentary film world, um, with books like that and with podcasts in general. And it's a, you know, we all have our biases. I definitely have mine too. I have the things that I believe, but I try to always make sure that, um, you know, I, uh, I'll go stuff. I'll, I'll, I'll, if things come to light that, that, that, you know, are

gonna, gonna maybe make my narrative 85% true and not 100% true, 65% or whatever. I'm going to bring those out there in my work. Otherwise I'm not good at what I do. Absolutely. It's the word narrative. It just has such a weight these days where 30 years ago, you could just report on, you know, the invasion of the Iraq and the Gulf War and go like, yeah, it's pretty black and white.

The Americans invaded Iraq because Saddam invaded Kuwait. Then these days it's like, all right, well, we have two political parties down the lot, down the middle. There's no gray area anymore. Like you're either with us or against us. And then at that point you're like, well, then you got to pick a side or you can go like the freelance route on, say, guys like Atlas news or Jake Hanrahan, who of course they have their own personal bias, but they're just

presenting facts and they're going to go, yeah. And the cultural zeitgeist are going to be put off into the corner. So it's just that weird dynamic. Oh, I do think, I do think dance around that one thing I think I disagree with those guys as well is that I don't think that, you know, people are like, oh, the media, there's the media that, and when they say, they're saying that they're referring to like specific op-ed columnists or like people on cable news who are pundits, you know, the actual reporters that I know who work

for the mainstream media that are in the places that I've been to, whether it's Ukraine or Gaza or Central African Republic or Burma, they do a phenomenal job at all of them, right? And there's some nonsense that gets out there. But a lot of them really understand, especially the writers, not nonsense. I mean, the writers are the ones who really understand the subject. The print reporters, they have read books on everything. They've talked to a million people.

They understand the subject far better than most people. Like the stuff that's coming out, you know, the people I'm talking about who work for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times or, you know, places like that, they're really good at what they do. And they work really, really hard to do things the right way. And I think it's, you know, this whole thing that like, oh, you can only be independent if you're independent, meaning whatever, it's kind of nonsense. Like, look, if you are one of these reporters, yes, you've got to deal with

editors and yes, you have to try to maintain this sort of balance that comes with being a mainstream journalist. But these are the ones who break stories. Like these are the ones who get the stuff on the ground. And yet they get stuff wrong sometimes. Like it happens to everyone. But the majority of people who complain about that sort of thing, the mainstream media, are people who just use their reporting in general, like when it

suits them, you know, they're not out there actually on the ground getting stuff, right? They're just, you know, using the reporting that these people actually do. And I know these people, they're very good at what they do. They're not, they're not bullshitting you. You know, they're, they're, they're, they're phenomenal reporters. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I've mentioned this multiple times on the podcast, but J.K.

Hammerhand said it best where he always goes, fuck you. I'm in the field. You're behind a computer. Like that's pretty much a good statement to throw out there when it comes to reporting. It's a very, very Jake Lyon. Oh yeah. Just no punches with help.

He's just all like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, it's crazy. So, I mean, we talked about this right before we started, but like leaning into a post war, because you were in Ukraine and whatnot, report on these things and just thinking about. So for the listeners who may or may not have seen that there was a video of a Russian soldier conscript volunteer doesn't matter. He had no legs.

He was disabled trying to get on a bus and the bus driver wasn't letting him on and the local Russian civilians were just essentially bullying and laughing at this guy and he was going, Oh, I fought for our country. Oh, I'm doing good things. Why won't you let me on the bus? And they went, you gave your legs for your own reasons, not mine. I don't care. I'm not taking care of you.

And so the book, Zinky Boys, that was about the Soviet Afghan war, about all the Soviet after Soviet soldiers that fought in the war, just in atrocious conditions, almost similar to what's going on in Ukraine, came back to Russia. We're given no medical support, no government support outside of a one month's paycheck and told to keep quiet. And so they would go home and then, you know, they go back to their village or their city or wherever they're from. And since there are soldiers in one aspect, it's completely different from

the West where the West goes, Hey, you know, soldiers that those are good guys, but in the East they go, Oh, you're a soldier because you're worthless and you lost to a couple of farmers in Ukraine. Guess you're less than worthless. So after the Soviet Afghan war, all these veterans came together because no one in society wanted them. They got really into organized crime. And after the wall came down and after the Soviet Union collapsed, that's

for that idea of like this, just as brute strength Soviet or ex-Soviet mafia member with full of tattoos and a businessman in an aisle 76 shows up and just starts essentially just capitulate or rolling up and consolidating their forces in the post-Soviet world. And I'm just thinking, asking you, because you're way into the weeds of the organized crime side of where do you think for all these soldiers that are just got back from Ukraine, like, where do you think something like that's going to go?

Yeah. I mean, I, I, I have no idea to be honest with you. I mean, I know that, um, if you're ever in McMafia or the Vori book by Mark Galliotti, I think it talks about Vori. Yeah, yeah. McMafia is an excellent one too. That really goes into that. Um, you know, those guys came back.

I don't think the soldiers were the leaders, right? They were just like the enforcers. They were the ones who were killing and getting killed in the streets from what I understand. Oh yeah. Cause they were soldiers and they came back and went, I just want to be a soldier. I don't want to be a captain.

Exactly. And they had no other way to earn a job. And you have these, you know, mafioso groups starting up as the, uh, as everything collapsed around the Soviet Union and they were the ones who were the enforcers. So yeah, I mean, look, it's honestly, I have no idea what Russia's going to be like in six months to a year. You know, are they getting affected?

I think they're, they're taking a lot of hits from the sanctions. Um, yeah, Putin still has a lot, a lot of support. Unfortunately, uh, and they're definitely, they're getting quite, uh, I wouldn't say that, um, you know, Ukraine's taking a lot of hits too, but the Russians are getting decimated as well. And they're spending a lot and they're losing a lot of people. And, um, I just don't know, you know, people offer these predictions about, oh, he's going to fall or the country's going to be, uh, there's going to be a

ton of instability and blah, blah, blah. I don't know. You know, he essentially is a mafia state, right? You're not getting, you're not getting big and organized crime without, without Putin and his people is okay at this point. Um, so I don't know. I definitely think that, that, you know, having a whole bunch of like ptsd out veterans with, um, with, you know, war experience, come back to a

country where there aren't that many opportunities. That's a recipe for disaster and it's a recipe for violence as well. Yeah. Especially if someone like Putin, who number one identified post-soviet union that nobody treats the veterans properly. So he takes care of the army and the veterans. So he has all of these combat experience males on his side and two, he has no appointed successor.

So option A, that state breaks up. So the asylum just goes tits up and then everyone's fighting for power or B, we get an even worse Putin power who was like, Oh, I just fought in Chechnya twice. Georgia and Ukraine. I know what I'm doing. So it's, and there's all those rumors that Putin was put in power through the mafia's in the late 80s, early 90s anyways, but hey, that's just hearsay. There's nothing actually concrete, but you could always assume.

But yeah, it's just a, I don't know if a worse one can, because no matter what, I mean, Russian power is still taking a fucking, you know, heavy loss. I don't know it's going to be years and years before they can get their military even back to the capabilities of what it was six months ago. And as we've seen, even when it was six months ago, it was not that impressive. So, yeah, I mean, who knows what's going to happen, man? I honestly, I can't really offer a guess because it's just, it's just too, I think anyone offering a guess to do is a little, getting a little carried away

with their own prediction abilities, to be honest with you. Yeah, it was supposed to last three days, right? Yeah, well, that too. Well, whatever you do up in a rush or who knows? Oh, yeah, it's yeah, that place is a black hole. I mean, you haven't heard anything about the guys getting back until yesterday when they were like, oh, they're veterans are treating like trash. But it's like, hey, whatever.

There were those stories of like people who were the parents of veterans getting or like wives getting handed like, you know, a very minuscule amount of money or like a lot or something like that. You know, so nothing, nothing where it appears like they're being taken part of. And there's been some reporting, I think, at times might have had something about going to these villages where there are fresh graves and talking to people about the people that are fighting there, something along those lines. But nothing, yeah, we're meant to be seeing how, how overall the situation is going to be.

Yeah, absolutely. It's just, like you said, it's really hard to make a prediction. I'm sure you could throw a Hail Mary and go like, within this amount of time, this guy is going to win or this guy will quit. But I want to like pivot because I saw earlier, you reshared a video of Alex Jones on Twitter. That guy is. It'd be fair.

It was insane. So just throw it out the resharing video of Alex Jones, like I was promoting Alex Jones. Oh, yeah, yeah. But it's trial is trial getting eviscerated on the on the stands. I want to be very clear about that. All right. Yeah. It was a I've been watching the trial just passively during my day job and what not. And it's just insane to see this guy put in a corner and just buckled.

Just yeah, it's it's yeah, it's it's one of those where, of course, we're in America in the West and it's like, oh, free speech, this free speech, that where you can go on SNL and say nine or seven 11. Yeah, I'm saying nine 11 never happened. But then Alex Jones has the same thing going, this guy's got to go. I know it's one of those fine lines of I don't think it's that final line, man. Like no one's he's not getting thrown in jail, right? This is a civil suit, right?

This is for this is for what I have noticed. This isn't this isn't a free speech issue. You know, free speech revolts that you're not being allowed to say it because you'll get thrown in jail, right? This isn't this is a civil suit. This is not a criminal suit. No one's saying he can't say these things, but there are consequences for the things that you do say.

And if what you say deformation, yeah, right. And if what you say encourages people to like harass and threaten and ruins the lives of people, especially people who are parents of children that were killed, like you got it. You're being held responsible for that. You're being held responsible for that financially. You know, this isn't this isn't a free speech issue. Free speech means you're not allowed to say things.

You're allowed to say whatever the fuck you want. You just got to deal with the consequences. And if the consequences aren't being thrown in jail, like, well, you know, it's what's the issue here? It's not a criminal suit. Yeah, it is really funny just to watch the videos of where he thinks he's the camera's not rolling anymore. And he stands up and he just does this big lap of like, you know,

I think I'm an artist, too. I know how to manipulate data and just stuff like that, going, you're still in the courtroom. It's you're still being filmed. I don't understand why you think you just as soon as there's a recess. He's not the sharpest guys on the stand. I feel like, you know, I haven't followed it too closely, but I'll follow the people that are live tweeting it like Anna

Mellon and Ben, Ben Collins over at the NBC, who does great work. And yeah, it just seems like he's saying a lot of stuff that he thinks is helping him, but in reality, it's like doing the opposite of helping him, you know? You know, like how the judge just goes like, Hey, this is not your TV show. You just can't. Yeah. You've lied three times on a row from the last hour. You can just watch her getting more exasperated or exasperated like she's dealing with a child.

It's pretty, um, yeah, it's pretty interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, I guess, like last thing, like his, just even his defense are going, we're not going to win. So we're not going to put it in the effort. It's we're just going to let this guy sing. Yeah. I mean, I think you're just bad lawyers. You know, I think it might be that might be one thing where it's all he could afford. No, he has plenty of money.

That's what the trial revealed. He was bringing in $800,000 a day. Something, I mean, they brought in a site brought in hundreds of millions of dollars over the past couple of years. He's got plenty of money. He just has a shitty lawyer because he's a moron. Like he's going to be even fine. These guys, he's fantastically wealthy.

They were, they, they, you know, like his whole claim is that he's bankrupt. Or he's going to be bankrupted by these decisions. Hopefully he will be, but like, you know, this site brought in from whatever fucking pills he was selling or like, you know, giant tubs of, of, of food for the apocalypse, like he was bringing in millions of dollars a week. So his whole thing is like saying that he's broke. I mean, it's effectively perjury. And, you know, the whole thing recently is they, his lawyer accidentally

sent all his text messages where he is quite open about his financials. And they're, they're, oh yeah. And then he just soundingly well, like he multiple text regarding January 6th. And they're going like, Hey, this is going to be another trial, two pound. Like that's like completely other criminal. I mean, that's different, but it's going on now. Like he was bringing in a fight, like a fantastic amount of money. It really pays to be a bullshit artist.

I always forget that he was really into supplements. He was like, this is how you get jacked because he was a mild bodybuilder in like the early nineties. Well, all these guys, all these like grifter type sell like supplements and, and like apocalypse, uh, apocalypse, um, fucking, you know, kids and mercury for curing it. Like they're all grifters. Essentially, they're the right wing male version of like goop by

Gwyneth Paltrow, right? It's all just like, it's all just like health nonsense that, uh, that they sell to their gullible fans. So like, that is, it's a great way to play style. They promote fear. Well, I guess Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't promote fear. Maybe she promotes fear of like chemical, whatever you don't say. Um, they promote, uh, you know, he promotes this sort of like

apocalypse coming your week, blah, blah, blah stuff. And then pumps this stuff. That's all, all like, you know, basically nonsense to people to buy. And as idiot fans buy it. Yeah. It's speaking like culturally in general, I was watching a documentary recently or like a YouTube documentary ticket as you well, where they was talking about like just the idea of counter or subcultures seemingly dying that it's

almost like a culturally bankrupt entirety of the world where everyone's going like, everyone likes McDonald's. Everyone likes Marvel movies. Everyone likes the same music. There's no ambiguity. There's no like dialed in corner of like the internet of, you know, like punk rock in the eighties was really cool. And this is how they dress.

And this is what they did. It's just so commercialized across the board that it's like hordes of, uh, I guess culturally bankrupt individuals, like, or 20 somethings are going to go. Like, yeah, I like Alex Jones and I like lifting and that's just going to be everything I believe in. And then on the other side of the spectrum, it's going like, yeah, I like revolutions. I'm going to get really into Chick-Veara.

And it's just like, there's no room for right or left or these days. It kind of seems that there's no like subcultures. It's just like, yes, believe now. Is that, is that true though? Cause you have like, you know, how many like weirdo things are there on Reddit of people getting into like really, really weird stuff and like finding the people that they do not, I mean, that's like the one positive in the minute, right?

It's finding people that are into the same weird shit that you are. So I don't think it's as fun or as cool as maybe it was 30 years ago. And like, you actually had to know something, right? Or you would be like, need some alternative weekly to find out where the meeting was and it was harder. And it was like, it was more like, if you found someone who was into the same thing that you were, where it was like very, you know, it was a huge moment. But now I feel like there's definitely still that sort of, that sort of thing.

It's just, you know, the internet's changed a lot of it. But, um, yeah, I mean, look at like, uh, like furries, right? Aren't there like fucking thousands of furries online? Like, I mean, we talk about like weirdo subcultures, doesn't get much more niche than that. And they're like, uh, you know, or just stuff like that. I don't know. It's all, I'd have to see the whole article, but I kind of feel like, like I

get it. It's definitely not as cool as I think it was. That could be getting older or as fun as it was, discover something new or be into some like little genre. But, um, I definitely think it's still around, right? With the internet or, or lots of stuff. Or maybe you just got to go to Japan or like there and go all that, you know, yeah, man, I used to live in Japan at that places.

Did you really? It's, yeah, I lived there for a year and that was awesome. It was like living in 1950 and 2050 at the same time. It was not 2000. It was, it was Blade Runner and a battleship to Potemkin. It was, it was everything at all, everywhere at once. It was, you could go honestly, it's a great time. It's a real good, it's a real fun place.

Like the, like the rockabilly thing, right? Like the Japanese rockabilly. So you would like dress like 50s, greasers and stuff like that. Yeah, it is. A different is the bizarre is the only word I can use to describe it. It's like they love everything so much. And just like in America or in the West, you go like, yeah, Star Wars, that's a good movie.

Like that's pretty much like when you think of science fiction, you're like, oh, Star Wars or Star Trek, you go to Japan and they're going like, no, it's a Kira, that's ours. Like that is, that is our movie. And you're like, oh yeah, anime. That's a huge thing here. And I forgot you guys have this really fantastic movie called the Kira. That's also anime.

So kind of like it's multiculturalism at its finest. It's just everything just at once. Yeah, it sounds awesome. I'd say it, man. Yeah, it's a great time. I mean, you landed the Tokyo airport while you're waiting there. Like, do you want to play Nintendo with me? But yeah, that sounds awesome.

Oh yeah, Tokyo, great time. New Year's Eve, can't beat it. But so what's the what's the future look like for you, man? That's a good question, man. I don't I don't know. I am, you know, we're keeping up with the underworld. We're we're negotiating a new contract now. So hopefully we'll have something that I think pays us a little bit better

and we can we can do OK. I've been talking to some folks too that are doing their own sort of podcast, but more, you know, they're like heavily produced eight episode arcs. Gotcha. You know, they're backed by a studio and, you know, ours is storytelling, right? This is more mixing interviews and script and that sort of thing. So I've got a couple of things like that that are on the horizon,

potentially some TV stuff, you know, stuff's always in development. But yeah, man, just just trying to figure it out and find a way to make cool things that don't get ruined by the people who sign the checks and also have them sign the checks. It's basically where I'm at. Yeah, sounds about a sounds fantastic. Honestly, like just just reading the work you do, it's really good. And do you think you're going to get back into the ground?

I'm like, I don't know, Africa, because that's always just a hot spot for activity. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of places I still would like to go. You know, it always comes down to to financing and the days of like buying a one way ticket and going somewhere. Well, I guess I did that in Ukraine, but that was more of like a sort of climactic, you know, situation involved in my life. I was like, fucking, I'm going. But doing that in general is like just not sustainable when you're

when you're trying to earn a living. So I got to figure out that. But yeah, I'd love to, man. I mean, that would be that'd be the dream. You know, find a way to just do a show where where I get to do stuff like that way more often than I am right now. How was it when you got back to the US after going to Ukraine, they detain you and say, like, what were you doing there?

No, no, no, no, no. The only time really. Yeah, I've rarely been attained for anything. Maybe just when I came back from covering Ebola, they they had a bunch of questions. But for the most part, no, I get them coming back into the US. I'm I always. Yeah, I'm pretty even when I went into Syria,

maybe when I got back from Syria, I was held for like a brief second or two. But nothing, nothing too, nothing too crazy. And I just don't think they respect my work enough to do that, to be honest with you. Gotcha. Yes. It's not like you took up arms and went over there and fought for another government or anything, but yeah, looking back on the Ebola reporting, it was because it's been years now, but it was always funny to look back and think that the headlines were something like the United States

sends hundreds of paratroopers to combat Ebola. It's just the way that it made it sound like they're going to go shoot to the air. It's like, I think you guys should word your headlines better. There's definitely better ways to, you know, like write these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like whatever catches the eye, I guess. I mean, that's how it goes with headlines, man. Oh, absolutely.

It's, you know, just go to Twitter, sit on that for 20 minutes. Yeah, exactly. It's just a website of nothing but headlines with no context. The good way of putting it. Oh, yeah, I mean, so here's like a fringe thought I've had for a few years. If you ever read anything by Hemingway, how he just writes short, direct sentences. Yeah, he was ahead of the curve. He just wrote a tweet thousands of times, just an isolated thought.

And followed by an isolated thought telling a grand story, but that's nothing different than a thread these days. And I think it's kind of crazy that no one really reads books anymore, but everyone seems to like Hemingway. And I think there's a direct correlation or isolated thought. I got everything I needed out of this one chapter. All right. But yeah, I mean, I haven't read Hemingway in a while, but now I'm tempted

to go back and read The Sun Also Rises and see what comes out of it. You know, that are for whom the bell tolls. You're like, this guy was a veteran, the most interesting man in the world and was ahead of the curve by 65 years. But but all right, man. Yeah. I mean, unless you have a huge topic, you want to discuss for the next 10 minutes. No, I got to I got to run, actually, but this was great.

Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Anytime for anyone who wants to do my website is DannyGoJournalist.com. I don't think my Ukraine stuff or the last couple of documentaries I did about crime. I did one on Fentanyl in St. Louis for Unreported World in the UK and went on on gun crime in Philadelphia for ITV news. I don't think they're up there yet, but you could probably find them by

searching on YouTube and Underworld Podcast anywhere you get podcast. Patreon.com, Stasian World Podcast for bonus interviews and things like that and to support us. And yeah, thanks so much for having me on, man. This was fun. I don't get to do podcasts like this a lot. Well, it was really fun. Just a and I had a kind of pull threads for an hour.

So I got a I went a little little nutty, but I hope you guys enjoyed it. And thanks so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, man, I really appreciate it. And I'll talk to you later. All right. Take care.