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Life advice, a cop story and a prison story.

Eleven minutes walking a Denver street with Eric, part five of a run with him, most of it stories told with the camera keeping up. He opens on what he wants out of a day: “I like living my life and not having to worry about shit”. His brother and both sisters were much older and are gone, and four nephews are out there somewhere. “I got 4 nephews. I’m pretty sure they’re all kicking it somewhere.”

The advice the video is named for comes early, in pieces. “when you’re going through life and something significant happens in it, at least try to learn from it so you don’t make the same mistake”, then “try to see it always from the other person’s point of view”, then the part the title takes. Paying it forward, he says, is “the simplest and easiest thing, really”, just “being decent towards somebody else and helping them out”. He is watching the clock: “But I also gotta go ’cause that cop will come back.”

Asked about the police in Denver he goes straight to the worst one he has. Two weeks after “I just got done getting my toes cut off, amputated”, he was sitting with friends by a park on Colfax when a motorcycle cop “kicked me in the goddamn foot”. Four officers put him on the concrete, and “I started yelling, stop resisting! Stop resisting!” The punchline is his: “I’m not talking to you, you dumb sons of bitches. I’m talking to the concrete.”

A woman walks up offering a cigarette and a puff of what she calls lemon weed, and Eric makes it a small economics lesson. “barter is always the best bet”, he says, because “not everybody can always afford to pay, but some people find a way to make do”.

The last third is the night he first went to prison, on a road out towards Tulsa with two cases of Budweiser in the back seat. “there’s no way I’m not getting arrested”, he remembers thinking, and then he ran anyway. “I was sitting there listening to 102.3 and breaking the law, breaking the law.” He meant to claim the car was stolen. Instead “they pitted my ass”, it rolled “like 4 or 5 times”, and a patrolman came down the bank with a .357 Magnum telling him not to move. What he kept is a number: “I made it 78 miles in 32 minutes.” Asked for last words for the world he keeps them plain, “try to find the goodness in it. And think about the people that are in it”, then goes back to where he started and adds a line he credits to Steve McQueen.

What is in it

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Transcript

Transcribed and speaker-separated with AssemblyAI from the original audio, so nothing is masked. The letters are the model's speaker labels, not names; fillers are dropped by the model. Names corrected. Published in full so it can be read, searched and quoted. Search every transcript →

0:10AI like living my life and, you know, uh, not having to worry about shit, I guess. You know, it’s -- It’s weird because I think my brother was so much older than me. And then both my sisters were too, you know. So you’re the youngest? Yeah, but, uh --

0:39BIs anybody else in your family still alive?

0:43AYeah, I’m sure there are. You know, I got 4 nephews. I’m pretty sure they’re all kicking it somewhere. I hope so anyway. Oh yeah.

0:54CHell yeah.

0:57ABut, um, Uh, when you’re going through life and something significant happens in it, at least try to learn from it so, you know, you don’t make the same mistake. You know, twice, you know. You know, that’s -- if I had to give advice for, you know, try to learn from your mistakes. Yeah, you know, try to see it always from the other person’s point of view. And, you know, don’t -- don’t -- and pay it forward.

1:59CYou know?

1:59AWhat’s that?

2:00BYeah.

2:02AWell, that’s the simplest and easiest thing, really. You know? It’s just, um, you know, being decent towards somebody else and helping them out. I mean, you know, what the hell, man? That’s gotta be what it’s about. But I also gotta go ’cause that cop will come back.

2:31BWhat do you think about the cops here in Denver?

2:34AAll right, here’s the best cop story I got. I just got done getting my toes cut off, amputated, all right? And, uh, I ran into my friends and we was out in the middle of Oh, fucking, uh, we was right there on Colfax and Denver, sitting on this side of the park. All right, right there. And we were drunk. Right as many of us. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, all right, yeah, we was just right across. All right, right there. All right. I was like 2 weeks after I had my toes cut off and a motorcycle cop come up and kicked me in the feet. And I hopped up. You want water? And I’m not really sure how I hopped up because I, you know, it took me 25, 30 minutes in the morning to get up and stand, you know, on the help of the side of a building and shit, you know. But this motorcycle cop fucking kicked me in the goddamn foot.

4:06BI --

4:06AI’d be pissed.

4:09BI’d be livid.

4:09AI had 4 of them on me. I had one on each arm, and they had me down on the ground on concrete. And I started yelling, stop resisting! Stop resisting! And the cops was all looking at each other and they said, you stop resisting! I said, I’m not talking to you, you dumb sons of bitches. I’m talking to the concrete.

4:36CHi, can I buy a cigarette or would you like to puff my lemon weed? It’s lemon weed. Sweet, it’s so good. I’ll buy you another one.

4:48AThank you, I appreciate it. You’re okay.

4:51CYou can have a puff too. All you gotta do is just puff it.

4:58ANo, barter is always the best bet.

5:02COh yeah.

5:03AOh, you know, I mean, you know, not everybody can always afford to pay, but some people find a way to make do Hell yeah.

5:23BHe’s been letting me shoot a video with him. We walk around shooting like a vlog for the last like hour or so.

5:27COh yeah?

5:27BYeah, so I told him I got on the water and the smokes. Not from Philly.

5:31CYou’re from Philly? You should give what you’re filming.

5:33BOh yeah, yeah.

5:34CEverywhere, huh?

5:35BI mean, this is, this is where I started and I’m here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I’m okay, I’m okay. I appreciate it.

5:40COkay, I’ll go wash it.

5:43BYeah, all good, I promise.

5:45CAnd this is lemon, huh? It’s lemon flavored, huh? That shit’s good, huh? Yeah. Oh damn, thank you.

5:54BYeah, you take care. Be safe.

5:57AI got you, I got you. All right, cool. Thank you, thank you.

6:02BMost definitely, sir.

6:13AAll right, here’s something. All right, the night, man, I got thrown in prison for the first time.

6:29BOh, man.

6:32AUh, I was over by my friend’s house and I did a shot of dope and he was watching porno and it already smelled like lotion. I said, I gotta get the fuck outta here. So I was leaving and I was out there and it was raining like hell. And I pulled up on my Bartlesville on Highway 66, going on Highway 10 out towards Tulsa.

7:03BAll right.

7:06AAnd, uh, I had to pee and I stopped and I pulled over off the fucking road and I’d taken my seatbelt off and I was fucking putting the car in neutral All right, and Osage County Sheriff pulled up behind me and turned on his lights. All right.

7:30BMm-hmm.

7:30ANow, I was looking across the back seat at the fucking lights reflected in this motherfucker, all right? I had 2 cases of fucking Budweiser, one of them open, you know, one not. Oh God, you know, I mean, you know, there’s no way I’m not getting arrested.

7:49BYeah, yeah.

7:49AI mean, you know, all right, so I, I, I was sitting there listening to 102.3 and breaking the law, breaking the law. All right, I, I, I, the cop was walking up to the side of my car and breaking the law, breaking the law, and I just stuck a motherfucker a low And took off putting my seatbelt back on. And I thought I’ll get far enough ahead of him, I’ll just stop and pretend like somebody stole the car, you know? And, uh, they -- no, they, uh, they pitted my ass.

8:34BOh yeah?

8:35AHere’s the crazy part. I rolled, okay? But when it came to a stop, I was on the top of the car and the front bumper bumper slid down and then the airbag went off. So I like rolled like 4 or 5 times, you know, and then the airbag, right? And then I fucking -- I got out of this son of a bitch and I was crawling out of the top of the fucking car and there was a highway patrolman scrambling down the side with the .357 Magnum. And he said, if you fucking move, I’m gonna blow your goddamn head off.

9:12BOh, shit.

9:12Athe other head off.

9:13BImagine.

9:14AAnd I said, hey man, it’s cool, you got me.

9:17BOh yeah, that’s crazy. That’s a hell of a story.

9:21AI made it 78 miles in 32 minutes. It was on a training fucking deal.

9:29BCan you imagine that?

9:30ANo, when the, when the officers came back from their training, they saw my high-speed pursuit. There’s like you crazy son of a bitch. Hell yeah.

9:48BAnything, any last words for the world?

9:50AOh, try to find the goodness in it. And think about the people that are in it. Always pay it forward and look towards a better tomorrow, you know. Um, uh, I don’t want to be I’m sounding like that what’s-his-chick-off fucker gone to win, but, uh, more like Steve McQueen. What did Steve McQueen used to say? Give me some of that double-aught buck and that 12-gauge pump.

10:49BHell yeah.

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