WEBVTT - Introducing: Get the Money and Run - Teaser 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:05.160 Hi, Steve Fishman here with a bonus episode. So usually 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:08.480 we drop bonus episodes at the end of a show. 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:12.959 Today it's a little different. Today's bonus episode is to 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.560 introduce our next series, which is called Get the Money 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.840 and Run. It's the fourth season in our Burden Feed 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:24.360 and it's a fantastic story. It's about one of the 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.720 most daring bank robbers of his era. This bank robber 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:34.559 did it all disguises, body doubles, leaping counters, card chases, 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:39.080 captain mass games with the FBI. For me, it's a 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:44.200 kind of perfect show. It's entertaining, its illuminating and also 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:49.760 incredibly moving. It drops on the Burden Feed April twenty ninth, 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:55.320 and as always for subscribers, it's available early. It drops 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:59.880 April twenty second. Subscribers get all episodes all at once 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:04.480 and ad free to subscribe. Go to True Crime Clubhouse 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.600 on Apple Podcasts. To introduce the show, we're going to 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.280 talk with its creator, Ben Adair. Ben is one of 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:17.880 the pod versus most accomplished producers. You've probably listened to 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:22.080 one of his shows, among them Lost Hills, Strange Land, 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:26.200 Ripple and Pulse. The Untold Story and that's just a 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.880 few of them. Ben's going to take us through some 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.120 of the high points of the series, but I just 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.320 wanted to start with one of my favorite lines from 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:40.000 the podcast, and I guess one of the scariest. It's 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:45.600 from our bank robber slash star. Ben had just asked 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.360 him what got him started in the bank robbing business? 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:56.920 This was the thing that put me on the path 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:58.680 trying to murder my father. 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.639 Are we rolling? We're going there we go? 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:16.120 So how do you end up getting to Joe? Yeah? 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.799 So I was doing a podcast and this was before 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.799 podcasting was even really a thing, but I was doing 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.360 a podcast called first Time, Last Time, where I was 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.040 interviewing various people about the first times they do different 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.280 things and the last time they do that same thing. 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.600 And so I was just thinking to myself, one of 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:36.560 the hardest things to do for the first time must 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.720 be rob a bank, Right, how do you psyche yourself up? 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:42.960 How do you do how do you do that for 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.840 the first time? So I started poking around, you know, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.000 doing my research, and at the time that I wanted 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.080 to do this interview, there were essentially like three people 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.799 who were out about being bank robbers. One of them 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.359 was in Oklahoma, and he was a comedian who made 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:01.400 us stay end up routines about his life as a 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.080 bank robber with lots of jokes that were not very funny. 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:07.680 The second guy was a guy in Texas, and I 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:11.160 talked to that guy and I got the distinct feeling 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:13.800 as I was talking to him that he wasn't quite 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:18.200 done being a bank robber yet, and so the whole 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:19.800 idea of doing it for the first time you're doing 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.160 it for the last time didn't really work with him. 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.560 And then I found Joe's memoir and so I just 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:27.359 wrote him on Facebook and I was like, hey, I 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.280 would love to interview you. We met app in Oakland 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.400 and I interviewed him and the story was better than 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:36.320 I could have hoped for. 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.120 You must have thought when you heard him talk and 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.080 tell stories, you was that, oh my god, this guy 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:45.800 is amazing. What a gift. 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:46.200 Yeah. 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.120 Absolutely, I mean as a storyteller myself, Like you know, 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.040 we see each other and it's like, hey, I recognize. 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.920 I recognize how unique you are for sure. And I 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.040 had that from the moment I met Joe. Yeah, he's 0:03:58.080 --> 0:03:59.440 an extremely unique guy. 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.320 Joe is definitely a uniquely talented storyteller, the kind who 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.000 can take us inside inside a bank robbery and inside 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:13.600 his mind, and that mind ranges far and wide. In 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:19.400 this podcast, I will say that my experience of it is, Yeah, 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:26.000 there's overwhelming violence, sadness, tragedy. There's also a lot of hilarity. 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:34.760 There's a lot of fun in this podcast. Here's one example. 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.440 In this one, Joe is out on bail for one 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.720 set of robberies. He's not going to stop robbing, though, 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.120 but he wants to be careful, so he decides to 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:50.200 recruit someone to rob banks for him. 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:52.920 I go to this guy and say, hey, listen, I'll 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:54.800 teach you how to do this and we'll split the money. 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:57.400 He says, really, I said yeah, but you have to 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.479 do it exactly as I say. He's like sure, because he's, 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.400 like I said, he had seen the loads of cash 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.159 I had, so to him, he's thinking thirty forty fifty 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:12.280 thousand dollars he could be his. So I take him 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.960 to this mall where they have a bank in the 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:24.720 mall my park. He goes inside. Whatever lame thing he's 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:29.600 putting out, people are picking it up. Apparently he was 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:31.720 good enough to at least get some money from them, 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.159 because as soon as he hits that door, he's still 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.880 holding the money in his hands, and he's holding it 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.719 to his chest. And when he pushes that door open, 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.640 an eddie of air catches that money. The money goes 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:50.200 flying everywhere, whirling in the air, and there's him trying 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.840 to catch it out of mid air, and I look 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.680 at him, I'm thinking, what a fucking idiot. 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:08.520 I think Joe has made a I mean, Joe has 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:15.640 made a whole life of laughing at himself, you know. 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:20.800 And it comes from the fact that he did so 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.840 many terrible things over the course of his life that 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.960 he just can't take himself seriously anymore, because to do 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:28.800 so would almost be tragic. 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:34.840 So let's go back to Ben's initial interest. How does 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.480 a person like Joe Layer, a person who had an 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:43.120 honest job at a restaurant, start robbing banks. 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:49.040 He describes really well sort of what went into it 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:52.400 for him, and how he would have to psych himself 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.919 up by remembering all these traumas that occurred over the 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:58.880 course of his life, at the hands of his dad, 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.120 at the hands of people who went to school with, 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.239 at the hands of other criminals. And it was those 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.080 traumas that he would pull out, he says, like religious 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:11.760 medallions and just rub them as he's walking to these banks. 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.920 And he raged would come inside of him. And that's 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.280 how he had the presence to really get people to 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.440 do what he wanted to get them to hand over money. 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.760 I mean, it's all fun and games and the retelling. 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.320 And Joe is a he's a great storyteller. I mean, 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.000 that's just his career now, he's a storyteller. 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.600 This is Joe's first bank robbery. 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:36.960 And as I walk up there, I slide the note, 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:38.760 or she puts it. I put it down on the 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:40.960 table and slided to her. She looks down at it, 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:47.400 and she reads it and reads it and reads, has 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.040 plenty of time to have read it, turned it over, 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.640 copied it, turned it back over, read it again, like 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.480 too long. So I reached forward and I realized I 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.280 got to get her attention. So I grabbed a note 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.400 and I moved around a little bit, like hey, let's 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:03.320 do something about this. 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:04.800 And she still. 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:05.360 Won't look up. 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.080 So I had to pull the note away from her 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.520 because I realized, oh shit, I've given her something to 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:13.320 distract her. She does not want to look up. And 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:15.720 she doesn't have to look up. So I tried to 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:17.600 pull the note back, and she tries to pull the 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:19.400 note to her, and when she's pulling the note, we're 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.720 doing this little bullshit tug of war. Now I'm just 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:28.040 fucking pissed. So I leaned forward and say, I'm not 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.800 fucking around. I'll jump the counter. And I reached down 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:36.199 like I got a gun, and I pat my waistband 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.720 like I'm coming over. I will fuck you up for 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.960 this bullshit stuff. And it was in that moment she 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.360 looks up and just with my eyes I menace her. 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:47.640 And then when she looked at me, she saw I 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:49.400 was serious. She opened her drawer and just gave me 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:50.559 the money. 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.680 One of the things that's really interesting for me about 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:59.960 this is the interiority of this bank robber, the person 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.960 of this bank Robert, his kind of internal journey. 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:06.120 I mean, look, I've made a lot of true crime 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.679 podcasts in my career from a lot of different angles, 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.920 and to me, I'm always most interested in sort of 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:17.640 the why of the crimes, even more so than the 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:21.520 who or the you know, who's the victim, who's the perpetrator, 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.400 It's the why do these things happen, and to me 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.400 getting into Joe's story, you know, there are some good guys, 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.160 there are some bad guys. Joe's definitely like a very 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:37.560 compelling anti hero. His dad is also a bad guy, 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.800 and so the nature of Joe's relationship to the story, 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.640 I think, changes flip flops in a few different ways. 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.000 And one of the things as I was making it 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:49.240 that I wanted to be very clear with the audience 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.440 about was that there's a lot of ambiguity, you know, 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.960 And so we structured it so that in some episodes, 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.080 you're feeling really great about Joe, and you're feeling that 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.679 he's a victim, and your feeling that he deserves all 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.480 of your sympathy. 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.160 One of the points at which Joe deserves our sympathy 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.480 is when he looks on as his father beats his 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:20.240 younger brother. Joe is fifteen in this story. 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.360 It is the worst memory of my life, and I 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.960 remember that night thinking I want to die. I just 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.720 want to die one because I had always been this 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.720 brave kid who protected my brother, and that day I 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:34.920 could not do. And I was haunted by my brother's 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.480 face of water coming out of his nose and his 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:42.640 eyes a supplication, looking at me like just terrified, and 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.760 I wanted to die. I wanted it was seriously like suicides. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.120 Take me, Jesus christ Man. I don't want to even 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:52.479 be here. I cannot live with my cowardice. I confronted 0:10:52.520 --> 0:11:01.440 cowardice that day. And here's the thing. I was smart. 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:06.000 I was intense. I had this aggression, and I felt 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.600 my heart was big and muscular, and even though I 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.280 was getting beat down, I felt like I was made 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:13.160 to be bigger than this. 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.640 And in other episodes, you really hear him as a perpetrator, 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.680 as somebody who's victimizing, as somebody who is not anyone 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:25.640 that you would ever want to spend any time with. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.160 And so playing with that idea of is Joe a 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.520 good guy? Is he a bad guy? Let's really get 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:38.720 into the complicated reasons for how somebody becomes a bank robber, 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.920 an evil person, how somebody becomes a monster. 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:49.200 A monster who can commit murder when you kill somebody, 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.319 And for a moment I thought my dad was dead. 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:57.080 I killed him. That was a different power. When you 0:11:57.280 --> 0:11:59.640 do that, and you talk to me, you prison talk 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.680 to people who kill people. And I had friends whould say, 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:06.200 you know the the only thing stopping that man from 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.720 being dead right now, and I say no one they 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.320 would say, my decision. And to be a man who 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.520 that's true to like, you know, the only thing that 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.160 I'm like sitting here looking here and say, you have 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:21.200 no clue, but the reason your life is because right 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:25.520 now I choose to not kill you. That's a powerful 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.560 way to move in the world. For a moment, I 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:32.800 could feel that, Oh man, I'm the kind of guy 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:36.160 who now can just say you you're done. You I 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.199 let you live longer you you're done. 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:39.199 You know that kind of thing. 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.240 What do you think he would have been like to 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:52.960 meet back in his bank robbing days? 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.080 You know, I've thought about that a lot. It's it's 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:00.880 an interesting question because Joe is not like thugged out 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:05.040 Jolo from East Los Angeles. He was a nerdy kid. 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:10.240 He ran track, He dressed in like golf clothes a lot. 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.960 He played a lot of golf when he was robbing banks. 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.960 So he's not the kind of guy who you would 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.960 meet on the street and you know, be intimidated or 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:21.240 not make eye contact with or go to the other 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:22.880 side of the street. You would walk right by him. 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.600 I think he looked like a normal person, but he 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.640 did have those two modes, right, He had his normal 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.240 guy mode and then he had his his rage mode. 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.840 And I think Joe when he was raging, when he 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.160 was able to become Joe the bank robber, and I 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:42.760 think Joe in prison very similarly. I think would be very, 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:44.360 very scary to meet on the street. 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:52.800 Talking about that rage I found. I found that persona 0:13:53.040 --> 0:14:00.480 of Joe just captivating. Uh. In part it's the actual 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:04.840 thing of it. In part it's the way he talked 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:09.400 about it. It brought out in him a kind of poetry, 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.400 spoken word poetry that I found irresistible. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:22.800 The animosity, the negativity. That stuff, It crackles differently, It 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:27.000 changes the molecules differently. Yeah, rearranges you and gives you power. 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.360 And I was getting stronger, I was not getting weaker. 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:37.760 I was getting demented with a very powerful rage. And 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:39.800 that's what eventually would come out. 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:52.440 That's a wild image. It's like some kind of superhero, 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:57.920 the Hulk, or somebody who's kind of shedding one persona 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.520 one shell and suddenly becomes this using the word demented, 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.680 give me your reaction to that, because trying to murder 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:12.120 his father, unbelievably dramatic thing to say, dramatic thing to do. 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:17.800 And my read of him is that it changes his life, 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.320 oh at that moment one hundred percent. 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.760 And I think Joe even when he was doing it, 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.680 but when he describes it, it's very Shakespearean in the storytelling, 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:29.320 and I think even as he was doing it, he 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.800 realized that this was the stuff of Shakespeare. But it's 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:36.120 a pivotal moment in the story because it's the moment 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:39.640 where Joe goes from being a victim to being a victimizer. 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.480 And we had numerous conversations as we were recording this 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:46.760 podcast together, and I will say the one the one 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:52.360 category of people that Joe has ultimate I don't know 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:58.720 if respects the right word, but certainly strong feelings about 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:03.960 are murderers he would encounter, murderers in prison, and murderers 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.560 people who have taken another person's life are now capable 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:12.960 of taking anyone's life. And so they have this ultimate 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:17.200 power because everyone around them is still alive, because they're 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:22.160 allowing them to still be alive. And so when Joe 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.240 for those hours that you know, after he was arrested, 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.080 there were several hours where he thought that he was 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:34.760 a murderer, and that changed everything for him. A switch 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.680 had been flipped in his head so that he was 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:44.200 no longer somebody who would take being a victim. Now 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.880 he was the bully. He was the victimizer. He was 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:49.800 the one who was going to be able to go out, 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.560 and he was the one who was going to be 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:57.360 able to go out and express his will in any 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:58.240 way that he wanted. 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:01.080 And he liked that. 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.760 It felt good, it felt powerful, Yeah, it felt like 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.439 it felt like he was his life was on a 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.560 different trajectory. There are lots of people who become victims 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:16.119 and completely knuckle under and they just kind of collapse 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:19.720 under the tragedies that are happening to them. Joe, I think, 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.440 is a different kind of person. Joe is somebody who 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.679 would have feelings about what was happening to them, and 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:32.040 those feelings would propel him right, so he wouldn't feel 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:34.960 like he couldn't do anything. He would feel as though 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.240 there was an anger building inside of him that would 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.240 eventually be, for lack of a better word, be useful. 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.920 Yeah. Yeah, all right, So a couple more things to cover. 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:56.440 Just a word about bank robberies. You having immersed yourself 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:01.080 in this storyline and in Joe. It just strikes me 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:05.399 that the nineteen eighties were a pretty good error to 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.919 be a bank robber. You go in, you write a 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.520 note on a deposit slip, and you walk out with 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:14.080 five thousand dollars. 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:18.040 Really, maybe what you're cottoning to a little bit is 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.800 in the eighties and nineties there was this like the 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.280 technology hadn't quite caught up, but the amounts of cash 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.200 that were going in and out of the banks had 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:30.680 risen dramatically since previous eras, Like, you know, people didn't 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.159 go in wanting five ten thousand dollars in cash up 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.199 until probably the late eighties early nineties, right, and the 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.600 technology was still what it was. There wasn't a lot 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:43.960 of high tech surveillance, There wasn't a lot of like 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:48.720 GPS tracking all that sort of stuff. So yeah, I 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:51.399 think there was kind of maybe a I don't know 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.600 if it's a golden age, maybe a plastic age of 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.480 bank robbing that was happening in the eighties and nineties. 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.119 You know. The thing one of the things that really 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:01.600 like amazed me as I was talking with Joe, you know, 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:04.399 he talks about how he was a petty criminal, and 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.719 now he was going to become a bank robber, and 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:08.920 that meant that all the other criminals, you know people 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.359 are he was finally going to get some respect being 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:12.000 a criminal. 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.640 Did you have a favorite bank robbery story that he told, 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:16.680 because he tells a lot. 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:21.000 My favorite one, like the first one, is an amazing 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:23.320 story where he actually goes and tries, you know, he 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:25.120 works all day to get his nerve up to rob 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:25.760 this bank. 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:34.159 What I do remember about the day is this. I 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:39.199 started ten. I walked into the first bank and I 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:45.560 grab a slip and I write, we have a bomb, 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.719 just a bank rubbery, and I wrote a bank robber note. 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:51.800 And then I'm like, ah, fuck it, I don't want 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.560 to do this year. For some reason, this doesn't feel right. 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:57.720 I start walking away, and as I walked away, there's 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:02.160 like three cameras that me at the door, and I realized, 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.440 think I could have been busted. Right if anyone just 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.239 kind of like you know, zoomed in the guy who 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.320 was writing something on the back of that slip, they 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:10.960 could have seen I was trying to rob that bank. 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.960 So I wrote my next one next note at McDonald's. 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:18.359 I just wrote it there and I would walk in 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.560 the banks and I would leave them all day long. 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.359 You know, Like I would walk in and I would 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:26.760 stand in line, go a couple of steps up, a 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:28.880 couple of customers would be going and I'd like, nah 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:31.119 that I don't got a feel for this. I'd walk in, 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.639 I'd see, you know, guard some nah. God, I swear 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.320 to God man, I probably nibbled a little bit of 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:41.480 food from every fast food joint available at the time, KFC, Wendy's. 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:43.199 If this was a short film, it would be a 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:46.320 comic film because you would see me going in, Okay, 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:47.080 I'm gonna do it. 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:47.600 I'm gonna do it. 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.160 And the next thing, we'd see me drinking coffee at McDonald's. 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:52.280 You see me, Okay, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.560 be all fucking nervy in there. The next scene, I'm. 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:55.440 Biting the whopper at. 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:57.920 Work, Like it would just be okay, let's do it, 0:20:57.960 --> 0:20:58.280 let's do. 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:02.040 It, Taco Bella do it, let's do it. It was 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:03.960 like it was fucking hilarious. 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:10.359 And he finally does it, and he doesn't even get 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:12.120 that much money. He thinks there's a lot of money 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.440 at the time, but you know, in the scheme of things, 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.240 it's not all that much money. I love that story. 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:22.320 I also love the disguise story where he puts on 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:26.679 I don't know how many sweatshirts, it's really burly, and 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:32.720 the discards discards the costume. He seems kind of so 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.000 slick and quick witted, and it has all those elements 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.240 of you know, high jinks and caper and you find 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:42.080 yourself just rooting for the bad guy. 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:45.000 Well, and that one too, that does feel that one 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:46.919 does feel a little bit like a relic of an 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.280 earlier time, the idea that you could just like wear 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.080 a disguise and get away with it, and then it 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:56.280 works in a weird way. It's just like, yeah, it's amazing. 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.639 The one of the things that I noticed, and I 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.040 think it's true, is that as we kind of go 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:09.639 along with Joe and he develops into bank robbery kind 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:13.320 of in front of our eyes or ears, is there's 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:18.639 a change in him and his personality. He knows that 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:22.880 Cortis the FBI agent, is closing in on him. He's 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:27.480 actually already been arrested, he's out on bail, and he 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:34.120 goes on us a robbing spree. So what I believe 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:37.720 is that there was something kind of taking over Joe. 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.239 He was getting manic, he was getting obsessed, he was 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:45.240 kind of getting out of control and maybe even self 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:46.400 destructive in that way. 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:52.800 I think he had become so twisted by his actions 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:57.360 at that point that he had become untethered from everyone 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:03.040 else around him, and even more untethered from a morality 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:07.080 that kind of had governed his regular life, even while 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.360 he would have this double life as a bank robber. 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:14.479 And so when he gets or when he has arrested 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:19.119 for robbing banks, his aunt puts her house up to 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:23.000 get him out of jail, and he says very clearly 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:24.760 that he was going to burn her and she was 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:26.880 going to lose her home, and he didn't care. 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:32.080 I figure out, you know what, I'm not going to 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:36.000 go to prison, and this is where me. I was 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:37.679 already in an asshole. I was just really bad. I 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:40.840 was a bad boyfriend, I was a bad person in society. 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:42.920 It was just a thief. It was kind of shit. 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:46.919 And I decided, like up my shit game by putting 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:49.560 my aunt's house in jeopardy because my aunt putor house 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:52.280 up for me to go on bayl my aunt and 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:54.640 she loved me and I was willing to risk it all. 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:59.119 I didn't care, so he did it. It was quite 0:23:59.119 --> 0:24:02.320 a spree, you know. He puts it as thirty or 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:05.399 thirty plus banks. He doesn't even remember how many banks, 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:08.560 but he puts it at thirty plus over I want 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:12.560 to say, eleven or fifteen months. Something like that. Wouldn't 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:15.040 surprise me if it was, you know, a quarter million dollars. 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:22.560 There was a lot. Joe's father huge figure in his life, 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:27.760