Life to the Max Podcast
Welcome to 'Life to the Max Podcast,' where resilience meets inspiration!
Join us on a transformative journey through the life stories of remarkable individuals, including Quadriplegic Army Veteran Maximilian Gross. In this empowering podcast, we dive into tales of triumph, courage, and the human spirit's unwavering ability to overcome obstacles.
Our show is a celebration of diverse narratives, from awe-inspiring achievements to the darkest of traumas. 'Life to the Max' is a testament to the power of living authentically, no matter the circumstances. We believe that everyone has a unique story worth sharing, and we invite individuals from all walks of life to join us.
Discover the profound meaning of living 'Life to the Max'—a concept that resonates differently with each storyteller. It's a journey of perspective, resilience, and finding joy amidst life's challenges. Tune in to be inspired, motivated, and reminded that there's strength in every story.
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Life to the Max Podcast
From Inmate to Advocate: Lucky Chucky's Story of Redemption & Reform | 60 Days In
Join us as we delve into the remarkable journey of Lucky Chucky, a former inmate turned influential advocate for change. Growing up in the challenging streets of Chicago, Chucky faced numerous adversities that culminated in his life of crime and subsequent incarcerations. He shares firsthand accounts of his experiences while participating in the reality show "60 Days In," shedding light on the harsh realities of the prison system and advocating for the humane treatment of inmates. Through his powerful testimony, listeners gain insight into the complexities of gang culture, addiction, and the systemic issues that plague many communities.
Chucky's commitment to help others find their own path to redemption shines through as he discusses his work with various organizations. He highlights the critical role of mentorship and community support in reducing recidivism and helping former inmates reintegrate into society. By sharing his message, Chucky inspires those who struggle with their past to take steps toward a brighter future. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation filled with hope, resilience, and the unwavering belief that change is possible. Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help amplify Chucky’s inspiring message!
I'm out, I kick it with my dogs. We just trying to get by. Just a couple of puns all trying to get by. Just a couple of teens all trying to survive. Live to the max, cause you don't live it twice. Couple green thumbs all heights, okay.
Speaker 2:Welcome back everybody to Life, to the Max Podcast. You are watching and you are listening to Life to the Max. I'm your host. Oh, by the way, I was about to say if you hear a beeping, you didn't hear it. It's my vent, though, but I'm your host with the most Max Gross. And today I got Lucky Chucky, my known from TikTok, by following him. He was on a hit Amy show called 60 Days In, and I was on Lucky Chucky yeah, how you doing.
Speaker 3:Max, thanks for having me on. Yeah, I do a lot of great things on and off social media.
Speaker 3:You know it's hard when people ask me what I do for a living, right for work, because I hear it all the time get a real'm like hey, I'm too busy to work for somebody else because I'm too busy running my own business. Right, because that's what this is. I've turned social media into my own business because three years ago I was standing in front of a CNC mill and I made my first viral video advocating jobs to felons. And since then I've just taken it to another level, from TV to so many other things I do marketing and promoting. So when people ask what I do, I'm just saying I'm an entrepreneur, I'm an influencer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when uh, let's just like uh, go back from the beginning. Okay, so where did you grow up? You grew up in Chicago, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know I grew up in, you know, a poor household. You know I grew up in a poor household. You know my parents didn't have much growing up. My dad was in and out of jail a lot of times they were separated. You know my mom used to send me to the store with food stamps and a note to get her cigarettes. We had gum and cheese and food stamps. The Salvation Army gave me a bike for Christmas and by the time it got warm it got stolen. Christmas, and by the time it got warm it got stolen. So you know, growing up on the south side of Chicago, a little bit on the north side, a little bit here and there, a little bit in the suburbs, the stream, where we spent some time out there and just growing up, I had it kind of rough. You know. We always didn't have much. So when I was young I found a better way to get money, you know, and unfortunately that was criminal acts.
Speaker 2:Explain criminal acts. What would you say?
Speaker 3:Well, you know as a young kid, you know you go from stealing hood ornaments and hubcaps to eventually upgrading the ceiling rims and sound systems, to eventually stealing the car.
Speaker 2:Have you ever stole a car?
Speaker 3:I mean, hey, we used to take cars for joy rides, Just get to point A to point B. You know what I mean? I was already 14 years old, driving better than most adults. So yeah, we used to take a lot of cars. It was like the real Grand Theft Auto. Sometimes we just did it because we had to get to point A to point B, but a lot of times with cars you use them for different things too.
Speaker 2:Right. So when you were growing up on the South Side, um, did you have any issues with our race? Like uh, because, uh, it's predominantly african-american in the south side of chicago. Well, um, you being there like uh, was there any problems with race?
Speaker 3:you know, what's interesting about chicago is even going back to the early days. My family came here in the late 1800s, right. So the same neighborhoods on the south side of chicago. They used to be Irish, they used to be Italian, and then they kind of gentrified right, as you say, into African-American communities, latino communities, and there's many communities in the south side of Chicago that still have a lot of Italian people, german, polish, every ethnicity, and then there's some that are predominantly African-American. So the south side is spread up amongst different ethnicities and it's always been like that.
Speaker 3:But as far as the problems, as far as the color of my skin, I never really had those problems because the neighborhood where I was from had a unique blend of different ethnicities in it. So growing up I had friends that were mostly Latino and mostly African-American. I had a few Caucasian friends, but yeah, I just it was normal to me, like we didn't really look at color, we more so looked at the conduct of your character. And that's how it is in Chicago with the gangs and organizations. There's a lot that are predominantly a particular color, but it's welcome to pretty much all ethnicities.
Speaker 2:What year did you grow up in your adolescence? It was like the 80s.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I was born in 79. So yeah, unfortunately I didn't get much education. By the time I was already 12, 13 years old, I was already catching cases and going to the Audi home and unfortunately it just made me worse, in my way of thinking, because especially in the early 90s, late 80s, the police didn't really care, like the stop and frisk thing. They could just pull up on you anytime and search you and take whatever you want. They didn't have no excuses, they didn't have body cams. So we didn't have much respect for the police already.
Speaker 3:But then I start catching cases and getting locked up in the Cook County Juvenile Justice Detention Center. In the early 90s we called it Gladiator School. It was a the gladiators goes a war zone. I seen. I seen a friend of mine get get unalived in there, got his head smashed open during a riot, what we call the deck going up. But even the police in there, the correction officers.
Speaker 3:This is what made me worse because when I was in there they would do a lot of one-on-one fights, right, they'd be gambling. So it's like a nightly thing. You know the guards. They call you out. If you have somebody to call out, they get you in the bathroom, they close the partial door and they gamble on you. They yeah, oh yeah, I was seven and one.
Speaker 3:I didn't take no shit. They call me and I'm like, hey, I'm coming because if you, if somebody's calling you out or they're trying to get you a fight and you say no, you're gonna be a target. You know what I mean? They're gonna fuck with you more. Wow, yeah. So it made me worse, because the same people that were supposed to be in charge of my security and watching over me they're putting me at risk and these were supposed to be the same people watching me. So when I got out of there, my respect for authority, figures, whatever less I had when I went in there was out the window and, in a sense, humanity, because at a young age, like unaliving them with no remorse, it kind of instills that in your brain too, like it's a dog-eat-dog world. I'm going to make sure I don't get ate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I did not expect that. To be honest with you, there's a lot of things that happen by closed doors of jails. How many times have you been to jail?
Speaker 3:You know, I don't know as far as what jail or prison, because there's a difference. You know what I mean, and it was as a juvenile. I did a lot of time and in 17, I went to prison for the first time.
Speaker 2:There was no probation offered to me what was prison like for the first time?
Speaker 3:Shit to me. Going to prison in 97 for the first time. It was like a family reunion. You know what I time it was like a family reunion. I'm seeing friends of mine, acquaintances, family members that I ain't seen in years. Hey, come on in. As soon as I got in the joint especially back in the day, because they were on count as soon as I went to the joint I was embraced. I had a care package waiting for me. You know what I mean. I had food waiting for me and then my homies put me up on game because I was skinny. I really didn't work out. So what did I do as soon as I got to a joint? Start hitting that iron. They taught me how to hit that iron. They taught me how to bid and they made me go to school and get my GED. And I got my GED by 18. And by 19, I was already like a beast, because that's all I was doing was working out and taking care of myself.
Speaker 2:What person was it?
Speaker 3:I've been to many, many joints, but that particular time was Shawnee, shawnee and yeah, back in the day it was rough. I was there again in 2017. And see, that's the thing about prison. The joints got taken back over by the correctional officers years ago. They don't even allow smoking there anymore. So back in the day, when I used to go, the convicts ran the joints, the guards just worked there. But now the inmates just live there and the guards run it. They do because there's too many repercussions now you know. So the joints ain't nothing like how they used to be.
Speaker 4:How old were you when you first went to juvenile?
Speaker 3:About 12 years old for the first time. Yeah, I already been shot at down 13 years old too, for selling drugs outside on the wrong corner a couple of blocks down. You know they don't like when you do that, but you got to earn your six points. You know. That's why they say when you get involved with an organization, a lot of people don't know there's a lot of requirements that go into that and that was one of the requirements. I had to go stand in their corner for a couple hours and sling some crack cocaine.
Speaker 4:At 12 years old.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, well, 13. I was shot so I'm not 13, but yeah, it gets early. You got kids out. You got kids on the south side and the west side of chicago right now today, selling crack, cocaine or heroin that are 9, 10, 11 years old. If they directly handed to you, they're running the packs or they're doing something. It starts off at a very early age, unfortunately, because it's a lucrative forms of income in many neighborhoods all over Chicago.
Speaker 2:How does that come about? Like they want to make money, or do you think the people like, insinuate, like hey, like you're going to work for us.
Speaker 3:No, I mean many organizations, many street gangs. They have what's called blacks in neighborhoods and on those particular neighborhoods. One of the means to support that organization is through drugs and dispensing. Drugs can be dispensed primarily, especially right there in the neighborhood, especially back in the day. A lot of times it's through phone calls. You know people now, but they still have corner guys, guys on the corner selling dope Right there.
Speaker 2:When I was watching your 60 Days In, I noticed that you had a bonkie during your 23 hours and one hour of going out. You guys also called it organizations. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's what I call it. I don't like calling it a gang, because it's much more uh complex than that. Especially when there's structure and it's organized, it's a criminal organization it's criminal organization, right?
Speaker 2:what? What's the difference between a prison now, like uh, late now, and and back in 97, because I noticed like when I was watching 60 Days In you have like a little like TV that you could like call your loved ones off of.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, there's been many things that changed in prisons over the years. As far as the technology where you give visitors through a video monitor, even the way you send money in through Western unions and electronically Back in the day it'd always be through a money order in the mail A lot of things have changed the structure, even in prisons. Most prisons are safer than what they used to be. But that Henry County jail in Georgia to me that wasn't like no jail, that was more like a mental health facility. I mean, 70% of the inmates there were in psych meds. Most of them couldn't even afford a $150 bond.
Speaker 3:You know when I'm going in that jail, I was one of the biggest dudes in there. Most of them were small. There was really no threat. I mean, I'm used to doing time in Cook County Jail Division 1, 5, 6, 9, 10, where you see people getting, you know, unalive, where you see people getting killed. I got stabbed in Cook County Jail. The war is in the county jail. So going there it didn't remind me of jail, it reminded me more like a circus Cause it was. I felt like I was a bunch of clowns as soon as I got there.
Speaker 2:So let's dive into that. So you were on a show at A&E called 60 Days In Correct. I had mad props for you going in during COVID. What was it like, you know, back then, knowing that you did something wrong and you went to prison, right? What was it like just voluntarily saying, yeah, I'll go to prison for 60 days.
Speaker 3:I know what a cliche, right after doing 13 years in prison. I used to watch that show while I was in prison because there wasn't much else to do. So I used to watch a lot of TV in jail and prison, right. So I used to watch a lot of TV in jail and prison, right? So I used to watch that show and laugh at the snitches on there, because that's what it is. It's like almost comical.
Speaker 3:So when I came home and I started going viral on social media and he contacted me, I had over 300,000 followers. I was already doing a little bit of marketing, promoting, already receiving awards from the state. So when they contacted me through a DM and then I got on the phone with them and I spoke with them, I told them, I said, hey, they told me what the show was and they said am I interested? I said I can never look for drugs, shanks or try to set anybody up while they're audio and video surveillance. Another person that's facing time away from his family, kids and loved ones. For years they didn't want me doing that. They kind of knew that I wouldn't do that. They wanted me to go in that jail and analyze that jail and the conditions of the, the conditions of that jail and the treatment of inmates to make it better. Based upon my experience in some of the worst prisons in illinois, from menard to staveville to joliet to shawnee to danville at dixon I can go on and on from cook county jail you know my experience is what they wanted.
Speaker 3:So when I went in there, after I spoke with them about that, I thought about going on the show. I talked with a few of my friends, my homies out there, my girl, and I told it to my friends and homies. I was like man, I might be able to go on this show six days. And they're like Chuck, you can't do that man, it's a snitch. And I already told the producers that I would never be no snitch going on that show and we're going to make that clear. And then after I even told my homies that because I still associate with guys not involved in criminal activity, but they were about that life and still have a good reputation in the streets and I do too. So I want to make sure this reputation of mine that I take pride in for never being a snitch, never being a sellout, because to me at the end of the day I've been told on. I've had people write statements, I've had people get immunity for testifying against me. So once a snitch, you're always a snitch. A snitch is the lowest form. It's like the feces on your feet. No respect for a snitch. So I take pride in that.
Speaker 3:So after I told them that they still wanted me to go on the show, they wanted me to go on there and also to promote the show because they seen what I was doing. So not only am I going on the show, but they also wanted me to promote it. And this is also the first season because I told them I really didn't want to meet those other participants, because you've seen the other seasons where you got these participants. They're like, oh, let's see who can find the most drugs, let's see who can do this. I'm like what the fuck? I don't want nothing to do with those other guys on their show. And season seven was the first season where none of the participants, none of the men, met prior to going in because I didn't want to meet him.
Speaker 2:So it's the show like, basically to infiltrate the person and that's the thing.
Speaker 3:Who knows what this show is really about? They say that they want to make it it better, they want to make the system better, but in reality right, in reality, because I know this to be a fact, I've worked with the producer, I've worked on the show it's all about ratings, it's all about money, it's all about exploiting real inmates, because here's what they do. Let's just say, for instance, the individual I was on the show with. I looked him in the eye and I said man, you a whole bitch. And I looked at him right now and I said that. And I said you also even look like a rat, you're a snitch.
Speaker 3:I called them all out, even the participants, because you had this guy, you got the show, putting money on his books, right? The participant. And what he does is he's going around acting tough, trying to act like he's starting fights because he wants somebody to react, all while under audio and video surveillance, and why there's a crew on standby that could be there within 60 seconds, because they have cameras and microphones everywhere in every cell. So he's depicting an image to try to get a response for your entertainment. And then, when it comes down to it, the 18-year-old kid, nick, who was my cellie, the one I was trying to mentor, and there's still something positive in his head. The other participant says I'm going to use him as my pawn because he's young, naive and he's hungry, so he was paying him noodles that the A&E producers put money on his books to buy for.
Speaker 3:And then the man says, verbatim, I didn't want to catch a real assault charge, so I sent him to do it. He, verbatim, told him you go do it Because he knew that the young man was getting paid from him and exploiting him. And then after the altercation where the young man, nick, 18-year-old kid, tries to get a shank off another inmate, a broomstick right.
Speaker 2:Nick goes to the hole.
Speaker 3:Now, at that point, it's up to the producers, because they're in control. This is between you and I. I already exposed A&E. I don't care what they feel about me, right? They tried to blackball me and everything, but it didn't work. Fuck A&E, fuck A&E, fuck A&E. So look right. So they're in control of who goes in and out your cell. They're in control of who goes in and out that unit. They're in control of everything, right? So they made the decision to put that 18-year-old kid right back in the same unit around that same participant that said that he paid him to exploit him.
Speaker 3:So A& e facilitates the drama of the show. Just like any other reality show, they depict and dramatize, and they create problems where there usually would be none because that'd be a boring show if everybody got along well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:And you have these other participants that exploit and try to get these other inmates to react by spying, drugs or saying, hey, what are you doing? Don't be acting like that. He wants that other inmate to react and hit him first for the cameras, because the more fights they have, the more drugs they find, the more drama that's going on. Whether it's two inmates bickering over an orange or whether it's Lil Deshawn, like on season seven, who seemed a little, you know, not all there. You know he had some mental health issues, he had 150 on bond, he was stealing from walmart and what do they do? They're sending him off to punch another inmate, the real participants they're advocating. You stand up for yourself. It's a sham and that's why I work with the heirs campaign. It's because it's called abolish ma.
Speaker 3:Reality shows and you know, at the end of the day they're not only working, looking at six days in, but they're looking at lock up, lock up raw inmate to roommate, all these shows, because a lot of these participants, because nate, one of the one of the one of the other individuals for six days, because I don't associate with none of those participants, but he wound up having some issues after the show. He committed suicide, unfortunately, and a lot of these participants. I'm gonna throw it out there. You know that guy, carlita I call him carlita from the show. The same one who said lucky, chucky as soon as I walked down the unit.
Speaker 1:The guy looked like, he looked like his fan starstruck.
Speaker 3:I knew someone was up. He looks at me, he's like lucky chucky and I called him outside because I didn't know if he was a real inmate or a participant. I said come outside in case you got a problem with it and come to find out.
Speaker 2:Did you say real inmate?
Speaker 3:I didn't know if he was a real inmate or a participant. Because as soon as I walked in with my stuff, I seen this guy looking at me like he just seen Santa Claus. He's like what's up, big guy. I'm like what's up? And I put my stuff away. I come back downstairs and so I'm walking down the stairs. He's like he got the other participant that he was there with and I'm coming down the stairs. He's like Lucky Chucky and I'm like motherfucker, my cover is blown over. I think that was the quickest cover blown in history, right. So I'm like, yeah, and I said let me holler at you outside real quick, because at that point I didn't know if he was a real participant or if he was a real inmate. I didn't know what was up, so, in case he had found out, he was a fan of mine. He's like I follow you, I can't believe you're here.
Speaker 3:And he was just swinging from my nuts on the show. He's cooking me food. And then all of a sudden he walked up to me a couple days there and he's like oh, look at all these pills. I have to turn in producers and I'm like I'm not here to be a snitch guy, I don't know what you're doing. He's like well, I don't consider snitching because I'm in jail. At that point I even told the producers to us. I wish this guy never would have came up to me. This guy's a weirdo. And come to find out he's the one who sent the 18-year-old kid off and then he got removed from the show. He actually wrote a statement on another inmate, literally in the cell block.
Speaker 2:You will never, ever see that in what I was gonna ask you. So like you go into prison back then, like you know, and like not like obviously getting caught, and like going to prison and then going on this show, what's the difference like knowing that you have cameras all the time is everyone just trying to put on a show?
Speaker 3:I mean it's weird because you never hear on the show them say six days in, but it's always constantly being talked about. They try to make it seem and they even have real inmates, the inmates that are being interviewed. They have them sign a release and they try to make it seem like under a different fake production company and they're saying that's for a documentary. That may or may not be. They fool them and they don't give them no money either. They don't give them no money either.
Speaker 4:They don't give them no money, they just exploit them. Can the prisoners or the inmates, can they revoke consent for being on camera, for being on TV?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they can say no and they can blur their faces out or they'll take them off their unit, but they have to sign a consent.
Speaker 2:So why would you break any law whatsoever, whether you're trying to get drugs, whether you're trying to create a fight, if you got cameras everywhere and you and you signed up for it because they're, they're exploiting them 60 days and like, did the producers know immediately?
Speaker 3:it was 60 days. No, they don't know immediately, they don't know what's going on. They're naive to the fact. They got the production crew coming in. You know, you got, you got they a consent, but they don't know. If it's, they think, man, that's six days in man. And then let's just say in hindsight, right In the Henry County jail where I was at right, 50% and 49.8% of that jail was Caucasian, 49.6% was African-American.
Speaker 3:You don't have too many Latinos right. All of a sudden you got some guy from Chicago in a unit. A sudden you got some guy from Chicago in the unit. All of a sudden you got some guy from allegedly New York in the unit and he's Latino. And all of a sudden you got cameras crews going to their cells all the time. Right, oh, and this guy, little Carlito, he wanted camera time every time he could, every time he got a chance to run off the unit. It's like they know. And then this guy is the same guy who will call out the whole deck after he writes a statement, talk about hey, well, anybody got a problem with what I did. Come see me. What are you going to do? You going to catch a case for putting their hand on a paid informant. It's a sham. It's a sham.
Speaker 3:But this same guy got removed from the show for popping other people's psych pills. Remember how I told you how he walked up to me with the psych pills. He had psych pills, like the psych patients, because a lot of them are on psych medications there. They put it in their mouth and then they take it out and they sell the psych meds. So this guy's taking psych meds that some other guy pulled out of his mouth. So they told him stop doing it. The sheriff, the producers, they told Carlito, stop doing that. We don't want psych pills. Stop, those guys need their medication. And what does he do? He proceeds to keep taking. He's telling other inmates man, I'm fucked up. He's giving other inmates participants or other other inmates, uh, psych pills. And they removed them for taking them because they seen how inebriated he was on psych pills.
Speaker 2:He's like, oh, you were right, man.
Speaker 3:This is a fucking circus it is, and you know what's so sad you did someone who did the circus hey, I exposed him and I will every bit too, because at the end of the day, that show's not right and that's why the heirs campaign they're going to be in February at the A&E headquarters at a rally with a whole submission. They got a whole team behind them. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm the only one. I got shirts in the car right now. They got a whole campaign. I can't make it that day, you know, because I got other obligations for that day.
Speaker 4:But I think we want to get into that, the activism side of it and you know, fighting for the rights of ex-cons and former inmates and such. But I did want to ask you, since I know that 60 Days In was in Georgia and you said primarily you were in Cook County for your incarceration, how careful do you have to be in different joints, as you call them, if you're affiliated?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like are you protected or are you more like a target?
Speaker 3:And see, that's the thing. That's a good question, because I didn't know what to expect. Going there, I didn't know Cook County Jail you do a screening. If you say you're part of organization, they do a screening. If they catch you false flagging, you're in trouble. Right, it's very organized. Getting upon the Henry County Jail, you had anybody saying that they were in any part of gang and there was nobody checking their background or what they did. Even, unfortunately, nick right, the young kid, the 18 year old kid that said that he had it for that deck for the GDs. He had told me that he learned his literature in the previous county jail that he was just in. So how are you going to claim to be a real gangster? But you just learned your literature from your last celly. You see what I'm saying there's no structure, there is no organization, it was just chaos what does that mean?
Speaker 4:the literature the literature.
Speaker 3:It's just a set of rules and formations and stuff you have to go through before you and you have to memorize before you become a member of that particular organization. Every organization has different literature or scripture, you know. So the thing is also. The thing is also with the six days, and I just want to point out that when people ask me what I did when I was on that show?
Speaker 3:right, because I went, based upon my experience, to analyze the conditions of treatment of inmates and I see firsthand that they didn't feed those inmates properly. Even at Cook County Jail you get fresh fruit, you get a milk every day and they feed you properly. In the Henry County Jail, no milk, no fresh fruit. People laugh at me about that. Right, oh, you didn't get your fresh fruit or milk. Yeah, especially when he's obligated to feed them a proper diet but he's not. He's saving a ton of money. Rotten meat, no milk. You got guys that are becoming lactose intolerant, unhealthy.
Speaker 3:But furthermore, the mental health aspect In Cook County, john, every prison I've been to, they separate mental health from general population. There they just put them all together. They put them all together, they don't care and that's detrimental upon not just the unit, because you see what's going on there now. But they also have no physical recreational activities there for the inmates. You got 34 basketball rooms but not one basketball. No physical exercise activities allowed.
Speaker 3:They want them to be unhealthy, they want it's like they don't care and they don't even offer haircuts or razors there, not every prison, even when I'm in the hole in segregation. They're going to come offer me a razor at least once a week. You know what I'm saying? You want to shave. They demoralize the men and women there by not offering haircuts or razors and since the show, since I left, they're actually offering haircuts now. They make them pay $10. They're feeding them a little better. They're separating mental health from general population, you know what I mean. And they're trying to offer physical exercise programs there because they didn't have that before. So I expose that sheriff for being scandalous as he is, for being scandalous as he is, and I could talk about other aspects as far as the individual running against that sheriff now in that county contacting me and what that Reginald Scandron and Shaquille O'Neal are doing. But Shaquille O'Neal's complacent as well.
Speaker 2:He's getting a paycheck from them as well. So if anybody wants to watch this on Hulu season seven, right, Season seven, right, Yep, Season 7, because it sounds all over the place. But if you watch the season you'll understand what Lucky Chucky's talking about.
Speaker 3:It just hit Netflix too. What's interesting, I'll be on my live or somebody will comment on a video and they'll be like, hey, I'm watching you right now. I'm like what do you mean? You're watching me right now? The show was there two and a half years ago, where you been, because after the season it airs on Hulu and on Peacock, and then Netflix was the last streaming service that it went to. It's on Netflix now. So there's a whole new genre of audience and I hear it all the time.
Speaker 3:Some people love what I did. You know, in my opinion, the people that get it get it. I get a lot of hate from that show, but I know it's the only hate that I get are usually the people who are still leaving cookies out for Santa Claus. They're living in a false world somewhere. They still believe in the Easter Bunny, they watch WWE and think it's still real. Because I recognize and I see that only fake ones hate the real ones, appreciate and congratulate. I hear it all the time. Thank you for keeping it real, thank you for just you know, calling out who I was, and I get a lot of love for that show, but I tell them at the end of the day. Make sure they stay tuned for the next show coming up. Huh, this one won't be, you know, fake reality tv show. This will be real tv yeah, throughout like prison.
Speaker 2:Uh, is there rules like that? You just have to follow that. You find out, like throughout your sentence.
Speaker 4:Unspoken rules.
Speaker 2:you're talking about Unspoken rules yes, is there any unspoken rules that you learned throughout your incarcerations?
Speaker 3:I mean, there's a lot of rules, you know, as far as like unwritten rules, you know never gamble off ass you know, that's what they call it.
Speaker 3:What they do is if you gamble, never gamble off ass. You know that's what they call it. What they do is if you gamble a lot of people like to gamble in the penitentiary but they gamble with stuff that they don't even have yet, because they're up ahead or they think they might win, and if you lose and you don't have the merch to pay, then you're going to be put at risk. You know what? Anybody who's affiliated with anybody, with any organization. You should never gamble off ass, because that causes problems. Right, that causes problems. Always make sure you have your merch right there at the table, because if not, that's going to cause problems.
Speaker 3:Another, I guess unwritten rules don't ever call another man a bitch in prison, because in prison, if you call another man a bitch, you best be ready to back that up, and that word is thrown around so easily nowadays. I hear it. I'll be at the store and I hear, you know, a 15-year-old kid calling their four hey, bitch, stop acting like a bitch. You know, if you do that in prison, you know you're going to probably get a mouth shot or more.
Speaker 2:I've heard that before with like a few of I'm a bitch, but in prison be ready, put your dukes up if you're doing it right so so you were in and out of prison and jailed from 97 until 2017, you said yep 2009 about.
Speaker 3:I think I got it to. I think the last bit was 2018. I keep throwing that off. I think I got out like August of 2017, the last time and that was the last time. That's it.
Speaker 2:And it was all for like robberies.
Speaker 3:No, I got a lot of different charges. I mean, if you look at my NCIC, I was a career criminal. I was charged with pretty much almost any kind of crime you could think of, except anything exploiting women or children or victimizing women or children or anything sexually related. I've never been charged with nothing like that, or else they wouldn't have me on tv, apparently, because they do a full background screening. I ain't no creep. But as far as uh, selling drugs, robbing people, hurting people, aggravated assaults, you know all that good stuff, that's who I was know.
Speaker 2:That brings me back to my question. Why would you say, yeah, I'll go into 60 days. Yeah, I'll go in during COVID. Yeah, I'll do it 23-1 for 14 days 14 days? When I was watching that, I was like you're probably going crazy.
Speaker 3:I just thought it was such a cliche that I'm actually going to be getting paid to go to jail. After doing all that time I've done 60 days in the hole like for real. So 60 days in ain't much to me, you know.
Speaker 2:So when you said I have a headache, I have a headache, and you did the gesture which is basically saying like I quit, right, but you didn't quit, you were just tired of the bullshit, right?
Speaker 3:no, I mean, I'm here's another thing about reality tv. Right, they had to narrate and edit out why I really left. Okay, because why I was there was for great purposes. I was there for almost two weeks, right. But after everything I went through in there, after being recognized by the participants, inmates and officers right, it was really no sweat, there was no threat. Still, I stayed.
Speaker 3:However, after eating that meat, I had to go to medical because I was throwing up. I was sick. I'm not the only one. A lot of people get sick from that meat. So I was eating that meat that they have for lunch. That's all they serve for lunch every day.
Speaker 3:I was sick and they wanted me to go to the medical unit to get a COVID test. So when I was in the medical unit, at first there were a bunch of inmates there. They took them out and then I was left alone in there with, like, one other inmate who didn't have cuff sound. Come to find out, he didn't have cuff sound because he caused problems in the jail. He had a fight previously, he was there to see a doctor, but anyway, him and I had some words and he physically attacked me first and I defended myself and you know I was choking him out and afterwards he was banging on the door saying I assaulted him and the guards came they separated us.
Speaker 3:Now here, I didn't know this because the producers they say you're under 24-hour surveillance always, except when you're medical. They didn't say that the producers aren't allowed in medical because the HIPAA laws, because the sheriff didn't want them there. I didn't know that. So they told me. So I didn't know what I know. They had cameras in the medical unit. So after that altercation the real captain calls me to his office and he says hey, man, we know what happened.
Speaker 2:Do you want to write a statement? What do you mean? Real captain.
Speaker 3:Because they have certain captains and certain sheriffs that are on and off the cameras and stuff like that. So I was called to the office by a captain that you won't see on the Six Days In show.
Speaker 1:He was one of the captains there.
Speaker 3:So he called me. He said they know what happened and they're asking me if I want to write a statement. And I said write a statement against me? And they couldn't tell me. And even at that point the producers told me, chuck, you've already accomplished so much since you've been here. You've done your mission, because my mission was to expose the condition of treatment to inmates. And they said, after being recognized and after altercation with this gentleman, they said it's best that I leave Because, let's be honest, it's Georgia. You see individuals getting charged with hate crimes in the jails and prisons there, but if you see someone get charged with a hate crime, nine times out of 10, it's a Caucasian man being charged with a hate crime for beating up or hurting an African-American male. And unfortunately, the mental health patient that I defended myself against in the medical unit happened to be African-American.
Speaker 2:I'm starting to understand. They flipped the script on you.
Speaker 3:Well, they said, I was going to be the hero. They said, chucky, the producers loved me on that show. I had respect for them at first because I felt that their intentions were well. They even used the term social experiment. That's what they said this is like a social experiment. It felt like the Stanford experiment.
Speaker 3:They said social experiment. They utilized that word so many times and I think about it. The producers of the show literally told me Chuckie, you're the hero of this. We're going to make you look like you're the hero. The way they narrated the show. They made me look like I left the show after I got done with a visit with my daughter.
Speaker 3:Nothing happened in that show, like if you. All of a sudden I got back to my cell after a visit with my daughter and if you watch the show, I'm like, damn, I really don't want to leave. Man, damn, I don't want to leave. But, man, and I'm sitting there talking cause I really didn't want to leave. Cause, man, I wanted that money. You know what I mean. I wanted all the money I could get from the people and every day they pay you and that's what people fail to realize too I got paid a little bit more. I'm the only participant that they flew first class. You know what I mean? Because I was working with them, but I was trying to get all the money I could, because the more I stayed, the more money I could have got and the more my mind. And that's the thing. People ask me why I'd agree to go on the show too. It's about putting a message out there.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. It's about amplifying what you have to do. I do quotes of the day every day that actually inspire people and even though I end it with a fuck them, you know what I mean. It serves a message. People come up to me in the street and they tell me how it helped keep them sober. People tell me in my DMs and in real life all the time how my quotes have helped them through a breakup or a death or anything they got going on. So every day I try to push out a quote a day and my message that I have is impactful. You know what I mean. That's why you see me speaking at conferences now and workshops and doing what I do, because it's just amplifying it more and that's what I was hoping ultimately was six days in is to create change in the system and in people.
Speaker 2:You have the experience, which is, you know people don't like a Joe Schmo that says like, hey, do this, do that, and they don't have the experience. You have the experience of being incarcerated. You have the experience of being treated badly. You have the experience of fighting for gambling rights and you're seven and one, like you said. So like I can understand why people look up to you and I want to, like you know, because you're an advocate for people to get out of gangs and crimes, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm also a father's rights advocate. I get recognized in public all the time. People are like Chuck. I love your quotes, sir. I've seen your marketing list. I love you from six days in. I see your fights. People mechanize me all the time for my top 10 videos. I do top 10 educational videos that go viral all the time.
Speaker 4:But the thing that I get recognized for the least is what I take the most pride in, and that's my prisoner's rights and father's rights advocacy yeah, I want to get into that and I want to talk about how you evolved from somebody who was incarcerated multiple times to evolving to this inspirational entrepreneur figure.
Speaker 3:It took an epiphany. I'm sure we all had at one point in our life an epiphany right.
Speaker 2:Of course, when my car accidents, I was like fuck, I'm paralyzed. That's my epiphany. I got to take it day by day and get better and better and better, or let the devil take over.
Speaker 3:And you're still here for a reason. You're here, for a reason, You're serving a righteous purpose and you're living with the reason that you're here for Life to the max.
Speaker 2:That's why we call it life to the max, baby I love that, I love that.
Speaker 3:So my epiphany was you know, I love that, I love that. So my epiphany was, you know, death. Uh, after being shot, stabbed, 13 years in prison. Nothing really changed me. I didn't change, you know. I came home try to work a regular job. It was. It was mediocre, you know, it's just not much money. So eventually I just got right back into the game and I started selling dope again and get involved in the streets because it's easy money to me. I can always flip a pack or flip an ounce. You know I'm here to flip, flip a gram if I had to, you know you sound like.
Speaker 2:You sound like all nonchalant when you said I've been stabbed and shot like that's a mother fucker. You guys did not hear that. But you sound all nonchalant when you say that both. For me it's like shit. This guy's been stabbed and he's been shot. I mean, did that change at all? Was that the epiphany?
Speaker 3:No, it was cool and I did. When it happened I wanted to shoot the guys back. When I got stabbed, it pissed me off. I just wanted to get better and get back at them. So that's what I'm saying. Prison never changed. What changed me was an epiphany epiphany. I was in the Englewood neighborhood with some associates and friends of mine doing some things we shouldn't have been doing. We were pretty much in a room full of dope. I was re-upping and bagging up and they said no, I overdosed on fentanyl. I'd never overdosed on fentanyl before. I've never really been into drugs like that to be honest with you.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, I woke up at Holy Cross Hospital and I remember coming to a little bit I heard my son's voice, but I seen that light. You know what I mean. Like, I seen like a bright light, her voices, and I came to and I woke up and next thing I know I'm asking what's going on. I'm shaking because they hit me with Narcan. I never been hit with no Narcan and you know the nurse started treating me like garbage. She's like oh, you overdosed. Maybe you shouldn't be using no dope by then. I'm like what. I didn't know what was going on. Because it takes you, I had to come to.
Speaker 2:I know exactly what you're talking about because when I died I saw the bright light, so I know what you're talking about that light, like that figment of the imagination.
Speaker 3:You don't know if it's real or if it's fake. I didn't know what happened, I couldn't believe that. It just hit me. So when I came to, my homies were still there. My homies were waiting for me in the hospital. You know, my car, my money, my jewelry, everything was still there and intact. I was the only Caucasian individual there and you know, I thought to myself man, they could have just did so much at that point. And my homie, he's kind of like, he likes to call himself the godfather, you know, and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm the quadfather. I'm the quadfather.
Speaker 3:But he saved my life that day. He made sure that I was okay. He told me that when I was when they called the ambulance. It took them a long time to come there.
Speaker 3:They had to get rid of the dope and they had to wait for the ambulance. They said when I was on there he tried to put ice on me to cool me down. I had tears coming out of my eyes, I wasn't responding and it just hit me very hard. And at that moment, that night, after I left the hospital, I made the choice man, I'll never commit another felony or misdemeanor again and I haven't.
Speaker 3:And since then I've been on a righteous path in all my endeavors, everything I do, and I just feel like, whatever happens, like all these companies that come at me, these TV companies, I'm like a magnet. I don't try to go after things, they kind of come to me and I feel like God is just I'm on a righteous path, so he's just creating them lanes for me.
Speaker 2:I get what you're saying. A righteous pastor he's just creating the lanes for me it's God's plan. It's God's plan. You went through all this and a fentanyl overdose is what got you, not the stabbing, not the shooting of an overdose, which is, I mean, that's impactful, it really is but the bigger picture is if you look at this country and what's going on with this epidemic in America today, especially with fentanyl, how many people lost fathers, mothers, children.
Speaker 3:You know it kind of hits me hard.
Speaker 2:Are you an advocate for getting people to use drugs and fentanyl?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, everything I do. I encourage people to get away from gangs, drugs and crime. Now, you know, but unfortunately I didn't before and I hold a lot of guilt, you know. I'm hoping that one day all my rights well, maybe I'll do my wrongs. You know, when I meet my judgment, my maker, you know. At least I can say, hey, you know. So I got a lot of work to do well, you're doing a good job, man.
Speaker 2:I mean like, uh, you have a great following on tiktok. People love you. Like you said you're, you're staying clean, you're not doing anything wrong. Like you're living by your word, and that's a beautiful thing, because not a lot of people can. Uh, you know it like easy, like you said, you just do a trick and get some money like that quick. But now you're, you're being a righteous person, a person with virtue. You know what I mean, and that you can't find that somewhere anywhere else like a person with virtue is amazing. I want to get into more of you helping the community now, like we can. Like you know we're incarcerated, you got shot, you got stabbed and like it's a. It's a lot of hard things to hear for me, uh, but I mean it was a piece of cake for you, apparently, but uh, I want to hear more about you advocating young and older people not to do crimes anymore. Just stay away from gays. Live life to the fullest.
Speaker 4:What do you say to people who you're trying to move away from that life?
Speaker 3:A lot of times, when people are caught up in that lifestyle and that mindset, it's hard to get them to change unless you show them something better. And sometimes I can be the example for that. You got to let people know that you care. You have to let people know that there's an outlet and in a street sense sometimes I tell people to change the product. You could be out there selling dope or robbing people. The same effort and initiative you put in doing that, you could be doing something towards legal endeavors that would get you paid as well. Maybe not as much at first, but the more work you put into it, the more you will just like in any other illegal endeavor or legal endeavor. So it's hard, you know, to get people to really want to change. But even within the community and things that we do, I've done work with Pastor Corey Brooks on Opportunity Block. They call it O Block. They actually have a community center being opened up there. Spring of this year I was up there with Rob Lagojevich helped trying to raise money and he got the money to do it. And community centers like that. They provide vocational classes, outlets, business training and ultimately it keeps them out of the gains and in something more positive.
Speaker 3:But even my fights that I do. I do fighting with USA, boxing right. I'm 45 years old. People ask me what are you doing fighting? I've always been pugnacious, I love fighting right. But if I get fight with some asshole on the street because I've had a few altercations if you want to get into that where haters came up to me and I handle them accordingly and I get a lot of hate on social media, I got guys call me come meet me over here. No, why would I go meet you? Mutual combat ain't legal in Illinois. If I agree to come meet you and kick the shit out of you and put you in the ICU, who's going to be charged? Me? Who's going to pay for your legal or for your medical expenses Me? Even if he doesn't press charges, let's just say if I happen to unalive him Because I got PTSD, if I fight, I'm not stopping until you ain't moving Right Because you're trying to hurt me and when that happens, you know people get hurt, do you go into like a blind rage?
Speaker 3:People get hurt Right, and that's what I do in my boxing. Unfortunately, too, people get hurt Right. So with USA Boxing right I met this great man called Harv. You know great man, harv Warbanger's Boxing Club. It's a non-for-profit organization. He's been doing this for years in Chicago. Amateur events and the events that we do and fights that he has in sport programs are literally keeping kids away from gangs, drugs and criminality and teaching them conflict resolution skills, because a lot of young men and grown men like that nowadays. But what I love is I get to call out all these trolls and haters of mine on social media that I wouldn't even know who they were if they didn't talk about me or hate on me first. Literally all these people I call out, maybe except for one I wouldn't even know who they were if they didn't get my attention first. So I've had three fights so far.
Speaker 2:All these people I call out.
Speaker 3:I've had three fights so far.
Speaker 2:I actually have a really out of left field question. What if Jake Paul called you out?
Speaker 3:I would whip Jake Paul. He's a disney character. He acts like he's tough. He's got all that money to train him. He never had to fight for his life. Two and a half years ago he was just in his mother's house. He was on disney channel, right but, two and a half years.
Speaker 3:a couple years ago he was in his mother's house in khakis twerking the taylor swift now. Then he went to the some bizarre disney show and then now he became a YouTube fake boxer that pays his opponents. I'm surprised he ain't catching a case that paid off Mike Tyson, because you know they did gamble on those fights and you know if Mike Tyson took a dive he's liable for that, mike.
Speaker 2:Tyson would have whooped his ass. I saw his training.
Speaker 4:I know, I saw his training Even five years ago. He would have yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I believe so too. Jake Paul is about as fake as you. I call him Fake Paul. I call him Fake Paul. I don't even call him Jake Paul. But see, that's the thing I've called out social media, other people on social media that hated on me.
Speaker 3:You know, the guy said he had all his training right Kickbacks. He is as soon as he came at me. I dropped him within the first eight seconds twice in the first round. Then I tore a tenon and I won every round and won the fight. And then these other guys, like the guy from the show, he wound up doing two years Lil Carlita. I fought him for my second fight. He did two years of boxing training after the show because he couldn't fight. He was on social. He was on the show starting fights. So he did two years of boxing training and I couldn't find another opponent. So I had to drop 20 pounds just to make sure I fought little Carlita.
Speaker 3:So I went in there at 196. I was depleted. I had a calf tear 10 days before the fight, a partial calf tear. So I went in there and that little man didn't even touch me. I had him leaking out all over me and the ring and everything. I got his blood everywhere and I treated him. It was fun to beat up on that snitch and that POS for that long. But at the end of the fight I hit him with a left hook and I backed up a little bit and I felt my calf and the round ended. I went to my corner, I went to go sit down and I couldn't stand back up. I even told him my calf was in so much pain and I won that round. But technically he wanted to fight. But I got a chance to whip him legally.
Speaker 3:And then my third fight was a guy named the King of Rhode Island. Right, 6'4". Did you say the Queen? Well, he called himself the King of Rhode Island. They call himself the gatekeeper. Right, he has all these followers on TikTok and stuff. Right, the guy looks like a troll. He looks like an overweight garden gnome. Right. So he was 285.64. His whole account was based upon him trolling me and other people. He had made up lies about me, talked about my family, telling people I went to jail for stealing my son's credit card Never happened, never once.
Speaker 2:Some Conor McGregor shit he's on social media calling me a chomo.
Speaker 3:You know what a chomo is? It's a child molester. I ain't never been accused of that once in my life. But people on social media, just like Kendrick Lamar, is doing with Drake. Yet Drake's not in prison or jail for assaulting a minor or pedophilia. So Drake is most definitely going to sue him for that money because Kendrick Lamar ain't going to fight him. He's a 5'5 dwarf so he'd rather get on a microphone and disrespect another man that has kids and who's a family man. So when these guys do it to me, I can't sue these guys. They're all broke. So I pay for their flight, their hotel and we put on pay-per-view and I make them a highlight reel.
Speaker 3:And that's what I did with now the queen of Rhode Island, this guy he claimed to have all these fights right. The guy looked like he looked like a bum. I was dancing around him because I told him I'm going to dance around him and, sure enough, I hit him with four stomach shots. He put his hands down, hit him with two left jabs, right hook, started dropping him with the muppet cuts. It was over with. He went down like a sack of potatoes, didn't get back up but my Because as he's going down the corner, the ref kind of jumped on my back and I thought somebody was jumping on my back. I didn't know if his homies were trying to jump on me or what, but I didn't stop. He went down. I'm like, oh OK, I wasn't done, I just bah bah. I was like what did you say again, bah.
Speaker 2:You're, you're, you're.
Speaker 3:And then the ref picked me up and slammed chucky, chucky.
Speaker 4:When's your next fight?
Speaker 3:august, august, navy pier. Hopefully this time we're gonna try to get the biggest and biggest stays there could be and I'm trying to find a write-up. I'm hoping I can find an opponent that I don't hate, because these fights are supposed to be positive. You know what I mean. And when I find an opponent that I don't hate, we got fucking armed guards at the security or we got armed guards at the press conferences and everything, because I've had a cicero stadium and the last fights were at uh love city right down lake and palaska in the west side.
Speaker 2:I feel like so I'm a huge ufc fan, okay, uh, and I thought boxing was kind of, like you know, diminishing a little bit. So when you kept saying yeah, I have fight, I have fight throughout the whole podcast, I was like wait, what are you talking about? You have a fight, you have a fight. You didn you fight.
Speaker 3:So is boxing like coming back a little bit with everything going on with jake paul and everything the, the reputation of boxing is just kind of out the window.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fake paul is just kind of out the window yeah, fuck you, jake, if you want to come get some. Get some lucky, chucky fake paul ain't gonna step up.
Speaker 3:I don't care how much training he gets. He never had to fight for his life once in his life. And me, honestly, I don't claim to be, you know, some trained boxer and a professional boxer. I'm used to fighting for my life. I've been. I've been in riots. I've had a lot of fights in themselves in the streets. When I was younger, my pops used to hang out the window when I was fighting in the alley, talking about get him chucky, get him. Now he's at my fights with my son talking about get him chucky, get him where did uh?
Speaker 2:I was gonna ask you this in the beginning of the podcast, but when? Uh, when your name is shane, right?
Speaker 1:oh, chase, yeah, that's my chase, chase.
Speaker 2:Okay, so your name is chase. How did it get to chucky, lucky chucky well, my real name is charles.
Speaker 3:my son's name is chase. People still call me Chase every now and then. So I'm like, yeah, you're a fan of 60 Days In, no, but my real name is Charles, charles Honake. My son's name is Chase. When I went on the show I told him why don't you just let me use my real name, because I have a huge following. What if somebody recognized me? At least I could say, hey, I caught a case out here. It wouldn't be that normal, it wouldn't be that off normal. I mean, hey, you know. So they would not want me to use my real name. They didn't want me. And then they seen the tattoo and they were like how about Chase? How about the Chucky? I'm like what is that? Who's that supposed to be? You know what I mean? Is that supposed to be my son? I got Chucky tattooed on my chest. It just doesn't make sense. So they went with Chase, you know. But I'm called Lucky Chucky because I was actually born at seven pounds, 11 ounces.
Speaker 3:And my parents think they mean Lucky Chucky at an early age, so it kind of just stuck with me.
Speaker 2:I thought it might have been from your criminal endeavors, maybe, like you know, getting lucky. Well, I was definitely lucky a lot.
Speaker 3:I felt it's weird growing up like being poor. I felt unlucky. But then all my the reason why I'm still here. I'm lucky for that. You know, when I was seven, 16 years old, 17 years old, I used to go to the track over there and gamble on the horse. I always won Every time I went to a horse race, whether it's a thoroughbred in there with.
Speaker 2:I wish I could move my hands right now, because you're talking like an Italian person.
Speaker 3:You want to talk about Italian? Hey, I promote some of the best Italian joints around here. That's another thing I do.
Speaker 2:We were talking about that on the phone. Maybe we could do a vlog and go to the top five best Italian places and we could go visit it. Chucky, you're amazing man. You're like a unicorn Not in a bad way, Not in a bad way. You're lucky. You're a lucky Chucky and you've done all these things and now you're doing great things. Now You're promoting boxing.
Speaker 4:I'd love to talk about the organizations and the foundations that you're working with now. To'd love to talk about the organizations and the foundations that you're working with now to turn the lives around of the youth.
Speaker 3:Definitely. I do conferences every now and then. I love my job. You know what's interesting is, people think that social media is a job and I love what I do, even the filming that I do. I got a film crew. I got security crews sometimes and we always have a great time what we're doing.
Speaker 3:I promote so many great businesses, from pawn shops to funeral homes to gentlemen's clubs and don't get me wrong, I'm a family man with a girl. It's all part of promotions. Some of the greatest clubs in Chicago, restaurants of all different cultures and ethnicities, you name it. I've always been the type of individual that can sell a ketchup popsicle to an Eskimo on white gloves, you know. But I do some work with the National Association of Reentry Professionals. They're all over the country. It's a not-for-profit organization. I was in Pensacola as the keynote speaker and they got. Every conference that they've had so far has continued to get bigger and bigger. I'll and it's going to continue to evolve and do great.
Speaker 3:And they help people coming home from prison, help reintegrate into society to ultimately reduce recidivism. You know what I mean, because a lot of these prisoners coming home and even the individuals I work with, like Thomas Favor at the Illinois Workforce. He created a returning citizens guide for when people come home from prison, they have a guide to what they can do to help them be successful from grants right, because there's a lot of grants out there. People always say I can't get no job. Well, you need to get some job training assistance, some job training qualifications.
Speaker 3:There's a WIOA grant, the Workforce Initiative Opportunity Act, where anybody has access to it. Just, you ain't got to be a felon to get access. But if you don't really have the financial stability to pay for your, this grant is available to everybody and that's what I received the award from the state of Illinois for for being an advocate for that particular grant and bringing more money to it. And these companies have incentives, like opening their doors for people that are in job training through the WIOA grant, through the workforce, because they have certain write-offs and incentives that they can utilize. So by working with programs like the workforce advocating for this grant, working with the National Association of Re-entry Professionals, it just continued to open up doors. Working with Harvard Warbangers, non-for-profit the boxing, working with Pastor Corey Brooks, different politicians Everything I do serves a purpose and that purpose is impactful and it's going to keep on pushing it forward. My goal is ultimately tour all over America in different prisons to share my story and provide resources for people coming home to inspire them.
Speaker 2:Beautiful man. It's beautiful and like. I mean I was just about to ask you if you could like name out like all the charities you work for and all these like, non-for-profits and like, but I feel like you can't because there's so many.
Speaker 3:I feel like I already did, like Project Hood. You know, Hard War Bangers Boxing Club is a not-for-profit organization, Keep in mind. We fly our opponents out, we put some food in their stomachs, some money in their pockets. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:We pay for their hotels, their Airbnb and we put on pay-per-view and then we give them their loan link to make money in case they want to try to promote the fights. Hard Warbangers does so much. He and he does a lot of great things and sometimes he doesn't get much support. You know he doesn't get much support. As far as I actually have sponsors it's incredible because the same companies I work with, like from Costas right, if you ever go to Costas Beef over there, costas Heroes, you'll see the belt and the shirt hanging up right above the door Harv Warbanger's Boxing Club because they sponsored our events. They sponsor many events all over McHenry County. But I have so many different sponsors from Chicago from here and I constantly have new companies that want to be involved in what we're doing because ultimately it's reducing the crime.
Speaker 3:If you can help just one teenager out, especially that's struggling out there in the streets, you'd be surprised what that could do. Because you got people getting shot all the time in Chicago Just over the summer. Because you know you got people getting shot all the time in Chicago Just over the summer, 16-year-old kid just randomly shot up an apartment complex. You know why, why, why would you?
Speaker 3:just go shoot up an apartment complex. It's an 8-year-old kid that passed away and everybody's asking why, why would he do that? And I think to myself, why would he do that? But I remember when I was 15, 16 years old, I was doing the same thing. I'd go to an op's hood, you know, and the enemy's black, and if they're having a party, I had no problem shooting up the whole damn facility, the whole house. We didn't care, no remorse, you didn't care who you hit. So I wish I would have found that change early on in life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I wish I would have found that change earlier on in life. Yeah, like I was going to say, like are you happy with how life has gone, like the epiphany that happened. Now you're changing your views and you're helping out people rather than, like you know, kind of like digging yourself into a bigger hole. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Right, I was just yesterday at the Illinois Workforce speaking to the mental health and drug court participants and programs like this they started not too long ago. The founding judge was there and here I am speaking in front of judges and people that are in charge of certain things, but these drug courts and mental health courts they're being successful because if an individual completes that, especially staying off drugs, a lot of times these individuals that have problems is because their drug addiction or mental health issues. They don't know how to deal with issues, so they turn to substances and it just becomes repetitive, repetitive and a lot of times they wouldn't even be committing these crimes if they didn't depend on these substances. So it all coincides. So those drug courts, they do many things to help.
Speaker 3:You got some people on a drug court for five years. You might have somebody there for 18 months. It just depends if the drug court thinks you're ready. Some people don't even think they're ready to leave because they want they want that you know to people to watch over them because they don't want to fail again yeah they literally.
Speaker 3:I seen it yesterday. The woman says she's not ready to be off drug court. She needs it and I'm thinking to myself, what do you? Because she knows if she didn't have it she may resort back to drugs. It's going to tear her whole life apart, because her life has never been better other than it is now, with having restrictions and the drug court observing and analyzing everything she's doing. So it's helping people.
Speaker 2:I had a guest on here. He's my tattoo artist, billy Guns. I asked if you knew him before and you said you did, but he was in and out of penitentiaries a lot too. And he told me there's this thing called getting institutionalized you become a product of their environment of the prison, become a product of their environment of the prison. So did you ever get institutionalized when you were up in a country, or do you think you always?
Speaker 3:stayed true to lucky-chucky my interpretation. I've heard that word many times. It's just called being institutionalized, and being institutionalized is a mindset. If you're in jail and prison, you don't mind being there. You're kind of used to it and you're institutionalized. That could be in prison or mental health or any care or any facility.
Speaker 3:It's not just prison, but there's many people that are in prison that are institutionalized because they don't mind being there. A lot of people live better in prison than they do down the street. You got some prison. Give you a state loan TV, they ain't mind being there. A lot of people live better in prison than they do down the street. You got some prison. Give you a state loan TV. They ain't got to worry about bills. They got free electricity, free water, free cable, right, they get state pay every month. They get three meals a day. They ain't got to worry about doing their laundry. Come in and comes to their cell and takes their laundry. There's many people nowadays that are institutionalized, whether they admit it or not, but me, I've never was institutionalized, because every time I was there, I hated being there. I didn't mind being there. Would you call that institutionalized? Because I knew I belonged there. Yeah, I didn't mind it because it was kind of like it was normal. But I never got used to.
Speaker 2:I never, I never liked it in a sense, you know I can't imagine like saying someone like, like is okay with like being in prison they actually enjoys it more than being in the street, because it's kind of annoying, in my opinion, because, like, as taxpayers, we're paying uh that dude to be in prison rather than to like do something outside of like, uh the the walls and be a better person, be a good citizen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the taxpayers are paying a lot of money. A lot of people don't know. I think it's like $37,000 a year just to house one inmate in prison. Jesus, and just think about all the prisoners and every jail and prison. It's a cash cow. You know what I mean. That's not even six days in that jail for that sheriff. It's a cash cow. You know what I mean. That's like that's not even on six days in that jail for that sheriff. It's, it's, it's a cash cow.
Speaker 2:He wants those guys in there because he just gets more money and more funding and yada yada so when I was watching 60 days and you had a chance to talk to the the warden, the african-american fellow, I can't remember his name. Yeah, he basically said you're not staying at the Ritz, you shouldn't worry about milk or food or whatever.
Speaker 3:Can you back up that other prisons you stayed at did have those amenities like an apple, fresh fruit, fruit, stuff like that yeah, yeah, you know what's funny is he kind of like mocked me when he said that he knows that he has a budget. He knows that he has to feed those inmates a proper diet and, in hindsight, even cook. County jail, every jail, every prison I've ever been to, they give you milk every day, especially young men. Did you know? In some georgia prisons if you're between the ages of 18 and 23, you get an extra serving of milk because they know you're still growing right, so they plenish you with more nutritions. So when he's not giving those guys milk, then he mocks me for not giving them fruit, which is part of the four food groups. Right Now, in every Illinois prison and jail I've been to, it's not about just apples or fresh oranges, it could be from a can. You know what I mean. They got many cans where they give you canned fruit and they feed you properly.
Speaker 3:That man took no accountability for his actions because at the end of the day, the only thing he's looking at is the dollar and saving a dollar. Even the food that you see there, right, a lot of the boxes, and this ain't no secret, even in prisons this food is not for human consumption. Why does it say that, yeah, they're serving it to us. He's saving a lot of money by not feeding those inmates properly and I exposed him for that Just like he ain't giving them haircuts or razors. It's demoralizing. You have to go to court. You have to go in front of your family on visits. Yeah, you're going there with a beard that hasn't been shaven in two weeks and not a haircut. You feel like a damn Neanderthal. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:When you say that you mean like you go to a certain area to get a haircut, they don't actually give you like.
Speaker 3:They weren't even offering the inmates haircuts or razors. They offer them there now and they have to pay for a haircut. But in most jails and prisons you're able to get a haircut at least once a month and you get a razor sometimes every day. If you need one, because it's it, it's, you're a man do you think that dehumanization is like intentional to demoralize inmates?
Speaker 3:I think that he had. He had no remorse in doing it. He he take no accountability in doing so. He admitted that he did so, but his excuse was you're not at the Ritz and keep in mind Shaquille O'Neal was on the show. Right, there's 34 basketball rims in that jail, but not one basketball Even in Cook County jail. Every prison you have basketball courts. You have weights available, you have extracurricular activity. You know why? Because when you come home right, because it's called corrections, right, rehabilitation. So when you come home, you come home a better version than when you went in. Now, if you went to Henry County Jail and you said you have, you're thinking about hurting yourself. You know what I mean. You're depressed. You know like everybody is when they first go to jail.
Speaker 2:They have no problem feeding your psych pills. I'll tell you that right now. And what? And what are those psych pills doing? Those people making you crazy, which is viewership? That's fucking insane, man. And uh, I know you uh have some things in the works. Uh, I know you can't uh share or anything but Lucky Chucky's going to definitely be taking the world by storm in a few months, years. What would you say? I?
Speaker 3:would say, yeah, the show's pretty much done. Editing For a fact, I know that we did production in Hollywood back in September for a new show getting ready to premiere on a bigger and better network than the other one I was on, which is A&E, and this is actually real TV and they've had one season. So far it went very well. I'll be promoting the show, hopefully going on different news outlets with clips of the show and just promoting it, because at the end of the day they're going to have paid actors reenacting roles from my life, pretty much exploiting my past criminal endeavors. But at the end it'll be a culmination of what I'm doing now and how change is possible and how one person can make a change and impact and inspire others. And they're going to highlight everything I'm doing, from my social media to my marketing and promoting, to my fighting, to all this great stuff that I do that all serves a bigger and better purpose than what I once was doing years ago.
Speaker 4:Where do we find you, Chucky?
Speaker 3:You can find me on Lucky Chucky at TikTok Lucky underscore Chucky. I'm on YouTube at Lucky underscore Chucky as well. Instagram Lucky zero zero Chucky, and on your local TV soon.
Speaker 2:Dude, it's been a pleasure talking to you, I mean we were all over the place, but I mean, like I feel like that's your personality, you know, and I enjoy talking to you.
Speaker 1:I enjoy talking to you.
Speaker 2:I just have one question. Would you say you're living life to the max?
Speaker 3:I'm living life to the max, a righteous life, and you know I have two mantras that my best day in prison is not as good as my worst day out here, and I always tell people that, because prison ain't where it's at, and I always like to end things as well, because this is my mantra Don't have a good day, make it a great day. I love saying that to people. I do, I do Lucky.
Speaker 2:Chucky, everybody, please like, comment and subscribe on this YouTube channel. Life to the Max Podcast. I had a great time talking to you. It was kind of crazy to hear just like shakes and all this stuff, because I'm like not familiar with this at all. I tried getting familiar with the show but the show, like you said, was fugazi.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it becomes frustrating. To real people that watch that show it becomes frustrating.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm excited for the people to hear this. I'm the quad father and I'm paralyzed from a neck down, breathing through a machine, but that doesn't stop me from following my dreams and doing what I love to do. I don't got any excuse, and neither should you, let's get it my man Salud.
Speaker 3:Thank you again.
Speaker 1:I would. That's everything, but looking out for the locusts. I'm on ten toes Trying to top my opponents. Am I the next best thing? But I think I'm the closest I would. That's everything. I think you trying to go outside now though? Alright, let me put on my shoes.