People Interacting with People
A podcast about People Interacting with People. In April 2015, I became homeless. I decided to embrace this homelessness and what followed was five years of nomadic life, over 250 moves in Canada and the United States, on an average budget of roughly $22 a day.
While sitting in a 24 hour diner in Toronto on my first two homeless nights, a young man sat beside me and when I told him about my experience - spending 9 hours each night at the diner, getting a free coffee and a brownie on my second night - he turned to me and asked:
"Do you think you'd be having the same experience if you were Black?"
Over those next five years, I had a series of "chance" encounters with Black people and had some very interesting conversations. I documented some of them in writing but when I compiled them into a 300 page script during the pandemic, I realized that - in writing it myself - I had lost the authenticity of the other person's voice.
And so, I decided to hit the road and reconnect with some of these wonderful people while also leaving myself open to meeting new ones. These are our conversations.
People Interacting with People
S3 EP1 Part 1: Petty Crimes, Police Brutality, Gang Banging, Prison Life, Trauma, & Reintegrating Back into Society w/ DeMar aka Fly Guy Impulse in Catskill, NY
In this first episode of Season 3, I sit down near Catskill, New York where I met this next guest last year.
DeMar, who was shooting a music video at the time, had been released from Federal Prison just a couple of years before we met.
First incarcerated at the age of 12, and having spent 14 of his last 26 years in jail or prison, 38-year-old DeMar shares his journey and experiences with me.
He opens up about the police brutality he has experienced, what life was like for him in prison, the trauma he still has from his time in incarceration, how he is reintegrating back into what he calls "the free world", and he also shares his views on the prison system.
Tune in to part 2 of my conversation with DeMar where he tells me about the spiritual practice he discovered during his last sentence in Federal Prison, and the song he wrote inside about what it's like to be incarcerated.
To see photos of DeMar & I in conversation - check out my Instagram page @pipsperspective