You’re Not Jason Bourne, And That’s The Point

We unpack how to disappear in plain sight with the gray man concept and why “boring on purpose” is a survival advantage. We also talk silver at $60, practical civilian swaps for tactical gear, and smart barter options when precious metals feel out of reach.

• price of silver spiking and budget limits
• donations update for the Chesterfield Food Bank
• gray man defined as blending with the baseline
• three memory triggers to avoid: bright, big, shiny
• five rules for a gray loadout
• civilian swaps for packs, pants, shirts, belts, boots, watches
• why tactical looks draw attention and risk
• get-home footwear planning in bad weather
• barter ideas: alcohol and tobacco as silver alternatives

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Chapters

• 0:00 Quick Updates And Silver Shock
• 1:41 Donations And Community Support
• 1:58 What The Gray Man Really Means
• 3:13 Three Principles Of Being Forgettable
• 4:10 Five Rules For A Gray Loadout
• 6:36 Civilian Swaps For Tactical Gear
• 9:40 Why Blending In Protects Your Supplies
• 11:02 Footwear Tradeoffs And Get-Home Prep
• 12:53 Rethinking Barter: Alcohol And Tobacco
• 14:38 Closing Thanks And Subscribe Reminder

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:17

To the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, where prepping doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. Coming to you from a well-defended off-grid compound high in the mountains. Coming to you from his Florida room in Richmond, Virginia. Neither off-grid nor well-defended, unless you count as chickens and cats, here is your host, Keith.

SPEAKER_01: 0:41

Hey everybody, this is Keith, and welcome back to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, December the 2nd, 2025. Whole bunch of stuff I want to talk about, so let's just get right to it. The price of silver, just shy of$60 per ounce. This is not investment advice, but everything I've read, it's not coming back down. So at$60 per ounce, that is out of my price range. I am priced out of purchasing silver rounds. I need to look at different options for bartering. I want to thank everybody who purchased something from Augustin Farms through my Augustin Farms affiliate link. Like I've said before, all of the proceeds, all of the profits, everything I made, the commissions through the month of November is being donated to the Chesterfield Food Bank. I had somebody make a purchase a couple days ago. I'm going to wait for that one to hit, let the account settle, and then I'll let everybody know how much I will be donating to that food bank. So the main topic of tonight's podcast, we're going to talk about the gray man concept. G-R-A-Y, G-R-E-Y, however you want to spell gray, and all the ladies out there that are listening, don't be offended. It's just called the gray man. You could call it the gray person, the gray man slash female girl boy concept, but I'm just going to stick with gray man. So the gray man concept is a person who could walk through a riot, a roadblock, an evacuation line, or even just a sketchy gas station at 2 a.m. And five minutes later, nobody can describe him or her accurately. Not because they're wearing a disguise, but because absolutely nothing about this person really stands out or trips the brain into saying, hey, we should pay attention to this cat. So three things make this happen. The gray man matches the visual baseline of wherever he is. Construction boots and a high viz vest in a neighborhood full of contractors, practically invisible. Some guy in plate carriers in Oakley's, you're a target. Number two, he controls his silhouette. No square armor bumps, no molly webbing flapping around, no knife clipped to your belt, and nothing poking out that basically announces who you are. The gray man avoids three things that the human brain remembers best. Bright colors, big logos, and brand new shiny stuff. Your brain will remember the guy in the screaming yellow North Face Jacks, but it completely forgets the dude in the 10-year-old faded car heart. Real world proof. Ask any cop, ask me, who's taken witness statements before, or any criminal who's done a few lineups. I've been on dozens or hundreds of calls. There's a robbery, an assault, a shooting, plenty of witnesses, and I get there five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes later, and you would be surprised how these descriptions vary. If they can't describe you 30 seconds after you're gone, then you've won. No ghilly suits, no fake beards, no dramatic limp, just deliberately being boring. That's it. Once you lock in that being boring is a good thing, and making boring gear choices, you're well on your way to being a gray man. So here are the only five rules that I actually follow when I'm building a gray loadout. Number one, match the baseline of the place you're actually in. Are you in the suburbs? Carhartt, Duluth, Dickies, College Town, Thrift Store Hoodie, Beat Up Vans, Rural, out in the country, camo is fine. And depending on what time of the year around here, Real Tree Camo is the local uniform you find at Walmart. Number two, kill every logo. Get rid of every logo. One giant Patagonia flower or a 511 patch is a walking advertisement. Use black electrical tape, Sharpie, or just buy something logo free in the first place. Number three, nothing looks brand new. New white sneakers scream, I just bought these sneakers for the end of the world. Scuff them up, wash them twice, leave them in the sun for a few days. And I know everyone's like, I just bought these shoes. They were$120. I'll be damned if I'm gonna scuff them up. Again, we're building a gray loadout. Number four, carry what the locals carry. In my particular area in my county, a beat-up card hard backpack, or a$12 Walmart book bag, a Canvas Aldi bag, one of those reusable grocery store bags you get from Kroger, a Canvas Home Depot tool bag, same effect. Number five, if the only colors available are black, coyote brown, or ranger green, or multi-cambo, pass on those. That stuff is designed to scream, I'm an operator, I know what I'm doing, prior military, it does not help you disappear in plain sight. So real-world gray gear that actually works. So here are some direct civilian swaps that are easy to use. And I know everybody likes the tactical stuff, the 511, but again, you want to blend in. You don't want anybody to notice you. In a significant SHTF situation, stuck in traffic, there's an EMP, you have to abandon your vehicle, you get your get home bag out, you want to blend in. You just want to be a guy or gal walking down the street. You don't want to look like a Navy SEAL or some Army Ranger that's all decked out in the latest gear because you just make yourself a target. All right, so a tactical backpack favorite, the 511 Rush series. Now, I have one of these. I purchased one of these several years ago, and I did use it when I traveled a lot because I'll be honest with you, it's kind of cool. It's got the MOLLE webbing, you can put the little morale patches on it, and you can look cool. For an SHTF situation, it's not gonna work. So instead of the 511 Rush Series backpack, get the gray version, which would be a Jan Sport backpack$40-50, a used card heart legacy backpack, get those on Facebook Marketplace,$25-35. You look like every high school kid or some construction guy just trying to get home. Tactical pants. Anything with 17 zippers and 252 pockets are tactical pants. As I sit here with a pair of tactical pants on. The gray version, Duluth Trading Company fire hose flex pants, or Wrangler Riggs carpenter pants. Plenty of pockets, but you kind of blend in a little bit better. They're built like iron, they're worn by every plumber and electrician in America. A shirt, a tactical shirt, Velcro Soft Shell. The gray version, a Columbia Silver Ridge long-sleeve fishing shirt in the summer, or just a plain old Patagonia nano puff with the logo Sharpied out for winter. No Velcro, no noise. Your belt. There's tactical belts, battle belts, and they do serve a purpose, but we're trying to blend in. The gray version, just a plain brown or black leather belt from Target and a$12 core KORE Essentials Ratchet Buckle. Again, it works well and it doesn't scream I'm a Navy SEAL. Those belts are robust enough that you can use it inside the waistband holster, and you just look like every other dad walking in and out of Home Depot. Boots. The tactical boot version, the Solomon Speed Lace, the fancy 511 boots, the gray version, Red Wing Iris setter boots, or even the$40 Ozark Trail Hikers you can get for a Walmart. Scuff them up, doesn't scream tactical, just regular old boots. A watch, don't get the tactical watch with the paracord bezel, the gray version, a$30 Casio, or some matte gray G Sock watch, just a little digital watch. Literally, every janitor, mechanic, and terrorist on the planet has worn one of these. Your hat, whatever contractors are wearing, just a plain old hat. You don't need a tactical hat. You don't need a Kevlar helmet, just a beat-up card hard beanie, or just a plain old ball cap. Something you should have in your get home bag anyway. No patches, no morale patches on it, no velcro, no Molly webbing, just something very plain. Now, this is very easy to talk about, but it can be difficult. Here I am sitting in a pair of tactical pants that I wore to work today. I do have a, I don't know if it's a tactical jacket or not. It's kind of an army green, OD green. It's got a few zippers on it. It's a super warm jacket, but that's not something that I have in my get home bag. That's something I wore to work today, 65 degrees in my office, but that's a different story for a different day. So again, the whole thing about the gray man concept is just blending in. I've talked about the backpacks in previous podcasts. You just want to be plain Jane. You don't want to stand out. You don't want people to look at you and say, this guy looks like a Navy SEAL. All decked out. He's got a firearm more than likely. This is someone that has what I need. Whether it's a knife, firearm, food, water, again, depending on the situation. And while we're talking about backpacks and go home bags, at work I wear a pair of tennis shoes. Well, today it was raining, sleeting, and we had a little bit of snow here in Richmond, Virginia. If something was to happen and I had to abandon my vehicle and grab my get home bag, 50 feet, and my feet and socks are soaked. So I need to find a gray man set of boots, wear them around, and throw them in the back of my Jeep to make that part of my get home bag. I love hiking. I have old hiking boots. I think I should be able to find them because I rarely throw those away. They're probably somewhere deep in my gear closet. So I'm gonna have to look for those if they're not all covered with spiders and bugs, or I may just have to purchase another set completely. And again, it'll probably be just some knockoff like the Ozark Trail. I'm not too worried about the boots per se. I'll get a nice pair of hiking boots, something that's comfortable, something that'll keep your feet warm, and something I'm not gonna spend$250 on for sure. But I think of all of the tactical gear versus the gray man loadout, probably the boots would be something I would probably cheat on a little bit. I think with the ball cap, regular old backpack, the pants, the shirt, the hoodie, I think that would give off enough of the gray man vibe that if I had a decent pair of hiking boots, I don't think anybody's gonna key off of those. I don't think they're gonna look at me and go, oh, he's a gray man. Oh, wait a minute, check out those boots. That guy knows what he's doing. We're gonna follow him, we're gonna take his stuff, whatever the situation may be. Again, just something to think about. Like I said, I was writing some scripts out last night, and I'm not sure why this one popped into my head. It's something I've thought about before, but with everything going on in the world, and you have your get home bag, your go bag, your bug out bag, having the gray man gear and embracing the gray man concept really wasn't at the top of my list. And it makes sense. For my get home bag, I want to have my knife, my pew pew, aka firearm, my clothes, paracord, fire starting kit, all the other things, the in-reach mini two communicator, all the things I have packed into that get home bag. And the last thing I'm really worried about is the boots. Again, just something to think about. All right, folks, I appreciate everybody coming by and listening to me rant. Not really sure what silver's gonna do, but it's priced me out of the market. I do not have the discretionary income for$60,$62 once you pay for the premium at your local coin store. I don't have$62 to spend on a one-ounce plain old silver round that has just priced itself out of my budget. If it comes down, which I don't think it is, maybe I'll look at it again. One thing I am looking at and that I have thought about, but I have very little, I don't drink, but alcohol, in my opinion, is probably the next best thing to silver. I don't smoke either, but I think tobacco would also be a sought-after item. You always hear people when they try to quit smoking like two days or two hours after their last cigarette that they're Jones in and they're about ready to kill somebody because they're looking for a fix. That might be something. I really don't know that much about it. I don't know if you can put it in the freezer. I guess you could freeze dry it or no, you don't want to dehydrate it. That's no, I don't know. If I was to go out and purchase loose tobacco, or I guess you can still get red man chew or whatever they call it, I guess you can still get that somewhere. You would need a way to store it long term, I guess is what I'm saying. I wouldn't want to go out and purchase something a red man or a a bag or however loose tobacco is purchased. And then six months later, it's I don't know, does tobacco spoil? Listen to me, I don't even know what I'm talking about. I'm just making stuff up. But I'll have to look into that because I think alcohol and tobacco probably be something I'm gonna consider substituting for silver unless something happens with the silver market and it drops down to$35 or$40 an ounce, then I may look at it again. But until then, I've got to come up with some other options. All right, folks, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And as always, be safe out there, take care of one another, and until next time.

SPEAKER_00: 14:46

Thanks for listening to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. While you're at it, help spread the word by leaving a rating and review.