It's All Bad

Episode 59. Rico’s email to us sums his episode up nicely: What's up guys, big fan of the show.  I'm 29, I live in Boulder, CO and I have some stories from my past that I think would fit well.  Some of my them include: - How I got expelled from high school - Spending a night on the street in New York - Waking up in a trash bag - Crashing my car on speed - Doing fentanyl before it was cool - Gettin...

Episode 57. This week we have a very different picture of New York. Ian Swordy escaped his wasp-y, Long Island upbringing in pursuit of punk rock, partying and political anarchy in the late 90s/early aughts. And while everyone around him got their legs snapped along the way, Ian seemed to coast through it all on a plate of blueberry pancakes and a message from God. That is until the message ran ou...

Episode 56. Charlie Hustle has earned himself a reputation as a wild-man, savage, graffiti savant. Raised by alcoholic parents in Brooklyn and then Staten Island, CH fell in love with graffiti by the 3rd grade. It gave him a community and a brotherhood that helped him navigate finding his own identity. But as New York changed under Giuliani in the 1990s, that community quickly escalated to violenc...

Episode 55. So good that you'd get diarrhea just saying it's name. Hollywood in the 1980s. Our guest this week is Susannah, an old production friend of Keith's who went through the wringer of cocaine and alcohol addiction until she sent herself headlong into a coma and finally got the wake-up call she needed. (A ghostly visit from her deceased mother helped too.) This November she'll have 15 years...

Episode 54. Burden of Concrete , the new book by William S. ("Scotty") Hayes is a harrowing account of his life. His tale begins with his teenage years and a brief foray into juvenile hall, then on to the county jail. By the early ‘90s, in the midst of an exploding Seattle music scene, he falls victim to the scourge of heroin addiction. The chaotic lifestyle that ensues thrusts him into a world of...

Episode 53. It's All Bad welcomes our first intercontinental guest. Nathan of Victoria, Australia has been stabbed twice, broken every rib at least once, 8 broken noses, 17 broken hands, 3 missing teeth, 18-20 ODs,  a golf club to the abdomen, a cricket bat to the head, etc. Now he's sober, happily married with 4 kids, working in recovery and an expert in criminology. We talk bikie gangs, drug dea...

Episode 52. Childhood friends/drug addicts, Gilbert Trejo and Andrew Mishko, join us to talk adolescent heart attacks and shooting cocaine on Planet Venice, CA. Plus, the craziest room Russian Danny ever set foot in, mushrooms while babysitting, and a never-ending story about meeting President Barrack Obama. And tutorials! How to (successfully) go 3 months without shitting, and how to file down a...

Episode 51. For Alison and her gang of morally depraved degenerates—known as the Manson Family—Isla Vista, CA in the 1990s was the party scene of all party scenes. The beachside college town was host to all kinds of mad shenanigans that ordinarily involved thousands of acid trips, car-jacking, white drugs, skateboarding, stripping naked, punk shows and Zima. Lots of Zima. Alison is 15 years sober...

EPISODE 50. Thank you to everyone for great year of terrible stories. To celebrate our fiftieth episode, we've got 5 listeners calling in to share some of their own fuck ups. Plus, we're bringing back fan-favorite, Gabby (Episodes 7 & 8), to tell some Bay Area bangers. Here's to all of you who make this show possible, and to another year of bad stories. If you want to share a story in the futu...

Episode 49. Get ready for some Covina bangers from longtime members of the Church of the Crystal Methodists. Lots of speed and cooking meth. Lots of escaping the police and dodging prison time. Some great America's Dumbest Criminal/botched crime stories. Some cautionary tales of selling to celebrities like Daryl Strawberry. Insane ghost stories. Aliens. Smoking PCP with Pony League coaches. Man. Y...

Episode 48. This week we have a double header for you. First up is Awesome Haley. A long-time fan from Missouri who has stories of DMT-making, mail-order research chemicals, haunted hotels, rubber-tramping gone bad and, of course, Juggalos. Haley is great and we are so grateful for her coming on. Then we have something totally different. What can you say about Cesar? He's in the thick of it. Turne...

Episode 47. Our guest this week is a longtime listener from Nebraska. David traded time between Lincoln and Fremont chasing meth and leading a blue-collar double-life between managing a restaurant and dealing with speed freaks. He toured the South as a drummer in a Red Dirt country band and caught a felony possession charge on a residue amount. Not to mention a deeply haunted apartment, Xanax nods...

Episode 46. A self-proclaimed “terrible junkie” who would rather do his drugs alone in a bathroom than deal with the dirt, hustle and anxieties of life on the streets. Like a Larry David heroin addict who didn’t want to sit in traffic to cop. Michael Angelos grew up in Malibu and started getting himself in trouble very early with his first brush with sobriety at just 16 years old. He spent the 80s...

Episode 45. They never got married, but still spent a honeymoon squatting at playhouses, apartments and Uhauls all over town as they smoked, shot and stole their way to rock bottom. Eventually, they pawned their engagement rings for $20 worth of methadone and checked into rehab. Here they are today, to tell us all about young love and bad memories in the heart of Hollywood.

Episode 44. Two places you don’t exactly want to see bad behavior. Methed-out, Peter goes up against forty cops in a hospital. Gets shot five times and faces five years in prison. Luckily he had his colostomy bag to keep him company. Meanwhile Olivia gets promoted, praised and forgiven for her consistent black-out drinking when she first moved to LA. Really this episode is about two VERY different...

Episode 43. This week we pick up where we left off. Working in the recovery and the healthcare industry is hard enough sober. Stress. Mental illness. Pulling things out of patients' buttholes. Etc. Try it with a drug habit. In this episode we talk healthcare and schizophrenia. Threesomes and mushrooms. Zimas and drunkenly auditioning for The Price is Right. Reno walks all over town, Keith scores b...

Episode 42. The Orange County episode. One of many more to come because the OC has some serious demons to unpack. Just ask Gary (who would prefer to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.) From flashing crowds at punk rock shows to smoking meth at Knott’s Berry Farms. From the “Meth That Makes You Cum” to Darvocet cupcakes and Hessian stepdads. Plus! Gary’s own secret DIY dildo recipe. This episode...

Episode 41. I’m not sure if extra ghost stories is what we need right now given we’re all homebound and stir-crazy, but it’s what we’re getting. What a great guy. We had an awesome time talking to Jack about his party-crazy MTV days as a wilding 16-year-old popping Quaaludes and opiates up and down the Hollywood strip; getting into fights and clowning Justin Timberlake. And an equally great time t...

Episode 40. Southsiders Lucky and Lepke are back for more All Bad. Ghosts, SWAT Teams, PCP, arrests and GHB before finding a sober way out with the help of gratitude and some higher power. They call it a late start to the good life, never forgetting those they lost along they way. Enjoy.

Episode 39. This week we got some old Hollywood bangers from a couple Southside "cholos." Born in Santa Monica and Baldwin Village respectively, Lucky and Lepke met in the joint in 1993 and quickly bonded over their shared Italian-Jewish heritage and a love for classic cinema. But they also had addiction in common. They tell all this week from riots on the yard to smoking Maui Wowie in 1970s Los A...

Episode 37. Miss Elliot (AKA Anita Dick) has lived quite a life. From growing up a gay man in Arkansas, to navigating the legalities and madnesses of male prostitution in 1980s New Orleans, to finally becoming the longest running hooker on Sunset Blvd in the 1990s. He's since found himself a successful career as a celebrity hairstylist and managed to stay clean 26 years. All that and more. Plus Re...

Episode 36. Born and raised in Hancock Park Chris knows the insanities of Hollywood well. And as the youngest of three drug-dependent brothers he did all he could to prove his worth. They pushed each other into all sorts of bad behavior, but also had each other’s back. Whether tricking each other into smoking PCP, drunkenly beating each other into bruises at Grandma’s funeral, or hugging after a s...

Episode 35. This week’s guest joins us from Vancouver. Jason is an avid listener of the show who reached out to us via email to share some war stories. We were lucky enough to get him in for a recording when he was in LA on travel last week. My God. Jason has some killer stories. He joins Mike, Keith and Russian Danny to talk everything from exploding bowels to hallucinating amputations, from grow...

Episode 34. Growing up in Oakland and later Orange County, Lily had a habit of running with the wrong people. Mostly whoever was on the other side of a dope bag. And mostly skinheads. But she owes a debt of thanks to Nordstrom's return policy for floating her habit too. And Easy-Off Oven Cleaner for helping her counterfeit bills. Tune in to hear all about those white collar crimes plus gun charges...

Episode 33. This week we pull from our earliest recordings. It's All Bad has been an ongoing project for almost 3 years now. Initially, the show was very much a work in progress and we had a hell of a time getting the microphones to function in our favor. Still, we had some great guests on to share some crazy stories, like our good friend Youree who's highlights are featured here. Plus we've got a...