And so its really good to be back. Writing a book about drug dealers is very alluring and there are a lot of people that do it the you are dealing with people, unless you were dealing with methamphetamine dealers or heroin dealers whose product is a lot more lethal, they are basically an entertaining lot. Well they know they are criminals they dont really think what they are doing is wrong. Selling stuff to people who want it at a market price is only harmful if you overindulge. Sean lev her nextdoor which we used to call sean lecter and he would not only deliver liquor but he would deliver cash money and he would give him a check. So he would cash the check and give you the liquor. I just left this on a note to say all right kevin i think his name is to you remember me . Do you still deliver cash to houses along with liquor . [laughter] these guys feel very clever about themselves. Not only because they made a lot of money that because they really enjoy the cat and mouse game with the police which is automatically usually very fun. And they go on until they are caught. But its a lifestyle that to them is as addictive as they if they were putting something into their arm. And very few of them get out of it safely. Very few of them graduate from normality. Take my guy george who was the protagonist of blow. He was free and clear of the law when he and i got together in 91 or 92 for two years. He had been you had been let out for testifying against carlos later. He had been you wasnt out on any condition. He was sentenced to 60 years. So he was given this incredible get out of jail free card. So we talked but the book came out i think in 93 and george got or. We went through all the tv shows and everything and there was nothing george could do that would engage him anywhere near as much. He couldnt do anything. He was never employed other than a manual laborer when he was a teenager. So he we have found this indian in puerto fire to who he had smuggled pot with in the 60s. He went back to ramon in 1964 and they started smuggling pot again. He got arrested right away for 600 pounds in his basement. He was behind a false wall and and i dont know how it got there. [laughter] the prosecutor waived the book in a courtroom. He said this man has fathered the love his whole life and the judge in 1994 gave him 22 years straight up. He was 52 years old and he did every penny of it. He was getting out in may. He missed the movie. He missed everything. Johnny depp came to the prison to learn that horrendous boston workingclass accent that is probably the actors bane of any accent. They went up there to give the warden and his wife a special showing of blow and everything but george missed it. He missed the whole thing. He will will be out of think its may 28 out of fort dix federal correctional institution. I lost touch with him in the last several years but he has a web site. He has a lot of people waiting for him out there and he signed on with one of the piranhas in hollywood who will guarantee you we are going to do a lot with you george. You are going to be famous and he is for a while. Something is going to happen to him but so anyway so george is 72 and he has had a cancer operation on his forehead a melanoma but i think hes okay. So hes out to 72. So are other tonight though, he also knows somebody who snuck in with him for a long time, that his old man. So this is his first book and its just reading the bio and its certainly an impressive career. You have heard some of it but some of it that i thought was interesting was he graduated from gwu in 2003 semi, audi bed bed sue me, latte. I have never known anybody who graduated first. Hes very embarrassed about that. Then he went to colombia for american studies and he found his way to Newsweek Magazine when it was connected with the daily beast. When it was connected to the american institute. [laughter] my memory is hazy and that. What interested me about it is he is a traditional jack of all. Reporter. They are not around much anymore. I was looking at them. He has written everything from a 10,000 a day corporate psychic to the last surviving set of world war i. The only black father in baltimore who adopted a white girl. We can fact check that. Thats an assumption. [laughter] oh really . I will fact check that. He came forward with the white daughter so i think we have it. I caught newsweek when i started working for the colombia Journalism Group and they started dropping the fact checker. Smith, the editor said well yeah i know but just a few mistakes here and there. He said on the cover . They misspelled garry wills name on the cover of the magazine. Where was i . Portrait of a reclusive author of the anarchist cookbook back and god knows one. One of the more effective exposes of scientologists l. Ron hubbard. Hes a Senior Writer at Business News lives with his wife and two children. Can i say just around the corner . Anyway tony dokoupil. Thank you bruce. [applause] thank you all for coming. A lot of people in the room have been aware of this book for a long time. Its behind schedule. Fortunately behind schedule. We were supposed to turn it into years ago and legal weed was not here. I think much of the conversation conversation people wouldnt be as interested in the book if they werent able to buy this stuff right now. Rather than give you a summary of the book which is something i gave a lot of thought to i will just crib the daily news headline. It was 50 tons of trouble. 50 tons was the number of poundage of weed that my father brought in. The on line headline where you have more space was interesting and managed to encapsulate the whole story here. Let me see if i can get it. How a genius drug lord who peddle tons of pot became a destitute deadbeat dad with a habit. [laughter] that encapsulated it perfectly. It shouldve been my subtitle. Bruce brings up a really interesting point about the feeling of drug dealers in the 70s and 80s had about themselvethemselve s and an incredibly oceanic feeling and selfsatisfied feeling particularly the marijuana dealers. What made it possible for me to visit my old man and get him to open up about his past is hide behind a reporter notebook and rather than tell a squirmy fatherson story which does squirm a bit i was able to tell a bigger story about how the laws in the last kind of Great American outlaw was used, the gentleman smuggler in the gentleman dealer of that era. How did become such a person . Im like and alcohol prohibition where people were happy to abide but the gangsters were providing booze for different social class and were considered to be separate in the 70s when marijuana exploded as a drug and incredible explosion come to write . The dealers were at the same social class. They were getting it from the college roommate. You arent getting it from al capone or a gangster or a killer. You are getting it from a person like you and that was a dramatic shift. It created a really interesting alliance between the smokers and dealers. Eugene debs and you probably know this. He was some sort of political leader in the 30s. I dont know. [laughter] first in her class . Go ahead. Theres an asterisk next to first in class because it was a business school. Come on. [laughter] he said Something Like when the soul is in jail no man is free and marijuana smokers in the 70s felt like when the dealer is in jail no smoker is free. So they deified these guys. If you are able to provide marijuana by the pound first from mexico you were an absolute hero and high times which is now a weird blend of latin music and gardening tips used to be a magazine. Its an incredibly bizarre magazine now. It began, it was founded by one of these heroic smugglers and it did for marijuana smuggling what Rolling Stone did for rock n roll. It put it on the cover and had huge feature stories on grand scores and wonderful adventures. It talked about the contraband elite flying dope air force. They put out word games where you could be the dealer and score and monopoly card should be doled out. If your card would, be would score big. So to answer this lifestyle was incredibly alluring. My father was 24 years old in 1970 when marijuana use was really taking off. In 1967 to give you an idea of 5 of college kids according to gallup had tried marijuana. By 1970, 45 had. Incredible growth and by the end of the decade decade one in five adults had smoked in the last month. That was the peak of marijuana use in this country. We are not even there yet and again we are heading there. My father did it first with mexican marijuana and then in the middle of the decade he was thinking well i made some money. I have a teaching degree. I can substitute. Maybe i will get out while im ahead and jimmy carter came along. Jimmy carter as is often forgotten was very promarijuana he ran on a platform of decriminalization. He nominated a drug czar who petitioned congress to pass a lot decriminalizing marijuana and then carter himself stood on the floor of congress in 1977 and said famously no drugs. If theres a penalty can sit theres thats as bad as the penalty itself. So he doubles his input. He starts driving winnebagos full of weed out of key west enthusiastically looking to grow and reach further into the country. And then shortly after carters famous speech that christmas in fact this is an amazing moment in drug history. To change my fathers life and changed my life by extension. So he says lets go upstairs and we will do some cocaine. He goes to the top floor and its not a townhouse. In full view of hunter s. Thompson for Washington Post reporters he does a1a, one start in his left nostril and one snort in his right nostril. Its called a bullet. This story holds unbelievably. Unbelievably the story holds for six months. And then he makes the mistake of writing a prescription for qualaids which were known as like a drug for hourlong sex sections. He gives it to assess the dash assistant and the press gets ahold of that. They go for the two grand on Good Morning America the story breaks. The drug czar does cocaine at pot party. Everything america had regressed toward towards progressive liberal drug laws completely collapses. Jimmy carter declares war on marijuana and my fathers life is completely changed. He still driving winnebagos out of key west but the politics of the country continued shifting and here comes ronald reagan. He could have gotten out but he didnt. There was a second moment much later in his career in 1986 where he had reached his own benchmark for moneymaking. He said he wanted to make a million and he made a million and he said he wanted to make 2 million and he did that. He got to 3 million he really had to do nothing. In 1986 and his job was successful. 15 years after starting realizing hes qualified for nothing else at this point he made in decision to sit tight. I was in a great private school, had a mercedes and a cool vote. We took lots of vacations. He buzzett with usa . And 86 he still around. He comes home to us and hes retiring and we have an epic Retirement Party in st. Thomas with the chartered yacht for 50 people. Fresh fruit and red snapper fillets. Just a gorgeous time. Comes back to miami where we are living and all he has to do is nothing. Just nothing. Andys incapable of it. Just like george it sounds like. Theres something about entering the business either at the beginning or in the process and becoming successful and it that just spoils the mind or something. You become at a certain point in capable of doing anything else. The alarm clock goes off and it echoes down in the decades of your life and you cannot go forward on regular strength existence. You just have to do something else. So you were really lucky in that you had your source in your family. Yes, lucky and not so lucky. My father was a funny source because when i first found him competent he disappeared from my life when i was 10 and didnt know anything about marijuana. I knew my parents were hippies and i had heard rumors. So the party in the caribbean was when you were 10 . That was when i was six but in between six and 10 my father went in search of the high that wasnt dealing. He just became an epic user himself. Not of marijuana. Many drug dealers selfdestruct in socalled retirement but i think he reached a new level or selfdestruction. At one point all the Escort Services in miami refused in business. I was never brave enough to inquire about it. It was a pretty big flameout. When i was 10 is 11 of reagans Drug Task Forces caught up with my fathers ring and an incredible melodrama my stepfather told him my father and the high tailed it out of the state. So unusual wrapup. On the one hand he was a great source because he is my father and hes willing to come and that on the other hand hes my father so hes not really willing to go into all the details. I had to poke them with a stick to tell me some of the stuff. Im interested in young. Was he somebody who cotton to the idea of being worldfamous and on the cover . Yes if you had offered him that option he certainly would have snatched it right up. I bought george for 1200. Better quickly explain that. [laughter] its all very logical. There was a writer for Rolling Stone howard cohn. Howard cohn was pretty wellknown back in the 80s. He wrote the Karen Silkwood book. He wrote a wonderful piece a book that is not as wellknown on his fathers farm in a position he had found george when george was testifying against carlos in the late 80s. He was going to do georges story. George is very accessible. In the middle of this the irancontra scandal erupted. Howard wanted to do a book. He was so outraged by now that he wanted to do a book on morality and government creates so here he had george. George has written his own story on the floor of his cell. A small part of it was true. It was this big fat manuscript that had a lot of stuff in it. So he was starting with that and starting do you know but then he was seized with this vision of morality and the government. Now is the time so his agent was my agent. And so he called seraph and said well ive got to do this story and i have got george here. Is there anybody who would be interested and sarah called me up. So i dont know. George was living on the cape. He had gotten free from prison. He had gotten his deal for testifying against carlos and was freed and he was living on the cape as he always did with a woman who would take care of his two pac a day camel habits plus his tours a day. I was never with george when he did not have a bottle of doers a day. I went out to see him and we got along fine. He was very gregarious. The movie doesnt paint him anywhere near as gregarious but funny as he is. He is a sort of a person when he comes into the room everybody turns and says george is here. So we got along well and so i told my agent that yes i will take them over and we wrote a book proposal and it was successful. We paid howard cohn 1200 and that was how. Any idea how howard cohn feels about the movie and subsequent success . I have talked to him and he wished me very well with it all. He never wrote his book. [laughter] he was very gracious which was one of the few mistakes but i made a lot of them he said so i didnt feel bad. But these guys are very easy to approach. So i had to make a deal with george. Being a journalism professor i am always challenged by this deal, making deals with the people you write about anywhere partnering with. And as a matter of fact when the book came out there were several reviewers. One in particular from the boston globe very angry that there was a deal. I gave george money, gave him 100 a day plus expenses all the time he was with me. He had a part of the movie. We didnt know there was a movie but i had him all signed up. So, i think the reviewer said you know imagine what do you tell your students at columbia about paying for stories and does not make you duss and that compromise the whole thing and what do you do about that . I said you are absolutely correct and compromise it compromises the whole situation but heres how i deal with it. One, if there is no other way to get the story and you want to do the story then you would pay. The other thing is if you can devise a way of checking within your professional ethics the accuracy of what he said. So i checked things george would say in the interview george and i would go off and he would give me lists of names and introduced me to everybody. I would go off and talk to them all independently. If what they said was vaguely in the ballpark then i would use it the best thing i couldnt check and it was in the movie. It was very dramatic was when he went down to see pablo escobar. He know he told me that story time and time again over and everything am pablo came out and there was this while he is talking to george there theres this guy who has delivered into his presence who is a former am pablo in the movie pulls out his 45 and shoots them in the head. George said at that point he said i told padron that ive got to get going im going back home. But i couldnt check that. There was no way i could find out but it certainly seemed in character and so thats the only thing i couldnt get. So i wrote her back and that was my answer to her. Because i wanted to do it and i tried to check everything but is certainly is a constant subject for discussion and journalism classes. The way i got around the problem of having sources happily sideways during the years in question was to take my fathers point of view is the one i would go with. I went with a written record followed by my fathers memory and if he didnt remember and there was nothing in the record i want with the most plausible of the remaining versions. [laughter] that got me through. Part of the reason bruce is a great person to have here tonight is his character is someone who my father would have looked down upon quite dramatically because george began as a marijuana smoker and transition to cocaine. This was something that most people did. Because to make money with cocaine you can make a Million Dollars for what you can fit into a backpack. It was like smuggling pixie dust. With marijuana to make that same Million Dollars he needed a ton of extremely pungent pint matter. It was like smuggling elephants of the country said to stick with that when you have this very easy source of revenue on the side you had to be very passionate about what you were doing. Not only that you had to look down on cocaine. So the defining characteristic of this particular character i tried to highlight and that i think my dad represents is the defining characteristic is marijuana is peace and love and where pirates define a government that has a semiprohibition and cocaine, basso soul killer. We are not going to bring that into the country. We will use it but bags of flour you can replace the amount of cocaine we did. I was disinherited one line at a time thats for sure. Let me ponder that for a second. George delivered cocaine as soon as he heard about it. He also would speak their herbalists mantra. Marijuana was gods urban and he got into trouble with the judge wants when he said what he couldnt see what the problem was in transporting a plant across an imaginary geographical line. But i remember him saying he got caught for marijuana and his mother turned him in. I dont know that for sure but i talked to the fbi agent who arrested him. This was in 1972. Part of georges, what interested me and him was the psychodrama of his life. I identified with it. I had led a similar life were a father was hugely denigrated by the mother. The father was raised up in georges mind is a loser. He couldnt make it in the oil business. The mother, this is outside of boston, was a boston oneal. The oneals in boston were quite prominent. There is nobody here old enough to remember Breakfast Club with don oneal which was if you were raised in the 40s and 50s and may be carried to the 60s that is what you turn on the morning from radio city. So she thought she was fooled by him that he was going to make something of himself so she plagued him his whole life. She would put up george is the paradigm of success was his fathers brother who was a commander in the navy, and officer and would put his sword over the fireplace. He would put dollar bills on the Christmas Tree and he would hand out these elaborate presents. He absolutely loathe george is george was his name and this guy was once picked up at the airport because they thought he was george. The cocaine smuggler when he wasnt. He was the august commander, a tired commander. So i asked the fbi to turned in george and two called you . Was that the mother . He said no, not directly. So the mother called the uncle who called the fbi is the way i interpreted that description. Theres a lot of confusion in the lives of these drug dealers and particularly the big ones. People in the media during the 70s and 80s were very interested in covering them as though they were heroic and intelligent. Journalists love that narrative. They have got runways and they have a militia and they have stash houses and they have intel equipment. They are equal to the american military. Journalists love that story and the American Government love that story because the American Government is using a ridiculous amount of technology to pursue these and its a laughable amount. There was one cliff i keep at my desk at work from the news which is a newsbrief. Its just a little story and it says a boat carrying a small amount of marijuana alluded the coast guard and Navy Destroyer and ford jet fighters for 27 hours on friday until eventually being caught. Jet fighters . Can you imagine that . So when that person gets caught. Its amazing that got that far. People probably heard the phrase which was in florida so many bales of marijuana got tossed overboard as a result of bad captain bad seamanship and bales got flown over and people would would and sell them. So when you did your book you would go and interview your father in a room or how would you interact . We went on a little road trip my father who fell quite hard and ended up a pensioner in cambridge. He went to prison for marijuana dealing in smuggling but he also got charged for tax fraud city gets all the Social Security. He lives in Public Housing in boston indicates a Social Security check create i funded some of the strip then we went to miami and we went to new york and check out the old haunts which was entertaining. He conducted himself like a guy with 5000 in his boot buddy walk to the palace hotel and the plaza like he owned the place. But he was wearing a polo shirt with polo this large on the front. It had like a happy face sweat stained. Hes wearing flipflops and his tone toes look like something from an archaeological dig. He is just a wreck. He has more presence than any of them because he is operating in the realm of memory. There is some one moment in particular where we are at the plaza and tourists are moving in and out of applause all the time. They are always trying to cool their heels. Plus it doesnt like that so they immediately hit you with a menu and they want me to order a 6dollar diet coke or get out. They did that to us when we plopped down. My father went immediately back to the waiter and he said we wont be having any today and he somehow managed to look down his nos at the waiter. The waiter scurried away. And then there was another one of my fathers Favorite Hotels in new york city was the Gramercy Park hotel which overlooks one of the last private green spaces on the east side on the lower east side. Not quite the lower east side. He went in there and he had just undergone a quarter billion dollars of overhaul where julianne did everything and artwork like damien hersh and other people more chancy than ive ever counted. The time said it was absolutely grand. My father walks around antisniffs around and as we are walking out he looks at the chandelier and gives of the middle finger. Hes like that is not real crystal. And then i looked it up later and it turns out he was right. [laughter] it was cast resin. He knows his chandeliers. You were lucky your father was so suave. George was very hard to travel with. He had these big shoulders. He was a Football Player and had these big shoulders. He had this ratty beatles haircut. It just sort of hung down and these glasses and usually had a Brown Leather jacket. He looked like something that somebody should someone who should be under arrest. Plus he had this incredible alcohol addiction. He had stopped cocaine. He never had the interest in or want to but scotch was his best friend. So our deal was once he started drinking scotch he was impossible. He would get ledger and. He would get stupid. And he would get threatening to strangers. So i made a deal with him that he could drink beer and if we are going to do this george this is going to be a famous book and the movie making you millions. You are going to drink beer until 5 00. Thats it. So george could drink 10,000 beers. Were you covering his expenses on the booze . It was in for a nickel and in for a dime. In for a diamond in for a dollar. Yes, it covered everything. So he could drink beer all day long and the moment he started going up to a bar bellyup to the bar and said doubleday worst water back he talked in his gravelly voice which was doubly threatening. I knew that the day was over. We at that point we traveled all over the west indies. Weather was down in the bahamas or florida or mexico or california or the cape or wherever we went. So he started drinking and we would pick out a restaurant and we would go into the restaurant and by now george has had maybe three or four double tours watered back. The maltre d would sniff this one out in a minute. This guy was trouble and he approached george. George then said excuse me sir we are all full. George was like what . Full . All these empty tables. He said i can reduce this place to matchsticks. Wed have to go to some little Chinese Restaurant somewhere in some alleyway. So i started going to restaurants earlier. I wouldnt tell george that was going. Id at least try to get the bread tray before george would show up in the maltre d would go like this. We would get kicked out. And i remember i particularly wanted to get into he was put into prison in mexico. In 15 minutes later i dont feel so good, so he passed out. I had to dump him in the hotel and drive up to during durango myself. It turns out these mexican prisons are kind of interesting because on the weekends they bring up dot she and cook chicken and their girlfriends come in and they cook music and guitar, and it seems very good. But i imagine what went on there was no protection, but apart i saw was not bad. To finish the thought i had earlier about how the media was interested in making marijuana dealers look like just unbelievable heroes and geniuses, ceos and all these crazy headline headlines, whiled large they were bumbling and fell in the end, so thats the story that i tell and i think it is representative of the general story. There is no ceo on the sunset with the riches. Although there are rumors he brought something but i dont think so theres something about the glory of taking the right and falling backwards into the surf and thats part of it. You dont take the clean dismount. Its a glorious time and at the end, you fall. And that was the journey that they signed up for and thats the journey that they wanted so even when they found themselves not caught at the end they were like we need to get caught otherwise we are a one hand clapping falling in the woods and no one around. We want to be famous and we want to be known, so there was a magnet effect. They were drawn to absolute ruben at the end. Even if you take up the old media stories, you can find at ththebubbling part of the narra. They look to the amazing characteristics of these guys and then there will be some little detail they cant hide that gives it all away and there was a guy that was said to be the biggest dealer on the west coast. He worked for four years, he had a failed tropical plant business in florida, then he tried a yoga studio and the field and then he became the captain of the navy and all this crazy stuff. After four years he gets busted and how does he get busted . By the way the best one was he had an electrified house and he built a special security chamber. So how does he eventually got that way . He left his notebook with all of this context in dennys. [laughter] thats like the steakhouse of marijuana. [laughter] it could happen to anybody really. Should we open up for questions . I am sure we have covered everything. The what does your dad think about the buck . He read and called me and had a long list of things he wanted to say and they were all small things like you know, you misspelled on page 206. Hes got problems with grammar and he was building something significant, so he finally gets around one minute before we hang up on his point. What do you mean . You didnt get my appetite. I didnt . He said theres not enough hookers in the. Including a fivesome wasnt sufficient for the documentary. What does your mom think of the buck . She said i feel like i want to throw up. She supported the buck and she has been generous of her time and she went to some dark places in recapturing the story for me but now that its how she doesnt want to look at it. She confused how she participated in such a life for some of the code so long. A sociologist longterm economic critique of the california scene that was the same as the east coast and had a profile. My mother also fit a certain character type. I love her and she raised me in the absence of my father and she got up some of the cash. She has a property in the islands so shes fine now. Any other questions . The [inaudible] you said something about the time and i know who you are talking about like the ones that choose to retire to places like that and he strikes me as very resource full getting into it at the right time when the pendulum was swinging that way and the climate. [inaudible] thats the thing. If you choose those spaces its kind of a personal choice. Its also consistent with the ability to see your self from the outside. You have an internal narrative that is the systematic and you are giving stage directions to your self and what is a great setting. Im going to watch them run by and think about the past. [inaudible] urban will get you there partly to dbut then if you have readin we probably have one with us tonight so far. I dont want to embarrass anyone. [laughter] how much was your father aware of the politics of the time and sort of in the retirement how they could he was aware of the politics. No one subscribed because it was a giveaway that he was a drug dealer. He was very aware of the politics that interacted directly in response to them and in the present, he was walking down the street recently had a guy with a clipboard trying to get signatures enthusiastically then went to the Quaker Meeting House and the resources goes to the circle time every wednesday and he told the story of signing the petition for Marijuana Legalization and after the meeting he got a shoulder tap from someone that said do you want to try some and so my father went to the Old Folks Home and he tried so powerful marijuana unlike the stuff he was bringing in and he said he thinks it is legalization as a final confirmation of his heroic lifestyle. They are the selfdescribed rosa parks of legalization. [laughter] anyone else . You said you had this kind of luxurious lifestyle. What did you think was bringing in that lifestyle, what was your sense of what the family was . Tonight i thought my father bought and sold the great Housing Company he paid the carpenters and a master woodsman who would do all kind of amazing stuff and they sold the property. There are People Living in vermont and unbelievably nice house is completely constructed out of drug money they were mated to lose money but they made money come out. And then when thats got to be too much of a hassle you dont want to walk around the job site anymore, he did a job for a guy trying to start a boat company that still exists and one of my fathers former partners. So he got a vote and it was a great boat and so he got it her license and i thought thats what he did, too. You know, kids dont know. You can lie to your kids. [laughter] they didnt know he was a drug dealer . I didnt know he was a largescale drug dealer until i became a father myself and i decided to get to the bottom of my father and i said no more rumors. Im a journalist now. I can find out things. I did a local search record and found a cocaine possession charge and the archive keeps 1 of all of the documents the government produces the stuff that historians will want and i do have the criminal records indicated and they sent me his indictment that was page one through 14 of what was 100 something pages file and it was three overlapping indictments of all of his friends and then i knew. I called my mother and i said i got this interesting document here. What do you know about dad and she was flooded with emotion and said we were going to tell you. [laughter] what had she told you up to the plate . Nothing, zero. I heard talking like adults talking about their drug use and then when they sold a little bit the kid as it was anything but appearance are doing is not is just kind of pathetic. So im a young kid. Im a teenager in my 20s when this is being talked about and my assumption is that my parents were goodies, not marijuana dealers. That would be preposterous area to he left. It was consistent with his general leaving. And i thought that we moved from florida from miami to maryland because we were afraid of hurricanes. [laughter] and the reason was because my stepfather and my fathers other partner had a very long session with the new england drug task force. They went to the beach in Fort Lauderdale and they laid the whole story out and the indictments came down in the aftermath of that and more than a dozen went to prison and my father was like we should move. We should go. So we didnt tell anyone on my fathers side of the family where we were going. We lied and said we were going to tallahassee and then i never saw them until, you know, the internet was born and my grandmother got sick and they were like if youre interested heres your fathers phone number. How did you feel about him as a person clicks were you disappointed or just what were your emotions . No matter how they ar are thy end up being kind of heroic. And then when he left come he, n addict, so i was like i internalized these societies view which is extremely low, and so when i found out he was a drug dealer, for other people that would be a crushing blow but for me it was amazing. Hes not just a drug addict, hes a drug dealer. Thats better. Hes a criminal. Awesome. Huge excitement, seriously. [laughter] what about now . Now i understand the arc of his life. The key moments in his life lineup perfectly with the moments in marijuana in this country. I started watching one through three now and its supposedly an accurate portrayal of i dont know if you have seen the wire, but in accurate portrayal brought in and distributed through the areas in baltimore. Simon was a former reporter for the baltimore sun. The viewfinder that is because these two stories dont really jive with that whole wide air Police People on wiretaps at all these sorts of drivebys and Police Informants were criminals and all that sort of thing. So, just curious about your thoughts on that. Said, two points. The wire they are dealing crack, right, and a harrowing . So its a categorically different kind of animal involved in the business. I dont know much about how it works really. But ibut a different individuals involved. And then also on the Street Corner level, i have no idea what happens there because george i think was bringing it in. This had nothing t has nothih poor people at all ever. They were very hot up in the wholesale business and didnt know some of those that he would hire to help protect him. He never knew any and there was a hat den berry and he was given a class to teach and they were not going to accept any of the teachings to ge get a ged get td they get a ged and be told of them and decided they would teach me to teach them how to smuggle if they kept to their ged. Because it was airconditioned and there. He doesnt want to get thrown out of the school. But no, on this level its nothing to do with the wire. His partners bring him onto the sailboat and when it went from there it had no idea. But the money would be given out for the entire time. They thought that he was dealing marijuana so that enduser is writing music and getting laid. [laughter] [inaudible] they decided to do one last job and they did a huge job and everyone got rich and then they were all supposed to go off in private lives who was the most prolific smuggler of the reagan era heated one more job with an old rain. They noticed all of the loans were going to friends and family into so they got busted and they got indicted for the marijuana sales and willie was on the indictments and was the closest player we want to find him and then he was in portugal living it up in a big coastal community. He had a harare and he was driving fast all around the place and couldnt. And in the records there were all of these references to will but eventually they are like who is this for re . So they identify him successfully. He gets busted at the dentist. They put him in a portuguese jail, he doesnt like jail. The prosecutor flies over and says paul can get you out of here so he says okay i will talk. He comes to the states and close my stepfather who by this time is living with my mother. And actively bothering me and my father disappeared. He says its up. Ive been busted, im cooperating and you should, too call it. As my stepfather tells he says he wasnt going to do with the family have to break down the door tonight and we are going to take you into Stephen Foster care. [inaudible] my step father was able to get it but they have no market and they were the guys that could sell it, so they got together at a jimmy buffet concert and they were like we meet each other. I didnt know they were partners until who told me . And then he acknowledged that he told me the story and he said go to the barn. He lives in West Virginia now on a big property pieces go to the barman tbarn and get the papersd you will see terry at you will see that i got community from you. I got the paper and i come back and finally see it in the light of kitchen and i got a letterhead and a Drug Enforcement task force and it has the big signature from the prosecutor and it lists only my stepfather as the person protected for participating. [laughter] and then you were out of private school now . The yeah. Unfortunately i was there long enough to learn how to read. I had the basis, the foundation. You mentioned the government sources. They did before the grand jury ticket in the indictment. So it was like he becomes the te special agent the stand and lays out the whole architecture of the organization and that is when the indictment comes down. Hes a private concert security consultant. Do you remember, i remember it well. What about for you . It was finally busted into george was a romantic basically. He was busted in Fort Lauderdale by the people that he had trusted as transporters, and once he went off they were always very willing to talk about what happened. Anyone else . [inaudible] by the way what is next and how did you find books on the shelf now and you mentioned something about whats next. How did you make th that transition . Pic i try to remain employed in the journalism. No trips to mexico anymore and 17 countries or whatever youre doing. When you get the lead of absence, how does that work . I was a professor doing this to become a rich and famous magazine writer which only a lunatic would do when looking for a job that had halftime working fulltime pay. I have a day job and i have other ideas. My wife has forbidden me from writing another book. She has endured this book and shes out there. Thank you. Up [applause] im going to ask you whats next . [laughter] this is a woman protagonist. Its a Saint Martins press probably out next summer of 2015. The working title is the princess and the dea. Just quickly it is about a woman who was kidnapped. She is an American Woman who was colombian national, kidnapped by farc, the column guerrillas. Thinking she was a rich woman that headed a multimillion dollar moneylaundering scheme in boca raton, florida. They kidnapped her and brought her up into the hills plan in reality she was working undercover for the dea, and the story is how they got her back without alerting them that they had a government agent in their grasp. The only fiction i do isnt expensive or boring. [laughter] thank you all for coming. [applause] we have books for sale and we have some wine and he wouldnt mind holding up your chairs and putting them against the wall that would be great. Thank you again. An audible conversation this country was built upon people who have come and have immigrated to the country, some of them legally and some of them in a legally. In my case i came in with no documentation and no ability to get a job or an education. So when i first came into the United States in the 1980s and i crossed the border between mexico and the United States i ended up coming into the valley to work as a migrant farm worker there was no challenge to find the job. There were not a lot of people trying to get their jobs with the very same hand. They were one of the voices from the booknotes conversations. Cspan sunday at eight