Drifter interview-Deke

[Music] all right derek derek oh where'd you grow up where are you from originally uh i was born in toledo ohio is where i was born and you're raised uh in between toledo and detroit area tell me about your family growing up you had mom and dad yep uh my mom is dead now she died about 10 years ago and but i grew up uh went to catholic school for 12 years um was a really competitive wrestler played a lot of sports i had a good family had a good mom and dad i'm 45 i was born in 76 so i grew up in 80s was probably the last generation with uh [Music] no um [Music] internet stuff like that right now so but your childhood was good no crazy no no no crazy traumatic incidents or anything like that and you went to high school yeah yeah after that yeah i graduated high school yeah and soon after that i just immediately after that i had two children that are i think they're 25 and 26 now they're a week less than a year apart did you raise them uh i paid child support their mother raised them for a couple years and then the state took them from her and gave them to my mother and father so i was around but they were raised basically by my mother and father i paid child support and i wasn't a great dad but yeah i paid my child support that's my claim to fame right can you uh you've had jobs before yeah i've had a lot of jobs yeah i can hold the job but like today you're living a very different lifestyle yeah you have in the past i take it yep tell me about how you live today um i just travel from place to place and i hitchhike wherever i go i usually i don't take too many buses or anything i i hitchhike and i do a lot of pacific crest trailing and just a lot of san gabriel mountain trailing out of l.a and uh i spend a lot of time doing that these days i go to oregon i spend a lot of time in oregon hiking those mountains and uh but uh you stay on the west coast yeah i always stay usually on the west coast sometimes i go to like quartzite arizona or i did that like a couple years ago or um [Music] slab city or something like that you know i go places like tahoe mount shasta i do that every year now and and you walk most of it i walk most of it or uh i when i'm trailing and uh when i'm not catching a ride i i don't stand still in hitchhike i actually that's like the term hitchhiking it kind of in terms you're or [Music] hitching and hiking otherwise you're maybe just hitching but uh yeah so like if you don't get anywhere if you don't get a ride you make can make 20 miles you know how many miles do you walk in a day you think um always 20 but like i said we were talking before sometimes i did four 30 mile days last year and uh you could check out my youtube too uh have you ever trained hop stuff like that uh yeah i've hopped a couple trains but i'm not big on it especially with the dogs uh i've done a couple easy hops but that's not really my thing train writing isn't really my thing it's more hitchhiking so what attracted you to this this vagabond lifestyle um what would you call yourself are you a drifter are you a vagabond what are you yeah them are both good terms i just a traveler or whatever [Music] i don't know i never really fit in with the regular society i've never had a credit card i've never had a car note i've never had a uh a mortgage you know i've never had like like i don't know i just never really bought into it into a society i still don't and i just i've never been happier than doing this you know hence the face tattoos yeah right right that'll stop you from getting a job like why did you do that it was like it makes people it keeps people away from me but really it doesn't it's like a magnet it works like the opposite is like it drew you yeah yeah well that was part of it it's probably more the dogs than anything the whole like you said yeah what do i do now now i put dogs on my back and you'll see that later or whatever yeah so you you'll see like i saw you in santa monica and you're you're out with your sign and you how much money will you collect in a day of doing that um i mean there's a limited time in window i can do it i have to have shade and i'm with your back it i can only do that maybe three hours a day at max and then the dogs only want to work two or three hours a day so i have a window but i can usually bring in like on a weekend like maybe a hundred dollars you know it's like and that that works first because we don't have any bad habits so yeah so drugs are part of your life or no no no i'd smoke pot but i mean in my lifestyle you just get that for free people just give it to you like on the road i mean in my pack i probably got close to a pound of wheat in my pack it's legal now so yeah it's illegal but the harder drugs are something you've ever played with or no yeah yeah i used to in the 90s and in the early 2000s still a little bit was uh drinking and stuff but i used to smoke a lot of crack after i was drinking and i used to go to jail a lot i've been to prison a couple times all stemming from drugs and alcohol was alcohol the the beginning of it yeah alcohol was definitely the the uh the main factor and since i quit drinking i mean i've been in california 10 years and i've never been arrested and came close a few times but it could have something a fact to do or something to do with the fact that uh california is not quite like a police state like ohio and michigan either so what and what does your family think of of your lifestyle um well my mother never got to see it because it this really started when my mother died so yeah it's like and because then my dad like got a new life right away almost with a new wife and then kids younger than my kids you know step kids younger than my kids so it was like she was kind of the glue and then the family like fell apart after that like my kids are doing their own things now you know have their own family my daughter my son is struggling you know uh i think like i did but my daughter is a graduate of cincinnati she went on a full scholarship and she is a nurse and has a kid and two dogs and a husband who's a nurse and a house and a car and all that stuff she fully bought in so yeah so what do you where do you think you get this this inclination is it and you it's just in your dna i think so yeah i mean was there someone you saw that was doing this and you said i want to do that i you know what to tell you the truth i can remember being 17 and 18 and and getting into some trouble and i remember i remember thinking when i was 17 and 18 contemplating ways in my head before i ever had kids or anything it was contemplating ways in my head like how i could live in these abandoned buildings near that area and like and like how i could survive and then be warm and it's like i've always had these like things in my head now it's more like in the woods and you know and and uh i mean i've built cabins and like i've done a lot i mean i'm a serious serious hiker i've done a lot of hiking and so you'll i document most of it oh you do yeah yeah yeah i have like a bunch of uh pacific crest trail and and uh and um appalachian trail and uh a bunch of other stuff i have a uh a youtube and a facebook and a facebook that i document everything on really so you've been all over the country yeah yeah i have been i've been all over the country but i like it here the best i keep coming i it's better in california than anywhere do you have any regrets um [Music] you know not really not not not not too much i mean i don't wake up every day and i was like man i wish i didn't check i didn't do that or i wish i didn't do this no i mean i i like who i am and what i do i really do i like the lifestyle that i live and i'm happier than i've ever been and conforming is just not for you no i mean it takes all kinds right i used to think people just think want everybody to be like them like get a job and this and that and it's like everybody can't be like everybody it takes all different kinds it takes a whole spectrum you know it's like and you're not hurting anybody to make the world go round no i i try not to no i mean seriously i try not to i try to be a good person and have good karma you you support yourself by panhandling yeah yeah and nothing else there's no um i for the last three years i wasn't even getting food stamps but when i was just in the san francisco area they have really good services and stuff on the like the haight ashbury areas where i hang out the hippie area grateful dead area and hate ashbury and uh they have really good services there and uh um they'll help you get your food stamps and everything you know it's like not even having to go like downtown because i'm not good that's why i don't do that stuff i'm not good with dealing with like people and stuff but they'll come out right there on the street and do it on their phones for you like the the um what would you call the outreach workers and stuff yeah san francisco is really good and my outreach worker was sasuke shout out to south korea she's helped a lot of people and um do you have friends uh yeah yeah i do i have uh most of them in san francisco uh and i have traveling friends that are like um [Music] all over the place but it seems like san francisco is the main hub like venice used to be a little bit but san francisco the height ashbury area right by golden gate park right there that's the main hub for travelers now where everybody goes there that's where all the travelers main hub is is it the lack of responsibility that uh appeals to you with this lifestyle um that's definitely part of it and the uh you're not paying any bills you're not going exactly i used to stress a lot i'm a stressor and i know people stress and it kills you and i you can i you don't realize that when you're younger when you get older you can actually feel it and see it killing you and yeah i don't like the responsibility i like the uh the being stress-free and i like to like some days i'm just like i can just get mad or somebody say something to me and you know and or something just happened you know i mean because people say mean stuff to you i mean it's okay i'm tough i can take it but still do you get treated badly but sometimes yeah i mean what's the worst i try not to let people treat me badly though you know i try to uh stick up for myself and others what's the worst thing that's happened to you um well i'll tell you a story like stuff like this i just people see me and they see like the at the average but i was in las vegas and i used to work outside the paris or the uh the mgm which is across the street from like the paris not far and doing my dog thing and so every morning i'd go into the paris and use the bathroom and some days i would i don't really gamble or anything like i said i don't have any bad habits but some days i would be feel bad just for going in there and using the bathroom so i'd play like a a slot or something like a dollar's worth of slots or a spin so one morning i had i went in there and i would change my change too and get and get cash work because people give me a lot of change so i went in there with like 40 worth of change one day and i cashed it went in there you know so all these cameras are watching you as you go in and i cashed the 40 worth of change first and got 40 and then went up to the roulette table and put 10 on black and lost it and then put 10 more on black and got it back so broke even and then walked over to the uh slot machines and started playing the slot and i'll play a couple of spins on one and then take the receipt out and then move to the next one then take the receipt out move to the next one you know play like few spins on each one and so i'm doing that and i got the uh dog with me and a guy comes i'm dressed kind of like this but like overalls like the sound but they looked worse they had used to have patches all over them and stuff guy walks up to me and says i'm gonna have to ask you to leave like a security guy like undercover security guy and i'm like i'm like well this is my service animal i was like but i'll leave you one he's like that's not why he's like we've seen you taking receipts out of machines and i was like yeah you did because they're my [ __ ] receipts i was like i i was like did you you must have seen me changing forty dollars worth of you know uh a change and did you see me playing uh uh ten dollar spins on the roulette wheel two ten dollar spins and it's like people just see what they wanna see and people see you steal stuff that you didn't steal or take something that and people swear with their that's what i'm saying and this guy has everything on camera you know and he's like do you even get an apology for that no but if i was a yuppie i would have been eating for free i would have been gambling for free my room would have been calm but they would never make that mistake with somebody that was did you have the face tattoos then uh i had the like the skull one the the other is not yeah see the face tattoo is freaky but i still had a lot of tattoos you know but it's like yeah people like that's when i learned to like cops and security and stuff people think like they watch tv and stuff and think all this stuff is like so high-tech and like these people like yes um technology is high tech but the people using it are clowns usually you know it's like they are not everybody but it's like it's like that for everything there's a bun in any business and anything there's clowns and there's professionals you know like when even what i do there's clowns and there's people like me that are professionals you know it's like some people just get five dollars and go buy a hit of [ __ ] meth you know not me dude i'm staying for the get what i need you know it's like and i'm not going to spend it on meth and i'm going to get what i need so what are you afraid of what do you worry about um losing my dogs that's really the one thing that's the biggest thing i worry about or getting hurt and having to take like a hospital trip or something and because i can't go to the hospital yeah your life comes apart with dogs exactly you know so i try to be really careful are you lonely um not not too much no it's like i when you're younger you're chasing women around and stuff like that like i said i'm 45 so i come to the point in my life now i'm really happy with myself it's like i couldn't even be with a woman unless it was somebody that's not gonna be on my nerves in five minutes you know somebody that i could talk to it's like as you get older things just change but i'm not i'm not lonely are you are you you're you seem happy i am i am genuinely um you're just living a very alternative lifestyle right yeah i'm doing what i want to do for sure it's like it doesn't take a lot of money to do what i want to do it's it and walking makes me happy it's the one thing that makes me happy whether i'm road walking or hitchhiking or walking on trails it's just moving around from place to place and meeting people and and and uh people always say man i wish i did what you did i wish i could do that you know and it's like and it keeps me going it's like people always say keep going and it's like now i don't want to quit i just want to do more and more and it's like i've even done like uh i've got documented too like on my channels and stuff i did uh i've rode a bike with a trailer with a dog from la to san francisco and then i've done it on uh when the coven first started i bought a three-wheeled bike a trike office a guy and i rode that trike all the way past san francisco all the way to um fort bragg before it broke down a three-wheeled bike and let me tell you something you ain't meant to travel on a three-wheel bike because on a two-wheeled bike you're always straight up and down no matter how the roads curve on a three-wheeled bike you're always leaning one way oh it's right because because the road is curved yeah and it's like it was hell it was a five-speed or six-speed like three-wheel bike and i was like yeah do you think some of the negative reaction you get from from strangers when you're on the street is probably they resent your your freedom and your you know your you're such a non-conformist here you're you're basically just living however you want to live and they may they might react to how they have to conform whether they even realize it or not yeah i actually do think that it's funny that you said that i had a guy that i went to high school with and i was really good friends with him and i'm not gonna say his name but he he told me that he was like he was like i love you but i was like i don't know whether to resent you or he's like sometimes i resent you he was like because you just don't take any responsibility and you're like you just like live carefree and he's like at this point in his life he has a lot of responsibility with like coaching and kids and family and you know and it's like it's a lot of pressure that's a lot of pressure it's a lot of responsibility but there's something to be said for it too i mean that has rewards too yeah there's a trade-off for both right it is that has rewards too everything we do in life has a trade that's right yeah i mean ever it's not for everybody ever it takes all kinds you have to figure out what works for you that's right then you found something that's fair i think this worked for me yeah very very different from most people's lives but and it's not like i just went from this one day like i said like my youtube can i say my youtube or whatever sure go ahead it's uh i usually don't but go ahead it's deke brewer d-e-k-e-b-r-e-w-e-r and my facebook is the same but it's b-r-e-u-e-r i just spelled it two different ways but uh anyways i won't make a habit of that yeah anyways yeah you can edit it out if you want but it just shows the progression of you know i didn't just end up like this one day i didn't know anything about doing the dog i just started hitchhiking and i was living i was in chicago for a while like michigan city if you know the area on the south shore line living in shelters and stuff you know and it was like i made my way to portland and then made my way to l.a and was like i was clean at the time but i was like home bum in it you know i was like really down on my luck and one day a tweaker gave me a dog i was watching it for us she never showed back up to get it it was a and i was playing ball with a dog then a few days later and the ball went under the car and i'm reaching under the car and the dog started like jumping on my back and a light bulb just went off it was like man i can do like a trick with the dog you know and so i used to just get down and read and the dog would just sit on my back as i read you know before the sunglasses or anything and i put my hat down there one day and people started dropping money in my hat and i was like i made like 10 bucks and i was so happy because i could get something to eat and it wasn't broke and and then it progressed from there like with the sunglasses and you know and things like that and i've been doing it since yeah and and about the youtube i mean i don't even monetize or have any like hits or that many followers or anything so you know i don't i don't do any of that i just do it for documentation so do you have do you have is it difficult for you to be on the street where you're probably lumped into the whole drug addict homeless person group even though you're not you're very different from most of the people that are living on the street yeah is it difficult for you to being lumped into that group um it's you know it's not that bad because i think most people want to like homeless people and want to help homeless people it's just that they get so bad on drugs and they uh people on methane uh they have no boundaries and then they don't care about themselves so that if you don't if you hate yourself you don't care about your garbage and the trail and the mess you leave behind you know i think they people wanna like and help homeless people and i me i try to make it easy for him you know i try to give a good name for people but it's like it's it is very few and far between i mean 99 of the people that are are in this situation are on drugs are on meth i mean the shit's everywhere everywhere i mean it's not just homeless people either it's people in houses and cars and rich people and meth is destroying our society it's a really bad thing and and people are going to keep using it i mean it's never going to go away you got to give people alternatives they not want to use it you know to the to be happy in other ways or not be miserable do you think meth is a bigger problem than heroin fentanyl crack anything like that um yeah i think it is because it's so readily available and so [ __ ] cheap people just give it to you that's the problem you know and it's like they're just handing you death and people like oh i don't pay for drugs it doesn't matter it's killing you you know it's like it's but then they sell alcohol in grocery stores and yeah yeah i mean that that's well here's the thing with that it's like that's just as bad too but it's a slow methodical death and even with the the heroin and crack and stuff people you can get off that [ __ ] and still have your brain and still have your your life and and a little bit of sense about you the the methamphetamine you see how these people act on the methamphetamine it turns you uh uh i can't say that i'm not supposed to say [ __ ] but it turns you uh i call it methamphetamine induced schizophrenia and it it uh there's psychosis they call it psychosis yeah but it's methamphetamine induced and it's like it's lack of sleep too yeah yes and but that doesn't go away they call it the new meth now is what they're calling it and that's what they call it the new meth and you can like uh they were just talking about it on the radio about how quickly now it deteriorates you and does permanent brain damage to you and it just it's just bad everybody on it you see they're just talking to themselves they don't got no shoes on they uh all these conspiracy theories they're all disheveled they can't comb their hair they can't brush their teeth you know it's like it's they're up they're walking like zombies it literally is turning you into a zombie literally and it's sad to look at it it is why why did you uh put down the drugs um it's been a long time right it's been 10 years i think so yeah i i mean i always liked who i was i think that's key is you gotta learn how to love yourself if you can't learn to love yourself or even like yourself it's like and that's where people are at i think it's a i put it down because i've always liked who i was and i battled all the time like i never like i'd use and then i would beat myself up and be like man i can't be doing that you know i got i got to do this so i got these responsibilities and and it took it just it takes sometimes people a while to learn and and some people never learn and some people you know it's again it takes all kinds some people learn their lessons some people don't some people go to jail some people die um some people are saved whatever you know it's but i i think the key is learning to love yourself or learning finding something in your life that you can live for or do something even if it's not you for something else for a dog even you know it's like it's like maybe if you just have a dog maybe then you have to get up every morning you know and and and i don't know i don't know but and i don't want to use drugs because i feel bad when i do and then i feel like you'll be feeling like you're letting the dogs down you know or anything i i can't even get myself to do acid or anything anymore when everybody else is doing it because then the next day i'm like what am i doing with my life you know it's like what the hell and i just i don't even want to use you i mean you'll get to the point i think i tell most people to where you'll either die or you'll get to the point where you just you don't want to use drugs anymore and [Music] i mean everybody comes to a crossroads at some time you know and [Music] we all make decisions and but i want to be on this earth to me this is a big game and the longer you can stay on this earth is the the more you're winning the game you know it's like so to win the game you got to be here forever so i'm trying to be here forever what would you say is the most important lesson you've learned in your life um wow that's a tough one um probably that to work hard for whatever you want you can get it but you can't do it by yourself yeah every it takes you know it takes it's going to take help from can't do it by yourself even though i like to be independent and try to do everything by myself i can't make my own clothes and hunt my own meat you know it's like even indians couldn't do that they had a whole tribe you know right and so that and i think uh i used to have no compassion for anybody or no i still don't have a lot as much as i should probably but i have more now like i can look at people and and not so much feel sorry for them but like empathize with them a little more and like it doesn't even matter if i if a person's a drug addict or alcoholic or not i'll still give them money or something you know it's like i don't care what they're gonna do with it it's just sometimes i just see somebody and i feel for him or you know the lady standing on the corner and she's saying dollar dollar dollar because she wants some coffee or something mcdonald's and everybody just walks by her and doesn't give her no money you know so it's like i'll make a show out of that like it's like you guys are gonna give this lady five dollars or go get something to eat so i will but i try to be i try to be good to bums i try to the ones that are even not the ones that are so great all the time but the ones that are even you know there's some out there that are using drugs that are released they're good people they are but there's a lot of people out there that are good people but it even it'll take everything from you and it'll even take your nowadays the drugs will even take your your almost takes your soul now to where you're once you get to a certain point you're not even a person hardly anymore yeah your behavior becomes so scandalous have you seen like zombies out there that like i see some almost every day that are just they're walking like this because they can't walk anymore and their feet are messed up and they can't talk really anymore i've interviewed a bunch of them no have you yeah it's bad yeah you can really communicate with them yeah right right but they weren't always like that no of course not and that that makes me sad it does it does there has to be something there has to be a breaking point something has to be done about about something and it's i don't know it's a the methamphetamine is bad it is it's it's i think it stems like all the problems that this city has you know they'll say the homeless problems or the just all the problems that this city has almost stems from methamphetamine that and the money grabs stealing all the money yeah but i think if you go a level deeper there's what you said earlier about liking yourself or loving yourself yeah oh yeah because you wouldn't be doing the drug if you right right that's and that's what i said though like the key is not and then you go a level deeper then you go they say well we got to get rid of the drug dealers and the cartels well they'll get rid of themselves if you stop buying their drugs yeah but then you go a level deeper and then it goes it gets into parenting yeah and that's what i'm saying if you stop buying their drugs but in order to do that you have to make the kids not want to buy them drugs all these people that have been using drugs already they're done already they're done you might you have to start with the kids that's where the key is and they're not building like the city the schools are all [ __ ] up the teachers are all [ __ ] off you know what i'm saying they're all just worried about themselves and their unions they're not teaching kids man and that's and that's why the society is all [ __ ] up is you gotta start with kids dude it's too late for adults you gotta start with little ass kids and teach them and teach them right and and it's not even about indoctrinating them it's about giving them opportunities to do things that don't involve drugs like yeah no loving them and giving them good role models yes yeah and giving them things to do like you know boys and girls more boys and girls clubs and better ones and better facilities it's like you can build all this [ __ ] for homeless people and stuff where's all the facilities for kids at with swimming pools and playgrounds you know where you can and drop in centers for poor kids not just for rich kids for poor kids that can just go to these places you know and there's really not any and then they say why are these what are these kids doing drugs for you know it's because they don't have anything else to do and like you said role models and coaches and and things like that man all right derek thank you so much for uh sharing your story very interesting your dogs are so well behaved yeah yeah yeah my sunglasses look how well behaved that dog is you

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Id: 9AP0CP-YU8U

Length: 30min 10sec (1810 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 26 2021