Scary - The Film by Uli Kick

I've been banned from 2 cities in the United States, Highland and Troy, Kansas. I've been banned from 3 restaurants in the United Kingdom where they wouldn't actually seat me. Talking behind my back, calling me names. Glances, looks, you know, like, "Oh, what did he do to him?" You know, "Oh my God," you know, that kind of look. And, you know, from disgusted to shock to, uh, "I'm insane," or, "I'm a murderer," or, "a killer," or, "a drug dealer," or, "a biker," or, "a rapist," or, "a wrestler," or, "I had to have done something really bad in my life because look at him." He's evil. I'm crazy and I'm out of my mind insane. I'm psychopathic. I must have had a bad childhood, you know what I mean? I must have— I mean, my childhood must have been riddled with sexual abuse or something, you know what I mean? It's just neglect. I must have been locked up in prison for years to get all these tattoos. On and on and on the list goes. I mean, it's just like nobody ever figures it out.

Hey, Airman, how you doing, man?

Hey, cool.

Good to see you.

Welcome to Ramstein.

This is one of our crew chiefs.

Hello, sir.

Then you're Sergeant Charles?

Yes, sir.

Good to meet you, man. I'm The Scary Guy.

This is my agent, Gary Lee.

How you doing, sir?

You know that dude?

Yes, sir.

We're doing a show Friday night at the high school.

Okay.

If you get a chance, come on by.

All right, sir.

¡No me toques!

You know, I can almost feel people thinking the minute I walk in a room. Oh, I know who he is. I know what he does. He's a biker. You know, one of those Harley-riding dudes. Oh no, no, no. I know who he is. I know what he does.

He's a wrestler.

I look like I could body slam you, huh, dude?

I was a baby portrait photographer.

Do I look like one to you? I shot babies for a living.

What I learned at the time of being a baby portrait photographer, you can't learn anywhere else. What I learned was on a psychological level as to how to deal with kids and moms. And I'm talking about infants, little babies, all the way to 12 years old. On a very quick pace. And you gotta understand now, there was 100 moms with babies in line to get their pictures taken, right? And I only had so many minutes, and I had to get them in there, get them positioned, and then get them to smile.

Man, I'd rather be sick. I picked a woman to call because I figured she could really help me out. She'd feel sorry for me and she'd give me pity. It backfired.

She said, "He called you what, The Scary Guy?" I said, "Yeah." She said, "Have you looked in the mirror lately?" That's the hardest part for people being around me. This isn't about me and the way I look. It's about what are they gonna find out about who they are. When I was 8 years old, I remember staring up at my dad, and his arms look big. And his buddies would be there, and they would all have a beer in their hand in the garage, and they all had tattoos on their arms, and they were from the war. And I thought, so in my mind at 8, that's what a man was. Time flashes forward, and I'm on a holiday or a vacation, and I had been going from Minnesota down to Tucson, Arizona, visiting my brother who had lived in Tucson for 15 years as a police officer. And so I was familiar with Tucson, Arizona, and I was on this vacation all by myself visiting my brother, and I was driving down the road one day and I looked off to the side and there was a sign that said tattoo. And my car automatically pulled in. I didn't have any control over my car at all, and it pulled in the driveway and it stopped right in front of the sign, and my door pulled me open, and it pulled me out on the dirt, and I got up, and somehow I was magically drawn into the tattoo shop, and I found myself staring at the walls like this, looking around at all these pieces, and I found something on the wall, and I pointed to the thing, and it was a dragon. It was this little dragon right over here. The tattoo artist came over to me and he says, "Is there anything I can do to help you?" And I said, "Yeah, I want that dragon. I want to put it right there, right where my dad's tattoo was." And I sat down in the tattoo chair, and I'd never been tattooed. I was 30 years old, and I— he says, he started tattooing on me, he says, "Is this your first tattoo?" And I said, "Yes." And he says, "Well, I have some good news and bad news. It won't be your last." That's what he said. I didn't have any idea what he meant.

I went away.

And at the time I got the dragon, it symbolized strength. That's what it felt like. The dragon, ooh, tough, you know, I'm gonna be strong now. And I went back to where I was staying on holiday with my brother, and I looked in the mirror, and I was looking at my dragon in the mirror, and I'm going, "Wow, that's cool, that feels good," you know? There was no pain, it was only painful when I got the tattoo. And then I looked in the mirror and I went, "Oh, this one doesn't look so good 'cause it's blank and I'm uneven." So the next day I got in my car and I went back down to the tattoo shop. The next day. Went back and showed my second wife my tattoos. I was excited. She absolutely went through the roof. Rough. She was with, with anger. She was so angry at me. She couldn't believe that I went and did that to myself. And that's when I realized at that moment in time that this was my body, not anybody else's, and that I have the right to color it or paint it any way I choose. And I don't care what problem you have with it. I didn't see it as an initiation to be a man. I saw it as an initiation to be me. Which was different. In other words, it was like I'd always been searching and looking and trying to figure that out. Who am I? What do I mean? What am I about? What do I mean? What do I stand for? Why am I here? And I think the tattooing at that time in my life was helping me define that piece, but I didn't even know it at that time. You know, when I got my first tattoos, I didn't walk in there going, ah, Yeah, that's it, this is who I am.

Uh-uh.

I just think that that was a process I needed to go through to help me figure out who I was.

You know, quite frankly, I don't care what color your skin is. I don't care if it's white, black, yellow, green, or multicolored like mine. If you take my program and you boil it all the way down to the very bottom line, it's about love and acceptance of all people on the planet, irregardless of race, color, creed, religion, religion, religion. We got a lot of religious killing going on. Been going on a long time. Since I started to speak these words out of my mouth, here's my life. I get death threats on the phone, death email. Can you imagine that? Death email?

Can you imagine the people on the end of the computer, on the keyboard, typing a death email? I'm gonna kill him.

I'm gonna kill him when he came back.

Just kidding.

Return.

Oh my goodness, uh, Scary and I met in Minneapolis in the computer business, and when he first saw me, it was amazing because he said he fell in love with me at first sight. But he came around the corner, and without saying anything, he was introduced to me, and we just shook hands.

Now in those days, I had tattoos on my body. All over my body. My hands and my neck and my face were not tattooed. So I had started collecting tattoos on my body, and I could cover up all my tattoos by long-sleeve shirts and suits, you know, ties. Nobody knew I had tattoos. So she didn't see my tattoos, and I thought, well, if she saw my tattoos, she may not like me, may not want to go out with me. So I wore my white silk shirt thinking I better dress up fancy, and I had all my tattoos covered up.

And I thought that the pattern in the material was so beautiful and so colorful, and I said, "I just have to lean over and touch this because the material is incredible." And she says, "Wow, that's the most beautiful shirt I've ever seen in my life.

Look at those colors glimmer in that material." And I went, "Oh, no." She could see my tattoos. And I didn't have the guts to tell her, you know, 'cause I was afraid that she would not want to be with me.

It was then that he rolled up his sleeve, and I realized that it was just his tattoos, and it was just a white shirt.

Her jaw hit the table. She had never seen anything like that in her whole life. She was from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in a little tiny town, you know, and she was only 23 years old.

I thought it was wonderful. I had never seen a tattoo before ever in my life, and so to look at the detail in some of it and the shading and the things he'd chosen and why he'd chosen them, I thought was absolutely intriguing.

Over here is my wedding ring, and I had this as the sun, and that— and this is my wife's first initial, J for Julie, and it means that may the sun shine down on her for the rest of her life. And I had this sun tattooed on me during the wedding ceremony, which was kind of fun.

Uh, my mom She was very concerned about what other people would think, and she was concerned about where he would work and how he'd be able to provide for me and all that kind of things. Because of her fear, she tried to push us away in terms of saying, you know, "If this is your decision, I don't want to see you again." And instead of retaliating or being angry back at her, Scary would stand beside me and just say, respect her, just be loving in return for her fear. And I think that's what I did. There was a lot of very hard times where I would cry for hours after I talked to her on the phone because I just knew that she was struggling so much with this. And, um, it took 4 years, but I think it worked.

I was a salesman, a computer salesman, and people in my work were salesmen and they were good people. But if you did something that was out of the norm or you said something, and they would always be real quick to find fault or joke about it or put you down or make fun of it, or, you know what I mean? And tattooing was not normal for them. So I figured if I just kept to myself and didn't show them that part of my life then I would be safe. I wouldn't be attacked or picked on or phone fault with or not part of the team, you know, all these things, and I would maintain some status with them.

I went to a company picnic with the computer salespeople.

And you don't go in the middle of summertime to a company picnic with your suit and tie on. You go in your shorts and you go in your t-shirt, and I had some tattoos that were showing. When I look back over it all, it was like, "Here it comes. It's gonna hit." And I thought, "Okay, now is the time where they're gonna find out." about me, and I just— I'm strong enough. It doesn't matter what they say. I'll show them. Well, when I showed up to the picnic, it was unreal. I mean, it was— people were absolutely completely different. How they talked to me was different, the way they didn't talk to me. I couldn't believe that I had seen such a shift and people based on what they saw, because I saw myself as the same person. I wasn't any different, but not to them. To them, I was someone else. being funny by picking on me. Even when I would go to work with my suits and ties, and they would still talk about it or make reference to it in some way. I got to the point where I just decided that I didn't really want to be part of that anymore. It just didn't feel right. I mean, I don't know how people could be one way one day and completely the opposite another day. And so one day I said, "This is it. I'm gonna get a tattoo on me where I never go back to corporate America, ever." So I put a tattoo right here on my neck.

And in fact, after he did put a tattoo on his neck, he got a fabulous job offer. And the person called on the phone and offered him incredible amounts of money and just prestige with this job. And he had to say, "No, I'm sorry, I tattooed my neck." And the person was very upset 'cause they had known him for a very long time and wanted him in the company.

And I just did it because I didn't wanna go back there again and put up with that negative, rotten, demeaning, um, talking behind their back, gossip, ridicule, shame, and then act like everything's fine. Behavior with a suit and tie on, driving a fancy car. I said I was done with you. I didn't want any more of you, and that's why I put that tattoo on my neck. So I moved from Minnesota, which was the frozen tundra, to Tucson, Arizona, the hottest place in America. And that's where I started my tattoo business. By the time I was into my third year of tattooing, I had three tattoo shops. That's when I started to tattoo a little bit on my face.

The first time that he tattooed his face, he called me from the tattoo shop, and I just immediately started crying, and I said, "Honey, you know, you have no idea what you're in for." And he said, "Sweetheart, I'll be the same person that I always have been. Nothing's gonna change." And I just kept crying because I knew that it would really escalate, you know, people's attitudes toward him.

And I stopped, and I lived with that for 3, 4, 5 weeks. And I go, well, you know, maybe one more right up here, you know, just because that needs a little partnership. They're like this, you know, same thing. And it's kind of crossing over the line a little bit here because we're up on the face, you know, and I thought, well, that won't be so bad if I just do those, you know, and then all of a sudden I started looking in the mirror and I'm The thought of it being wrong socially or taboo culturally went away. The thought of it being a bad thing didn't exist because it was already there. Once you cross over the line, there's really no way that you're going to hide. You're exposed full-time. In theory, you know that. I mean, you know that you're not going to hide anymore. But until you go there, you know, until you're actually there, you don't know what it's like.

I definitely was anxious. Anxious, but it also threw me into a place where I had to start thinking about the fact that regret is a choice. You have a choice to deal with everything in life, and I could either say, "Oh, you've tattooed your face and your neck. It's never gonna work. I'm leaving." Or I could say, "You know what? I believe in you, and I know that there's a bigger plan for us, and it doesn't matter if you've tattooed your face or your neck." This is the journey that we're on, and we're going to embrace whatever comes along.

Until one day, something happened to change my life. Someone I do not know, I've never met to this day, in Tucson, Arizona, in 1996, this guy ran a full-page ad in the newspaper that read, "Are you tired of dealing with Scary Guys with war paint facial tattoos?" I read the ad in the paper that day, I slammed it down on the counter, and I thought to myself, "Now, who would say such a thing about someone they don't even know, let alone print it in a newspaper?" Well, I'm no different than anybody else. The first thought that came to my mind was, "What am I going to do to get him back?" You know revenge. I drive a 1978 Lincoln Town Car. That car is from here to that wall long. It weighs 7,000 pounds. I got great big pipes coming out of the sides. I got flames painted on the front. I figured to get the guy back this day, I jump in my hot rod Lincoln, find out where he lives go to his house and run over his dog. A flat dog got to get him back, don't you think?

I wasn't really going to get in my car and go over and run over his dog, but that's how I felt on the inside. Instead of running over his dog, I made a joke about it and I put it in a newspaper ad that said, "The tattoo shop home of The Scary Guy." And then one day, one of my friends said, "Why don't you legally change your name?" I said, "Okay, cool, I'll do it." I got the call at midnight. Somebody says, "You need to come down here." And I said, "Why?" He said, "Because your tattoo shop's been blown up." And I went down there and they had the street blocked off and the police and the fire department and the ATF and the FBI were all there and water running down the street and the lights flashing and my shop was caving in and the fire was out by then, but I was just like, and I was numb. I was just staring at the building like, I didn't know what to say. And the FBI and the ATF never found out who did it.

And that was really an eye-opening experience. And we ended up moving into a warehouse where we felt a little more secure, 'cause it had very thick brick walls, and it was a space where we could be very artistic, but we could feel safe at the same time.

It wasn't a very soft place. I mean, it was a warehouse where trucks can back up to the dock, you know, with big steel doors on the end, and it was right next to the power plant. You know, the hum of the power plant was on all the time. You know, it's like, ugh.

I'm a little bit more traditional in my likes. I like to have a little bit of carpeting and a standard kitchen. Kitchen and just some regular amenities. On one hand, I loved living in the warehouse because I could see the artistic expression that Scary enjoyed so much in decorating it and building it, and, and that was a joy for me. But, um, there were no windows in the warehouse, and the warehouse was located just feet It's not too far away from a railroad track, so we heard the trains going through constantly. And I didn't think it would bother me as much as it eventually did after years.

The train go by 84 times a day blowing its whistle. So that's not a nice place. That's a hardcore place. I had a fence and barbed wire around both ends, but maybe it was my own jail. Maybe I built myself a jail at the time. I didn't even know it. And that's when I said to Julie, I said, "I'm packing my bags." She said, "Where you going?" I said, "I'm gonna travel the world to help people see each other differently from the inside out." I knew what I had to do. That was my wake-up call to go forward, not to sit there and just be this thing called The Scary Guy.

Our school is very overcrowded. We see a variety of problems, things such as physical actions against one another, sometimes hitting, shoving. Sometimes fighting. We see students who have a lack of respect for the facility. They are rude to one another, they speak unfriendly, they don't say please and thank you, they don't excuse themselves, they don't help other people with a door if their arms are full, for example. We have had some situations where students are— have been caught during the school day using substances that are inappropriate, like alcohol and/or different drugs. So we have a variety of situations that we need to deal with.

Hi.

Hey.

What's your name? Josh Bolton.

Hi, Josh Bolton.

I'm Scary Guy.

Good to meet you.

Come on over here, Josh. Put your head on my shoulder. Right down on my shoulder, Josh.

I don't really like this.

There you go, buddy. I decided to pick up a telephone. You ready, Josh?

Yes, sir.

And call someone. You ready, Josh?

Yes.

And share my feelings.

Dude, go sit down, man.

Thanks.

It was very interesting to watch other people, to see them divert their eyes, to see them pretend that they suddenly had a cell phone call, to see them grab a hold of their child's hand and pull them to the other side, to just stop and stare and look. To be unsure whether they should take his hand and shake his hand, and other people to be so excited that they would literally seek out where he was and say, "Oh, I heard you were here. I wanted to meet you." How you doing, man?

Good, and you?

Now, you remember yesterday we had that first hour session?

Yeah.

And you came up after the session and you told me some information about how it impacted you.

Yeah.

And your decision not to go to battle with 2 people?

3 people.

3?

Yeah, there's these 3 guys who play a lot of practical jokes on me. Um, they try to make a fool out of me, and they usually succeed very well. It's frustrating me a lot.

And how did you feel about it at the time?

Extremely mad.

And what were you going to do until you heard that first hour? Um, up until that moment What were your thoughts?

Inflicting pain upon them.

You were going to actually physically assault them to get them to stop?

The one thing that really set me off, they, um, set me up at a track meet. There was this one chick who they— they're acting like she liked me, and I went for it. I, uh, I fell for it and ended up making me look extremely stupid because she didn't like me. I asked her out and everyone found out about it and pointed at me and laughed at me. So I figured if I pounded them hard enough, they would get the picture and stop.

Someone who looks like The Scary Guy with tattoos all over his body is very unusual and unique. And perhaps the way he has tattooed his body and the fact that he has to live in that 24/7 for the rest of his life may be a very free opportunity for them to feel that he would not be judgmental of the way they look or the way they feel in their body or the things that they perceive or their friends, their so-called friends, may perceive as weaknesses in them. And so they may just be much more at ease to express themselves to an individual like Scary Guy who has tattoos as opposed to a traditional-looking individual.

Do you like to eat food?

Yes, I do. I like food a lot.

I like food too.

You like food too? Food's awesome. Food's awesome.

Thanks.

Why do you eat food?

What is food?

I don't really know why I eat food. I like to eat food because it tastes good. It fills me up. Gives me more energy.

So food is energy. It keeps you going. Now thank goodness, like you said, you enjoy it.

Yes, I do.

And it tastes good. Do you like all food?

Not that.

You pick the energy you want to eat.

Yes.

Okay, good. Any, any, no, I understand that. Now let me ask you a question. Are words energy?

Are words energy?

Yes.

It sounds like energy if they make you feel bad.

They're negative energy.

Oh, so they are energy.

They're energy.

Ah, it's a different kind of energy. Okay, physical Violence, hitting somebody or pushing, is another way to release the negative energy out of the tank. So when I show you this as a form of words, you can also apply this to the physical side as well.

Yeah.

Once you release it out of your storage tank, how do you feel?

Better.

Yeah, because you've opened up a space in there and the stress is a little bit better. But the problem is you're still conditioned to fill it back up again with other energy from the outside. The more negative energy I take into my body, the more that I put out, the more I will receive my whole life. Here's one for you, check this one out. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Fuck people!

That's pain. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, nonstop, relentless pain. There's always somebody pointing a finger at somebody with a weight problem. Talk about words of devastation. They never end.

If I call you a rotten name, whose the word about?

You. Yours.

Yeah.

If I tell you I hate you, whose hate is it?

Yours.

Exactly. Now that works for every word you hear from this day forward, including the 3 people you claim are calling you names.

Okay?

Mm-hmm. You might say, "Dude, Carl, as soon as he shoots his mouth off at me, I'll look right back at him with no anger, 'cause it's not my problem." Right.

"I'm not playing your game.

I know it's yours. Everybody around me knows it's yours. You're the one that's got a problem, and I'm not gonna become your problem. And when you're ready to talk about it, I'm here for you." And walk.

The scientists studied the human being a little longer and they determined this: in order for a human being to go to bed on a normal emotional level every day of its life, it had to have 16 hugs a day. Now when I heard that number, I looked in the mirror and I went, "Whoa! I wonder how many normal people are on this planet?" So then I decided I was going to test it out and I was going to sit over here on the sideline of my life and I was going to wait for my 16 hugs to come. I waited 6 months, didn't get 3. So then I decided in order for me to go to bed normal every day, I had to go out and get my 16 hugs. Hi, Toby. How are you?

Okay.

You're not my first hug of the day, Toby, but you're about my 10th hug. Now in order for 2 guys to hug in the hallway of the school, dude, this could be dangerous, you know what I mean? Yeah, you know what I mean? Because if two guys are hugging in the hallway of the school, all of a sudden people walk by and they go like this: "They must be gay!" Excuse me? We gotta look like we're gonna fist fight, Toby, you ready? So get your fists up, dude. There you go. Now slow down, man! I think he's a professional. All right, get your fist up, dude.

That's it.

Now slow motion. You know what slow motion is?

Yeah.

All right, come at me in slow motion like you're going to clock me right here. Wait a minute, wait a minute, not yet. And then bring it around the back. Ready? Slow, dude. Slow, slow. That's it.

Bring it.

Good job, dude.

Hug me, man. Whack my back a little bit.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you, man.

Yeah, now I got about 11 hugs in, dude. All right, now you guys are on to 16 hugs Rock-a-day program, except for one thing. That does not give you the right to walk down the hallway and grab people. You gotta get their permission. Give Toby a hand, he rocks. Thanks for coming up, brother. You wanna hug me? Don't threaten me, get up here. Get in line. I don't think I want to do a group hug.

The human race has talked ourselves out of contact and affection and love and anything we can do to stay away from one another to be safe. We've figured out ways to do that. So what I'm trying to say is, ah, you know what, why don't we just go ahead and start figuring out how to come together rather than stay apart. And that's just one simple way to do it.

Yeah, dude, we got a revolution going on here. No, no, no, no, no, it's too much. All right, now listen up. When I finish the program, then I will be right here and I will hug anybody that wants to get in line to hug me. So when the program's over, come back back up and we will hug.

I'm booked by the United States Military And it may sound like a contradiction in terms because my mission is to teach people how to teach love and eliminate hate, violence, and prejudice. And on the other hand, the military is a force to do the opposite in a way. I mean, it could potentially hurt and kill other people. But today, it's here. All countries have militaries. All countries have weapons. Weapons, all countries use them. So it's really kind of ludicrous for me to go to battle with the military. It's not going to work. So if I'm on an Air Force base, they have everything that goes on in a regular community. They have crime, they have hate, they have violence. They already have those problems on a personal level, and their jobs have to do with a bigger problem. So my mission is to get to those people and teach them how to do it different on a personal level.

Yes, sir.

Um, you're talking about following rules that other people don't follow. So in games, in any game, if I decide I'm going to make my own rules and I'm going to play by those rules and no one else is playing by that, then in life standards I often lose.

You talking about winning and losing?

You're trivializing the question. I can call him fat, he can lose weight. I can call him a jerk, he may not be. But when you call me something based on my ethnicity or my culture, I can't go down the street and be something different. I can't lose it. I don't—

let me ask you, what's your first name?

My first name is Craig.

Craig.

Is there any difference between— it means a rock.

Cool.

Thank you for sharing that. Is there any difference between a negative word and a different negative word? Is it negative energy?

Uh, the impact.

Is it negative energy?

It's definitely negative energy.

Then that's what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the fact that all words are power.

I follow what you say. There you go. Whether they're tied to your ethnic life and who you are as a human being, or whether they're tied to this man over here and his weight because you determined he was fat, is still negative energy.

Yeah.

And that's what I'm talking about. And as human race, we have the capability of not doing that energy.

I follow you.

That's it.

I'm with you.

The way you walk in, like, why do you come in such a manner as you did?

How did I come in?

You came in so slow?

I'm coming in slow because I've had 2 ankle reconstructions.

No, I'm not— I mean, it seemed like— not like that.

See, I can't hardly walk, dude, and that has to do with the physical thing with my ankle.

It's nothing more than that.

It's nothing more, man. See what happens to people? See what they do is they see that outer shell. Here it is. Now that outer shell was kind of moving like that. You're right, dude, because I can't move any quicker. So I'm moving like this, like I'm kind of I don't know, maybe, and right away what do people do? They put it right in their brains, well, he's a tough guy, he thinks he's a tough guy, he's copping an attitude, look at the way he's walking, oh, I think he's cool.

No!

My ankle is sore! You with me? See, so before you start to put that energy in anybody's space, including your own head, you better figure it out. You better find out from the source. That was a good one, thanks for asking. That's exactly the right thing to do.

Scary's facial tattoos are very tribal in nature, and what that is is Scary believes that he is a warrior on an emotional level in the world today, and that his facial tattoos somehow symbolize the battle that he is in.

I'm not talking I'm talking about being violent. I'm talking about being an individual and with love and compassion in your heart and still stand up and speak your peace. It's rare. I don't see it anymore. I grew up with it in the '60s, but then that was kind of messed up because everybody was high on pot. You know, "Hey, peace, love, yeah, drugs, rock and roll." Well, you know, he kind of lost it, you know what I mean? And those were people my age today, the ones in all the suits and the ties, the ones that gave up on peace and love. So I jokingly say to them when I meet them in an airport or on an airline, weren't you in the '60s? They go, yeah. I said, what happened?

You quit.

I didn't quit. I'm still going. Tonight when we get there, then we'll give Bob a call.

Are we meeting with him for about the schedule for the next 3 days?

Yeah, we'll go over the schedule for Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday.

Get ready to crank it up.

This is how the Tom Becker program is going to be incredibly scary.

This is Drive Time Omaha, but not the way you would normally think.

This is, uh, a gentleman in the studio right now is known as The Scary Guy, tattooed and pierced pretty much from head to toe. Uh, travels around the country now, uh, teaching people how to deal with anger, teaching them to deal with people's differences. Because if I were to see you and not know you, my attitude would be, okay, uh, you're a biker, uh, maybe a meth dealer, uh, that, uh, that you definitely— you've done, you've done time for a violent crime, and that, uh, you, uh, pretty much have an attitude and hate society.

Yeah, you'd be completely off base. I haven't, I haven't seen the inside of a jail cell. Although now I find myself in these fancy places called detention centers, which they can't seem to build fast enough, you know what I'm saying?

Mm-hmm.

I'm in these detention centers now, and the funny part about that is I'm working with kids in detention centers and schools. But you know, detention center, that's kind of a lie. It's really a jail for kids, but we really don't want to say that out loud, do we? Oh, by the way, we jail kids now.

I would imagine that you get to hassle a lot of airport security.

I get patted down, dude. It's a favorite part of my trip.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about this. Nobody has tattoos quite like you. At some point in time, were there people in your life telling you, hey, stop, slow down, knock it off?

No, not really. I was pretty aggressive with my attitude. I mean, I could pretty much handle myself in any situation, and I used negative energy to control and manipulate other people. I could put you down at a party, make fun of you in front of other people, and you'd probably be my friend even after I was done with you, and people would be laughing and having a good time. So I was really a master at that technique. So if you called me a name or something like that, don't worry, I'll figure out a way to get you back.

Talking with The Scary Guy, and indeed, that is an appropriate name.

I mean, you know, that's all right.

By the time we're done, dude, we're gonna be hugging.

Hey, no, well, uh, no, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Can I just call you Scary?

Please do.

All right, we'll talk to Scary Guy and, uh, your calls and much more after this on NewsRadio 1110 KFAB.

Thanks for being a PBL on News There's a little boy over there who wants to meet you badly.

Hey, dude.

How are you, man?

Good.

It's good to see you. What's your name?

Jason.

Jason? Here's a card for you, man.

What most people don't understand is that they say, "Oh, kids must be so frightened of you," and the fact is that kids are drawn to him.

Does it come off?

Nope.

It's permanent, huh?

You're really cool, dude. Good to meet you, man. I went one time on Halloween as my former self, and so they have makeup that they use in they use in movies to cover tattoos. And I put makeup on my entire face back to normal. And I looked in the mirror and I was petrified. I couldn't even cope with how I looked. This is so much who I am now. People think I look weird. I thought I looked weird without my tattoos.

I know people are always trying to push him into a religion, into one side or the other, or this is right and this is wrong. And his, you know, comment is, "Would you love me if I wasn't of your religion?" I'm very proud to introduce to you this morning my husband, The Scary Guy.

How many of you have been called a rotten name? Raise your hands high. Look around the room. Put your hands down. How many of you have called other people rotten names before? Raise your hands high. Look around the room.

Look around the room.

Put your hands down. Check this one out. How many have actually hit another human being before? Raise your hands high. Look around the room. Man, I'll tell you what, I don't know if I'm very safe right here. I'm in a whole room full of name-calling hitters.

He can shock people into understanding how their assumptions about behavior, how language applies, and how judgment applies to everyday situations. And he shows people quickly how some of the assumptions that we make are wrong.

I was a computer salesman. Do I look like one to you? I thought back when I was a computer salesman, it was always men or guys in my life. We'd gather in the break room, getting our cup of coffee, waiting for the boss to come in the room. When the boss came in the room in a real quiet, whispery hush tone so nobody heard what he said outside that door, He proceeded to tell me the most racist or sexist joke he heard from the day before. You know what I did? I laughed at every one of his jokes. I was afraid if I didn't laugh at his jokes, I might not be part of his team anymore. I even saw people get fired for not laughing.

They didn't even know why.

Behaviors are relatively easy to change. We can pass laws. We can do things that punish people for things they do wrong. Attitudes are very hard to change. And I think one of the great magic things about Scary is he can change attitudes pretty much in a few moments of time, in a few words, in a few sentences. He can have a tremendous impact.

We usually don't use the term jail. We We use it as a detention placement. It's for youngsters who have been picked up because they have run away from home, they've committed a law violation, which could be shoplifting, could be stealing a car, could be breaking into a home. Youngsters who can't be returned home because there's some problems at home, so they're brought in here by law enforcement. And I would say that at least 75% 90% of the youngsters that we get have experimented and are using drugs.

It's good to meet you.

It's good to meet you.

Good to meet you. It's good to meet you.

Meet you.

Like your tattoo. You all right?

Yeah.

Cool. Meet you.

Excellent. Meet you. It's good to meet you, man.

Meet you.

Hey, good to meet you. Really cool to meet you. Nice to meet you.

Hi.

Yeah, excellent to meet you. How are you?

Good.

Good to meet you.

Good to meet you. Hi there.

Nice to meet you.

Good to meet you.

My pleasure.

I need one volunteer. What'd you do to your hand, man?

I punched a door at school.

You punched a door at school, dude.

Was it wood?

Yep.

You've learned quickly that wood is harder than fists.

I could have told you that.

Just call me next time before you punch anything. Scary Guy, which is harder, my fist or the wood?

And I'll go, it's the wood, dude.

The wood's gonna win, man. They're gonna have a cast, man. Think before you punch the wood, okay? Dude, let's figure out how to get that energy out of your body, man, so you don't have to release it this way, alright?

Alright.

Okay, 'cause it comes in there somehow, right?

Yes.

We're gonna talk a little bit about that in a few minutes, man, why that energy goes in your body. What's your name?

John.

John, I'm Scary Guy.

We're gonna roleplay, John. You know what roleplaying is?

Yes.

What is it? We act out a situation.

That's exactly right. We're actors on stage, that's our audience out there. We gotta act like we know one another, so let's set the stage, dude, because typically speaking, that's how it works. People know one another and chill out together. How old are you, dude?

17.

Okay, you guys imagine me at 17. Be hard to imagine John at 49, wouldn't it? Maybe not. All right, let's go a little further, dude. What's your favorite drink?

Mountain Dew.

All right, hold your Mountain Dew up.

Very good.

That's kind of an aggressive hold for Mountain Dew.

Did you notice that? Yeah, I noticed that too.

He's like, this is my Mountain Dew, I got it from Walmart. All right, hold on to your Mountain Dew, dude.

Where do you go after— if you weren't here and you were in school, where would you go after school to hang out?

Home, because I'd be on house arrest. Yes.

Some of the kids that responded never responded to other things here in which we dealt with them on. One young man had a pretty rough background, and he came across as always having the tough guy routine that he would have to be the tough guy around here. Uh, he wasn't that tough after he spoke, after he heard The Scary Guy talk to him, and he participated in the skit. And he's the young man that hit the wall. He was very angry, but The Scary Guy got to him, and I was surprised that he did volunteer because since he's been here, he has not done that. So it was very impressive.

I'm not here to change anybody. I don't have that power. If I had the power to change people, I wouldn't even show up.

I would click my fingers.

Uh-uh.

I'm going to open a door today, that's it. You have to walk through the door. Drugs and alcohol are the same way. Negative energy. If you pump your body full of chemicals and you thinking you're getting away from all the things around you or you're hip and cool, guess what? You're going to wake up and figure out they're all there again. I'm sorry, there isn't any real easy way for you.

It's work.

You people all know it because a lot of you people have walked in the trench of negative energy already and you know what I'm talking about.

I'm a counselor, and I met Scary about a year ago when the program I was working for hired him to come speak to our students. We were having a day where we gathered the students together. These are kids who are at-risk kids. They have the potential to go to college, they have the potential to make a great life, but there's nobody behind them helping them do that. And that's part of the program that I was working for. One of the things he talks about is, "If you don't have a father, you can choose one." And that was the first time I ever heard anything like that. That was a brand new concept to me. And I talked to him a lot about that, that I never had a father and I've never grew up around a man. And he said, well, you know, you can choose your father.

Wow.

This is slick. This is really different than your other place.

Yeah, a lot different.

It's beautiful.

Thanks.

Unbelievable.

You got a balcony.

Mm-hmm.

Cats love that.

Kitchen.

Mm-hmm. Well, show me the rest.

Okay.

And I spent a couple of days thinking about that. Like, could I ask Gary to be my dad? And if I did open myself up to that, that was— which was really a scary thing for me. To do, because he could reject me, but he just kept making it really safe to do that. And I finally got up enough guts to say, "Will you be my dad?" And he said, "Yeah, of course." Ooh, that's beautiful.

Thank you.

That's the first one I ever did.

And this one is new?

Yep.

And this technique, now, did you see this somewhere else, or did you come up with this?

I just came up with it. You know, growing up around people who sew all the time. And I like the metaphor of tension and the tension that's holding this together. Like, one little sliver of this could go and the whole thing could fall apart. Lutli.

Cool.

I think it was a point— my point to grow when Scary came into my life, and he helped me see things in a different way, make tough decisions, have a lot of courage and trust in myself and making those decisions. And he was there to help me make those decisions and give me encouragement and give me a hug every once in a while when I was getting down and getting kind of scared. Scary, he's not afraid to tell you the truth. If you don't want the truth, he's not exactly the guy to go to. He will look at you dead in the eye and tell you, you know, this is what's going on, this is the truth. Even if you don't want to hear it, you still need to hear it.

Yeah.

Because I tell kids this, I tell them this: do not live in your victimhood. If you have been a victim as a child, your mom's neglectful, your dad's a drunk, he's a drug addict, he's beating you, he's doing whatever it is. Do me a favor, guys.

Don't live in your victimhood.

Don't act out to get your needs met. Do what I did when I lost my dad. I wrote him off. My dad basically left my family 25 years ago, never to hear from him again. And I looked in the mirror and I thought, what did I do wrong that would caused my father to leave us and me.

And I blamed myself and I acted out many different ways to get attention. One day I woke up and I decided, you know, it was my dad that left and he's the one that had a problem and I'm still here and I'm okay. And I decided I needed a dad.

I picked out a guy named Honest John. He was an ex-ambulance driver in New York City. So I walked right up to Honest John. I said, Honest John, would you be my dad? He goes, what?

Yeah, I don't have a dad, Honest John.

Would you? Are you sure?

I said, yeah. And he, we were like father and son. We'd talk and he would be my dad. It was really cool. He cared about what we were doing, traveling around, taking care thing. Now, I didn't think much of it, didn't really mean much, just he was my dad, big deal.

Until this happened 2 years ago.

We were in South Dakota, my wife and I, we were in a hotel hanging out, and all of a sudden the phone rings and it's Honest John's daughter.

She goes, Honest John died. And I went, what?

Yeah, he got cancer 2 weeks ago, he didn't want to bother anybody.

She said, the only request he had is that Scary Guy's 8x10 was put in his coffin with him. That's when I realized it worked.

I suppose you could call me the manager of The Scary Guy. It really has transpired over over 4 years where I met The Scary Guy through doing a radio program. I spoke to 2 or 3 schools, very difficult at the beginning to persuade them to have The Scary Guy. It was, I've got this guy I've just met on a radio show, he's 6 foot tall, he's tattooed from head to foot, he has piercings and he's American, would you book him in to do an assembly? You can imagine the head teachers just looked at me like I was completely crazy.

We were looking for a way of launching emotional intelligence within the school. Pinder School has had a difficult past. It was the lowest-performing school in the region. Behaviour was quite challenging amongst the students, and what we felt we needed to do was first to get control of behaviour, and we did that, but what we want to give to the students is self-control. So we wanted a way of launching the whole idea. Well, I or my colleagues could stand up in assembly and explain what a good idea it is to the students to take control of their emotions, but we didn't think that would really cut it. So what we did is we came across The Scary Guy, we saw a flyer, we went on his website, And whilst he looked very intimidating, we thought he might be worth the risk. If you look at Scary in an English setting, he is unusual. Yeah, he is the sort of guy where if you saw him out on the street, would cross the street. When he speaks, however, you get a sense almost of a Billy Graham without the religion. There's sort of almost an evangelical sense of what he's about and his mission. And we have found that very powerful. For the school, I think it's really important because when you look at issues like bullying and violence, you need somebody pretty charismatic to challenge those strong figures who are coming through the media into the children's homes.

What do you got going on?

Yeah, I was like picked on constantly at school. I'd have people flicking things at the back of my head in class, kicking me on the way out in PE. I could never go into the changing rooms. I refused to do PE because it was that bad in the changing rooms, and they can't exactly have anybody in there watching us and that, getting changed and everything. So I kind of used to get really, really, really angry during lessons. I'd There was one time when I actually kicked a table and it flew over and almost hit somebody because they'd been picking on us that much. I'd just got so angry and then I kind of, I was at the point where I could have just done something really, really stupid.

Teachers, they always say stuff that I don't need to do.

What is it that you What do you think you're doing that they don't like?

So, um, when you go talk to your mates and stuff, they shout at you and stuff and send you out. So I retaliate back and then, um, I get excluded or put in isolation.

Hang on a minute, let me get clear on that, okay? Do you do that a lot? Talk while the teacher's talking?

Yeah.

Why?

Don't know.

What class do you do that in?

Mostly English, that's just up there.

Mostly English?

And I haven't been going to English for a couple of months.

Say that again.

I haven't been going to English for a couple of months.

You don't like English?

I don't do any school lessons hardly anymore.

Did any of them ever really truly beat on you? Try to beat on you in a circle once?

There was one point where I was actually put in hospital because somebody had hit me because they thought— I'm not sure if it was a mistake or they were just making up some reason to do it, but apparently they'd seen me beating on their little sister or something when I didn't even know who the person was or who their sister was. And she turned around and hit me 3 times in the nose, which I think broke my nose slightly there, and then it would— it kept bleeding. And I got a nasty hit on the side of my head, and that put me in hospital overnight. And I kept having constant nosebleeds after that, which put me in hospital again to have it operated on to get get fixed. So it was pretty bad.

That was 2 years ago?

Yeah, that was.

And what did you— how did you feel about yourself then, personally, inside? How did you feel?

I could just shrivel up and die or something. I wanted to be away from everybody.

You don't do any school lessons anymore? How come?

Fighting.

Uh, fighting. Fight. Hold on, fighting?

Yeah.

Who do you fight?

People who calls names, calls me names or something.

So you react to them right away?

Yeah.

There's not much thinking going on.

My mom always tells me to count to 10 or something, but it don't work.

You don't even get to 1, do you?

No.

All right. Did you ever have an opportunity to speak to your mom and dad about all of this?

Well, I did, but it was just— I felt really— I didn't want to talk to them about it because I just felt embarrassed in a way.

So you didn't really talk to your mom and dad about the whole problem?

No, I couldn't really talk to my dad at all.

Do you have control over your teacher? Do you have control over your mom? Do you have control over any of the boys?

Mm-mm.

Who do you have control over?

Myself.

You?

Yeah.

Hmm.

If they're running their mouth with negative words, I don't care what they say to me, guess what I'm gonna do? Not take it in. It's your body, they're your ears, and it's your brain. And you can choose what you want inside your body. That's what I do, because look at me. You know what I get, don't you? I get a lot of negative stuff coming at me, and I don't take any of it on unless I like it or I want it for me. Then I go, hey, that's cool, thanks. All the other stuff is not mine. That's how I function every day. What I'm saying is, uh-uh, we need to take a look at what you're taking in. That's even more important because none of that stuff is yours and you don't have to prove it to anybody. You with me? What do you think's the difference between you then and you now? What has happened?

Well, it's like I'm a completely different person now than I was angry all the time. I hated a lot of people. I mean, it's a strong word to say, but I did. But now it's— I don't. It's like I say, well, instead of listening to what they were saying, I kind of just remembered what you were saying about negative energy and just think, oh well, it's their problem, not mine. And I did think that all the time then, and now I don't even need to think that. Just say, well, it's not my problem, and walk away.

Dude, how are you?

All right.

What are you doing?

Do you got a letter for me?

Look at this letter. Can I read it now, or do you want me to read it later?

Okay.

A miracle to me that— I mean, there's a young boy, um, here in Scarborough, and this young lad came into the room where we sat, and Scary Guy just chatted and smiled, and we offered him a sandwich, and Scary Guy talked to him and just drew some stuff on paper, and the young boy just made some sounds, you know, "Mm-hmm, uh-huh, mm-hmm." And very slowly, over 15 to 20, 25 minutes, we managed to get the— the young lad was saying "yes" and "no," and then 2 words, and then 3 words, and then the odd sentence, and we left it at that. And Scary had got an idea of who he was and what his issues were.

Dear Scary, hope you're okay as I'm fine. What have you been doing lately? As you may or may— what's that say? Help me. As you may or may know, I'm going on what? On holiday.

It says Hols.

It's a what?

Hols. It's short for holiday.

Hols?

It's a nickname for holiday?

Cool.

I didn't even know that, dude. I thought I knew everything soon. If I had your address, I could send you a postcard, but unfortunately I haven't got your address.

As I walked with this lad back to his class, I'm just talking to him as I would anybody else, you know, what lesson have you got next, and what is your favorite lesson, and what did you think of The Scary Guy, you know, those kind of things, and he's telling me, telling me what he's doing. Didn't think anything of it. Two caretakers from the school walked past me, didn't think anything of it, and I went through the door and I said to this lad, "Bye, see you later." And I turned to go back to the room where we'd come from, and the two caretakers that had walked past me were still standing there with their jaws on the floor as if they were transfixed. I'll say, "Are you okay?" And they said, "Did he speak?" I said, "Yeah, why?" They had never ever heard him speak.

I'm going on holiday next Friday.

Do you want a letter to carry with you?

Yeah.

Okay, I will write you a letter. So you're going to be in school today and tomorrow?

Yeah.

Okay, can I have a day to write the letter? Can I have one day? And I'll get it back over to you tomorrow. Is that cool? Okay, good. I'll write you a letter. Thanks, buddy. Thanks for coming by.

Now I gotta write a letter.

That's cool. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Oh my gosh. Back in the hotel, I'm typing email letters to kids. If you look at it daily, it could be between 20 and 100 a day. Sometimes I'm up till 1 o'clock.

Scary answers every single email. He just puts in an awesome amount of time because that's all it takes. The people that write to him, particularly the children, the reason why the connection with The Scary Guy works on that level is because they know he's genuine. It's real. And that's why the magic works, because the kids would see straight through anything that was phony or gimmicky or put in place just to make money.

I get some kids that are really, really seriously troubled, or they're hurting, or they're in pain. Somebody's suicidal, or they're in really drastic and they're in dire straits and I feel it's a threat to their lives or other people, then I obviously call people that can, in their area, that can help immediately, whether it's the head of the school or it's a law enforcement agency or some social service group or whatever.

We have a 3-year project running now that's funded by a local company which has the same name as the school, Pinder, and they're funding Scary to work right the way across Scarborough, across all of the schools in Scarborough over the next 3 years, and with bodies such as the police so that everybody has the opportunity to become emotionally more intelligent.

We spent a week in Scarborough and then we had an event booked in Cornwall, so we jumped on an airplane on the Friday and we flew from Bristol to Newquay. We did an event on the Saturday, then we came back on the Sunday, did the reverse journey back to Bristol, back to Leeds, then we took the, the car back to Scarborough, arriving at 1 o'clock in the morning. Then we're doing a school back in Scarborough at 9 o'clock on the Monday morning, and we both jumped in the car at the same time and burst out laughing. We imagined ourselves as Batman and Robin.

I don't see what you see all the time until I comb my mohawk, you know, and I'm looking in the mirror. Then I see it, but it does— it's not really there for me.

I don't really see his tattoos in everyday life at all anymore. In fact, he will get a new one in a very obvious place and I'm the last one to notice because I just see him for his heart and that's it. You know, it's the surface appearance I don't really notice that much anymore. In fact, if I had to describe his tattoos, I don't think that I could as much as I've, you know, been around him and everything because it is just a part of the big picture.

Check this out. This is today's newspapers. I'm sorry, but look, I'm trying to find out how it's going today. Okay, there's one, there's two. Oh, and they found out about one of the bombers. He was full of anger.

That's what it says. Surprise, huh? I'll just hold them up because I can't I can't read them all fast enough. Here's another one.

Now this is just today. Oh, this is the evil. We got to get the evil. Stop the evil. Let's work together to stamp out evil. War on terrorism. Think about it. Are we actually helping people heal, or are we just creating a whole bunch more haters to hate more haters?

Anger is very quick. You go like this, and you get rid of the energy.

Very rarely do you see somebody living in physical anger full-time.

They're dead. That will eat you alive.

You with me? Like this.

I'll die.

I can't be there. So I use it to get rid of that stuff right there.

Boom.

Law enforcement is no different. Excuse me, new police officers, you got something you got to wake up to right now. Do you think you're wearing a uniform, you're immune from the process of negative energy in the form of words and nonverbal communication? No! You're going to turn into the dudes you arrest because you're going to take on all that negative energy out there all day long and then have to go home and be good. Now you go to the pub and drink yourself to death. Because you got to get some relief. In law enforcement, you use some of that energy as it comes at you. If you think you're going to— for instance, if a man—

stand up, Kerry, come on over here. If somebody's going to strike you like this and you turn your face and you see—

yeah, you're going to redirect the energy.

You see that?

You're not going to absorb it. Or if they've got a knife, you're going to redirect that energy. You're not going to allow that negative energy to enter your body. And you may have to use adrenaline, but trust me, if you get angry during the process, you're going to get hurt. You never use anger to redirect energy. They even say that in self-defense class, and they also say it in boxing. People try to— they call it "make their opponent mad," because once they make their opponent mad, they got them, because they can't think clearly.

Right?

Right on. Give him a hand. Again, you rock, dude. What happens in schools, kindergarten class, first grade, second grade, high school, college, the large corporations, work environments, police forces, all the behaviors are almost identical. There's absolutely no difference between a kindergartner wanting his blocks and his toys and somebody working in a corporation wanting more money, wanting a better car, and how they get that sometimes looks almost the same. So people think that what I do for kids has got to be different than what I would do for adults. And they're wrong. I have a little real estate on my back and I have a little real estate on my bum, but my expressing myself is less important now than really using what I have. I don't take my clothes off anyway, 'cause the sun isn't good for my skin. I'm not in the sun anymore.

Right now you are in a thunderstorm.

It's beautiful.