Jan. 25, 2026
From Incarceration to Inspiration: Daniel Gray's Memoir of Redemption
Send us a text In this gripping episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we welcome Daniel Gray, author of the memoir *The Man from the Medium*. Daniel shares his extraordinary journey, detailing his life leading up to, during, and after the events of January 6, 2021. He candidly discusses his experiences as one of the defendants involved in the Capitol protests, his subsequent incarceration, and how he took the time to write a 133,000-word memoir by hand while in prison. Daniel reflects o...
In this gripping episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we welcome Daniel Gray, author of the memoir *The Man from the Medium*. Daniel shares his extraordinary journey, detailing his life leading up to, during, and after the events of January 6, 2021. He candidly discusses his experiences as one of the defendants involved in the Capitol protests, his subsequent incarceration, and how he took the time to write a 133,000-word memoir by hand while in prison. Daniel reflects on the challenges he faced, including the emotional toll of his actions and the realities of life behind bars. He also shares the transformative power of writing, as it allowed him to process his pain and find meaning in his experiences. Listeners will gain insight into the complexities of accountability and redemption, as Daniel emphasizes the importance of second chances and personal growth. Discover more about Daniel and his work on his social media platforms, and learn how he is using his experiences to inspire others. Don’t miss this powerful conversation that challenges perceptions and highlights the resilience of the human spirit.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by author Daniel Gray. He is the author of the memoir the man from the Medium, which he wrote by hand while he was incarcerated after January 6th, 2021. So we're gonna be talking to him about that and, you know, what he's up to and anything else that he's gonna be up to and why he decided to write it. So.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Daniel, thank you for joining me.
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> Daniel Gray>Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?
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> Daniel Gray>I guess I can start at the beginning. I was originally born in Blackpool, England. my father is from Texas, my mother is from England. I was raised in Irving, Texas. For a long portion of my life, I've lived in Atlanta, I've lived in Las Vegas, I've lived in Austin, Texas. I lived three years in Taiwan. At one point I was a professional mixed martial arts fighter. outside of that, I am, ah, one of the defendants. From January 6th, I was arrested, incarcerated, and during my incarceration I sat down and I wrote a 133,000 word book about my life, my history, what happened to me, how I got involved in these things, and just the events that happened as I was in prison.
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> Daniel Gray>So what I wrote a lot of times that actually happened maybe even a few hours before I even wrote it down.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So kind of in your own words, explain, January 6th, explain what you experienced, and why you were actually incarcerated and what you were charged with. And I imagine you were pardoned by President Trump.
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> Daniel Gray>That is correct. I was pardoned by President Trump. I am one of the defendants who, who left was, pardoned out of prison. So I had the very, bizarre experience of watching myself get pardoned on television and. Yeah.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Yeah, well, you know, if you don't mind, you know, kind of briefly, walk us through January 6th. You know, what happened, what did you experience? Was it what, it was portrayed as and stuff like that.
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> Daniel Gray>Okay, so my experience with January 6th, I have to start here. My experience with January 6th was not like a lot of people's experience that went there.
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> Daniel Gray>You know, there was probably, I would say, 2 million, 3 million people that went to this protest. It was huge. I, arrived the day before. I went by myself. I met with a few friends that I knew that lived around the city. I was staying in an Airbnb. The next day we go to the protest. And the protest crowd was. It was huge. I mean, the President was speaking at the back portion of the White House. I was standing all the way back where the Washington Monument is. And there were so many people that they actually had Titan Trons on either side. And they had three sets of those so that you could see the President speaking. And I came to January 6th. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I have to take accountability for my behavior as well. And I went to the protest. there were a few speeches that happened that day. And eventually the President spoke, typical Trump fashion. He was about an hour late to the speech. It was freezing cold out there. I had converse on, so my feet were soaking wet. I remember thinking to myself, this is kind of dragging on for a while. And the President comes out and he begins to speak. And the truth was that the speech itself was kind of unmemorable. for me, it was a lot of, like, platitudes, it was a lot of numbers, talking about the different issues, that he had with the election and so forth. And I do remember sitting there thinking, you know, oh, my goodness, is this going to end? And then at some point, the President spoke up and he basically said, I want everybody to go to the Capitol and to protest and peacefully protest this election. And just like that, the entire crowd shifted. I mean, you're talking about a million people that they turned and they walked Pennsylvania Avenue, and, you know, it's about a good 30, 45 minute trek down the lawn, you know, plus the crowd. So I guess it was probably about an hour from the position I was standing up until we got to the protest or the Capitol itself. And the thing people don't really know was that it was actually a very, like a jovial event. Like I say, a lot of the people who went that day, they don't bear the same responsibilities that I beared, for my involvement. There were, people were singing and dancing, people were hugging each other, people were dressed like Uncle Sam. it felt a lot like a carnival or a party. I do remember I looked over at Pennsylvania Avenue from the lawn and it was just a sea of cars and people and everything and, you know, floats. And, you know, my memory of that moment was that it was a, it was a big sort of like a, you know, enjoyable occasion. I remember actually I was, we were singing ymca and we were, we were dancing and doing the song and so we arrive at the Capitol, it's around like 2pm you know, for my case, I kind of have the timelines and nobody has any cell phone data because there's a crowd of, you know, a million people. So my assumption is that whatever, the satellites or whatever were overwhelmed and so nobody can hear what was going on. You know, it was, it was very, very, I like to say you could almost hear a pin drop. And I remember I look over and I see, an elderly couple and they're winding up one of those old style ham radios because everybody's trying to hear what's happening inside the Capitol. You know, from our understanding, there's supposed to be a big argument or disagreement in, Congress about, you know, do they certify this election or not. And it was quiet as a mouse. And then all of a sudden, you know, from multiple different areas, you hear this like, explosion from, you know, 10, 15 people with megaphones. And they all, in unison, they yell, pence betrayed us. And the crowd, it just, it explodes. I mean, it just, there was like, it was almost like being inside of an ocean. And to preface that, I've worked in nightclubs and I've done festivals, I've done 80,000 person concerts and so on. And ah, I've never seen that much movement before. And I guess I can just kind of unpack my involvement. I, get separated from my group and I walk to the front of the crowd and I see a confrontation between the police and the protesters. And so I think to myself, I have an incredibly stupid thought. And I think to myself, I'm going to take my cell phone out and I'm going to take a picture of the police and the protesters, and I'm going to post it on my Instagram. And so I go to pull my phone out and I'm at the very front lines and I have a police officer snatch my phone out of my hands and I get pepper sprayed in my eyes. And after that, I lost control of my temper. I really did. I got myself involved. I went back to the front lines, I ended up getting pushed through the crowd. I end up going up a staircase. it was just pandemonium. I mean, and the timeline of it, it seems like it was about 25 minutes, but my memory of it is maybe 15, 20 seconds. Very, very sporadic memories of what was going on. And so I end up going through this tunnel at the very top, and I end up at the front door of the West Terrace entrance. And the video of that moment, it's actually very Big in what they call January 16th conspiracy lore. Because I'm standing at the very front door, and there's a bunch of Capitol police, and there's a commotion back and forth. There's a lot of argument going on. And all of a sudden, the police, they turn around and they walk the crowd in. And so I walk inside the building, and I see the officer that I think saw my cell phone. I walk up, I asked for back about six, seven times. There's a commotion between the officer and somebody else behind me.
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> Daniel Gray>It turns into a pushing match. I'm sandwiched in the middle. there's an officer who. They swing the baton on me.
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> Daniel Gray>I put my hand up. There's an issue where the officer does spot on the stairs. About 14 seconds later, I walk out the building. And that was my involvement in the day. I wasn't a rotunda. I did behave in a way that I shouldn't have behaved.
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> Daniel Gray>There were certain things I shouldn't have done that day. I go home, and I, get on social media. I have a second phone. I'm on social media, and I see that this is a big story. And, I didn't at the moment. I could have never imagined how big this was going to get. And I see that it's in the news and kind of like, wow, we were in a huge protest.
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> Daniel Gray>This is a big story. there's a, person who'd reached out to my cell phone, the person who had my cell phone, and contacted them back. They were trying to get me to come meet them to get the cell phone back. that was kind of the end of that cell phone. I never went to go get it back. the next day, I actually went back to the Capitol grounds.
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> Daniel Gray>I was, detained by probably 30 police officers.
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> Daniel Gray>They, went through my background. They. They searched my information. I told them who I was. I said where I lived. At some point, they let me go.
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> Daniel Gray>And I went back to. I, was living in Atlanta, Georgia, and I went back to my work the next day.
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> Daniel Gray>I had my work shirt on, and I walk in, and I realized that nobody's looking at me. Wow. I'm actually probably in a lot more trouble than I thought. And so I get in my car and I drive to Jacksonville, Florida. This is. Jacksonville, Florida, is really my home. I was living in Atlanta for a job. And, you know, I see the news stories. I saw a big billboard that said that, you know, there's a reward for people who are involved. I heard a story about Nancy Pelosi saying that there's going to be like a 20 year charge for it. And I didn't, I just, I just. My thought was, well, what actually happened that day? I was only involved in a certain area. I imagine it must have been a bigger thing. And so about four months go by. I don't think much about it. I kind of assumed that, you know, they'd arrested like 50 or 60 people. I kind of thought that maybe I wasn't involved in, you know, that my involvement wasn't enough to warrant the FBI coming after me. And then on May 17, I'm driving to the beach and I see a, police car behind the car, behind me. And the, it turns on the blue and red lights, the car moves out of the way and they get behind me and I'm like, oh, my goodness. I guess I'm getting pulled over. And the next thing you know, I hear, you know, driver, get out of your vehicle or stop your car, get out of your vehicle. And I really assume this is mistaken identity. I'm like, this has got to be a mix up.
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> Daniel Gray>I'll be at the beach in an hour. Let me just clear this whole thing up. And, you know, it's, you know, put your hands out the car, walk back towards the sound of my voice. I have no idea what's going on. I lay down on the ground, they handcuff me and I, they pick me up and I look around, I see all these FBI vests and I just think to myself, oh, my goodness, you know, this is actually happening. So that's the full story of my January 6th.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Gotcha.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So, let's talk about what encouraged, you to write your memoir and kind of tell us about it and where we can get it.
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> Daniel Gray>Yeah. So I decided to write the memoir. When I got into prison, it was about. I ended up facing 37 and a half years. I had a three year fight with the DOJ. there were some issues with my case.
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> Daniel Gray>there were some things that I was definitely guilty of. I take responsibility for my behavior.
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> Daniel Gray>but there were some other issues where the DOJ was definitely pushing for some very, very serious charges against me. I was facing 37 and a half years. And so we sat the case out. I had a really good public defender. She kept encouraging me to delay the case. Let's see what the other comparables do. And, so we did that. And at some point I started seeing that they were getting very, very serious convictions. Every trial was held in D.C. and, so they Were getting very serious convictions. And at some point, you know, we, we had a fight with the DOJ about a very specific charge. At some point, the DOJ relented and we reworded. We reworded the statement of offense to the point where I was comfortable signing it. I signed it. we went in front of the honorable Judge Amy Vernon Jackson. She's a senior federal judge. she's a very left leaning judge too. But I speak very highly of her because, you know, at sentencing she, she took my side on a lot of things. She actually gave me a lot of grace and mercy. So I have a lot of respect for the way that she viewed my case. And ultimately I ended up getting sentenced to 30 months. The prosecution asked for six years. I got 30 months. I had a very, very successful case for what it was in the feds. And so I came back to Jacksonville. I had about a month and a half. I was in a relationship with somebody. She'd been standing by my side the whole time. And after that month and a half, I found myself. I was driving my way to prison. And I got to prison. And you, know, in prison you just, you have nothing to do. There's. There's no Internet. There's. You have maybe 10 minutes and you can use a computer every day. And so I just picked up a pen and paper and I said, I'm going to write down everything. I'm going to write an honest book about what happened. This is not a hero story. This is not a sad story. This is what happened. These are the mistakes that I made. And so I wrote my life history, living in England, how I came to be a conservative mindset, what got me into the more radical views. And, as I'm writing the book, I started writing about what was actually happening in prison. Because while I'm in prison, the Supreme Court takes up one of my charges. Obviously, we have that election. It was such a tumultuous election. Very, very difficult thing to go through while you're in prison because you have the president saying, hey, I'm gonna pardon you guys. You have the opposition who's kind of hinging the entire election on January 6th. And so I found myself in this really, really difficult situation where I'm hoping for a positive outcome, but I'm also understanding that it might not happen. I've got people who support me in prison. I have people who definitely don't support me in prison. So I'm writing about those interactions. I'm also writing about my own sort of regret for being here and, you know, how I got myself into the situation. And I'm also writing about the woman who I was dating at the time, because, you know, she was very important to me and she stood by my side. She was a big reader. So my thought process was, I'm going to write a book and I'm going to show her how much it meant for her to stand by my side. And the reason it's called the Men from the Medium is I was in a low security prison, and I was in there with, it was a lot of people who didn't have violent felonies. It was a lot of tax people. There was a lot of people from South America. Bizarrely, we had a lot of the South American drug runners that were in federal prison with us. But, I'm writing this book, and at some point they start bringing guys over from the media in prison. And these guys are guys who've done 10, 15, 20 years in prison. A lot of them were convicted under the, crime bill of 1994, the three strikes, you're out rules. And a lot of these guys were nonviolent offenders. They were people who, yeah, they made a lot of mistakes.
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> Daniel Gray>They were people who'd sold drugs, but, you know, they were 10, 15, 20 years into their incarceration. And I had a moment where, you know, the woman I was with, she. She ended up breaking up with me while I was in prison. And, like, it really tore me down at the time because I was really focused on getting out and getting back to that relationship. And prior to that, I really wasn't having a bad time in prison. I was working out and made some friends, and I was just kind of making the best of it. And then when the breakup happened, it just really just the floor fell out from underneath of me, and I started reflecting and I started looking around guys who'd done 10, 15, 20 years and still had 10 more years to do.
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> Daniel Gray>And I would watch these guys and, you know, I'd go to church and I'd see them in church, and then I'd see them on the yard. They'd be working out every day. They were working jobs in Unicor. And I realized that I just didn't have it that bad. You know, I had, a situation where I made some mistakes. I got myself into a bad situation, but my situation was nowhere near as unfair as a man who still had 10 more years to do, at least in my estimation. You know, I'm not excusing, you know, committing crimes, but, I'm. My thought process was, wow, like, imagine having to do this for 30 years, and then, you know, you lose your wife, you lose your kids, you lose your business, and then you start to find purpose in this situation. And, you know, that's. That's like, the book shift.
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> Daniel Gray>After I had the breakup, the book shifts towards, wow, imagine what a man like this has had to do.
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> Daniel Gray>And I have very specific people that I talk about.
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> Daniel Gray>some of these guys, like I said, they've been in there forever. And I looked at them and I thought, man, like, if these guys can find peace and they can find, you know, a purpose in life inside of prison, and they can.
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> Daniel Gray>They can find God, and they can. They can wake up every day and be grateful and work out and, you know, you talk to them and you'd say, how you doing? They'd say, I'm blessed, man. I'm so blessed. And I'm like, how can you say you're blessed? But I guess you are because you have the spirit in you that's bigger than your circumstances. And so that's why it's called the Men from the Media. And that's kind of the synopsis of the book.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, well, let's talk about how, writing by hand in prison help you process pain and find meaning.
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> Daniel Gray>Yeah, that was huge for me, because in prison, there's nothing to do with. And you just. You have a lot of time to sit there and just kind of stare at the walls. And that's what I did my first four months. I just. I was in a bottom bunk, and I was literally just laying the bunk, and I would look up the, top bunk, and I would just stare at it for hours and hours and hours. And at some point, I thought to myself, you know, I have to do something more productive than this. And I actually met another inmate, and he's. He's probably 20 years into a sentence, and he'd written six books, and I've never written a book.
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> Daniel Gray>I had no idea. I had no idea how to write a book.
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> Daniel Gray>And I asked him, I said, how do I start my book?
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> Daniel Gray>And he showed me his first page, and I said, okay, I'm going to give it my best shot. And I sat down and I started writing. And I began with, the portion where I signed my plea agreement. I just went through the process of signing a plea agreement. The emotion involved how taxing it really was, what that day was actually like for me. And then I backtracked, and I told my life story, and I Got into, what was going on inside the prison. And I was having really tough days because there was a subsector of the people who I was incarcerated with that were very, very anti Trump. I mean, that's just the nature of the world. Anywhere you go, you're going to have people who support or don't support the president.
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> Daniel Gray>And, they have the CNN TV on in there. And my dorm is like, my room is, like, one or two away from where the TV room is. And just every single day I would hear, you know, just, you know, just a lot of stuff that was, you know, very, very, you know, negative towards the administration. And at that point, I was really. I separated myself from the politics. I said, man, I don't want to be involved in politics anymore. I don't care. The only reason, I mean, I do care about the direction of the country, but the only reason I'm really heavily invested in this thing is because I've got myself invested. And so I start, you know, the writing was. It was so important for me because, you know, instead of just going through these hard times and internalizing, you know, all the anger, all the anger that I was having and all the frustration that I was having, I got to put it down on paper, and I didn't. I didn't even realize that I was. I didn't realize I was writing a book.
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> Daniel Gray>I kind of just thought I was writing, a, you know, sloppy memoir. And I wrote two. I probably wrote, you know, I say nine, 10 of it in prison. And, you know, the inauguration comes up, and I've got the work as far as I can take it, but I was in such a distressed state, you know, at that point, I didn't have a place to go to when I was getting out of prison. I didn't know how the election was going to go. We didn't know if we were getting pardoned or not. There was no real information.
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> Daniel Gray>None of our attorneys knew anything. And so I'm just reflecting on what it's like to be in prison and to be tied to an election that you desperately want to be separated from at this point, and to deal with people that maybe don't agree with you or don't want the best for you. And the whole thing crescendoed. On election night, I ended up throwing a big pizza party. We, called it the Mucho Bueno Fiesta. I invited every single person to. Didn't matter what your political leanings were. I just wanted to have a. You know, I'm finally Here I. You know, I finally got to this day. We could see what's going to happen. At least I know what my future looks like. And so I got past that portion. then we had the period between the election and the inauguration, which was like, the worst period of my entire life, because it was just. I mean, days were weeks, weeks were months.
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> Daniel Gray>I mean, it just went on and on. And so, you know, the book was pretty much all I had. You know, I didn't have anything else to do in there. Go to the gym, I'd work out, I'd come back and I'd sit down and I'd write for, like, you know, three, four hours at a time. And when eventually the election night happened, you know, they call Trump to the arena, and he comes on and he announced, we don't know what's going to happen. And he comes in front of this huge crowd, and he says to my January 6th defendants, you guys are going home tonight. And I'm with another defendant. And we turn around and, like, I almost start breaking down. I give him this big hug. And my, case manager, she comes in, and it's a holiday. She's not supposed to be there. She's in her jeans. She pulls me into the office, and she goes, daniel, I have a note from the administration. You've been pardoned by the president. I just break down in tears, and I can't believe it's happening. And then there's some confusion. We don't know what's going to happen. And so they send me back to my bunk, and I'm just sitting in the bunk, and I have no idea. And so I'm, okay, well, we'll see what happens. And about midnight, a guy walks in with a flashlight. He goes, hey, are you Daniel? Gray said, I am. He goes, pack your stuff. You're getting out of here. And, literally all I grabbed was. I had my newspaper clippings, I had some letters people had written to me, and I had the book that I'd written, and it's, you know, it's about this thick. And I just grab my book, and I grab whatever else I have, and they take us to the office and they check us out. We walk outside, and somebody had done some logistics. There were three vans waiting for us, and they were. They asked us, you know, where do you want to go? Take you anywhere in the country. I take a ride home with my friend. And, you know, the next three months, I didn't do any riding at all. Initially, it was a great experience. Oh my goodness. I'm out of prison. I don't have a criminal record. I'm so blessed. There's so many people I met in prison that would do anything at all to have that situation. So I have to just be thankful to God for it.
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> Daniel Gray>But, the three months after that, I had to deal with some homelessness, I had to find some work.
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> Daniel Gray>You know, we're a big story on tv. I'm doing everything I can not to look at this. And I was like, I gotta finish this book. I have to finish this book. I put so much work into it, I didn't know how to finish it. And so it took me like three or four more months. I just put it away and I didn't even want to look at it. And then one day I said to myself, I have to finish this book. And I put so much work into it and I sat down and I wrote the last chapter. And the last chapter is called Bittersweet for a Reason, because it was a very bittersweet experience. Most people don't realize that going to prison is actually a lot easier than leaving prison. When you go to prison, you just kind of surrender yourself to the idea that you're going to prison. But when you leave prison, this thing is called the two month course.
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> Daniel Gray>Because you're going to sit in prison and you're going to think about, you know, what am I going to do when I get out, who am I going to see, what work am I going to do, who's going to be there for me? And almost all of that is going to fall apart on some level. And so there's just a horrible amount of depression. And when you have to re enter the world again, you know, and there are some things about prison that are easy. There's routine. They're going to give you food every day.
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> Daniel Gray>There's a laundry, where they, you drop a bag off and they wash your clothes. And now I've got to find work, I've got to pay rent. I've got to get back, you know, I've got to get back to the normal living which, you know, it's, that's life. You have to pay bills. You know, I struggled with that, you know, initially to get back going. I finally sat down and I finished the book and that was just, I mean that was amazing for me. And, and so I got the book finished. But the problem was it was on paper and so I still had to get it on text and I didn't have Internet in the place. I was staying. All I had was a cell phone. And so I took my cell phone and I talked to, texted the entire book. I mean this is almost a 400 page book. And I talked to, texted the entire thing. And you know, before January 6th, I had some really bad problems. I had a really bad divorce. I ended up in some addiction issues, ended up homeless once again. And so when I'm talking to text this book, I'm actually breaking down multiple times because I'm reliving everything that I went through. And then I go through the entire process. And it took me about say three weeks of just, you know, 10 hour days of just talking this book into my phone until I finally got it onto a text. And that was just such a fulfilling feeling. And I didn't know what I had. I wasn't sure if I had a good book.
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> Daniel Gray>I'd never written a book before. And it was just my first shot through. I had no developmental editor. And so I sent it to a friend of mine who was, a writer as well, but pretty respected writer, you know, a guy who's very established, he's been the CEO of a few companies. And I just said, here, would you read my book? And it's just full of grammatical errors, it's full of talk to text mistakes. And I sent it to him thinking that he was going to come back and say, hey, Daniel, this needs to be fixed. This needs to be fixed.
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> Daniel Gray>And I waited about two weeks and I got a message back and he said, daniel, this is a great book.
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> Daniel Gray>You bared your soul and it's compelling read. I thought he was just telling me that. And so I put it into Autocrit, which is like an AI software for, you know, editing and really understanding how stories make sure that all the arcs are closed and everything. And I put it into Autocrit. And Autocrit basically rated it really highly. I just couldn't believe it. you know, I'd written the whole thing by pen, start to finish, and I didn't do any revisions. I was like, how can this be true? And so I sent it off to a few more friends and I said, you know, tell me what you think. And you know, almost overwhelmingly everybody was like, this is a very good book. I mean, it's an honest book about what happened. You're very genuine about the things that you say. And it's very detailed in exactly what the process was like from start to finish of getting involved in this thing, how you got involved in it, how you intend to get your way out of it and so forth. And so I, I said, okay. And I looked at my, my life and my circumstances. I had some stability. I had a good, good enough job that I had some free time that I could work a little bit more on it. And I did some soul searching. I did a lot of praying. And I said, what am I going to do? You know, am I going to just finish this book and just put it on a shelf somewhere? or am I going to give it its best shot to get into the world and just see what happens? And so I've spent the last four months working on social media. I have a finished, copy of the book now. I've sent it off for its final editing. I've talked to two publishers who are interested in publishing it. My hope is to have it out in the next four months. Right now, I have excerpts of the work that I've done on social media, and I've, been talking to people. I've been doing podcasts and so forth about it. And, yeah, I guess the most important thing is that that was a really, really difficult time. Once again, I take accountability for getting myself into that situation. But it was huge for me to sit down and say, wow, I took a situation that was incredibly negative and incredibly hard to go through, and I put it on pen and paper, and it doesn't live inside of me anymore, but it lives in the world now, and I'm going to publish it, put it in front of people and accept any criticism that I get.
00:25:54.230 --> 00:25:59.509
> Daniel Gray>That's just fine. Because, you know, now I have something I can stand on a little bit, and I have something I can actually be proud of.
00:26:00.630 --> 00:26:08.580
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, talk about what accountability means to you now. versus before you were incarcerated. And what do you hope readers take away from your book?
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> Daniel Gray>Before I was incarcerated, I was surrounded by a lot of people who were supporting me. I had an attorney who was, supporting me in a sense. What I mean is, they were supporting me from the conservative side. You know, you need to fight this case. You need to go into court and you need to, you know, tell them, this is a travesty. The former president is going on TV calling us hostages. and I'm not negating any of that. All I'm saying is that when you're facing the federal justice system, you have a 98% chance that you're going to be convicted. That is the nature of the beast. There is no beating a federal case. I mean, it's so rare that when it happens, it becomes A huge news story. And so, you know, I looked at the impossibility of my situation and I said, what am I going to do here? I'm facing the honorable Judge Amy Berman Jackson. She's a very left leaning judge. If you Google her, you're going to see that she's like kind of synonymous with Trump. You know, Trump does something, she tends to rule against it. And I thought, man, I'm in a lot of trouble here. And you know, I had a really, really hard life up until this point. I've made some big mistakes. And so what does a man do? You know, do I go into court and do I shake my fist at the government and walk my way into a 10 year prison sentence or do I think about the future? And the biggest thing for me was I had to come to terms with the fact that this is not the identity that I wanted myself. You know, I don't want to live under this cloud for the rest of my life. And so I looked at it and after three years, I made the decision that we're going to plead guilty to this case. I don't think I'm going to beat it. I think I'm going to be found guilty anyway. So let's take ownership of everything. And so what that meant to me was it wasn't just taking ownership of January 6, but it was what got me here. What were the circumstances that I, what decisions that I make, how did I allow myself to get into a place where I put my freedom at stake for a political issue? And so I put together, I had a great public defender.
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> Daniel Gray>I went back to her, she worked really hard with me, she believed in my case. We put together a 37 page sentencing memorandum. I reached out to all my friends, I've a really robust friend group from working in martial arts for years. And I asked, everybody, can you give me letters of recommendation, character references, can you tell stories to the judge about some of the things that we've done together? And I ended up, it was actually a lovely experience to have so many friends write such positive things about me. And so I had all these things and I wrote a letter to the judge and it was a four page letter to the judge. It was just full of like, your honor, this happened, this happened. I made this decision.
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> Daniel Gray>This is how I got into this mindset. These are the things that I've done. And the most important thing I believe that I said was, after I get out of prison, your honor, I intend to do this, this and this. And one of the things I said was, I intend to write everything, down that got me to this situation so it can be helpful for somebody else. And I get to sentencing and I stand in front of the judge, and I am a wreck. I mean, I would never wish having to stand in front of a senior federal judge facing a lot of time on anybody. It is such a nerve wracking experience. And I'm standing in front of this judge, and she's about to read the sentencing, and she starts. She is just yelling at me. I look up and I'm just sweating. I can see it all over the podium. I look up and I realize I'm being yelled at. And so I just pause and I just start nodding. I'm like, I'm in a lot of trouble here. I can tell this is going really badly. And about halfway through that, she pivots and she starts really heaping praise on me.
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> Daniel Gray>And she starts saying things like, your friends describe you as being empathetic, and you've worked really hard to overcome drug and alcohol issues, and you have a great relationship with somebody who's willing to stand beside your side.
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> Daniel Gray>And then she stopped and she said, there's two things she said that stuck with me, and I'll never forget it. with regard to the work of changing your life, Daniel, I believe the work has already been done. And I just, I froze for a second. I was like, am I getting this type of affirmation from this judge who's supposed to be such a hard nosed, left leaning judge? I thought I was done for. And then she says, and in your sentencing memorandum, in your letter, you said, once I get out of prison. Yes, Daniel, you are right. You are going to prison. Okay. Going to prison. And there was like a gavel hit, and there was, like, a lot of talk. I wasn't exactly sure what I was sentenced to. And I turn around to my attorney and I say, how much time did I get? And she goes, you got 30 months. I was like, I can't believe it. I got 30 months. That's amazing. The prosecution was asking for six years. the bottom end of my sentencing was supposed to be like, four years, but I got sentenced to two and a half years. And so I just gave my attorney a big hug. And the takeaway from that was the best decision I could make was just to be completely honest. And I knew that once I did this, and once I came out and said, I've had drug and alcohol problems, I've been through a really tough divorce, I'm in a bad place I made some tough decisions. Decisions. That's what the news was going to say about me. And so I accepted that that was going to be it. And you know, it was, it was that portion of accountability of saying, you know, I got myself into the situation, I accept the consequences of my situation and I have already plotted a pathway forward that really resonated with the judge. And out of, out of all the defendants, I got one of the lightest sentences for the charges that I had.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, well tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.
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> Daniel Gray>So I've done a few things currently on my Facebook page. What I'm working on is I'm doing some essay writing. I like to reflect and I like to step back and I like to use my experiences to contact other experiences. So we're, you know, as the world turns, there's always going to be division, there's always going to be issues, politically, socially. And you know, I see things a lot differently now. I used to look at things who were very conservative, very, very one minded kind of mindset. And you know, I see an issue now where somebody finds themselves in a situation where they put themselves into, you know, a lot of trouble. And I, I don't look at it like I used to.
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> Daniel Gray>I look at it like this is, this is the end result of allowing your, your worldview to get very small and your mindset to become, you know, I hate to say corrupted but you know, when you get into doom scrolling and you start only looking at information that confirms your worldview versus accepting a more robust worldview, you know, the end result can be that, you know, you end up in a very, very narrow position. And so I'm doing some essay writing about my experiences, how they look, how they relate to current events and what's going on. So I have that on my social media. I'm also doing a comic series called the Panic Penguins of Flaxenville. I've done one episode. I'm actually getting a better animation software so I can continue with that. outside of that, I'm doing podcast series. I'm just going out and talking to people. I'll be doing a little bit of public speaking in the near future.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, throw out your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.
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> Daniel Gray>The easiest way to find me is going to be on, Facebook. Right now it's Daniel Gray, G R A Y and author. Afterwards I'm starting a website. I just bought the domain name danielpaulgray.com I'll have that up in probably a week or two. but outside of that, the easiest way to find me right now is on Facebook.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, we'll close this out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about, that you would like to touch on any final thoughts you have for the listeners.
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> Daniel Gray>I guess the easiest thing I can always say is that God is always good. And, you know, you can make a lot of mistakes in life, but there's always, you know, life is about rebuilding and it's about second chances. And that's really what I'm focused on. You know, I'm somebody who has a past that's probably going to follow him for, you know, the foreseeable future. There are always going to be people who have opinions about me, and they're right to have opinions. You know, I put myself in a position to, you know, to have some people be opposed to me. but that doesn't mean that you can't. You can't change your direction, you can't find new purpose, and that you can't overcome your circumstances. And so that's my intent, is, you know, life. Life is bigger than politics. Life is bigger than the media. It's much easier to make change at home. It's much easier to work in your own world versus, externalizing your world, focusing on the political world or what's going on outside. There's a lot of good work that you can do at home. So that's what I would encourage people to do, is to focus on the reality, focus on home all.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Ah, right, ladies and gentlemen. So you guys go check out that book. You, you know, January 6th was a big story and, it's still mentioned every now and then. So check it out and, learn, you know, from one of the people that were actually there. Follow rate Review Share this episode to as many people as possible. Go sign up for that new email list www.craveball337.com. Sign up for the email list and you can also leave a review. Follow the show, get more information on the podcast and share the website and the show to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show and Daniel, thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me.
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> Daniel Gray>Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate your time.
00:34:47.128 --> 00:34:59.860
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.craveball3. Until next time, keep living the dream.
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