Quote · The Hidden Third
Wallo267 spent 20 years in Prison for Armed Robbery. Now He's YouTube’s Cultural Advisor.
Where this was said
Reading, Anthony Bourdain, and the Decision to Want More
At 27:15 · chapter starts 26:15
By the time Wallo had spent years cycling in and out of cells, he had a dangerous thought: he might never stop going to jail. He watched older men in their 60s and 70s keep coming back and thought he might be one of them. The thing that shifted that trajectory was unlikely: a television program. Watching Anthony Bourdain eat his way through American cities and the world on the Travel Channel cracked open his sense of possibility. He discovered that life extended far beyond the blocks of North Philly. He began reading seriously — George Lois's 'Damn Good Advice' (the real man behind Mad Men) taught him the power of marketing; Iyanla Vanzant's daily devotional, which he called 'The Purple Book,' became a daily ritual. The books didn't just pass time — they rewired how Wallo saw himself and what he believed was available to him.
Wallo served approximately 20 years in prison across two separate sentences, spending more of his life incarcerated than free by the time he was in his forties.
Sitting in a prison cell watching Anthony Bourdain travel the world made Wallo realize street culture was just a tiny corner of something enormous. He started writing cities in his Book of Life, dreaming of chili dogs in Oregon and skylines he'd never seen.
By age 47, Wallo had spent more of his life incarcerated than living freely outside of prison.
In 1998, Wallo and his stepfather Hip — whom he used to visit as a child — were cellmates in Dallas Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.
Wallo and his older brother Steve ended up as cellmates at Dallas Penitentiary in 2005, before Steve was later released and shot dead.
