Chapter 1: What led Bob Cullen to wake up in a Garda cell?
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Chapter 2: How did childhood experiences shape Bob's identity?
Episode 266 of the Talking Mugs Podcast brought to you by Go Loud. It's me, C.O.B. It's me, Toddy Flower. And today we're joined by... Bob. Just Bob.
Bob Cullen, yeah. Bob, we first met you, we think it was 2022, was it? Yeah, well, it's how you said, yeah. Yeah, it was definitely after COVID anyway.
Yeah. I moved down Mount Joy in 23, so it was between the end of 22 and 23, yeah.
So we met you back in 2022. You were in prison at the time. Eddie Mullins avoided us up to the old park room with a few other lads and have a chat and just take the experience in and see what it's actually like behind those walls. And yeah, we met you at that time. Since then, you're out and you're doing a lot of positive shit with your life at the moment. For anybody listening, who is Bob?
Okay, Jesus, that's a big question. Yeah. So, I think, like, my life has had, like, it's had many different stages, but in a general sense, there's, like, before I went there, and then the person who I am now is, like, I don't know, a very different person, you know? So, like, to bring you back to who I was, I, like, start with, like, the story, I'll give you, like...
That sort of sums up where I got to. So I woke up one morning and didn't know where I was. I was like hazy, dizzy, looking around. I mean, my face was boring. I couldn't really see where I was. And there was like these really bright lights. And as I was like trying to figure it all out and sort of get my bearings and I realised I was in a Garda cell there. I had my jacket on and like no trousers.
So I was saying, right. Obviously, you're usually stripped when you're nicked, yeah? So I was saying, right, what is going on? How am I going to get in here? I went over to the jacks and there's like, you know, like there's the little steel plate that you have, like the little hole in the jacks, it's like, there's a little bit that comes up, there's a big lump of shite on it, yeah?
And I says, what the fuck? Like, obviously, like, I wasn't out there having a shite, yeah? So they were out there throwing me in, obviously, thinking, ah, we'll fuck them in there, yeah, they're bleeding. Anyway, I couldn't understand what was going on and I was lying there saying, how am I here? What is out there happening? And I got stuck getting, like, flashbacks.
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Chapter 3: What was Bob's journey through addiction and crime?
So I had a memory of, like, being in my car And then I remembered, like, I had a gun and I was saying, oh, what the fuck, what the fuck's going on? Put my hand in my pocket of my jacket and I had my car keys. And so I was like, right, fuck. So I was like, if I have my keys, I was at the park in my car, I was like, right, hope the gun is in my car and I just get rid of the keys and that'll be it.
So I went over and flicked the bleeding, the shooting to the jacks with the keys, yeah. Fuck the keys in. I start banging on the door of the cell. And so the copper comes to the door and she flicks the yoke down. And I says, what the fuck? Why am I here? And she just starts laughing. And she says, you don't remember. I says, no, no, I don't remember. What am I had to do? What am I had to do?
And she goes, oh, you were a handful last night. And I says, Roy, I says, I had to go on toilet. Flush that jacks, flush that jacks. And I was thinking, right, get rid of them keys, yeah. At least if the keys are gone. They can't connect you to the car. They can't connect me to the car. And then, like, the gun is in the car, yeah. So anyway, she flushes the keys.
So then throughout the day, they were taking me out for interviews. So they were saying like, oh, you had been arrested here. And apparently I had been arrested with drugs. So like when they said drugs, I was thinking, right, lovely. they didn't have the gun. So the more they were telling me where they got arrested, I was starting to get more of a picture.
So the way I explain it is like the show Catchphrase. So when I woke up in the morning, I had like one little corner of the puzzle and that was like the keys and the memory of being in the car. And then slowly as the day goes on, stuff was starting to come back to me and I'm starting to feel more bitsy.
And anyway, what happened is they came to me, they says, they goes, right, we're releasing you now. And they took me out and they goes, right, you've been released now after possession of drugs. And I was just thinking, right, lovely, go find me a car. And then they turns around and says, but we're re-arresting you for something else. So just to explain what had actually happened, right, so
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Chapter 4: How did prison impact Bob's perspective on justice?
The weeks leading up to this, I had been absolutely mental. I had started smoking crack and I was just absolutely manic. My mental health was all over the place and I had a relationship to a robbery. I dropped off to my mate's gaff and we were supposed to go do this stroke. So we are sitting there, we are waiting on a phone call to say to go and deal with it.
And I was at the going to the doctor trying to get her off the crack and she had started to prescribe me Xanax. So I was taking the Xanax and I was like trying not to drink it. So I was sitting there with all my mates I'm waiting on this phone call, and my mate comes over and goes, do you want a bottle? And I says, no, no, no, I don't want a bottle.
So then another hour or so went, still no phone call. So these are all starting to get bleeding jolly, yeah? And then he comes over, he says, do you want a glass of vodka? And I says, right, fuck it, I'll have one glass, yeah? Glass of vodka, glass of vodka, bottle, still no phone call. And then my mate turns off the music. He says, look, this is not happening tonight. It's getting too late.
We just leave it off. We do it another time. But because I had to be going mental, the girl I was with, she was at home with me youngfully. And I couldn't go home. There had to have been just so much mental stuff going on. She would have hit the roof, the fact that I was drinking. So I says, right, I left and I don't know, my head was just gone.
So I was driving around in my car, I flew down, got an after hours bottle of vodka and I was just swamping it. And now look, This is going to sound bad for anyone who has had someone close to them die in a car crash. But look, as I said, my head was in a really bad place. I was swamping the vodka and I took my seatbelt off and I was just like foot to the floor.
I was just driving through red lights, hoping someone was going to hit me. And I had this like, do you know Macklemore? So Macklemore, The Train, that song and Saint Edith's I don't know what it was about them songs. I just was playing them over and over and over again. And they just, I don't know, I was feeling so shit, you know?
And I was like, oh, so I was driving through red lights and then nobody hit me. So I drove down to the park. I had the gun buried. I said, right, grab that.
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Chapter 5: What changes did Bob make during his time in prison?
And I went back to the car. I was driving around. There was a ring of people looking for drugs. And then, like, you know, people were saying, oh, I don't have that. I don't have that. And it was that, you know, like, just like I was just screaming abuse at them.
I ended up ringing my mate, he's one of my childhood best friends, literally hanging out since we were babies, rang him and he was saying, what's going on with you? And I'm saying, I'm not going to say what I was saying, but I was abusing him, do you get me? And saying things that I just shouldn't have been saying.
And I ended up, I flew down into the estate and there was someone getting out of a taxi. I just lifted the handbrake and swung the car and nearly hit them.
and so there was a gaff party, they were going into a gaff, I jumped out of the car and all the people start coming out of the gaff party and like there was a fella came out, I was at the stabbing his brother, yeah, and he says, I can't even remember what he said, he says, oh, you, like, you know, and I says, yeah, all right, like, you know, I leaned into the car, grabbed the yoke and then he was like, oh, what the fuck?
I was running around the road, all commotion, all the hell. I was a fucking scumbag. And I ended up, it was all commotion. I ran around the corner, just lying to my ma's, went up the line. And in my ma's front garden, I started letting shots off. My outfit came out. And I was saying, look, I'm sick of this, eh? I'm sick of life. I said, you're killing me.
And he was like, what are you talking about? I'm not killing you. I'm letting another shot off. I says, I'm telling you now, you're killing me or I'm killing you. And he was like, he's now trying to plead with me. Look, I had to go into my own neck. And I says, I'm telling you now, kill me. So I was like crying, yeah.
I was just like, I was saying, you know, like some of this that I actually can't even remember. I read it from things my dad had said, do you get me? But he was just saying, he was pleading with me, pleading with me. And I kept letting shots off. And I was saying, I'm telling you, like only one of us is leaving this garden. Anyway, a car flew up the road, blue lights, police.
I ran through the gun and just ran at them, trying to fight them, arm guarded. That's how I ended up waking up in the cell with the bleeding. My face was born and the pepper sprayed me and fucked me into the car. So when I got the book of evidence, they were saying there was a copper who used to always stop me all the time. I don't know, we think there was a lot of shit going on.
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Chapter 6: How does Bob advocate for reform in the prison system?
I was acting mental, you get me? Every time he used to stop me, he used to handcuff me and then handcuff me to the door before they'd even search me. So in the book of evidence it says, I got to the guard station and I was shouting his name and I was like, ah, watch. And like it says, the copper's name says, was not even on duty. My head was gone, you know. And so that was what happened.
That's how I woke up. So I was still trying to fight them when they were dragging me in. And that's how I woke up. Fucking hell, Bob.
It's a crazy story, Luke. What we do on this podcast, Bob, is we usually got our guests to just take us back to the start. I'm so intrigued as to how you got to that place in your life. So where are you from? What was life like growing up for you? So I'm from Blanche.
So growing up, like, so I was like a very shy and insecure child, yeah? There's an analogy, like the boiling frog, yeah? So it's like, if you put a frog in a pot called water, if you put a frog, if you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, he'll just jump out, yeah? If you drop a frog into a pot of cold water and then slowly heat it, the frog doesn't know he's boiling, you know?
And I feel like that was what happened with me, you know? The violence became really normalised, so... But it wasn't actually the violence that was the thing that impacted upon me. It wasn't the violence that happened to me. It was the violence I experienced happening to other people. So it was the story I told myself about that. So for me, I thought that meant that I was weak.
It felt like that I should have been able to help. I should have been able to do something about it. I attached negative self-belief to that from a really young age. On the streets, I didn't look like any of my brothers. I was bullied by all the other lads. They nicknamed me outcast. They used to just, when the other lads were going past, they just used to throw rocks at me and stuff.
And that obviously had an impact on how I felt about myself as well. When I was in second class, my ma made me move school because I was getting bullied. And I remember at that point when I moved school, making a decision that I wasn't going to be the weak child anymore, you know? And I was going to like... Reinvent yourself.
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Chapter 7: What does Bob believe about the relationship between crime and society?
Right, I didn't want to be prey, you know? So I was like, right, I'm going to start acting out, you know? and at least try to make everyone believe that I'm this tough guy. So that's the negative self-beliefs and the sort of the small stuff. Then the forced act of really big violence that I experienced in the community would have enforced a second class as well.
At the top of the road, some bloke was out there being murdered. And I remember I was going up to the scale. My ma was walking me to the scale. And I didn't see your man being murdered, but the tent was there, the tape was all around. And I remember being like, what the fuck? Do you know? Because I thought that was something that happens on the bleeding on the telly. Do you get me?
And it wasn't even what happened. It was like, so a few days later, the tent came down, the tape was pulled away. Everyone just went back to normal. And I said, how is everyone acting like this didn't just happen? And that stuck with me. So when I was in second class, then I moved school. I started really trying to be the tough guy. And that went on. When I was 12, I started taking drugs.
So throughout, from second class up till, say, sixth class, I just, I didn't really like being at home, you know? Like, I was like, I was always trying to be out of the house. And so then when I found drugs, I had all these insecurities and stuff. And it just made me feel better about myself, do you know? Like I really, like I absolutely loved drugs. I loved them.
What was the first drug you took? The first drug I ever took was hash, yeah. Well, my class in tobacco was a drug, tobacco. I caught smoke and smokes when I was in first class or something, yeah. I got caught smoking smokes in my elbow. They sat me down, made me smoke 20 Benson and the hedges run after me. I went green off the smokes. I don't know your voice is that husky. I don't know.
He ended up trying to inhale the bottle. That done has made me better at inhaling. And then I was like, we're not mad, Joe.
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Chapter 8: What advice does Bob have for individuals facing similar struggles?
He's been hoovering the cigars. So fair play to him. Yeah, he done me a solid deal. So then I started taking drugs at 12, started smoking hash at 12. And then I was like, you know, When you start taking drugs at that age, yeah, that builds up your masculinity as well, because you're like, everyone's like, oh, he's the mad joke. He's taking drugs. I wanted to be the first one to be sniffing coke.
I wanted to be the first one to be taking his. Do you get me? All my mates were like sitting around six cans of Dutch gold and I was bleeding out a double drop in the oaks, like, do you know? And that was my way of escaping the negative self-beliefs and the weak feelings. Do you get me? Yeah. So anyway, so then Throughout my teenage years, I experienced these big acts of violence against me.
So at a young age, I experienced the violent death of someone that I knew. So when we're talking about the negative self-beliefs, it wasn't actually what happened. It goes back to the story that I told myself. So I was like, I wanted to be able to help, but I couldn't.
so it really cut deep you know and then and then so when I was a while later we were all in the park we were drinking and there's this young fella that used to hang around he was like really small and he was a bit fucked up as well yeah I don't mean that in any bad way he's actually a nice young fella but he just he had his own shit going on you know and some bloke came over and started giving him the slaps and now he was always half my age but he was real skinny yeah and then me there thinking I'm a big hero yeah comes running down the field I said what
something your own size and he says i'll be back for you yeah he heads off and then he so when he ran off i was like oh i'm the man bleeding you get me hugging everyone they're like yeah you're a hero your man comes back down a few minutes later with a hand joke broke me nose with the gun has me on the ground and sticks the gun in my face and he's saying i'm gonna blow your head off and i'm like
Oh, man, I was just, I was fucked, yeah. So I started crying. My first ever girlfriend, she was behind me, and she was, like, holding me head up. And anyway, one of the young folks who I hung around with, he went running off. He was out there seeing someone on the street, like, and he was out there being, like, whatever is going on in there. So people rang the police.
I was on the ground, like, your man's, like, going all bleeding fucking goodfellas, yeah, going on a big speech about how he's going to kill me. And, eh... he was playing his character. So he was obviously fucked up as well. And he's trying to get this ego stuff out of it, but whatever. So the sirens we can hear, the ego's running, I don't know, those back walls, wherever he goes.
And police came, I was crying. And again, that was obviously not a good thing to happen. But it was again about the negative self-beliefs. So I believed that I was weak. And I'm after spending all these years trying to hide that. So now I'm after being exposed in front of all my friends. So that was what hurt me more than the actual thing that happened.
If that happened and no one was around, would it have affected me in the same way? No. Because after that, I was like, I have to now show, I have to double down. I have to recreate this persona. Do you get me? I have to be vicious now. Everyone's going to think I'm prey. So then there's that. So I start acting out. I'm drinking all the time. I'm taking drugs all the time. I'm coming back.
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