Drugs, Robbery, A Life Sentence & Finding Redemption

Ken Rideout1:40

In Dallas County jail. I ran into this old black Muslim guy named Muhammad. Now, Muhammad told me what to expect on the first day. He told me a lot of things. We're going to get back to what he talked about. Remember to ask me about the coffee bean. But Muhammad told me, he said, "When you walk in the door the first day, you're going to be approached first by a white guy cuz you're white." He said, "The first guy that approach is not a threat to you.

Ken Rideout2:18

Get the jump on your first fight." And the reason why he's telling me this, Ken, right after I get sentenced to life in prison, my mom has this conversation with me and she she tells me, "You can't come back as someone we don't recognize. You can't come back as something opposite of what the man we raised." And she tells me, "You cannot get into a gang, one of these white hate groups, these Aryan Brotherhood gangs. You were never raised to be a racist." She's telling me, "You can't get any tattoos while you're in there." So, I've got this director from my mom, and Muhammad knows I want to keep this promise.

And but he's telling me, "Man, you're about to go against the grain in this place.

Ken Rideout2:43

also telling me what to expect in there. He said, "Because you're this middle class, wellspoken, college educated white guy that played division one college football. You worked the best jobs in the world. You were a stock broker. You worked in Congress. church work for a guy running for president. He said, "Everybody's going to hate you in there. The whites, the blacks, everybody, because you look and

Ken Rideout3:18

The man is society. It's the system, right? It's everything that goes against you whenever you're trying to come up. And look, there's a lot of different Americas to grow up in. So, I understand the idea of the man. But Muhammad's telling me, "You look and speak like the man. Get ready." because now they're going to have a chance to kill the man. So the first day I walk in, man, they get you off the prison bus and and Muhammad told me he's just like almost like a he's in my head the whole time.

Ken Rideout4:00

The guards escort me and the guards screaming at me to go into the pod. But man, I can once I go in, man, there's no way I'm getting out of this place. And but I know I got to go. I can't stay in the hallway forever. So I take the biggest step of my life into this pod that day and the door closed behind me. Boom. And I look up. I'm in this giant room with three levels of cells. I mean, the image hanging off the railings, too.

Prison is loud. You worked in a prison. You know how loud it is inside this place, man. There's dominoes slamming. The TV's on. You hear people screaming. But as soon as that door closed behind me, the volume drops to zero. and everybody's staring at the new guy that just walked in. It's like the worst first day of school ever. Again,

Is it the same thing for every new guy after you've been there for a while? Do they is that the routine at that prison? Because every prison is different. When I worked at the prison, a guy would walk in and someone would just start screaming, "That's the one. He's the rapist. He's a pedophile." And he would be like people, you know, some people would be like, "I've been here before." And other people be like, "It wasn't me." No, no. It's a good question. Good question. And I'm going to answer that in a second because I'm going to tell you because it's different for different people, different cultures too that come in there.

So, so I walk in that first day and I got, you know, I got that mattress in the arm and and Muhammad's telling me, he said, "Do not run to your bunk like the guys that are scared." He said, "You walk in that day room, put your bags down, put your back against the wall, and let it happen." I walk in there, man. I start looking for myself cuz I'm going make a run for it. I'm like, "Forget what Muhammad said." Muhammad's like, "Muham's not here with me right now, man.

Ken Rideout5:55

Little ballheaded white dude comes up at first, man. And u he's tatted up from head to toe. Even his eyelids are tatted up. He gets in my face. He says, "Hey, white boy. What family are you riding with?" You know, they call gangs families. A gang is not a family. And I'm like, "Man, get out of my face, little dude. I'm riding with God. Please just leave me alone and I'm riding with God. I'm pleased with you, man." He laughed at me. He said, "God isn't here, white boy." He said, "We kicked him out of here a long time ago." He said, "God's been gone, but we're coming to get you, white boy.

Get ready." He runs up the stairwell on the right side. Ken, I'm ready to pee in my pants, man. And I'm I but there's nowhere I can go. Nothing I do. And just about that time on the third tier, the biggest cornfed white dude in the place, man. Huge muscled up Aryan Brotherhood guy points at

Ken Rideout7:06

He laughed at it, man.

Ken Rideout7:06

Before I know it, man, 20 seconds is gone. And in my first fight in prison, I'm 0 for one. And that's when I gathered my stuff and I go out to myself for the first time in prison. 45 seconds. And after you get in a fight, the guards don't come immediately and send you both to the shoe.

No, man. This is a life sentence building, brother. Typically, what the rule was in prison with the guards, man. The guards be like, "Hey, look, man. We're here to do our job. We're here to count." And stuff like that. Anything else you want to do that's against the rules, wait till we leave the pod, man. Just don't do it in front of our face.

Leave the pod unattended.

Ken Rideout7:40

This is the opposite of any prison. I've seen it. I've seen a lot of them

In the Texas prison system.

Ken Rideout7:51

In those sections, there's a there's a big tower in the middle, like a picket on the inside. There's glass, you know, it's all indoors, right? It's all cages.

There's a guard up in that in that tower up there in that picket, man. And their their job is to watch all three of these areas. Guard's not watching you, man. That guard doesn't care. And fighting in prison is just a normal reality of prison, man. It the only language everybody speaks in prison and maximum security level five prison is violence. And you get fluent in violence fast. You either learn how to speak violence or someone speaks it to you, but you're going to understand the language of violence.

So day one, man,

Ken Rideout8:25

Nobody. In in prison fighting, when you're done, you can say, "Hey, I'm done, man. All you got to do is show up and fight." One of the other things Muhammad told me, one of the best lessons of life he ever told me, he said, "You don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights." You don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights. And that's what he's telling me. don't worry about trying to win these fights.

He said, "You're going to you're going to get your ass kicked over prison. You're going to you're going to lose a lot." He said, "But you're going to win sometimes, too." He said, "No one cares if you win or lose. They want to see if you're going to defend yourself, but the minute you stop defending yourself in there," he said, "The sharks are coming out like there's blood in the water. You can't do that because then they'll rape you. They'll do all kinds of stuff to you.

Ken Rideout9:15

I'm surprised that the guy would stop if you said, "I've had enough.

I'm done, man. I'm done. It's over. You won." You know, but I fight back. I I I try to do what I can. I mean, he's massive. He's going to beat the hell out of me, right? He's way bigger than me.

Ken Rideout9:31

He told me, "Race runs everything in prison. Race is king." Right? And and for everybody listening, there's a difference between jail and prison. Jail is before you get convicted of a crime. Prison is where you go after your conviction. So in Dallas County Jail, Muhammad is lacing me up with what I'm going to face when I get there. But he's telling me race is everything in there. He says, "So you've made this promise to your mom that you won't get into one of these white gangs, which is your natural course of order in there.

Ken Rideout10:27

Because you can't have this independent white guy running around because racial wars can get started that way. You know, you've got to belong to a family in there because that's how everybody operates. And look, Ken, all the races want it that way. There wasn't a race that said, "Well, we don't want to do this race thing." Everybody wanted everybody stick to their own. One of the things I learned when I was in there is that prison can almost become a microcosm of what society looks like.

When you start taking the guardrails off society, you start taking the breaks off of this thing that we got out here, this life we live, uh you start telling people, hey, you know what? You don't have to associate with anybody that doesn't look like you, you don't do business with anybody doesn't look like you, you know, or doesn't didn't have the same beliefs as you. Human beings are very tribal people. Have been for 8,000 years, man. That's one of the ways human beings have always survived.

They've been very tribal. And so I I I kind of give people a cautionary tell that, you know, if you take the the guard rails off society, society can look like a prison. And so that's what prison is, man. The races run everything. The gangs run everything in there.

Ken Rideout12:15

First day, man, I get my butt kicked and I lose that fight. I grab my bags. I go up to the third floor to 45 cell and I meet my first cellmate in prison, a little guy named Carlos. Man, Carlos is about 5'4. He's a little Hispanic guy, a little bank robber from San Antonio, Texas.

They would put Hispanics in with whites.

Ken Rideout12:32

Normally when I when I was there, you would never put races together ever.

In Texas, you have to have a racial restriction. And if and and the only way you can get a racial restriction is to prove you have a problem with that other you just can't live with a person from another race, you know, and there were people that had

Ken Rideout12:50

So I live with Carlos, man. My first soulmate in prison. And and look, man, Texas throws everybody together. You have to really fight to get a racial restriction in there. And it happened. I didn't see a lot of guys with them. So there were a lot of people that live with different races, blacks and whites, whites and Hispanics.

Absolutely, man. Wouldn't they wouldn't they like if an Aryan or a white supremacist got put in with a black guy, he'd just refuse to go in the cell, right? Or be like, "Get up here or we're fighting until you break us up."

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's how you get a racial restriction, you could do that. I mean, if you if you set yourself on a course that says, "Hey, I can't follow this rule, this directive of housing."

Yeah.

Ken Rideout13:26

But it's not the easiest path. So, what happens if you if you do that, you're going to go to medium custody. And if medium custody is really a hard place to live because you're locked yourself 23 hours a day with this one dude, right?

Ken Rideout13:37

You still have a salemate medium custody. And if you don't do well in medium custody, you go to close custody, which is segregation, administrative segregation, and then you're locked in the sale by yourself for 23 hours a day. Um, and it's almost you can go on this odyssey where you don't ever get to come back to like general population for 5 years. They'd have guys that come out of medium custody and close custody that we hadn't seen for 5 years. They'd have full beards, man. And they go all the way down to their waist.

Look, I I mean like they were just gone.

Ken Rideout14:02

most dangerous and hopeless place I've ever lived on. But Seg was a whole different animal, man. And that's guarded. It's got fences around it and stuff like that. So, but that's the journey you have to go on if you want the racial.

I got it. All right. So, you get in there with Carlos.

So, Carlos, man, he's, you know, I walk in, he tells me, "Hey, you did well. You held your own out there." And I'm trying to put my stuff up and I I finally get everything situated.

Ken Rideout14:22

He said, "You you must read this book." And it's got this little Hispanic accent, man. He said, "You must read this book. If you want to survive this place and you want to come out the other side, you know, intact, you got to read this book." The book was Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

Now, if you've never read this book, this is definitely a book you need to read. Viktor Frankl survived Auschwitz. He survived concentration camp. And this book starts giving you the blueprint for how you decide you're going to see the world around you.

Ken Rideout14:48

the second book he handed me once I finished Man's Search for Meaning was the Count of Monte Cristo, best fiction book I've ever read, man. And this is I mean I encourage everybody to read this. Read the A Bridge version. The underbridge version is too long.

Ken Rideout15:43

And the messengers won't always look like you. They won't come with the same background as you. They won't have the same lived experience as you, but that's why they're the messenger, right? because they come from a different area and they have a different perspective and they can share that with you. But the trick is in life, Ken, you have to be receptive to all of the messengers to get all the messages in life. So Carlos is the messenger now. I'm in the cell with Carlos and Carlos is watching me go through this experience, man.

The first two months of prison, he's telling me, man, you just got to keep getting out there. And so I keep going out there. Takes me two weeks to get to the white gangs. After two weeks of fighting the white gangs, they tap out. After the first day, after you go up and you see Carlos, then the next time you come out of your cell, is it immediate? Is it again? Are they on you again?

No, it's later that day I go to chow. Same day I go to chow. Man, I'm not I don't have to fight that same day. And generally, look here. Here's the thing. In prison, there's a lot of fights. You're going to get banged up in there, but they're trying not to make you look like the elephant man, right? They're not trying not to bang your face up too bad because once that happens and you somebody gets beat up too bad, they can't walk around the prison.

And because there's only so much you can tell a guard about how you slipped in your bunk or you slipped in the shower, right?

So, and you're not going to tell on anybody.

So, I mean, to have to fight two times in one day is just unheard of. So, you're not doing that. So, my fight for the day is done.

Okay. That fight for that. So, you go to chow that day and just ignoring you, I assume.

Well, everybody's looking at me, man. I mean, I'm getting all kinds of looks out there. And but Carlos is teaching me, man. Like in the chow hall, whites sit with other white people in the chow hall.

So, he wouldn't sit with you. Carlos wouldn't sit in the

Chow hall. No. No. y'all. No, he's allowed to work with me as my cellmate in there and the Hispanic guys know that he's trying to like coach me up.

Ken Rideout17:17

He's like a coach, you know. So, I'm in there. It's like a prison coach.

Ken Rideout17:21

Oh, is that just coincidental?

Ken Rideout17:25

Okay. Yeah. I don't know why I got sent with I mean I just he was he had an open bunk. So,

I got sent with Carlos that day. Um I go to Chiao, come back. That night he shows me how to make a mouthpiece.

Ken Rideout17:30

like, "You're going to lose your teeth if you don't have a mouthpiece in here." I'm like, where am I going get a mouthpiece from? And so in prison to make a mouthpiece you get a bunch of wet toilet paper, right? You have it really wet and you mold it to your teeth and you sit it out on the little table.

Ken Rideout17:48

You sit it out on the table and overnight it becomes really hard like wood. The mouthpiece is good for one fight, he said. So carry your mouthpiece with you everywhere you go. Stick it in your pocket. If you feel like you're getting in a fight, shove your mouthpiece in. K. I was doing that every day, man. And every time I got to a fight, shove my mouthpiece in. It comes back, it's just mush, right? Because it's all mushed down.

But I could always make a new mouthpiece. And so that's one of the reasons why I had all my teeth when I got out of prison. Night number one and I'm making a mouthpiece. He's teaching me things in there. So one of the day, check this story out. So one of the days we're walking down the cell block, right? And it's one of the early days I'm in there. We're walking on the cell block and um you can look in the guy's cells. You're not supposed to.

That's called window shopping, right? You know, I looked under the man's shell. Yeah. But I don't know this thing. I'm I'm green, man. I'm like I don't I never even dreamed of going to prison. So, I'm walking by the cell block with Carlos and I look in this guy's cell and this dude is laying on his bunk reading the book and he's got this little mouse on the pillow next to him just the mouse is just chilling. Ken, just taking a nap next to this dude, not leashed up, not chained up, not nothing, man.

And I tap Carlos, man.

Ken Rideout18:50

First of all, don't ever look in another man's cell. That's called window shopping. You get your head taken off in here. You got no good reason to look in that guy's cell. Don't ever look in another man's cell. He said, "But second of all, stay away from the

Ken Rideout18:50

"Why?" I mean, was it did the mice have lice or something?

He said, "No, man. It's how these guys get the mice to obey them.

Ken Rideout19:15

to catch a mouse, right? And there's mice everywhere, man. When the lights go out in prison, man, mice and roaches come out at night. Easy to catch a mouse. She set up a empty potato chip bag, put a little peanut butter in back of the bag. At night, that mouse is going to go in that bag.

Ken Rideout20:57

It goes on until the mouse stops seeing the guy that throws him in as a tormentor and sees the guy as his savior and then you don't need a cage for the mouse cuz the world becomes a mouse's cage. And that's what he's telling me. Stay away from the guys that have pet mice because they do the same thing to humans too. Tim, when I tell that story in a room full of an audience with a lot of women in it, you can see it register in a lot of their faces.

I mean, a lot of them, you know, they're looking back like, I know a mouse or I am a mouse, you know, and so that's the manipulative nature of some relationships, the

Ken Rideout21:21

is showing me around the prison, man. He he's encouraged me and I'm going out there and I'm getting my butt kicked. Every now and then I'm I remember the first time I actually won a fight, man. This drunk.

Prior to going to prison, had you had any boxing training, jiu-jitsu, wrestling? Did you get in fights as a kid?

Yeah, I got in some fights as a kid, Ben, but you know, college football player. I got some fights in college. You know, I was a jock and I was strong like I could bench. I mean, I was, you know, I was benching 315 in college. So, I mean, I was a I was always a strong guy, but I had no training going into this thing, man. And no need.

So, when you got arrested and sent this, we'll come back. We'll come back to it. But you didn't have you once you got pinched, you never got bailed out. You never were free again from the minute you got arrested.

Ken Rideout22:13

So, you never had time to be like, I'm taking jiu-jitsu. I'm going to stop boxing. I'm getting ready for this.

July 30th, 2008, that was the day I got arrested. the uh I never walked out again till I got out on

All right, we we'll come back to that. But back to like the experience with Carlos. So there So you got your mult piece, you're getting in fights every day. Yeah, you're learning as you go. Are you learning anything like, okay, next time I'm going to throw an overhand, right? Or I'm going to go for a double leg or

That's a good question. I'm going to tell you something I learned, man. So I learned that you don't want to get in a fight with a real boxer. So we were in the chow hall one day. This is like week two in prison. I'm watching this guy. It's a black dude, man. This one black guy another black guy's face. So, first of all, you can't just go up and hit somebody that's of a different gang, different race and all that. They got a protocol for that, man.

Because you you can start a racial war that way. So, but this is one black fighting another black guy, right? And so, this one guy in the chow hall line, it's real calm. But I've been watching him on the wrecky yard, man. He does a lot of they they have instead of hand pads for boxing, they put on uh the shower shoes, man. So, you're punching the shadow.

Oh, and they they would allow them to pad.

They would do Yeah, they

I know in some prisons you can't shadow box.

They they shadow box. And man, they would even take a person's mattress, fold it over on half on itself, and put a shirt, a real inmate shirt on top of that, and that's her that's her punching bag, man. And they'd hang it from the from like the second row, you know? Where do they get rope? Where are they getting? But I mean, like, man, this is maxure level five, man. All they're looking for is to keep everybody entertained and like not have riots, man. So, they're going to let you have a little bit.

Yeah. A little bit of dope, a little bit tobacco's in there, too. I mean, it not a little bit, it's everywhere. I'm sober at the time when I'm going through all this, though.

Ken Rideout24:27

And after he hit that dude the dude was done getting stunned. The dude comes back and starts swinging wild. And that's what most fighting is like. Most fighting is like you burn off all your energy fast man because there's no form to it. This boxer is just sitting there just moving back and forth, moving back and forth. I mean, he's not even doing he's not wasting any energy at all. All he's doing is dodging these crazy wild punches.

And in this joint, there's no one's coming to break it up.

Ken Rideout25:17

But this is on the job training, brother. I'm in neck deep in this stuff right now. So, it took two weeks to get through the White Gangs. And it was say it's constant battle with these guys. And like and and they're telling me, man, West, all you got to do is just say you're with us, man, and this all stops. And I'm like, I can't do that, man. I made a promise to my mom. They're like, well, then let's just keep going, brother. Your mom's not here.

Ken Rideout26:05

Your assets change the liabilities in that place and man these guys are coming after me and sometimes it's one at a time. You know the code in prison is really you're not supposed to jump anybody but code's out the window.

Ken Rideout26:54

Uh, go to church one last time, and then I'm going come back and I'm going to hang myself off Carlos's bunk when he goes to go to the wrecky yard later on. So, I go to mass a Saturday morning. And I'm in I'm in the chapel staring, you know, staring straight towards the altar, just kind of half there, half not. I get a tap on my shoulder and it's this little volunteer chapel lady, Miss D.

Ken Rideout28:07

You can't do both. You can't do his job and your job." She said, "You're either going to let God drive that car today or you're going to drive the car. But the last time you drove the car, you parked it in a prison. So, choose who gets the keys. Choose wisely." And she said, "Let me go, Ken." I mean, it's You worked in a prison, man. Protocol is like 72 hours.

Ken Rideout28:52

Now, Ken, God bless me to be a tremendous athlete. I was a division one starting quarterback at 20 years old in America. Man, I'm a baller, man. I can play some sports. But the wrecky yard where you play sports, the most intimidating place I've ever seen cuz it was the most segregated place I've ever seen. Every sport was segregated by the color of your skin. It was like walking back in time. Ken, let me let me walk your audience through the wreckyard real quick. So, this max level 5 where the lifers live, the wrecky yards attached to the building.

So, uh you go out there, there's a sand volleyball court. Sand volleyball, that's for the whites and Hispanics only. But black's allowed in the same volleyball. Handball, big handball walls, concrete walls. All races can play handball in prison. But if you want to play doubles in the game of handball, your doubles partner has to be the same skin color.

Ken Rideout30:32

Not even religion can bring us together like sports because in America, we can selfseate religions and we do. But sports is melting pot. We all come together to root for our team. Right.

Ken Rideout30:41

So here's what I think. This is what's going through my head literally that morning. I'm like, man, before there was Martin Luther King Jr., There was Jackie Robinson, a baseball player. Right. Before you integrated lunch counters in the American South, you

Ken Rideout30:41

And in 1971, he made history in Texas when he broke the color barrier in sports pages.

He was the first sports writer in Southeast Texas to put black athletes on the front page of sports pages. 1971, man. And when my dad did it, man, he got so much resistance, man. kind of like the resistance I'm facing in prison, right? I mean, the people were breaking his windows out. They're slitting his tires. They sent hate mail to him. A lot of hate mail. But my dad growing up, my dad would make me read the hate mail. You know, every nasty negative word that people said about my father and my mother because my dad put a black guy on the cover porch page, but he always told me, he said, "Damon, these words matter, man.

And I want you to see these letters because I want you to read these letters and see what it looks like to take a stand and do the right thing." cuz he said sometimes Damon taking a stand and doing the right thing means you're going to stand alone. But he said it's always okay to stand alone as long as you are standing on the right side of history. So I had a tremendous influence from my father before I go

Ken Rideout32:22

That's how they keep a lot of people rotating on these basketball courts, right? My plan is this. I'm watching this basketball game play out that Monday morning. It's a lopsided game. I know what side of the court the game's going to end on, right? Because this team is really winning. So, I start maneuvering myself to get over the side of the court right by the basket. And I mean, people are watching me, man. And the white dudes are like, "What is this white boy doing, man?

He's crazy." Even some of the blacks are getting off the sidelines looking at, "What? What is this white boy do?" My feet aren't supposed to be in this court. Soon as that basketball goes to that last basket for that last shot, I went and fell on that basketball like

Ken Rideout33:24

J Boy gets up in my face and he's looking down on me, man. I got this ball wrapped up. I'm not letting it go, though, Ken. He says, "You know what, white boy? Get up on the line, shoot your free throw." He said, "Boy, I hope you make this basket." And just about that time, man, the whole basketball court parted.

Ken Rideout33:24

and I go up to this free throw line. And I mean, that goal looks like it's 100 yards away at this point, man.

Ken Rideout34:08

What am I going to do, man? I I I got to do something different. So, I get up on the line, I steal my nerves, and I remember this sentence that this college football

Ken Rideout34:08

letters, but it was like the most powerful sentence I've ever heard in the English language.

Ken Rideout34:35

You got to do it for yourself. So I get up on the line, breathe in, breathe out, say a little quick prayer, and I let the b I let the basketball go and

Ken Rideout34:35

We pick our teams, man. I pick my four guys. He picks his four guys. Got his little five on five going right. Wrong, Ken. It's nine on one, man. My old teammates don't want me out there. And this is basketball in the life building of a max security prison, man.

Ken Rideout35:24

I said, "Hey, I thought you boys were playing basketball. What's up? I'm in man. Jay Blood's like, "Get on my team, White Boy. I don't have to shoot anymore. They picked me first every game." And I'm not first pick material, man. I'm like eighth or ninth pick play basketball to be honest with you, man. But but they want to make sure I'm on that basketball court. If I was looking to play some basketball, they gave me everything I was looking for. And this is the most brutal basketball in the world, man.

I'm going out there and I'm on an island, man. And I'm But I I just keep telling myself, "All you got to do is survive. Damn. You don't have to win. You don't you know." And they don't even let me shoot, man. All I do is play defense. No one's passing me the ball. I mean, dude, I don't get I don't touch the

Ken Rideout36:28

That was the first time I got my name back in prison. I heard I heard West I didn't hear white boy. It's very derogatory to call someone by the color of their skin. That's a very derogatory thing to do.

Ken Rideout36:28

And after that game was over, those dudes circle up around in the basketball court and Jay Blood does all the talking.

Ken Rideout36:28

You don't have to you don't have to do this anymore." He said, "You took everything we had.

Ken Rideout37:10

And it's hard to think when you're under this level of stress of violence, man. And you've you've been around violent sports, right? You've seen this, man. It's there's it's hard to think when you're in that that mode. And and once I took a step back after that basketball, you know, after that basketball week, that journey right there, I had a lot of anger, man. A lot of frustration. And I didn't know how to deal with this stuff. And and I was like, "Okay, man. I'm glad it's finally over and I can start working on myself." So, I start trying to become a coffee bean.

Ken Rideout39:10

That would be a death wish for that black guy to step in the way of that. So, about two weeks after this basketball game, I'm coming off the record and and Ken, these guys, they bang on my cell every day, man. Come play some basketball, West. Let's go shoot some hoops. I finally belong, man. I'm I'm going out and playing basketball. These guys, man, I'm the only white guy out there.

But I can't imagine all the black guys that are not playing basketball happy about this.

Ken Rideout39:53

People can't really see you. They can't really hear you. It's just like a side blind spot, right?

Such a crazy place. A lot of fighting go. Yeah. A lot of fighting goes on in that stairwell. The only thing I can think if there's a place where you can't see someone that had a place you don't want to be.

Yeah. So he brings me over there. He said, "Hey, listen. When you go to the shower today, Blackjack's going to be waiting for in the shower to rape you." Now, Blackjack is the biggest rapist in prison. Ken, this guy is 6'4, 260, big black guy. Loves to rape white guys. How you got the name? Blackjack, right? Loves to rape white guys.

Ken Rideout41:33

And I'm waiting for him to come in. And he finally comes in about 5 minutes later. Now, in Texas prison, there's no air conditioning. And it's so crazy. There's 100 prisons in Texas, brother. We don't have AC in Texas prison. It's a another layer of punishment, brother. And it's hot in Texas. And I I'm in Bulmont, Texas. Bulmont, Texas, for everybody listening. That's on the Gulf Coast, man. That's right. Where Louisiana, Texas touching the Gulf Coast. It's hot. It's humid. But this is March of 2010.

I don't I'm not worried about the heat. And what we have in prison is we have these little bitty personal fans. They're supposed to keep you cool. But in the summertime, man, all they do is move a little hot air

Ken Rideout41:56

So, uh, Carlos has some tools in his hands. He takes my fan apart and he cuts the fan motor out of the center. The fan motor is about 5 lbs of

Ken Rideout41:56

He drops that fan motor into my shower bag, which is

Ken Rideout42:21

He said, "This is your weapon today. It's a ball and chain flail can. It's a medieval weapon, right? He said, "Do exactly what I tell you." So he said, "Go to the shower." And so you walk in the shower and it's like this one little it's a oneman shower. They got a little change area off to the side and they got a shower

Ken Rideout43:07

And Carlos and his buddies are like, "Hey man, I can I can get this white boy to kill him today, man.

Ken Rideout43:07

Don't stop swinging till you see the brains come out of his skull. He said, "Here's what's going to happen." He said, "You're never leaving prison alive. Do you understand this, West?" He said, 'What's going to happen is this.

Ken Rideout43:25

They could give you the death

Ken Rideout43:25

But you're going to kill this guy and they're going to give you another life sentence that they'll never let you out of or he's going to do something to you that you're going to wish you were dead or he may kill you in the process of doing it. He said, "But you're never leaving prison alive.

Ken Rideout45:25

And I am swinging this thing like a maniac, man. And I can't get to his head. He's got his head covered up. So, I'm banging ribs. I hear ribs cracking on this. This is a five pound fan motor, man. Well, as soon as he got shot out of the shower, two of his gang brothers down. So, he was a Mandingo warrior. Two of his gang brothers saw this, man, that I got to jump on this dude cuz they're all watching him go up the stairs. They know he's about to rape me, man.

Ken Rideout46:06

You got to take your gloves off to fight, right?

Ken Rideout46:09

So, uh, and I like I snap out of it. I look at him. I'm like, "Hey, man. Look, man. And this dude was trying to rape me. And they're like, "He's a rapist. That's what he does, man. But he's our brother. You can't just kill our brother, man. We're going to let you make it, West. Beat your feet and get out of here. Go, man. Go." I grab my bag. I go in the cell. I throw the bag on the ground. And I roll up in the I ball up in the side of my cell.

Start crying like a baby can. And I mean, the adrenaline is burning off.

Ken Rideout47:11

You know what's going to happen.

Ken Rideout47:11

cuz everybody saw that I spoke the only language you got to speak in prison. That's violence, man. Either someone speaks violence to you or you speak violence to them. I never fought again the rest of the time in prison. I never had to fight again the rest of time I was in prison.

Ken Rideout48:18

By the way, how long did you spend in Dallas County jail?

Uh, I spent 13 months in Dallas County Jail.

And for people that don't know, jail is when you you can be bailed out of jail if you have bail. What was your bill?

My bill was 1.4 million. And for people listening in this country, you're innocent until you're proven guilty. So when you hear someone's being held without bail, it always gets my attention because I'm like, I don't care what they did.

Ken Rideout48:42

If you're innocent until we prove you guilty, why are you holding this person against their will? And I know people are going to be I mean sometimes you get people on camera killing someone and you're like, he's pretty guilty. We don't want him to go like didd he doesn't have bail. But it's a big deal to not have bail or it's a big deal to not have a 1.4 million. It's a big deal to have a $ 1.4 million bail because theoretically you're an innocent man.

Yeah. And well, my bond is is super high. When when I first got arrested, so July 30th, 2008, I'm sitting around this little rundown apartment in Dallas. And uh that day uh was just like any other, man. It was it was a sunny day, July 30, 2008. But um this is uh right at the end of everything, man. Um,

And we'll and we'll get into all the how how you got to that

Point. I'm the head of an organized crime ring. There's about a dozen other meth addicts and myself, young and old, male and female, black and white, and everything in between because drugs and addiction do not discriminate. Addiction doesn't care who you are, where you come from, right?

Ken Rideout49:29

But we indiscriminately, without reservation, we broke into the homes of dozens and dozens of people in the uptown neighborhood of Dallas and beyond to feed our insatiable methods. But on July 30th, 2008, it was a different day, man.

Ken Rideout50:19

Everybody talks.

Ken, everybody talks, man. I know. So, I'm sitting there on the couch that day, July 30th, 2008. I got my dope dealer next to me. His name is Tex. I'm telling Tex, we're passing this pipe back and forth. Tex, you don't want to be here, man. The cops are closing in on me. The end is near. And just as I pass that pipe back to text, the window on my right

Ken Rideout50:44

And you can see it in slow motion.

Oh, man. It's like, and I've seen that movie before, man. I know what this thing's about to do, man. And I tried to get out of the living room as fast I could, but it's too late. Boom. The flashbang grenade blows up in my face. Bright white light, loud noise, blows me back on the couch. And when I came to when I can see and hear again, there's a cop standing over me in full swat riot gear. His boots on my chest. The barrel of an assault rifle is digging in my eye socket, his fingers on the trigger, and he is screaming at the top of his lungs, "Don't move.

Don't move." And I'm like, "Man, don't worry. Don't worry. Right, you got me. It's done." And as the cops start flooding in, one of them screams

Ken Rideout51:11

I was the Uptown Burglar. It was a very high-profile burglary ring that was running around the Uptown neighborhood of Dallas and beyond.

Ken Rideout51:11

Um, but that day on July 30, 2008, the Uptown Burglary crimes spree came to an end.

And because they had their man, they got the mastermind of it all zip tied on the floor of a dirty old apartment. And that day they took me to Dallas County Jail and my bond was set at $1.4 million. Now for context of a bond this size, there's 9,000 people in Dallas County Jail right now. Ken, this is one of the biggest jails in America. 9,000. It's like a city inside there. Think about a place where 9,000 people live on top of each other.

Ken Rideout52:07

That's why I wanted to point it out because it's it's like you obviously pissed someone off.

Oh yeah. My and my crimes aren't like those crimes. Ken, my my crimes are property crimes. Like the burgies we were doing, it was the nicest part of Dallas and these burgies go on for years, Ken, because I'm playing a game of cat and mouse with the Dallas police. And we'll get into the whole cat and mouse game. I played with them and how it finally went upside down, but that's a that's a different chapter that we're going to talk about in a little bit. But, uh, they were very angry with me

And I'm sure the victims were very angry with you at the

Ken Rideout53:01

What if a victim reaches out to you?

Ken Rideout53:14

Yeah, we'll come back.

Ken Rideout53:22

So the bond, it's the highest bond in Dallas. I mean, I'm talking about it. Murderers, child molesters, rapists don't have bonds at time, right? Like, again, my crimes are property crimes. Again, no one was ever homeed for the burglaries. Never saw my victims. They never saw me. No one no weapons were used.

Ken Rideout53:49

Y that means they want you in a courtroom. And it means you're some grave danger.

I go to this trial and then um I'm in the courtroom for Judge Mike Snipes. And this is going to be an interesting story later on. The T. Before you get into that, go back to um when you met uh Muhammad in the uh jail.

Yeah, this is I'm I'm okay. I'm going to work my way into into Muhammad. But

But I go to Mike Snipes's courtroom. Um we obviously have a relationship.

Ken Rideout54:11

And so right after the trial was over, my mom has a conversation with me where she tells me no gangs, no tattoos. She said, "Come back as the man we raise or don't come back at all." And I don't know how I'm going to keep this promise to my mom.

Ken, I I go back to my pod in Dallas County Jail. I've got two months before the prison bus comes to get me. And I'm Man, I'm frantically asking every guy that's been in prison before, how am I going to survive? What am I going to do?

So you have two months back in the jail before you go to the prisons.

The prison bus comes to get me. Yeah.

I mean, you're going to get time credit for time served jail. My my prison sentence started on July 30th, 2008. That's a good question because I'm

Surprised they didn't take you right from court into the into the state. Oh, no. In the det,000 inmates in the Texas prison system or like 104 prisons. So, it's a it's a matter of space, right? So, they got to have some people released before they can send people in. I mean, it's one of the biggest prison systems in America. And jail is a very dangerous place relative to prison because you have someone who killed six people next to someone who's drunk driving for the fifth time afford bail.

And it's a very jail was the hardest time I ever did in prison was doing time in jail. And I'm going to tell you why jail time is harder than prison time. Because in prison, you have a life. You have a routine. You have a couple buddies you hang out with. You know, you got a job in prison. You've got purpose in prison. You're working your life. You know, you got a routine you can get into in prison. in in jail. You don't have that, man.

No programs.

No programs. You're sitting around. It's dangerous. You're waiting. You It's a very transient place. You got people coming in, people leaving. You're mixed in with everybody. There's still that that racial tension that goes on in there. But it's jail, man. Most people for the most part are like, "Hey, man. I'm just going to follow the rules inside this jail because I don't want to make my situation worse." What if you're in the bunk next to the guy that his situation is the worst? You know,

What if he is the capital murder guy next to you? you know.

So, um I got two months before the prison bus comes to get me and I'm frantically asking everybody, everybody's been in prison, man. How am I going to survive? What am I going to do? And can every guy I'm talking to, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, they all say the same exact thing. You got to get into a gang. They said, "You can't survive without a gang." They said, "The gang is your family now." But that one guy that was so different, this old black guy named Muhammad.

Now, Muhammad's what you call a career criminal. He's been in and out of prison his entire life, but he was the most positive guy I've ever met in my life, right? him and he's got a smile on his face everywhere he goes. I mean, you can't knock the smile off Muhammad's face. And every morning, Muhammad comes to my cell, to my bunk, and he picks me up like a ray of sunshine in that dark place with

Ken Rideout57:21

And he said, ' Because it's all about race, you're going to fight the white gangs first. If you survive the white gangs, now you're fighting the black gangs. And if you survive all that, you'll earn

Ken Rideout57:42

That's when he's like, Wes, he said, let me break this

Ken Rideout59:16

man who doesn't come from the same America I came from, Ken, a man who doesn't believe the same things I believe in life. This is a black Muslim man from the streets of Dallas, Texas. I'm this white middle-class Catholic guy from a little town called Port Arthur. But this man who is so different than me, he's about to share with me one of the most important and transformational messages I've ever heard in my entire life.

Ken Rideout1:00:43

And in fact, the last words he ever said to me in Dallas County Jail

Ken Rideout1:03:01

Like I had my own addiction, but it was 24/7. I would take opioid painkillers 24/7 when I was like I'd go through periods of sobriety but for 10 years I took 30 40 percoetses every single day. Lunch, dinner, breakfast, first.

Did you feel like you were in a cloud? Like you hazy thinking? Yeah.

Always. And and the whole time I was high, I was ideating on suicide because I was like, I would rather be dead than doing this. But I couldn't handle the physical withdrawals and I just put it off for 10 years. Just to give you an idea how bad the the withdrawal symptoms were when I would. I had I I did it a few times, but it was just imagine the worst illness you've ever had. But was meth like that where if you stopped for a week, you could do it or was it like I had to you had to be No, every day.

You had to you had to do it immediately. You had to do it every day. I was doing it every single day for for four years. I mean, like what about sleep, man? So, here's the deal, man. When I'm in this meth world, I'm around all these other people that are and I I smoke meth. I'm around people that are shooting it up and stuff like that and I'm watching all these people who's physically just falling apart, man. Their teeth are falling out of their head.

Ken Rideout1:04:28

And the stuff I'm getting back is like nutrients. A lack of nutrients can make your teeth rot out. You know, uh a lack of saliva actually has a because when you're up for days smoking meth and doing dope, you're not drinking any water. You're dehydrated as hell.

Well, when your body quits producing saliva, because your body's going to draw water from everywhere. Even from your waist, your body will draw water from.

When your mouth quits producing saliva, bacteria can root in on your teeth. And and so that's why these people's teeth are falling out. So I was like, "All right, right. I'm not going to stop doing meth because I love the math, but I'm going to start drinking a lot more." I had a gallon jug of water. I took him to the burgies, man. People from back in the burglary game.

Ken Rideout1:05:31

But I can't leave the dope world. I don't have a dope deal in another town. I mean, every instinct, all the sirens and bells and whistles are going off my head.

Ken Rideout1:06:47

So, the detox in county jail was tough. I mean, I wanted to eat everything in sight. I slept. I put on 60 lbs of fat in Dallas County Jail. Jeez.

Yeah, man. I was just a blubber [ __ ] because I mean, I'm sleeping. I'm depressed. I got this trial coming up. I'm coming off this dope.

And for someone who's athletic, that's making it even worse. Cuz my vanity is kicking in. You're like, I'm a mess.

Oh, yeah. And when I get to prison and I'm the first two months of prison, I'm fighting my for for my life and I'm way overweight, too. And I'm not I'm not in the best fighting shape either. But I got to fight. And that's the thing. I'm not my body's not used to holding that kind of weight. You've seen me, man. I'm you know, I not as fit as you cuz you

Ken Rideout1:07:25

And he's telling me, "Man, you got to work on yourself 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Ken Rideout1:07:25

started working on myself inside that prison. And, um, the the hazy thing that was going on in my head is that even though I'd been off meth since July 30, 2008, that's the last time I ever did any chemical. In fact, that's my sobriety day.

You know, that's I get taken in sobriety at gunpoint. That's what I tell people. I go to AA meet and look for anybody out there that's AA, I don't speak for AA, I'm not a spokesperson, but that's the 12step program recovery that I I go to. But I tell people all the time, I got taken to sobriety at gunpoint. And and that's a metaphor for a lot of other addicts. You know, a lot of us get into recovery or get sober not because we wanted to, but because we're forced to.

And the way I was forced to was I got taken in to Dallas County Jail.

Ken Rideout1:08:08

And I really wasn't done with wanting the cravings of meth until I got sentenced to life in prison that day on May 18th, 2009. That was the day when I got sentenced to life in prison that I knew that something had to change and that something was me. I just didn't know how to make the change. I didn't know where to begin at that point.

And that's a good lesson for people listening, man. Sometimes life can be so overwhelming that just knowing you got to make the change is a good place to start. You know, you don't have all the answers, but you got to go in

Ken Rideout1:08:31

It was around March of 2011, you know, and this is I get locked up in July of 2008. I finally one day just feel like this fog is gone from my brain.

The meth use, you know, the I had this meth haze going on in my head and I could start thinking clearly again. And that's when a man that's when it all started coming to me. It's almost like when that started coming to me, I started receiving messages. You know, I think your brain is like an antenna. What I mean by this is that your brain is a is a receducer, right? This microphone is a transducer, right? It it can take messages and trans and transform them into what we're supposed to hear what they are.

Ken Rideout1:09:54

And I didn't say religious component because I'm not a one of these religion guys. I'm a spiritual guy. Yeah. Religion is a man-made concept in my opinion. Spirituality is your conscious contact with whatever you call God. And that's a beautiful thing about the 12step program recovery I'm in is you can pick your higher power.

Yeah. And also in 2011 is when I get into a program recovery. I finally start going to these meetings. And you're from Boston. This guy that brings the meeting in from the free world, he's from Boston. His we'll call him Ray.

Ken Rideout1:10:08

But Ray brings this A&A meeting in to the from the free world into the prison. And every Wednesday morning we meet in the Chapel of Hope. And every Wednesday morning I started getting the answers to why I think the way I do.

And I found out the 12 steps weren't just a good program for me to work as a a recovering addict, but they're a program for living. You know, because in the 12 steps, you know, you start doing things like you turn your life and your will over to a higher power. And then you start making you start making a list of all these resentments you have, the fears that you have in life and you try to figure out why these resentments and why these fears really get to you, right?

Ken Rideout1:12:00

So, here's a story about Mike Snipes. Mike Snipes and I meet in the late 90s on a buddy of mine's yacht. this defense attorney in Dallas named George Milner. We meet on George's yacht.

Ken Rideout1:12:12

Uh George had a yacht out there at the lake and I had I was in college playing football and I had a bunch of college cheerleaders and stuff like that that hung around with me. George George met me. So

Ken Rideout1:12:23

Yeah. Out there in Lake Dallas. Uh at Lake Louisville, actually Lake Louisville. Okay. So George obviously, you know, he sees me hanging out with all these college girls. He's a defense attorney in Dallas. Hey, why don't you all come hang out on my boat? And so that was my ticket to hanging out with George. And I was a young guy in college, young, cocky, arrogant guy. My my college football days ended in 1996 with an injury against&m. But you know, I'm still in a fraternity. I still run around on campus.

Ken Rideout1:13:16

I mean I'm this cocky, arrogant college fraternity guy. He's this former full bird colonel. You imagine we mix like you know water and water and dirt. We make mud, right? We're not really friends but we we hang around with each other. The last time I remember seeing Snipes was uh in 2004. His dad had just passed away and I was at a bar and we were all doing shots honor his dad. In fact, I bought him a shot in 2004. The next time I saw Judge Snipes was u right after my arrest on July 30th, 2008.

Ken Rideout1:13:52

And you had no, to your knowledge, no beef with him prior to this?"

No. in the same social circles, man. I mean, I you could tell someone doesn't really dig you, man. Like, yeah, we don't dig we don't dig each other, man. You're you're square and I'm a guy out partying, man. So, but no personal thing like that at all. So, that's why I thought when I go into Snip's

Ken Rideout1:14:21

And so, I'm trying to get the warrant thrown out, but I'm in Snipes' courtroom.

Ken Rideout1:14:35

At any point does your lawyer say, "Snipes, you should recuse yourself. You guys know each other."

Yeah. We say we screwed ourselves in like I'm not going to do it. Don't waste your time with the motion. So yeah, at one point in a in a in a bond reduction hearing, he's like, "Do you think I'm going to let the Hannibal Lecter of burglaries

Ken Rideout1:15:04

So on in the trial, you know, in the character witness part where I'm trying to like mitigate the damage that's been done and I'm putting up these people that can testify that I'm a I'm a good guy when I'm not, you know, drugs in my system. One of the guys is a former guy that ran for governor of Texas in 1998. I mean, this is a huge politician in Texas. Snipes is arguing with him on the stand. He's arguing every witness I put up. He starts arguing.

He's doing the prosecutor's job. He's arguing my character witnesses. And my lawyer is terrible. This old guy named Ed Seagull, man. And Ed's dead now.

Ken Rideout1:15:37

Yeah, I would say not if you got 65 years.

But hey, I was a bad defendant. All right. I mean, I'm a I'm a bad guy. They the biggest witness against me in my cases was me, man. Those jail house recordings when I got that 1.4 million bond. I know they're listening. But but Ken, I'm calling up people from the dope world. Hey, you owe me money from this job, man.

Ken Rideout1:16:52

In fact,

He must have robbed someone this guy knew. This is crazy.

I don't know. But I mean, the judge is not supposed to take an interest like that, right? Very biased. He's put this all in an email, too. Well, the magistrate judge has never seen this kind of behavior from a judge before, a sitting judge. So, she contacts my lawyer, and this is all after I'm in prison, my lawyer represent me after prison. She contacts him, sends the emails, and said, "Hey, I've never seen this before, but here it is." Well, my lawyer goes up to Dallas, has a real serious conversation with Judge Snipes in his chambers.

He walked out of that, my lawyer walked out of that chambers that day with a recusal motion that is loaded for bear. And my new book, Six Dimes in a Nickel, I put the entire motion in there. I mean, it's basically saying Judge Snipes did not follow the law. He broke the law. And he even says what criminal statute he broke, what civil code he statute he broke, and he signs his name on this document. So he admits to all of it just so he can get off my case and get because I mean look what he's done is he's lied to the court of criminal appeals and that's you know that's perjury.

You're a judge you can't commit perjury.

Ken Rideout1:17:50

in order for Judge Snipes to get out of this he has to recuse himself and he does. And so I'm sitting on the evidence now and I'm in prison man. I'm sitting on the evidence now. Now I got this recusal motion that Judge Snipes all along had something against me and all my resentment against Snipes is justified. It's valid. I go to AA meeting that Wednesday morning. I find rock I find Ray, the guy from Boston, right?

Ken Rideout1:18:18

"I got him, man." And I told Ray, "I got him. I got snipes." And I I told him about snipes before. Ray looked at me. He said, "Damon, where is your humility?" And I was deflated, man. I'm like, "What do you mean humility? I didn't do anything to Snipes. He did this to me.

Ken Rideout1:19:18

And that's what he's telling me. He said, "Man, you're on the wrong side of the board right now. Man, you're way away from the spiritual principles right now." And I said, "Ray, I can't let go of this resentment against him." He said, "Then we need to we need to work a um a personal inventory because you're going to get high again if you keep this resentment." And that's one of the reasons why addicts go back out again is because they have these resentments they hold on to and they put in chemicals to change the way they feel, right?

Ken Rideout1:20:10

Yeah, I'm an ex-con, Ray. I'm What kind of jobs going to be available as an excon? The rest of my life I'm an ex-con. I can't get a good job anymore. He said, well, put a check mark there.

Ken Rideout1:20:10

He said, does your resentment against knives affect your sex instinct? Yeah, Ray, I'm an ex-con. you who wants to be with this ex-con, right? What are my what are my chances of finding a good woman now? He said, "Well, then check that box, too." So, I check all three of them.

Ken Rideout1:20:59

He said, "In recovery, we want to find the role that we play in all of our problems.

Ken Rideout1:21:50

In life, in recovery, all I'm trying to do is keep my side of the street clean. And if I can keep my side of the street clean, then that's all I'm supposed to I can't clean your side of the street, Ken. You can't you can't clean mine. You can't clean anybody else's. If someone wrongs you, you have to forgive them and let that go because you're going to want to be forgiven for

Ken Rideout1:22:14

That's when life said take started taking off. Remember I told you I'm working on three phases every day.

Ken Rideout1:22:14

I'm I'm out there looking for ways to serve. I I learned how to pray when I got into recovery. I I say the same prayer every morning that I've been praying since 2011. And and whatever faith you are, listen to this thing. You can have my prayer. I get up in the morning. I say, "Hey, God, put in front of me what you need me to do today for you and let me recognize it when I see it because I don't want to miss whatever that thing is." Amen.

Now, I'm being useful again. I can serve people. And that's where the way that I stay sober. or I go out there and serve other people. In the 12 steps, the eighth step is you make a list of all the people you've harmed. And the ninth step is when you make the apology. But they have a caveat that says ex except when to do so would cause you or

Ken Rideout1:22:40

And when you have a resentment that you can't when you have an apology you can't make, you do what's called living amends.

And living amends is when you go out and do good deeds and you expect nothing in return. This is servant leadership. Servant leadership is helping other people reach their goals in life. helping to raise other people, do a different sexual life because when we help other people grow, we grow, too. And that's what I started doing in prison. So, I asked myself when I'm in there, how do I serve these guys around me? What can I do to change these guys' lives? What what power do I have inside me?

Because everybody has a power inside them to change the world around them.

Ken Rideout1:23:25

The guys I'm locked up with, their education stopped in junior high somewhere, man.

Ken Rideout1:23:38

So, I opened a free tutoring service in prison. I start teaching guys how to read and write. I get them ready for the GED test so if they ever get out of prison one day they could become a better husband or a better father. And and in prison, you know, everything is transactional. There's nothing free in prison. Like if someone sends you something free, you better find a way to pay for it.

What was the uh form of currency there? I know in some places I'm like sardines.

Yeah, you you sardines were a good one. Tuna is I mean the packages of meat. Any package of meat was good. Soups are good. Those ramen noodle soups, that's currency. Stuff off the commissary is what you're going to pay with. So these guys that I'm teaching on right there one particular this old Hispanic guy that was the best artist I've ever seen in prison man. This guy could shade or draw anything man. He's and big on tattoos too because you know we have Isaac and Tat man.

Ken Rideout1:24:22

This artist mean older guy in his 60s and I'm teaching him how to read for the first time right and he's really digging he's enjoying it but he keeps bugging me man like I I got to pay you something west. I can't keep taking these for free. Nothing's free in prison. And I tell him, man, I said, "Man, don't don't pay it back. Pay it forward." And I teach him and these other guys about paying something forward, right? Don't pay me back for learning how to read.

Pay it forward. Find someone else in need and go meet that need another person. So, he comes to me one day. He's so excited. And this is when I can see the transformation happen in prison.

Ken Rideout1:24:46

And he I can't remember the guy's name, but he said, "The guy over there, it's indigent. Indigent means you have no money."

Ken Rideout1:25:19

Go for it. Do it. This story gets me emotional every time I tell it. So this guy that he makes the card for, the indigent guy, this guy's been locked up a long time, Ken. A long time. long enough that family members have died since he's been in there. New family members have been born. And this it's one of the things, like I said in the beginning, when you go to prison, you take a lot of people with you, man. Your family and everybody believes in you.

Ken Rideout1:26:12

And then he draws perfect replicas of every single human being that's ever seen him a picture in this big giant portrait of all these happy faces. And that's what that guy got to send his family

Ken Rideout1:26:12

those guys started learning about what it means to have a good community. A good community is where everybody puts their talents on the table. And you want to help other you want, hey, this is my talent.

Ken Rideout1:26:58

He found a way to serve and way to have purpose. And this is going on inside this prison. And it's not going on unnoticed. I mean, wardens are seeing it, captains are seeing it, volunteers are seeing it, the guards are seeing it, the other inmates are seeing it. This positivity changes.

Ken Rideout1:27:27

had to exercise my brain. And reading was the way to exercise it. And not only that, I had to feed myself the right stuff. So, I started having a diet that consisted of a lot of fish because I heard that fish was good for repairing your brain. Fish, sunflower seeds, oatmeal without sugar or anything like that. I cut sugar out of my diet because I had read that sugar could maybe be a cause of Alzheimer's, you know.

So, I'm slowly reducing everything out of my life that could be a a tragic thing for my body, for my um my

Ken Rideout1:28:21

And at this point, none of the other inmates have beef with you. Everyone's just letting you do your thing.

Everybody's let me do my thing, man. And and I and I get to work. I was running. I found a love for running in prison. You know, running was good for a couple reasons, man. Running was good because it kept you in good shape, but it's also good because, man, nobody can talk to you while you're running. Yeah. And you

I tell people all the time, this is just as much mental as it is physical.

Yeah. You just you and your thoughts in your head running around that track on the prison wrecky yard, man. You know, uh I have a routine every single day. And I I stay by this routine. They have a saying in prison. You got to do your time. You can't let your time do you.

Ken Rideout1:30:26

Yeah, it's crazy, man.

Ken Rideout1:30:48

I get a scholarship to play division one college football at the University of North Texas. I mean, and by the time I'm 20, I'm the starting quarterback on a division one team. Man, I thought I had arrived. My head was this big. But but life has a way of giving us these days that I call fork in the roads. Fork in the roads are the tough days like the other days you get knocked down. Again, you've been the fork. We talked about this a bunch, man.

But you make a choice at a fork in the road because you have to go one direction, the other. You make the right choice and go the right way, the wrong choice to go the wrong direction. So my fork in the road happened on September 21st, 1996. We were playing Texas A&M. Third play of this game, I go down with a career in injury. Never play college football again. And when I get up to this fork in the road in life and football football is gone, my identity was gone, too.

Ken Rideout1:32:02

That's right. That's what an addict does. An addict will give up their goals to meet their behaviors. And addiction addiction doesn't have to be drugs or alcohol. Again, it could be food, money, clothing, shopping, sex, pornography, the internet, social media, whatever it is. If you find yourself in a place in life where you're giving up your goals to meet a behavior, you're an addict, too.

Ken Rideout1:32:32

How did you get to How did you get that job through your dad?

No, I just I moved out to moved out to Washington. I was running I was kind of running away from my cocaine addiction. I thought, man, if I just move off to another city far enough away, let me go to Washington DC because I've always liked politics. So, I'm going to move to Washington DC to get away from my cocaine addiction. And once I change the city I'm in, then everything else will be fine. Right? Wrong.

I found that when I I went through almost the same exact struggle. And but I found that when I stopped drinking, the craving for cocaine went away. But as soon as I had one or two drinks, I was like, "Okay, let's do this."

Ken Rideout1:33:06

So I stopped drinking for a long time when I first moved to New York from Boston as when I was, you know, a young adult. Did you find that connection?

I had the craving for cocaine even without alcohol. But when I was drinking, for sure. I mean, because you could you could level yourself out. You could drink all you could you could day drink on that stuff and you never feel you never feel the effects of the alcohol.

Ken Rideout1:33:26

But nothing was going to fix me because wherever you go, there you are. That could change all the different cities in the world. You can't run you drugs.

You take you everywhere you go.

Ken Rideout1:33:39

I played college football in Texas. And so I get to get to Washington DC and I found a Texas congressman, Jean Green, from Houston. Uh, you know, I had a pretty good Texas resume going for me. You know, you played division one college football in Texas. You were a high school football star in your hometown. You know, in Texas, some things matter more than others. And so, like I got a job on Capitol Hill. Then I got a job working for a guy running for president, raising money for him all over America.

2004, he he drops out of the race for president. And I'm sitting with this giant book of like these donors, man, these very wealthy, these millionaires and billionaires in the Democratic party cuz the guy I raised money for was a Democrat. And so I took my book of business to the uh to UBS, United Bank of Switzerland. Yep. And I got a job in in Dallas, Texas, working for UBS. Uh one of the biggest banks in the world. And I was going to be a stock broker.

And I mean like, hey, this is it. I'm back in Denton where I went to school at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, which is right outside of Dallas. So I'm back in the metropucks again. I got all my old buddies with me from college. My fraternity brothers were back partying again. We're doing blow.

Ken Rideout1:34:28

And in 2004, I'm passed out of sleep at work one day at UBS. This other broker comes in. He sees me sleeping. He wakes me up visibly shaking.

Man, he's he's a little freaked out. He's like, "Dude, you can't sleep on this job. The markets are open. You're messing with people's money. They'll fire you if they catch you sleeping here." He said, "Come on down the parking garage. I got something that'll pick you up." So, I follow this guy in the parking garage that day. We get into his nice little sports car. He hands me a glass pipe with crystal rocks in it. And I'm like, "Man, what is that?" You know? He said, "Damon, just relax.

Ken Rideout1:35:59

And do your parents know that something's up?

Ken Rideout1:36:44

But not home invasions. People weren't home.

Nobody was home. Nobody was home. And I went to great lengths. In fact, that's this a good time to talk about the great lengths I went to. Like I made sure that no one was ever home during these burgies. Like um one of the first burgers I ever did, I broke into a US post office. I stole a mailman uniform. I the whole thing, man. I got a I got a mailman hat. I got a bag of, you know, the bag to carry around. I got the suit and everything.

It fits on me and everything.

People are clowning around. You were like serious about what you

Ken Rideout1:37:31

And the sport is breaking into people's homes to steal for meth. And that's what we did. We stole for meth. That's that's the whole thing about that's why there was nobody had anything to show for the uptown burgaries. We're breaking into people's houses and stealing from meth. But the reason why I stole the man outfit is a preservation of life thing. And I don't want to get caught. And so I know I've got to go into people's

Ken Rideout1:37:31

So what I would do with the mail my mailman outfit is I would sit outside some of these condo buildings in uptown Dallas and I'd wait for the real mailman to leave to do his job there and once the real mailman got his little mail truck and walked out and left.

I'd wait about 15 minutes and I'd come up strutting up in my mailman outfit and people are getting the gate for me cuz you know we got to let the mailman in. He's got all of our mail. So now I'm inside. I'm a Trojan horse. And inside a lot of these condo buildings they had mail kiosk. Now the mail kiosk is literally a male room, right? And on the outside, you have your little key to your one little box. You can open it up and get your mail out, close your little box.

Ken Rideout1:38:51

I know these people aren't home because they're telling the mailman to hold the mail. And so I'd get a list of all the places that weren't there. I'd make a list and on on the weekend I'd take it the other dope fiends in this burger ring that we have. It's just a bunch of dope fiends. That's all we are. But I dress them up in dicky overalls. We had a box truck. We had dollies and everything. We like a moving company. Literally people are holding the gates for us as we're moving out their neighbors stuff.

They don't know. So bold. Yeah. And it's very bold and and and you know this is part of the reason why you think well you I mean you know when they got you they set your bond so high they also I mean you know I was I was a very thoughtful guy doing this stuff like not in a good way like I'm thinking things out like so much so like all right Ken so some of these burgies you go in there you got these you know young and old male and female black and white there's people from all over because addiction doesn't care who you are.

So these people are inside these apartments or these condos and sometimes we're in there the whole weekend. We're eating food. We're I mean it's it's bold. But whenever I go in there, a lot of times I'm trying to find the if it's someone that's out of town and I know they're out of town, I want to find the car key that's likely left behind. You know, people leave their keys in the closure drawer in the kitchen hanging the hook, bedroom, nightstand, drawer, whatever, office desk, whatever.

I would find the spare key of the vehicle likely left behind. And then I would go to the parking garage and I would hit the key fob till I hear the Now I got a Mercedes, I got a Land Rover, I got a a BMW cuz these are nice parts of Dallas.

Yeah. I would fill that car up with all the things you don't want to keep from a burglary. Think about checkbook, credit cards, wallet, laptops, all things that can be traced back to a burglary. I'd fill that car up with all the things you don't want to keep. And I'd have one of my partners in crime follow me out to one of the worst neighborhoods in Dallas. South Dallas, East Dallas, the bario, the hood, places I'd rather the cops be looking for these crimes. And I'd go and I find a car wash that's hopping on a Saturday.

Man, I'd pull that car that that $100,000 vehicle up, window rolled down, music blaring, hop out of the car, and walk off and leave it there. Now, I don't know how long that car that's running out there, if that's car washes lasted

Ken Rideout1:40:47

And so, I'm literally dropping off clues and breadcrumbs in neighborhoods and places I don't want the cop I'd rather the cops look than finding me, right?

So, I'm playing cat and mouse with the Dallas police.

Ken Rideout1:41:18

the biggest mistake uh we were making was the cars. Dustin kept one of the cars from one of these burglaries

Ken Rideout1:41:18

both kept we both kept a couple cars but I I cleaned my car up and I had new VIN numbers. I found a guy in Canada that was he sent me like literally an ambassador plate from a Canadian ambassador plate, a maple leaf sticker, a new VIN number to put in in the dash.

Ken Rideout1:42:35

Dustin doesn't like guns. He had a gun in there. Had the burgy tools. I'm like, "Oh, man. His whole bag is in there." And my fingerprints are all over the dashboard in the passenger side. I mean, I've ridden in the car many times.

Well, you've never been arrested at this point.

I've been arrested. I've been arrested for for petty stuff like possession of drugs, stuff like that. I mean, I'm a drug addict, so I've had a few runins with the law, but they never knew when they were arresting me, you know, this is the Uptown burglar, right? So, so Dustin's like, "My whole bag is in there, Damon." I'm like, "Oh my god." I said, "Well, you got to got to find them with the tow truck call is, you know, I have to get that we have to get that bag out of there." Calls me about an hour late.

Ken Rideout1:43:31

I I'm I'm right by downtown Dallas.

Ken Rideout1:43:31

I get high as a kite, man. I smoke as much meth as I can." I tell my roommate, this is a girl named Jenny. I give her all the money. I was like $1,400. I had under my bed. I give her the money. And it's one of these conversations. if I'm not back when the sun comes up, this impound lot in this county, you got to get me out of jail before they put it all together.

She's like, "What are you gonna do?" I said, "I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna get this burgly bag out of this this police impound. I got to get that bag out." So, I drive to Dustin's house. I get the key fob from him and I drive out to the impound lot.

Ken Rideout1:43:52

um, let's say it's shaped like a a baseball diamond, right? Home plate is where the gate is. It opens up for the trucks to come in. Uh, and the infield of this lot is where the trucks drive around and all over the field in there are just cars and cars and cars and the outfield, the infield, but there's like a baseline that goes around the whole thing and that's where the the trucks drive and they drop off cars all over the impound lot.

Ken Rideout1:45:12

So, I pull out slowly, man. And I'm driving around, you know, second to third around the corner, third to home, and I shut the car down. And I'm waiting between that third and home baseline. And I'm waiting for that that gate to move because there's going to be another truck bringing another car.

Ken Rideout1:45:12

And as soon as that gate starts winding up, I turn the car back on. I got my foot on the clutch. It's a It's stick. And I'm waiting, man.

And what I'm waiting for is the front of the vehicle that the tow truck is towing. And when I see the front of that vehicle, I'm going to punch it. And I'm going for that gate because that gate closes fast. And so, man, I get the car revving and I see the front of the vehicle and I punch it. And I can still see this tow truck driver's eyes, man. They are this big. Like eyes wide as saucers. Two things are gonna happen. One of two things gonna happen, right?

Ken Rideout1:46:21

was on um the July 4th weekend of 2008.

Ken Rideout1:47:22

her dead fiance who had stepped on IED in Iraq the year before in 2007. Well, that's probably why Snipes had it in for you.

Ken Rideout1:49:08

Yeah. For crimes where no one got physically hurt. These are property crimes, man. But the evidence of my guilt was overwhelming. And of course, I like I said, I was the biggest person that testified against me because I had these jail house recordings and the prosecutors saying things like he's the Tony Soprano of Dallas. He's the Al Capone of Dallas, you know. Not true. I mean, I'm a dope fiend and I'm I'm doing a lot of stuff and breaking into people's houses, but I mean, Tony Sprint on Al Capone kill people, man.

I didn't I didn't hurt anybody physically. I was a dope fiend trying to get dope. Now, look, I'm not I'm not minimizing what I did. I did all my crimes. I'm going to go do all my time, man. I did it. I own it. I'm guilty of everything they said. So, and that's one of the things when you go to prison,

Ken Rideout1:50:03

Of course, I would think that he has no chance.

Ken Rideout1:51:16

You've always been able to recover. And he think he said, I think you'll bounce back for this. And he said, I think you should consider sharing your story one day with other people.

Ken Rideout1:51:16

And then that gave me a purpose when I was in there because if I'm believe Mr. Jalen, what does my story look like? I'm in prison. I got to rebuild the best story. And that's what I've been doing. And I've been rebuilding this incredible story.

Ken Rideout1:52:30

That's unheard of.

Ken Rideout1:52:45

God,

I walk out of a prison. I mean, November 16th, 2015, I step out of a maximum security prison. I step into my parents arms.

How much time do you have to go back to your cell to recuperate? or do they even allow you back in there knowing that you're probably in danger. People think you're going home.

There's no program like that for you. They know you're a marked man, but you just got to deal with it. In Texas, you cannot get any disciplinary case. If you do, you lose your parole.

So, when you get parole, how much time do you have to go back to your cell to like

Ken Rideout1:53:19

Yeah. So, did you tell anyone that you got parrolled or is it public information?

Great question. This is crazy. You don't even know the answer to this question. So, all right. So, I would be like, I'm not tell, you know, there's a lot of people that will tell you like, whatever makes you happy, whatever your plans are, don't tell anyone.

Ken Rideout1:53:33

No one likes to steal joy more than people that don't have any.

May 1st, 2015 is when I found out I made parole. And I found out because I I didn't get the answer that day with the parole interview. I found out cuz on May 1st, 2015, the Friday, I called my parents. Now, my parents live about 15 minutes away from the prison. My parents have been to see me over 150 times in prison, Ken. They never let go of me. My parents love My parents were there every weekend, man. I had love from the outside. I always had like one foot in, one foot out.

And you know, prison, man, if you had five visitors in five years,

Ken Rideout1:53:59

So, every Friday, I call my parents and say, "Hey, you going to, you know, you come to the visitation? What day are you coming to visitation?" What I would ask them because I knew they were coming. And so, I called that Friday. I was on a break from work.

Ken Rideout1:55:06

Rules like every month that you're out of prison on parole, you take a drug test, alcohol test, too.

Ken Rideout1:55:06

You got one test every month for the rest of your life. and if you fail one test, you go back to prison. They take you to jail that day. They take you to prison that day.

Uh rules like I can never go into a bar or club the rest of my life. I can't enter into a bar or club. Any establishment, nothing good ever happens in those places. And they say if you hang around a barber shop, let me know if you get a haircut. So that's that's what they say. That's what parole says. But um I asked them for the toughest parole program they have and it's six months in prison therapeutic community and after that is all the tough requirements and she said they gave you that tough bro that tough pearl program you asked for they gave it to you and you're going to be

Ken Rideout1:56:00

I was like mom I got to let you go I'll call you back later I hung up on her and I run off to the chapel and I'm like I get to the chapel and I tell the chaplain and these guys I work with and the chapel man you could find some good people in the chapel you could also find some charlatans when people told me they were Christians in there people tell me they're Christians out here in the free world don't tell me you're a Christian show me you're a Christian

That's right show me the stuff that shows up in reading in the New Testament show me love compassion passion. Show me mercy. Show me all these things that you see Jesus saying in red ink. And when someone wrongs you, show me that stuff in the red ink that says, "Let he without sin cast the first stuff."

That's right. A lot of people that call themselves Christians don't want to show you that. They want to they just want to talk about it. It's why when people start talking about them being a Christian, I grab my wallet. Make sure you take it in my pocket. And so, but I got some good dudes around me in the chapel that I work with. These are guys that walk the talk. And the chaplain is in there, too.

Ken Rideout1:57:04

And you can see these guys start crying too, man.

And they've got to be like, how how did this happen? This is crazy.

Ken Rideout1:57:32

And the chaplain jumps in. He said, 'Well, we got to make up a story about why you're crying.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. So, here's the deal. I got the chaplain on clean up duty. He said, 'All right, we're going to say your grandma died. Your grandma's still alive? No, both my grandmas are dead. Good. So, your grandma died and uh you talk to your mom and I'm going to back it up and I'm going to I'm going to tell anybody that as that your grandma died. We call her now for a chapel visit. You know, cuz in prison, if you get a if someone comes to the chap if someone comes to your pod, a guard comes in and says, "Hey, they want to see you at the chapel." You got a phone call.

That's the worst news you can get in Brerland. That means somebody in your family died.

Ken Rideout1:59:17

I said, "I think I got enough. I can make it. I had enough macros, enough tunas, enough peanuts. I'm see the oatmeal." They're like, "All right, you run out of food. Come see us, man. We got you. Don't go to the back to the chow hall the whole time you're here. Don't go to the wreck yard the whole time you're here. You go up to the chapel every day. Go to work. Come back and take a shower. We'll be watching out for you when you shower.

Ken Rideout1:59:59

And it was a whole different prison because that prison was just like a drug treatment center. I mean, you could walk, you could climb the gate if you wanted to, but nobody, everybody's made parole.

And it was in the last six months

Ken Rideout2:00:08

really made sure I was in the best shape of my life. And I mean, Ken, I mean, when I say the best shape of my life, I'm running five miles a day in there. And

I can't even imagine the optimism you must be feeling. You got 6 months left in a freaking, you know, low-end spa treatment.

Oh, man. It's Yeah, it's like kitty prison, man.

Ken Rideout2:00:25

And um I walk by and the they got a table full of Aryan Brotherhood guys cuz I mean there's all kinds of different people from prison. We've all made parole. 600 something people. We all made parole, man. Nobody nobody's trying to rock the boat on this thing.

And I walk up, these guys look miserable, man. They're just sitting at the table. They're all miserable. hands are in heads are in their hands. And I walk up, I'm man, what what's wrong with y'all, man? We're getting ready to walk out of prison. And one of the Brotherhood guys says, "Yeah, man, but man, we got to report when we get out." I said, "I got to report, too, man. I got to see my I got to see my PO in the first 48 hours. We all got to see our PO." And you're like, "No, dumbass.

Ken Rideout2:01:28

Thank you for that direction you gave me. Thanks, Muhammad. Thanks, Carlos. Thanks. I was thinking about all the people along the way that helped me get where I was right there in that moment. That that decision I made to go against the grain and not get in one of these Aryan

Ken Rideout2:01:57

Of course,

We're hugging, we're crying. They throw me in the car and they drove me home. And I I say home cuz I lived in my parents' spare bedroom for the first two years out of prison. And I was grateful to have my parents spare bedroom because there's a lot of people can they get out of prison, they don't have a home. But let me really paint this picture for you. I'm 40 years old. I just got out of prison. I'm on parole for the rest of my life.

I got a job making just above minimum wage and I live in my parents' spare bedroom. Not the best Tinder profile, right? So, I was on the dating

Ken Rideout2:02:16

I get out and I know the first thing I do when I get out, I got to find Ray and the AA group because I told Ray all the time, I said, I'm going to whenever I was in prison, I would tell him, man, when I get out of prison, I'm going to come find you at your AA group and you're going to be my sponsor.

And and Ray would laugh it off too, man, cuz he's the, you know, he gets lied to more than the police do, of course. He's bringing an AA meeting to a supermax prison, man. So, uh, but that Monday, November 16, 2015, I walk into the Keep Assembble group in Beaumont, Texas, and there is Ray leading the group that night and he looked at me, there's a jaw drop.

Ken Rideout2:02:39

I made it, man.

Ken Rideout2:03:05

One is that you go to any length I tell you to to stay sober and two if you ever ever thought of drinking or doing drugs, you'll call me first. He said, "Well, you agree to those two things." I said, "Yeah." So, he starts working with me, start working the steps.

Ken Rideout2:03:26

And I found out, man, I found out really fast. You can't go knock at the door of a high school and say, "I just got out of prison. I want to talk to your kids." And man, so like after a month out of prison, I'm at a sponsor spons meeting with Ray. And Ray walks in and I look miserable. He's like, you know, Damon, I'm really I'm really worried about you. I'm afraid you're about to go back to prison.

Ken Rideout2:03:44

What do you mean prison?

Ken Rideout2:03:44

you are stuck inside yourself, Wes. He said, I've never seen anybody stuck inside themselves that was working a program recovery.

Ken Rideout2:03:44

I'm like, man, Ray, relax, man. I don't have any thoughts of drinking or doing drugs. I'm just I'm in a rut, man. You know this. I mean, I can't go anywhere. No one wants me around. I'm an ex-con.

He said, "That's not true." He said, "Now it's self-pity." He said, "Now you're really going back to prison." He said, "That's not true that no one wants you." He said, "You have a lot of value." He said, "Look, here's the deal. You can't go do what you want to do. Go speak in school. Good. Go serve somewhere else. You better go serve that." He said, "That's what you're missing right now.

Ken Rideout2:04:25

He said, "Go to the old folks home." He said, "Go to the front desk." He said, "Go to the front desk and he's got this god aful boss Boston accent in Texas, man. Pocky con. Go to the front desk, ask them for a list of people that never get visitors anymore." He said, "They're going to give you a list a mile long." He said, "They don't care that what kind of criminal you are. You're not the kind of criminal they're afraid of." He said, "You're fine with them being ex-con." He said, "They're going to give you a list about a mile long." He said, "I want you to spend your weekend this weekend with people that don't have visitors anymore.

People whose families have dropped them off and forgotten about them." He said, "You lived in an institution. You know what it's like to be be lonely in there." And I did. Again, I knew what it's like to be lonely. In prison, they have a saying that says, "You're never alone, but you're always lonely."

That really stuck with me. He said, "You promise me you go to less to stay sober for me to be your sponsor.

Ken Rideout2:05:01

spent my entire weekend visiting with old people. Some of those people, Ken, hadn't had a visitor

Ken Rideout2:05:23

No one just sits down and listens to you, man. And that's the thing about the human spirit, man. I think human beings want two things out of life. We want to belong. We want to be loved. Yep. And when those two things are met, the human spirit is capable so much.

Ken Rideout2:05:23

Um and so I just spent my time visiting with those old people that weekend and I went back the Monday the Monday for the meeting with with Ray

Ken Rideout2:05:57

And I was happy, man. Life was good.

Ken Rideout2:05:57

So, I I I know I've got to get this presentation going, but I don't have a lot of places to speak. But, you know what? I had in my parents bedroom, there's a mirror in there, a little vandy mirror. So, every night for two years, I practice this presentation in front of that mirror. My presentation that I have today, I practice in front of a mirror. I was getting in my reps cuz anything you want to be good at in life, you got to have to practice at life, right?

There's no such thing as an overnight success.

Ken Rideout2:06:20

And I'm practicing this presentation. I'm getting my cues down and I'm getting the right stories in there. I'm becoming a really good storyteller in front of that mirror because people love storytellers, right? That's right. And they love stories with certain elements, right? We love stories about the redemption story. I've got that. We love stories with sports. I got that, too. We love true crime and prison. I got that.

And so, I'm getting these reps in and I'm getting myself ready for the right opportunity. And I believe the right opportunity is going to be the world of college football because I played division one college eyeball. But the problem is it's been 20 years took a snap. The coaches don't know me. I don't know them.

Yeah.

January 11th, 2017.

Ken Rideout2:07:18

I'm looking at him. Man, I'm going to sneak you in this place.

Ken Rideout2:07:18

My my boss at work. I work at a law firm. My boss is like, "Man, get out of here. This could be your shot." First thing I do, I go to my parents house. I change clothes. I change out into I got two hand-me-down suits. I got the better of my two hand-me-down suits on, right? I drive to Houston. He sneaks me in the back door center.

Ken Rideout2:07:37

there I am in this room, man. all these coaches, USC, Wisconsin, Penn State, PJ Fleck, they're all in this room and I run up to all these coaches and I shake their hand and I give them my pitch of why they should bring me in to talk to their team and every single

Ken Rideout2:08:05

I'm standing in the corner Toyota Center that night. I'm 10t from the door. I'm licking my wounds. I'm feeling sorry for myself.

Ken Rideout2:08:05

in my head is saying, "You don't belong in this room." The voice in my head is calling me things like an impostor. And I know everybody listening to this podcast right now, you know the imposttor voice.

Ken Rideout2:08:26

I don't listen to myself because sometimes the voice in my head is fear talking to me and I don't know what voice it is. I don't want to listen to fear cuz fear's a liar.

Ken Rideout2:08:57

Yep.

Ken Rideout2:09:13

Who's going to get there first? So I get in front of Dabo and I give my best pitch and it comes up so flat. It's a terrible pitch. And and I come up for air and Dabo looks terrified. He's like, "You got a card on you?" So I gave him a card and he was nice enough. He took it from me.

Ken Rideout2:09:36

That's right. One of the biggest takeaway from sports, you know this as a sports guy, you give it your all and sometimes you're just going to come up short or like like Muhammad said, you don't have to win all your fights, but you got to fight all your fights. Anybody that's ever worked a sales job in the world. So, man, I went home that night. I slept like a baby. Forgot about that night. Four months later, I get a phone. I get an email out of the blue.

Ken Rideout2:10:18

That's the most amazing story I've ever heard. I've never seen my players respond like that to a speaker. He said, "Have you been to Alabama to

Ken Rideout2:10:18

like, I looked at I'm like, "No, Dabo. I haven't been to Al. What do you mean Alabama, man? I've been to Clemson."

Ken Rideout2:10:30

He said, "Well, I just text Nick save him from the back of the room. Let's see what happens." The next day when my flight lands in Houston for my trip to Clemson, I turn my phone on. A voicemail and a text message from the director of football operations at the University of Alabama.

Ken Rideout2:10:30

Hey Damon Dabau called Coach Sabin last night. Coach Sabin cannot wait to hear your story.

He said, "How does August 21st, 7:30 p.m. work for your calendar?" I laughed out loud. I didn't even have a calendar at the time. I didn't need a calendar, man. Just like that, Ken. Dabo Swinney kicked open the big door to college football. And Dabo didn't stop there. Kirby Smart calls. Lincoln Riley, Chip Kelly, Lane Kiffin, Ryan Day. Every coach in America starts calling my phone. When are you coming to talk to my team? But the biggest event hadn't happened yet. I hadn't met this second servant leader Morenu.

Ken Rideout2:11:35

Yep.

Ken Rideout2:12:18

Yeah.

Ken Rideout2:12:49

That night that I had seven nos in the first hour.

Ken Rideout2:13:11

That's right.

That answers the whole time that when people are listening to this, they realize that like you're never out of the fight until you quit.

Ken Rideout2:13:17

Or win. And you're always closer to your goals than you think.

Ken Rideout2:13:48

And the book, the most recent book, Six Dimes in a nickel. That's available now.

Yeah, that's available. It's out now. I just just wrote that book. That's really what it is is my life story. Every chapter is a principle. I live my life by the body of the chapter. The body of the chapter is a story behind the principle because again, we learn from storytellers.

Uh and then at the end of the principle is an at the end of the chapter is an application. how you apply that principle in your life too because I've learned that writing books and having some success in it that people want a prescriptive formula but they want stories told to them too. That's right. And so that's what this book six dimes a nickel which means 65 years life lessons to empower change. Um but six dimes in nickel. Yeah, it's out now down. One of the best stories in the book is about finding Muhammad, you know, because it was a big deal.

Of course,

When I got out of prison, I had to find this guy, you know. Part of the reason I wanted to find him is told him I became a coffee bean because he told me he said, "You'll probably become an egg." And but he he said something that I think

Ken Rideout2:14:33

that eggs are the most common thing you find because the egg is a natural evolution of any human being in any difficult situation. He said, 'We have a tendency to get angry and mad before we do anything else in life.

Ken Rideout2:15:24

He's been in and out of prison his entire life and dies of a drug overdose.

Ken Rideout2:15:27

And um I said, "Look, I think we can change the way the world and I think I can change the way you see your brother." And I mean, man, when you talk to his sisters, the living sisters now, they their backs are ramrod straight.

My brother's a coffee bean guy. He's the guy that saved Dan West. Like Damon's changed the world with his message. And I started a scholarship in his name, too. It's

A great memory for his family to have something positive to attach to him other than just being a career criminal and heroin, you know, dying of a drug overdose.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you change the memory of a human being in a family's life. What's the value of that? Right?

Ken Rideout2:16:10

and and I started a scholarship. Every year I put $10,000 into a trust and every year the w the family picks the winner the James be James Land Baker II. That was his real name.

Ken Rideout2:16:34

You know that this guy's got a legacy. Now, there's a little girl named Megan that that got the scholarship. Her her mother's a school teacher, her dad's a disabled veteran. Right now, Megan's sitting in a class at Texas A&M. She's going to be an engineer.

Oh, wow.

This guy and this guy.

Ken Rideout2:16:45

Like the coffee bean, he didn't just give it to me in 2009 so I could become a redeemed man because I have came by every metric. Yeah. Redeemed man. I'm a I'm a husband. I'm a stepfather. I'm sober above all those other things. I'm a I'm a philanthropist. I'm a speaker. I'm an author. um college professor. I mean, one of the things I did after prison, I got out and went and got a master's degree in criminal justice.

Ken Rideout2:17:46

Well, go for it.

Because every human being deserves redemption.

Ken Rideout2:17:47

You mentioned earlier about one of the victims possibly reaching out and that you not allowed to reach out to victims or to apologize to victims.

Ken Rideout2:18:14

Do they ever You asked me earlier, do they ever reach out to me? And and I have I've been reached out to by several of them. Most of the time it's not positive

Ken Rideout2:18:39

I I've had victims reach out and say, "I can't believe they let you out of prison. They should have kept you there forever." You know, I've had the uh one of the one of the detectives that took me down. I can't believe they let you out. You know, and yeah, I look at it. I mean, like they're entitled to their opinion and I mean, you know, especially the victims. I mean, I did something bad to him and um it's my hope that the victims can move on from what the the pain I did to them.

But again, I can't reach out to them. I can't ap I'll never apologize. I'm not going to go back to prison.

Ken Rideout2:19:07

And the subject line of the email said, "Damon,

Ken Rideout2:19:42

she got her ring back because the ring was at Dustin's apartment. When they got Dustin first, they got the ring.

Ken Rideout2:20:16

the wound was opened all over again when she found that out later in life. And then she said she sees a news story on TV and there's me and she didn't even

Ken Rideout2:24:00

That's right.

Ken Rideout2:24:08

That's exactly right. And anyone who suffered with addiction knows what it's like to be a prisoner. And I think that that's the perfect summation. I don't want to uh give away too much of the book because I know there's a lot of great details in there. Six Dimes in a Nickel by the legend Damon West. What a great

Ken Rideout2:24:08

source of motivation for a lot of people that are going through it. Cuz there's a lot of people going through [ __ ] and we you've been there.

I've been there and I know there's people listening to this that are going through it. And the only the the truth is and I've spoken at prisons before and I've told a huge room of inmates. No one in here is the victim. So, when you're sitting there thinking, "F this judge, f that prosecutor."

Until you stop blaming other people, you don't get here by accident. You have to really go out of your way to get sentenced to prison. And for the few rare exceptions, apologies, but no one in here is a victim. And you can see people like, "Yeah, good point." Most of the people are like, "Yeah, that's true. I deserve to be here."

But I think that that's a great u message of hope and I hope that people uh enjoyed the conversation. And I know I loved hearing it and uh could listen to another two hours of uh stories especially about the prison.

We'll come back and do a round two and if anybody like if anybody wants to find me out there I mean my website is damon west.org dam o n wst.org. Thank you for being here and we'll have all the um links in the show notes and uh we'll make sure people can find you.

Awesome, brother. Thanks a lot. Thanks for being here and thanks for having me, brother. Thanks a lot.