In episode 77 of The Kitchen Table, Ken Baden interviews his little brother, Dustyn Baden, as they discuss a range of topics, from the state of the union and the challenges in the workforce to personal experiences and the importance of staying in shape.
Tune in to discover the humor and insights that come from their unique perspectives on life and work.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:02:45] State of the Union.
[00:06:29] College expectations and reality.
[00:10:29] Construction world discipline changes.
[00:13:40] Personality in the union world.
[00:16:27] Cashflow challenges in entrepreneurship.
[00:20:15] Life in jail and diet.
[00:23:27] Buying a PlayStation in prison.
[00:27:13] Burrito in jail culture.
[00:32:21] Weight loss journey and struggles.
[00:34:44] Prescription drug misuse consequences.
[00:38:32] Robbing a Hallmark store.
[00:41:36] Behind bars stories and success.
[00:44:03] Lessons learned in jail.
[00:49:38] The state of the union.
[00:54:03] Union jobs and earning potential.
[00:56:14] The state of the union.
[01:00:13] Blue-collar industries and success.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Ken Baden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialkenbaden/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialkenbaden
WEBSITES:
The Kitchen Table Podcast: https://thekitchentablepodcast.net/
Blue Collar Ballers Union: https://bluecollarballersunion.com/
Welcome to the Kitchen Table, a podcast about where business is done. So pull up a chair and join your host, Ken Baden.
All right. Welcome back to another episode of the Kitchen Table podcast. I am your host, Ken Baden, and we are here with a special guest today. The unemployed little brother of mine, Dustyn Baden. Yeah. I think there's buttons over here that actually make little... I know they are.
Ken Baden
I asked him about that. They do, they make little... I said, do they make little sound effects? Uh-huh, they do. Is there any program?
Dustyn Baden
Yeah, like there's a... I don't... One's like a... Do we hear it if we have the headphones on? We hear it if we have the headphones on. We've never used it either, which is like disappointing.
Ken Baden
Underutilization.
Yeah. Well, the podcast format is typically... The format's not going to change so much, but the... I don't know, the content might be a little bit different today. Cause you know, normally we're talking about door to door, personal and professional development, anything in pursuit of your higher self. We can still keep it there, but I figured we could keep it light because I got my brother in studio today. So I figured he just, I'd yank him in here and whether this ever sees the light of day or not, it'll be good, funny content, just the same, because I don't have a whole lot of opportunities to snag him and put him on camera. So, but. I'm sure that there's something, I mean, he has, we've run work. You can, uh, it's not, I mean, I'm not trying to like say he has nothing of value, which is kind of what it sounds like.
Well, yeah, I've, uh, you know, I've definitely ran work on a multimillion dollar jobs. I've been involved in, uh, coordination processes, uh, you know, ordering of, you know, material, making sure guys got what they need. So. Um, essentially what, like you would, and in your business would be some kind of like managerial position is what I would be as a foreman, but, um, you know, customer contracts us and I'm the one who's actually. getting the things done in the field. So, uh, yeah, I mean, I definitely have some input there and yes, I am recently unemployed as of yesterday of that was my own decision.
That's much more of what I wanted to talk about. That's funnier than, that's funnier than the other stuff. He's not unemployed cause he got fired. You quit, quit, which is a good, uh, I mean, we were joking around about that, but he quit because he wasn't happy where he's at. And the union these days, that's actually what I kind of wanted to talk about. I mean, he's been running work million, multimillion dollar jobs. I'm just busting his chops because he's my little brother and we're trying to have a fun light episode. But in all seriousness, the state of the union is really kind of more the topic here, I think, because it's freaking scary. There is. He just quit because he wasn't happy, right where he was at, but he can do that because he runs work and he's one of like won, unfortunately. That's what you were just saying, right? Nobody wants to really... So first of all, the union itself, all of them, all these labor unions right now, went from back when we were younger to like... And I mean, we're not old, but when we were like 18, 19, thinking about our lives and I went to college and other people went, the union trades There was thousands of people on the benches. You had to wait list, all kinds of stuff. Everybody did that. Everybody had to wait. Now, how many people are there on the bench?
53.
And they want to be there, right? They want to be there. 53 people.
That's- Open job calls.
Terrifying. There's no one to do these trades. There's no one. South Park did an episode on it, and Stan's trying to pay this handyman. And he's like, I'll let you get drunk on the job. He's like, I don't need your, uh, little consistence anymore. Marsh. Uh, I got so much work. I can just turn it down. You know what I mean? And he's just like, you're just going to leave. And the guy just like, he's like, Oh, that's what he says. He says, well, yeah, I don't know what it is, but it's just like, I don't know. People don't know how to do shit anymore. They don't. Yeah.
Freaking terrifying. Yeah. Nobody wants to work with their hands. Nobody wants to learn to work with their hands. Everybody wants to do something online. Everyone thinks that they're going to be a famous fucking TikToker. Social media. Social media. You're not most likely out there. Go get a job. Work with your hands. The world needs it.
And that's probably, I hope that pendulum swings back around. Cause I think for our age, it was like, go to college. And most people have figured out like that's stupid. I say that with love, but like what I would say is unless you know, definitively. what you want to do and it requires a college degree, you're basically just doing what we did, which is getting a degree to go party. You know what I mean?
Like, which is fine. If that's what you want to do. It was a lot of fun. I spent, I don't know, probably upwards like $30,000 having a party and I pay, I spent a long time paying it off and a lot of interest. Um, and it was great and I would do it again, but you know, be clear eyed, you know, don't, don't go to college and, think you're going to get a business degree like everybody else has, you're going to come out and making six figures.
You're not like, what are you going to do with that? You know what I mean? Unless it's like nursing, engineering, like something where like, that's a prerequisite to a job. Yeah. You're basically just going there at a party. If you've got a liberal arts or like communications, you know what I mean? Like any of those vague business, It's just bullshit, man. It's a debt and very unlikely that, and I read somewhere too that college kids these days, and they have this delusion that they expect to make, it was something like basically six figures. They expect to come out and land a six figure job immediately. Maybe it was like 70, it was somewhere between 75 and 100.
Six figures isn't even that good anymore.
No, it's not. But he's like, you're not, you're not going to get that. Like coming out of college.
That was like the aim in like 1998.
So they just assume that's just going to happen coming right out of college because they went to college. And it's like, where, where does this come from? Where, like, where do you even get that number from? That's where the guy was saying, I can't remember where I saw it, but I'm like, yeah, where, where does that delusion come from? Why? It's weird.
Well, I think that not even the trade workforce, I think the workforce in general is just, I don't know what people do. What are people doing? They're not working. How do you, how do you live? I don't know.
Like you said, the average person leaves, leaves the home. What 27 now? I mean, it's crazy, dude. Like kids stay at the house till forever. Like I, I mean, I have a different story, but like, you know, I didn't leave.
You're, you're almost a permanent resident.
I was, I was a permanent resident in grandma's basement until I was, 30, pretty old, 30, at least 30, 30. Yeah. But I mean, I, my history is well-documented on this show where I was doing drugs and all those things.
So pretty big glass house. I wouldn't throw too many stones at those people.
I'm throwing stones. I'm saying that the average age is just way longer. Even then, like, I mean, I am an exception. I feel like I, was longer then, because when I was there till 30, I think the average age was 27. My bet is it's more than that now. I bet. But I mean, I don't think the average person staying is a heroin addict. You know what I mean?
There are a lot of heroin addicts, though.
That's nice to know. Yeah, that's true. That's a whole other can of worms.
A lot of heroin addicts in the trades, too.
Yeah.
Yeah. Really? More than you think. I've seen guys go in the port of John and come out having the nods. And you're like, you probably shouldn't work on electricity or power tools. Yeah.
It's terrifying, man. See, that's the, and that's the thing, right? Like, well, it affects everybody. So it's not like, yeah, but there's so few people to pick from that. It's almost like, that's what I'm saying. This is a terrifying dilemma with 53 people in your unions, uh, bench and I don't know what the 10, the five, the 100.
Oh, they have just as bad of problems. Well, what did, what it makes elevators, uh, HVAC sheet metal, the other unions, what it makes you do is you have to be more creative in how you approach a job, you know, where you, you thought you could have, let's say 150 men on a job. Realistically, you could probably get half of that and the half of that You know, the pool's not great.
You know, there's a, yeah, you got heroin addicts, not now in the port again.
Well, not all of them, but even say, you know, some people just come out and they're not motivated. You know, they have things going on in life or whatever, but that's the problem for people like me and my position is you had to figure out how to get juice out of that lemon, you know?
So is it still like it used to be when I, when I was, uh, dealing with my, my MO mind you was get a sales job, relapse. survive somehow, come back, get a manual labor job. Most of the time I've been an electrician's helper, non-union. I've been in the local 100 a couple of times, but not like I was never in the actual school, you know what I mean? But I almost did that. But I always get steady and then back on my feet. And then I'm like, I'm not happy with this. Like I just couldn't, I always went back to sales always. But back then, at least it taught me the value of like hard work, consistency, but the whole thing was like, dude, you better not be a minute late to that job or you're fucking fired or they'll send you home.
Yeah, the construction world is a lot less tolerant of- Is it still like that though?
Because it used to be like, yo, if you're late, are you not here? You don't do anything the way we want you to do it. We have thousands of people on the bench. That was always the thing. And now it's like, well, do you, can you afford to send that guy home? Can you afford to like be that stringent? You know what I mean? Like, I wonder what that's like now. What is it like now?
It is, uh, It's not as, not as bad. There are people who still run jobs like that, but the thing is, and what I realized is that if you send those guys home, you should, you should hold people responsible. So I'm not saying that you should hold people responsible for their terrible actions. You know, I don't knock you guys a couple minutes late, you know, here, there, I don't say anything, but you do need to hold people accountable. But the problem is, is if you let them go. No one's coming. There's no one behind them. You can, yeah, that's terrifying. You can put a job call. There's no one there. No one, no one on the bench is coming. So people are calling their friends. Uh, they're trying to organize, um, non-union guys or still the point now where they're like, People are like, Hey, do you know any buddies, like sons or kids you want to call and see if they want to come get the trade? You know, that's the point it's getting to because, you know, we have, what do these guys make starting off? Well, there's two separate avenues. Actually most, I think every trade except for elevators has what they call a R program.
Um, which is where they're, you're an R worker. So you're not in there. You're not, you're not right. The apprenticeship is where you're like in school to be what you, that's the path that you want to take.
There's a long road and a short road. The long road is the R program. Um, and the short road is the apprenticeship apprenticeship.
I was always an R worker.
Yeah.
Yeah. Could have been an apprenticeship if I, I don't know, maybe, I don't know. I've been in past the test, so I can sell.
There's a lesson for you folks.
I've got people skills. Everybody has, everybody has their skills.
I'm telling you, right. I there's been, I'll tell you one thing. There has been guys who are not very good electricians, but I kept them on the crew because I kept morale up. Cause they were funny or they were weird, but you know, they would work, you know, their work may not have been great, but the morale was up on total. Like they brought. They keep them morale on the, I don't care, job or company, whatever that is paramount because once morale starts dipping, productivity starts dipping, it makes work a terrible place to go. Um, so yes, I would keep goofballs who are not very good, but people just like to be around. So personality does, does play a part in it.
Yeah. I got the gift to gab. That's why I always had to couldn't. I didn't like the union stuff, even though like it was safe. I like that. I like someone like myself, like people like me, I think most people in sales, because there's a definitely parallels to that in the recovery world, but apparently that's also true in the union world. So, but like, I think like your, your hypomanic types, they're like, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Usually like. find themselves teetering on the brink of like a substance abuse problem. So it's common in sales, uh, as well, but I could never grasp like, all right, I can work really hard and make good money, really good money. And the security is there, but I knew that in sales, this hard as I wanted to work, there was a direct pay result and how good I was at what I did. You know what I mean? Like in the union, it's awesome. And like, you, it's a different way of like reflecting your work, being really good. You can be a foreman like you are run work and you have the security and it all depends on your value system. Really? Like we're very different in that regard. I'm more of a risk taker.
I'm not a risk taker.
So like you were never, it was never going to be like that, but like, for me, I'm like, F it, let's go. You know? And you kind of have to be, to be an entrepreneur, you've I just made a decision today that completely contradicts every piece of work that we've done over the last few months to get away from one thing. But in my opinion, it has to happen to logistics and we can't afford to wait. So I don't, you know, risk aversion is not something that most of us have. You are super risk averse, right?
I'm not. Yeah. Well, risk averse. Yes.
are risk averse. I am not right. Yeah. So I don't have any sort of, I'm just like, fuck it.
Go. Yeah. Well, that's, I don't know. I've always just kind of wondered, uh, I've always thought about maybe owning my own company and I never, but you could do in a heartbeat. I know, I know.
We're just talking about how there's a major gap and we, people need Workers like construction, construction is in dire need of, and just as much businesses, but then you got to get the people.
I know, but that's it. Well, so there's two routes, right? You can go commercial or you can do residential. Residential commercial is what I, you know what I feel like residential is. Uh, so like, I think residential electricity is kind of like how you would put a retail sales, right? You sell a, you sell a roof, they cut the check, you get the check, you get paid the end. Where commercial is kind of like insurance roofing, where you do all the front end stuff. You, you, you do the work, you wait for checks, you do all this crap, and then you get paid like four or five, six months later, that's commercial stuff. Commercial. You sign the stuff, you get a couple of draws, but all your money, everything, it's all in the end. Yeah.
Cashflow is going to be, you got to have those millions to float.
Right. And if you don't, because there was a guy I'm. Larry Birkhead, if you're ever going to watch this, probably not, but Larry Birkhead came and talked to us. He owns Birkhead electric and he gave us an horror story that made me never want to run my own company because he's, uh, I probably butchered this, but essentially he did like a multimillion dollar job had like 150 guys and, uh, they didn't want to pay him. And he went to arbitration and it took like four or five years and it was millions of dollars, like $1.5 million. And for a small company that is devastating. He had to sell his office space. He had to lay guys off. It worked for him for 50 years. He had to go down like a two man company back to working in his house because one job. held him up and that scared the hell out of me. Yeah, that's freaking terrifying.
That's we, uh, you know, we've recently seen a lot of like, you know, that's the insurance industry and what we do in, uh, dealing with insurance companies. It's similar in that, like they don't want to pay. Yeah. So cashflow can be a problem if you don't have other ventures or other means. Uh, and so we've, we've recently kickstarted what's fortunately for me and bulk of my career has been in retail. So it's not something I'm like, I can turn that on, you know, when me and cheese butt started, like we were all retail. That was it. That was all I knew and I did everything. So that's what we did.
Well, you don't do any of the work for insurance unless they approved everything first. Right. So you don't actually, yeah.
But I mean, like they'll, they'll prove, but, but dude, they'll, they'll, we didn't get your email. And if they did, we got to review your invoice. It's dude, we have certain ones that have been weeks and it's just like, dude, there's just no reason why they haven't paid us. They just, it's just so frustrating. They do whatever they can to draw out and not like, is it like a final check process?
Right. So then you have time caught up in material and careers and labor. Right. And then you got to pay a guy to follow that. Right. So there's all that time that costs something.
A lot of people forget that there is a lot of float, you know what I mean? And the average job has taken a lot more time. And so like what that phone call I was just talking about before we started, it was like to try to truncate that time, but that's just, uh, Brennan says it all the time. Truncate. Yeah. I don't know. It's like his new word, everything. Every time he talks, he gets a new little word. And that one's been like, he's like, like one conversation. He'll say that word over and over and over and over and over. That's the Brendan ism. And truncate has been his new one. But should we talk to him and start talking about something? I'm like, we're trying to truncate this at timeline.
You better watch your mouth for that kind of language around me. Truncate. What is that? What does that mean? Condense. Really? Yeah. That's what you say. Condense.
I mean, I assume you have a expanded vocabulary. You know that there's more than one way to say one, a certain word. That's what a synonym, synonym, synonym.
Well, but usually like more synonyms also had varying levels of extremity, right?
Yes. Well, it's just, I know what it means. What? Truncate? I know what it means. I pride myself on my vocabulary. Mom has a good vocabulary. I feel like she likes that too, you know what I mean? She tried, she would always say, I don't know, big words and stuff just to do it. I like that. I used to read the dictionary.
That's like an Eagleston trick.
Sean's like that too. Yeah. I would, when I was locked up, I'd like read dictionary. I'd just read where, or I would like challenge myself to come up with, I'd look up for something.
When you were in jail, you had nothing better to do.
I feel like I've done it when I was, I feel like when I wasn't in jail, I also did this though. I feel like I would like want to sound smart that day. And I would just pick a word that day and like, look up a synonym for that word and use it several times that day. If nothing else, just to sound more distinguished.
You know what else he did in jail? Got fat, ate a lot of honey buns. I did. I got up to. You were a tank in there, dude.
I was in jail for a year and two weeks and I went in probably like I was living on the street effectively. I mean, I had lived with those chicks on their couch for like, I remember that four months, six months. Yeah. But like I could stay there as long as like no one else was over there or one of their baby daddies wasn't over there. So it was like, could stay there, but some nights I'd just like walk around and all day, every day I had to walk around and just be in the house and like live there. But either way, my point is, is I wasn't, I wasn't in a well-balanced diet. Most of my diet was drugs. So the, uh, my weight wasn't up and then I went into jail and God bless her, man. Grandma, she put. I think 100 bucks or 200 bucks on my books every single week without fail. Every single week. And in there. That's like a million dollars. That's right. And there you're living like a king, you know, like in there we're getting fresh. $200, $200 a week. One or two a week. I remember I've won without fail. Yeah. Pretty sure. That sounds like grandma.
She was a woman's a Saint. It's like 180 honey buns a week. Nope.
I mean, the pricing in there is terrible. That's probably like $5 a honeymoon. But that's all you have to look forward to, especially because it's not prison. Like, I was trying to get to prison. I was trying to get to prison because I knew I'd have more freedom. Like, county time sucks.
I didn't want to necessarily go to, like, Max, you know, and like... You want to be in the yard, gin pop. I wanted to be, yeah.
Honestly, I'm going to be real transparent, like I wanted to get high at the time. That's the truth. Cause I was told, I was told in a prison, like, and then that's sad that go from like off the street. And then you're obsessively thinking about that so much so that you're like, Oh, well, it's in prison. I can just live there and get high. And so I'm like, dude, I, that's where I want to be. And I, irony is getting sentenced to 10 years, also spent about 18 months. And then they're sending you back the 18 months thing. It's probably why, but if it was two years or in a day, they would have sent me up to minimum security. Uh, you know, basically pre-release or had yard privileges, pizza, food, which I had pizza there, but playstation, you worked the kitchen. But in prison, I kind of bought like a paste PlayStation. I could have got high, which is not smart.
You can legally buy a PlayStation in prison.
Yeah. It's not like it's like PlayStation two, which back then was PlayStation three or four. Right. Right. Get a little TV. Just saying. So I was like, yeah, I'm trying to go to prison. It's don't get any ideas. It's not like should have killed a guy. I was trying, man. I was trying to get it. I think that they did that on purpose. My judge was her first case in big boy court. She was a juvenile court. I was her first case. And she was like very, she gave me like no parole, no probation, no hit strict probation, no parole, no early release, no good time. The only reason I was able to get any days was by working in the kitchen. Although she was like, you're gonna do every bit of your time. And if I see you again, You're gonna get every day of your backup time, every bit of this 10 years. Uh, the judge was not impressed that I was a college student or college graduate. Uh, she was like, well, that means you knew better, you know? So don't try to rob a store, even if you don't actually have a gun, cause they don't like that. But anyhow, they didn't give me the, they gave me County time, which is way worse, which means and longer by the way. Had I gone to prison, I'd have been out sooner, had more freedom, but who knows? I probably would have got killed because getting high in prison is a bad move because you rack up debts that you can't pay. The way I moved, I didn't give a shit. I didn't care if I died. You know what I mean? I'd stole from so many dealers. I was basically Omar from The Wire. I just started watching The Wire, by the way. Pretty cool.
Have you watched that show? I started watching it.
Um, I was surprised the way they went with him, by the way, not that I care.
I'm just saying, I was like, Whoa, it just Elvis character.
No, it's just all about is different character. Omar basically remakes living in Baltimore. Just he's a stick up guy, Robin dealers, Robin, Robin dealers. So I was a less cool, whiter Omar, but way more disorganized. wacky, but anyhow, doesn't like Omar did that for money. I was doing that for to try to get high. So like can't then go back to that guy to get drugs. So you got to keep finding new dealers. Yeah.
You're going to run out the pool room.
It's a very short sighted play.
Uh, but you know, you're not thinking very clearly.
No, no, no. But I wasn't thinking very clearly back then, which is how I ended up jail in the first place. So, and how I got fat. But I got fat because grandma was sending me 200 bucks a week and I was living literally and figuratively large. I did work out a whole lot at first.
But you came out looking all right. Came out because I liked trash bags of water or something like that.
Came up and saw me when you were working in Ocean City, I think.
That was before I worked in Ocean City. I was actually going to the gym like six days a week. Yeah, he was in good shape. Because I was actually probably in the best shape I've ever been. I saw you and I was like, Yeah.
I usually, when I'm sober and healthy, I was always like in the gym and in really good shape. So like, that's, that was like an easy way to always spot where I was at in life. Like I always took care of myself, worked out, kept my cars clean, my room clean, bed made. And then like, if I was just completely disheveled and stuff's dirty, I'm messy and not in shape. It's like, what's going on with you? So it's funny how easy it used to be now that I think about it. But in there, That's what happened. I like tore something doing pull-ups on the steps because we had these bottom tier steps. And that was it for me. I was like, ah, well, I pulled something. I'm just going to be a fat turd now. So six months later, eating every day, eating honey buns and hookups.
Yeah. Is that the burrito thing you tried to show me?
Burrito thing was, and I did make one of those one time. The burrito. So we would have the burrito. No, I never had that. Never had that on. I think it's the first for this show. The burrito for those that are uneducated or uncultured in jail is we live on ramen noodles. That's like everything. It's the base for everything. Dude, my roommate had high blood pressure bad. He was like 20, you know, and he was like, I can't man some damn burritos, man, some damn hookups. And he's probably right. Cause it's just salt, salt, salt, salt, salt. So, but we like, dude, if you said what they feed you and I worked in the kitchen, like I'm eating the noodles, bro. I'm not eating sweaty meat or like shit that comes in this like human carcass looking form. It's like, this is, I guess, turkey. I'm like, man, ain't nothing in there that is turkey. Then I'm washing the trays and you lift the trays up and roaches just scatter everywhere. I'm just telling you, man, it's everything you'd probably think it would be is exactly what it is. Like mouse turds in the freaking food. It's just like, nah, I'm not eating that. But that is how I got in shape because I got real fat from eating the ramen noodles. And the burrito is a very, there's very clever in, I don't know, man, the people in jail, they got nothing better to do. Like they can use batteries and stuff to light cigarettes. And like, you can make use of everything, dude. Like these dudes were smoking this one guard fucked with the guys. And we're like, yeah, I'll give you some tobacco, man. And he gave them some like basically beef jerky dip. And they're like, they were all like rolling it up. And I knew it was this dude. I'm not going to say his name, but he basically just mess with them. Cause he's like, which could have gotten him in real trouble. Had he really given them that, but he's like, sure, I'll give you some tobacco. And it was like little shredded beef jerky dip for your lip. And they were all trying to smoke it. But anyhow, the fact that they can roll up and smoke anything with like a razor and a battery and spark and light something and a, and a paper clip, like the guys go into jail and become a Guyver basically. In this case, they were a chef version of MacGyver because they get a big trash bag. They take the ramen noodles, they break them all up, get all these different flavors. Everybody's pitching in. I pitch in my two noodles and maybe like I got the spicy package. So I got like the pickle and you get the other package. You got the fish. He's got the he's got the oh, dude, yeah, tuna. Got to have the tuna. And he's got the beef stick because he's got the beef package, which is a giant Slim Jim thing in water. But cut that up. The little punks of Slim Jim, there's your meat and your tuna, bagged tuna, and then pickle. The pickle set it off and you get a pickle from the pickle package or the spicy package. One of them, I don't know, but cut up the pickle burrito is the basis is the is that's where they, they get the noodles. They put it in, they get a nice and like obviously hot with hot water. Then we take and we take cheese. It's. Ritz crackers? No. Saltines. You just smash them up into a fine, like, real, real, you know, powder. Mix all that in with the noodles while they're hot and it makes it real pasty. You know what I mean? Then you smash it on the table like you're spreading out a pizza thing, but you make it nice and long. And we like to put in You put in the seasoning in it, so it's not just like no flavor in it. You know what I mean? So you gotta like put the seasoning packets. The seasoning that comes with the noodles? Yep, you put that in it. So it's not because otherwise it's just a bland like ew, dude. But then you take nacho cheese down the middle, then all your little fixings. And sometimes, a lot of times, in the ramen part, we're taking Doritos, we're taking Cheetos. And so you got that in the actual burrito layer to give it a little extra kick. Then you take and you put your beef stick in, cut up, your tuna in, cut up, your pickle in, cut up, some more crunchies with the nachos. I know this sounds, this sounds good. It's not bad. It's good. Trust me. I'm actually like, I'm not gonna lie. I don't knock it. Look. And then I just couldn't eat it now because my heart would probably explode, but it is definitely horrible for you. Then some more cheese, spicy chips or whatever. And then you roll it up. Then you cut it, obviously, right. And then I would take and put more cheese, more, more, uh, crunched up Doritos for like crispy on top. And here's the kicker grape jelly. Cause it was spicy grape jelly, but add like a, you know, sweet to the spicy. And I was eating that a lot. So I gained that plus honey buns with peanut butter and like a Snickers bar on top of it. You just get bored, dude. You got nothing else to do. We were on lockdown a bunch of times you eat and I was not working out. So I got that, you know, I, you know, when I'm, when I weigh, I weigh right now and I'm in pretty lean, but I'm okay. I've gained a couple of pounds. recently because I'm just stressed and crap like that. My wife and I have been trying to, it's a bunch of whatever. But even then I'm in pretty good shape, right? I stay in the gym all the time, take care of myself, try to watch what I eat. I was 265 pounds, I'm like 180 right now. 265 pounds. Big horse. How much are you right now? 270. Yeah. So I was five pounds away from when he weighs. I'm six two, almost six three on my good leg. You guys can't see. My special leg. See how that one goes a little further than the other one. It's a result of the accident. I don't know if you can see the. But when they put the bar in, the bar was a little shorter. Obviously, obviously. Look at that.
Almost two feet.
That's that's why. So I I put a I put a lift in my shoe, but obviously it doesn't do enough. separate the distance. So I'm still like off kilter that much. I used to get special shoes made. Yeah, the frankenboot.
I miss those things.
The frankenboot. Yeah. We were in the same fraternity and we had a scavenger hunt and they were like, no, it was called the moon boot, but the frankenboot or the moon boot. The frankenboot was my work boot. That's right. The moon boots were just my moon boots. I had like a pair of Nikes or something.
It was like Air Forces or something. Air Forces, yeah.
And Air Forces are flat, so you can get the soles extended. So have you ever seen those on TV with like one of those guys? It's like, they're like, but this one, this one wasn't as bad as like some of the ones you see, but it was still bad enough where I was like, nah.
So you're like, realistically, you're like an inch different.
It's bad, dude. The only way they can fix it is to go in there and re-break it, pull out the bar, extend. And they can do, they can, but I'm like. That's a lot. Right. I'll deal with the back pain or being off kilter. I am in, uh, versus risking all that and going back down a road. That's undoubtedly going to lead to take these. That's how I got started by the way. I didn't, I joke about the whole drug use thing because it's what happened, but like, I didn't decide that drugs just sounded like a cool thing. Like I got in a car accident and I was pumped full of pain pills, like three years.
So you were one of them. I know. Yeah. Long time, long time.
The surgeon did the right thing. He was like, all right, cool. You're done. It was Dr. Feelgood. I was like, oh, your back hurts because of it. Here, Percocet. He lost his license too. Did he? I used to go in there. He could only get, he could only prescribe like base. He couldn't prescribe any, like we became, well, I don't know. He could prescribe you like penicillin, but he lost his license to prescribe anything, uh, cereal.
He gave me codeine cough syrup every time I went in there. I think it was like a buy one, get one. You know what I mean?
That's why I lost his license, dude. I starting to think like maybe he did know what he was doing. You know what I mean? Maybe he was getting kickbacks. Anyhow, dude fucking ruined my life. If he did. Thanks, pal. He's dead now. But he would give grandma whatever she wanted, whenever she just going about my back hurts, I need some percocets or whatever. She didn't have a problem, but. I don't know. That's what things were back then, so whatever. I was back during those. Those were the good days. All those shows that they made about like dope sick and everything like back then when they were like still getting away with kickbacks like that I was the byproduct of that unfortunately.
I think it's unfair to the people who aren't addicts that we can't have that kind of stuff you know what I mean? What? Drug habits? To be able to abuse painkillers.
You could abuse them if you wanted to you just got to pay the consequences man. I don't know. And that's the thing.
It's like people now.
I'm sure someone found a way around that. I'm sure they did, dude. I don't know. Apparently there's a pharmacy up the street just got robbed. And I was like, I can, I always think of like, okay, that's CVS.
So Davidsonville road gets robbed like pretty frequently.
This one was a, this was the professional pharmacy or whatever. They said that they like cut the lights and everything. I was like, what?
It's like a third party pharmacy. I don't know. Always wary of those. I probably shouldn't be.
Cause it's called Annapolis pharmacy. I don't know. It's just like a regular, but I mean, I just assumed, I was like, can I guess why? But I didn't think they still kept that shit. But apparently they do. Apparently it's still out there. That's the thing though. Nowadays, and I don't know, because I've been sober for almost seven years this month, apparently they get pressed pills. So you'll get a pill, unless you get them yourself from the doctor, you'll get a pill that looks like, say, a Percocet, but it's fentanyl. And it's pressed and looks exactly like one. And the rap songs, those rap songs, like, I know the pill was fake, but I still took it. What's that song? Super Gremlin. Like there's a bunch of that stuff. And I'm like, that shit will kill you quick, real quick. And a lot of people that have died thinking that they're just going to take one Xanax or one perk or whatever. And it was not that, you know, shit. Brett used to do all that. You know what I mean? He was like, he knew they were fake. It's terrifying. Like, but that's what happened, by the way, when I'm talking about all this, it's not, for those of you who don't know my story, it's not like I just decided to start doing drugs. I was in a car accident and they turned it into that. Most people listening to this know that, but at any rate, that's also why I got fat in jail, because I tried to rob a store for those drugs. So it was a quick, relatively quick progression into craziness.
Do you want to shout out the store or do you want to leave that out? Hallmark? Shout out to Hallmark gift cards. Yeah, I tried to. Of all the stores, the Hallmark's gotta be the biggest.
There was like $60 probably in that register. Well, there was a giant Hallmark in a liquor store in the hood, and I'm like, I don't actually have a gun. I'm just gonna say, I was not thinking correctly, first of all. Obviously, I was out of my mind.
I just think it's a hilarious story.
So I went in there and it was just like, literally the discovery pack, it's like, She observed me casually walk away, like, oops, sorry.
Psyche, just playing. Give me all your snow globes.
Give me all your thank you cards. Yeah, it didn't work out very well. So, but anyhow, then I got in shape. Then I went from 265 in jail eating honey buns every day and burritos to 220, which is still 40 pounds heavier than I am now. But I was, I was big. I was pretty big. I had like a four pack. So I wasn't like, I came out, I was pretty big. Lifting water bags, pushups. Like we made do with what we had. We got two times a week where we got an hour in the gym, if everything went right. But other than that, dude, to your point, there's nothing else to do. We were in this little teeny kitchen quarters, sleep, workout, pushups, and then Fridays. You'd live for Fridays. I actually worked my way up in the kitchen pretty good. Went from like dishwasher, which is the worst place. We call it water world. Cause you're just in there like, and you're just getting steam.
You're just coming out.
So every day it was just the worst spraying, everything, food flying all over you. Just who cares, dude. Did I have a cellmate? Yeah, I had a bunch of cellmates.
I had some really cool cellmates. You call them bunkies? What'd you call them? Cell buddy. Cellie. Oh, yeah. If you don't trust your cellie, don't sleep on your belly? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Words to live by. Yeah. I had a couple migo cellies, Spanish cellies. We just called them migos then because they didn't know where they were from, so they were just, this is probably insulting. Prison talk. You know.
Everything goes in jail.
I actually would like try to learn Spanish. That's what was actually cool. Cause I took a few years. So like, if they didn't speak English, we'd sit up and I would just, I know a couple words. Cause you see me, you know what I mean? So I would like draw stuff and like, what's this knee elbow up, down, left, right. You know what I mean? I had no idea what they're in there for. I'm like, man, give me your, he could be in there for killing somebody or who knows some weird stuff, but did you retain any of that? Some of it, not a whole lot. Once in a while I can communicate basic stuff like. I know like dog, cat, sister, brother, up, down, left, right. You know what I mean? Like probably the most basic shit. So if someone shows up at the house, like, but hey, dog up, dog down. I don't know how to make it say like downstairs. I know like construction. Pluralize or whatever. Yeah. And I had to say work and. Basura.
Trash. Yeah. Trash. Yeah. Uh, jefe grande. Big boss. Big boss.
Uh, Damn it. I just lost my train of thought, dude. I don't know. I was talking about jail stuff, whatever. Anyhow, I got better here.
You should have a whole jail podcast.
I could have a whole jail podcast and I can have a lot of cell buddies still are old guys from the, uh, there's a few that I still probably give a lot of people wanting to see what the hell inmates are up to now. That actually might not be a bad idea. I have a few, I still talk to, we could just connect, see how they're doing some success stories. Unfortunately, I have a few where, like, one of them, shout out Block. He's probably, I think he's, I hope he's getting home. He's got out and back in. I remember you talking about him.
Yeah. Yeah, you could do, like, a VH1, like, where are they now? Yeah. Where are they now? Yeah.
Behind the bars with Ken B. Behind the bars with Ken B from hard, hard life of county in Eastern Shore, Maryland. And we could do some, I mean, it doesn't have to all be, it could get guys from prison, different prisons, different jails and see how they're living now and some success stories. That's not a bad idea. That'd be entertaining. People love a comeback story.
It's an interesting angle. And you could share, like, jail stories. I don't know. I would be interested in that. I always watch stuff. People are, like, talking about stuff in prison. I'm like, oh, yeah. What you do in prison? Yeah. People, people.
There's a guy running around. Which world people don't know about. Yeah. When I first got there, there was, like, a bunch of chaos in there. Some dude, some guy had come in. It broke his arm. And they had made the mistake of letting him in with these metal braces. and gave them to his brethren in there. Uh, I don't know, whatever. I mean, I'm just, this is what I remember. I'm just saying, I believe it was like the Muslim guys, whatever. And they sharpened them up and they had swords. And the irony was the guy was a white guy that was like running it, which is crazy. Uh, yeah, but it was a group of Muslims. They weren't always like this guy. That was crazy. Yes. White and crazy. I hear you, Roger. Uh, not wrong there. This guy was like, I don't know, he was just crazy. So like when I first get there, he's got like these two swords in his waistband. He's got the like Muslim thing on the, I don't know what that's called, but he's just like challenging everybody. I don't know, he's just crazy. Just got out, just got down to prison bit. And there's not a ton of white Muslims, you know what I mean? So that was the jarring piece. He's like, what? This is a guy I want. But he had other guys that were in there that, you know, They all had them. They all had these little swords. I'm like, all right, well, welcome to jail. And this is jail, not prison. You know what I mean? So lots of fights, lots of fights though. The fights there, man, that's just what dudes do. What do you expect? You know what I mean? Fights over this, fights over that. You learn how some things that you learn from jail, I feel like every young man should learn this day and age because social media almost removes the lessons that you kind of need to learn. It's like, If you're going to have social media, you got to throw these men and kids in jail, like men, something, some kind of situation like that. It's probably an extreme solution. Like social media takes away the fear of consequence from your actions. Like talk to just anybody, anyway.
And internet trolls. Yeah.
People live off of that, saying stuff, doing stuff, making fake accounts. Like it's bizarre. And like, you can't go to jail when you're around other men, that conduct themselves like men. And you say one thing, like the B word.
Remember you telling me that was like a big one.
Completely off limits.
B word is like, you just say a casual, like, oh, you know, shut up, you know, bitch or whatever. That's it. That's a no go. That's 100%.
Now it has to fight. No, it's not. Bitch, we have to leave it out. The B word, B-I-T-C-H, whatever. Female dog. You can't call, call somebody that in jail. You have to go and put your shoes on. strap up, lace up.
Oh, you got to put your shoe. Okay. So you have better grip.
You don't put your shoes on. Yup. You hear that?
It's like a basketball gym.
Everybody gets, everybody gets quiet and that's all you hear is squeaky shoes. Yup. That's your entertainment for the week. I put my shoes on many times, but At the beginning, I had my shoes on at all times. Everybody thought I was like this crazy white kid, and I was just looking for smoke. But I just, they didn't know, I just had no idea I had my shoes on. I'm like, why wouldn't I have my shoes on?
I had to instigate so many fights in jail. I just.
Yeah. I almost got into a lot of them over cards and bones and this and that. It's just, man, tempers flare quick, you know. But I had a much easier time. There's a lot of lessons I learned that were valuable in jail that I can apply to life and business and things now, you know. I was a hothead for a long time. And then in jail, it's like, dude, this is going to be a really long shitty bid to just be like constantly every single day being the guy that I was like trying to be a tough Tony or whatever.
You were remarkably humble when you came out of jail. Yep. He lost a little bit of that, but you're, you know, you know, I lived in jail.
Yeah. And then even when I came out of, I feel like I'm still humble, but I'm just, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I had no, my tooth was like broken. I lived, I was, you know what I mean? I was beat up, literally.
I liked the most humble version of Ken was living in the, living in the farm loft with like that beat up white truck.
Yup. That was my first place after my halfway house.
I remember there, you're like, man, I went to TJ Maxx, man, they got some good stuff in there. I was like, I've been shopping at TJ Maxx, bro. You're always buying like Abercrombie Exchange. I was like, man, they got some good stuff in TJ Maxx. I'm like, yeah, I know.
Yeah, I found out about TJ Maxx. I lived, my first place that I moved into after the halfway house was that room above the garage.
That was a cool little place.
It was awesome. It was on a horse farm. The people were awesome. The lady was like, she could kind of use somebody there that was like a man that could help now and then. I mean, they didn't need my help. They were tough, you know, like feeding the animals and they were working hard, working like her daughter was a hard worker. She had a good job, but I could like ride horses and shit when I wanted to, like taught me how to ride horses. It's awesome. I could just walk out of my little room. It was a little one bedroom loft above a garage. It was an in-law suite kind of thing. I think she made it for her daughter, but on this little horse farm, anytime I wanted to go outside and smoke a cig, there's like a donkey. Two horses. I just go out there and like, hang out, talk to them and pet them. And it was awesome. Got to ride one a lot. It's freaking probably my favorite place I lived. I love that place. And I had this little crappy S 10 that I bought for 900 bucks, a leak clutch fluid.
That was my first truck that I got as your work truck. That truck got me a race place.
Yeah. Installing retrofitting lights where I would call him cause he was in the union. I'm like, Hey, we're trying to figure out how to do this. So I had no experience doing anything with electric or installing lights. Neither of us, none of us did, by the way. So near death, we're just in there. Like when he got showed one time by a guy that was also not an electrician, there was one electrician on that whole site. And he was unfortunately somebody also who needed to be in recovery. And we just didn't know I should have known. Cause I mean, I was fresh into recovery, but that guy, and then a whole bunch of guys that didn't know what they were doing during lectures, electrician work.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? Yeah. I got hit somehow. Yeah. Most of us got hit, but yeah, scary. I would tell him, he'd be like, dude, this is not, you guys can't do that. We're doing it. But the company did not live. Shocker. So that was a first. Yeah. No pun intended. First lesson in a business of your own was like, well, ultimately just got tired of watching other, you know, but I learned a lot of lessons from other people in business. premise of the podcast is supposed to be the state of the union, but I do feel like we did touch on a whole lot about just the natural state of things. Currently we're like, no one knows how to do shit. It really is like that South park episode. So if you're a young man or woman listening to this, you're thinking college is the move. Take it from me. We both went to college. Actually, I would tell you that You are of desperate need in a union that is going to treat you. I mean, he just quit. Didn't like how he was, you know, wasn't being, uh, he was running work, right. For major company. But the, the need is so great that within that same day at an offer for more money and he'll probably get more like it's, there's so few people that can do what they do and work with their hands and do shit. Electrician work HVAC iron workers. You know what I mean? Like there's a, they're in desperate need of people that is willing to work hard that can then go up and there's even fewer guys that want to do it and then like run work and be responsible and be bosses.
Oh yeah. If you're a motivated person, um, and you don't even need to, if you come out to my job and you've never even seen a screwdriver, but you care, you show up on time. You actually care and you're willing to give an honest day's work and like willing to learn. That's all anyone asks. You don't have to have any kind of other background. Just get in the trades. You can make good money. Um, a lot of the trades will pay you to go to school and the electrical, the benefits are great. I have, I have three kids and a wife. They're all on my benefits. Um, and they have a little go to pay union dues. Yes. I pay union dues. I pay. I pay like between one 20 and like $200, but my, my family of four, all of us total health coverage. So to me, it's worth it, but, uh, you know, the work is just, there's so much work, especially in this area, DC metro area, man, there's data centers everywhere. There's government spending. There's just. a never ending flow of work. And they're just guys are retired. There are people when I got in, in 2012, uh, guys were like afraid to retire because I didn't think they'd be able to afford, uh, being retired. But guys are like retiring in droves now. Um, so people are leaving and there's not more, there's not enough people replacing them. There's a huge deficit. So like you were saying, there's, There's guys who want to come in and work, or even if you want to come in, listen, you don't have to have some passion or electricity or HVAC. You don't even have to like the job, but if you do it and you do it well enough, that's fine. That's all anyone can ask you. Just do the job you're asked. You don't have to love it. If you're doing it for the money, do it for the money. If you're doing it for health insurance, do it for the health insurance, but do it, get out there. You know, it's not that bad. It's not like back in like the 90s.
Really selling this union job. Just it's not that bad.
It's not what people have conception of construction workers that you're going to come out on the job site. Some guy in a white hard hat is going to throw a tool at you. It's fun. I liked it. I honestly enjoyed the work.
I thought it was fun. It's just for me, I just I don't sit still. Well, which is great. I got to do stuff. I like building stuff with my hand. I liked all the I liked everything about it. The only reason is just I got into sales. And for me, in the way that I am, it was like perfect for me because I just love the idea that like, as good as I can be at something, that's how much money I can make. Like that for me, it was like, I can't get that here. If I could have gotten that there, I would have stayed. But you know, they don't pay commission or like, how would they, unless maybe I could have started selling jobs for there. And I would have done that. You know what I mean? Then I would have stuck around. There's other angles you can tip, but I'm telling you, getting into that, no one knows how to do shit anymore. If you want a good paying job, you think you're going to get a college and make six figures. You can make six figures quicker. I would almost guarantee you getting into a union. Almost guarantee you, which isn't much these days to his point, but my cousin went into a union, just started running work. You know, now he's making what? quarter million bucks a year. His bonus alone is probably a quarter million bucks a year. I mean, it's just like, Sean. And then he works for a union company. Yeah. Right. He works for a union company. Bottom line is there's plenty of things you can do, or you can, you know, he's Dustin makes great money. He's got all these benefits and stuff. It's perfect for a family security security, dude. There's no one else. No one else is so like, if you don't, And if you don't push your kids to like, hey, you might want to consider this. Who else do we have? Who's going to build shit? Sincerely, that is a concern that I have, like all jokes aside, like that's freaking scary.
Well, yeah, because you're not, I mean, you're talking to infrastructure, right? You're not going to have all of our infrastructure.
We have no one to put on it. And if you want to complain about. They took our jobs. Like you gotta have people who want to do those jobs. So like go apply for the jobs. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. I mean, you're talking, like I said, every trade, electrical, plumbing, all that stuff, your sewer system, there's not a whole lot of people doing that stuff anymore.
And if you're lost in the sauce and don't know what you want to do, man, like that would be something I would strongly consider. You think everybody's just going to magically work with computers and be some influencer or whatever. You can still be an influencer doing that, by the way.
Absolutely.
Look, man, I've watched probably more so because nobody knows how to do shit. So they got to look up tick tock, how to do shit.
Yeah. I've watched YouTube videos of like other electricians talking about, you know, things they've done or maybe things I haven't considered or, you know, anything, or even like other trades, like plumbing and all that. I mean, it's, it's good stuff to know. Our dad always made at least me work, work with him doing a bunch of stuff. You weaseled out of that a lot.
I did. I used to call me blister show up when the work that's right. I made up for it since I feel like some, maybe some, I don't know, but in all seriousness, the state of the union is concerning and that there are no one really on the bench. There used to be thousands. There's not anybody on the bench. We need people to build our things and infrastructure and you need jobs, good jobs. Strongly suggest you start swinging that pendulum back, which I think it will, but if it doesn't, I don't know. I'm not going to end on a bad note. So like let's. Encourage your kids, or if you're lost and don't know what you want to do, take a look at the union. Just try.
You never know.
Go work for Dusty B if you're in the local area. Go work for Dusty. He doesn't know where he's going to land yet.
I went to college for communications, and I always thought I'd be on the radio. And the thought of working in construction, I thought they were disgusting people. I'm not going to be a construction worker. You know, nasty. That's what I thought. Disgusting people. But here I am. I'm one of those disgusting people, and we're not that bad. We're good. They're normal people. They are normal people normal people. We all have families We're all different walks of life man, and it's it's great we get along most of them make a lot more money than probably you That's a thousand percent.
That's the truth man. I'm just being real so like if you wanna make really good money I Can I can speak at least for the electrical you think about it right now? They've got 53 people in a bit on the bench like who have to it's only gonna They're only gonna have to pay them more. I told you He just was unhappy with where he was at. He knows he has the protection of the union. He knows that no one can do what he does. There's probably four other fucking people, excuse my language, in this entire state. He's not going to, you know what I mean? You can just, where else? Like, can you quit your job today and decide where you want to go? Have the peace of mind of knowing like, oh yeah, I'll have a job. I'll just go do this somewhere else and make more money. That's the state of the union currently. So like, go give it a shot. I don't know if you don't have a job, try it, man, like, or encourage your kids. We need people to continue to build this country. Blue collar jobs, both what he does and I do, because I'm in remodeling, you know, he's building the buildings. We're residential more, but, and we come in not new construction, but the, you know, we're the replacement products, you know what I mean? So we're when you invest back into your home, but still, And there's a lot of money there, but even more so, like, we need good people. Like, I don't know what else to say. Don't be afraid to sell. Don't be, don't be a, who? Oh, okay. Is there anybody in that one? Cool. Did they have anybody in it? We have an interview in five minutes. Roger, this is Roger. Has anybody ever heard of his favorite? Come on, come on out here, Roger. Come from behind the camera. This is Roger. He runs most of this stuff. Him and my team, Paulo and Mo, they're in the Philippines. I'd have them step out front, but these guys do all the hard work. So I just talk. Most of the stuff you see edited and all that, that's these guys. So they're the real superstars. And they're the ones blowing up his phone, telling me that I had an interview with the main company, which is PCR Roofing. So if you need a roof, or citing Potomac customer modeling or in the DC metro area, DMV, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and PA. If you want to go and work in a union, hit up Dustin. Where's your social media at? What do you have? Do you use anything? I know you don't really use Facebook.
Don't bother looking me up on social media.
All right. Well, I don't know. We'll figure out where he lands and message me and I'll try to get you a job. Then seriously, if you want a job in a union, message me, look me up at Ken Baden on YouTube, official Ken Baden on Insta, Kenny Baden on Facebook. I don't know why we don't have just one name.
It's confusing.
I know. I just need to make it Ken Baden. Anyhow, look me up if you need to get a union job or you're interested in a union job. I hook you up with Dustin, my brother, and honestly, most of my friends because they were smart and they went union and, uh, Thankfully for me, sales worked out very, very well. And if you want to talk about a sales career, I'd be happy to help you. Both of which are great spaces to go. Both of us are in blue collar industries and doing pretty well. So I think the future is blue collar. Uh, I really hope that pendulum swings back because people don't know how to do shit anymore. So let's change that. God bless. Don't forget to like, subscribe, leave a review. I hope you liked the episode. If not, sorry. Love you.
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