From Gunslinger to Monk, Part 2

This is the second part of my controversial interview with Ken Goldberg. He’s gone through many phases in his life. Today, Ken talks about the gun range, being a lawyer, and more struggles with substance abuse. You can also watch the video of his appearance on the Ali G Show (and no, he didn’t know it was a fake interview.)

Ken Goldberg: Once I got my law degree, I started practicing law with the same population, in large part, I’d been social working to.

Jennifer Barry: That makes sense. You understood them and knew they needed a lot of legal help.

KG: I was perfect for it. Juvenile cases, criminal cases, it didn’t matter, I could smell b.s. from a mile away. I could bust my client’s bad story, I could bust a witness’ bad story. I was bright, although I wasn’t successful, and then I met Gerry Spence. He taught me trial law in 1994, and then I became a minor star in my own little world. I learned what was wrong with my technique, and I became monstrously good. But I wasn’t interested. My history is that when I become really good at something, I lose interest.

So I bought the gun range. I became really good at that, sold it. Then I bought a series of bars and proceeded to lose a large amount of money. I also loaned people a lot of money and never got paid back, like one of my former partners at the topless club, who died broke.

JB: So how did you end up buying the gun range? I understand you were bored of being a lawyer, but why a gun range in particular?

KG: Well, my wife, now ex-wife, and I moved to Dallas, and I didn’t have my law license initially. I just sat in the back yard and listened to the fountain while my wife worked. She made plenty of money. I had some money I saved in Chicago as well. We lived in Grapevine in the suburbs in a beautiful house. I thought I would make friends readily in Dallas but I was wrong.

I remember I went to a gun show – we didn’t have any in Illinois – and there was a store from Irving there. I went to buy one gun and left with three. I called my wife and told her I bought a gun store. I was joking of course. She said, “It’d better be a nice one.”

I thought she took that very graciously. So I started looking to buy a gun store.

I ran across the owners of DFW Gun by accident and I bought in. They bought me out later because some bad blood developed between me and one of the cops that owned it. Later the cops were thrown out of the business and the remaining owner and I buddied up. He sold out to me and then I found out he swindled me.

The whole business was dying, we were down to just me and one employee, then I got an opportunity to buy a new building in another location. I invested a bunch of money to build out the range, and we never lost money from the first day we opened.

I turned it around to a thriving business that could have been worth four times as much if I’d been smarter. I didn’t even rent out or use most of the building. There are things I could’ve done, which the next owner did, like putting in a martial arts dojo.

But I wasn’t that smart, and I didn’t have an exit strategy. I thought I would run it forever. It didn’t work out that way.

I sold the gun range for a good dollar amount and started with the radio show. Things really started to go downhill then.

The lifestyle in Dallas was killing me. I would always end up with some stripper at my place at 3 in the morning that I took in because she didn’t have anywhere to go. Then we would end up talking, I would try to help her, do my social work thing. We would end up staying up all night doing meth. A lot of times people would just give me drugs because they wanted me to be their friend.

I did things I’m not proud of on drugs. I once went to court for a federal sentencing hearing after being awake for three days from doing meth. I wasn’t high, just hadn’t slept. I told my partner P. that, said, “I’m worthless, you’ll have to drive.”

I did the hearing, I don’t remember why. My client was sentenced to five years. I totally beat myself up about letting myself get to this state, I thought I did a horrible job.

P. said “I’ve never seen anyone do a better sentencing hearing. They threw everything at her, including the kitchen sink, and you caught everything they threw. You argued everything successfully and she got the minimum sentence possible. You did good.”

This is P., she’s straight as the day is long. She’s never smoked a joint.

I told her I’d broken all the rules I set for myself when I started using drugs again. I promised myself I would never go to court messed up.

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