Speaker 1: Welcome to a brand new mini series, Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flam In the time of COVID. You know, COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen has totally derailed our normal lives and spun us
Speaker 1: into a new strange world of isolation, restricted movement, anxiety, despair,
Speaker 1: and even the threat of death. And it occurred to
Speaker 1: me that I know a lot of people that have
Speaker 1: an intimate knowledge of all these things and much much worse,
Speaker 1: and they know how to cope with them. So I've
Speaker 1: asked a few of my friends to share their very
Speaker 1: unique experiences to help guide us all through these rough
Speaker 1: waters that they know all too well. My hope is
Speaker 1: that all of us can gain some perspective, knowledge and
Speaker 1: value from their triumphs over tragedy. Today, we'll talk to
Speaker 1: a man who did eighteen years on death row for
Speaker 1: a crime he didn't commit, during which he spent over
Speaker 1: twenty three hours a day locked in a tiny six
Speaker 1: by nine ft cell, all while waiting for the state
Speaker 1: of our can saw to set his execution day to
Speaker 1: take his life. He'll tell us how he used exercise, art, structure,
Speaker 1: mental focus, and free will to not allow isolation or
Speaker 1: fear to break him. Plus an epiphany that came from
Speaker 1: an encounter he had with a man who had actually
Speaker 1: beaten someone to death with a can of corn, an
Speaker 1: encounter that continues to guide him even through our current
Speaker 1: shared reality in this time of COVID. We've interviewed it
Speaker 1: before and touched on his story again through one of
Speaker 1: his co defendants, Jason Baldwin. Their story is so totally
Speaker 1: insane that we even spend time with documentary and Joe Burlinger,
Speaker 1: who first covered their story as it was originally unfolding
Speaker 1: before he and his friends became known as the West
Speaker 1: Memphis three. I encourage you to check out season two,
Speaker 1: episode eight, Season seven, episode five, and season eight episode
Speaker 1: twelve to hear how the state literally pointed to I
Speaker 1: kid you not heavy metal music and to even King
Speaker 1: novels as quote unquote evidence along with a false confession
Speaker 1: to convict them for the murder of three young boys
Speaker 1: in the woods. A deeply religious community just knew it
Speaker 1: had to be Satanism or something like that, and it
Speaker 1: had to be that boy who wore Metallica T shirts. Today,
Speaker 1: we'll talk to one of my personal heroes has become
Speaker 1: a dear friend, Damian Echols, about coping in the time
Speaker 1: of COVID. Very Damian, welcome back. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. It actually feels really nice just doing
Speaker 1: this again. Well, it's really good of you to do it,
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of people will take comfort
Speaker 1: from learning what you have to say as they endure
Speaker 1: this very bizarre and troublesome time that we're all living
Speaker 1: through together. So, first of all, Damian, how are you
Speaker 1: and Laurie doing? Kind of really well? Actually, as strange
Speaker 1: as that sounds, you know, for everything that's one on
Speaker 1: in the world, especially here in you know, New York City,
Speaker 1: but I think, uh, this, this kind of life was
Speaker 1: something that I got used to, you know, when I
Speaker 1: was in prison. I got used to having to focus inwardly,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't as dependent upon outside stimulus as as
Speaker 1: most people who have never been put into that situation are.
Speaker 1: So I find myself almost returning to the things that
Speaker 1: helped me cope with prison life out here and realizing
Speaker 1: that those things are actually really good for me. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I've heard you talk about this stuff before,
Speaker 1: but for this special episode, can you just touch on
Speaker 1: how you adapted and what were some of the things
Speaker 1: that allowed you to maintain your sanity in the most
Speaker 1: insane situation imaginable. I honestly, I think the number one
Speaker 1: thing that helped me stay sane is figuring out that
Speaker 1: I could not live for the future. And I think
Speaker 1: that's really important right now to, you know, not to
Speaker 1: constantly torture ourselves thinking about when is quarantine going to
Speaker 1: be over? When is normal life going to return again?
Speaker 1: Because I honestly think the world is probably going to
Speaker 1: change after this. I don't think we'll ever go back
Speaker 1: to the same world that existed before this quarantine uh
Speaker 1: came about? Um Also, I should probably say for me
Speaker 1: in prison, uh, you know, really what it came down
Speaker 1: to for me was having to create a life for
Speaker 1: myself in that environment. So I didn't drive myself insane
Speaker 1: constantly wondering when is this going to be over? Am
Speaker 1: I ever going to get out? Are these people going
Speaker 1: to eventually kill me? How is this situation going to end?
Speaker 1: My saving grace in there was that I was able
Speaker 1: to create a life, And I think a huge part
Speaker 1: of that comes from giving yourself something to focus on
Speaker 1: other than you troubles. If you constantly take in media
Speaker 1: that's telling you things that's making you scared. And that's true,
Speaker 1: whether it's talking about the disease that's going on right now,
Speaker 1: the pandemic that's going on, or whether it's you know
Speaker 1: you're possible upcoming execution date. You can't sit around dwelling
Speaker 1: on that stuff. Are you are going to stew in
Speaker 1: fear and misery. You have to give yourself other things
Speaker 1: to look at and focus on. You have to create
Speaker 1: a world for yourself and a life for yourself and
Speaker 1: for for me in prison. Uh, you know, part of
Speaker 1: it was also structuring my days. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things I've tried to share with people out here
Speaker 1: is you know, we've all heard that it's helpful to
Speaker 1: stay on a schedule, but a lot of people that's
Speaker 1: that's an abstract concept or an abstract theory. We're like, okay,
Speaker 1: stay on a schedule, but what sort of schedule? What
Speaker 1: does a schedule mean? It helps if you give people,
Speaker 1: like really concrete things that they can do for me.
Speaker 1: Those things in prison and out here were things that
Speaker 1: don't sound amazing but have tremendous impacts on your psyche,
Speaker 1: on the way you view the world. For example, cleaning
Speaker 1: you know somebody whenever I first got to prison told
Speaker 1: me the very first person I ever talked to, he said,
Speaker 1: you can either sit in the cell and stagnate and
Speaker 1: go insane like most of the people here, or you
Speaker 1: can choose to turn your cell into a monastery, keep working,
Speaker 1: keep developing. That's what I chose to do, just because,
Speaker 1: you know, when I looked at the other lives around
Speaker 1: me in that environment, to be quite honest, that it
Speaker 1: kind of horrified me to see, you know, people uh
Speaker 1: who were the same after they had been in prison
Speaker 1: for fifteen or twenty years that they were whenever they
Speaker 1: walked in the door. And I thought, I do not
Speaker 1: want to fall into that trap. So I set myself
Speaker 1: a schedule to create time. You know, there's no time
Speaker 1: in prison. There you have no appointments to keep or
Speaker 1: places to go or anything like at So I tried,
Speaker 1: to the best of my ability to live my life
Speaker 1: exactly the way I would if I were in a
Speaker 1: monastery of my own free will. Some of those things
Speaker 1: included cleaning, you know, like getting down on your hands
Speaker 1: and knees and scrubbing the floor, scrubbing the walls out here.
Speaker 1: That's really helpful because not only does it you know,
Speaker 1: maintain a schedule, give you something to do, something productive
Speaker 1: and constructive to focus on. But it's also helpful for
Speaker 1: battling the pandemic, the virus that's going on right now,
Speaker 1: for keeping yourself and your family clean. Another thing in
Speaker 1: there is exercise. You know, for me, I was in
Speaker 1: a tiny cell. I had just enough space to do
Speaker 1: push ups, sit ups, jumping Jack's. Once I'm out here,
Speaker 1: now what I've been doing for exercises. I put on
Speaker 1: a backpack full of weights, and I live in a
Speaker 1: three story building, so I run up and down the
Speaker 1: stairs quite a few times a day with a backpack
Speaker 1: full of weights on. You know, you don't have to
Speaker 1: go out and go to the gym, but if you
Speaker 1: keep your body in shape or you know, in reasonable
Speaker 1: working condition, that is going to go a long way
Speaker 1: towards mental health as well. If you start feeling bad physically,
Speaker 1: you're going to start feeling bad mentally and emotionally too eventually.
Speaker 1: So just things like cleaning, things like exercise. Reading. You
Speaker 1: know a lot of people will say I hate to read.
Speaker 1: I always say there is no such thing as a
Speaker 1: person who hates to read. There are only people who
Speaker 1: have not found books that they love, yet they were
Speaker 1: forced to read things that maybe they didn't like. Even
Speaker 1: if you think that you don't like to read, start
Speaker 1: looking for books about subjects that may interest you and
Speaker 1: start delving into those. Uh. There's a million little things
Speaker 1: you can do to keep your mind occupied that are
Speaker 1: productive and constructive. Uh, and that will prevent you from
Speaker 1: degenerating into this constant state of fear. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you brought up exercise about all the other things, and remember,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of assets that we can all
Speaker 1: find online. Since my friend Adamaste has a gym class
Speaker 1: that he does online Adam Rossante r O S A
Speaker 1: n t E. He has a YouTube channel and he
Speaker 1: does a thing for kids as well as adults, but
Speaker 1: he has a special thing for kids to keep them
Speaker 1: motivated and help prevent them for going stir crazy in
Speaker 1: the house. So you can find these things and they're free.
Speaker 1: There there are exercise routines you can do with your
Speaker 1: own body weight that you don't need to go to
Speaker 1: a gym. So, you know, I have so many other
Speaker 1: questions for you, Damien. You know, it's really interesting to
Speaker 1: me the dichotomy between what you endured and what others
Speaker 1: are enduring now, and you talk about how you had
Speaker 1: to sort of stay focused on the present. You know,
Speaker 1: you had nothing to look forward to after all, whatsoever,
Speaker 1: except more of the same misery and then your own death.
Speaker 1: So for people out here, it's a very different scenario
Speaker 1: because they're looking forward to going back to their routine,
Speaker 1: whatever that might be their job, their school, their daily
Speaker 1: their daily life. Um, I mean, can you give advice
Speaker 1: to to us, the to all of us out here,
Speaker 1: or does the same advice apply. I honestly think it's
Speaker 1: probably the same advice. You know, I'm looking back at it,
Speaker 1: I understand why most people would think that that's how
Speaker 1: my life was in there, But honestly, there were entire
Speaker 1: weeks would pass when I wasn't even thinking about the
Speaker 1: fact that I was imprisoned. It didn't even register to
Speaker 1: me anymore because I was so involved in what I
Speaker 1: was doing, and either what I was creating through various
Speaker 1: artworks or through my own spiritual and meditation practices. I
Speaker 1: was experiencing tremendous amounts of growth that excited me, made
Speaker 1: me happy, gave me something to look forward to. I
Speaker 1: was always, you know, excited about, well, what's gonna come next.
Speaker 1: The the outside world probably wouldn't see any of those
Speaker 1: things because they were all internal things. Uh. It reminds
Speaker 1: me of one of the quotes that I always bring
Speaker 1: up is when Timothy Leary was in prison at one point.
Speaker 1: Timothy Leary was a guy who did all of the
Speaker 1: LSD experiments, and at one point they put him in
Speaker 1: a federal federal prison and Ramdas went to visit him,
Speaker 1: and ram Das tells him, Uh, we came up with
Speaker 1: a plan a way that we're going to break you
Speaker 1: out of here. And Timothy Leary says, no, you can't
Speaker 1: do that. I've got too much work to do. That's
Speaker 1: how I started to feel, probably, I would say, within
Speaker 1: the last couple of years that I was in prison.
Speaker 1: You know, I wasn't thinking about an execution date or
Speaker 1: or what the state was doing, or it just kind
Speaker 1: of faded away for me. I think whenever you find
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to be doing in life, it kind
Speaker 1: of consumes you. It becomes your life's work. Your life's
Speaker 1: work becomes your life. I discovered what my life's work
Speaker 1: was really early. Fortunately for me, with the more I
Speaker 1: poured myself into that, the less I cared about what
Speaker 1: was going on around me externally, and you were deprived
Speaker 1: of all the creature comforts. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are experiencing different degrees of that too. You know,
Speaker 1: so many people are going through food shortages. They also
Speaker 1: may be experiencing, you know, even lack of basic necessities
Speaker 1: like toilet paper. You hear about outages everywhere, and you know,
Speaker 1: I sensed it. For a lot of people, there's less
Speaker 1: joy in their day to day life. I feel in
Speaker 1: conversations I have, there's less joking going on. There's less
Speaker 1: levity in general. There's this feeling of just heaviness, you know,
Speaker 1: in New York where we are, and I've lost two
Speaker 1: friends of this virus already, and everyone seems like they
Speaker 1: know somebody who's who's gone. People are hearing sirens in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night, ambulances racing people to the hospital,
Speaker 1: and it feels like there's a collective heaviness. And Damian,
Speaker 1: I've heard you tell one particular story about a crazy
Speaker 1: experience you had on death Row that allows you to
Speaker 1: see the levity through the almost absolute darkness, you know,
Speaker 1: the one with the guy who had murdered somebody with
Speaker 1: a can of corn. He actually turned I remember you
Speaker 1: saying he turned a vegetable into a deadly weapon. Can
Speaker 1: you tell that story? Uh? There was a guy that
Speaker 1: was in the cell next to me at one point
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, and this guy was pretty
Speaker 1: pretty severely schizophrenic. You know, he would come in and
Speaker 1: out of reality a lot. There are times when you
Speaker 1: could talk to him and he would be completely coherent.
Speaker 1: Other times you would talk to him and and nothing
Speaker 1: that came out of his mouth would be connected to
Speaker 1: reality in any way whatsoever. But there was a time,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of times in the prison you
Speaker 1: would have the sewage would back up, and whenever that
Speaker 1: would happen, you'd end up standing in like ankle deep
Speaker 1: sewage sometimes for a couple of days at a time
Speaker 1: while they had to try to fix the system and
Speaker 1: clean everything up that was going on. One time, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the sewage had backed up. Everybody's miserable, and
Speaker 1: whenever that happens, you know, to to kind of understand
Speaker 1: the full impact of what's going on, You're standing in
Speaker 1: ankle deep raw sewage while you try to eat. You
Speaker 1: are holding your tray in your hand, standing with your
Speaker 1: feet and ship while you try to eat. I can't
Speaker 1: even begin to articulate like the levels of misery that
Speaker 1: you can experience in an environment like that. But this
Speaker 1: guy in the cell next to me, the schizophrenic guy,
Speaker 1: he had to actually beat someone to death with a
Speaker 1: can of corn when he was on the street. We're
Speaker 1: standing there in this ankle deep sewage, and he starts
Speaker 1: singing that Leonard Skinnered song. Can you smell that smell?
Speaker 1: And whenever he did, I just, you know, just the
Speaker 1: absurdity and the outrageousness of the situation that I was
Speaker 1: in kind of hit me really hard all at once,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't stop laughing. And I asked the guy,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I understand, Okay, we're in this
Speaker 1: hellish environment, these people are trying to kill us. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, don't you still have moments of fun?
Speaker 1: Aren't Aren't there still times when you're enjoying your life?
Speaker 1: And he looks at me and says, hell, no, what
Speaker 1: the funk is wrong with you that you would even
Speaker 1: ask me something like that. But for me, I kind
Speaker 1: of I never really lost that. Thankfully they were still
Speaker 1: I was still always able to find things that I
Speaker 1: enjoyed in there. But I mean, I know exactly what
Speaker 1: you're talking about out here because you can, you know,
Speaker 1: in New York. I have never felt New York like
Speaker 1: this before. The only way that I can even come
Speaker 1: close to describing what it's like, you know, when we
Speaker 1: hear about quarantine or lockdown or what's the other word
Speaker 1: they're calling it self self isolation. Uh. You know a
Speaker 1: lot of times in other states, people live in in houses,
Speaker 1: they have yards, they have cars that they can drive
Speaker 1: somewhere and go on a hike. Most people in New
Speaker 1: York have none of that. You know, most people in
Speaker 1: New York don't even have a car unless they're incredibly wealthy,
Speaker 1: So it's not like they can escape all of this.
Speaker 1: And the only way I can describe the environment here
Speaker 1: right now is it feels the way the city does
Speaker 1: when you're in the middle of a bulle wizard in
Speaker 1: the dead of winter and everything comes to a halt,
Speaker 1: everything comes to a stand still. But this is even
Speaker 1: more profound than that. It's like we are in the
Speaker 1: center of a hurricane that we can't even see, can't
Speaker 1: even feel, but you can something in you still registers
Speaker 1: the fact that something is going on around you. New
Speaker 1: York I think is an incredibly special place, just because
Speaker 1: it's not just a place that people here live. It's
Speaker 1: like a character in our lives, you know. We we
Speaker 1: deal with the city the way we would deal with
Speaker 1: a person. That's how present it is in our lives.
Speaker 1: It's it's almost like a force of nature, or like
Speaker 1: a goddess made of concrete and collisions of energy and steal.
Speaker 1: That's happening all the time, and everybody here has a
Speaker 1: kind of symbiotic relationship with the city. Whenever the city
Speaker 1: grinds down, whenever it's hurting, whenever the city's heartbreaks, it's
Speaker 1: like everybody else that lives here our heartbreaks at the
Speaker 1: same time. Whatever the city is experiencing, it's almost like
Speaker 1: every individual within the city is experiencing on a smaller,
Speaker 1: micro cosmic level. So whenever the city shuts down, it's
Speaker 1: like our lives shut down. UM. I do still believe
Speaker 1: with all my heart that somehow, some way, something good
Speaker 1: will come out of all of this. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is. I don't know when it would be
Speaker 1: or how it will take shape, but I really do
Speaker 1: believe that as hard as this has been, something amazing
Speaker 1: will still come out of it in some way. I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you, Damian. You mentioned that you feel
Speaker 1: like we're never going to return to the same idea,
Speaker 1: the normal, and paraphrasing what you said instead more eloquently
Speaker 1: than that, But what will be the differences in your view? Honestly,
Speaker 1: I can't see it. You know, we're too we're too
Speaker 1: far away from the world that we're all going to
Speaker 1: re enter again right now. Uh, there's still a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, a lot of time that has to pass.
Speaker 1: But you know, a lot of times when we think
Speaker 1: of things like destruction, we tend to equate it with evil.
Speaker 1: In some way, I think that is an entirely human concept.
Speaker 1: I don't think the universe views things in black and white,
Speaker 1: good and evil. It views things as as all things
Speaker 1: are sort of necessary in order to continue the act
Speaker 1: of creation, including destruction. There's an old man that lived
Speaker 1: next door to me. He's an old blind man, and
Speaker 1: he sits out on his stairs every day and listens
Speaker 1: to audio books so we can feel the sun on
Speaker 1: his face. And one day he said, I can't even
Speaker 1: This was a couple of years ago, so I can't
Speaker 1: even remember what started the conversation, but he was talking
Speaker 1: about the word odd, and he said it stands for generate, order,
Speaker 1: and destroy, because those are the three things that the
Speaker 1: universe does. Those are the three stages we we go through.
Speaker 1: The universe generates forms, and then it orders them, puts
Speaker 1: them in in specific orders. But as soon as those
Speaker 1: orders start to stagnate, as soon as growth is no
Speaker 1: longer possible, then it's absolutely necessary for it to introduce
Speaker 1: destruction into that environment and tear it down so that
Speaker 1: a new round of generation and creation can start. And
Speaker 1: I honestly think that's kind of where we're at in
Speaker 1: the world right now. I think we are in this.
Speaker 1: In alchemy, they call it the calcination phase, where everything
Speaker 1: kind of gets destroyed, reduced, uh, turned to ash, And
Speaker 1: that has to happen sometimes before we can start to rebuild.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're gonna build a building, you have
Speaker 1: to tear the old building on that site down before
Speaker 1: you can build a new one. I think in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, our lives will change, even if it's
Speaker 1: just people, uh, you know, being more prepared for something
Speaker 1: like this to come in the future. Um, but I
Speaker 1: really do think this is going to have an impact
Speaker 1: on our psyches, on our collective psyche, on our collective consciousness,
Speaker 1: maybe even to the point where we come out of
Speaker 1: this and we're more thankful and more grateful for the
Speaker 1: things that we do have because we've seen what it's
Speaker 1: like whenever they disappear. So maybe this just turns us
Speaker 1: into a more appreciative, grateful, unified society or culture. Like
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know what shape it will take,
Speaker 1: but I do have faith that in some way something
Speaker 1: good will come of it. That's a great sort of
Speaker 1: um affirmation. It's a very interesting time in so many ways.
Speaker 1: I think even relationships are being developed and probably torn down,
Speaker 1: probably tested right at a greater rate than normal. I
Speaker 1: think that there is a real reset happening across the board. UM.
Speaker 1: I did want to ask you a Damien space, right, So,
Speaker 1: by and large, well, there's two different aspects to this,
Speaker 1: and I'm interested in your take on both. One is,
Speaker 1: you have people who are listening who are now confined
Speaker 1: to a relatively small space, a small apartment with quite
Speaker 1: a few people possibly in it, maybe extended family. And
Speaker 1: you have other people who are alone, like really alone
Speaker 1: for the first time where they can't have visitors and
Speaker 1: they can't have even family members come. Some of them
Speaker 1: are elderly. Um, what what advice can you give them?
Speaker 1: As far as that you know, and I'm sure must
Speaker 1: feel like the walls are closing in on people. I
Speaker 1: would say the best advice that I could give about
Speaker 1: that would be to, to the best of your ability,
Speaker 1: surround yourself with things that make you look up, things
Speaker 1: that inspire you, things that make you feel good. And
Speaker 1: it could be anything from hanging photos on your wall
Speaker 1: that that bring back good memories to like you were
Speaker 1: saying while ago, You've got a lot of people out
Speaker 1: there right now offering all sorts of amazing stuff on
Speaker 1: the Internet, and a lot of it is absolutely free.
Speaker 1: You know. Just for example, here in New York, the
Speaker 1: street y m c A is doing this thing where
Speaker 1: for five dollars you can go onto their website and
Speaker 1: they are broadcasting symphony orchestras here throughout the city playing
Speaker 1: concerts and you can hear these amazing symphonies and concerts
Speaker 1: by you know, divor Jack or or Beethoven or whoever
Speaker 1: it is for five dollars. You know, when you're looking
Speaker 1: at something like that, most of the time your troubles
Speaker 1: and your hardships and your problems are going to be
Speaker 1: the last thing on your mind when you are looking
Speaker 1: into the face of something that you find beautiful. If
Speaker 1: you keep your eyes focused on things that are beautiful
Speaker 1: and meaningful and rich and and do something for you personally,
Speaker 1: you're feeding yourself. That's that's literally spiritual sustenance. You are
Speaker 1: feeding your soul. And the more you feed your soul,
Speaker 1: no matter what the environment is like, the better you're
Speaker 1: gonna come out of it. So I would say, if
Speaker 1: you are at home, like you were saying earlier, use
Speaker 1: the internet. You know, there are people out there right
Speaker 1: now giving you know, free yoga classes, courses on everything
Speaker 1: from astrology to taro to uh how to cut your
Speaker 1: own hair, you know, which is a thing that a
Speaker 1: lot of people are dealing with. Just because there are
Speaker 1: no barbershops, no beauty salons, you can learn all sorts
Speaker 1: of amazing things or immerse yourself in beautiful, rich environments,
Speaker 1: even if you're trapped in one room. Is there a
Speaker 1: particular book or um, even a particular piece of music
Speaker 1: or any other creative work, I should say that really
Speaker 1: inspired you and that you think may help to inspire
Speaker 1: other people. As they live through this. Maybe inspire isn't
Speaker 1: the word, but I actually I think it kind of is.
Speaker 1: But you'll see why whenever I say this that I
Speaker 1: hesitated for a minute when I use that word, just
Speaker 1: because whenever we say the word inspire, we tend to
Speaker 1: think it has to be something serious, you know, something
Speaker 1: where where there's no laughter involved, where you know, almost
Speaker 1: like going to church or something. For me, one of
Speaker 1: the things that inspire me I have been going back
Speaker 1: and rewatching old reruns of one of my favorite TV
Speaker 1: shows of all time. It was what this show called
Speaker 1: My Name Is Earl with Jason Lee, and it's about
Speaker 1: this guy who made a list of every bad thing
Speaker 1: he had ever done to it in his life to anyone,
Speaker 1: and decided he's going to go down this list and
Speaker 1: make whatever he had done right to whoever he had wronged.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things that I will sit
Speaker 1: there and watch this show and just laugh out loud
Speaker 1: for for half an hour at a time. And whenever
Speaker 1: I'm watching this and I'm laughing at it, and I'm
Speaker 1: enjoying myself and enjoying my life, Um, I'm not thinking
Speaker 1: about my my hardships. Somebody told me one time that yes,
Speaker 1: you have to dedicate yourself to uh you know, development
Speaker 1: and growth and all these sorts of things, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, you can't lose the ability to appreciate
Speaker 1: a good joke, because humor is a big part of
Speaker 1: what makes life worth living. Find something that makes you
Speaker 1: laugh and maybe watch that or listen to that or
Speaker 1: read that. Right, there's so much great comedy online as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know, I love Louis Black and Ross
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite comics, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: there's so many wonderful comedians. So yeah, that's a great idea,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna watch My Name Is There All. That's
Speaker 1: an amazing plug. I'm excited to actually tune into that
Speaker 1: tonight because I'm watching too many documentaries and too many
Speaker 1: heavy stuff and I feel like I can use that
Speaker 1: escape too, So thanks for the recommendation. Um, and of
Speaker 1: course there's always you know, curb your enthusiasm sort of
Speaker 1: my default when I really need, when I need something
Speaker 1: ridiculous to turn to. It's, uh, it's that's that's an
Speaker 1: easy and easy escape. Um JBS movement like every time,
Speaker 1: and so that's uh, Susie essmanimetually hope it's about it
Speaker 1: makes me laughing. Well, Damien, listen, UM, I can say
Speaker 1: that I miss you guys. I'm looking forward when this
Speaker 1: is done to going out for one of our our
Speaker 1: wonderful dinners that we have time to time. And please
Speaker 1: please give a big hug to your wonderful wife Lorie
Speaker 1: for me. And um, and now, um, you know, I
Speaker 1: think all that's left here is for me to first
Speaker 1: of all, thank you again for inspiring me and all
Speaker 1: of us on a daily basis, and particularly for sharing your, um,
Speaker 1: you know, your perspective with our audience, UM, which I
Speaker 1: think is going to really have a wonderful impact on
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And uh, and then um, you
Speaker 1: know this is always the part of the show that
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the most, which is the part where I
Speaker 1: get to actually just turn my mic off and kick
Speaker 1: back and close my eyes and listen to whatever you
Speaker 1: have to say that you haven't said already. So to
Speaker 1: close out this episode, UM, thanks again, Damien. And now
Speaker 1: words of wisdom, Damian Nichols, The floor is yours. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how much these qualify as words of wisdom,
Speaker 1: but I guess what I really just want to say
Speaker 1: to everyone who's going through quarantine right now, who is
Speaker 1: in self isolation, is thank you for doing this. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm myself, as well as many many other people, uh
Speaker 1: fall into the category that that they call high risk.
Speaker 1: You know, I spent almost twenty years in prison. I
Speaker 1: did not have adequate nutrition, no sunlight, no fresh air.
Speaker 1: I was breathing in tear gas for almost twenty years,
Speaker 1: and it caused a lot of devastating and lingering effects
Speaker 1: to my respiratory system. Uh. So I'm just really appreciative
Speaker 1: for how serious everyone is taking this and how everyone
Speaker 1: is kind of battening down the hatches and dealing with
Speaker 1: it even when they don't want to. Because you are,
Speaker 1: whether you know it or not. You know, when we
Speaker 1: think of saving people's lives, we tend to think of
Speaker 1: these big, heroic scenarios. Sometimes they're not like that at all.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can save lives by just doing a tiny,
Speaker 1: tiny thing like staying home and watching reruns of your
Speaker 1: favorite comedy and uh trying to enjoy yourself a little bit.
Speaker 1: So thank you, thank everyone listening to this so much
Speaker 1: for doing whatever you can to save lives. Mine included.
Speaker 1: This episode was so it was such an amazing experience
Speaker 1: for me listening to Damien, Well, I could. I could
Speaker 1: listen to Damien for hours anytime, because he's just such
Speaker 1: a he's such a deep thinker, he's such an eloquent guy,
Speaker 1: he's such a strong um. You know, it's just sort
Speaker 1: of ethereal presence and his perspective on how to manage
Speaker 1: this bizarre new reality that we're in. It it affected
Speaker 1: me in ways both deep and um and also very
Speaker 1: in a very lighthearted way as well. I mean, he
Speaker 1: gave me, believe it or not, he gave me a
Speaker 1: TV show to watch that I just started watching I've
Speaker 1: never heard of before, that's been making me laugh out loud.
Speaker 1: And he gave me I can only call it a gift. Um,
Speaker 1: he gave me a gift of gratitude in my attitude
Speaker 1: and of um just really thinking of this whole situation
Speaker 1: in a much different way. We don't have to live
Speaker 1: through this. We get to live through this. We don't
Speaker 1: need to be confined by what we're experiencing. We don't
Speaker 1: need to be defined by what we're experiencing. He's not
Speaker 1: He's able to transcend this, just as he was able
Speaker 1: to transcend the tiny environment that he lived in the cold,
Speaker 1: the heat, the loneliness, the frustration, the awful food, the
Speaker 1: fact that he could stretch his arms out and touch
Speaker 1: both sides of his cell, and he was able to,
Speaker 1: in that environment take himself out and live a life
Speaker 1: that was rich. Somehow. I know it seems like it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense, but it's true. He was able to
Speaker 1: live a full life in that tiny cell with no
Speaker 1: Internet and no TV, and no refrigerator and no no
Speaker 1: creature comforts whatsoever. He had nothing but his own mind
Speaker 1: and heart and his will to live and survive and
Speaker 1: and more and to persevere and to to grow. He
Speaker 1: found ways to grow. He didn't have YouTube, he didn't
Speaker 1: have Google, he didn't have Netflix, he had nothing. But
Speaker 1: somehow he transcended, and he's now transcending again. And the
Speaker 1: way that he's doing it obviously is informed by his
Speaker 1: life experience, which is an experience that it is probably
Speaker 1: impossible for any of us to comprehend that haven't actually
Speaker 1: been through it, and very few have been through the
Speaker 1: extreme deprivation and torture that he's been through. So if
Speaker 1: he can do it, we can do it. I guess
Speaker 1: the answer is we need to be grateful for for
Speaker 1: your life, for the people around you, for the roof
Speaker 1: over your head, and when the dust settles and the
Speaker 1: madness slows, we can meet the outside world again with
Speaker 1: new skills, new purpose, and renewed appreciation for all of it,
Speaker 1: especially for all of those not in isolation. Those are
Speaker 1: the real heroes that the people who are fighting this
Speaker 1: thing head on. Our doctors are nurses, all the healthcare
Speaker 1: provieders are garbage man are grocery store workers, people doing deliveries,
Speaker 1: the mailman, people keeping things clean, and of course our
Speaker 1: first responders. In the meantime, I hope you've been enjoying
Speaker 1: Laura and I write received Risen and their eye opening
Speaker 1: accounts of false confessions. I'll be returning with the new
Speaker 1: season of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Floman May and next
Speaker 1: week we're talking to one of my favorite human beings,
Speaker 1: my little sister, Amanda Knox. So come back for another
Speaker 1: new perspective on living in the age of COVID. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor
Speaker 1: to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll join
Speaker 1: me in supporting this very important cause and helping to
Speaker 1: prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one