Prison

How about some prison stories to get rid of my new, softer image? A little incarceration goes a long way when looking to rebound your street cred.

Some common misconceptions.

The average outsider has two ideas about prison. The first one is of the old school penitentiary with thirty foot, stone walls, castle looking, tiny cells that are filled with rats and filth. They imagine this place as damp, dark, and dangerous. A place with roving bands of white men with swastikas on their foreheads and kill whitey black Muslims, looking for innocent rape victims. They think you run the risk of getting stabbed to death on your way to pick up your breakfast tray each morning. Death and destruction lurk around every corner.

The second idea is of the feed the deer, play tennis, live better than most people on the outside, Federal Penitentiary. Golf courses, swimming pools, lobster and steak in the dining hall. The place where corrupt judges and Martha Stewarts go.

The reason for these images is the media. This is what they choose to show when they are covering prison. This is where the drama is. These are the places that will boost your viewership or readership.

These places, or something similar to them do exist. The are the opposite ends of the prison system continuum. Most of the thousands of people entering prison each year will never see anything like either of these places. Most new fish will end up somewhere in the middle of this continuum.

The average medium security prison may or may not have guard towers. If it doesn't it may have an electric fence to go along with the chain link and razor wire. There aren't any cells. You live in an open dorm the size of a small gymnasium. There is usually anywhere from 150 to 300 people crammed in there with you. Third World conditions. Every body odor imaginable, from feet to breath to ass to armpits fills the air. Many of your roommates aren't super big on maintaining basic hygiene. Many of then don't wash their clothing or bedding. You get so used to the funk inside the dorm that it starts to smell weird outside to you.

Boredom. This is why they don't make HBO series about places like this. You spend most of your day just sitting or laying around.

You can get a job or work some program. For most of my tears I held the same job, not the same job, but in the same area. I worked in the prison industries building. You have three options in prison you can not work, you can work for the facility and get paid $0.98 per day. Yes, that's cents. For this princely sum you will be expected to scrub toilets several times a day or bust your ass in the kitchen, for the Aramark Corporation, for eight hours a day. You can choose to not work, but most of the jobs are tied up with the time cut programs, so if you want to get a reduction off your sentence you will work, even if you are independently wealthy.

A little diversion. This is getting boring anyways.

I am at the Yuppies, Huey Lewis and the News on the house music coffee shop and bakery. I came here for a cup of mushroom and chicken soup and a chicken salad sandwich. I come here a few times a week. There is a guy sitting next to me, in the same spot he is always in. I am also in my usual spot. The reason for this is that this place has a limited supply of electrical outlets. This man is writing a novel on his laptop. He types for a few minutes, then stops and reads out loud what he has just written. Then he picks up his phone and calls whomever it is he calls, and rereads what he has just written. He talks about what he has done, what he is trying to do, and how good it is all going. The book sucks. His writing is dry as a plain saltine. The main character in the book is a boy named Ogden. What the fuck exciting and entertaining have you ever heard of happening to someone named Ogden? He named his main character after a Yuppie skiing village in Mormon controlled Utah.

Had to get that out.

This was the most awkward, uncomfortable time of my career as an inmate. There was a couple days of some serious racial tension. These things happen from time to time. The prison administration had even called in extra guards. I don't remember what this particular incident was over. Could have been drugs and money, could have been a gambling debt, could have been something even stupider. Anyways, the night before this discomfort, I had eaten a big bowl full of nachos, covered in jalapeno cheese and jalapenos. It was time for all this to exit my body. The Vice Lords (African American gang from Chicago, big in Midwestern prisons, for the uninitiated) were having a meeting in the bathroom. The bathrooms in prison being the place you go to do things you don't want the guards or cameras to see. So I tried to hold it. But I couldn't. The bathrooms in prison are wide open. You shit, shower, and shave in front of anyone in there. There were about twenty-five Vice Lords in there. The prison was in the tailgate party for a potential race war. I had to shit. When I couldn't hold it, I went in. All the talking stopped. I walked over, dropped the sweatpants, and took a seat. Now, I am cool with most of these guys under regular circumstances. I was fairly close with their Shot Caller (leader), but these were not regular circumstances. When the line is drawn in prison, everyone knows where they stand. They went back to whispered talking. I let out an ass burning dookey. Had I been a rival gang member, or someone who was known to hold racist beliefs, it would have been a bad situation. I would have shit my pants before I went in there.

Murderers. That is the question I get asked all the time. "You weren't in a place with, like, murderers and people like that were you?' Yes. Some of the nicest people I have met in my life were murderers. That is the answer I give. Ninety something percent of the people who enter prison in this country will be released, which is why this country is stupid for cutting educational and rehabilitation programs in its prisons. Do you want thousands of uneducated, unskilled felons returning to society each year? I don't.

As usual, this has gone off topic, and not made much sense. You are used to that. I just felt like I needed to get a little toughness back after all these sentimental posts. I have been focusing on women too much, which is why I had to send a shout out to one of the bros yesterday.

Which brings up another point. My writing can be obsessive and somewhat objectifying when it comes to women. Much of it centers on what a fuck up and how unreliable to women I have been. Here is the part I don't understand: The worse it gets, the more women seem to write me and tell me how much they like my writing. It's like all those years you were telling me you just wanted me to open up, you weren't lying...................................................................................