New Playlist

You may have read my previous post about the songs on my “prison-pod” music player.  Well, gradually, when I can, I’ll buy more.  So here I present my current prison playlist (with no apologies for however corny or lacking in artistic merit they may seem):

Everybody Hurts by REM:  The first cool band that I liked in high school, hard to make out the lyrics, parents didn’t care for them, Michael Stipe had attitude.  Listened to Radio Free Europe over and over, trying to make out the words.  This song came along later, when Stipe started enunciating, but it’s one of my favorites, with understated emotional power.  Message is all in the title, we’re not unique in our suffering, try to hang on:  “If you feel like you’re alone, no no no, you’re not alone!”

Through Glass by Stone Sour:  What ever happened to this band, anyway?  This song says a lot about what it’s like to be in prison, stuck looking out through a pane of glass, unable to interact with the world, though sometimes tantalizingly close.  “How do you feel?  That is the question, but I forget you don’t expect an easy answer.”  In here we do appreciate those of you who understand that asking us how we’re doing can be a more complicated question than if you asked someone on the street.

Ain’t No Man by The Avett Brothers.  I have very fond memories of attending an Avett’s concert with my wife.  This song for me is all about the refrain:  “Ain’t no man can save me, ain’t no man can enslave me, ain’t no man, a man that can change the shape my soul is in, there ain’t no body HERE who can cause me pain or raise my fear, ‘cause I got only love to share, if you’re looking for the truth, I’m proof you’ll find it there.”

Alive by Pearl Jam (aka Mookie Blaylock):  Did you know this band was originally named after NBA basketball player Mookie Blaylock, who wore the number 10, hence the title of their seminal work, Ten?  Yeah, I know way too much about this band I love so much.  They played this song at a concert my wife suffered through for our anniversary (Thank you!!!).  Angst, anger, determination – that’s what the song means to me.  “I’m still alive!”

Bad Blood by Ryan Adams (covering Taylor Swift):  Dude was able to just transform this song in his own style.  I’m no Taylor Swift fan, but I can appreciate her songwriting a little more after hearing this.  No big message from this song.  Just like it.

Bittersweet Me by REM:  When Stipe sings, “I couldn’t taste it, I’m tired and naked,” I feel like he’s speaking directly to me.  In here, you often feel stripped down to the basics, to the essence of whatever you are.  Even in this so-called “easy” prison, I have seen guys who did not like what they discovered when forced to face themselves.

See You Again by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth:  My daughter recently went to a Wiz concert, so thought I’d check out his music other than Black and Yellow.  Maybe not a typical song for him, but I like it and its message of seeing those I love again.  “Our friendship turned to a bond, our bond will never be broken, the love will never get lost.”

Heaven Live:  A band from my 20s and early 30s, mine is a live version from the Paradiso in Amsterdam.  “I don’t need no one to tell me about Heaven, I look at my daughters and I believe!”  I hold my head high and stay strong for my kids.  They deserve that from me.

Fight Song by Rachel Platten:  Okay, no I can’t defend this song, except to say I like it, maybe mostly for the theme – “I got a lot of fight left in me!”

I’ll Be Missing You by Puff Daddy:  A memorial to Biggie Smalls, with gospel singers and a Police sample.  Corny, maybe, but it’s kind of sweet to see a rapper do a sentimental tune in honor of his fallen homey.

I Won’t Give Up by Jason Mraz:  “I won’t give up on us, even if the skies get rough, I’m giving you all my love, still lookin’ up…God knows we’re worth it.”  This one brings tears to my eyes.  Probably wouldn’t have had the same effect before, but in prison it gets to me every time.  Makes me think of my family.  It is dedicated to my wife and children.  There is a lot I do not know, but I guarantee them that I will not give up on me and I will not give up on our family, on US.  I Love You Guys!

The Muse by The Wood Brothers:  Flat out one of my Top Twenty favorite songs ever.  Used to crank it at home all the time.  I remember one day while I was stripping paint or something at home, my wife and kids came in and I turned around, voice at full throttle, to see them laughing at me.  “Times like these so sweet and so true and thinking that’s the last thing you wanna do.”  How I miss those little moments of joy.  I hold them close in my heart every day, and pray there will be more to come.

So, folks, there it is, laid out for your approval, contempt or even scorn.  No, these tunes may have no place in musical history, but they help me get through the day.  If I could, I’d shake each of these artists’ hands in sincere thanks for helping me make it through this difficult time. Where is Casey Kasam when you need him?

Dear Readers

As always, I appreciate your taking the time to read my anecdotes about life in prison.  I’d imagine that some of you may have originally done so to avoid my mother’s pestering you (in a very loving way, of course, Mom!), but hope that you found something to bring you back.  If you don’t know my mother, and have happened upon this blog on your own, I will simply say thank you.  Please feel free to pass on the link to others who may appreciate what I have to say.

Everything here is non-fiction, with slight embellishments for the sake of humor, but hopefully those moments are obvious and do not detract from the rest.  Basically, in all of these posts, I’m trying to convey that those of us inside these walls are not much different from folks on the outside.  Most of us are good people who made a mistake and simply hope for a chance to fit our lives back together.  We want to put our past behind us and not have to live with it hanging over our heads every day for the rest of our lives.

You may know that I don’t have Internet access in here.  I send my essays to Blogmaster T on the outside and he posts them.  He mails me your comments (so far, TJV carries the response section of the blog).  So if you have something you’d like to say, I’ll eventually get your comment and write back.  If you have questions about life in prison, I’ll gladly attempt a lucid answer.  To all my readers, thanks for your attention, love and support. 

Sincerely,

The Whitest Man Alive (recently shortened to The White Guy), my prison nickname, meant with affection, I think.

Shakedown!

8 am and the loudspeaker blares, “Shakedown!”  You can hear the groans echoing off the walls.  Nobody enjoys a shakedown, which involves the guards and sometimes the case manager and unit counselor rifling through your belongings.  They may be respectful of your things or they may not, but either way you can’t do a thing to stop them.  Usually one or two people are the target, but they hit the entire unit anyway.  The idea, I imagine, is to keep us all guessing who they’re after.  They go through everything, including personal photos, letters, even your underwear!

Safely ensconced in your living room at home it may be hard to understand how invasive this feels.  As I’ve written before, I share an 88-ish square foot living space with another guy.  I have one locker with roughly 9 cubic feet of storage and two clothes hooks.  Everything I may be said to “own” is stored in this restricted space.  Letters from my kids, my crochet projects, pictures, my journal.  All of it open to inspection on the whim of the authorities.  And I hate to have my possessions messed with.  Even on the outside I was like that.  But in prison, where we jealously hold onto whatever hint of privacy we can have, these searches feel like a violation.

Then when you consider that you may have accumulated some little extra thing to make life easier – maybe an extra pillow or blanket, a handmade shelf in your locker, a mesh bag for your shower stuff – and that they can confiscate it all, well, we hate that.  Guys do not like having to start from scratch after having paid or bartered for that confiscated item.

Shakedowns seem calculated to interfere with our sleep, too, and guys in here take that seriously.  But the reason we really hate these invasions is that they’re most often instigated by a snitcher.  Somebody is not minding his own business.  He's snooping on others even when nobody’s bothering him in any particular way.  So you may have that precious second pillow swept up because of somebody else’s petty beef or their desire to curry favor with the staff.  This violates a cardinal rule of prison life:  mind your own business, keep your mouth shut.  If it doesn’t affect you, let it go.  And if it does affect you, work it out without getting the staff involved.  Because that brings the heat down on all of us.  

Updates aka As the Prison Turns

Inmates continue to die at an alarming rate, and when a guy went down recently it took a long time for the emergency team to show up, even though he was just 150 steps (I counted) away from their door.  When they carried him out, he was unconscious, and we still don’t know if he’s alive or not.  Even though we all live together 24-7, the guards will not give us updates on our friends.

Half-Baked is struggling at the moment.  He’s got “only” 3.5 years to go on a 10 year bid, which we call “heading downhill”, but he doesn’t see it that way.  He applied for but did not get a Presidential Commutation, after bragging that he was sure to get it, because his reason was fool proof:  “I’m sick of this place!”   Unlike the rest of us, apparently he hates being in prison.  I do feel sorry for him.  He needs mental health care.  He’s not dangerous, he just needs to be monitored, but the solution for him and so many like him seems to be – lock him up in jail.  I’ve been talking with him, treat him like the other guys, try to help him deflect the predators (guys who hustle him out of commissary items or get him to do their laundry, promising to pay him back later, which they never do).  In some ways, I feel sorrier for guys who feel the need to take advantage of those less fortunate than I do for Half-Baked.

Meanwhile, Ms. Wesley Snipes continues her reign of terror at the Rec Yard.  Not only can you not take a book outdoors to read, you can’t even have a Bible to study with friends on the Yard.  She has proclaimed that she doesn’t want anybody walking around “posterizing” (I think she means proselytizing), because it’s against policy (no one knows what policy she’s citing, as it was never a problem before).

Ms. Snipes has cracked down on my crochet class, too.  No longer can we make anything that might be considered an article of clothing, even if we plan to mail it home.  I understand the rationale that inmates might use homemade caps or whatever as a gang emblem, but not allowing us to make hats, scarves, mittens for our families on the outside?  So, of course, I asked her to explain, and she said, “If you don’t like it, I can cancel the whole program.”  A sweetheart, eh?

Finally, my early chow pass:  My mission has been temporarily side-tracked, because too many guys – some lacking what we might call the art of sublety – are also after the coveted Golden Ticket.  They don’t follow any of the generally successful strategies, such as finding a task that needs to be done at chow time, no these clowns just line up to go early with the guys who belong in the line.  Things blew up when 19 people showed up one day with the same excuse for eating early – claiming to be referees for basketball games.  The upshot?  Early chow has now been suspended for EVERYONE!

May I just say that yes, I have gotten the message!  Frankly, it had sunk in quite well after just one week away from my family, so can I go home now?  I just want to hug my kids, kiss my wife and take a nap on the couch.  That’s the general sentiment we all share.   We’re being warehoused, locked away longer than necessary in most cases.  I mean, very few people here are what you might call genuinely evil men.  Most are guys who just got off track and made mistakes.  First time offenders, for instance, who could have been given a much shorter sentence, maybe placed on strict supervision and warned not to make a mistake again.  I’d have been fine with that.  Instead I sit here, fighting all the negativity, the inertia, the feeling that society has just given up on us.  I know that every long day brings me closer to walking out that door.  I just pray every day that my wife, my kids, my siblings and parents will still be waiting for me.  That they don’t lose faith in me.  I get up every day ready to fight the good fight, but it is absolutely exhausting!

Prayer for the Music Man

At times we focus on ourselves too much.  Stuck here in prison, these walls dominate our thoughts and actions.  We need to remember that the world "out there" keeps spinning without us, all the while hoping that we are not forgotten by friends and family.  In the end we can only take what people are willing to give and be thankful.   

I think it’s important to be aware of the struggles others are facing.  So today I’m dropping my usual rants, writing nothing about me, prison, or the criminal justice system.  This one goes out to my friend whom I call “The Music Man.”  He and his family are facing something much more important and challenging than anything I have to deal with here.  Their young child is having surgery, fighting for his life.  By all accounts, they are meeting this adversity with courage, openness, and faith.  As a father I can only imagine how frightened they much be.   

I hope you read this Music Man and know that my heart goes with you in this difficult time.  We will say a prayer here at the chapel for you and your family.  Your strength is an inspiration to everyone.  In here it helps me get off the bunk and get going.  You are in my thoughts and prayers.

You Can't Reason with Crazy

Big news around the unit the other day because G-Money decided to shave.  Just in case you did not know, being clean shaven and relatively young in prison signals that you are gay.  No use wondering whether this makes sense or is fair, it’s just the way it is.  You may be secure in your sexuality and not care whether someone thinks you’re gay, but you will still be hassled all day by propositions and pursued by a portion of the prison population. 

Meanwhile, back to the story.  One guy notices that G-Money has shaved and another says, “Yeah, he wants to look good for a visit.”  This makes sense, and he can just grow it back if he wants to avoid all the attention.  But then there’s this crazy -- actually as I see it batshit crazy -- thing.  This guy Tim joins the conversation.  Tim is a self-proclaimed Biblical scholar who claims to know the Bible better than anyone else on the compound.  He claims to live with one foot in heaven, the other foot on earth, where he serves as a beacon of God’s power.  His dimension-straddling power leads him to speak in tongues, and he claims to be able to perform miracles with his voice, heal through laying on of hands, and exorcise demons. 

But this, believe it or not, is not the crazy part.  I have no problem with his beliefs, but what he said in this conversation struck me as, well, odd.  Tim said that G-Money would be able to grow his beard back almost instantly.   "Why is that," we asked?  Tim responded, “Because when you become Jewish, by birth or conversion, God reaches down his hand and gives you the power to grow your Jew Beard!”  Stunned silence.  We’re all waiting for some kind of punchline.  But Tim says, “I’m totally serious.  That’s why Jews look so Jewy.”  At this point, I could take no more.  I invited him to explain how he could tell the difference between my Italian beard and what he called a Jew beard.  He nodded and replied that true believers can tell, adding that maybe I have some Jewish ancestors? 

I walked away.  One thing I’ve learned in prison is that you can’t reason with crazy.   Of course, one good thing did come from this.  We can now tease G-Money about his Jewy beard (poor guy, first it’s the walk and now the beard!).

The Prison Economy

One of the things that I find most interesting about prison is its economic system, where there is both a primary (commissary purchases) and a secondary (barter) market.  At the commissary, as you might expect with a literally captive clientele, you see at least a 30% markup.  That price gouging is what has created the secondary market, which I think is really fascinating, especially since it is totally, completely, without a doubt, AGAINST the rules.  This is the definition of a black market, which thrives in prison.

The black market has three facets:  (1) barter, (2) commissary, and (3) currency.  Bartering is mainly used to exchange skills and services.  For instance, because I have access to a typewriter, a guy comes to me to get something typed up, but maybe he doesn’t have anything tangible to offer in trade.  Well, it turns out that he works in the laundry, and I could use a new pillow.  He gets me the pillow, I type up his document, and we’re square.  The only problem is that one of us could get caught using prison property for personal gain, but frankly that’s a minor risk.  After all, I’m allowed to use the typewriter and he’s allowed to hand out pillows, just maybe not in trade.

The commissary black market works a little differently.  In this case, in trade for typing up a guy’s paperwork, he offers maybe two bags of Taster’s Choice instant coffee.  Now I know that the dude in the laundry room loves having a cup of java while handing out linens every morning, so I take the coffee, do the typing, and then swap the coffee bags for my pillow.  While this, too, is a type of barter, unopened commissary items are valuable commodities, especially to those who don’t have any cash to buy them.  Things can go wrong, however, if I don’t have an item that the pillow guy wants.  That takes a little more hustling.  Maybe I’m offered a can of tuna instead of coffee bags.  I don’t decline the offer, but I make a second swap with one of the muscle men workout guys who seek protein 24-7.  If he’s got coffee, we’re good.

Finally, there’s a hard currency black market, too, which on our compound is not cash but postage stamps.  I’ve heard that in some prisons the hard currency is cans of mackerel or radio batteries, but here it’s stamps.  They have to be unused and mailable, because their ultimate worth is that they can actually be used to send a letter.  Stay with me as we follow the next scenario:  I need a pillow and the other guy needs a 4-page document typed up.  I charge him three stamps per page, which is the going rate (and I know I need at least 10 stamps for my pillow, planning to save the other two for a two stamp Coke or a couple letters home).  Everything has its price in postage stamps.

Another twist here is that you pay a different price with either stamps or commissary.  There’s a sort of service fee attached if you go the commissary route.  For instance, in our example, two bags of coffee cost way more than six stamps, but I can charge a premium if I let a guy pay in commissary.  Say you have a guy walking around trying to sell something for 20 stamps (worth $9.40) or $15 worth of commissary.  Sometimes there’s room for negotiation or a combined payment method, such as, “Okay, I’ll do one load of laundry and pay you five stamps for the headphones!”

It seems that barter is your best route when you want something done that you should not be having done.  For example, I wanted to get the scoreboard repaired at the softball field, but the staff couldn’t be bothered.  But when I offered book delivery service and first access to the Wall Street Journal for two weeks to a guy from Facilities, he made up an excuse to check out some tools and repaired the scoreboard, a win-win all around.  (A couple weeks later, the CO asks about the scoreboard, and we all just play dumb, as if we don’t even remember that it was ever broken (playing dumb always works, because the staff assumes we’re all idiots).

Our prison economy runs quite smoothly, though, since we are in a federal prison, you always have to keep an eye open for some former financier running a Ponzi Stamp Scheme!