Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone. I must say that I'm thankful that it's over because it will be one less holiday that I'm forced to spend behind bars. Over the past five days there have been some ups and downs in the dorm as we all attempted to make the most of our situation. Those past couple of days have also been some of the most informative ones I've had over the previous six weeks. Some good news to report is that our Thanksgiving dinner was one of the most filling and best quality meals I've had since May. On an average night we are served a main course, such as spaghetti or a hamburger, and its accompanied by two small side dishes. Even though any food is better than none at all, the amount provided is barely enough to maintain a daily regimen , let alone get the necessary exercise. So going to sleep with a full belly on Thursday night was definitely a blessing. Each person was served a large piece of pressed turkey topped with mashed potatoes. On the side we had some well cooked candy yams accompanied by a scoop of stuffing and some green beans. For desert it was a slice of pumpkin pie and a small package of vanilla ice cream. After finishing the meal I laid back on my rack and said a little thank you for the plentiful amount of good that I still have in my life. My family, my friends, even my ten year old diabetic black cat who to this day still looks like a small bear cub.
In prison the best way to do your time is is to take it one day at a time. If you start pulling out calendars and counting days , or stressing over a girlfriend , that's when self destruct mode really takes over. Getting ahead of yourself and becoming anxious can cause more serious problems to emerge. Respect is the number one priority for everyone in here as we all try to get through theses difficult times. If you don't give respect it's not like you won't get it. It's more like things could end up rather messy. For the most part Thursday turned out to be a pretty good day, nothing but football games, exercise and food. However that positive vibe wouldn't hold up for too long.
Friday morning started off just like any other day spent in this dorm. An early wake-up call for breakfast and another several hours to kill before the afternoon. Here, in reception, as a safety precaution no one is allowed to posses a shaving razor. So every three days the dorm officer passes out razors to the top and bottom tiers according to schedule. In return the C/O would let them use the razors from 2:30-3:00 PM. After receiving them eighty or so rush to the twelve small mirrors in the dorm and take turns shaving.
Friday after the C/O handed out the razors there was the normal amount of movement that goes down on shaving day. People rushing to the mirrors and others lined up behind them. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. A fight mus have broken out a few minutes earlier that I hadn't been aware of. As I continued brushing my teeth I glanced out at the day room where people play cards and conversed at the table. After focusing on an area with heavy commotion I noticed two individuals bobbing and weaving in and out of the table area swinging their arms rapidly. They were both white which meant immediately that it wasn't going to be a racial riot. I also noticed that the smaller of the two wasn't just swinging his fists, he was flaying a green cup around. Both of the two were soaked in blood. The smaller one looked like his eye had been pushed back and the back of the other one had a 6 inch gash across the back of his head. That wound was obviously caused by the cup and it was spewing blood like a waterfall. As soon as the C/O got wind of the situation he yelled at everybody, "Get Down! Get Down! Get Down! as he charged the day room, bear mace in his hand. I hit the ground in the midst of brushing my teeth. Sprawled out on the dirty floor in my brand new pants and white T-Shirt I had received just hours earlier. Both of the two battling also lay on the ground upon instruction and they continued to throw fighting words at each other. "Fuck you, you fuckin lame! You Fuckin Bitch! you Punk Motherfucker" The other yelled back "At least I didn't get fucked up Lame!...You got fucked up you bitch!" It turned into a childish bickering match as they both lied in pools of their own blood.
Within minutes the entire room was flooded with C/O's and the two of them were handcuffed. The one with the torn up eye was immediately lifted to his feet and escorted out of the building. However the larger of the two had such a huge gash on his head and had lost so much blood the medical team to wrap his head and he was transported in wheelchair.
After they left the Sergeant told us to pick it up in sections and and head back to our racks. That is where we would remain for the next seven hours as they brought in investigators to document and examine the crime scene. An expert came in with a camera and a ruler, he measured the pools of blood and the distance of splatters all over the same tables we ate upon. At around 8:00PM later that night we were finally allowed to resume what little of program we had left for the day.
Apparently the two had got in an altercation earlier upstairs. The smaller of the two got the short end of the stick coming out of the battle battered and bruised. After the match was through he wasn't too happy with the outcome. The smaller guy headed over to his rack and pulled out a solidly manufactured plastic cup from his locker. The other guy was shooting pinochle at the time unsuspecting of anything. Moments later he took a full force blow to the back of his dome. The solid object split his head wide open nearly knocking him out. I could tell he was still in a daze as he looked around at everybody in the wheelchair ride out. The entire dorm ended up feeling the repercussions of the fight, racked up for the remainder of the day. The fight became a quick wake up call to those who were too laxed and reminded me to always stay on my toes no matter what.
The rest of the weekend went according to routine, Sunday was another day that I was able to maintain a joyous mood. , watching the 49ers stomp the Jacksonville Jaguars. NFL Games have been one of the easiest ways to get through the time. I met a middle aged man back at the county jail who had already done a couple of five year prison terms. He was so engulfed in sports he had a Nike symbol tattooed around his trachea. His advice to me when it came to doing time with ease was to take it by sports seasons. He said "I follow all of the games and scores closely, sports help me get my mind off of everything else. By the time the football basketball and baseball seasons are over its another year closer to going home." I try to incorporate a little piece of that strategy in my gameplan as I do this prison term.
After making it through the weekend I was looking forward to starting off a brand new week. Today has ended up being my most informative one yet. After we finished eating breakfast the C/O called my last name and I was summoned to the podium, fully dressed with my ID card in hand. I became a bit nervous paranoia had me thinking that it was some bad news with my bloodwork. It ended up being nothing of that nature. The C/O handed me a social factor sheet and told me to fill it out because my counselor would be coming to see me shortly. On the sheet of paper all that needed to be filled in were family contacts once more, in case I had been injured or killed. After completing it I attempted to fall back asleep but within 45 minutes the counselor was in the building. She called me to the podium and at first glance I immediately knew her personality was not one I could communicate with. She was a stalky, middle aged, Hispanic Lady
who came across as polite but insincere. That happens to be one of my biggest pet peeves. If you are not sincere in the way you address somebody I most likely have no interest in talking with you. Unfortunately I'm in prison and have no choice but to take orders like a dog to it's master. She asked me a few questions. Did I graduate High School? Were the contacts listed on my fact sheet up to date. Then she asked me if I was from a gang, I casually responded "no" without second guessing. She looked up at me as if she remembered something she double took my file and said "Yes you are, Whats Buket TKO?" I gave her a ticked off look and said "First of all I'm not in TKO anymore and second of all it's not a gang" She replied "In here it's anything over two"nonchalantly. I didn't know what to say I just let her finish what she had to do and crept back into my rack. I had just spent the last six months being tossed around the court system, set an example of over a madeup police report. Now I'm being railroaded by the prison system who are classifying me as a gang member. This classification error gives me higher security level points and I will be housed among higher caliber criminals. Which really is nothing new, I've been doing time with high risk offenders for the past 18 months, but in prison it becomes a way more complex ballgame. On the high level yards shanks and dope flow more freely, making it easy to end up with addtime even if you stick to yourself. Some people never end up making it home at all. At the time of my interview the counselor had the discretion to classify me on a lower scale but instead decided not to. She is just another person She is just another person I have come across that has only gone to the minimal extent , selfishly, not distinguishing the difference between a writer and a game member. A street gang uses violence, drug sales, and homicide in order to get what they want. A graffiti artist paints his name and artwork throughout the city. An enormous difference that somebody not only concerned with themselves could distinguish. If anything more than two is the case then nearly every inmate in here is a gang member, forced to run with racial groups? What about organized religion? The police force or sports teams? There are people in this world who will go the length to help someone and then there are people who just do their job. I have appealed the decision with a 602 form and am pretty confident that my argument carries some merit. The appeal will start at the local level but has potential to reach all the way to Sacramento. But until I get any feedback I will live on a higher security yard. I can handle anything they throw at me, it's more the principle that bothers me.
In the next one to three weeks I should be summoned by another prison, anywhere in the state of California, they will come and pick me up and that's where I should do the duration of my sentence.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Sunday, December 20, 2009
November 19th part 2/2
(If you haven't read part 1/2 directly below this post please read that before continuing on to part 2/2)
Wearing an orange jumpsuit it's no longer easy to tell from a persons clothing where they are from anymore. We are all just a body in state issued clothing most easily defined by our racial characteristics. First and foremost an inmate identifies with his class this is predominantly determined by racial features. For the most part everybody of the same race or races link together. Then there is a sub-class ad that consists of people who are from the same location or gang on the street. That relationship of the sub-class is much tighter than the class because because it zones in on one specific area. In some cases that sub-class bond can can create a problem between the class if a personal matter is chosen to be pursued. For example, two rival black gang members that run with the same racial group but but their neighborhoods don't get along with each other on the street. If the issue is pursued it can make the entire racial group look vulnerable from the eyes of another and can be a costly form of self-destruction.
The customs a person was raised with are most similar to their sub-class The schools, grocery stores, parks, streets, they're all the same. Some consider the people they meet as close as family and often use the term "homeboy" in reference to them.
In Los Angeles County the gag culture runs rampant. A gangs street credibility is defined by the people whom it's composed of and the area that they claim. The majority of the territory throughout the entire city is claimed by hundreds and hundreds of gangs. You can easily be in a safe well to do neighborhood and walk just a few blocks and end up in one of the deadliest areas of the city. Some gangs hold down blocks and blocks of territory, others hold down no more than a street. The ones that hold down a smaller section of turf tend to be more tightly knit than those who have spread out around the city. This is as simple as needing more gang members to cover more turf, the majority of the members will never meet everyone that represented their same gang.
With state laws coming down tougher on crime, these gang members are finding that prison is becoming just about the only place that will house them anymore. The city has created an injunction for almost every notorious neighborhood. It states that if a known gang member is hanging out with friends, or on the streets, they can be arrested. No longer do they have to be in commission of a crime. In fact they are breaking the law just by being there. Essentially giving Law Enforcement the power to arrest any active gang member.
The prisons are packed with these people and just like everyone else they too have a place that they once called home. A place they were born and raised and went through their molding of life experiences in. Not only do these gang members have love for their cities, they care about these specific areas of the city that they grew up in the most. For some it's all they have left.
Tattoos become one of the best viable avenues to express where a person is from or what they represent. No longer are just a form of artistic expression, they become an advertisement as to what a area a person grew up in. That person has become a walking billboard to that street, that city or country.
Anywhere a tattoo could be applied it was and by all and any means necessary. People would create their tattoos from any object that was sharp enough to penetrate the skin. One of the most common logos is the "LA" symbol, most popular amongst the Mexicans. Some have a shabby tattoo of it on the web of their hand, between the index finger and thumb. A small tattoo such as that can be picked into the skin with just a staple. Shaved down pencil lead mixed with toothpaste most likely for the ink. Others have the same symbol on blasted on the back of their head, usually done with a a guitar string and a Walkman motor. With burnt body oil most commonly used as ink for a larger tattoo. The more obvious the location of the tattoo, the crazier the individual appears to me. The traditional spots spots such as the bicep or chest plate have become boringly common and people feel the need to go for the most obvious areas, the ones that can't be hidden.
D.C. was a friend of that I met months back in the county jail. He was a known heavyweight -like gang member who did a lot of time in prison at a point in his life. He was a real solid guy with a good heart and a lot of love for his neighborhood. He used to tell me "I like you Buket, I kick it with all types of people of cats on the streets. Whites, Mexicans, Skaters, I kick it with everybody. Watch, we gonna kick it when you get out." I always tried to help him move on from the gang banging life, and I hope he chose to do so upon his release. D.C. is from Grape St. Watts, a notorious black crip gang that carries a good amount of street credibility. He has a huge letter "G" tattooed behind his ear, accompanied by two smaller letters, "St." representing Grape street he told me. He told me, "A lot of of these gang members are from hoods and they hide. When their enemies catch them they deny where they're from , they're cowards. I got this "G" behind my ear so I can't hide, people see this and and they know I'm in the business" as he recollected his past gang life.
Tattoos all over a bald mans head has become so common to me that it looks abnormal to be without one. The southern Mexican gang members have made this style of representation most popular. They also choose to hit the cheek., the front and side of the neck, and sometimes the front of their faces. Being familiar with LA I flash to all these locations in my mind whenever I glance at the tattoos.
I went to court back in July who had a solidly filled in numeral "2" These numbers spanned from the bottom of each eye, all the way down to the mouth line. The tattoo stood, for 22nd street. an ese gang that resides off of 22nd and Central Ave, in the heart of South Central. I used to clean his block up everyday as the hood persisted t paint it up again night after night. I no longer looked at these guys faces anymore, just the numbers. I caught myself staring a couple of times as we sat in a tiny holding tank the entire day waiting to be summoned into court. After a while I refrained from looking to not draw any unwanted attention.
I began to notice more and more areas areas that I had lived or spent some time in at one point or another. In another holding I saw a guy with the word 'Temple" tattooed across his upper in handwriting. I often visited a buddy of mine who lived in the center of the neighborhood. . Temple was also the the street that I had been traveling back and forth from jail to court so many times over the past two years. Another guy had PBS tattooed across his forehead, an abbreviation for the Playboys Gang. They claimed several streets on the east side as well as a park with a handball court that I used to play at daily. A gang member from the city of San Gabriel had "Sangra" tattooed across his throat. It spanned from ear to ear and stretched down from the chin to trachea. "LHTS" was behind another guys ear and stood for Lincoln Heights. One of my first apartments in LA was in that area. RSP tattooed above an older man's eyebrow stood for Rancho San Pedro, which was right around the corner from my first job, somewhere in the Harbor Area. A Black guy had BGC in large letters across his stomach standing for Broadway Gangsta Crip. I used to pass by the area on the bus everyday en route to work. The Avenues and the Clover gangs went to war for turf at another living spot of mine. The Rolling Twenties Outlaws was a blood neighborhood that I had to do community service in daily. I ended up coming across a few strange encounters with a gang member from the Rollin 20's that reassured
me how small this world really was. (Reference Rolling 20s article) Cheevas and Arta13 were neighborhoods bordering the 91 freeway. and painted over a few graffiti spots that I had originated. The Rolling 30's, 40's, and 50's were all neighborhood crips. (NHC) and were located in a section of Mid-City that I also performed community service in. The Hoover Criminals were in the same vicinity, but bisected the numbered streets along Hoover St. The Four-Tre click around 43rd and the Five-Deuces around 52nd St. Then there were the ese gangs in the same area. Westside 18th St., Mara Salvatrucha, Street Villains (STV13) and Harpy's which were all along Normandie and Vermont. If you travelled a few streets east to where I had been staying The Hang Out Boys (HOB13) controlled a three block stretch and was smack dad in the center of a turf war between the 41st Gang, Playboys (PBS), 36st. Gang and the 43rd Crips. A couple blocks down from that were bigger hoods like Florencia (F13) and 38St. Gang. They went to war with Clanton14 (C14) , the Ghetto Boyz (GBZ) East Side Trece (ES13) and Primera Flats 23rd St. click. This was just one section of the city that I knew block for block. When I saw these same gang members in Jail and the neighborhoods tattooed on them I knew exactly how they grew up and what was around the area.
The White kids would have their own symbolic tattoos. They weren't so much from traditional gangs like the ones previously mentioned, they would represent a broader area, like a Valley or A County. San Fernando Valley (SFV), San Gabriel Valley (SGV), and the Antelope Valley were all common tattoos among the whites. In most cases to earn those two or three "letters" you needed to put in some sort of work in prison. The tattoo of a war bird meant that a person had been in a riot. Two lightning bolts meant they had stabbed a black person. And the Valley letters as well as a "white pride" tattoo were earned by doing any kind of dirt, such as discipline or transporting dope. Woods (prison slang for Whites) also got their hometown area codes. Like 818, 559 or 408 tattooed on them. By reading their tattoos I got a general idea of where they lived on the outside but the neighborhoods weren't specified.
The pride that these people had for their cities was off the Richter. Instead of just sporting it with some removeable clothing they were branded for life with the street, city or valley names as a sign of their dedication to their home. Now that I think of it more than love for the name, I believe those tattoos are a symbol of those customs they had growing up as a child.
I talked to a white guy from Pomona last night that had so much love his city, he told me, "I get chills just speaking about it." To me, Pomona was just some tiny city that didn't catch my but to him it was a place flowing with history.
Another ese in the dorm is from a small city in the Santa Clarita Valley called New Hall. He has big, bold, legible letters on the back of his head that read New Hall. Across his chest are huge Old English letters stating New Hall. And his two forearms read "N" and "H" in another gothic font. It says New Hall on so many places on this mans body that it's all a person thinks about when looking at him. The other day the C/O was trying to get the attention of the guy and yelled "Hey New Hall!" Another inmate heard it and and chuckled "He called you New Hall" with a sarcastic tone. The C/O heard and said "Well he's got New Hall written like fifty times on his body I didn't know what else to call him!"
I heard the whole conversation and had to walk away, I was about to laugh.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit it's no longer easy to tell from a persons clothing where they are from anymore. We are all just a body in state issued clothing most easily defined by our racial characteristics. First and foremost an inmate identifies with his class this is predominantly determined by racial features. For the most part everybody of the same race or races link together. Then there is a sub-class ad that consists of people who are from the same location or gang on the street. That relationship of the sub-class is much tighter than the class because because it zones in on one specific area. In some cases that sub-class bond can can create a problem between the class if a personal matter is chosen to be pursued. For example, two rival black gang members that run with the same racial group but but their neighborhoods don't get along with each other on the street. If the issue is pursued it can make the entire racial group look vulnerable from the eyes of another and can be a costly form of self-destruction.
The customs a person was raised with are most similar to their sub-class The schools, grocery stores, parks, streets, they're all the same. Some consider the people they meet as close as family and often use the term "homeboy" in reference to them.
In Los Angeles County the gag culture runs rampant. A gangs street credibility is defined by the people whom it's composed of and the area that they claim. The majority of the territory throughout the entire city is claimed by hundreds and hundreds of gangs. You can easily be in a safe well to do neighborhood and walk just a few blocks and end up in one of the deadliest areas of the city. Some gangs hold down blocks and blocks of territory, others hold down no more than a street. The ones that hold down a smaller section of turf tend to be more tightly knit than those who have spread out around the city. This is as simple as needing more gang members to cover more turf, the majority of the members will never meet everyone that represented their same gang.
With state laws coming down tougher on crime, these gang members are finding that prison is becoming just about the only place that will house them anymore. The city has created an injunction for almost every notorious neighborhood. It states that if a known gang member is hanging out with friends, or on the streets, they can be arrested. No longer do they have to be in commission of a crime. In fact they are breaking the law just by being there. Essentially giving Law Enforcement the power to arrest any active gang member.
The prisons are packed with these people and just like everyone else they too have a place that they once called home. A place they were born and raised and went through their molding of life experiences in. Not only do these gang members have love for their cities, they care about these specific areas of the city that they grew up in the most. For some it's all they have left.
Tattoos become one of the best viable avenues to express where a person is from or what they represent. No longer are just a form of artistic expression, they become an advertisement as to what a area a person grew up in. That person has become a walking billboard to that street, that city or country.
Anywhere a tattoo could be applied it was and by all and any means necessary. People would create their tattoos from any object that was sharp enough to penetrate the skin. One of the most common logos is the "LA" symbol, most popular amongst the Mexicans. Some have a shabby tattoo of it on the web of their hand, between the index finger and thumb. A small tattoo such as that can be picked into the skin with just a staple. Shaved down pencil lead mixed with toothpaste most likely for the ink. Others have the same symbol on blasted on the back of their head, usually done with a a guitar string and a Walkman motor. With burnt body oil most commonly used as ink for a larger tattoo. The more obvious the location of the tattoo, the crazier the individual appears to me. The traditional spots spots such as the bicep or chest plate have become boringly common and people feel the need to go for the most obvious areas, the ones that can't be hidden.
D.C. was a friend of that I met months back in the county jail. He was a known heavyweight -like gang member who did a lot of time in prison at a point in his life. He was a real solid guy with a good heart and a lot of love for his neighborhood. He used to tell me "I like you Buket, I kick it with all types of people of cats on the streets. Whites, Mexicans, Skaters, I kick it with everybody. Watch, we gonna kick it when you get out." I always tried to help him move on from the gang banging life, and I hope he chose to do so upon his release. D.C. is from Grape St. Watts, a notorious black crip gang that carries a good amount of street credibility. He has a huge letter "G" tattooed behind his ear, accompanied by two smaller letters, "St." representing Grape street he told me. He told me, "A lot of of these gang members are from hoods and they hide. When their enemies catch them they deny where they're from , they're cowards. I got this "G" behind my ear so I can't hide, people see this and and they know I'm in the business" as he recollected his past gang life.
Tattoos all over a bald mans head has become so common to me that it looks abnormal to be without one. The southern Mexican gang members have made this style of representation most popular. They also choose to hit the cheek., the front and side of the neck, and sometimes the front of their faces. Being familiar with LA I flash to all these locations in my mind whenever I glance at the tattoos.
I went to court back in July who had a solidly filled in numeral "2" These numbers spanned from the bottom of each eye, all the way down to the mouth line. The tattoo stood, for 22nd street. an ese gang that resides off of 22nd and Central Ave, in the heart of South Central. I used to clean his block up everyday as the hood persisted t paint it up again night after night. I no longer looked at these guys faces anymore, just the numbers. I caught myself staring a couple of times as we sat in a tiny holding tank the entire day waiting to be summoned into court. After a while I refrained from looking to not draw any unwanted attention.
I began to notice more and more areas areas that I had lived or spent some time in at one point or another. In another holding I saw a guy with the word 'Temple" tattooed across his upper in handwriting. I often visited a buddy of mine who lived in the center of the neighborhood. . Temple was also the the street that I had been traveling back and forth from jail to court so many times over the past two years. Another guy had PBS tattooed across his forehead, an abbreviation for the Playboys Gang. They claimed several streets on the east side as well as a park with a handball court that I used to play at daily. A gang member from the city of San Gabriel had "Sangra" tattooed across his throat. It spanned from ear to ear and stretched down from the chin to trachea. "LHTS" was behind another guys ear and stood for Lincoln Heights. One of my first apartments in LA was in that area. RSP tattooed above an older man's eyebrow stood for Rancho San Pedro, which was right around the corner from my first job, somewhere in the Harbor Area. A Black guy had BGC in large letters across his stomach standing for Broadway Gangsta Crip. I used to pass by the area on the bus everyday en route to work. The Avenues and the Clover gangs went to war for turf at another living spot of mine. The Rolling Twenties Outlaws was a blood neighborhood that I had to do community service in daily. I ended up coming across a few strange encounters with a gang member from the Rollin 20's that reassured
me how small this world really was. (Reference Rolling 20s article) Cheevas and Arta13 were neighborhoods bordering the 91 freeway. and painted over a few graffiti spots that I had originated. The Rolling 30's, 40's, and 50's were all neighborhood crips. (NHC) and were located in a section of Mid-City that I also performed community service in. The Hoover Criminals were in the same vicinity, but bisected the numbered streets along Hoover St. The Four-Tre click around 43rd and the Five-Deuces around 52nd St. Then there were the ese gangs in the same area. Westside 18th St., Mara Salvatrucha, Street Villains (STV13) and Harpy's which were all along Normandie and Vermont. If you travelled a few streets east to where I had been staying The Hang Out Boys (HOB13) controlled a three block stretch and was smack dad in the center of a turf war between the 41st Gang, Playboys (PBS), 36st. Gang and the 43rd Crips. A couple blocks down from that were bigger hoods like Florencia (F13) and 38St. Gang. They went to war with Clanton14 (C14) , the Ghetto Boyz (GBZ) East Side Trece (ES13) and Primera Flats 23rd St. click. This was just one section of the city that I knew block for block. When I saw these same gang members in Jail and the neighborhoods tattooed on them I knew exactly how they grew up and what was around the area.
The White kids would have their own symbolic tattoos. They weren't so much from traditional gangs like the ones previously mentioned, they would represent a broader area, like a Valley or A County. San Fernando Valley (SFV), San Gabriel Valley (SGV), and the Antelope Valley were all common tattoos among the whites. In most cases to earn those two or three "letters" you needed to put in some sort of work in prison. The tattoo of a war bird meant that a person had been in a riot. Two lightning bolts meant they had stabbed a black person. And the Valley letters as well as a "white pride" tattoo were earned by doing any kind of dirt, such as discipline or transporting dope. Woods (prison slang for Whites) also got their hometown area codes. Like 818, 559 or 408 tattooed on them. By reading their tattoos I got a general idea of where they lived on the outside but the neighborhoods weren't specified.
The pride that these people had for their cities was off the Richter. Instead of just sporting it with some removeable clothing they were branded for life with the street, city or valley names as a sign of their dedication to their home. Now that I think of it more than love for the name, I believe those tattoos are a symbol of those customs they had growing up as a child.
I talked to a white guy from Pomona last night that had so much love his city, he told me, "I get chills just speaking about it." To me, Pomona was just some tiny city that didn't catch my but to him it was a place flowing with history.
Another ese in the dorm is from a small city in the Santa Clarita Valley called New Hall. He has big, bold, legible letters on the back of his head that read New Hall. Across his chest are huge Old English letters stating New Hall. And his two forearms read "N" and "H" in another gothic font. It says New Hall on so many places on this mans body that it's all a person thinks about when looking at him. The other day the C/O was trying to get the attention of the guy and yelled "Hey New Hall!" Another inmate heard it and and chuckled "He called you New Hall" with a sarcastic tone. The C/O heard and said "Well he's got New Hall written like fifty times on his body I didn't know what else to call him!"
I heard the whole conversation and had to walk away, I was about to laugh.
Friday, December 18, 2009
November 19th part 1/2
The first twenty-three years of my life were spent growing up in my hometown of San Jose, CA. I attended an exceptional preschool a few miles from my house where I met other local kids. When I became old enough to participate in organized sports I was signed up for them according to the seasons . During the fall and winter I would play soccer for the local organized league. Our home field was just around the corner from my house an happened to be the elementary school that I was attending at the time. If my team had an away game, usually the furthest that we had to travel was to the opposite side of town. Maybe it was at the Rose Garden which was on the westside of San Jose, or PAL Stadium over on the eastside, everything was within a fifteen mile radius. When I played Little League Baseball in the Spring it was the same thing. The field where we all congregated was no more than 15 blocks from my house. My mother would give me rides to practices and games, and when she couldn't I had no problem riding my bike. I eventually starting umpiring at that same baseball park to earn some extra bucks at the time. It was conveniently local and I loved traveling through the areas I had become so familiar with.
Later in time I attended the local Middle and High Schools and also befriended all of the neighborhood kids. We all played in the same leagues, went to the same schools, shopped at the same grocery stores and hung out together after school and on the weekends. Everything was so close that our main form of transportation was our bikes. We would ride to the football field and organize games against our peers. We also gathered together at a local house to watch sporting events such as the Super Bowl and the World Series.I remember occasionally causing havoc in the area, toilet-papering a fellow students house, or pumpkin-bashing a neighbors custom cut jack-o-lantern on Halloween, but it was all innocent fun at the time.
I would eventually finish high school and held down more serious jobs as I got older. All of which were in the same vicinity. I learned more about myself and about my life as I got older college would be just around the corner. My hometown was such a spectacular place, I had been through so much there over the years. The restaurants the parks, the freeways, hospitals, libraries, schools arcades etc I knew where they were all located. I also knew the most time efficient routes to and from them. I had become so fluent with the area surrounding my home city my knowledge of streets and landmarks began spewing over to neighboring cities.
My memories of adolescence were happy, sad, fun, and everything else in the book, but most of all they were life learning experiences. I had gone through some of my most building years in this city I had come to call home. It was a place that helped to build the person I've become today. Family, friends, schools, sports, even though I am far from home I can always reference back to these memories and give thanks for the environment in which I was raised.
As I completed my last few years at SJSU I was faced with one of my biggest dilemmas at the time Should I obtain my degree and jump right into the working force immediately after finishing school? But most importantly, should I do this in the same city I had come to cherish throughout my entire adolescent and early adult life. After all it was a place that I had gone through everything in. My first steps, first birthday, first day of school, first girlfriend, first car, etc. I had the option to continue in living in the only place I ever knew and keep adding to my memory bank. Or I could pack my bags and head out for new territory, one that I knew nothing about and start fresh. It would have been perfectly acceptable to live local and life would have been just as happy, but I was overcome by by an uncontrollable itch. The feeling of curiosity would control my destiny, dictating the path in life that I would choose to walk in the future. I chose to move from my home environment, my comfort zone and start fresh in the City of Angels..
One of the first things that I noticed over the duration of my stay was how many people there who had lived there their entire lives. Similar to myself only a few months previous, they were constricted to to the confines of their own homely surroundings. The everyday customs varied selectively from the ones I had grown up with. They were devoted Dodger fans who shopped at the Fashion and Produce Districts on weekends. Instead of trips to Great America it was trips to Disneyland or Magic Mountain. All of the local parks were filled with people that came to play soccer daily.
I ended up staying in several different cities throughout the states over the past couple of years and began to notice it every place I went. Everybody born and raised in that town ad their own traditions and represented their area in one way or another. Regardless of age, race, there were infinite ways to do it.
I'm a die hard Giants fan and grew up in the Bay Area so people always see me sporting an orange and black SF hat , no matter where I go. In New York, young and older generations wear their Yankee hat proudly. College students and alumni will flaunt their their NYU apparel. Firefighters and supporters showed their respect by wearing New York City Fire Department clothing. In Los Angeles USC and UCLA fans run wild showing love for their schools. People from Beverly Hills gladly floss their zip codes, 90210. And the younger generation sticks to an LA branded style wearing creased khakis , Nike Cortez's or Chuck Taylors. Even if you knew nothing about sports or fashion, just representing your area showed a comforting sense of unity.
Inside these razor wire fences and concrete prison walls the idea is no different than that from the outside. Everybody still represents where they're from, and inmates find friends in people that grew up in the same location. Fellow gang members will shake hands to introduce themselves, "What's up Homie? they call me smiley from Echo Park." Or "Sup Blood? J-Rock from Bounty Hunters." Even those that don't gangbang introduce themselves with a name and their city. "Dave from San Mateo" or "Chris from the San Fernando Valley."
No longer housed in LA County Jail, I bump into more and more people from all over the state. They're from all different types of cities. Some of the most common ones being Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernadino , San Jose etc...And then there are these tiny ones like Tulare, Visalia, Wasco, ones by the Arizona border or Mojave area that I had no clue even existed. Just because their city limits were minimal didn't mean their love for the hometown had to be. Some of those guys represented their area harder than those from the big city.
Later in time I attended the local Middle and High Schools and also befriended all of the neighborhood kids. We all played in the same leagues, went to the same schools, shopped at the same grocery stores and hung out together after school and on the weekends. Everything was so close that our main form of transportation was our bikes. We would ride to the football field and organize games against our peers. We also gathered together at a local house to watch sporting events such as the Super Bowl and the World Series.I remember occasionally causing havoc in the area, toilet-papering a fellow students house, or pumpkin-bashing a neighbors custom cut jack-o-lantern on Halloween, but it was all innocent fun at the time.
I would eventually finish high school and held down more serious jobs as I got older. All of which were in the same vicinity. I learned more about myself and about my life as I got older college would be just around the corner. My hometown was such a spectacular place, I had been through so much there over the years. The restaurants the parks, the freeways, hospitals, libraries, schools arcades etc I knew where they were all located. I also knew the most time efficient routes to and from them. I had become so fluent with the area surrounding my home city my knowledge of streets and landmarks began spewing over to neighboring cities.
My memories of adolescence were happy, sad, fun, and everything else in the book, but most of all they were life learning experiences. I had gone through some of my most building years in this city I had come to call home. It was a place that helped to build the person I've become today. Family, friends, schools, sports, even though I am far from home I can always reference back to these memories and give thanks for the environment in which I was raised.
As I completed my last few years at SJSU I was faced with one of my biggest dilemmas at the time Should I obtain my degree and jump right into the working force immediately after finishing school? But most importantly, should I do this in the same city I had come to cherish throughout my entire adolescent and early adult life. After all it was a place that I had gone through everything in. My first steps, first birthday, first day of school, first girlfriend, first car, etc. I had the option to continue in living in the only place I ever knew and keep adding to my memory bank. Or I could pack my bags and head out for new territory, one that I knew nothing about and start fresh. It would have been perfectly acceptable to live local and life would have been just as happy, but I was overcome by by an uncontrollable itch. The feeling of curiosity would control my destiny, dictating the path in life that I would choose to walk in the future. I chose to move from my home environment, my comfort zone and start fresh in the City of Angels..
One of the first things that I noticed over the duration of my stay was how many people there who had lived there their entire lives. Similar to myself only a few months previous, they were constricted to to the confines of their own homely surroundings. The everyday customs varied selectively from the ones I had grown up with. They were devoted Dodger fans who shopped at the Fashion and Produce Districts on weekends. Instead of trips to Great America it was trips to Disneyland or Magic Mountain. All of the local parks were filled with people that came to play soccer daily.
I ended up staying in several different cities throughout the states over the past couple of years and began to notice it every place I went. Everybody born and raised in that town ad their own traditions and represented their area in one way or another. Regardless of age, race, there were infinite ways to do it.
I'm a die hard Giants fan and grew up in the Bay Area so people always see me sporting an orange and black SF hat , no matter where I go. In New York, young and older generations wear their Yankee hat proudly. College students and alumni will flaunt their their NYU apparel. Firefighters and supporters showed their respect by wearing New York City Fire Department clothing. In Los Angeles USC and UCLA fans run wild showing love for their schools. People from Beverly Hills gladly floss their zip codes, 90210. And the younger generation sticks to an LA branded style wearing creased khakis , Nike Cortez's or Chuck Taylors. Even if you knew nothing about sports or fashion, just representing your area showed a comforting sense of unity.
Inside these razor wire fences and concrete prison walls the idea is no different than that from the outside. Everybody still represents where they're from, and inmates find friends in people that grew up in the same location. Fellow gang members will shake hands to introduce themselves, "What's up Homie? they call me smiley from Echo Park." Or "Sup Blood? J-Rock from Bounty Hunters." Even those that don't gangbang introduce themselves with a name and their city. "Dave from San Mateo" or "Chris from the San Fernando Valley."
No longer housed in LA County Jail, I bump into more and more people from all over the state. They're from all different types of cities. Some of the most common ones being Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernadino , San Jose etc...And then there are these tiny ones like Tulare, Visalia, Wasco, ones by the Arizona border or Mojave area that I had no clue even existed. Just because their city limits were minimal didn't mean their love for the hometown had to be. Some of those guys represented their area harder than those from the big city.
Monday, December 14, 2009
October 29th
It's game two of the world series and I just watched Alicia Keyes and Jay-Z do a song about New York that got me really pumped. This is my second consecutive world series behind bars and it puts an extra damper on my situation. I've loved baseball all my life so being locked up during the season is rather depressing. However I'm not sure if it was tonight's game or the music performance that caught my attention a lot. The melody and lyrics of this song have me reminiscing about the temporary but joyous time I spent living in New York.
I remember being captivated by feelings of excitement and curiosity as I stepped off the plane at La Guardia Airport. I just spent the entire flight unconscious after trying to catch up on several sleepless nights. Now, with luggage in hand and a long but needed resting period I was refreshed and ready to go hit the streets. Like a child to Disneyland my time here was spent was a period when time was a friend to me and I was always trying to catch up with it. I had so many places to go and people to see that there wasn't enough time in the world to accomplish all my desires while I was here. Far before my current woes presenting that same time as an opposing force. Now instead of basking in it, I count the days and look forward to the present being nothing more than a vague memory of the past.
After exiting the airport I became awestruck by the beautiful lamp lit cityscape as I gazed from a distance. Similar to San Francisco, the sky scrapers reached for the stars but unlike anywhere else the number of buildings appeared endless. I marvelled in the snow covered sidewalks as I hiked in search of a bus that would deliver me to the nearest subway station. The same subway station. The same subway that I had heard so much about growing up in a west coast suburban city. New York's history runs deeper than the depths of the ocean and shines brighter than any precious stone, still providing me with a euphoric feeling while I sit here writing from a state penitentiary. Unlike so many cities across the states where I had spent so much time searching for the art form, here, in New York, it was in search of me.
Nights became days and days became nights as I trekked through the different Burroughs. To the best of my knowledge I was heading from Queens to Brooklyn but as far as I was concerned the whole city would become my home. Like Los Angeles had become to me sometime before, it would be a place where every nook and cranny of the city would provide me with a sense of security. Sometimes the worst areas provided the most comfort. Sides of the city where poverty ran rampant but so did dedicated people and good work ethic. Store owners and street vendors slaved day in and day out but were still able to maintain happiness with so little. That lifestyle reassured me that material things were far from a great life and what one made out of what they were given was the true essence.
Tomorrow is another day at the yard. In Los Angeles County all three hours of mandatory yard time designated for each inmate are combined into one day. However up here the time is split up an hour and a half each day, twice a week. The dorm officer usually calls us about 9:30 in the morning and everyone who wants to go must bring their I.D. out with them. We flash our ID's to the two yard officers and as we walk across the sidewalk and under the fenced off area. Aside from a pull up bar and a basketball court there isn't much much else to do than walk the track. The Blacks and others and the Whites and Mexicans stick to the opposite side. The last time we went out the whole yard was instructed to hit the floor. I was walking the track so I dropped straight to the dirt. Others, located at the grass at the time found a more comfortable laying ground as they followed orders. Wherever you are it's imminent that you hit the floor upon instruction or shots will be fired immediately. That particular incident didn't involve our area, but whatever it was, the whole prison was on alert.
The view outside the prison gates is stagnantly dull. We are in the middle of nowhere and it's most obvious by the rugged and barren landscape. There are dry shrubs and tumbleweeds for miles and the morning fog gets even thicker as the season progresses. Since the air is fresh in the morning the smell of cow manure can be smelled with ease. Two dorms are let out at a time and each day I see a few new familiar faces walking about the track. Most of them I had come across at one point or another at the County Jail.
The other morning I saw a buddy of mine that I met back in L.A. County. He happened to be walking on the the other side of the gate on his way back to his dorm after receiving commissary. He was a well mannered white kid with no tattoos and a good attitude, he didn't fit the typical profile of a criminal. We both cracked a smirk through the gate as I hollered at him.
"What up dude? Have you seen your counselor yet?"
"Yeah I'm probably going to a CCF," he yelled back at me.
"Alright take care then" was the last I told him as I continued to trudge the track.
It had only been a couple of weeks earlier that we were strolling the halls as inmate workers in L.A. County Jail together. He was aware of my case and the day after I was sentenced I asked him to look out for me. "A deputy always throws a copy of the L.A. Times in this trash can and I want to see the type of nonsense they had to say. Just keep an eye out while I fish that paper out of the trash." I told him.
If the guards had caught us doing this it would be straight to the hole. For at least a couple weeks. The hole was a place inmates were sent to as a form of punishment. It was a 6' by 9' cell with hardly anything to eat and bi-weekly showers if you're lucky. Some could spend weeks there, others months depending on the orders of the Sergeant.
It was a risk I was willing to take, I sifted through the trash can for no more than thirty seconds and found it there. I quickly opened it up. Sure enough there was my mugshot accompanied by another bogus, repetitive article. I stuffed it down my waistline and pulled my shirt over it as we crept back to the dorm. Mission accomplished for today.
It ended up being nice to see him I thought to myself and made my way back to the pull-up bar.
For the majority of the yard I stay on the pull-up bar with various forms of arms, back and shoulder exercises. Here in reception nobody is allowed to workout inside of the dorm. One of the reasons behind that I heard was that for the time being the authorities didn't want any of the inmates to get too big. Maybe they think by reducing the testosterone and level it will reduce the hostility and fighting. Whatever the reason was, whenever yard rolls around it's best to get all the exercise you can because when you come back inside it's pretty much the same routine. The only thing that I feel that I'm missing at this yard is a handball court. I am very anxious to hit mainline because once I start playing handball and working out that's when the clock really starts to move. I can run fifteen back to back handball games and next thing I know is half the day is gone.
I remember being captivated by feelings of excitement and curiosity as I stepped off the plane at La Guardia Airport. I just spent the entire flight unconscious after trying to catch up on several sleepless nights. Now, with luggage in hand and a long but needed resting period I was refreshed and ready to go hit the streets. Like a child to Disneyland my time here was spent was a period when time was a friend to me and I was always trying to catch up with it. I had so many places to go and people to see that there wasn't enough time in the world to accomplish all my desires while I was here. Far before my current woes presenting that same time as an opposing force. Now instead of basking in it, I count the days and look forward to the present being nothing more than a vague memory of the past.
After exiting the airport I became awestruck by the beautiful lamp lit cityscape as I gazed from a distance. Similar to San Francisco, the sky scrapers reached for the stars but unlike anywhere else the number of buildings appeared endless. I marvelled in the snow covered sidewalks as I hiked in search of a bus that would deliver me to the nearest subway station. The same subway station. The same subway that I had heard so much about growing up in a west coast suburban city. New York's history runs deeper than the depths of the ocean and shines brighter than any precious stone, still providing me with a euphoric feeling while I sit here writing from a state penitentiary. Unlike so many cities across the states where I had spent so much time searching for the art form, here, in New York, it was in search of me.
Nights became days and days became nights as I trekked through the different Burroughs. To the best of my knowledge I was heading from Queens to Brooklyn but as far as I was concerned the whole city would become my home. Like Los Angeles had become to me sometime before, it would be a place where every nook and cranny of the city would provide me with a sense of security. Sometimes the worst areas provided the most comfort. Sides of the city where poverty ran rampant but so did dedicated people and good work ethic. Store owners and street vendors slaved day in and day out but were still able to maintain happiness with so little. That lifestyle reassured me that material things were far from a great life and what one made out of what they were given was the true essence.
Tomorrow is another day at the yard. In Los Angeles County all three hours of mandatory yard time designated for each inmate are combined into one day. However up here the time is split up an hour and a half each day, twice a week. The dorm officer usually calls us about 9:30 in the morning and everyone who wants to go must bring their I.D. out with them. We flash our ID's to the two yard officers and as we walk across the sidewalk and under the fenced off area. Aside from a pull up bar and a basketball court there isn't much much else to do than walk the track. The Blacks and others and the Whites and Mexicans stick to the opposite side. The last time we went out the whole yard was instructed to hit the floor. I was walking the track so I dropped straight to the dirt. Others, located at the grass at the time found a more comfortable laying ground as they followed orders. Wherever you are it's imminent that you hit the floor upon instruction or shots will be fired immediately. That particular incident didn't involve our area, but whatever it was, the whole prison was on alert.
The view outside the prison gates is stagnantly dull. We are in the middle of nowhere and it's most obvious by the rugged and barren landscape. There are dry shrubs and tumbleweeds for miles and the morning fog gets even thicker as the season progresses. Since the air is fresh in the morning the smell of cow manure can be smelled with ease. Two dorms are let out at a time and each day I see a few new familiar faces walking about the track. Most of them I had come across at one point or another at the County Jail.
The other morning I saw a buddy of mine that I met back in L.A. County. He happened to be walking on the the other side of the gate on his way back to his dorm after receiving commissary. He was a well mannered white kid with no tattoos and a good attitude, he didn't fit the typical profile of a criminal. We both cracked a smirk through the gate as I hollered at him.
"What up dude? Have you seen your counselor yet?"
"Yeah I'm probably going to a CCF," he yelled back at me.
"Alright take care then" was the last I told him as I continued to trudge the track.
It had only been a couple of weeks earlier that we were strolling the halls as inmate workers in L.A. County Jail together. He was aware of my case and the day after I was sentenced I asked him to look out for me. "A deputy always throws a copy of the L.A. Times in this trash can and I want to see the type of nonsense they had to say. Just keep an eye out while I fish that paper out of the trash." I told him.
If the guards had caught us doing this it would be straight to the hole. For at least a couple weeks. The hole was a place inmates were sent to as a form of punishment. It was a 6' by 9' cell with hardly anything to eat and bi-weekly showers if you're lucky. Some could spend weeks there, others months depending on the orders of the Sergeant.
It was a risk I was willing to take, I sifted through the trash can for no more than thirty seconds and found it there. I quickly opened it up. Sure enough there was my mugshot accompanied by another bogus, repetitive article. I stuffed it down my waistline and pulled my shirt over it as we crept back to the dorm. Mission accomplished for today.
It ended up being nice to see him I thought to myself and made my way back to the pull-up bar.
For the majority of the yard I stay on the pull-up bar with various forms of arms, back and shoulder exercises. Here in reception nobody is allowed to workout inside of the dorm. One of the reasons behind that I heard was that for the time being the authorities didn't want any of the inmates to get too big. Maybe they think by reducing the testosterone and level it will reduce the hostility and fighting. Whatever the reason was, whenever yard rolls around it's best to get all the exercise you can because when you come back inside it's pretty much the same routine. The only thing that I feel that I'm missing at this yard is a handball court. I am very anxious to hit mainline because once I start playing handball and working out that's when the clock really starts to move. I can run fifteen back to back handball games and next thing I know is half the day is gone.
Friday, December 11, 2009
October 27
In recent years the California Prison Union has changed it's acronym from the CDC to the CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.) The change is still fairly new and it most obvious in our everyday apparel. In reception we are dressed in a double orange jumpsuit. The back of the shirt is branded in black "CDCR Prisoner"as well as down the front of your right pant leg. However because the change is still so new only about half of the population has CDCR on it while the other half still says CDC. By tacking on the term rehabilitation on the end of their title they claim to be able to provide a number of services, programs and resources along with it. With the majority of the population poorly being educated the idea is to help get some of these guys back on par. Everybody that comes into the CDCR's reception center throughout California is now required to take a reading comprehension test. It's called TABE testing. All inmates regardless of their educational background must take the test and the results will be printed on your permanent file. Before the pamphlets were passed out the instructor informed us that not scoring high enough on the exam could hold a person back from certain privileged jobs. Those jobs being clerical work or fire camp. He said it was important to try your hardest because in order to receive your good time/ work time credits you would either need to be employed or attend classes. I am hoping to be a firefighter while incarcerated and if I didn't score high enough it would hold me back.
After hearing what the instructor had to say I went from uninterested to enthusiastic about taking the exam. I graduated college in 2006 and have spent the better part of four years dedicated to the streets so I was a little bit nervous. The instructor also informed us that there were four different booklets to choose from. Each one contained 50 questions and were separated by difficulty level. "E" stood for easy, "M" for medium, "D" for difficult and "A" for advanced. If we chose to take the difficult or advanced test and scored an 85% or higher then we'd be in the clear from any mandatory classes. The "Difficult" test was supposed o be that of a 10th-12th grade reading level and passing it would be good enough but I decided to go for the gold. I picked up the "advanced" test and after opening it became reluctantly hesitant. There were a lot of trick questions and it wasn't the dummy test I thought I preconceived it would be.
At that moment I had a sudden flashback to hanging out with one of my good friends. When I was on the outside we would joke around and give each other a different handle, one that was more fitting to our personality. My boy would always accuse me of making these way-out outlandish assumptions. Instead of calling me "BUKET" he would call me "Assume1" Every time I made a crazy accusation, he'd get mad and say, "Dude, What the FUCK? Assume1" and then we'd usually bust out laughing.
Quick, snap back into reality, I chose the Advanced test... Would my assumption about the
difficulty level lead to my demise?
Never that, just like it had been with everything else in my life, once I got into my groove I began to coast. Like my graffiti to the streets, the casual attitude when it came to beef, or acceptance of time when the Sheriff's resorted to lies and deceit, I chose to just cruise. It was a fifty question exam with fifty minutes designated to finish it. When I turned in the form I was a bit hesitant but I proceeded to do so and then made my way back to my seat. I patiently waited for the machine to score my bubbled in answers and for the instructor to call my name. As we headed to out the door he handed us our yellow slips. A lot of people that were taking the easy test were scoring at around a first or third grade level. I grabbed mine from the instructor and breathed a sigh of relief.
"12.9, a perfect score" the instructor told me.
The saddest part of the results were that such a high number of the inmates scored no better than an elementary student. They could tell you everything you need to know about how to cook dope, or how to come up on some money, but lacked the skills necessary to maintain a halfway decent job.
Everyday around 12:00pm to 3:00pm Jerry Springer and Maury Povich come on TV. If these shows are not contributing factors to the demise of an educated society I don't know what is. The Television hosts and producers who create these shows are no less guilty than the selfishness of a drug dealer, pushing a product and pocketing heavy profit with no positive contribution to society. Everyone crowds around to watch themselves on this mirror of a TV. They laugh and yell at the stories being told. "My Mom's Sleeping with my Boyfriend," "My Sister is Pregnant by my baby's daddy" the topics are ridiculous and and everybody gets a kick out of it. It dawned on me that this is the type of trash they are feeding us inside these walls. We're side by side with these people who have terrible habits for years and then fed this nonsense. What type of people does society expect are coming out of these detention centers, when the time spent incarcerated has been nothing more than a postponement of the habits that were never addressed. And to top it off we're governed by the code of the streets. I have never been anti establishment but I'm forced to question politics when "tough on crime" becomes comparable to neo-nazi camps. Unemployment is at record numbers and the LAPD are considering hiring 10,000 new police officers in the midst of California's budget crisis. The state talks about rehabilitation but puts the power in the hands of any officer with a grudge and lets them have full control over a previous offenders life. "You're on probation or parole? You're going in for looking at me wrong and we'll make up an excuse when we're filling out a report." I get aggravated sometimes because you really don't realize the absurdity of all of these circumstances until you are right up in the mix of it, and by that time it's too late.
After hearing what the instructor had to say I went from uninterested to enthusiastic about taking the exam. I graduated college in 2006 and have spent the better part of four years dedicated to the streets so I was a little bit nervous. The instructor also informed us that there were four different booklets to choose from. Each one contained 50 questions and were separated by difficulty level. "E" stood for easy, "M" for medium, "D" for difficult and "A" for advanced. If we chose to take the difficult or advanced test and scored an 85% or higher then we'd be in the clear from any mandatory classes. The "Difficult" test was supposed o be that of a 10th-12th grade reading level and passing it would be good enough but I decided to go for the gold. I picked up the "advanced" test and after opening it became reluctantly hesitant. There were a lot of trick questions and it wasn't the dummy test I thought I preconceived it would be.
At that moment I had a sudden flashback to hanging out with one of my good friends. When I was on the outside we would joke around and give each other a different handle, one that was more fitting to our personality. My boy would always accuse me of making these way-out outlandish assumptions. Instead of calling me "BUKET" he would call me "Assume1" Every time I made a crazy accusation, he'd get mad and say, "Dude, What the FUCK? Assume1" and then we'd usually bust out laughing.
Quick, snap back into reality, I chose the Advanced test... Would my assumption about the
difficulty level lead to my demise?
Never that, just like it had been with everything else in my life, once I got into my groove I began to coast. Like my graffiti to the streets, the casual attitude when it came to beef, or acceptance of time when the Sheriff's resorted to lies and deceit, I chose to just cruise. It was a fifty question exam with fifty minutes designated to finish it. When I turned in the form I was a bit hesitant but I proceeded to do so and then made my way back to my seat. I patiently waited for the machine to score my bubbled in answers and for the instructor to call my name. As we headed to out the door he handed us our yellow slips. A lot of people that were taking the easy test were scoring at around a first or third grade level. I grabbed mine from the instructor and breathed a sigh of relief.
"12.9, a perfect score" the instructor told me.
The saddest part of the results were that such a high number of the inmates scored no better than an elementary student. They could tell you everything you need to know about how to cook dope, or how to come up on some money, but lacked the skills necessary to maintain a halfway decent job.
Everyday around 12:00pm to 3:00pm Jerry Springer and Maury Povich come on TV. If these shows are not contributing factors to the demise of an educated society I don't know what is. The Television hosts and producers who create these shows are no less guilty than the selfishness of a drug dealer, pushing a product and pocketing heavy profit with no positive contribution to society. Everyone crowds around to watch themselves on this mirror of a TV. They laugh and yell at the stories being told. "My Mom's Sleeping with my Boyfriend," "My Sister is Pregnant by my baby's daddy" the topics are ridiculous and and everybody gets a kick out of it. It dawned on me that this is the type of trash they are feeding us inside these walls. We're side by side with these people who have terrible habits for years and then fed this nonsense. What type of people does society expect are coming out of these detention centers, when the time spent incarcerated has been nothing more than a postponement of the habits that were never addressed. And to top it off we're governed by the code of the streets. I have never been anti establishment but I'm forced to question politics when "tough on crime" becomes comparable to neo-nazi camps. Unemployment is at record numbers and the LAPD are considering hiring 10,000 new police officers in the midst of California's budget crisis. The state talks about rehabilitation but puts the power in the hands of any officer with a grudge and lets them have full control over a previous offenders life. "You're on probation or parole? You're going in for looking at me wrong and we'll make up an excuse when we're filling out a report." I get aggravated sometimes because you really don't realize the absurdity of all of these circumstances until you are right up in the mix of it, and by that time it's too late.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
October 25th
The different reasons behind ones incarceration are near infinite. Some are sophisticated, well thought out plans, others happen in the heat of the moment, then there's those people who just make boneheaded decisions. They are obviously a a few marbles shy of a full jar, and the choices they made put them in some bad predicaments.
My neighbor underneath me, Jerry, is a very nice guy with some obvious mental problems. He's not quite as quick in the head as the rest of us and has an irregular speech impediment. I suppose using speed adds to his problems and sometimes I catch myself frustrated with the things that he does. But I know from experience it could be a hundred times worse. Jerry is a 38 year old white guy that's been locked up in here for the past 13 months. He has two young daughters who are now in the care of Child Protective Services. His girlfriend always uses heavy dope and was therefore declared unfit to raise the children. Jerry just finished doing a ten month sentence in a federal Prison and was shipped out here on his release date he has another eight months to do in this State Penitentiary before they will finally let him go home. He picked up his federal case at the US/Mexican border in coming back from Tijuana. Someone had offered him $500 to help smuggle somebody over the border. He was to hang out at a hotel until someone arrived in a minivan. The minivan had an 18 year old Mexican woman in the hood of the car. She had payed someone a couple of thousand dollars to get across the border. I asked him how she could even fit. He said, " she was between the engine and the firewall" with a dead serious expression. Apparently the border control agents found him to be somewhat suspicious and he was pulled over for secondary searching. The dog must have sniffed out the girl right away and the plan was a failure. Jerry was tailing the guy in the minivan but as soon as he saw what happened he split.
The reason he wound up here after serving the time was for a completely different. He said the same friend of a friend was cashing phony checks and the scam seemed to be working real well. The guy wrote Jerry's name on the check and sent him in to cash it.
"As soon as I knew how many checks were already cashed that's when I knew nothing good was going to come of the situation." he told me.
I found that whole statement to be depressing. "Didn't you realize nothing good was going to come out of the situation before you went to receive cash for something you didn't earn?" I asked him.
I realized a lot of his problems arose from a combination of mental issues and dope combined. Here is this man, with next to nothing, who lives in a travel trailer and has lost almost two years of his life behind a $250 check and a $500 border deal. Some people make $750 in a few days, what's worse is he never even got to keep the money. It's a sad fact of life that while normal people are carrying on with their day to day tasks there are these people that can't even maintain a manageable life cycle.
Jerry's friend came up to me and asked, "Do you do a lot of dope?"
"Drugs just aren't my thing" I replied.
"Then what the fuck are you doping in prison?" he barked at me.
I'm not above anybody in here. Not even one person. But all I could say with a chuckle and a shrug, "They made an example out of me..."
My neighbor underneath me, Jerry, is a very nice guy with some obvious mental problems. He's not quite as quick in the head as the rest of us and has an irregular speech impediment. I suppose using speed adds to his problems and sometimes I catch myself frustrated with the things that he does. But I know from experience it could be a hundred times worse. Jerry is a 38 year old white guy that's been locked up in here for the past 13 months. He has two young daughters who are now in the care of Child Protective Services. His girlfriend always uses heavy dope and was therefore declared unfit to raise the children. Jerry just finished doing a ten month sentence in a federal Prison and was shipped out here on his release date he has another eight months to do in this State Penitentiary before they will finally let him go home. He picked up his federal case at the US/Mexican border in coming back from Tijuana. Someone had offered him $500 to help smuggle somebody over the border. He was to hang out at a hotel until someone arrived in a minivan. The minivan had an 18 year old Mexican woman in the hood of the car. She had payed someone a couple of thousand dollars to get across the border. I asked him how she could even fit. He said, " she was between the engine and the firewall" with a dead serious expression. Apparently the border control agents found him to be somewhat suspicious and he was pulled over for secondary searching. The dog must have sniffed out the girl right away and the plan was a failure. Jerry was tailing the guy in the minivan but as soon as he saw what happened he split.
The reason he wound up here after serving the time was for a completely different. He said the same friend of a friend was cashing phony checks and the scam seemed to be working real well. The guy wrote Jerry's name on the check and sent him in to cash it.
"As soon as I knew how many checks were already cashed that's when I knew nothing good was going to come of the situation." he told me.
I found that whole statement to be depressing. "Didn't you realize nothing good was going to come out of the situation before you went to receive cash for something you didn't earn?" I asked him.
I realized a lot of his problems arose from a combination of mental issues and dope combined. Here is this man, with next to nothing, who lives in a travel trailer and has lost almost two years of his life behind a $250 check and a $500 border deal. Some people make $750 in a few days, what's worse is he never even got to keep the money. It's a sad fact of life that while normal people are carrying on with their day to day tasks there are these people that can't even maintain a manageable life cycle.
Jerry's friend came up to me and asked, "Do you do a lot of dope?"
"Drugs just aren't my thing" I replied.
"Then what the fuck are you doping in prison?" he barked at me.
I'm not above anybody in here. Not even one person. But all I could say with a chuckle and a shrug, "They made an example out of me..."
Sunday, December 6, 2009
October 24th
Part of the arrival process was making each inmate an I.D. card. As we trekked around the concrete floors all day. Barefoot and wearing only boxers they took a front and side view with tape on the wall behind us to show height. Taking mugshots has been something I've become very good at over the last few years (sarcasm.)
Now that I had my I.D. the wristband that I had been wearing for the past 5 months was no longer necessary. I saw some people chew theirs off, and others had already removed them. As for me I tugged and tugged with so much aggression until it broke. It was a bitter sweet feeling of rebellion when I hucked it to the ground. It felt like I was throwing up the middle finger to L.A. county and their justice system. A county that had me serve my time for my crime and let me go home. Only to turn around and re-arrest me and detain me on no more than a fictitious police report. By throwing that wristband to the ground it was like telling them you may be able to lock up my body but you'll never be able to touch my mind, that will always be free. I could never despise you because that would take too much energy. I only pity the foul and hideous morals you choose to live by. I have made plenty of mistakes at a period in my life, but for another individual to lie and keep me away from my family, for an absurd amount of time at that is downright evil. I only vent these injustices not in search of freedom but because it would be a crime to keep the truth a secret.
After getting my I.D. card strangely it felt a little bit like college again (The School of Hard Knocks.) We walked the pathways freely if even for a moment. There were grassy fields, a track to run, basketball courts, and a workout area. I looked up and the sky was emerald blue. The air smelled fresh and we were more free than we had been in a while.
There are 140 inmates housed in this dorm and the gate is never locked except at night. It feels good to be treated with a little more dignity. The reason we have so many privileges is because the inmate issued discipline is in full effect. Everything that you learned in jail as far as respect and cleanliness should already be fully implemented by the time you arrived here in prison. There are no second chances. If you slip up you will get smashed, no questions asked. Some of the inmates refer to this as being "touched up" others call it "boo bopped" and the rest just say they were disciplined. The way it's carried out is is pretty coward like. A higher official will order three other inmates to bumrush the one being disciplined. This usually takes place in a corner or a bathroom and lasts between 20 and 60 seconds. For the most part it keeps everyone on their "P's and Q's" and helps everything run smoother because nobody wants to be the victim. But every now and then that individual who abuses the authority comes along and starts implementing excessive and unnecessary violence. Dorms get out of control and minor issues become major riots.
The fact that I came out of L.A. County puts me considerably above the rest. The inmate issued program for the whites and the Mexicans were governed by will make or break a person. You always needed to be on your toes and be prepared for anything. Deadly racial riots pop off at the drop of a dime, anywhere, anytime. There was a mandatory workout schedule five days a week to keep us in tip-top shape. Every race was similar to an army and the tension ran high. At no point other than right before you enter the shower are you allowed to wear your sandals. Just in case a riot broke out you had to have your shoes to be ready to go. There was absolutely no trading or gambling with the black race. No cutting through the tables. No cutting through the rocks. No misuse of the designated toilets. You can only spit out your toothpaste in the toilet, not the sink. No talking during count time. No getting off your rack during lights out not following any of these rules is grounds for discipline. A few times I've seen the one being disciplined issue a beating to the three coming at him, but the majority of the time, he ends up battered and beaten. And on some rare occasions, dead. I met a guy who beat a homicide case on the street only to be facing an "in-house" murder because somebody got "boo bopped" to death. If L.A. county taught me anything , it was to show no fear when you walk and hold you head up high because there will be a brighter day.
Now that I had my I.D. the wristband that I had been wearing for the past 5 months was no longer necessary. I saw some people chew theirs off, and others had already removed them. As for me I tugged and tugged with so much aggression until it broke. It was a bitter sweet feeling of rebellion when I hucked it to the ground. It felt like I was throwing up the middle finger to L.A. county and their justice system. A county that had me serve my time for my crime and let me go home. Only to turn around and re-arrest me and detain me on no more than a fictitious police report. By throwing that wristband to the ground it was like telling them you may be able to lock up my body but you'll never be able to touch my mind, that will always be free. I could never despise you because that would take too much energy. I only pity the foul and hideous morals you choose to live by. I have made plenty of mistakes at a period in my life, but for another individual to lie and keep me away from my family, for an absurd amount of time at that is downright evil. I only vent these injustices not in search of freedom but because it would be a crime to keep the truth a secret.
After getting my I.D. card strangely it felt a little bit like college again (The School of Hard Knocks.) We walked the pathways freely if even for a moment. There were grassy fields, a track to run, basketball courts, and a workout area. I looked up and the sky was emerald blue. The air smelled fresh and we were more free than we had been in a while.
There are 140 inmates housed in this dorm and the gate is never locked except at night. It feels good to be treated with a little more dignity. The reason we have so many privileges is because the inmate issued discipline is in full effect. Everything that you learned in jail as far as respect and cleanliness should already be fully implemented by the time you arrived here in prison. There are no second chances. If you slip up you will get smashed, no questions asked. Some of the inmates refer to this as being "touched up" others call it "boo bopped" and the rest just say they were disciplined. The way it's carried out is is pretty coward like. A higher official will order three other inmates to bumrush the one being disciplined. This usually takes place in a corner or a bathroom and lasts between 20 and 60 seconds. For the most part it keeps everyone on their "P's and Q's" and helps everything run smoother because nobody wants to be the victim. But every now and then that individual who abuses the authority comes along and starts implementing excessive and unnecessary violence. Dorms get out of control and minor issues become major riots.
The fact that I came out of L.A. County puts me considerably above the rest. The inmate issued program for the whites and the Mexicans were governed by will make or break a person. You always needed to be on your toes and be prepared for anything. Deadly racial riots pop off at the drop of a dime, anywhere, anytime. There was a mandatory workout schedule five days a week to keep us in tip-top shape. Every race was similar to an army and the tension ran high. At no point other than right before you enter the shower are you allowed to wear your sandals. Just in case a riot broke out you had to have your shoes to be ready to go. There was absolutely no trading or gambling with the black race. No cutting through the tables. No cutting through the rocks. No misuse of the designated toilets. You can only spit out your toothpaste in the toilet, not the sink. No talking during count time. No getting off your rack during lights out not following any of these rules is grounds for discipline. A few times I've seen the one being disciplined issue a beating to the three coming at him, but the majority of the time, he ends up battered and beaten. And on some rare occasions, dead. I met a guy who beat a homicide case on the street only to be facing an "in-house" murder because somebody got "boo bopped" to death. If L.A. county taught me anything , it was to show no fear when you walk and hold you head up high because there will be a brighter day.
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