Who's Helping Who?

I draw a distinction between self-help books and simply informative books. An example of the two, covering similar topics, is Rich Dad, Poor Dad by R. Kiyosaki, and Security Analysis by the late Benjamin Graham.

Now, all books—especially informative ones—can help one help oneself. The very presence of the knowledge contained therein is an implicit invitation to use it as one will. The primary motive of the author is simply to present said information. Self-help books, however, package knowledge with an explicit invitation to use it, and so, in my admittedly very limited experience with such, often come off as an ostentatious salesman of an author lewdly selling himself. After all, if the information is truly of use, is it then necessary to invite others to use it?

I believe that my hypothesis is bolstered by the massive difference in the number of books the average self-help author and informative book author write. Kiyosaki has written somewhere around ten books (each blatantly referring the reader to all the other books) that are all part of his Rich Dad, Poor Dad series. And he did so in a brief five-year span. Ben Graham, on the other hand, wrote two books: Security Analysis, and The Intelligent Investor. In a span of fifteen years. The former is a 700 page tome that lays out the theoretical framework for value investing, and the latter, a distillation of such more to the tune of the average investor (i.e. the less academic).

But who, other than the uber-serious, cares to purchase and pore through 700 page tomes, irrespective of the merit ensconced therein? The tidbitty factoids prevalent in any Rich Dad, Poor Dad book that ever was or will be, is generally more appetizing to the New York Times bestseller list, irrespective of any inherent lack of merit contained therein.

Thus, the informative books are more for those who wish to help themselves, and self-help books are for those who have either yet to discover the self-help author’s true motive, or are dilettantes.

*Author’s Note: As I’ve only read but a few snippets of self-help material from two or three authors, my extrapolation of their similar styles may not logically follow throughout the entire genre, or even most of it for that matter. If this is the case, then the distinction was merely author to author, probably not worth writing about, and you—along with many meritorious self-help authors—have my apologies.

How It's Made: Cheesecake

Cheesecake. A delicacy I never thought I’d see in prison, much less frequently dine on until refined sugar and I stopped speaking close to a year ago. Now, I don’t know the recipe for cheesecake out there, or even if its name is a misnomer. I do know, however, that the way it’s made in here is much different, yet the finished product is deceitfully similar in taste. Moreover, it’s simple.

1) Dump a quart’s worth of powdered milk into a very large bowl, mix in with it two single serve lemon Kool-aid packets and two Sweet and Low packets. Pour exactly one-half of a can of Sprite in this mixture, and stir until it’s consistent.

2) In another bowl, smash half a bag of vanilla wafers into crumbs, and add butter until you have a malleable consistency. Then shape the paste into a crust that encompasses the whole bowl, and let dry.

3) Next, pour the still liquid cheesecake into the pie crust and let it sit in a cool or cold place for twelve hours. At that point, it will have attained the consistency of classic cheesecake, and you can then add half a jar of strawberry preserves evenly on the top of it.

Serve after dinner, and I challenge you to find a guest who can tell the difference!

Trickle Down Prisonomics

A cardinal sin in prison is for inmates to fight or do anything else that can get the wing locked down on commissary day. TDC policy states that a disciplinary lockdown (as opposed to, say, a quarantine lockdown) is cause enough for a wing to be passed over by commissary if they are so locked down when it’s their time to go.

This no fighting rule gets broken, if not regularly, enough to be burdensome. And of course, it’s always by individuals who don’t go to commissary! Our wing, in fact, hasn’t been to commissary (to “store”) in 3 ½ weeks because there was a fight on the wing on our last store day, and then the whole unit was locked down when we were scheduled to go again.

Needless to say, our wing is as barren as the moon; no one has any commissary to speak of. Plus, everyone owes everyone else because all transactions (haircuts, laundry services, cigarettes, sports bets, etc.) have been executed via credit for the past week or so, and the dayroom is jam packed at chowtime because few have the financial wherewithal to skip any meal, no matter how putrid. As I write this, they’re running commissary on the wing ahead of us, and everyone is acutely aware that our time is near.

While it’s a truism that only individuals who don’t go to store fight on commissary day, it’s also a fact that the vast majority of those individuals deeply wish the rest of us to go to store. For, you see, many of them “hustle” (serve some market or other), and as we are the market, our commissary Reaganomically trickles down to permeate the lockers of a much larger number of inmates than those who just went to store.

Given how long it’s been this time, that trickle will become a gush!

Progress Speaks Louder Than Words

I think that when I’m not in my mental default mode of wry mockery, I actually exert a pretty good influence on people.

I have a buddy in the craftshop, whom I recently referred to as my crass compadre, and whom I’ve known and associated with for the entire six months that I’ve been in there. Initially, he was very crude (a deliverer of shock value, even), an avid eater of pastries, and never worked out. Now, while my other buddies therein, and myself, have our onsets of crudity, we are his polar opposites. Or at least we used to be.

After a few spirited debates about the logic of eating pastries, and the logic of dropping the context of long-term likelihoods for the sake of momentary “feel goods”, my buddy suddenly and quietly stopped eating all sweets.

Then, a few weeks ago, he nonchalantly asked if he could jump in on our workout sessions, to which I readily agreed, and eagerly restructured the time frame that we formerly used. Needless to say, much progress has been made on that front so far.

A few nights ago, this individual and I were having a debate, heartily exchanging rebuttals as we lounged at his station in the craftshop. Now, at the risk of coming off as haughty, I must confess that I’m not one to generally lose a debate, but my buddy ended up shredding my thread of logic with a coup de grace of a closer.

Defeated, yet with mouth agape and grasping at a smile, I looked at him and those around us. One of my buddies, recognizing my beaming pride, smiled broadly, and laughing, informed my defeater that there’s no way he would have used such language or inductive reasoning just a few short months ago.

In the light of such tangible progress, we all laughed and celebrated as if a baby had just been born. It was a beautiful thing!

Expectations of the Public and Private Woman

I’m not so naïve as to think the world is playing a trick on me, but it’s achingly hard for me to accept, or even consider, that woman qua woman could possibly be as carnal as we men.

I confess, as having been incarcerated for three quarters of my post-pubescent life, I’m treading into waters unknown, so I hope not to offend you. I suppose that there is some degree of a dichotomy between the private and public self in the vast majority of people, but with women, whose public selves are so prim, pretty and proper (i.e. perfect), I believe that my elevated expectations for their private selves is then primed for disappointment, as all options outside of “perfect” reside beneath it.

An individual once told me of a conversation he had with his mistress. She was expressing displeasure at something, and perhaps pursued her line of logic a bit too pressingly, when he interjected with an overtly sexual non sequitur of a comment, in the form of a rather vile and (supposedly) rhetorical question.

Rather than what I would have expected, not so much her specifically, but women in general, to do—ignore his ignorance and continue on with her reasoning or become righteously indignant at his insipidness—this woman merely demurred with a downward glance, and meekly answered in the affirmative.

What is this? Is the world but a set for a cheap porn movie? Where’s the corny beat? I had a cache of crass comments like the aforementioned when I was but a breaking out fifteen-year-old…and I was an idiot!

I know it is not the world, but rather I who have been lovingly worshiping a dream. Women are not willow-o-the-wisps, and are fraught with flaws just like we of the courser sex…just of a different generalized sort. It was only in my twisted and warped world that they were not. Ironically enough, it was beauty that I’d managed to twist and warp by naively extrapolating it to infinity.

So, I suppose it goes without saying, but there’s no love lost.

Compounding Ignorance on Commissary Day

Boy, yesterday was one for the records! Due to the fact that we came up off a slightly longer lockdown than usual last week, many, many hungry inmates were exploiting one or more of the myriad ways to eat more than once in the chow hall for lunch and dinner, or both. Whereas the staff is generally finished feeding lunch by 1230, every day last week saw lunchtime filter into the 200pm hour.

Thus, two days ago, the Major—rationally, I might add—instituted a policy wherein the main hall is virtually locked down while they feed chow. For the time being, there aren’t even allowances for people with “lay-ins” designating them passage to the infirmary, church, etc. Of course, such systemic ineffectiveness is symptomatic of one of a slew of the inherent flaws in a beauracracy: warring administrative factions.

As soon as the departments in control of unit count, church, medical, etc. realize that the decision of an unrelated committee is the cause of their system failures, they’ll act to modify the new feeding system so as to be compatible with their own functions. How it will all end up is anyone’s guess.

Given that commissary was one of the departments affected by this new policy, it too, was running very slowly. So, when 200pm shift change roller around, and practically everyone on the wing still had to go to commissary, they were packed accordingly and accordion-like into the dayroom, many pressed against the bars with arms extended out and ID cards in hand (which must be taken by the officer for the inmate to gain admission to go to commissary).

Resigned irritation saturated the air. Few had gone to store, the hallway at chowtime was like something out of Gestapo Germany, and then they saw who our second shift boss would be.

She was one who’d just started, and ambled onto the wing with one of those perennially scrunched faces. Almost immediately, she compounded the ambiance of frustration with her vitriolic vibes, and by—whether due to ignorance or insolence—only doing a “one way in” (the cells) as opposed to the usual “in and out”, hence causing all of the workers and college students to be stuck in their cells for an extra hour. (They were all subsequently late to their respective destinations). Many began to yell the vilest things at this easily vilified woman, so she drew yet deeper into her abstinence.

By the time I got out of my cell and deftly eased passed this fluttering flustered female, and the volleys of hate being lobbed at her, the environment was in a state of rapid deterioration. It seemed headed toward a lockdown on—horror of all horrors—commissary day. I flashed my craft card, barely got off the wing (because, again, the hallway is so hard to use at or even near chowtime), and went—trying to calm myself down—to my refuge in the craftshop. I did not look back.

I’ll be putting in for four-year college this May, and will transfer off this unit in short order.

Education: The Only Way to Rehabilitate the Justice System

About a week ago, Governor Rick Perry stated on the radio that he was considering another system-wide lockdown, calling in a special squad to shake us down and then mix up the guards and their respective units. Of course, I didn’t actually hear this sound bite myself, but am going on a word of mouth rendition of the event. Needless to say, the governor’s statement—true or false—spread like a veritable wildfire across the unit.

Apparently, the porous nature of the penitentiary’s perimeter keeps getting exposed by so many instances of inmates being caught with cell phones. What Perry doesn’t understand is that the culture of corruption synonymous with any prison environ— with their current credo of crime warehousing as opposed to comprehensive and innovative rehabilitation—will infect a critical mass of any constituency of guardians.

Prisoners, partially as a result of the unjust nature of the justice and prison systems, are left with their ideologies validated, and become corrupted to the bone. Young, new prisoners and guards alike, when exposed to that corruption, in many instances take it in to a large degree, and the transmission expands outward in a massive, negative feedback loop resulting in more cell phones, higher recidivism rates, more “pipechase babies” (female guard pregnancies with inmate fathers), etc.

Any solution to these problems must reverse their facilitating theme: the criminal “take value” philosophy and its negative feedback loop in prisons. Changing guards, draconian punishments, or even a more lenient parole policy will not singlehandedly do the trick. Rather, the guiding principle of the prison system must be changed to a full-fledged effort at creating an environment conducive to rehabilitation.

They can begin by instituting a prison-by-prison merit pay system based on respective recidivism rates, by allowing inmates to have real jobs within the prison (and thus, while rightly reintegrated, and the opportunity to provide for their families, more easily build their futures, etc.), and by vastly revamping and expanding all education programs.

Productivity Versus the Sociable Mean

Given that during lockdown, one’s contact with others is restricted to his celli only, as all movement is frozen for a couple weeks, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that arises—post lockdown—because of that restricted contact. Essentially, it’s a reversion to the sociability mean, and is executed via an extraordinary amount of talking, recreating, etc.

Before I got into the craftshop, I wasn’t nearly so attuned to this dynamic, as I did the vast majority of my work in the cell. Hence, if I was at recreation or in the dayroom watching Family Guy, I was too ensconced in these activities to notice an extraordinary amount of them being partaken of.

Now, however, when upwards of half my work is done in the craftshop (outside the solitude of my cell), I have a barometer with which to keenly measure any abundance of any activity that may reduce my own productivity. And that’s how I’ve identified this phenomenon of a reversion to the sociability mean—there’s so much catching up going on!

To compound my work woes—given the jaundicing scope with which many others in the craftshop view my working with abstractions as opposed to concretes—I’m construed as perennially non-busy, and have morphed into the default go-to guy whenever any one of a surprisingly rapidly growing cadre of comrades takes a break from his work. So, they’ll practically take turns plopping down in the generally empty chair next to my own, and, ignoring any open newspapers, magazines or poised pens in my hand, will crank up a conversation.

Even worse, many times it will be a continuation of the conversation they left me with when we last parted, as if I’d since just been sitting there, frozen with suspense and anticipation as I eagerly awaited their return.

I admit, when pushed into the proverbial corner, I’ll politely confess to my, too, having work to do (albeit that funny, non-artisinal sort), and to please, if possible, leave me be. But, being naturally sociable myself, and not predisposed to hurt feelings, these instances are relatively few and far between.

Three potential outcomes are imminent: the reversion to the sociable mean will complete; I’ll become less sociable; or I’ll spend less time in the craftshop. But either way, I will reflate my productivity!

How It's Made: The Jack Mack

“Spreads” are simply the penitentiary colloquial term for dishes made from commissary foodstuff. For instance, a “Plain Jane” spread for two people is three Ramen Noodle soups, two pouches of tuna, some mayo, mustard, jalapenos, and to be added at the end, corn chips and ketchup. It’s made by cooking the soups, draining off any excess water, mixing in the tuna and condiments, sprinkling on the chips and adding a bit of ketchup on top.

But all of that is elementary stuff. Though he left about a year ago, there was an old Asian inmate here who was called Jack Mack. He was named so because his “hustle” was cooking for others, and his Jack Mack spread—the stuff of legends—was in high demand. Customers would provide him with the ingredients, plus his fee of a dollar, and he’d cook it up for them. As I said, he’s no longer with us, but I have the recipe!

For the Jack Mack spread, one needs a bit of contraband: a hotpot that’s been rigged to boil, garlic and sugar.

First, put half of a hotpot of water on, and when it begins to boil, don’t crush up the Ramen Noodle soups, but merely break them in half, and put them in the boiling water. Watch closely, and when they begin to break apart in the water, quickly drain it all off, and dump the noodles in a bowl.

Next, stir the noodles around a bit as you hold them under a fan, then set them to the side. This way of cooking them will crystallize them, just like they’re served at Asian restaurants.

Then put two hotpot caps’ worth of water in the hotpot, along with one pouch of Jack Mack, one spoon of sandwich spread, the two seasoning packs from the soups (chilies are the best with this dish), half a tablespoon of garlic, half a tablespoon of sugar, and stir lightly (as you want the mackerel to remain in large chunks). When the hotpot begins to boil, let it do so for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.

Finally, when the twenty minutes are up, dump the contents of the hotpot on the noodles and half a bag of pork skins (which will absorb much of the juice), and enjoy some of the finest penitentiary fare that I, and many others, have ever had!

Corruption at the Courthouse: The Tale of Judge Sharon Keller

“Judge Sharon Keller…”, began an editorial in Houston’s daily newspaper, “…who heads the state’s highest court on criminal matters, is in the dock facing charges that could lead to her removal from office.”

The columnist, Mr. Rick Casey, then goes on to detail some instances of her grotesque judicial misconduct, leading all the way up to the events of September 27, 2007, when Judge Keller knowingly violated procedure so as to close the courthouse door on a death row inmate’s last minute appeal before his execution.

While sanctions have been issued against members of the statewide judiciary here in Texas in the past, this is the first case that could result in a public trial and possible removal of a judge. Take special note of her worse case legal exposure: possible removal from the bench. Now, the appellant whose lawyer she refused to forward to the judge who was handling the appeal—and waiting at the courthouse for documents from that very appellant—argued points very similar to the logic in several other appeals that led to the Supreme Court’s halting of all executions for six months.

The Supreme Court subsequently deemed execution by lethal injection as not cruel and unusual punishment, and after the six-month time frame it took to arrive at the decision, executions resumed. Would his particular appeal, and his particular circumstance as the first appeal to argue that logic, have led to a different outcome? The world will never know.

Had the above feints and parries played out in an analogous manner in Corporate America, or amongst the denizens of a neighborhood, then the worst case legal exposures would be conspiracy to commit murder charges.

There is a concept, here in prison, that’s colloquially termed “bond money.” Essentially, given that inmates are all assigned “line classes”, and these line classes oscillate around disciplinary records, then the same infraction will generally result in a much larger punishment, relatively speaking, for the bad actor than it will for the good actor. Of course, that, as such, is a right and proper outcome—the dark underside of the logic is manifested when the “good” actor says, “yeah, I’ll hold those cigarettes. I’ve got bond money.” Is that not eerily close to “yeah, I’ll commit murder by omission. I’m a judge, so the worst that can happen is my removal from the bench. I’ve got bond money.”

Given the details of the numerous instances of Judge Keller’s infamous misconduct, I’d venture that their prevalence is indicative of a broader theme of murder and mayhem. Those very two words are the first two in a three-word slogan representing a notorious prison gang’s ideology.

Ironic, is it not?

Creating Abstractions in a Concrete Existence

There exists, between myself and a few of the other inmates in the craftshop, the slightest hint of tension in our relations. Granted, I do get along, for the most part, with almost everyone, for several reasons: I’m fairly entertaining and am utterly devoid of pretense, I do good business (i.e. if I owe someone something when I go to commissary, he can rest assured I’ll deliver it to him in very short order after going), and I don’t do anything illegal, which usually encroaches on another’s illegality.

After much consideration, I realized that the sole aspect of my character which must be the epicenter of said hint of tension (manifested in the occasional offhand comment) is my vocational devotion to abstractions, rather than concretes. And in a dusty, toiling craftshop dominated by leather and woodworkers with a smattering of artists and metalworkers, my analyzing marketing tactics, or stocks, as opposed to T-squares, and my writing about ideas instead of painting them, does, I admit, cast me in a different light.

In my defense, however, I got in the craftshop solely to make a market around my rehabilitation equals the creation of value philosophy, and though those plans have been dealt a blow due to some prison labor laws of which I was heretofore ignorant, I nonetheless got in to make markets. And if I can still perform at that, then I can help the others perform at their proficiencies. That said, I understand that such still isn’t the natural environ for the dreamy idealist.

A few weeks ago, as I was at my desk, reclining at about ten o’clock (both the time of day and the angle), with an Investors Business Daily cracked in half, an associate bustling by, said, “no loitering.”

Now, to loiter denotes to remain idle, unoccupied. For him to use it in such a manner that subsumes working with abstractions, along with remaining perfectly idle, is not an innocent mistake, but rather a package deal that attests to how he (and probably the establishment at large) views abstractions, as they relate to concretes. It equates the loitering nature of being both physically and mentally unoccupied to being solely mentally occupied.

The craftshop, as a medium in which inmates can legitimately create value, is a right and proper thing, and a good start. But it’s been here for twenty years. Is it not time, given the obvious success at its purpose, to branch out to other media as well?

To systematically endorse—even implicitly—the ideal that inmates can only create value within the realm of concretes, or worse, that concretes are the only realm wherein value creation matters, is a travesty, given that abstractions are what give purpose and utility to concretes. Such also effectively splits a principle (i.e. it’s right and proper for inmates to create value) in half, and if this beauracracy, like so many others, finds it “efficient” to rush to and fro, flailing a warped broad sword of irrationality, and leaving principles lopped in twain, well, I’m here to realign this principle. I’m here to break the mold.

Ad-Ons: The Ultimate Interactive Media

For a few months now, I’ve been contemplating a potentially very cool, quasi-guerilla marketing strategy. I call it ad-ons and it consists of the simultaneous release, on television, of five “ad-halves” that are all somehow interrelated. The catch is an online forum wherein participants can create their own endings from content provided, and then add them onto the initial ad halves.

Once all the participants’ ad-ons are enlisted, the public will be asked to vote, online, on which ad-on is their favorite for each ad. The winning participants will receive some predetermined amount of the hosting company’s products or services for some predetermine time frame. And the completed ads will then run again on television.

Media attention would be courted prior to the launch of the campaign, and will probably remain focused on such throughout, due to the campaigns sheer novelty.

Crowdsourcing product designs as a business model has already been successfully implemented, although without mass coverage (I’ve read a smattering of articles on it in such magazines as Wired, Inc., and Fast Company, but never in Barron’s or The Wall Street Journal). The ad-ons campaign, however, would generate mass coverage, and subsequently mass participation. As crowdsourcing efficacy is perfectly correlated to the size of the crowd, then whoever creates that participation mechanism—which ad-ons would do—will have borne the goose that lays golden eggs!

Furthermore, as the ads will begin and end on television, and the ad-ons will be created and added online, this brand of marketing will tightly link television and Internet platforms. Also tightly linked will be the relationships between the hosting company, the ad firm, the participants, and the public at large. The network value of these relationships (e.g. the cross-selling and cross-marketing opportunities) will be immense.

The Culturization of Counterculture

A year and a half ago, I took Public Speaking 1306 at the college here on our unit. My second speech was on the 1990’s and two of the many paradigm changes that occurred therein. Given my creative bent, I only reported paradigm changes that I noted and experienced first-hand, and one of them was a phenomenon that occurred in music.

Namely, at the tail end of the 90s, pop music and rap music merged to become the now “mainstream hip-hop.” The edgier “gangsta” and “bling-bling” elements of rap were pushed out to the fringe, along with the soft rockish, B-movie-esque elements on the pop side. And the new hip-hop certainly commands a larger listener base than did mid 90s rap and mid 90s pop combined.

In my speech, after outlining this dynamic, I simply moved on to the next one. My good friend, however, at a recent visit endowed it with a brilliant tagline: the culturization of counterculture.

Of course, for counterculture to become culture, it must lose its counter aspect. That is, some large degree of the secrecy or edginess that made it unknown or unappetizing to the culture status quo. And therein lies the paradox: once counterculture is accepted by the cultural status quo, it [the status quo] must change, to a large degree, what it accepts. The cultural status quo itself is a perennially shape shifting entity, but value transmission flows both ways. So, as edgier values are brought in with the new, teenage entrants, they’re tempered by the values left by existing seniors.

To be accepted by the cultural status quo, rap had to lose some of its deviance, and pop had to lose some of its caring-ness, so some esthetically inclined marketing executives very profitably merged the two.
To be accepted by the cultural status quo, video games had to move beyond awesome graphics and very complex gameplay to a more physically integrated, simpler experience, and also to more brainteaser type games. Nintendo’s Wii and DS very profitably made that happen.
To be accepted by the cultural status quo, the internet had to move beyond sheer geekiness to a more consumer-centric, network facilitating experience. Cisco, Google, Paypal, Facebook and Digg—to name a few—very profitably made that happen.

Hence, the culturization of counterculture embodies the democratic nature of a free society’s cultural status quo as it’s an analogy to a change in democracy’s political administration following free elections. And it also embodies the just nature of a free society’s capitalist system, as it’s an analogy to the free market’s pricing mechanism incorporating every participant’s two cents to discount future events. Only instead of the cash flows of a blue chip, it’s marrying coolness to trends!

Football Spreads Options Market

This is the first of two business plans that I’ll be posting. This one is for a football spread options market, and must be operated in a state with legalized gambling.

My market will host trading in options that give individuals the opportunity to buy or sell football game point spreads other than the one delineated by the official Vegas bookie market.

For instance, if Dallas is at Philly minus 7 ½ then our market will trade options at minus 10 ½ , 13 ½ etc. at price points somewhere less than the bet amount that stratum of the market is trading around (i.e. if the actual bet on the game is $1000, then the 10 ½ option may cost $500, the 13 ½ , $285, etc.). The prices of the options will have to be established by an initial pre-trading session, or underwritten by an Options Clearing Corporation-esque risk manager.

My market’s functions will be to assist in speculation with added liquidity, leverage and price discovery; to add hedging capacity to both bettors and bookies; and to add an efficient mechanism with which to structure spreads.

My market will facilitate three distinct angles of relative value bets. 1) spreading bets and/or options across various bet amount stratums (e.g. long the game at $1000, short two options on the $2000 stratum). 2) spreading options across the same game on the same bet stratum (via backspreads, strangles, or volatility arbitrage). And 3) spreading Team A against Team B, from one week to the next, with Team C as the proxy you’re betting on them to perform against, one way or another.

I envision the options beginning trading a few weeks before each respective game, so many more outperformance bets could be placed than actual teams meet.

Our revenue model will consist of commissions on each contract traded, and as we grow, the business will scale.

The Rumor Market Crash

A while back I wrote about a 90-day lockdown that we endured at my last unit, and the infernal canned chicken sandwiches they’d serve us every eighth evening. (FYI, I’ve recently been referring to sandwiches merely as “dwiches”. The word just rolls right off the tongue. I suggest you try it.)

Anyway, that 90-day lockdown was wrenching (notwithstanding the immense amount of reading, writing and studying I got done). Back then, 30-day lockdowns were the norm (unlike the two week walks in the park we partake in here at my new unit). Now, it was a disciplinary lockdown as opposed to the biannual shakedown, and for a racial riot at that, but we all still thought precedent would hold and we’d be down for 30 days.

One thing about lockdowns is that even more so than with practically everything else that occurs here in prison, the rumor market virtually bubbles over about when we’re going on and getting off the thing. And like any other market, it’s relatively prescient. Well, the 90-day lockdown did to the rumor market what subprime mortgage securities are doing to the credit market now!

So, after the riot, when we got racked up (put in our cells) and locked down, we who had commissary took inventory and allocated it into a 30-45 day supply. That, we thought, would give us time to come up off lockdown and maybe even go back to commissary before running dry (and falling at the mercy of the canned chicken ‘dwich).

30 days came and went, and the rumor market lit up like the Christmas tree at ol’ town hall. Nothing. By day 45 most of us were out of food (bags of coffee trickling in with the trustee workers—who cleaned our pods—were going for treble damages, payable in stamps. I bought two.). Then, the rumor market—which officers are makers in as well—triangulated on the theme that some inmates on 3 building cursed at the warden as he passed by their window, and that we were back on week one, day one.

NO!!!

From the 60th to the 75th day, we all ran completely out of commissary, and the rumor market went wild. Our hopes and wishes, accentuated by the dearth of coffee and our greedily rumbling abdomens, rose and crashed with each wave of rumors as they were smothered into submission on the sudsy, unforgiving beaches of reality.

Then the impossible happened: the rumor market ceased functioning. From the 75th to the 90th day, there were no rumors. Not only were there no rumors, there was nothing. No one carried on conversations over the run (from cell to cell) anymore. No chess was played through the vents. The days were as quiet as the waiting room in a small town doctor’s office, for the last patient on a sunny and still Friday afternoon.

It’s not that there was suddenly a lack of intelligence, or that the fundamental happenings that gave rise to rumors stopped occurring. We, the collective market, simply stopped caring. It just didn’t matter if we ever came up off lockdown again. Don’t get me wrong, I was still reading, writing and creating my long-term future, but as far as hoping to come up off lockdown anytime soon, they broke us of that. It. Just. Didn’t. Matter.

If there was ever, for even a moment, a time where I was an existentialist, it was during those last two weeks. By the way, I’m not sure if I’ve already mentioned that we’re on lockdown right now at this very time. We’ve been down for about ten days, and I know they’re not finished shaking down the entire unit yet, but you know what? Word is that we’re coming up tomorrow!

How It's Made: Crazy Coffee

As an ex-Starbucks employee, I could enjoy the existence (but not so much the taste) of the following two prison coffee drinks.

A “pretty” is made by first making a strong shot of coffee, then mixing in the Kool-aid flavor of your choice, a mint stick, and some Red Hots. Stir until the candy is melted, and the syrupy sweet coffee drink is now ready to go!

A “speedball” is made by first making a very strong shot of coffee, and then pouring half a can of coke in it. Many inmates will then melt half a Hershey’s bar in it as well. Stir until the candy is melted, and this fizzy, stout coffee drink is ready to go!

Just imagine if this creativity were unleashed via “pretty bars”, inside candy and coffee shops, where customers could mix and match coffees and candies to create the drinks of their choice.

The Definition of Life

The following is my response to Scott Adam's blog post dated January 26, 2009:

I believe that any functional definition of life is too broad of a scope when considering the vast majority of ethical and legal issues. The potential for self-consciousness, on the other hand, will be of utmost importance in coming to a moral resolution to many present and future ethical dilemmas.

Without an entity’s awareness of self, such outside stimuli as pain, satiation, and elements of injustice are merely unregistered sensations. I’m not advocating the wholesale torture of dung beetles, but if you poke a stick through one, it will hurt, but if there’s no “I” (or even self) in it, what exactly hurts? The sensation of hurt disembodied doesn’t quite fit systematically, because there is a body; rather said sensation is dis-minded.

Though there’s a physical entity to attach that momentary attribute to, since there’s no potential for self-consciousness within its ganglia, the attribute is, for the purpose of morality, almost a sole existence. Mere nerves forwarding messages to a ganglion should not be accorded full legal rights.

As far as androids go, when they’re self-conscious, they must be accorded full legal rights, because that’s why we’re accorded full legal rights (and that’s why concepts such as “legal” and “rights” even exist). If androids can think, then they are, and that’s why the two elements of your life definition matter.

Regarding “Caricature’s” 1/31 response to your post, Scott, know that it’s the easiest thing in the world to be a critic. And a commonality of all innovators—theoretical and practical—is that they were at some point criticized.

To try and objectively rebut a few of his counterclaims, I’ll first take issue with the hypothesis that a simulation of a feeling is no different than the feeling itself. If we’re speaking of the nature of things, then yes, it is. The latter is dictated by existence, whereas the former is nonetheless dictated by the programmer, or, a consciousness. Such would have legal ramifications if androids were to be our tools, as opposed to our friends and equals (and hence reprogramming may be needed).

As far as the question of when an organism becomes aware of its own existence, I would guess from amphibians on up. Of course, there is a true answer to that question. And don’t let the fact that we may not be able to answer it yet make you think that we never will.

Lastly, learning is the acquisition of knowledge, and knowledge is a fact of reality. How are we different from birds and bees? Let reality be the judge, and note the difference in crystallized intelligence between the heights of New York City and the crackling buzz of Silicon Valley, and a bird’s nest or a bee’s honeycomb. Is it the same? Must I have the power to defy the laws of physics to be considered different than a shrew? Caricature’s very ability to proffer his argument refutes it itself.

Commitment Comes a Long Way

The following is a note left for me by an associate who made parole and went to a pre-release unit. His repeated reference to futures is not a grammatical error, but a pun, noting the future itself wherein he plans to run an account of future contracts for us. Needless to say, this note warmed my heart, and made me proud of my little buddy, who’s come a long way...


“If you’re reading this letter, it’s because I’m on chain. I returned your book and left some hair gel and a bottle of black cat. You can use it as your container. I will keep contact and will have success for the futures.

COMMITMENT was the most potent term you could have brought to my attention. No matter the countless times I have heard or read this word, it has never seemed to register. When you said the commitment, it just all of a sudden clicked in. The furnace of my desire began to ignite! Now I understand it, now I’m aware, now I will not let it slip within my grasp. What you were teaching me, I believe in it, I believe I can obtain financial freedom, and I believe in you. The futures are ahead us.”

Wit is the Denial of Suffering

Not to be self-aggrandizing, but I’ve birthed many trends during my time in TDC (some of which have been detailed throughout this forum). I’ll hereby list them:

The gaping maw of irony; the audibly modifiable grunt that can be contorted to mean anything’ the act of doing the butterfly dance in such a counterintuitive place as prison; the reverend-esque “assah!” after nailing home a point in a debate; the continuous creation of nicknames for people (that actually stick); yelling, from the sidelines, “checkmate!” whenever one person checks (i.e. nails a crushing blow in a debate, or issues a funny reprimand) another; chanting the circa elementary school, slowly descending in treble, “ooooooooh!” whenever someone is checked; the snapping of the finger three times whilst waving the hand in front of the face three times (like girls at my middle school used to do); the throwing up of imaginary gang signs as non sequitur; doing a rave dance called the “stomp” while a buddy holds a techno beat; saying “what’s going on?” in a voice with but a whisper of patronization in it multiple times throughout a dull conversation; the occasional, gregarious roar while in the cell working out; the metrosexual anthem; and a few more that may be too raunchy to describe in this forum.

All of these trends had or have at least two acolytes; some up to twenty or thirty.

All of these trends I brought into existence over the seven year span of my incarceration, so their respective levels of sophistication obviously varied.

All of these trends resulted in an immense amount of delight for many, at little to no cost of others (many are in fact pseudo-self-deprecating, and in many instances, result in zero net cost to anyone involved).

All of these trends were created for, devoted to, and exist because one of my favorite elements of life is humor. Had it not been for her, I’d have lost my soul long ago.

All of these trends are manifestations of me.

Pre-incarceration, I was already quite the farcical trendsetter. One of which—the repeated asking of “is that funny?” during a humorous regaling of events—my buddy now has on his Facebook page as a tribute to my brand of humor.

Please, feel free to ask more (origins or implications) about any of the aforementioned trends. It goes without saying that I’d love to elaborate. This theme has been a major aspect of my story, and has thus far been a blast. When I hopefully get out soon, and start a family, I’ll arrest this last arrested part of my development, but until then, as regards to all of this, I have just one question, “is that funny?”