Have you ever been in an office cubicle where one entire wall is covered in post-it notes? That’s what this entry is-a celebration of pragmatism. I have needed to address some topics for a while, but never seemed to be able to get around to actually doing so. This is an MB6 tune-up, in other words. Usually I do not bother to write something for the site unless the subject matter reaches some threshold of “importance”, which may lead the casual reader to believe that I am way too bloody serious for my own good. Whether or not that is true, I assure you that my level of maturity is actually far, far lower than has been presented here. This would be the opportune space to insert a joke or two, but the only ones which come to mind are rather obscene, which would, admittedly, prove my point, but I have tried to keep this site relatively clean so I won’t go there.
So, this really isn’t an entry. It is just a collection of some random snippets of thought that I wanted to put up here in the hope that I will no longer have to address some of this stuff 1000 times in future letters. Without further ado:
THE MECHANICS OF MB6.COM
I had previously surmised that it would be an intuitive and inescapable conclusion that a prison system was backwards enough to deny basic medical care or fruit, and would most certainly NOT allow inmate’s access to the Internet. I was, apparently, mistaken. I have never seen this website, and I most likely never will. I suppose it would be profitable to elucidate a little on the inner workings of how this site works.
This is basically a volunteer organization. I pay the costs of maintaining this site on a yearly basis, but all the actual work is done by an elite cadre of individuals with immense hearts and more accumulated morality than they know what to do with.
The process basically starts with my team of trained monkeys, who spend 18 hours a day pounding away on typewriters, reproducing the great works of man, and occasionally something original. Meanwhile, I spend the time relaxing in the sauna, being fed grapes by scantily clad vixens who are all under the illusion that I am the best thing since sliced bread. When the monkeys finish an entry, I imperviously give it the “thumbs up”, and it is then sent out to one of my several typists, who kindly re-type it again in digital media. Upon completion, it is then emailed to my cousin Victoria, who codes it and posts it online. Victoria is the webmaster and designer of MB6, so to all of you who have complimented me on the aesthetic qualities of the site, your praise should really be directed to her. (Praise only, mind you. Any negative commentary should be directed at me, and NOT emailed to her. She is way smarter then I am, so if your desire is to engage in some form of insult contest, you want to do it with me. That is unless you have some strange desire to get eviscerated over the Internet. Trust me on this.)
It is for this reason that it often takes several weeks for posts to make it to the site. In addition, the mailroom runs a very active campaign to “lose” my posts, which has necessitated the creation of some rather clever strategies for bypassing them altogether, which allows my words to reach the free world. (Wait…did I just pay myself a compliment? Holy Crap! There is that “narcissism” that everyone is always complaining about! Well, you know what they say: If one compliment in over 100,000 words doesn’t make you a selfishly egocentric snob of epic proportions, I don’t know what does. (Cough, Cough, Choke.) Seriously…I just previously equated my mental thought processes to a team of monkeys. I simply love it when individuals lacking even one second of formal psychological training toss about loaded words, as if they had any intellectual claim to them. God bless the 1st amendment! Sigh. It’s okay, though. I joke about being injured, but in reality I forgave you all the moment you uttered your comments. One day you will get it, and if you don’t, that is okay too. (The world needs Delta’s!) Anyways, MB6 is a team, and I would like to thank the following people for helping me to keep this rusting behemoth afloat: Donna, Sarah, Sharly, EEH, Martin, Doris, and Carlos. I would also like to extend my appreciation to all of you. The fact that thousands of people are reading this on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis absolutely floors me. It is so very humbling because I had zero expectations of ever reaching more than a handful of people. Funny how life works out sometimes. This knowledge also fills me with a great deal of trepidation when I actually sit down to write, as it feels like there is an army looking over my shoulders.
I am aware that my entries are sometimes very random and lacking in cohesiveness. No doubt I would profit from some sort of editing process, but I rather enjoy the raw feel of a first draft. Seems like I might have mentioned this before, but sending this stuff out with nary a second glance is a bit like a giant middle finger directed at all of the years I tried to be perfect. That I am not completely freaked out that a few hundred thousand people are going, “Well, he misspelled four words in that paragraph alone”, is something of a miraculous evolution for me, though some of you will never understand this at all. Considering that I have never paid one cent for advertising, I think that this whole thing is pretty amazing. And no, that was a compliment aimed at YOU, not me…once per year is enough for my ego, I think.
A few more random thank-you’s:
To whoever sent me two books from Amazon.com on the week of October 20th, I want to say: Thank You! The clawing, tenuous hold on my sanity was preserved, thanks to you. They do not allow us to have the shipping receipts, so I have been unable to determine who sent them, but I did not want you to think that I was unappreciative. The same goes for the mystery provider of the years subscription to “Discover” magazine. The article on the Large Hadron Collider was totally badass, in a very “Yeah, I engraved my name on my pocket protector, what of it?” sort of way. I suppose this is my official public acceptance of the unending vastness of my nerd-dom; a coming out of the laboratory closet, so to speak. Three cheers for people who actually know what a Hadron is!
WHAT THE DEVIL IS A HOT-POT?
My friend Tracey from way down under asked me some questions about my prison recipe entry, and I thought them worth answering in public forum. No we do not have a stove in our cells. All of the “meat” is pre-cooked, and it comes in sealed packages. All the “cooking” I mentioned is really just reheating, using the hot-pot. Which I sort of dropped the ball on and never bothered to describe, so: A hot-pot is basically a hot plate with an attached coffee urn. You pour water into the receptacle, and it heats up. They sell them to us with a maximum heating capacity I estimate to be around 130 degrees Fahrenheit, though a clever mod-man could, I don’t know, conceivably alter the internal mechanics so that it boils water, instead. He could again, hypothetically, incorrectly rewire the switch so when he plugged it in again for the first time it blew out the breaker, sending pearlescent blue sparks arching all over his chest and cell. He might have screamed and cursed a lot. Hypothetically.
Thomas’ Hot Pot in which the guards cut the cord offThe ice cream we are allowed to buy must be eaten immediately, as we have no means to store it. The 35-cent cookie cones are about the best value on the entire commissary list, and I usually buy about 10 of them to send out to the guys. It is amazing how appreciative one gets for the little things after living in the hole. Lessons learned in Hell get burned in deep.
TEMPORALLY CHALLENGED
If you have written me lately, you have no doubt detected a longer than normal delay in response time. I used to be so quick about getting back to you all, but I fear those days are done. I simply cannot write any more than I already do, which is about 50 letters a week. I enjoy my correspondence, else I would not spend so much of my time working on it. But after a certain level, it becomes less of a joy, and more of a chore, and I have found my responses becoming more formulaic and drab by attempting to press myself harder than I already do. On a more practical note, all of this is costing me a bloody fortune, and while I do appreciate the feeling that many people have about sending money to a prisoner, I am no longer going to be bankrolling this on my own. They do not allow us to receive stamps in letters, which would help to alleviate the problem. TDC must control all such things, so the only stamps which we are allowed are the ones are the ones we purchase off the commissary. Any which are sent to me will be confiscated. Also, to be perfectly honest, I have other things which require my time, such as the casework which I do for the for the men around me. So: I will respond to you all when I have the time, and I hope that you will forgive me if it takes a little longer than it used to. This is in NO WAY a reflection upon the quality of your writing abilities or the thoughts contained therein. It is simply a function of me not being able to conceive of a fairer means of ordering my responses other than “first come, first served.” There is, in addition, one other reason that I have become somewhat soured on the issue of pen-pals, which I will address later in this entry.
OPRAH
The Oprah show wasn’t as bad as it could have been, I guess. I was peeved that they cut out most of my explanations about the comments they did show, but I suppose that is the business. The reviews have been varied, and I will not attempt to dissuade you of your position. Surprisingly, most of the angry letters that I received in the aftermath centered on a single question: Why did I lie about my prosecutor participating on the show?
I love how I am the liar when one of my comments turns out to be incorrect. Can’t one simply be wrong without being dishonest? The vox populi would appear to think that this is not true, so long as I am concerned. As I understand the story, this individual did fly to Chicago, and then left before the show was filmed. I know most of the details, but I do not feel it is necessary to delve into them in great detail. However, if you should find yourself ever invited to participate in a national television program, you should go with the anticipation of having to sign a release form. You should most definitely NOT become obstinate about the issue. Most especially, you should refrain from getting so angry that they boot you from the building. Solid advice, that is. Because then you will not have to miss out on the tepid glow of your fifteen minutes of fame. Also, as the opportunity was presented to me on a silver platter, I am going to take the opportunity to hammer home a point that I have tried to make in the past. Miss Winfrey seemed rather overjoyed at parading the fact that I had lied about my schooling, commenting several times about how I was only a freshman, etc, etc. She obtained this data from my prosecutor, who also made a point of rubbing this in my face. Problem: I am, in fact, a junior. When you add up my AP credits, the credits that I earned the summer before I went to the university, at Community College; plus my two years at Baylor, they fall well into the range of my Junior Year. But don’t take my word for it: HERE is a summary of the hours I was credited at Baylor alone (the only transcript I have on me the present moment). Whoopsie! Ask yourself this: if you are going to automatically believe me because I once led a deceptive life, why don’t you extend the same disbelief to our public officials? Just another example of “justice” being as deceptive and manipulative as I am supposed to be, and the media reporting “facts” without even bothering to do a little thing called verification. If they lied about this what else have they lied about?
I should admit that while this trend in American courts bothers me deeply, I am not angry with any of this. I bear no ill will. This is simply life as it is today, and I choose to spend my energy attempting to change it, not being angry. Sometimes, every once in awhile, I get a taste of what life unchained feels like. I feel this way now. I do not mean physically. If you get what I mean…good. If you don’t, this site really isn’t for you. I think.
IDJITS, AND NINCOMPOOPS, AND MORONS, OH MY!
I suppose I must comment on the current scandal du jour, much as I don’t want to. The option of having pontification on this sordid subject in all of my letters for the next 6 months appeals to me even less, however. So here we go…
As most of you have seen on the news, the Texas State Prison System is currently in week 4 of a system-wide lockdown, due to the “sudden” realization that cellular phones were being smuggled back to inmates. Governor Perry freaked out, the populace freaked out, and so teams of guards are tearing all Texas prisons apart. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Never mind that they have been catching inmates with cell phones for 18-months now, and that they are really only peeved that the news media has made them all look like the idiots that they are. Never mind that Texas created this problem by being the only state prison system in the nation without a phone network for inmates to use. Never mind the process for adding visitors to our very limited visitation list is an overly complicated procedure that sometimes prohibits even close family members from being able to visit their condemned siblings, parents, and sons. Don’t even pay an iota of attention to any of that, or the obvious truth that some men are going to want to say goodbye to their families. Only pay attention to the “vile scum” getting their wicked hands on contraband. Which, by the way, does not just magically coalesce into existence via the means of will power in the most secure facility in the entire state. Don’t talk about the corrupt wardens and high-ranking officials making millions off this shit…only blame the bottom-of-the-barrel shift workers for the problem. Honestly, it is really very delicious what I am witnessing: the slow, catastrophic breakdown of the ideology that has run the prison system in this redneck bastion for years. Some history to give the proper perspective: When “W” was made governor in Texas, he ushered into place a new ere in prison spending-though not in programs, only in new construction. He and his far right-wing cronies decided that the only response to crime was to build more prisons and to lock people up for eternal sentences. And they did, in record numbers. Parole virtually disappeared. Programs vanished. Mental problems? Drug Addictions? Tough sh-t. Life sentence. They proceeded to build these new prisons in rural areas, hoping to spur economic development. Unfortunately, I have done some hiring at previous jobs, and even I could have explained to them about the problems associated with building facilities requiring thousands of workers to operate in zones where available workforce is both microscopic and genetically interbred to the point that nearly everyone in town is a brother or a cousin to everyone else. As a result of these airheaded policies, TDC is now short more than 4000 workers statewide. This is true, even after they A.) upped the base pay by 20% and B.) decreased the minimal hiring requirements to the simple possession of a pulse. And they still can’t keep people. There are, as we speak, prisons running at less than 60% in terms of recommended staff. There has always been a backbone for the prison industry, a certain type of human being who gravitates towards these positions. You can imagine this person very easily: they are the bullies, the sadists. These types makes up about 50% of the staff in most state prison systems. The amazing thing is, even these men are being driven away, because the people now working here will not back them up on their little beating sprees…the new guys are too weak. Their superior officers no longer have their backs, and this incompetence drips down from the heights of the chain of command like leachate, the toxic garbage juice which runs off municipal dumping grounds. It’s all falling apart. Sure, we inmates pay for it, but it is still amusing to watch. And still nobody wants to start talking about why we have men serving 25-year sentences for a bag of weed, or why nobody who wants to get into programs can. Still the righties clamor about new prisons…Oh Wait! There is no more money. Sorry, lads. The funny thing is, if the fed ever comes in and takes it over from the state in an oversight of capacity, you are going to see a massive increase in spending, and people are going to wail about it. The fed will simply say: “This is money that should have been spent all along. Tell it to Governor Perry, and ask him why he approved of a prison system that has been condemned by the United Nations for YEARS.” Idiot inspired chaos.
They have torn my cell up twice. The first time was pretty standard. They took all of my things down to the dayroom and spent an hour or so picking it all apart, while I waited naked in the shower. (This is not an approved holding cell and is in direct violation of the handbook they give us…never mind all of that, too. TDC’s Motto: Do as we say, not as we do.) The second time through, they brought in workers from other units, and they were far more sinister about the process. They tossed out most of my writings, under the excuse that they were “seditious.” Hell, I was surprised that anyone working for the state of Texas even knew what this word meant…and that realization caused me to pay far more attention to the Lieutenant who made the comment. I noticed that no one else in my section had a ranking officer of that level overseeing the search of their cells. It is no secret that TDC targets those of us with websites.
I began to think that perhaps this was an extension of this policy, and my suspicions were confirmed when an officer pushed my typewriter off the dayroom table onto the floor, where it broke into many pieces. I made sure everyone knew that I had seen this, and that I knew their names. “Seen what? I didn’t see anything. Anybody see anything?” the Lieutenant smirked as he asked his compatriots, who all imitated his attempts at smugness. His smile faded a little when he saw that I was not going to enter into some form of infantile tirade. “Why don’t you write about it on your blog?” he quipped, attempting to regain the high ground. Okay, Lieutenant Smith. Okay. I just stared at him, which made him nervous. I’m a good starrer. A trained killer in Mexico once told me that anger was something for children and people with something to lose. I’ve never forgotten it. The truth is, the more time that I spend separating myself from my ego and the world, the less I feel a slave to my instincts. My initial thought-chain included some images of punching this jackass in his throat. One hundred dollars (the cost of a typewriter) is probably not too much to you, but it is a huge sum to me, and the realization that my finances were going to be shot for a while made me very angry. The desire for violence faded quickly though, as I thought about what the inner workings of this man’s mind must be like, if he gets his jollies breaking the property of men with almost nothing. He had to know that poking a caged bear with a stick did not make him a man…it only proved his cowardice. So I kept staring at him, smiling. He became very antsy, and wouldn’t look at me anymore, and when they came back to get me out of the shower, he made sure that there were 4 brutes between us. He kept his eyes on the ground. My cell looked like 1945 Nagasaki, but my mind felt light. They wanted me to fly off the handle. Instead, I defeated them all, naked, without a word; and he knew it. In the patios of my world: I made him my bitch. Funny thing, I’m still not angry with him. A tiny step on the path to enlightenment? Who would have thought it!
In the category of small annoyances, they tossed out my 2008/2009 calendar. Which is where I had everyone’s birthdays written out. Those of you who write me, please send me those dates again, so I will have that ready to go for next year. Thanks!
In case you are new to the site, I should mention that Lockdown basically means there is no recreation, visits, commissary, limited showers, no hot meals (Johnny Sacks 3-times a day), ect, ect…You get a little stir crazy, which is perfectly normal.
I build stuff, much to the annoyance of everyone in my vicinity, most especially my neighbor. He is a die-hard McCainiac, while I am a huge supporter of Barack Obama. I built this little device that sticks to the wall. It is basically a huge extending arm, made out of pen cartridges, tape (they were going to jack this from me anyways, as it is contraband) and popsicle sticks. Upon the end of my device, I hung a portrait of our next president, and extended the whole contraption so that it bridged the gap of 10 feet and hung directly in front of my neighbor’s door. He howled when he saw number 44 looking into his cell, and spent the next 30 minutes throwing trash at it until the whole thing came crashing to the ground. I am easily amused, I know. Since I brought up the whole subject, I will look into my magical crystal ball and run the risk of looking like a doofus by making the following prognostication:
-Obama gets 350 to 370 Electoral College votes.
-Democrats pick up 7 seats in the Senate.
-Democrats pick up 22 to 25 seats in the House.
I may be the only white Obama supporter here, which is rather amusing. I always tell people that I am far more committed to being an elitist a-hole than I am to my whiteness. Of this I am absolutely certain: If I hear another bloody political ad I am going to rip my radio out of my wall and stomp it into itsy-bitsy pieces. I regret that I will not be able to see my boy give his victory speech, but I will enjoy listening to it. If you have not seen the portrait of Obama I commissioned for the site, go check out the Artist section under the artist named “Kosoul”.
UTMB
No news on the medical front. My arm is still messed up. They seem to have entered into the phase where they ignore all of my sick calls now, instead of merely lying to me. They have even stopped giving me my Advil. I contacted the ACLU a few months back and finally met with a staff attorney in October. Unfortunately, they claim that they do not have the money to help me, so…I’ve made plans of my own. More on this in the future, I promise you.
TOUGH LOVE
I don’t even have the slightest idea of how to address this final issue, so I am going to speak as plainly as I can, and hope that you will forgive me if the conversation touches on some subjects which are a bit crude. I DO NOT want to talk about this stuff, but it has become patently obvious that something must be done, so here goes. Shortly after my arrival here, I was warned about a certain type of woman who might try to contact me during my time on Death Row. I shall use the term “groupie”, for lack of a better descriptor. I mainly shrugged off the suggestion, as it was totally inconceivable to me that A.) anyone could ever find me attractive in any way after all of the news stories about me, and B.) anyone would want to have a relationship with a caged man, someone whom they could never touch. I mean, who would want to enter into a relationship that has such a definite finality to it? And why would I enter into such feelings knowing that I would inevitably be hurting my beloved? I have been vaguely aware that some of the men around me have married women whom they have met during their time here. My old neighbor, Robert Hudson, did this. I don’t have a problem with the idea, as they are both adults, and seem to be very happy together. I guess that I have taken the view that if two people could cultivate a blossom of something beautiful in the middle of this toxic wasteland, the more power to them. I never considered such things for myself, however. And so I have entered into all of my pen-pal relationships stating very clearly that I wasn’t interested in romantic love, only in deep friendship. I thought I was on the same page with everyone on this. I will admit that there is something intrinsically romantic in the concept of writing actual letters…something to do with waiting, perhaps? Also, I do not believe in superficial relationships, so I admit that I have got quite “deep” with some of my friends; which may have sent the wrong message. I desire that all of my friends feel special, and perhaps that this too was a signal that received in a different context than it had been transmitted with. Whatever the reasoning, I have recently discovered that a few of my pen pals have not been honest with me about their feelings towards me, and this has created all manner of drama. In case you were wondering, drama is precisely what is lacking in my life at this time. In fact, after I have my morning coffee and complete my crossword, I sit around for at least an hour plotting ways to vastly increase the petty online squabbling done in my name.
Now, I have addressed this in great detail with my friends, so I do not want anyone to think that I am speaking specifically about them. I have also dealt with the individuals who kept their “stalkerish” ways secret from me. I did not enjoy this, as I do relish the idea of hurting anyone. But I simply do not require any more insanity in my life. Period. To my true friends, I also need to say that while I appreciate all of you sticking up for me in the online forums, I would ask you to cease this activity. These people you “debate” with…they do not want logical arguments. They only want your light, your heat, your life. They are moths drawn to it. It gives them the chance to voice their ignorance, and your well-worded and intentioned responses only serve to give their idiocy validation. Leave them to their soul rot. In particular, I love the posts from “ex-writers of Thomas” who use my own words from the website against me. How clever some of you. (Yawn.) I’ve said so many damaging things about myself that the only surprise about any of this is that it took some of you this long to figure this tactic out. When I first put up this website, I received quite a few letters from the Abolitionist crowd basically telling me “Whoa! Hold on. Don’t you realize that you are nailing your own coffin shut?” You think I don’t know this? Do you honestly understand so little about me? If you can extrapolate why I did this, and even more importantly, why I don’t care about the results, then you are getting closer to understanding the real me.
All of this stuff has soured me on some of my writing. I am constantly asking myself “what does this person truly want? Is this another nut-job?” Mail call used to feel like Christmas morning. Now, it is just 9:00 P.M….So, in order to eliminate any possibility for even the slightest modicum of confusion: I am not looking for a girlfriend. I have been in love before. It was maybe the only good thing that I have done in this life. The circumstances are simply impossible for me here. It would drive me insane. Plus, I am an idiot. When it comes to love, I ride the short bus. It is the truest aphorism known to mankind that we never really truly know what we have until it is gone. There. I hope that clears up any residual confusion. If you are interested in friendship, come on with it. If you are looking for some sort of relationship, go to a bar, If you want some sort of cheap vicarious sexual thrill writing to a caged monster, get a life. Bleh.
All right, that’s it for today. I will be back in a few weeks with something far more interesting.
Thanks for showing up so faithfully =)
© Copyright 2008 by Thomas Bartlett Whitaker.
All rights reserved.
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