Entry #19 - What I've Learned - 6.9.07

Today marks the halfway point in my sentence, or at least to the day that I leave for the halfway house.

Here’s what I’ve learned thus far…

Skills

• - How to pose for photos like a “chulo” and look hard.
• - How to make ramen soup into a 5-star mealk.
• - How to operate a fork lift.
• - How to play bocce ball. (I can’t believe this is considered a sport.)
• - Plants bore me.

The Law

• - Corrections is a myth in a place that doesn’t even offer spell check.
• - The law is “puro pendejo”, but it will always demand its pound of flesh.
• - Bill O’ reilly is not spin. You don’t know what spin is until you’ve dealt with the B.O.P.
• - Don’t give them a reason. You were already found guilty by a court of law. Anything else is just cause in spite of validity.
• - You never get a second chance…act. (See Entry #’s 10, 15)

The Facility

• - Prison shower stalls contain enough ejaculated DNA to orchestrate the Clone Wars.
• - An economy based on tuna and mackerel exchange makes more sense than one based on bills. Fish have tangible utility.

Attitude

• - Having aspirations is nothing but positive, but expectations are nothing but vexing.
• - Humility is a means of survival and the key to maintaining sanity. There’s always someone more “alpha “than you. That said, in the end “we all lie in the same mud” – Otis
• - Love of money got most of us in here, but a surplus of it won’t necessarily get you out.
• - Outside of academia, politics and suburbia, expressing racist sentiments isn’t such a faux pas, and the world may be better for it.
• - Ownership is key. You can be a rat, a nerd, a fag, a tool, or a criminal, and so long as you own it, you’ll be respected.

Inmates

• - George is a fruit.
• - Men over 60 are more aroused by a piece of steak than a piece of ass.
• - A bum is a bum. Even if he has a bed he’ll sill manage to nap on the outside bench.
• - George and the guy who cut the grass make strange bedfellows. That’s why they use the mop closet.
• - Prison rapes are apparently impossible in a place with so many willing participants.
• - There’s no one in the world more resilient than the prisoner. Who else do you know who can boil chicken using only an empty chemical bucket, and electrical outlet and a pair of conduit wires?
• - Just because your nickname is “Joe Rockhead “ when you come in doesn’t mean that it won’t be “Varicose” in a month. (Joe Rockhead to Jughead to the Jugular Vein to The Vein to Varicose)
• - If they nickname you “Can’t Get Right” you’re pretty much fucked from the get go.
• - Even though “Doomsday” (aka Filthy Jesus) never leaves his bunk, he can still manage to get a sunburn.
• - For some men, B.O. is the result of a hobby. For Stinky Tom, it’s a way of life.

General

• - Rumor has it…but it doesn’t take it very far.
• - “Hip hop is dead.”
• - Tattoos are the ultimate tribute to entropy.
• - The guy who picks up the phone when you call your wife has a name…it’s Jody.
• - If it wasn’t for prisoners’ magazines (which they call books in here…?), publishers would be S.O.L.
• - With your hands tied, celebrity gossip and world news hold the same relevance.
• - Pop culture follows no logic, changes without you and is in the shitter. Can anyone tell me what the fuck Jessica Simpson is famous for?
• - You have HPV.