You've Got Talent!

Today was a lot of fun, more than I've had in a long time. The population put on a talent show for a few staff judges and a crowd of inmates. And somehow I wound up performing Elvis.
One of the ladies that works in the mailroom is a die-hard Elvis fan and had a few guys do one of his songs for the talent show last year. The same guys were supposed to play this year, but backed out. I noticed the mailroom lady looking kind of down one day when I picked up periodicals for the library. When I found out about the other guys backing out, I told her that I would sing and play guitar. If she could get me chords and lyrics to a song, I would talk to the organizer about filling the empty spot.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been going to choir practice to borrow a guitar to play in the hallway, working on getting "Return to Sender" down pat. To make the performance more interesting, I made a cape and scarf with letters in gold glitter scripts spelling "Elvis Presley". Today the mailroom lady brought huge gold sunglasses and glue-on sideburns. After that little bit of work, I was ready.

Most of the twenty acts for the talent show were rap songs with the exact same beat, but there were a few original R & B performances and some truly terrible covers of country and rock songs.

When it came time for me to go on I gathered some guys to act as shields to hide me from the audience while I crept up to the microphone. Once everything was set I signaled the guys to split away to leave me there, back to the audience, arms forming a "Y". I slowly spun to face the applause - and I hadn't done anything yet.


After a short intro, I belted "Return to Sender" in my best Elvis voice. It must have been alright because, by the time I finished, about half the audience was standing and clapping. I took off my sunglasses, patted my forehead, and walked over to the judges before tossing the scarf to the mailroom lady, who screamed and twirled it in the air.

As I passed the assistant warden going offstage, he just smiled and shook his lowered head.

Munchkins Unite!

I got a treat this week along with the other guys in my dorm. My parents sent in a card game called Munchkins that I used to play before I was incarcerated. Ordinarily, card games would not be allowed (the one form of gambling not allowed in TDCJ), but the warden gave the thumbs up as long as the cards aren't traditional ace-king playing cards. This decision has freed up m any other card games such as Pokemon, Magic:The Gathering, UNO and Mille Borne. Also allowed is one of my faves, Munchkins.

I was introduced to Munchkins during my freshman year of college. Three of my friends brought it out between classes on day and it became our default time-killer form then on. The concept is similar to role-playing games where you kill monsters for treasure, except there are plenty of other opportunities to sabotage other players for self-gain. All the cards are riffs on different genres, such as sci-fi, pirates and horror, which usually brings some laughs to the table, too.



The guys here became just as hooked on the game as I was when I started. Each time I come back from work, I hear "Are we playing Munchkin tonight?" and, unless I have some other project, the answer is yes. I think it's so cool that this new warden has opened up new opportunities for entertainment. Now, if we could just get some actual college classes going on so we can be educated as well.

Red Tape

Back in May I started a long process to order a book for a Warcraft-themed roleplaying game. Before this new warden arrived in January, we were able to fill out a withdrawal request form and turn it in with an order at the commissary window. From there, the request would be approved by the unit administration and forwarded to the inmate trust fund in Huntsville for the money to be withdrawn as a money order and sent with the inmate's order to the company.

Now that's a long enough process itself, but the new warden, in his infinite wisdom on how a smooth-running unit should operate, added more steps to the process. Before an inmate can even turn in the request to commissary, the have to send a request to the mail room asking if the desired book has been approved and, if affirmative, turn in the mail room's answer to the commissary with everything else.

A problem I've run into a few times is that the book I want to order has not been reviewed and permission is denied because it hasn't been approved. Most of the books I receive are not on the list of approved books, but do not have objectionable material and are allowed in. Why we can't order unreviewed books when we receive then all the time is beyond me.

Back to the current order. The order went all the way to completion and my reception of a book. Unfortunately, the book I received was not the book I ordered. Instead of email or phone call to ask about an exchange, I had to write a letter and wait two weeks for a response. The company apologized for its mistake and offered to exchange at no extra cost to me. I got this letter in the middle of June. Since then I have been trying to send this book back, finally meeting success today.

I wrote a letter outlining the exchange, put it with the book in an envelope and asked the mail room to weigh it for postage. They said they wouldn't do it; the book had to be released through property for them to weigh it.

So two weeks ago I had the book, letter and envelope confiscated. Last Friday I went to the property room to confirm that I needed the package weighed. Today I found out it would take $10.30 worth of stamps to go out. I had to wipe out my stash and borrow some from friends for it to go out tomorrow.

I hope this saga comes to a happy ending soon. The red tape and hurdles have made the process a very tiring one.

Not a conflict of interest

About a month ago I asked one of my supervisors for shower crew if he was allowed to write a letter of recommendation to the parole board on my behalf. I've heard of it being done at my previous unit but not from anyone here. He said that he didn't know but to send a request form to the captain to find out. After a week, the captain wrote back saying he didn't know the policy and to ask the warden.

Last week I received the warden's answer: a firm NO.

Despitethe parole board's statement that supervisor's recommendations are accepted, apparently the warden would rather root out all chances of collusion to the detriment of those of us inmates who have performed well and developed a healthy rapport and sense of respect without supervisors. There really is no reward for working hard as an inmate in this system.

We had a pep rally this evening. It certainly wasn't worth waking me from my sleep for, but the warden and major tried to get us pumped up about the unit's upcoming review by ACA (American Correctional Association).

At first I had no idea what was going on. The whole dorm was wakened and everyone except four bunks were told to get dressed and get outside. At first I thought it was a shakedown because of someone else's boneheaded move. Then we were ushered into the dining hall where three quarters of the seats were filled by guys from other dorms. Now I was really confused.

The warden explained that we were privileged to be able to be at this unit that was being reviewed for ACA approval. I have no idea how ACA approval helps us, but the warden sure was excited. We have to make sure eveything is clean and organized to make a safe place for us to live and for the staff to work. Apparently we were supposed to get excited about cleaning just so the unit has some organization's stamp of approval. I could be wrong, but it looks like all the effort falls on the inmates to make the warden look good while we still don't get properly working sinks, TV's, AC, or the food or clothes that we're supposed to get. What is our reward? That's how you get people motivated.

Our dorm is already probaly the cleanest ion the unit, thanks to great dorm janitors. I probably woul dhave been better off doing what I was doing - sleeping.