Rapist on the Yard (by Warrior)
Warrior - Serving fourteen years for kidnapping and aggravated assault. Half Hispanic and Scottish-Irish with family still in Mexico. Raised by a family heavily involved in drug commerce.
“Yo, Warrior! Come over here, homeboy!” said Cane, who was my age, eighteen at the time.
Cane was at a bench with three other guys: Flaco, Gordo, and G.
“G wants to holler atchoo!” Cane said.
G was short for Gilbert, a heavily-tattooed prisoner in his early forties. A man who’d been in the system for a while – what you call an “older number” or a “con.” About average height but his confidence made him seem larger than he was. The typical Mexican stereotype: a thick overgrown mustache past the lips, a bull neck, and long hair slicked back in a braided ponytail. I’d said “Wassup!” to him once or twice.
Everyone knew that G ran the yard for the prison gang that ran the Mexicans. The EME (Mexican Mafia). Nobody wanted to know any more than that. Nobody liked to talk to G either, because if he called you it was for one of two reasons: you messed up real good or did real good in some area. If it was bad, it was usually too late to do anything about it because by the time you realized you messed up, you were usually laying in your own blood from a beat down or a stabbing. So I was nervous as I walked to where they were.
“Wassup, G!” I asked, shaking his hand, then everyone else’s on the bench.
“Hey now. You on the work crew wit Cane and Flaco, que no [right]?” G said.
“Yeah.”
“Cane says you a real good vato [guy] and his road dog. I wanted to get atchoo about a coupla theengz if you don’t mind.”
“Nah. It’s cool, man.”
“Orale, have a seat then.”
Everyone gathered round closer, so no one could hear the conversation except those in the immediate circle.
“How do you feel about helping us out with a problem we got wit a vato?” G had a slow way of talking, yet forceful. He raised a subconscious fear that made you want to say yes to whatever he asked – immediately.
“Sure. No problem. What’s the deal?”
G nodded his head in approval and gave Gordo a look to fill me in on the details.
“A rapist has touched down on the yard, and it needs to be handled,” Gordo said.
Many guards can’t stand rapists as much as inmates, so they’ll tell an inmate, knowing the gossip will climb up the yard chain of command from the lower inmates trying to earn brownie points. Flaco was screwing around with a counselor who had access to a staff computer containing all the information of every prisoner on the yard. She confirmed the gossip.
“I say let me and Warrior stick the fucker, ese [homey],” said Cane who just wanted to stab anyone, he didn’t care who, just to say he’d shanked someone in prison.
At first I was hesitant, but as I thought about my sister, mother, and aunts and the possibility of rape, my reasoning to follow through became clear.
“Nah. We don’t know the details to the case,” Gordo said. “What if it’s some old fucked-up jacket on the vato, like a ruca [woman] that was seventeen and him eighteen and the ruca’s parents pressed charges? I’ve seen that go down.”
“Fuck ‘im. Let’s peel his cap, G,” Flaco said. “His sex score on file is high, loco. It ain’t no seventeen or eighteen jale [work] thing. I seen it.”
Cane looked at me to chime in.
“Hey, whatever you vatos decide, I’ll roll with it,” I said.
G had the final say. He looked in deep thought with his hands clasped together below his nose, yet above his chin. He had a way of revealing a crease in his forehead between his brows when he came to a decision. Everyone was silent, yet listened intently as G was about to make his decision.
“Stick ’im. Flaco, take these two witchoo and make sure the jale gets done.” G was referring to me and Cane.
Flaco and Gordo were older numbers too. They respected G’s call and didn’t question it. Cane was all smiles. He had that sadistic smile only a sociopath can give off.
Yet to develop a conscience, I was OK with the decision. I believed I was doing society a service.
Flaco was to plan everything, but Cane and I wouldn’t know when or who until the day it was to occur. Plans were always kept vague until the day, just in case someone got cold feet and wanted to chicken out by warning a captain or other staff member.
A few days later, I noticed Cane and Flaco walking my way. We’d all just got let out for work detail and I had about twenty minutes to report to my assigned area. I knew it was time by the sadistic smile Cane once again wore so well.
“Wattup, Warrior!” Cane said, shaking my hand.
“Que onda [wassup!], Warrior. Listo [ready]?” Flaco said.
“Simon [yeah]. Let’s do this,” I said.
“Peep this, change of plans,” Flaco said. “G said we ain’t gonna stick the vato. We just gonna beat ’im instead.”
Life has a weird way of changing up on you, or putting up road blocks to keep you safe. If it wasn’t for the change of plan, I would have carried through what I was supposed to do.
“We do this jale all stealth mode,” Flaco said. “His dorm goes to breakfast in a few. The vato stays back to wash up and get ready when everyone’s gone. The chota [guard] will pass the perimeter at that time. We’ll have fifteen minutes, in and out. The fool is Kenny G. I’m gonna keep point [be the lookout] for you two vatos. Got it? Handle that shit right.”
“Got it,” Cane and I answered.
We waited for Kenny G’s dorm to go to chow. The day was humid from the monsoons. My heart was beating fast, my mind racing, my palms sweaty. Flaco stayed outside as we made our move. Cane and I went to Kenny G’s bunk location. He wasn’t there. We went to the community restroom for the dorm. There were four sinks and three toilet stalls. One stall was occupied. Cane turned on one of the sinks as though he were washing up. Then he jumped on a urinal to peek into the occupied stall. He looked down and his sadistic smile said it was Kenny G. He jumped off the stall, motioned to get ready, went to an empty stall, and came out with a wad of toilet paper. He wet it in the sink, jumped back on the urinal and chucked it on Kenny G. I couldn’t help but laugh at his ingenuity.
“Who just did that?” Kenny G said.
As yelling and swearing came from inside the stall, we posted ourselves beside the urinal ready to pounce.
A figure emerged.
Immediately I heard a grotesque crack and Kenny G went down.
I followed through with a punch.
Cane was determined to hurt Kenny G with a combination lock in a sock knotted at one end.
We pummelled Kenny G.
“You need to roll yer shit up, rapo [rapist],” I said.
We left him bloody. We were in and out in less than five and on our way.
The guards found Kenny G, whisked him away to Medical never to return to the yard.
I didn’t feel guilty. He deserved every consequence that comes with being a rapist. I was commended by G and others on the yard for doing a noble service.
Years later, I was in maximum security watching the news on TV. Recognizing a face on the screen, my attention focussed on what was being said. It was Kenny G. Arrested for the rape and murder of a woman. Caught through DNA evidence.
I couldn’t help think, we should have stabbed him that day. Life is weird like that. That’s one moment forever scorched on my memory. Along with the face of the woman he killed.
Is Warrior justified in thinking he should have stabbed Kenny G to death that day?
Click here for Warrior's Epic Fight Story Central Unit
Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below
Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
15 Jun 08
Tent City (Part 1)
Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Tent City is probably one of the most brutal jails in the world.
“You got out of Tent City when?” I asked.
“Two weeks ago,” said Jay (my ex fiancée’s youngest brother).
“Why were you there?”
“My second DUI.”
“Let’s start with the food. Is it still red death?”
“Oh yeah. Every night. First of all, the red death covers a mushed-up rice that’s no longer rice. You can spread the rice like butter.”
“What did the red death look like?”
“It’s like a gravy with chunks of mystery meat sticking out of it. It comes in various reds and oranges, but it seems to be going more orange this year. The meat is cubed or shredded. It's more like pet-food meat than meat people can eat. You get two little things of butter on wax paper with it. The packages are hidden in the red death. The butter melts, so the first thing you have to do is fish the wax paper out of the slop. There’s usually a piece of fruit. It’s chopped-up fruit. I tried to eat it twice and there’s no possible way you can eat it because it’s too hard and not fruit consistency. The side salad’s on the other side of the tray. It’s some little shreds of cabbage. It’s not lettuce, it just looks like lettuce. It’s all wilted and nasty.”
“The only other meal of the day is the Ladmo bag in the morning right?”
“Yeah. You get consistently bad breakfast bread. It’s either mouldy or insanely hard and stale. If you eat the bread it dries your whole body out, and you can never get enough to drink, it’s that dry. The breakfast meat is all ham now. I couldn’t eat it. You get two different types of ham in the same package. Some of it looks almost like deli ham – like you may be able to eat it. The other is the same type but with huge sections of hard brown spots. You just don’t eat anything those spots have touched including the good ham. You get expired cookies from Mexico – like expired over a year ago. The package has all Spanish writing on it. You get two oranges. For the last ten days I was there, they were all mouldy – it was a black mould on the oranges – which sucked ’cause it was the only thing I wanted to eat. To drink, you get children’s milk like they hand out at lunch lines. That’s it. Two meals a day of crap you can’t eat. There’s people in there so hungry, you have to be ready to fight to protect your commissary. Also, I had a friend who worked in the kitchen. He said every single thing he saw in the kitchen was expired by at least one year. They put the food in freezers, so you can’t tell when they expired, so they can say they were in there the whole time. He said Safeway donates all kinds of good food – cakes, Gatorade – but it all goes to the people who work for the jail. The inmates never get it.”
“How about the bugs?”
“A kid got bit in the face by a brown recluse spider, right on the jaw. It was eating his face away.”
“Is the jail’s policy still not to treat insect bites?”
“They wouldn’t treat it. They don’t care. He went home looking like that. I had lots of other visitors.”
“What kind?”
“Rats. The rats visit you every night. There’s a slab of concrete where the tent pole goes in. They make holes under the concrete. They kinda live down there. At night they come by and run around.”
“Did they jump on you while you tried to sleep?”
“No. I was on the top bunk. They get the guys on the bottom bunks and they jump in their drawers and eat all of their food.”
“So if the prisoners don’t take your food, the rats will?”
“Yeah. On the top bunk you get all the flying bugs and spiders. I constantly got bit by a whole bunch of shit. I’d wake up with bites all over my arms and head and anywhere I didn’t put a blanket over. Sometimes it itches as they’re nibbling on you. It wakes you up and you kinda sweep them off.”
“When you wake up like that, what do the bugs look like?”
“Bright florescent coloured bugs with wings. I even got bit on the knee by a spider while playing cards.”
“Tell me about the gangs and the rules they enforced on you?”
Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below
Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood
Tent City (Part 1)
Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Tent City is probably one of the most brutal jails in the world.
“You got out of Tent City when?” I asked.
“Two weeks ago,” said Jay (my ex fiancée’s youngest brother).
“Why were you there?”
“My second DUI.”
“Let’s start with the food. Is it still red death?”
“Oh yeah. Every night. First of all, the red death covers a mushed-up rice that’s no longer rice. You can spread the rice like butter.”
“What did the red death look like?”
“It’s like a gravy with chunks of mystery meat sticking out of it. It comes in various reds and oranges, but it seems to be going more orange this year. The meat is cubed or shredded. It's more like pet-food meat than meat people can eat. You get two little things of butter on wax paper with it. The packages are hidden in the red death. The butter melts, so the first thing you have to do is fish the wax paper out of the slop. There’s usually a piece of fruit. It’s chopped-up fruit. I tried to eat it twice and there’s no possible way you can eat it because it’s too hard and not fruit consistency. The side salad’s on the other side of the tray. It’s some little shreds of cabbage. It’s not lettuce, it just looks like lettuce. It’s all wilted and nasty.”
“The only other meal of the day is the Ladmo bag in the morning right?”
“Yeah. You get consistently bad breakfast bread. It’s either mouldy or insanely hard and stale. If you eat the bread it dries your whole body out, and you can never get enough to drink, it’s that dry. The breakfast meat is all ham now. I couldn’t eat it. You get two different types of ham in the same package. Some of it looks almost like deli ham – like you may be able to eat it. The other is the same type but with huge sections of hard brown spots. You just don’t eat anything those spots have touched including the good ham. You get expired cookies from Mexico – like expired over a year ago. The package has all Spanish writing on it. You get two oranges. For the last ten days I was there, they were all mouldy – it was a black mould on the oranges – which sucked ’cause it was the only thing I wanted to eat. To drink, you get children’s milk like they hand out at lunch lines. That’s it. Two meals a day of crap you can’t eat. There’s people in there so hungry, you have to be ready to fight to protect your commissary. Also, I had a friend who worked in the kitchen. He said every single thing he saw in the kitchen was expired by at least one year. They put the food in freezers, so you can’t tell when they expired, so they can say they were in there the whole time. He said Safeway donates all kinds of good food – cakes, Gatorade – but it all goes to the people who work for the jail. The inmates never get it.”
“How about the bugs?”
“A kid got bit in the face by a brown recluse spider, right on the jaw. It was eating his face away.”
“Is the jail’s policy still not to treat insect bites?”
“They wouldn’t treat it. They don’t care. He went home looking like that. I had lots of other visitors.”
“What kind?”
“Rats. The rats visit you every night. There’s a slab of concrete where the tent pole goes in. They make holes under the concrete. They kinda live down there. At night they come by and run around.”
“Did they jump on you while you tried to sleep?”
“No. I was on the top bunk. They get the guys on the bottom bunks and they jump in their drawers and eat all of their food.”
“So if the prisoners don’t take your food, the rats will?”
“Yeah. On the top bunk you get all the flying bugs and spiders. I constantly got bit by a whole bunch of shit. I’d wake up with bites all over my arms and head and anywhere I didn’t put a blanket over. Sometimes it itches as they’re nibbling on you. It wakes you up and you kinda sweep them off.”
“When you wake up like that, what do the bugs look like?”
“Bright florescent coloured bugs with wings. I even got bit on the knee by a spider while playing cards.”
“Tell me about the gangs and the rules they enforced on you?”
Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below
Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood
Thursday, June 12, 2008
T-Bone v Scooter (by T-Bone)
T-Bone - Radiating power and strength, this deeply-spiritual massively-built African-American towers over most inmates. He is a prison gladiator with more stab wounds than Julius Caesar. A good man to have on your side.
In 1998, I was in the joint up north and there was a guy they called Scooter. When I got on the yard, in a very condescending tone, he called me, “Big Boy.”
“Big Boy, carry my bag for me,” he said.
I was in a position of do or be punked considering there were no other black men there. I stepped back from him and tried to kick him upside his head. He blocked it even though it knocked him down. He rolled on the ground and came up in a crouch like a Greco Roman wrestler and said he's a cage fighter.
The cops ran over saying they saw it and they wanted to handcuff me. I said I’d walk to wherever I had to go. One cop pepper-sprayed me and Scooter hit me and the sergeant and lieutenant ran over saying that I’d just got there today and I was trying to cause trouble already. So they took me to C.D.U. (Complex Detention Unit) and I stayed there for seven days until the D.H.O. (Disciplinary Hearing Officer) came. I got released back to the yard with a major ticket for fighting. But this time when I came through the gate there were several black men there. They said they heard what happened and they had my back.
I went to Building 1 Able Pod and Scooter lived in Charlie Pod right next door.
“Scooter wants a piece of you in the gym. When we get let out for rec, go to the gym so you guys can get down,” said the head of the whites who was running the pod.
So I told the brothers what was up and some of the white guys in the pod said they were putting their money on me.
We went to chow, ate chow, and came back and went to the gym. The rec officer was on the payroll for the whites also or he was their punk. We met on the basketball court and there were between 85 and 90 guys in there. We started circling each other. He rushed my legs in a wrestling technique, and I pushed down on his shoulders and threw my legs back and got away from him. He got pissed off and pulled off his sweatshirt and this boy was ripped. I’d say he weighed 235 or 240 on a 6’3” frame and I was only 257 at that time.
We started throwing blows at one another and we both missed. I settled down and took my time and started to hit the guy. I hit him with my right hand over his left eye and it ripped him wide open, but he wouldn’t quit! I hit him in the sternum and his left lung. It slowed him down but someone threw him a shank. I looked over at the cop to see if he was going to break it up, but he just stayed in his office doorway.
I knew then that I was going to have to do something extremely serious to this guy in order to end this and make it stop. He stood there breathing with nothing but hate in his eyes. He rushed at me and tried to stab me in my head, but his own blood was on his hands and he didn’t have a good grip on his weapon. I sidestepped him and grabbed his right wrist with my right hand and hit him with my left elbow and stunned him good. I let go of his wrist, put my right foot behind him, grabbed him by the throat and slammed him to the ground. His head hit that cement with a crack and the whole place went quiet.
His homosexual lover or should I say his punk, rushed me and I hit him with a right square in the forehead and followed it with a kick in the nuts. Then I chopped him behind the neck when he bent over and that was all she wrote.
All the guys there put the homo on top of the dude and the cop got on the radio and called for backup, and people were trying to wake him up. For the minute or so it took the cops to get there, those two were holding on to each other because they were out of sorts.
The cops grabbed them, tackled them, handcuffed them, and took them to Medical. They started snitching. The captain and warden didn’t believe that I had anything to do with it and sent word to the yard that these two guys were no good! I gained my respect and ran my side of the yard.
Click here for T-Bone's letter - The Attack on T-Bone.
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Shaun Attwood
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
11 Jun 08
From Two Tonys (Letter 7)
Two Tonys - A whacker of men and Mafia associate serving multiple life sentences for murders and violent crimes. Claims all his victims "had it coming."
6-3-08
Hi Shaun,
I received your letter and blogs. I enjoyed the excerpt of your book in progress. As I’ve always said, you hone those skills you possess. You’re doing good.
Hey! You sound as if you might be a little bit in stress mode. If this is so, then allow me to say with all due respect, Slow the fuck down! What’s with all this getting hammered bullshit and whirlwind romances? Where’s all this going to lead? You’ve got objectives in life. I realize you got to have a little R&R, but go in with eyes open. We discussed life throwing some shit in your path. Get a stick, clean it off your shoe and deal with it. Sorry about your friend and agent with the big C, but hey! That’s out there. I hope she’s OK and it all turns out good. Look! You’re a pal so I feel I can be upfront with you and not bullshit you. I say this: watch your friends, watch your partying, guard your emotions, stay on your toes and shoot for your goals. Don’t get weak. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. I might be wrong but I’m reading in your letters that perhaps the old Shaun might be lurking in the cobwebs of the new Shaun. You’re 3 X 7 so you don’t need me telling you how to act. But I just wanted to jerk your chain. Why? Because you’re my pal, and I want you to make it. Perhaps I’m wrong. Enough said.
Hey! I’m going to write you again and answer the reader’s questions from that last blog. Give me a week to heal up. I hurt myself at rec. My knee. So I’m in some pain.
Bro, I got a job in the library. I love it. 35c per hour. Hope it lasts.
Shaun, please email Richard K and let him know I received his letter, which I enjoyed. He mentioned sending me a few books. Let him know that the bookseller must send the book with receipt directly to the prison. If he goes through Amazon it should not be a problem. I intend to write to him as soon as I feel better.
Hey, bro, sorry about keeping this short, but I’ll make it up to you in the next letter.
Shout out to Frankie and your family.
Later bro,
Two Tonys
PS Shaun,
I got out once and was doing well, but then I started slipping and didn’t even realize it. You know the story. I fell. I fell hard. I don’t want you to stumble. So if I write you every now and then it’s from personal experience. So forgive me if I’m off track here. I know you’re smart and one of the most disciplined blokes I know. But the lure of fucking up is strong, real strong. Do not underestimate the opponent.
Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below
Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood
From Two Tonys (Letter 7)
Two Tonys - A whacker of men and Mafia associate serving multiple life sentences for murders and violent crimes. Claims all his victims "had it coming."
6-3-08
Hi Shaun,
I received your letter and blogs. I enjoyed the excerpt of your book in progress. As I’ve always said, you hone those skills you possess. You’re doing good.
Hey! You sound as if you might be a little bit in stress mode. If this is so, then allow me to say with all due respect, Slow the fuck down! What’s with all this getting hammered bullshit and whirlwind romances? Where’s all this going to lead? You’ve got objectives in life. I realize you got to have a little R&R, but go in with eyes open. We discussed life throwing some shit in your path. Get a stick, clean it off your shoe and deal with it. Sorry about your friend and agent with the big C, but hey! That’s out there. I hope she’s OK and it all turns out good. Look! You’re a pal so I feel I can be upfront with you and not bullshit you. I say this: watch your friends, watch your partying, guard your emotions, stay on your toes and shoot for your goals. Don’t get weak. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. I might be wrong but I’m reading in your letters that perhaps the old Shaun might be lurking in the cobwebs of the new Shaun. You’re 3 X 7 so you don’t need me telling you how to act. But I just wanted to jerk your chain. Why? Because you’re my pal, and I want you to make it. Perhaps I’m wrong. Enough said.
Hey! I’m going to write you again and answer the reader’s questions from that last blog. Give me a week to heal up. I hurt myself at rec. My knee. So I’m in some pain.
Bro, I got a job in the library. I love it. 35c per hour. Hope it lasts.
Shaun, please email Richard K and let him know I received his letter, which I enjoyed. He mentioned sending me a few books. Let him know that the bookseller must send the book with receipt directly to the prison. If he goes through Amazon it should not be a problem. I intend to write to him as soon as I feel better.
Hey, bro, sorry about keeping this short, but I’ll make it up to you in the next letter.
Shout out to Frankie and your family.
Later bro,
Two Tonys
PS Shaun,
I got out once and was doing well, but then I started slipping and didn’t even realize it. You know the story. I fell. I fell hard. I don’t want you to stumble. So if I write you every now and then it’s from personal experience. So forgive me if I’m off track here. I know you’re smart and one of the most disciplined blokes I know. But the lure of fucking up is strong, real strong. Do not underestimate the opponent.
Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below
Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood
Monday, June 9, 2008
09 Jun 08
From Iron Man (Letter 3)
Iron Man - A martial-arts expert and personal trainer whose crimes include smashing someone’s door down: "I didn’t hurt anyone. I just wanted my fuckin’ money." His workouts are brutal. "I’ll have you in the best shape of your life by the time you get out," he told me.
June 1st, 2008
Shaun,
Hello, brother. I hope that all is well with you and your family there across the pond.
It is 12:00 noon right now and I just woke up from a 2 hour nap. Had a massive chest workout this morning including 30 minutes of hardcore burpies, 10 sets of dips and an additional 500 pushups. It was divine.
We do our burpies at dawn now, 3 days a week minimum. There just isn’t anything quite like feeling your heart hammering inside your chest, and the sound of blood rushing in your ears as the sun breaks over the horizon. Downright fucking mystical.
Thanks for your recent letter. It was great to hear from you. I read your recent blog entries that you sent to Shannon as well. I’m sorry to hear about your literary agent. I pray that she wins her battle with cancer.
I can tell by the tone of your letter and recent blog entries that you are having a battle within yourself and are facing a lot of turmoil and frustration over your plans. Stay strong, my brother. Perseverance is the best evidence of sincerity, and things are always the hardest before a major breakthrough. Commitment and dedication to the achievement of your goals will result in the accomplishment of your goals. I know that you know this already, but sometimes it helps to hear it from those who believe in you.
I saw the pictures of you and Cat Eyes doing the flying bow. She looks and sounds like a lot of fun. I read the comment about how she wondered how easily or long I could hold her in a flying bow. The answer is as long as she wanted me to.
Hopefully you’ve cut all ties with Posh Bird by now because she sounds like a wily creature indeed. Remember, a good smart warrior never picks a battle he cannot win.
My medical issue seems to be straightening itself out. Must have been the food. They’ve since changed the menu to a new “Heart Healthy” menu. Basically they’ve done away with all the special diets except the vegetarian diet, and cut the portion sizes in half. They’ve also raised all the prices in the commissary, and cut everybody’s job hours. Less food, less money to buy food in the commissary, and higher prices for food in the store. There are a lot of hungry, angry men walking around here.
Life in my side of the dorm is a lot better than it used to be. The noise level has gone way down since I lost my cool about a month ago. I’d had my fill of noisy, disrespectful assholes in here yelling and fucking around all the time, so I waited until after the 8:30 pm count, and threw down the gauntlet – in a big way. You know how it is, brother: what you are willing to put up with is exactly what you will have. Well, now everyone here knows what I am willing to put up with, and things are going along smoothly and quietly.
I got to meet my newest grandson last week for the first time. He is 6 months old and just the happiest little guy you’d ever meet. Holding him really helped to put things in perspective for me.
Shaun, my brother, I know that things can get discouraging sometimes out there. I also know that you have great strength and spirit within you. You do have what it takes to make for yourself whatever it is you want.
Reach inside yourself and seize that power within yourself. Seize the fucking day!
Love and Respect,
Iron Man
Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below
Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood
From Iron Man (Letter 3)
Iron Man - A martial-arts expert and personal trainer whose crimes include smashing someone’s door down: "I didn’t hurt anyone. I just wanted my fuckin’ money." His workouts are brutal. "I’ll have you in the best shape of your life by the time you get out," he told me.
June 1st, 2008
Shaun,
Hello, brother. I hope that all is well with you and your family there across the pond.
It is 12:00 noon right now and I just woke up from a 2 hour nap. Had a massive chest workout this morning including 30 minutes of hardcore burpies, 10 sets of dips and an additional 500 pushups. It was divine.
We do our burpies at dawn now, 3 days a week minimum. There just isn’t anything quite like feeling your heart hammering inside your chest, and the sound of blood rushing in your ears as the sun breaks over the horizon. Downright fucking mystical.
Thanks for your recent letter. It was great to hear from you. I read your recent blog entries that you sent to Shannon as well. I’m sorry to hear about your literary agent. I pray that she wins her battle with cancer.
I can tell by the tone of your letter and recent blog entries that you are having a battle within yourself and are facing a lot of turmoil and frustration over your plans. Stay strong, my brother. Perseverance is the best evidence of sincerity, and things are always the hardest before a major breakthrough. Commitment and dedication to the achievement of your goals will result in the accomplishment of your goals. I know that you know this already, but sometimes it helps to hear it from those who believe in you.
I saw the pictures of you and Cat Eyes doing the flying bow. She looks and sounds like a lot of fun. I read the comment about how she wondered how easily or long I could hold her in a flying bow. The answer is as long as she wanted me to.
Hopefully you’ve cut all ties with Posh Bird by now because she sounds like a wily creature indeed. Remember, a good smart warrior never picks a battle he cannot win.
My medical issue seems to be straightening itself out. Must have been the food. They’ve since changed the menu to a new “Heart Healthy” menu. Basically they’ve done away with all the special diets except the vegetarian diet, and cut the portion sizes in half. They’ve also raised all the prices in the commissary, and cut everybody’s job hours. Less food, less money to buy food in the commissary, and higher prices for food in the store. There are a lot of hungry, angry men walking around here.
Life in my side of the dorm is a lot better than it used to be. The noise level has gone way down since I lost my cool about a month ago. I’d had my fill of noisy, disrespectful assholes in here yelling and fucking around all the time, so I waited until after the 8:30 pm count, and threw down the gauntlet – in a big way. You know how it is, brother: what you are willing to put up with is exactly what you will have. Well, now everyone here knows what I am willing to put up with, and things are going along smoothly and quietly.
I got to meet my newest grandson last week for the first time. He is 6 months old and just the happiest little guy you’d ever meet. Holding him really helped to put things in perspective for me.
Shaun, my brother, I know that things can get discouraging sometimes out there. I also know that you have great strength and spirit within you. You do have what it takes to make for yourself whatever it is you want.
Reach inside yourself and seize that power within yourself. Seize the fucking day!
Love and Respect,
Iron Man
Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below
Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood
Friday, June 6, 2008
Composers, Self-Publishing, and Academic AP&T
T wo of my fellow colleagues and I are currently brainstorming ideas for a CD recording project, and within the discussion something that came up is the idea of self-distribution on our own ‘independent’ label or searching out an established label for distribution. Now, obviously, each method has its own series of pros and cons, but an issue came up which I’m hoping some of you may be able to weigh in on. The three of us are all beginning to enter our professional career and two of us are looking specifically at entering into academia. I was hoping some of you may have insight on the subject of independent release vs. established release when it comes to search committees and tenure review. With technology growing and developing so much, the idea of self-releasing a CD (or even self-publishing) has become so easy that composers can have much more control and get 100% of the profit. On the other hand does this cause the loss of prestige? Specifically, if you are considering an applicant for a position at your university does it matter more to you that they have recordings through established record labels (i.e. Innova, Centaur,etc.), or does just the fact that they have recordings out say something, or, what if they have a healthy mix of both [self-published and commercially-published recordings]?”One of the arcane but important details of deciding about self-publishing is the so-called ‘controlled-composition clause’. Composers who control the publishing of their own works avoid ceding the publisher’s share of royalties from those works, but they have to deal with the ‘controlled-composition clause’. ‘Controlled’ compositions are works owned and controlled by the composer and not assigned to another publisher.
— Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn, comment on Society of Composers online forum, 04-JUN-2008.
A controlled-composition clause in the contract of a composer/performer states that the record company will pay a reduced rate on the titles controlled by the artist. This means that if a work on a published CD is written by an outside party, that outside (non-controlled) work will earn more for the outside party than a work written by the composer/performer will earn the artist as a composer/performer.
The only exception to this rule is when the publisher of an ‘outside’ work—usually in an effort to curry favor with the record label—agrees to go along with the terms of the controlled composition clause. Although the composer/performer may find it difficult to negotiate, it is in her best interest to have any controlled composition clause removed from her contract before signing with a record label.
Some controlled composition clauses allow the record company to pay a reduced ‘mechanical’ rate, on a maximum number of tracks per CD, called the ‘cap’. For example, if the clause says that the label will pay 75 percent of the statutory rate on a cap of 6 tracks you wrote and control, your may have to take a serious cut in compensation if any outside (non-controlled) works are included on the same CD. Say the statutory rate is 8.5 cents (for tracks under 5-min playing time). Then the maximum the record label will pay for each of the tracks is 6.375 cents—76.5 cents for a CD with 12 tracks on it. The outside publishers are commanding 8.5 cents for each of their tracks—say, 6 tracks for a total of 12 on the CD. They get 51.0 cents for their 6 tracks. The difference—76.5 cents minus 51.0 cents equals 25.5 cents—is what’s left over for you. That’s 4.25 cents per track to you, or 50% of the royalty rate that the outsiders get. That’s why you want to negotiate the controlled composition clause out of the deal, or make sure that none of the compositions on the CD involve other outside publishers, or publish the thing yourself.
The Harry Fox Agency, which is operated by the National Music Publishers’ Association is the main mechanical-right society in the U.S. American Mechanical Rights Association is another major one. Many publishers authorize a mechanical-rights licensing and collection organization to license and collect mechanical royalties on their behalf. If you do decide to self-publish, maybe you will decide to go this route as well. If you do, note that these organizations typically charge a fee of 5% of gross. Parker Music Group is one such service company.
- Mechanical Rights Licensing Orgs
- APRA/AMCOS—Australasian Performing Right Association / Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners’ Society (Australia/N.Z.)
- AMRA—American Mechanical Rights Agency (U.S.)
- ASCAP—American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (U.S.)
- BMI—Broadcast Music Inc (U.S.)
- CISAC—International Confederation of Authors and Composers (E.U.)
- CMRRA—Canadian Mechanical Rights Reproduction Society (Canada)
- HFA (NMPA)—Harry Fox Agency (U.S.)
- GEMA—Gesellschaft für musikalische Auffürhrungs und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, etc.)
- JASRAC—Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (Japan)
- MCPS—Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (U.K, Ireland)
- NCB—Nordisk Copyright Bureau (Scandinavia)
- SABAM—Societé Belge des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs (Belgium)
- SDRM—Societé pour l’administration du Droit de Reproduction Mécanique (France, fracophone Africa)
- SESAC—Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (E.U.)
- SGAE—Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (Spain)
- SODRAC—Societé du droit de reproduction des auteurs, compositeurs et editeurs au Canada (Canada)
- SIAE—Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori (Italy)
- SPA—Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores (Portugal)
- BUMA-STEMRA— (Netherlands)
- SUISA— (Switzerland)
- VAAP—All-Union Copyright Agency (Russia, etc.)
Regarding the effects on appointment, tenure, and promotions decision-making, there are a few salient examples among the links below, for your interest.
An AP&T Committee usually confines its review to new products of creative activity that have appeared in public exhibitions or performances, or in print, film, and digital formats (e.g., CD, MP3, video or DVD recordings and presentations on the World-Wide Web). It is usual to consider commercial recordings in the same sense as refereed journal articles or book chapters or other scholarly work definitively accepted for publication or public presentation as valid for review. If, besides your free MySpace or other free MP3 downloads of performances of your works that you maintain online and log accesses, you additionally have paid-download self-published material on sites like eclassical.com or CDbaby.com, then be sure to include cumulative impression/access/download counts for each of those in your AP&T Docket. (An AP&T Committee does not generally give weight to incomplete work under commission, under advance contract, submitted for review, or in preparation—nor does an AP&T Committee generally accord much weight to counts of unpaid downloads from MySpace or other social networking sites. Same thing for counts of unpaid demo CD distributions you do at your ensemble’s performances.)
But completed work whose performance will be difficult to organize or fund; whose orchestration requires an ensemble that will be difficult or logistically impractical to gather together to rehearse and perform at the same time and place; whose production complexity for public performance is beyond the finances available, but whose performance is feasible in a studio; and other completed recorded performances (such as ones too radical for accessible, available public audiences) can be given weight. Your works’ quality speaks for itself. The AP&T Committee members become the de facto peer-reviewers ascertaining its weight, instead of subrogating the evaluation to external publishers or editors or commissioning agencies. (Works completed, performed or exhibited in previous review periods, such as repeat productions or performances, post-premiere performances, solo or group exhibitions of electroacoustic or multimedia art, video or film, and the like, are regarded as evidence of professional recognition and activity, but are not weighed as new creative activity per se.)
Remember that a complete departmental appointment, promotion and tenure (AP&T) docket must often include a minimum of five letters from outside evaluators. The letter of solicitation, which should come from the Chair of the Department, often must follow a standard template so as not to prejudice the evaluators either postively or negatively. The letter must explicitly request comparative rankings with the candidate’s peers, and it must not in any way imply that a positive or negative response from the evaluator is desired. In general, the outside evaluators would not tender jealous, resentful, or disparaging reviews if the recorded material they are sent is commercially-published. Nor should there be any pejorative aspect to self-published material.
Keep in mind that, insofar as all outside letters of evaluation must be fresh (written and received within 12 months of the AP&T review date), there is a considerable advantage to self-publishing: you have the ability to augment your recordings catalog as much as you wish, with works that may not (yet) have received consideration by normal publishers, or with works that embody genres that (at the moment) have limited commercial potential. The normal commercial recording, post-production, and publication cycle is simply too slow and will omit your most recent work and your most iconoclastic, innovative work, probably. Things that were not commissioned by anybody and are not yet performed in a paid-ticket setting would not be available for distribution to the reviewers unless you make it happen yourself, self-publisher style.
Any Dean and Department Chair and AP&T Committee with heads properly screwed on do grasp these concepts. In fact, if you discover that the Conservatory regime you are addressing does not handle such issues thoughtfully and fairly, you really ought to ask yourself whether there isn’t some more congenial and productive venue for you to spend your time. Life is too short, to spend part of it laboring under unfair, entrenched prejudices about commercial- vs self-publishing.
- Society of Composers, Inc (SCI)
- Small Publishers’ Association of North America (SPANnet.org)
- WikiRecording.org
- Audio Publishers’ Association
- digitalCDR.com audio CD replication
- ProAction Media audio CD replication
- Association of Professional Composers. The Composer's Guide to Music Publishing. APC, 1987.
- Bowerman P. The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living. Fanove, 2006.
- Howard G. Music Publishing 101. Berklee, 2004.
- Levine M. The Fine Print of Self-Publishing: The Contracts & Services of 48 Major Self-Publishing Companies. Bridgeway, 2006.
- Rich J. Self-Publishing for Dummies. 2e. ForDummies, 2006.
- Sander J. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Self-Publishing. Alpha, 2005.
- Smith R. Music Publishing 101 Crash Course: Made Simple & Easy. NWPP, 2001.
- Sobel R, Weissman D. Music Publishing. Routledge, 2008.
- Whitsett T. Music Publishing.5e. ArtistPro, 2000.
- Wixen R. The Plain and Simple Guide to Music Publishing. Hal Leonard, 2005.
06 Jun 08
Zucchini (Part 4)
This series came about because many of you requested I divulge what prisoners get up to sexually. If you take offense to sexual content you may not want to read on.
Max - A car-jacking Chukchansi Indian who entered prison as a teenager and went home to Las Vegas in 2007. While in prison, he traded his semen to an old pervert for commissary items.
Part three left off with Cindy the transsexual asking Max not only to remove the shampoo bottle from his anus but to “work it” while pulling it out.
“What did you do? Surely you ran for the hills at this point, Max?” I asked.
“I didn’t run for the hills, dude,” Max said.
“A shemale is pointing at the massive shampoo bottle lodged in his arse and asking you to work it and you didn’t run for the hills?”
“No. I just grab the bottle top and start pullin’, dude.”
“Wow! Did you at least hesitate? Did you consider any other options?”
“No hesitation whatsoever, dude. In these situations, you try to just pinch the bottle top and not make contact with the skin.”
After laughing at length, I said, “Perhaps you do in those situations. I’ll have to remember that. But what I’d really like to know is: did you work it?”
“Not intentionally. I get a hold of the bottle top and my fingers slip ’cause of the Royal Crown Hair Dressing that had been used as lube. I finally start easin’ it out.”
“What was going through your mind?”
“I don’t know, dude. Maybe I was just caught up in the moment.”
“Like turned on?”
“No. More like a morbid fascination with how such a little dude could handle such a big thing as that. He could stand up, sit down, and walk around, like havin’ a butt-plug of that size was nothin’. But I realise, I’m in a cell pullin’ on a shampoo bottle stuck outta some dude’s ass. I’m startin’ to get worried now.”
“Only now?”
“Yeah. There was a certain level of peer pressure involved, dude. Log’s my buddy and he’s countin’ on me. It’s like when you’re a teenager and you come across a nympho who wants you and your homies to pull a train on her. You’ve gotta do it whether you want to or not ’cause it’s like an initiation thing.”
“So you didn’t want to let Log down?”
“Yeah. It’s just sex, dude. It doesn’t matter. And guess what Log does next?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Log’s lookin’ at me. I’ve got half the bottle out now. And Cindy commences to blow Log off. Cindy was probably gettin’ stimulated from the bottle bein’ moved.”
“So you were working it?”
“No, dude! I’m plannin’ my escape at this time. So I yank the bottle out, and there’s a pop – a suction sound. There’s a pungent smell – and it didn’t even smell like shit to tell you the truth. It was the smell of rubber and grease with a hint of some kinda flowery thing from the Royal Crown Hair Dressing. When I pulled the bottle, it disconnected from the O-ring. So I’ve got the bottle in my hand now. What do I do with it? I realise I’m in a situation I don’t need to be in. And out of luck, I hear ’em on the loudspeaker, not callin’ me, but I use it as an excuse to say they’re callin’ me.
I tell Log, ‘I gotta go back, man.’
He says, ‘Dude, they didn’t call you.’
It’s like he’s thwartin’ my every means of escape. So I try to hand the bottle back to Cindy. It’s danglin’ from my fingertips, but Cindy’s still bobbin’ on Log’s thing.”
“Is there mess on the shampoo bottle?”
“No. It’s just greasy lookin’. Maybe he douched or somethin’ before he put it in. Log doesn’t want me to leave. I can tell maybe he’s getting’ off on me bein’ there.
Then Log says, ‘I’ll be done in a minute and you can go next.’”
Does Max succumb to the will of Log and go even further with Cindy? What would you do in this situation if you were Max? Have we seen the last of the shampoo bottle or will it come back into play?
Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below
Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood
Zucchini (Part 4)
This series came about because many of you requested I divulge what prisoners get up to sexually. If you take offense to sexual content you may not want to read on.
Max - A car-jacking Chukchansi Indian who entered prison as a teenager and went home to Las Vegas in 2007. While in prison, he traded his semen to an old pervert for commissary items.
Part three left off with Cindy the transsexual asking Max not only to remove the shampoo bottle from his anus but to “work it” while pulling it out.
“What did you do? Surely you ran for the hills at this point, Max?” I asked.
“I didn’t run for the hills, dude,” Max said.
“A shemale is pointing at the massive shampoo bottle lodged in his arse and asking you to work it and you didn’t run for the hills?”
“No. I just grab the bottle top and start pullin’, dude.”
“Wow! Did you at least hesitate? Did you consider any other options?”
“No hesitation whatsoever, dude. In these situations, you try to just pinch the bottle top and not make contact with the skin.”
After laughing at length, I said, “Perhaps you do in those situations. I’ll have to remember that. But what I’d really like to know is: did you work it?”
“Not intentionally. I get a hold of the bottle top and my fingers slip ’cause of the Royal Crown Hair Dressing that had been used as lube. I finally start easin’ it out.”
“What was going through your mind?”
“I don’t know, dude. Maybe I was just caught up in the moment.”
“Like turned on?”
“No. More like a morbid fascination with how such a little dude could handle such a big thing as that. He could stand up, sit down, and walk around, like havin’ a butt-plug of that size was nothin’. But I realise, I’m in a cell pullin’ on a shampoo bottle stuck outta some dude’s ass. I’m startin’ to get worried now.”
“Only now?”
“Yeah. There was a certain level of peer pressure involved, dude. Log’s my buddy and he’s countin’ on me. It’s like when you’re a teenager and you come across a nympho who wants you and your homies to pull a train on her. You’ve gotta do it whether you want to or not ’cause it’s like an initiation thing.”
“So you didn’t want to let Log down?”
“Yeah. It’s just sex, dude. It doesn’t matter. And guess what Log does next?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Log’s lookin’ at me. I’ve got half the bottle out now. And Cindy commences to blow Log off. Cindy was probably gettin’ stimulated from the bottle bein’ moved.”
“So you were working it?”
“No, dude! I’m plannin’ my escape at this time. So I yank the bottle out, and there’s a pop – a suction sound. There’s a pungent smell – and it didn’t even smell like shit to tell you the truth. It was the smell of rubber and grease with a hint of some kinda flowery thing from the Royal Crown Hair Dressing. When I pulled the bottle, it disconnected from the O-ring. So I’ve got the bottle in my hand now. What do I do with it? I realise I’m in a situation I don’t need to be in. And out of luck, I hear ’em on the loudspeaker, not callin’ me, but I use it as an excuse to say they’re callin’ me.
I tell Log, ‘I gotta go back, man.’
He says, ‘Dude, they didn’t call you.’
It’s like he’s thwartin’ my every means of escape. So I try to hand the bottle back to Cindy. It’s danglin’ from my fingertips, but Cindy’s still bobbin’ on Log’s thing.”
“Is there mess on the shampoo bottle?”
“No. It’s just greasy lookin’. Maybe he douched or somethin’ before he put it in. Log doesn’t want me to leave. I can tell maybe he’s getting’ off on me bein’ there.
Then Log says, ‘I’ll be done in a minute and you can go next.’”
Does Max succumb to the will of Log and go even further with Cindy? What would you do in this situation if you were Max? Have we seen the last of the shampoo bottle or will it come back into play?
Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below
Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood
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