Always About the Lyrics

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 2014.

           True story: Folk singer Woody Guthrie, who had stood with the unemployed at the height of the depression, watched as thousands of Oklahomans, and Kansans, and Texas panhandlers headed west to California during the dust bowl, was incensed over Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” that melding of civil into religion that should give any devout Christian pause. Guthrie’s response was to pen “This Land is Your Land”

            “This land is your land, this land is my land

            From California to the New York Island;

            From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters;

            This land was made for you and me.”

            I love that song. I love the imagery Woody Guthrie creates with Biblical clarity as “the fog was lifting, a voice was chanting, this land was made for you and me.” The lyrics; it is always about the lyrics. They can move you, sustain you, give you hope. Nowhere is that truer than in here.

            Each morning around 4:00 I begin my day with the Episcopal liturgical calendar. I’m not Episcopalian, but on my 50^th birthday a dear friend delivered the Episcopalian “Book of Common Prayer” to me at the jail. I’ve had it with me ever since and begin each morning with the day’s verse selections. Each day begins the same with Psalms, lyrical poems of praise, or anger, or fear, or just asking God “why” – why this, why me? Each morning I take a 3X5 index card and jot down a verse to contemplate throughout the day. The Psalms, those lyrical, powerful, gut-wrenching Psalms, provide me clarity – and hope.

            I don’t get most music today. I’m stuck in a warp of great old tunes, songs that mattered. I don’t get singing – or rapping – about “bling,” and Hennessy, and large butts, but I pause and think often of Peter, Paul and Mary singing “If I had a Hammer” or “Blowin in the Wind.” Folk singer Pete Seeger penned “Where have all the Flowers Gone.” He was blacklisted and attacked by a drunken, hateful Senator McCarthy during the red baiting of the ‘50s. Pete just kept on singing … about civil rights, and war, and the water. McCarthy fell and died in alcoholic oblivion; Pete kept singing into his 90s.

            They told Peter, Paul, and Mary if they marched in Selma they’d never sell another record south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The trio said the music mattered more than record sales. For almost 50 years they sang – in the face of Nixon’s battle with Vietnam War protesters, in El Salvador standing with the churches decrying the killing by both left and right. The lyrics mattered. The lyrics always matter.

            Almost every blog I write has some song lyric or Bible verse attached. Those words give me direction. I keep a large folder of song lyrics in my locker, close to two hundred songs. There are songs that speak of heartbreak and lost love; songs of the future; songs of protest. Each one contains lines which cry out with emotion and truth. And truth is so hard to find these days.

            Today begins the Christmas season, Advent, the coming of the long-expected Messiah, Emmanuel, “God with us,” Hymns, beautiful hopeful hymns I recite as I run the track. And, while hearing those songs, I remember John Prine’s “Christmas in Prison.”

            “It’s Christmas in prison

            There’ll be music tonight

            I’ll probably get homesick

            I love you. Goodnight.”

            Psalms, songs, poems, lyrics all speaking to who we are, who we want to be. The lyrics matter, especially in here.

 

Olio

I work one or two crossword puzzles every day. You soon learn from doing that many puzzles that certain clues will appear in almost every puzzle you do. For example, a three letter name for “Woody’s ex” is always “Mia.” And so it goes. For a four letter word meaning, “A mix;” the word is always “olio.” My blog posting this week is a mix of a number of topics, it’s an olio.

Early Counts

            Since I arrived here in 2009 there have been three “standing” counts – everyman at the foot of their bed, standing, electronics all off. There are standing counts at 11:30 a.m., 6:00 p.m., and 10:00 p.m. At night, there are bed check counts at midnight and 3:00 a.m. Then, at shift change, there is a bed check count (all men on or in their beds) at 5:45 a.m.

            A week ago, a memo came out from the warden which explained, in part, that department directives require all “counts” between 5:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. to be standing counts. Apparently, LCC has been out of compliance for years!

            Starting Monday, February 3^rd at 5:45 a.m., the lights will come on, a whistle will blow, and everyone will assemble for a standing count. Guys’ll bitch and moan – it’s the nature of the place – and then drag themselves back to the rack to sleep until 8:00 a.m. (bed areas must be made and cleaned up). Later that day – at 9:30 p.m. instead of 10:00 we’ll assemble for evening standing count. Then lights – and noise – will lower at 10:00 instead of 10:30.

            Change never goes over well inside a prison. But, this one should be no big deal.

 The “Race” Debate

            I had words with a member of NOI the other morning over – of all things – the school’s African American History quiz and contest. Every February, as part of “African American History” month, the LCC school sponsors a history quiz. The top three scores are presented dictionaries by the school and recognized in the school monthly newsletter. Since 2006 the quiz has been called “African American History.” Of course, since 2006, the aide responsible for running the quiz was an African American teacher’s aide. He was caught up in the great December computer caper and transferred out. Time was running short and the quiz was in danger of not getting out. The principal – my boss – asked me to take the quiz on, which I did. And that’s what led to …

            “No white man can truly understand my people’s history.” Say what? I’m not sure what pissed me off more, him standing in the dayroom spouting his ignorant claptrap or his diatribe on our chalk board. “This quiz is an afront [sic] to Africans like me. We aren’t African Americans!!”

            Not one to back away from a battle with a half-wit, I said, “Hey Socrates, if you’re going to write a political epistle, at least spell your words correctly. It’s a-f-f-r-o-n-t.” I then told him I drafted the quiz. “But you don’t know what we’ve been through. You can’t be responsible and sympathetic to our plight.”

            “Really? What do you know about what it means to be Armenian, or Jewish, or Scotch? Can you have empathy for the Chinese or Italian experience in America? Should I, as a white tutor, only help ‘my kind’?” The dayroom was silent as I lit into him about ignorance and race-baiting. Then it was over; he walked away less sure of the stupid position he espoused.

            And that’s one of the problems with prison; it’s a toxic stew of uneducated, ignorant crap that feeds their obsessive self-pitying. Prison sucks. It is demeaning and counter-productive. But – and this is an important but – most of us did the crimes that landed us here. We aren’t innocent. We did stupid – and in some cases horrible – things. That doesn’t make the system less insane, but it should cause you to focus on real improvement, real education and job skills, not some chin-rubbing wanna-be philosophizing.

 Mental Health Continued

            Last Sunday night, the CBS News show “60 Minutes” interviewed Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds. Deeds described in great detail his son’s mental health issues and the tragic incident that unfolded at the family farm Thanksgiving weekend. Deeds said society doesn’t treat mental health like cancer or heart disease (he’s right). He then talked about the bill he’s proposed in the Virginia legislature to allow mentally ill people to be held 24 hours (instead of the current 6 hours) to find available bed space for in-patient treatment.

            The bill seems to be a common sense approach to a tragic and glaring problem in Virginia’s mental health umbrella. So why then does the Virginia Sheriff’s Association oppose it?

            “We’ll have to babysit ‘those’ people for 24 hours,” the VSA spokesman said. “It’ll cost $4.5 million for the extra manpower.” Really? So the Commonwealth is willing to spend $1.25 billion each year on prisons, a system where over 50% of the inmates suffer from diagnosed mental illnesses. Holding mentally ill people in prison, pumping them full of psychotropic drugs so they spend the days like zombies, that’s a good use of a billion dollars plus. But $4 ½ million, whoa we can’t afford that. Kind of makes you wonder who really is crazy.

 Peter Seeger RIP

            On January 28^th, folk singer Pete Singer passed away at the age of 94. Seeger was part of a great collection of men and women who wrote and sang beautiful folk songs – songs of everyday people – that meant something. “Where have all the flowers gone?” That was Pete Seeger.

            He sang with Woody Guthrie. He sang for civil rights, and social equality, and cleaning his beloved Hudson River. He abhorred violence and militarism, yet during the Second World War he enlisted. Hitler and totalitarianism of the Fascists had to be stopped.

            In his twenties, Seeger joined the American Communist Party. Then he saw that Stalin and the Soviets were as bad as Hitler and the Nazis. He quit the party. America in the ‘50’s wasn’t so forgiving. He was blacklisted and spied on by Hoover’s FBI. He never quit smiling, he never quit singing.

            One of my favorite Seeger stories involved seeing him in concert at Vassar College during my high school days (1976 or ’77). Seeger was at the Poughkeepsie, New York School (my hometown back then) and he began to sing his song “Goodnight Irene.” He told the audience, “You can sing any song lyric to this tune.” Even now, almost 40 years later I find myself singing dozens of songs to the tune of “Goodnight Irene.”

            Pete Seeger wanted people to know he wasn’t perfect. None of us are. But as the character William Wallace said in “Braveheart,” “Every man dies, but not every may lives.” Pete Seeger lived.

            “Irene goodnight

              Irene goodnight
              Goodnight Irene
              Goodnight Irene
              I’ll see you in my dreams."

           

When Will They Ever Learn?

As I was working out a few weeks ago, Pete Seeger’s song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” ran through my head.  After each stanza, from flowers to girls to young soldiers, to graveyards, Seeger ends with the same refrain, “When will they ever learn?”

To say I was unprepared for arrest and jail would be an understatement.  I was taken to the jail – in shackle and handcuffs of course – wearing my navy blue blazer, oxford collared shirt, khakis and Kenneth Cole dress shoes.  As opposed to most guys who know they’re about to get picked up and have on four pair of t-shirts, boxers and socks, I had one v-neck tee and a pair of green Italian silk boxers.

They took everything from me except my underclothes.  I was given two sets of puke green, elastic waist scrubs and a set of “Jackie Chans”, jail lingo for the 99 cent shower shoes they give out.  I was told by the property C.O. I could order my own sneakers, boxers and t-shirts from commissary.  And, feeling sorry for me – I was a pathetic mess – the officer helped me fill out my first “store” order.  I’d shown up in jail with $400.00 in my wallet that was immediately taken and put on my “account”.  I ordered three sets of white tees, boxers and socks and a $20.00 pair of Velcro sneakers.  “You’ll be able to get your stuff next Monday”, the officer told me shortly before I found myself in my first jail pod with no daylight, no quiet, and no hope.

That first week was horrendous and I fought desperately against self-destruction even as my whole “real” life was crashing around me. I barely survived that first weekend, had my moment of begging God to not abandon me, and somehow made it to Monday morning.  And, shortly after 9:00 that morning, the intercom called me to commissary.  That entire first week I lived in the same t-shirt and underwear.  Each night in my cell, I’d wash those clothes out with my state issued bar of soap and hang them to dry.  And I’d sleep “commando” in that uncomfortable jail-issued scrub set.

The sneakers.  I put them on at the commissary window and headed back to the pod.  It was the first moment of normalcy I’d enjoyed since my arrest.  Back in my cell block I walked around feeling – well – better than I had in a week.  Then I saw him. 

He was a young, muscular black kid, no more than eighteen.   He was sitting on a table, saw me and climbed down and began heading toward me.  I noticed his smile, devious is a good way to describe it, and also noticed the ten or so other guys in the dayroom suddenly moved toward the walls.

“Nice shoes”, he said.  Before I could respond he added, “Give em to me or else”.  My mind raced a thousand miles an hour.  I was forty-nine and wanted to die – or so I thought.  But, his words did something to me.  I put myself in a fighting stance, on the balls of my feet, hands fisted.  Then and there I decided I might get my ass kicked, but I’d always keep my dignity.

Divine intervention?  At that precise moment the young, female psychologist walked by our pod windows in a silk blouse and jeans that accentuated her petite frame.  My would-be assailant saw her and turned his attention to her.  In one of those tragic-comic moments you only see in prison, he began uttering lewd, grunted words to her while exposing himself.  In a matter of seconds the dayroom door sprang open and three beefy officers lifted “Casanova” off the floor and out of the pod.  I never saw him again.

There have been other situations where I’ve been threatened, sometimes by guys for whom violence has been a way of life.  It’s funny, but I don’t worry about it.  As I told a friend one time, it’s better to get beat up and keep your dignity intact than live with yourself out of fear.  But, those experiences have convinced me of the needless waste that is violence.

The other night a fight broke out in here.  Like most fights this one arose out of a stupid thing, a wager gone awry, and one skinny loudmouth telling a much larger guy “you ain’t gonna dispect me, bro.”  Within seconds the big man had lunged at skinny, landed at least six heavy “Whumps” to the head and chest, then began to choke him out.

And as with most fights in here, we all stopped and tried not to look, but also didn’t intervene.  In a minute or two it was over.  Skinny slinked off to his bunk gasping for air, only the blackness of his skin hiding his bruised and bloodied face.

I’ll never get use to the violence in here.  It jolts me and offends my sense of dignity and compassion.  And the more I see of it, the more I realize it’s just a stupid, stupid waste.

Were it only in here, I’d write it off as some depraved state of the incarcerated; you know “what do you expect from criminals?”  But then you watch the news; Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Chicago, Richmond, on and on the news details fighting and killing.  Gandhi once said “with an eye for an eye the world will soon be blind.”  Gandhi was a very smart man.

Violence is never the answer.  Violence begets violence.  I have watched too many men beat each other senseless in here.  Then again, I saw too many young men die and kill in the rice paddies of Vietnam and the sands of Iraq.  “When will they ever learn?”

I shared with a friend in a recent letter how much prison has changed my outlook on life, on people, on things in general.  Years ago, after that initial confrontation over my sneakers, I began getting up at 4:00 and reading the Bible.  I guess I wanted to understand why, why God, why things were the way they were.  I found more questions than answers.  But, I began to come away with a deep sense of awe over the infinite mystery that is God.

And I began to understand that we are all flawed.  Perhaps that’s why I keep thinking it all boils down to kindness, mercy, and forgiveness.

When will they ever learn?  After the fight, the big guy came up to me to talk.  Everyone else was joking on him, he said.  “Not you.”  And he told me he felt like crap about doing that, pummeling the loudmouth, skinny guy.  “I hate that.  Hate getting so angry.  Hate how I feel afterwards.” 

When will they every learn?  Maybe never, or maybe….