On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read

A day: Work

These are the two warehouse guys,

actually the one on the left is gone now, decided he wanted to work a lot harder for a little more.

He had it made in the warehouse,  he’d cook up an omelet on a hot plate every morning in his makeshift kitchen complete with mini-fridge. He’d blast music like Tool, death metal,  a little country, whatever. Before he quit smoking pot and chain smoking menthols he did that back in the warehouse too.
He also moonlighted as a College cheer leading coach. Yeah, he was one of the guys who showed the other guys how to hold a 100lb girl in a mini skirt in the palm of your hand up over your head. Said he wasn’t into pornography.
A couple of years back I had stopped in to pick up something and he was brooding.

“Man, my cat, Fish, died.”

That’s the way I heard it – My cat Fish – I thought he’d done it (named his cat “Fish”) to be funny.
As he continued I realized he meant Catfish and then I thought it was kind of ridiculous, to be that upset over a fish.
I don’t think I have to explain to you the limitations of a Mans-Best-Fish relationship.

But okay so this is the guy who was almost giddy because he’d scored tickets to a Dave Mathews concert in Wisconsin a couple of months back, he’s got a soft side (and a high-tolerance for nauseating ‘entertainment’ in my opinion, a DM song here and there, uh…but a whole concert of that shit? ).

Then he says he’s so distraught and teetering on rage at the death of mortal-beloved-aquatic that he felt like, quote- “I want to smash the next niggers head that comes digging in our dumpster for scraps”- unquote. And not in a jokey way like some folks would.

He’s gone now as I mentioned earlier but before he’d left and after I was hired on as an employee he pulled me aside and said, “Hey, is it okay if we give you the nickname K2, you know, just between us in the warehouse?”
I said, Haven’t you already? , and then he laughed that huge guttural laugh he always did – you know, the kind of guy who almost always follows up a comment with a huge wind-blowing guttural stink laugh in your face -

So after a week of incessant call outs of “K2!” – (to give you an idea of the sheer volume of call outs, I started avoiding the warehouse or at least the main entry doors in fact I would walk out the front door walk along the grass between the building and the highway to the regular emergency exit door which was always open, for ventilation purposes I guess, located at the very back in opposite to the very front I’d originated from just to get something I needed off a shelf that was just the other side of one of the showroom walls towards the back, where I had been when I realized I needed this something and could have just made two-three steps through the double swinging doors to the warehouse but because I was overloading on “K2!”‘s and really needed to not get fired I would avoid being detected in this way.

AA:
Suzanne, crazy, volume-control-gone-haywire, Suzanne.

Now she’s chairing the Friday 6 o’clock, now she’s in control.

Suzanne does her reading and then she ‘asks’ if she can go first knowing (and that’s what I hate is when someone says, “Does anybody mind if…?” when they know no one is going to say they mind.

 
Maybe, to be fair, no one will actually mind but they don’t give a fuck – it’s passive aggressive line cutting. It’s bullshit.  Also; “Can I ask a rhetorical question?” they’re rhetorically asking to ask a rhetorical question, they [rhetorical question askers et al] do not expect nor will there be an real chance of an interjection denying them their rhetorical question opportunity. And, to point out the obvious: “Can I ask two rhetorical questions?” would be accur – no wait, that makes it three) that she’ll be allowed to drag us through her Burlington story one more time.

One guy is staring at the inside of his hat.

Another is staring at red-piercing hate. I can just sense it.

Several exchanges of the usual and then over to me.

“I don’t have anything sad or depressing to report and I’m feeling pretty good for the moment so, I’m going to pass.”

- Long Silence

Suzanne, unsteady, is bobble-heading at me.

“So, back to you, Suzanne.” – in a not too shabby local news anchor impression.
Not really any discernable appreciation for my efforts.

Home 

(Peoria County Jail)

In the common room.
Was probably going to be obvious but…
black guy says, “Somebody, gonna be trouble. Yes, sir.”

Why?

“Sign right there say ‘Do not close blinds’.” (blinds are closed but the sign clearly reads, Do not open blinds. I can’t figure how he went wrong there. I just walk back out of the room.)

Dinner: 

I call him Adidas, Because, not very interestingly,  he wears an Adidas sport shirt, jacket, shorts and when he’s not wearing his Adidas shoes he’s wearing his obvious-brand sandals.

Adidas guy, better than “New Fat Guy” or NFG as I had been referring to him in my notes.
He sits before a ‘dinner’ tray hunched over the thing , legs bouncing up and down giving the impression he’s about to tackle the tray – looks like that football player warm up thing they do when they run in place furiously – nkind of hunched over with their hands out in front of them air-tickling like  hulking pedophiles outside a boy-whore* house in Tapei at the fore-start of a ‘backdoor buster sale’ The passion runs high.

He goes through the local rag, eyebrows gesticulating wildly as his eyes jump from picture to picture. Then he hits the bunk after a trip to the bathroom and probably a self-burping.

Baby go poop and take nappy now.

Walking by guy with earbuds listening to music he says, not sings, “…Somethings gotta turn out right.” and it’s that thing where the faint ‘noise’ suddenly reveals itself by additional clue that it’s a familiar tune you happen to like and so I say to him, “Alice in Chains” and he says, “I don’t have any change.” and I repeat louder and he pulls out one ear bud and says, “I’m listening to Alice in Chains.”

No shit. Disengage.
*credit to Sean Rouse

-Travis Lipski

http://workreleaseshallsetyoufree.blogspot.com/2011/09/aporia-in-peoria.html

Every week in NYC’s West Village a small coffee shop is jammed with comics both dastardly and diverse:  Young comics, old, fat, black, white, Jew, Gentile, Asian, Indian, gay, bi, tranny, straight, lonely guys and, always, outspoken gals like me who never hesitate to explain why they’re seein’ red.   The host is a gorgeous, blond she-comic who boldly keeps things rolling and draws a name for a free bottle of wine at the show’s end.

It isn’t “clean comedy” (see previous post) and The Unbookables Movie comics would thrive here.  One comedian even threatened to fart on the next-up who was crouching behind him on the tiny stage. (I’d say that, save the “Terrence and Philip” cartoon characters of the infamous South Park series, blatantly farting on the next performer is probably an unbookable act.)  Because the space has only enough room for the comics, actual customers tend to hover outside.  They peer in the window panels behind the stage, which reinforces the “us” and “them” fishbowl effect.

But things got strange one night after the room had quickly divided itself into two groups:   Comics who have kids and those who don’t.  It’s one topic that kicks people at their core:  Although parents will pretend how hilarious it is to raise a kid, they always seem to wistfully slip in how they’ve had to calm down and quit partying on behalf of their offspring miniatures. Singles don’t want to hear this. Some are secretly jealous yet rub their absolutely unadulterated freedom in their counterparts’ faces.

After the ritualistic, one-minute “lightning round” of jokes comes five minutes’ stage time, for which everyone pays five dollars—“5 for 5” is the standard NYC comedy open mic deal.  The majority of comics who perform here are consistently funny.  You can count on getting at least one laugh from each bit.

When it was my turn to take the stage, I leapt up to the platform, grabbed the mic, and sneered,

“Well, I don’t have kids.  I’m still single.  So I do the things single people do.  Like, I crashed my hard drive while downloading porn.  It was the Trojan virus, of course, named after the condom.  I can’t even have Safe Sex by myself!”

From what I could tell from onstage, one or two comics in the audience laughed and there was a smattering of snickers. The faces of the parent-comics had turned purple, though. It was too late—I’d opened fire on the proverbial elephant in the room.  I’d flung the “having kids” issue directly at everybody and it wasn’t funny anymore.  My own angst had likely bled through, besides. Even for comedians, some jokes are just too raw.

-Susan Hawke

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read

My employer is the owner of numerous properties we could euphemistically refer to as ‘affordable housing’.

I am obligated under the implied employer/employee contract to make necessary repairs and ready vacated ‘units’ for unsuspecting new occupants for which I am compensated at an hourly wage a full one-dollar and nine-cents above the poverty level as assessed in 2010 but unadjusted for current inflation.
I am not complaining just being thorough. I enjoy the fresh air, store bought edibles and hey, I’m happy to be employed and be of service in good works for my benevolent employer in this…the ‘new’ economy.

The property of current infestation is a ‘studio’ or efficiency model (a two story single-family dwelling it’s inside staircase severed and discarded thus transforming the home into two separate living quarters <- a house divided, etc.) there were and still are as of this writing two holes in the wall caused by rain water infiltrating the exterior walls specifically around the windows which frames were and are still in a state of disrepair/deterioration – this was the project, some caulking painting spackling painting – good-enough-and-gone.

The initial visit was a brief walk-through inspection, pen and notepad in hand to record a list of supplies. Later the same day I returned to drop off required supplies and a dehumidifier for the basement (an earlier basement repair involved a spider infestation that, as I now reflect, was a bucolic experience in comparison.).

It was during the same day but later visit that I’d noticed a little bug by my side which I reflexively maneuvered to smush or squish with my finger tip and God’s approval but the bug took an arcing flight that, at first, in a brief surge of adrenaline, I questioned myself if this indeed could be…? No, I was just being paranoid.

I say paranoid because, when it comes to fleas ( I’ll struggle to stay focused on just this one subject of extreme suspicion) I would rather burn a building down than endure even one bite. The background or history of me and flea goes some 17yrs to an experience I’ll never forget and will forever carry it’s pyschological scar.

But then, I leave and return the following morning forgetting any matter of bugs as I go about unpacking the dehumidifier and bringing in various things from outside, the general sort of busy type preparing-to-actually-work kind of stuff that the hourly employee knows well how to do.

I am also, while fraudulently collecting my first hours pay (with full justification in mind, of course i.e., I should be getting paid a lot more – do you know how much it would cost to hire a pro, etc and whatever -you get it.) taking a phone call from a renter of another property across town a motor-mouthed fiery red-head Caucasian from “the hood” who, I have laid on the table, the call I mean, and engaged the speakerphone option as it becomes obvious I am not needed to participate in the call except for an occasional “yeah” which, with ambiguous inflection I’d say as I passed by the phone inserting the “yeah” at the end of a sentence (or inhalation), in regards to what I have no clue. The person on the other end of the phone was, I’m sure, interpreting my un-nuanced “yeahs’ as either empathy, solidarity or and “You gotta be kidding me!”

Fiery-Red-Head continues in oblivious ranting for 11minutes and 31 seconds. Not to give the impression that I’m indifferent towards the needs of the tenants of ‘affordable housing’ (nor do I take offense when a tenant, while on the phone or speaking to a co-habitant, refers to me as their ‘maintenance man’, e.g. “Shut up, my maintenance man here!” – it’s not easy but I humble myself and say nothing) on the contrary, legitimate concerns regarding property disrepair always gain my full attention it is in this way that I breath the freedom air. This particular FRH hadn’t mentioned any property related issues beyond the first thirty seconds mentioning a city flyer being posted about the neighborhood concerning weeds and garbage and then she went on to complain about the neighborhood, cell phone contracts and much much more, I am sure.

It’s at this time, feeling a couple of sudden tiny pinches, I look down to see the jumping invasion. There were too many to count, I can’t – Have you seen the photo of the man covered in bees?

Slight exaggeration.

[These are terrorist vampires they wear no uniform but the shiny, hard to squish, coat of sucking hematophagy. It's actually suggested by trusted sources (internet) that one should roll the flea between thumb and finger to 'confuse' the flea - Yeah, get 'em all out of sorts, maybe spin it around in circles until it screams "stop! Stop! I'm gonna puke!" Put a blindfold on 'em play pin the genitalia on the anatomically correct (minus genitalia obviously) cardboard flea cut out.]

Due to time and space constraints as well as possible future interaction in-person with certain possible readers that would likely involve eye contact, I am omitting the immediate panic/hysteria etc. which then caused a flurry of auto-defensive manic-extreme thoughts – i.e., my first thought was to torch the place.

Some random (edited) thoughts ‘in the moment’:

This place is infested

I’m getting the out of here

there are no emergency phone numbers programmed into my phone’s speed dial feature.

No one knows I’m here!

No, wait, the Sheriffs department does.

[BTW - the time necessary to write this spellbinding pot-boiler has, by my estimation, increased by 3,4 or even 5 (to 10) times the usual amount of time spent on spellbinding siphonapterical pot-boilers due to frequent pauses for the scratching and examination of numerous creeping/prickling/stalking itches, imaginary or not. Yes, I'm one of those that get all itched out and twitchy when the topic turns to fleas sucking your blood, lice crawling on your head, crabs crawling on your , genital herpes, scabies - if none of this has any creepy-itchy effect on you (and your not on opiates), please keep your proper distance.]

About, These Fleas of Mine (obscure DeGeneres reference)

Fleas can be drowned in water.
I imagine holding them individually under water in a long twisted dream-sequence type of story that I’ve decided not to include.

From Science News:

(I quote from a quote) ”Researchers with the University of Cambridge in England have shown that fleas take off from their tibiae and tarsi – the insect equivalent of feet – and not their trochantera, or knees.”

This bit of research is no help at all and a waste of research time/money/effort and the expense and ink to print the results in a periodical unless it was published in the Waste of research time/money/effort section of Science News right next to “more results from ketchup research”

Researchers should be researching ways to kill fleas, in all their life stages, exclusively and if or when that scientific discovery of best methods is made, they should pass that information on to companies such as Black Flag – of the popular Roach Motel & aerosal spray formulas – whose flea killing products, in my opinion, seem to lack the killing aspect.

When a person is in need of flea killing pesticides they might expect that after purchasing a product that boasts (no, EMBLAZONS) the popular brand enhancer ‘EXTREME’ (at a 45 d/angle – CRAZY, EXTREME FLEA KILLING SHIT – my extrapolation but who could blame me{rhetorical}), that the product, once in contact with said extreme killing contents, kills fleas where they stand (or suck) or at least scare the shit out of the flea as it tries, impotently,to escape.

What you wouldn’t expect or want to see is a flea casually strolling up your pant leg even as you direct a fully pressurized spray of Black Flag EXTREME (this scene now reminds me of another scene, one in which Spock goes into a furnace blast of radiation to save something or other – maybe the whole spaceship with JT Kirk aboard, of course – and I’m not really a star Trek mega-fan or sci-fi enthusiast – it probably can be traced back to my childhood, as all things must.) bug spray which also boasts, on the bottom-right corner of front label, stamina so powerful it “Keeps on killing for up to 7months!” This being my second trip to spray, a full 6months and 28days of extreme killing action supposedly still in effect ,not to mention as I mention the 4 HotShot brand Flea Foggers I’d set off just 24hrs past. I remove Spock-flea with the tip of the spray nozzle attached to useless jug of mostly (98.98%) water.

Epic Black Death: In the 14th century the bubonic plague killed somewhere around half the population of Europe but not before they suffered an abundant amount of pain and suffering such as – muscle cramps/seizures/extremely painful swelling of the lymph glands in the groin,armpits and neck/hemophilia of the cochlea/chronic vomiting of blood/aching limbs/even more EXTREME pain brought about by decomposing flesh while still alive. The vector of the bubonic plague & pneumonic or septicemic varieties, is or can be, the bite of a single flea. Overreacting? Hardly.

Plague aside, fleas also cause anemia, tapeworms, stomach ‘flu’ and typhus.

Fleas don’t bite, actually, they ‘siphon’. Fleas penetrate your skin and suck your hot fresh tasty blood through their pointy straw like mouths. That’s not a bite, it’s sicker than that and so is this, flea dirt.

Flea dirt occurs when the flea is so greedily sucking your blood that it must defecate to make room for more and does so while still suck, sucking away on your blood while leaving a pile of ass-blood-shit like substance on your skin. It’s like eating pizza on the toilet – not really -like eating a BLT while you rape a pig – no – biting into the neck of a cow while riding around shitting on it?Maybe.

When not sucking fresh blood from it’s host/victim the flea lays about waiting for the next liquid feed bag to come unsuspectingly walking into the room. From Wikipedia: When the familyand pets are gone, flea eggs hatch and larvae pupate. The adult fleas fully developed inside the pupal cocoon remain in a kind of “limbo” for a long time until a blood source is near. When a person arrives(sensing carbon dioxide, noise and vibrations) he or she is immediately attacked by waiting hungry hordes of fleas. (In just 30 days, 10 female fleas under ideal conditions can multiply to over a quarter million life stages.)

If you can read this, you are the resistance.

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read

“You watchin’ this? -?”

“Yeah”

I’m looking at it, ‘it’ is on, the television, I’m watching “Cops”.

His question is of incredulousness.

I can tell by not only his tone but also his raised eyebrows, distended jaw, he just can’t believe I’m watchin’ “Cops”

“Why, you don’t like it?”

“Not bein locked up, I don’t. Sure don’t”

-shrug-

” Not bein locked up, no sir.”

“I don’t get the difference, you’re locked up out there too.”

His eyebrows crunch down like he’s trying to catch flies, then spring back up, then make a cartoonish arch with the one and a back-slash with the other.

He leaves the room.

Of course I could have engaged him a little instead of just shutting him down but that’s usually not my style. Unless I’m in an engaging mood which, I’m usually not in here.

I would have pointed out, had I felt like it, that every night he checks out of “locked up” to go do his job and “no sir, and sure don’t” to whoever usually has to listen to him at work.

Also, I don’t have to talk to anyone. Sometimes I’ll pretend I don’t hear someone. Sometimes I look at them and then look away, this is my response.

The reason is, once you start, you can’t stop it. Or you can’t stop it without some weirdness or slighted feelings. So I don’t start.

If you don’t know what I’m getting at in so far as engaging talkative people in certain situations, it probably wouldn’t be worth my while to two-finger type an explanation or yours to read it.

What I meant by “locked up out there” was on at least two but maybe three levels.

One being that he’s border-line retarded – DD – just this side of slapping himself for a pudding pop. (Not being coarse here, insulting, just factual)

And tard-self-awareness can be debated but a prison you don’t know you’re in is still a prison.

See below;

The other, concerns all of us in here and out “there” and probably for a large portion of the mid-west whether cognitive of it or not the answer is a stark reality and begs a call to action of those affected and aware and the question is, how free are you in Peoria, Illinois? Just the prevailing “Wisdom” of this town, county, general geographic area, is a fucking prison.

Out-of-towners see following crash course: our sweet, plump children , The outdoor life

Corn Field

Two Carney Workers

Factory Farm Chickens

…depression, suicide, etc.

Illinois, the “Come here and die state” or the “you ain’t got the right to die until it happens ‘naturally’ you know, death by corporate toxins and whatter-not state”

Back to-

The “other”, other level:

Even when we’re out working, we’re still locked up – the psychological effects of knowing you’re being watched, sometimes followed, sometimes snooked-up-upon, can wear on you (the “if you ain’t doin nothin wrong you don’t have nothin to worry about” crowd can eat shit eternally – you are perfect yes men for the ever encroaching machinery and as far as I’m concerned, collateral damage) but more on that in another posting.

Short while later “locked up guy” is back, haunching around the room, touchin’ base with the fools who’ve opened the door to him. I want to ask him his “locked up” feeling or opinion concerning the viewing of “the family guy”.

But I don’t for reasons mentioned above and, also, honestly, I don’t want to actually ask him, I only want to hypothetically pose the question in my head and write about it. This is, incidentally, what I prefer to do most of the time in most situations, I’m writing your part in my story.

This may explain my small social circle which, is safe to say, if we want to be blunt and break it down into real terms and why the fuck wouldn’t we want to – my social “circle” barley makes for a “,”.

Earlier in the common room:

“Hey, I’m watching that.”

Guy came in and sat right in front of the TV, blocking my view. I mean, as far as you are to your screen right now, he was – the TV sits on a table, it’s like a 19″ or something, the audio is horrible, no cable, &c. – he turns, looks at me, turns back.

“Hey, Hey I can’t see through you.”

He turns back after a pause and says, “I heard you the first time.” then gets up and walks by me which is when I look up at him and say, “Okay, Alright.” as in a tone of “Oh, I thought for a minute you didn’t hear me because you didn’t fucking move, so I was thinking still, that you were trying to posture, maybe some Big Dog shit or whatever but maybe you’re just slow at comprehension, which, ya’ know, from where I’m sitting, is totally believable.”

I’m sure my eyes were saying that – Jack & Dino will back me up.

What this all is, is stupidity.

This is not “The Joint” it’s not even jail, it’s kinda’ jail. But so, here’s the thing – if you fuck up in here, and not even majorly so, you roll up your mattress and head to the other side.

The real deal.

It’s hotter over there, more crowded and 24 fucking hrs a day – you want to be a bad-ass-not-wantin-to-move-cause-some-guy-you-think-shouldn’t-oughta-be-tellin-you-shit-is-tellin-you-shit? Great, see ya later.

Or, sit a few feet back from the screen, watch “Vampire Diaries”(?) and eat your cherry Pop-Tarts from the vending machine and shut up.

-Travis Lipski

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read

A parable on the long tailed Tit occupies parts of my mind on the drive to Farmington, IL It’s dome shaped Titular work of, some say, art – is feather lined and woven together in part with spider silk.

The Tit nest is the most sophisticated & symmetrical birds nest to be discovered, although, there’s something to be said for the post-prehistoric minimalism of the Piping Plover or the Red -Cockaded Woodpecker’s simplistic pine bore nest that doubles at it’s exterior as an unfortunate insects (or even small snakes) sap-trap for Red-Cockaded dining.

Tits, Woodpeckers (Cockadeded or not) it is hardly insightful to suggest or guess which of the genders has been out alone in the woods naming birds.

I am seated sideways in a bucket seat directly behind the driver’s seat of the company work van. We are en route to sand a hardwood floor. The driver, also the company owner, curses and spits and throws the phone down – he is not angry, this is his default demeanor. It’s my third day on the job and I’ve taken to calling him Mussolini (privately).

There are dozens of cans & jugs of paint thinner, floor sealer and wood stain (Provincial Oak,Mahogany,Early American Colonial, etc.) loosely arrayed in the cargo area all of them partially used and streaked down the sides.
I stare down at them like bombs although one I am using as a foot stool. The floor of the van is a veritable super-fund site – also there are two garbage bags tossed in the back, unsealed, filled with sanding dust (think, ultra-fine powdery saw dust) and it crosses my mind that I wouldn’t want to park anywhere near a federal building.

The amount of authoritative knowledge I can impart insofaras chemical hazards or fire science could easily trickle out of the anus of a Round Worm. But to say that I am riding around in an extreme fire hazard/IEV(Improvised Explosive Vehicle) would probably not fall under the category of hyperbole or hysterics.

I’m a recovering R.J. Reynolds addict turned phrenetic chewing gum smasher – my jaw muscles are ‘ripped’, my mouth is raw like eating too many slices of pineapple and food has become almost like bland various textures with a hint of spearmint.

The thought of death by immolation makes my testicles quiver and kills my appetite – so much so, this hair-bag quivering, I think of the possibility that I’ve just conjured a fire fate for myself and then I think that it’s obvious I should be medicated or if I had it my way – A team of neuro scientists/surgeons would monitor by MRI as I have these thoughts and then after pin pointing the exact locations zap the damn things responsible for these hypnopompic terrors of irrationality which I often gently prefer to assign them as “Highly eccentric and/or creative thinking ideas” – ZAP.

Mussolini instructs me to fill any nail holes in the wood floor we are about to strip and sand by applying the wood filler putty with a well worn infrequently cleaned putty knife and to make sure I “really pack it in there” he then hesitates and asks me if I’m a religious man to which I say, no- not really and then he says I should fill the gap like “I’m finger-fucking my first girlfriend on Friday night.”
He continues through out the day to make these sorts of ‘analogies’ e.g., “The floor should be as smooth as the inside of her thigh – unless she’s got cellulous[sic].” – and -”My brush should glide along as slick as a moist…” -you get the idea.

Anyway, break time is over.

-Travis Lipski

http://workreleaseshallsetyoufree.blogspot.com/2011/08/previously-posted-june-25th.html

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read.

“I wouldn’t eat that even if I was payin’ for it.”

Says Deputy McDougal –

Yeah. He’s not, I am but hey, you know, it is jail food.

I don’t know how the full time guys and gals do it. It’s shit.

If I had to subsist on it 3times/7days the rage would become uncontrollable but for the fact that I’d be too weak to express it.

No one knows who works in the kitchen. They’re inmates of course but nobody knows who they are, which ones – the demons.

If humans have souls the kitchen help is without such constraints. I imagine their eyes have been plucked out by Ravens and lids sewn shut with miniature corks pounded into their snarling brillo-haired nostrils with miniature cork mallets. The sounds emanating from the galley, we’d have to assume, are that of the most terrifying screeches ever heard and never recorded – blood trickles from the ears of the human upon exposure as these beasts of shadows maneuver in evil flickers of candles made from the saturated fat boiled out of the blood of a thousand downed cattle – stirring and smashing, scraping this off of that , scooping ‘it’ on to soiled compartments of the fiber glass reinforced sickly yellow meal trays.

(I don’t want to say that these creatures can’t even make jello of correct consistency but I have to because they cannot.)

I should note (as I am) that correctional staff has been seen from time to time (I’ve witnessed myself) grabbing a left over plate, of which there are many, and digging in with reckless abandon. What this may or may not say or speak to – as in regards to character, human status, etc. I cannot (for obvious reasons) impart here at this time.

…Of course I realize that this is, after all, “Jail Food”, and is, therefore necessarily unpleasant. I am merely making an effort to share my unbiased observations to those who might care to give interest.

Were I at some point to lose my critical eye, olfactory sense and common decency, that dear voyeur, would be the day I begin working in a correctional facilities kitchen.

Which, could be Tuesday.

-Travis Lipski

http://workreleaseshallsetyoufree.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read.  —Travis Lipski

Names and identifying characteristics/particulars have been changed/omitted for obvious reasons

22-June-2011

The booking process is mostly uneventful and only a little awkward when the high school aged tour group comes through – with just me, your captive reporter, sitting in the booking room facing the glass that separates the bookers from the bookees (the booking process could be volatile in certain situations – you can imagine).

The god damn piece of shit $2,500.00 finger print scanner wasn’t fuckin’ workin’ – as the lady put it – so we had to “do it old school” (again ‘lady’).

There is an enormous amount of cussing among the jail staff and large percentage missing front teeth (noticed in booking room, to be fair).

While staring at a plate of ‘food’ that’s been offered (oddly sincerely – therefore, suspiciously offered. I think it’s a kind of ‘welcome to reality, convict’ sort of thing.) A conversation between officer X & Y concerns the assassination of JFK (which is, by the way, like talking about baseball, TV shows, etc – boring)

Officer X says that he’s always said that it was Johnson & Hoover behind the whole thing – “I’m dead certain.” – he adds, thusly preempting any debate on the preamble.

“I’m dead certain” said in a way or a tone that suggests officer X is dead certain about a lot of things he has no xxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxxx based on facts/reality.

Like, as when, in May when gas was $4.19 and I said it would be $5 by summer – I had no idea – I was, as the staff might and do say, “Talkin’ out my ass.”

Enter into booking hive – mammoth bull-head deputy XXX

(some names I do not want to omit for obvious reasons -humor/self-sabotage but….)

His head is shaved in such a way as to suggest it’s been shorn to the second third or fourth dermal layer with a salve of car wax applied and buffed to an ultra-high sheen – a ritual, you might imagine, performed in the nude with a straight razor and ear damaging levels of death metal.

Heard not seen: “Looks like third shift didn’t do a damn bit of paperwork last night! I mean, what the fuck?” Usual On The Job Complaints met with the usual OTJ indifference.

11:30am

DNA swab(Does the thought of your DNA being compared to a data bank of DNA from unsolved crimes give you a slight, tiny, chilling pause?

Anything outside of Standard Operating Procedure – e.g., A DNA swab is, here @PCJ, usually sealed in a postage paid, preaddressed, plastic mailer sleeve but when faced with a Non-SOP or slight variation in the swab-seal-send SOP (say, the DNA is to be sent to a different jurisdiction – and out of state [!]) brain cells XXXXX  neurons  xxxxxxx xxxxxx   implode and  xxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxx xx xxxx.

Anger, confusion, Perp-perplexion. (It is also not advisable to, as an inmate, offer to pay for additional postage and suggest a Sharpie as solution to the “How do we change the address on the mailer sleeve?” problem.)

Heard but not seen: “Can I ask a rhetorical question?”

I do not how to properly illuminate here the level of xxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xxxx! (xxx xxxx?)

12ish

Scrub my bunk and locker with some kind of acrid green fluid in a spray bottle.

Delousing powder not available, another movie fantasy destroyed.

I scrub so thoroughly that one of the other ‘residents’ asks me if I work there. (Do I work there? I’m a convict, not a xxxx)

12:45

Make my bed, lay in it.

3:12

Fall off bunk, land on edge of steel bunk below and bruise several ribs, crack one.

Various other injuries incurred.( Beyond some magical miniature voodoo doll being held vengefully somewhere in Seattle, I have no idea how exactly this happened .I’m not what you’d call “uncoordinated” although I do have a very specific strain of “luck”.)

Standing in the common room breathing is shallow. Jailer asks me, “You still doing comedy?”

(Paris is beautiful this time of year, even to a corpse.)

-Travis Lipski

Star Theater, Portland

Does that still count as a premiere?  Sure it does!  We had planned on premiering at a local comedy club, Laughs, but that got cancelled by the annual “storm of the century” here in Seattle.  Yeah, we get one of those every year, or almost every year.   Seattle does not have extreme weather, so things like 4 inches of snow—even if it happens every year or two—tends to freak everyone around here out.  We don’t even have snowplows!   People abandon their cars in the middle of streets and highways, and just walk away.  It’s the weirdest thing to see, if you didn’t grow up here, but instead grew up where they have snowplows, salt the roads, and know how to drive in snow & ice.  At least when it rains, they just drive like morons—they keep rolling though.

The snow stuck around for a few days, but we didn’t—we had a Premiere to put on in Portland!  So Chris (our DP), along with Jeff and James Inman had all planned to take the train to Portland so we’d be sure and actually get there.  Trains always run on time….or so we thought.  Actually, trains only run on time when the tracks are clear and can switch amongst themselves, and in this case, the switches in Centralia were frozen.  So the trains weren’t going anywhere.  Chris and I were planning on going earlier, with Jeff bringing James Inman along on the next train.  That way only Jeff would have to ride to Portland with James.  Seemed like a good plan.  Amtrak got some buses, and we eventually rolled down to Portland, with a few hours to spare before the show.  Chris and I had some food and a couple drinks before hitting the Star Theater, and when we got there, we were “wow-ed” by the place.  What a lovely theater!  It’s really old-timey, and has an outdoor covered porch where they have a big grill for food.  As usual, there were plenty of technical issues to work out—I won’t bore you with the details, but we did ultimately work out what we could.  And then Andy Andrist showed up, bringing Jeff and James from the train station.  You know what that meant: the party was about to begin.   Drinks flowed, guests arrived, and several folks from Thee Headliners and Firewood came to see how their songs rocked the movie.  Many laughs were had by all.

Of course, the drinks…..kept flowing.  Some folks got a little too intoxicated, and one of those folks WASN’T James Inman.  You extrapolate from there.  You can see more photos of the Portland premiere on our Flickr page (just click that Flickr link at the top of this page), plus video from our Seattle premiere.

Audience at Odd Duck Studio

Yes, Seattle—we did come back, and just in time for our 7PM screening at the Odd Duck Studio–this super-cute little theater on Capitol Hill, and by this time, the snow had melted and we had a totally packed house.  This show was really fun.  There were old friends who had only heard about the Unbookables, there were new folks we hadn’t met yet, even another filmmaker, Steve Weibe (“King of Kong”).   And while there were again technical issues during the setup, we had a larger crew on hand, as well as a brand new 4000 lumen HD video projector, blu-ray player and a big screen.  Did it ever look GREAT!  The crowd laughed so much, Inman was amazed—he mentioned that they laughed in lots of places he didn’t even know were funny—I love that!

The double premiere weekend—it was exhausting, but a lot of fun.  And now, I need to get some rest……

-MJ

I spent the holiday the way so many New Yorkers do—in Florida.  Planes shuttle dark, round men and “their” women –who stuff themselves into thigh-high, stiletto-heeled boots– to various spots around The Sunshine State.  My BFF had invited me to stay with her in Orlando not far from The Tragic Kingdom.

We discovered there wasn’t much going on in the way of comedy during the holidays other than one big ticket show.  We called club after club only to find many of them had gone out of business.  Then we found an open mic at a coffee shop on a strip where an art walk was taking place that same Friday night.  I called ahead and the owner said she was very excited to have a New York comic perform. I thought we’d scored!

It’s always strange when folks bring their school-age kids to an open mic show.  Here they also brought their great grandmas, suckling infants, and dogs.  I frantically scanned my laptop for an appropriate bit and decided on “Hello Kitty hooks up with Mickey Mouse” along with an introductory jingle to celebrate the season.

I took the stage and announced,

“After the kids are in bed and the gifts are wrapped, here’s what’s really going on behind the festive wreaths, and behind the closed doors, of Orlando a/k/a
‘The Big O’.”

No one laughed. Silence.

I sang to the tune of The Little Drummer Boy–

Cum, he told her—I’ll wear a condom.  Always a holiday when I see your buns.
Who needs the mistle toe? Now let’s have some fun.
Why can’t you loosen up—do you need more rum?
Now don’t you be dumb, I’ll pour you some.
Shall I bang you now, just like a drum—or are we done?

The audience was horrified!  The owner looked away and the stares from the chairs were frosty-cold.  I cracked a joke about having started out between bands in Seattle punk rock clubs, but these folks weren’t having it.  I decided to go forward with my “Hello Kitty” bit figuring I’d at least get a laugh with jokes about cartoon characters in Orlando.

But it wasn’t going over and I found myself in a quandary when I got to the line, “It seems Minnie and Mickey have been on the ‘outs’ ever since Minnie decided to f*ck a certain Duck.”  As I looked into the eyes of the children, I awkwardly muffled the “f” word. The energy in the growing crowd was escalating to hostile.

After that I pulled out a few more ditties then dropped from the stage to a scant few hand claps.   My BFF and I stifled our comments while we politely sat through the next few bits by tone-deaf “musicians.”

I looked around and realized the audience was made of recovering alcoholics and fundamental Christians-of-the-Bible-thumping-kind.  Of course the audience didn’t know what I’d meant when I’d joked about Orlando being  “The Big O!”  These people don’t have orgasms!

Should I have edited my bits to fit the audience? Or should I have rebelliously raised the shock value-bar, The Unbookables -style?  What would those comics have done?

I’d learned my lesson:  In the future, one way or another, I must take control of my performances… and weather the frosty fall-out!

I’ve finally arrived in New York City having crossed a continent. NYC audiences (loudly) let you know when they like you – and when they don’t. This is because they can; it’s a buyer’s market. This city is swarming with comics!

So far, female comics have been supportive (some really do wear mustaches for eyelashes, Snooki-style). But men aggressively hit on me (a surprise, because I’m sorely in need of a make-over after that road trip). Maybe it was a mistake to leave my salon-maven friend Pink Girl behind…she knows how to look pretty and manage men! When I politely reject them, guy comics, as well as club owners and bouncers, complain I’m not showing them “Respect.” I “86’d” myself from one club where I’d acquired a small following for just this reason. I’m tryin’ to get a laugh while they’re tryin’ to get in my pants.

Getting a laugh is a challenge in The Big Apple. Inspired by The Unbookables, I started doing comedy in-between bands in Seattle punk rock clubs a year ago. Jokes about body parts, body fluids, and other grungy realities went over well there. But New Yorkers aren’t laughing at my Sex with Snowmen bit, which had been the hands-down favorite with punks. Yet the NY-kers howled hysterically when I joked about driving on local streets. “Whenever I get lost, I just find Victory Boulevard, cuz you just can’t lose goin’ down that road!”

Night after night, open mic after open mic, it’s been feast or famine, hit or miss. This forces me to confront the dilemma facing all comics: Do I change my material to appeal to a certain audience – or – go with what I got whether it gets a laugh—or not? The former means more gigs, newfound fans, and even door money. The latter makes me unbookable.

At a recent Staten Island gig, I followed a tranny comic who joked with graphic detail about what it’s like to have her genitals changed. The audience was made of 30-something males in Yankees hats; all were members of the same amateur baseball team, as well. They genuinely laughed at the tranny’s bit (she was funny) but were repulsed when I joked, “A single man will cross a desert in a parka all for the prospect of a rough-swipe hand job. For a married man, this is just something that happens every morning after the alarm clock rings and before he grabs a tissue.” The young Yanks just stared until finally one exclaimed, “Ewww!” (The sole woman in the audience, however, made it a point to tell me she loved it.)

In Manhattan, I was sabotaged by a gay comic who M.C.’s an open mic at a prominent comedy venue. This was presumably because I am not gay (just “bi” in that smooth Seattle sort-of-way) nor am I part of his Fag Hag entourage’. First he moved me up on the list, which gave me little time to calibrate to the audience. Then he asked me to do 4 minutes on stage. Most bits run a minute, 5, 6, or 10. Occasionally you’ll do a 3-minute, but never 4. This meant I either had to rush a 5-minute bit or string random, 1-minute bits together. Neither would work well; however, my 4.5-minute Hello Kitty bit won the audience, “Under the influence of catnip, she hooks up with Garfield, who calls her a real ‘K.I.L.F.’” On that fine night, victory was mine.

Coming up—Orlando: The Big O(h)No!