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Kosmic Candy

20/11/2013 [1]

It was still dark when I got up for breakfast this morning...

We are up in the mountains so the temperature can drop very easily, I have been warned that in the coming months it is going to get really bad too, to the point that we won't be allowed out after three... They're already closing the yard at about seven. When I first got here they would let us boogie til about nine!

That's what's up!

I been trying to order a scarf from the store for the last three weeks, but they been dee-boin' me, takin bread out my account then saying they out of stock and claiming to give me a refund...

What can you do...

The view from outside my window isnt too bad...

It's a very thin but long window that is high up on the wall. I can just about see out of it from my bunk, I see the top of the razorwire fence... In the distance I see a couple of electric pilons surrounded by big-ass trees... I much prefer it to looking out into the city!

Especially a city you know you're not coming back to!

That shit was straight retarded...

Ok on the rare occasion I had a visitor it was nice to see them flapping away at me across the street, standing under the lampost by the courthouse opposite my cell on the ninth floor, but the "normal" passing of civilians did not help in keeping my mind out of the street...

Especially in summer...

All that good mother-fucking pussy walkin' back an forth all day every day...

Tough times!

Anyways I got to go...

I have to eat my bagel (not prison slang) and my guitar class starts....

Five minutes ago.

Im'a get back at you...

So after trying and failing to exchange my dusty jean jacket, now stained with coffee after a clever person ran into me shouting "sorry" yesterday evening, I grabbed a steel string guitar and parked up in the back of the mostly Spanish-speaking congregation of inmates an ran through a bunch of drills before bordom/lack of stimulation set in..

A few loops of familiar basslines that have stuck in my head over the years... Reruns of bits and pieces, Knuckledust, Caliban, Special move, Assorted jelly beans, an intro from a Cry for silence cd I payed a pound for at the Cartoon over a thousand years ago. 

El Timdogs Spanish isn't quite up to the point where I can hold down a conversation that requires more input than "good" or "rubbish" or "little" or "motherfucker" so I just sit there.. Occasionally sipping on a cup of coffee that is conceiled in a folded up jacket..

You're not supposed to have coffee in class. Which makes me "gangster" of course.

"Too many mariachi in Mexico!"

For the last twenty minutes of class my attention was transfixed to a silver-haired old man, softly picking and singing away in the corner of the room...
This guy was gangster...

"You pay 150 pesos, they teach, you play"

He was mostly using two to three chords in each song but it was carried along by a bassline played with his little finger.

He told me...

"I travel across Mexico many time from 1996 til they catch me two-hundred nine"

I managed to very crudely play the two basic chord and bass licks he showed me. I'd love to play more.

He said he's going to teach me...

Press play

Lunes en la mañana



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5/11/2013 [2]

I work four days a week.

 

Two on and two off.
Rarely do I ever have any time to myself at the moment, as I am always running from one building to the next…

Today was no different…

My body is used to early starts so even on a day off I wake up around six, piss out a bladder’s worth of coffee, brush some yellow teeth, wash minty-green foam out my beard, stare at the dimly-lit reflection in the mirror…

After getting bored in Brooklyn an buzzing it all off, well, SCRAPING it all off with a razor blade, my hair is finally, somewhat growing back. Not QUITE as thick as I would have HOPED but at least it’s something! Bags under my eyes are starting to fade too…

I don’t really have anything to stress about anymore. My life is dramatically different than in my last couple of prisons and I am very grateful to be here, grateful to have moved on, I am in a new chapter in my life and one that is very basic…

I have little to no time to dwindle on thinking or worrying about things past, present or alternate circumstances that do not have any relevance.

Today is all about enjoying life and doing things better than I did yesterday.

Like what I bring to people’s lives and try to fill my day with things that are good.

Exercise, creating, sharing time with people, recreational or educational depending on who they are and what they bring to the table…

As always if somebody doesn’t know me their actions can’t ever be taken as personal, therefore if somebody’s actions are not personal then there is no need to take offense. If somebody acts a certain way towards me it is, to me, a projection of themselves and as an impartial observer it is something I should learn from, not take a certain way… That’s how I chop my days up anyway.

Yesterday’s band practice went well. Shit is starting to somewhat come together. The songs are not to my taste but I’m working on it…

You should see it, one of the guitarists is a DEAD ringer for that kid in the goonies with all the booby traps.

 

Anyway…

After lunch we had a little fuck around to make sure I don’t super-flop Friday’s gig.

On the YARD.

I’m getting there…

It shouldn’t be TOO painful…

Besides it’s good to challenge myself every so often, do something out of my comfort zone,

Most of the songs are pretty basic/rubbish, but it’s the act of playing to a large audience after so long that I’m finding difficulty with. I know my time is better spent focusing on my OWN enjoyment rather than on the approval of others, especially a bunch of bums, but I struggle with this at times…

I’ll get there in the end…

Standing at the back of a square field, metres away from the dirty edges of a “softball” pitch, flunked either side by some big nosed Turks,

today my last minutes before sundown were spent looking up at ribbons of clouds blaring shades of red, pink and purple, lightening at the edges as they receded into the mountains lining the Moshannon complex horizon, sometimes I am in disbelief at how much my life has changed.

My dreams are still a place where I can expect visits from the past but today they’re either digested as some form of guidance or the by-product of my wavering dietary regime…

My days are now full of movement and interaction, I meet new people, do things that I enjoy…

Memories I have of what I went through before I got there are just that. A memory.

(thankfully)

TOUGH



Domingo

At the end of my prayer tonight, instead of asking for guidance and support, I kept quiet...

After a few moments of silence, the sections of my life that have real meaning began to flash before my eyes, 

Reminding me what I should care about and what I would do best to let go...

Images of people I have hurt over the years and the feeling of what it was like to be there...

Different faces flash,

one after the other,

with one constant theme linking them together...

For a brief moment, my very blurry idea of what I'm going to do when I get out come into focus...

Then I get the sudden urge to pick up a pen...

Not the most light-hearted way to end my sunday evening?

Perhaps...

I always regret it when I don't write things like this down as I'm scared I might forget them...

Ottoman Empire