May 31, 2024 • 58 mins
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"Murdering Malachi" is a special limited series by The Redacted Podcast, produced by Matt Bender and Pamela Bender.
In this gripping episode, "Murdering Malachi: Part 5 – I'm Gonna Scar You for Life," we delve into the raw and harrowing experiences of Malachi's time in jail. Through vivid storytelling, Malachi recounts his journey through the Philadelphia County Jail, a place where the noise never stops, the lights never dim, and the violence is unrelenting.
Malachi's narrative is a visceral exploration of survival in an environment where the guards are as brutal as the inmates, and the psychological toll is as damaging as the physical. From the constant noise that led to a psychotic break to the guards' sadistic practices, Malachi's story is a haunting reminder of the human cost of incarceration.
With unflinching honesty, Malachi shares the moments that scarred him for life, both literally and metaphorically. He opens up about the violence he endured and inflicted, the friendships that ended in tragedy, and the fleeting moments of humanity that kept him going. This episode is not just a recounting of events; it's a deep dive into the psyche of a man forever changed by his experiences.
Join us as we navigate this intense and emotional journey, and stay tuned for the next episode, where we confront Malachi with mysterious accusations that could change everything.
Help Malachi Rebuild His Life (Please note: This is specifically for Malachi's fundraiser - not a donation to the podcast - the link to donate to the show is below.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When our skin gets cut or scraped or injured in
some way and it starts to heal,something strange happens to the
place where that wound occurred.
It's a process At first itbleeds.
A bleeding wound tells us thatthere's something obvious that
happened there and it needs tobe addressed.
Everyone can see it, notice andsympathize with a fresh or
(00:24):
bleeding wound, like man.
How did you do that?
After the bleeding stops andthe blood clots and a scab
starts to form, you're healing.
It's better than it was, butmaybe still a bit painful and
itchy.
At some point, when enough timehas passed and the body has
(00:46):
done its job, the scab falls offand only the scar remains.
That scar is the only witness,and maybe sometimes reminder, of
the trauma that happened there.
That spot on your skin willalways look different the rest
(01:06):
of your life.
The tissue is forever changedand it'll even act differently
than the rest of your body ifyou wound it again.
Maybe that's how our mind andemotions work too.
We get hurt, stop the bleedingand eventually heal, but always
(01:27):
just a little different than wewere before, forever changed
with invisible scars that no oneelse can see.
Sometimes they make us wiserand stronger and sometimes, well
, they make us weaker andsometimes, well, they make us
weaker From the Redacted Podcast.
(01:49):
I'm Matt Bender and this isMurdering Malachi, part 5.
I'm gonna scar you for life.
If you haven't already figuredit out, malachi has been
(02:15):
arrested.
He's also been to jail.
That is, unfortunately, asymptom for many of a life lived
through the illness of abuseand addiction.
I wanted to hear his full rapsheet, so to speak, and about
some of his experiences in jail.
Trigger warning for violence inthis episode.
Also, if you haven't listenedto parts one through four, go
(02:39):
back and check those out.
But without further ado, here'sMalachi.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So what I want to talk about is my time in jail.
The main conversation is goingto be about the year I spent in
Philadelphia, because that is ajourney unto itself.
But to get there, I just wantto give a brief chronology of my
(03:06):
interactions with beingarrested and jail.
Now let's 99.9% of my jailactivity was basically just
possession.
That's pretty much like Iwasn't the criminal type.
Even in my addiction I was a conartist.
You know, you gave me money andyou thanked me for the
opportunity to give me money.
I was that guy.
(03:27):
I had you pretty good after.
You know, you gave me money,but early in, when the addiction
was just starting to take overand I was I think I was still
working as a stripper, but itwas starting to get out of hand
and I really it was new to it.
So I didn't you know when youknew when it you, you, you kind
of fall fast and then you levelout Like what kind of addict am
I going to be?
You know, but in the beginningyou kind of do stupid stuff, and
(03:51):
so I had taken $20 out of thepurse of some girl I was staying
with and she tried to stop me.
She was like no, you're notgoing out, whatever, you know,
give me my money back.
And I pushed her, but not likehard, not not violent, not just
more like get off me, girl, I'mgoing to get you high, kind of
thing.
And she fell into the bed.
I even pushed her because Iknew the bed was there.
(04:11):
It wasn't like let me push you,and wherever you land you land.
It was like oh, there's a bed,let me get her off of me, you
know.
So she, she was upset, calledthe cops and so there was a
warrant for my arrest for likean aggravated assault.
Like I said, I pushed her ontothe bed just to get off me.
(04:32):
I'm not condoning it, I'm notsaying, hey, go around pushing
women to get a call from you.
I'm just saying that's all itwas.
So you can look at that howeveryou want to look at it.
I own up to what I do.
So one day I was getting furtherand further in a mess.
I was at a gay bar and I thinkI pickpocketed some guy who had
a wedding ring on.
I'm not proud of it.
(04:52):
This was the early days of myaddiction, where I was sort of
figuring out.
I don't even know if I wasfiguring out.
I was just kind of crazy.
Maybe it was like a six monthstint where I was like, oh wow,
I really need this drug and Idon't know what to do because I
really really need it.
Let me go out and find a way toget this drug.
And as I left the bar he camerunning.
(05:12):
Oh my God, he's got my walletand my mind is telling me he's
in a gay bar and he's married.
He's not going to press charges.
But he came screaming out andI'm running down the street.
Somebody tried to trip me.
I hurtled over him.
Cops are chasing me.
I'm smoking them.
They're nowhere near me.
I stopped to rest.
I hid somewhere.
(05:32):
They came caught up and Istupidly got up from where I was
hiding, ran some more.
They chased me some more.
Well, I got tired of runningbecause I was drunk as a dog.
Dirt too, that's another partof it.
That's another part of it.
That's another part of it.
It was in that first six monthswhere I drank a lot too.
That drinking ended veryquickly for me because I didn't
like hangovers and I didn't likestumbling and like drinking for
(05:55):
me.
I still drink now, but drinkingnow is more like a glass of
wine with dinner once every fivemonths.
You know, maybe I'll have acocktail at lunch once every
four months and don't evenfinish the cocktail.
But back then that was part ofthe exploration, part of the
sort of like, what's going on,what am I doing?
And I was stone cold drunk.
(06:17):
I finally stopped.
The cops caught me.
I think they put me on theground, but I don't think they
were unduly rough.
And then the guy walked up andhe refused to press charges,
just like I knew he would.
You could see him look at itlike, oh shit, how am I going to
explain this?
But they found some coke in mypocket.
So they arrested me and I gotto the jail and they were like,
(06:42):
hey, have you ever heard of thissuch and such person?
And I was like, oh fuck, nowwhat?
Because she was actually kindof a loon.
And they were like, oh, she'scharging you with ABC and D, are
you fucking kidding me?
So the possession charge.
I would have been released thatnight, but because of her
charge they took me to jail.
I was only in jail for like aweek, if that long.
And then, you know, I had a lotof connections back then,
(07:02):
because, like, I know how tolive in the big city.
I've got an uncle who's a hugelawyer, I've got friends who are
judges, because you work out atthe same gym.
You know, here I am, this kidfrom the ghetto is getting high
and I'm friends with judges, butthat's kind of the nature of my
life.
So you know people making callsand they're calling her.
Basically, she refused, shedidn't press charges because it
(07:24):
was a bullshit case and you knowthe best you could get I don't
even know if you could get acharge out of that I just pushed
her off me.
Maybe a simple robbery for the20 bucks, but all in all it was
like ain't none of this worth it.
But they put me on probation forthe cocaine.
Now I was on probation for ayear but I kept fucking up
(07:47):
Because that's when I was gone.
That's when I was out therejust early in my addiction and I
was stripping, partying,getting high, and I'd get hot
urines.
I wouldn't show up.
And again I had all of thesefriends who would call probation
officers, like, give himanother chance, he's a friend of
ours, we, you know.
Ah, I don't.
You know, we'll call your bossif you don't.
All of that, all of that.
(08:09):
I had three probation officersin one year because they kept
quitting.
They kept being like yeah, I'mnot dealing with this, I can't,
my hands are tied If the kiddoes whatever he wants.
You know four or five something.
(08:30):
And they were just like he doeswhatever he wants, we can't
punish him, I quit.
Finally, two weeks I think itwas two weeks before my
probation was over I had anotherhot urine and I had this short,
four foot tall jewish probationofficer who just was no
nonsense whatsoever, and heactually arrested me and I was
like what I was supposed to do?
A 30-day violation.
They sent me to the jail and Iended up doing a year.
(08:54):
They wouldn't let me outBecause somebody talked to
somebody and was like look, ifwe let this kid out, these are
going to do the same old shit.
Calls are going to be made.
So somehow, some way, 30 daysturned into a year.
They just left me there.
Now, before I talk about thattime, I'm going to say I've had
multiple charges after that,almost all possessions, almost
(09:18):
all.
I was released the same day.
They were like here's yourpossession, here's your ticket
to go to court, you know, andI'd get either another probation
or I'd get a fine.
Nothing ever came of it, exceptwhen I was in LA I got arrested
in a drug sting and I actuallywas with the drug dealer.
So the short version is I wasfacing three years because I got
(09:41):
caught with the drug dealer.
So I didn't know if McCann'svaping and I told him straight
up his drugs.
Don't know him, he's the one.
Blah, blah, blah, because I'mnot doing three years for
getting high.
And so, yeah, I didn't know theguy.
So it wasn't any kind of like oh, you're snitching on your.
I'm like, fuck that, I don'tknow this dude.
All he is is the guy that gaveme crack.
(10:02):
I'm doing three years, uh-uh,him, him, him, him, him.
And I ended up doing like twomonths and I got like three
years probation, whichtechnically I'm kind of still
the one, but that's anotherstory.
It's a weird thing.
I'm in like this limbo stateright now, or if I go to
California I might get introuble, but basically I'm not
(10:25):
allowed in California.
Like I, I can walk into apolice station right now and
tell them my name and they'relike you're not allowed in
California right.
But yeah, I know they get youright.
I know we don't want you, wedon't care, no one does.
But if you go to Californiabecause I never finished the
probation Basically what it is Inever finished the probation
(10:46):
because I was still being a messup, so that's kind of something
that lingers Like I'm notallowed in California but no one
else gives a damn about me andso, yeah, that's pretty much
that, like you know, been a fewyears since I've gotten any
addiction charges.
So that aspect of my life byGod's grace is gone, but I want
(11:10):
to go back.
So all a bunch of possessioncharges.
California was dangerous drugs,so it's kind of like I was with
a drug dealer, so it'sbasically still possession.
When I went to Philadelphiajail I had never been in jail
before I had not yet come intomy manhood, I was a late bloomer
(11:31):
.
because of all the abuse and allthe bullying, I kind of knew I
was strong, I kind of knew I wascapable, but I had no thug in
me.
Even though I grew up in theghetto because I hated the thugs
, I wanted to be everything Icould that wasn't a thug,
because to me they were justthese filthy human beings that I
didn't want anything to do with.
To this day I still hate rapmusic because it represents just
(11:55):
everything that bullied andbeat and raped and hurt me.
So I didn't want to be thuggedand that's kind of the worst way
to go into jail is not wantingto be thug.
So and I was still like kind ofafraid of violence.
Um, I still got sick to mystomach when I saw fights, like
I wouldn't throw up if I sawsomeone fight something.
(12:16):
I used to suffer with a lot,especially growing up in the
hood, where you see a fightevery day and I'm and I'm
getting sick to my stomach, andso I was like this is going to
be a bad situation.
So I was in jail and they putme in a dorm with like 30 guys
in one cell.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And just to, just to paint this.
This is is this the County jail?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
This is County jail in Philadelphia.
There's like four or fiveCounty cells.
I think I was in DCC, thedetention center, okay, I don't
remember all of them, and thisis maybe in the early 90s, late
80s something like that Mid-90s,early 90s, I was like 25, 26,
(13:02):
somewhere around there, so likemid-90s.
Okay, and I was a late bloomer,so like 25, I was just starting
26, somewhere around there, solike mid 90s Okay.
And I was a late bloomer, solike 25, I was just starting to
get into my manhood.
I mean, I was fuckingeverything that walked.
You know your wife wanted memore than she wanted you.
I was the stripper, so sex Iwas basically a porn star.
But violence and thug andmanner and manhood I still
(13:25):
hadn't found yet, which is funnybecause I'm like twice as
strong as men, my size.
I'm twice as strong as men,twice my size.
And come to find out, you knowwell.
No, not come to find out.
I mean, I was a wrestler.
I made a national team in Sambo, so I knew how to fight.
I just didn't know I had theright to fight, because all my
fights growing up I never wasallowed to fight Because it was
(13:46):
either me versus three people orme versus four people.
It was like because no onewants to lose to the white guy.
So the concept of me beingallowed to fight, the concept of
me not getting hurt in a fight,the concept of me having a fair
fight, the whole concept offighting was foreign to me
because it had been put into myhead that you're going to lose
under any.
Whatever circumstances.
You're going to lose.
(14:06):
We can't let you win and thatwas beaten into my head so I was
afraid to fight.
I was 25 years old, strong as afucking ox skilled fighter, and
I was terrified of fightingbecause it was beaten into my
head my whole life.
You're going to lose, no matterwhat we have to do, because we
can't let the white guy win,even though I'm biracial.
(14:27):
But that's just the way it is.
So at 25, I was basically acoward.
You know your wife wanted memore than she wanted you, but
you could be four feet tall andI'm still scared of you Because
I still had this ingrainedlesson in my head that I'm going
to lose way or another.
They're going to make sure Ilose.
So I went to the county jail andlet me paint the picture for
(14:49):
you.
First of all, when I went to LAcounty jail and with most jails
not prison jail, most jails arerun by deputies.
That's like a rotation.
They have to do they get out ofthe whatever police academy,
they have to do like a year injail, or maybe they have to come
back and do I don't know but alot.
(15:10):
They incorporate jail rotationsinto your duty as a deputy.
But the Dallas County Jailsdon't have deputies.
They have strippers and gasstation attendants working as
the prison guards or the jailguards.
I know because one girl theywere saying hey, she's a
stripper, she works on thisplace on the weekends.
Another guy's like hey, that'smy cousin luke.
(15:30):
He worked at the gas stationlast week, now he's a jail guard
.
They go through some like twoweeks of training and they're
jail guards.
So they they're the mostunprofessional, ghetto, broken
human being.
You think prison guards thatyou see in those 1940s movies
that are just like sadistic andevil and they're nothing
(15:51):
compared to Philadelphia jailguards.
They get the absolute worstpieces of human garbage you can
find and they put a badge on.
I was in the jail in a dorm andwith my PTSD I think I couldn't
sleep for like three weeksbecause of the noise.
These 20 year olds, they takeshifts.
(16:12):
I'm going to stay up all nighthollering and screaming.
And then you're going to stayup all night hollering and
screaming.
That's literally what they do.
And I had a psychotic break andI almost cut my leg off with a
razor blade.
Like I cut my leg out fourtimes.
I walked downstairs to thetowel and I showed somebody else
.
I'm like, hey, look what I didLike I literally had a psychotic
break.
Not from fear, it wasn't thecowardice, it wasn't the oh my
(16:35):
God, this is jail.
It was the lack of sleep.
It was literally just the noiseJail.
That's why I'm terrified ofjail now.
Not because of fights, notbecause of stabbings, not
because of violence.
I mean, I don't want that, butI can handle it.
Bring it dog.
It was because of the noise.
(16:58):
It's the non stop 24 7 noise injail and, depending on what
section you are, the lightsdon't ever turn off either.
So it's nonstop lights, nonstopnoise.
Your mind can never shut off.
There was someone with severePTSD.
They ended up strapping me downin a cell in four-point
(17:24):
restraints, legs stitched up, soI'm butt naked in four-point
restraints, legs stitched up, soI'm butt naked.
Four-point restraints in a cell.
Inside a cell.
I was as locked up as a humanbeing could be, with like 100
stitches in my leg.
They sent me to the medicalward where I got a private cell
and the medical ward isbasically all the transgenders,
(17:46):
all the psychopaths, all thesenior citizens and all the
medical issues are all in onebig long room with private cells
.
So you got the youngpsychopaths with the 80 year
olds.
You got the schizophrenics withthe heart conditions all in one
big room and that's where Ispent pretty much the majority
(18:08):
of my time.
Now I want to tell you abouttwo things.
There's a couple things thathappen in jail that are really
odd to me.
One is grown-ass men areaddicted to cartoons.
Don't ever turn off theircartoons.
That's their thing.
Dog-ass motherfuckers lovecartoons.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
I've never heard that one.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
They love their cartoons.
Huh, cartoons and soap operas.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Cartoons and soap operas they're that big and the
weird stuff that they do likeI'm sitting here watching, and
some of this was while I wasstill in the dorm and some of it
if it's specific to the Metunit, I'll say that.
But I remember I was in thedorm and the guys were all
standing around on TV.
Now, fully jailed, you don'thave anything.
(19:02):
This is jail Jail.
The longest you'll stay in jailin Philadelphia is three years.
The average stay is a year.
Jail is basically is eitherholding time for you while
you're in trial and then you getyour sentence, or it's for all
the misdemeanors.
So you'll get like 30 days injail.
You'll get a year in jail.
Anyone who gets more than ayear is probably there because
(19:24):
they're in the middle of a longtrial.
So a year is typically thesentence.
Anything above a year you'rewaiting on trial.
So two or three years are rare.
Those are the people who arefighting, like those are the
murder suspects, or those arepeople who are like fighting for
their life and their trial goeson like they're.
You know.
(19:45):
I mean those are the ones thatare in a long-ass battle for
their life.
The average person in aphiladelphia jail is there for
between a year and 18 months.
I would say the average stays ayear.
You would think that thatwouldn't create certain
behaviors, but they're allstanding around a tv.
You don't get tvs in your cell.
You don't get no amenities, noamenities.
(20:06):
The only thing you get is therewas a catholic guy who'd run
around, would walk around, and Iknow when he met you and he did
this.
I don't know about the dorms,but I know he would go from cell
to cell and ask you what bookyou'd like and he would go out
and they would buy the book foryou.
They bring it in for you.
I mean no Playboy or nothing,but like they would get me, I
would ask for Dostoevsky orsomething like that.
(20:28):
I'll explain that one later.
That was an interesting story.
The guys are standing aroundand they would have two TVs and
they would show two movies a dayand the movies would pretty
much be the most violent,sex-based movies you could
possibly imagine, which was soweird to me.
Like they would get the hoodmovies.
They were like drug dealermovies with titties and shooting
(20:51):
and killing.
These are the movies they wouldshow, which to me was like
you're just feeding the beastand that's what they did.
The guards would arrange fightsbetween inmates, like, like they
would literally lock twoinmates in a dorm, get everyone
out.
Be like if y'all want to dothis, do this.
And the inmates would just beateach other half to death and
the guards would stand therewatching.
The guards would beat you up.
(21:12):
The guards would take inmatesthat did whatever they received
as wrong.
They did it to me once, butthank god it was only a female
guard like I.
I said something to a femaleguard who was just a horrible
gremlin of a human being I mean,just abusive as hell and I made
the mistake of saying somethingbad to her, and so they
escorted me to a cell.
She or I think yeah, they putme in a cell and they had me
(21:35):
stand against the wall.
She came in and she juststarted slapping the shit out.
Now I knew better than to doanything, because I saw the big
manly, big angry gorilla lookingmotherfucker standing behind
her like, yeah, go ahead, trysomething.
And they had this thing calledrotation.
If they this one kid actuallyhit the female guard and they
(21:57):
beat him so bad that he wasbusted open and bleeding.
So they hit him in the system.
They had this thing called Iforget the phrase for a bit they
would hide you, they wouldtransfer you from jail to jail,
to jail to jail, so your familycan't find you until your wounds
heal.
So they bust, they, they like,smash his head into the bar,
(22:18):
split his head open, beat himdown, and then they transferred
him from jail to jail, to jailfor like a few weeks until his
wounds healed enough and heunderstood the assignment, which
is to say that another inmatedid it.
So his family didn't see himfor like a month or two.
And that's what they would doif they beat you too badly.
(22:38):
Some kid stole potato chips.
I remember I was sitting in amedical unit that was a famous
place for them to do it.
That was their hiding spot andyou saw like these three, four
guards just calmly walking downthe aisle.
There was an inmate in betweenthem and he's just calmly
walking.
You know no drama, no, nothing.
He knew the assignment.
(22:59):
He walks into the cell Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat.
He only stole some tater chips,so it wasn't like a deadly
beating, and then they justwalked back and they all just
walked out.
That was a common occurrence tosee the walk.
Now I was in the cell and we hadthis one guy who was this black
guy nicest guy in the world,but he was like 400 pounds of
all muscle.
I mean this dude looked likeBrian Shaw, like one of the
(23:22):
world's strongest men, black guy.
And I remember they did thesame thing to him.
They just walked him into thecell and all you heard sounded
like the guns were going offbecause they got the biggest
guards they could possibly findand they did like no damage to
him because like two minuteslater he's standing at the cell
door hollering yeah, you ain'tdo nothing to me, but the sound
(23:43):
of the blows were like a fuckingnuclear explosion.
They tried their damnedest tohurt this guy and they couldn't.
I mean the guy was aman-mountain, but that's what
they did.
They walked into the cell, beathim up, came out.
That was a common occurrence ina fully jail is is either
you're fighting other prisonersor you know the guards are
beating you up.
(24:04):
I got into a few fights myself.
I was purposely watch fightscause I had to get out my
tolerance, I had to get rid ofthis weakness I had.
And I remember one specificnone of my fights really went
too far.
They were all broken up, exceptfor this one had and I remember
one specific none of my fightsreally went too far.
They were all broken up, exceptfor this one fight.
And and I found out somethingabout myself that I realized I
I've done my whole life therewas this guy who was, who was
(24:27):
about the same size as me,wasn't particularly great
fighter.
I really had no interest infighting him, like I don't even
know how we got to this point.
But he came into my cell andpretty much was like let's fight
, and I don't even, I don't know, just let's fight.
So we started fighting and Igot him on the ground.
(24:48):
His head is stuck under thetoilet and I'm punching away on
his face and I'm yelling for theguards.
I'm like CO his face and I'myelling for the guards.
I'm like CO, co, co because Ihadn't.
I hadn't, like, I had no desireto hurt this kid.
I wasn't angry at him.
I don't even know why I wasfighting him, like why the fuck
are we fighting?
You know, like what is thepoint of all of this?
(25:08):
But I'm pounding away on him,I'm calling for the COs and the.
The COs.
They come to the door, theystart laughing and they walk
away and something in me snappedand I hate that phrase, but it
did and I went back to when Ithe first time I ever fought.
I was a kid and this is one ofthe reasons that I was a coward
(25:29):
for so long.
My very first fight was againstthree kids.
I was like 12 years old, 12 or13 years old.
Very first fight was againstthree kids.
I was like 12 years old, 12 or13 years old.
One of the kids was supposedlymy friend, but he did like I
said.
He joined the group and I hadto fight three kids and I beat
the living hell out of them.
I beat them so bad that I hadone, but two of them ended up
(25:50):
running away.
I had one on the ground nowscraping his arm on the concrete
.
There was something in me andsaid you're making me fight.
I'm gonna scar you for life forthis shit.
As a 12 year old, I was likeyou're making me fight and
there's something about makingme fight when that's the last
(26:12):
thing on this planet I want todo.
You're going to suffer.
And I was scraping his armacross the concrete and his
parents had to pull a bunch ofadults.
They pulled me off because ofcourse I was winning.
You know it was the other wayaround.
We know how that goes, but theguy who looks white was winning
in the hood.
We can't have that.
So back to jail.
(26:35):
When the guards walked away,leaving me in there fighting
this guy, it was the samefeeling.
Everybody is making me fight.
And I just like saying now,when I dug it into his face and
raked down as hard as I could,it's actually so bad that
(26:58):
someone came a couple kids ormen, not kids came to me later
and asked me why I stabbed him.
Like, why'd you stab that guy?
You ain't have to stab him.
I'm like I didn't stab him.
That was me, because, again,everyone made me.
Even the guards made me fight.
You know, I guess they hadnever seen someone winning
(27:18):
calling for help, because intheir world, if you're winning
you don't call for help, you askpeople to go away so you could
finish killing somebody.
I didn't want to hurt him, Ididn't even want to fight him,
but they made me someone had topay.
So yeah, there, yeah, there'sthat.
Now there was a few other fights.
There was just a lot ofviolence.
(27:40):
There's just so much violence.
I mean, there was just so, butthere was no stabbings.
There was only one hit with abroomstick, but there was no
weapons.
I don't know how that managedto happen, but they didn't do
the weapons thing.
It was just a lot of physicalbeatdowns.
There was a lot of one-on-ones.
There wasn't too much jumping,except the guards.
The guards are the only onesthat jump people.
(28:01):
The prisoners actually didmanage to at least do
one-on-ones, I'll give them thatmuch.
There wasn't a lot of jumping.
There was a lot of unfairone-on-ones Like why are you
fighting that dude?
Like dude can't even fight backand you're beating him up.
There was a lot of that, butagain, at least it was only one
guy beating up the dude thatlike dude, what the fuck are you
?
You know he's helpless.
(28:22):
Why are you beating him up?
A lot of that.
A lot of cowards, a lot offucking cowards, a lot of
cowards.
In jail there was a few bigguys, but they typically avoided
fighting each other because noone actually wanted to take a
chance at taking a loss.
There was also, though I'm goingto tell you that I had probably
(28:43):
the funniest I don't even knowwhat it was, but the biggest
laugh I've ever had was in jail.
I was sitting at the table withthe old heads, the guys who
were 60, 70, who you knew spenttheir entire life in and out of
jail.
Like those are who they were.
They didn't know anything elseand so nothing bothered them.
They didn't fuck with the youngboys because they knew young
(29:05):
guys were crazy, trying to provesomething.
They just sat at the tableplaying spades all day, every
day, and coming up with some ofthe funniest jokes.
Coming up with some of thefunniest jokes.
Coming up with some of the.
I remember one time I don'teven know what the joke was, but
we just all we were on thefloor, almost passed out,
stomachs hurting.
There were like bodies ofsenior citizens laying on the
(29:27):
floor gasping for breath becausethat was all they had.
That, that laughter, thatmoment of peace.
It's the only joy they ever had.
The only peace they ever hadwas sitting at a metal table in
a jail playing cards, laughing.
(29:50):
I do remember one.
It's not going to seem thatfunny to you or anyone.
You kind of had to be there,but I remember there was this
one, there were two of them.
There was one guy who had justkind of got dumped by his
boyfriend or whatever in themedical unit and I think he said
(30:12):
to himself he was like howpathetic am I?
I can't even keep a faggot injail.
We all, we all lost it.
On that one, like that's prettyfucking pathetic.
And I think the other one wasthe guy had gotten a blowjob
from one of the trannies andpeople were ribbing on him.
(30:32):
They were like dude, you knowit's a dude, yeah, it looks like
a girl, but it's still a dude.
Blah, blah, blah, everybody'sribbing on him.
They were like dude, you knowit's a dude.
Yeah, it looks like a girl, butit's still a dude.
Blah, blah, blah, blah,everybody's ribbing on him.
And the guy goes you don'tunderstand, man, I've been
locked down.
It's been a minute.
I needed that man.
That ain't you know.
That's jail, which is a wholeother conversation.
That's a whole otherconversation.
(30:54):
That's a whole otherconversation.
But he was like you know, andone dude looked at him.
This might have been the onewhere we fell down, I'm not sure
, but one dude looked at himstone cold, as he's in the
middle of this five-minute rantabout how desperate he is, how
long it's been he's locked down.
It ain't gay, it's jail.
The guy looks at me and says,dude, you've only been here a
week.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Was it true?
It was true, oh shit.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
We all know because we forgot.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
People come in and out, so we forgot, and then it
dawned on us like holy shit, hehasn't even been here a week.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Man.
What's going to happen after amonth and a year?
He's gonna be the one with thelipstick.
You know like, yeah, that shitwas like motherfucker.
He's been here a week and hesaw him out.
It ain't gay, it's chill.
I'm desperate, like okay, it'sa week, dog, uh, I'm going
(31:54):
longer, not jerking off.
I mean, come on now.
You know, speaking of that, sothere was a couple of guards
that were really sexy.
There's one Indian, she'sNative American or something
gorgeous.
There's another guard it's ablack chick.
She was sexy too.
One day she's making rounds,we're on lockdown and I'm I
think I just finished showeringand I'm standing in my towel she
(32:15):
comes to my cell and I hear it.
I kind of turn, I look at her,cause you always got to make eye
contact.
You got to see that like you'realive, even if you're standing.
You got to make eye contact.
So I turned and look at her andthen she's still standing there
and I'm like huh.
And then she looks down in mycrotch area while I'm in my
towel and she's just standingthere.
So I'm like okay.
(32:36):
So I kind of like motion, likeI don't want to get beat up for
this.
So I'm kind of motion, like youwant to see this.
And she's just like so now mytowel is gonna start shaking my
shit and she's just standingthere smiling like okay, and she
walks away.
Um, the next day some male guardcomes to me and he's like uh,
was such and such, was thereguard at your cell last night?
Now, mind you, I'm not sayingshit because obviously here he
(32:58):
heard part of the story.
Obviously she went and told herfriends hey, I got a dick on
you.
But I'm not saying no, I don'tknow what you're talking about.
When I guarded my cell lastnight, because either she's
gonna get her friends to beat myass for telling or he's going
to get his friends to beat myass for being jealous that this
sexy-ass guard wanted to see mydick.
But that's how that went.
(33:20):
So, yeah, I'm giving stripshows.
Now I want to talk about thesuicide.
There was this little and I kindof gave away the ending but
there was this little Irish kidthat came in.
Not kid, he was like my age,20-something, mid twenties,
short, ugly, weird looking dudeand like he was just out of
(33:45):
place, and not that I was MrCool, but I'd been in there for
a minute.
So I kind of you know, learneda thing or two and I kind of
befriended him because I feltsorry for him.
I felt sorry for him the way helooked, like wow, life's so
rough on you as it is.
Then I felt sorry for him forhis size and being in jail and
being white didn't help becausePhiladelphia is a chocolate city
(34:06):
.
So I hate to say this, but anyjail is going to be a chocolate
city, just the reality.
But especially in a chocolatecity, you know the jail is going
to be a chocolate city, justjust the reality.
But especially in a chocolatecity, you know the jail is going
to be a chocolate city.
So being a white guy in jailalready puts you at a
disadvantage.
Um, and being small and ugly, Ijust felt bad for him.
So I befriended him and weplayed cards and one day he got
(34:29):
points on me or something.
I hit him in the leg and Ididn't mean to hit him that hard
but I realized like more cameout of me than it should have
and he was like that really hurtand I was just like fuck and I
like I really felt bad, I reallyfelt like shit.
I didn't mean to hit him thathard, like I could tell there
was more coming out of me thanit should have been, just like,
oh man, you got that point.
(34:59):
You know that really hurt.
And I apologized profusely likeman, I'm so fucking sorry, I
didn't mean to do that, like I,I don't, you know, I think a day
later he came to me with somefresh laundry, which is, you
know a big deal in jail, and Isaid, well, because he's working
in laundry, I was like, well,what's this?
He's like no, all right, man, Ijust like looking out for you.
And of course, you know, I feltlike the size of a tank.
You know what I mean.
(35:20):
Here I am fucking up hittinghim hard and I didn't mean to,
but it just happened.
And he's bringing me laundry,talking, while I just like
looking source of sanity, youknow.
And so I felt like an ant, ofcourse, as any halfway decent
(35:40):
human being would.
But, you know, I thanked himlike you know shit.
And then the next day after that, somebody came to me and was
like yo, you hear about your boy?
And I was like no, so, yeah,killed himself.
Like what?
Yeah, he.
And I was like no, so, yeah,killed himself.
Like what, yeah, he killedhimself.
Then the guy walked away, Ifound out that he had gotten his
(36:02):
verdict it was like three yearsin prison or something because
he like pushed his girlfriend orsomething.
I can see him doing the samething to her.
I did to him, like probably notmeaning to be overly aggressive,
but being it because you'reholding so much shit in and
you've been bullied, you've beenhurt and and you kind of like
don't realize, oh fuck, that wasa little harder than it should
(36:22):
have been, and I think that'swhat happened with him and her.
Like you know, he like oh fuck,I didn't mean to do it.
I think they explained it to metoo, that that it was something
similar to that.
Like I didn't mean you.
And again, I'm not excusing it,I'm just saying that there are
reasons for things where theyaren't always just fuck it.
I did this because it's bad.
Like there are sometimesextenuating circumstances where,
(36:43):
even though you did somethingbad, it wasn't as the intent
wasn't to be as bad as theresult.
That that's a good explanation,doesn't excuse it, but does
make it a little less bad.
You know what I mean.
Like if I push you, you get hitby a car.
I wasn't trying to murder you.
I shouldn't have pushed you.
I'm still liable for that but Ireally wasn't trying to see you
(37:05):
get hit by a car and die, sothat's kind of what I mean.
So he got sentenced and hekilled himself.
He hung himself in the cell, inthe waiting cell at the court
And've always felt bad like thatmade that punch even worse.
Like you know, I tore myself upover that.
I'm just, I'm so grateful togod that I had a chance to
(37:25):
apologize and he forgave me,because if that had been the
last thing that happened andthis poor kid killed himself,
like you, I would have carriedthat like like fuck.
Not long after that I was, I wasin, I was in a medical unit and
there was this old guy, like 80years old, shriveled up, little
black guy, maybe six feet tall,120 pounds.
I mean he's maybe not thatsmall, but close to it.
(37:47):
I mean just bony, looking likea walking skeleton, just old,
wrinkled, tired, and I don'tknow if people did.
I'm sure at least one or twopeople did.
I wasn't the only human beingin there, there weren't a whole
lot, but I wasn't the only one.
There were some human beings inthere.
But I know that I wouldsometimes go down and check on
him.
You know I'm not really acaretaker, that's just not who I
(38:10):
am.
But you know he was on thefirst floor, I was on like the
second and I knew on occasion Iwould go down.
But hey, pops, you're all right, need anything introduce?
You know, I mean just being adecent human being.
And one night I went in and Ichecked on, like hey, we're
about to go, you know we'reabout to go lock down.
You need anything before welock down?
You know, you're all right,just just the basic.
(38:31):
He's like man, I don't feelright, man, I, man, I don't feel
right, man, I need the doctor,something don't feel right.
But I got you, I got you.
I go up to the guards andthey're like we just took him to
the doctor, he's fine, go away.
So I go back down.
I'm like, well, they said theyjust took you to the doctor.
He's like yeah, but somethingain't right, man, something
ain't right, something ain'tright Like, please help me,
(38:53):
please help me.
So I go back up to the guardsand I'm like hey, he said get
the fuck away from here, oryou're just going to be
something, which basically meantleave now, or we're going to
take you in a cell and beat yourass.
That's just the bottom line.
We don't, don't, don't botherus with this shit again.
Or you know, you're going toget a beatdown and you're taking
a risk of getting a broken jaw,a broken arm, a busted head or
(39:15):
just a light beatdown.
But even a light beatdown whowants to get beatdown?
You know, even if it's a lightone?
But yeah, I don't mind a fewpunches to the face, you know,
for no reason at all, becauseit's not going to accomplish
anything.
So I was like, I went down tohim and I was like, I explained
it, like they said like leavenow or it's going to be
something.
And he's like and he's beenaround long enough where he knew
(39:37):
what that meant and he justlooked at me like thank you,
thank you for trying, man, Iunderstand, you know.
It's like don't, don't be upsetat yourself.
I get it.
I woke up the next morning.
He was dead.
What happened he died in, hedied overnight.
Whatever it was that he wassaying wasn't right, actually
wasn't right.
An old man died in a jail cellalone, begging for help.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I carried that one that's such a sad thought I
carried that one.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah, again, this is god's mercy in my life.
I know it's not about me, butI'm living my life.
So god's mercy in my life.
I know it's not about me, butI'm living my life.
So God's mercy in my life thatI at least tried.
I can't force the guards.
I got to the point of almostgetting my ass whipped and the
ass whipping would have stillaccomplished nothing.
I'm not going to get my asswhipped for no purpose.
(40:31):
Let me go get my ass whippedand still accomplish nothing.
You know what I mean.
So I mean if it was like, letme go get my ass whipped and
still accomplish nothing.
You know what I mean yeah so Imean, if it was like, hey, we'll
whip your ass, if you, let uswhip your ass, we'll go get him
help, maybe I might haveconsidered that.
How bad ass whipping are wetalking about?
You know what I mean?
Like, like, I might haveconsidered that.
Like, are we talking likeinjury?
Or we just talking about a sorejaw for a couple days, bruised
(40:53):
ribs, ribs or broken ribs?
There's a big differencebetween bruised and broken.
You know, I might haveconsidered that, I might have
weighed my options.
But if we're talking aboutlet's whip your ass and then
still ignore him sorry, dad, Idid what I could.
But that one I had to staymyself for the day because I was
ready to murder a guard, I wasready.
(41:13):
That hurt that one day becausebecause I was ready to murder a
guard I was, I was ready, I wasthat.
That hurt that.
That.
That one was rough.
So it's a suicide.
The one person I befriendedkilled himself.
The other person I befriendedand tried to look out for died.
So yeah, that wasn't, thatwasn't, that wasn't easy.
So I would share two, two otherquick little stories, one of, I
(41:36):
guess, hope and one of despair.
The Catholic guys would comearound and they would bring
books and I asked for a book ora textbook on microbiology and
he was like, no, that's a bittoo much, which I get now,
because I'm like textbooks arelike 200 fucking dollars.
He's talking about a paperbackfrom Barnes and Noble.
There's a difference here.
I get it now, but back then Iwasn't thinking.
But I ended up on Dostoevskyand I was reading Dostoevsky's
(42:01):
House of the Dead.
Dostoevsky's House of the Deadwas.
I don't know if you know thestory of Fido Dostoevsky.
I'll tell you very, veryquickly.
So he was a writer, a newspaperman or whatever.
He wrote some article thatsomebody didn't like and they
sentenced him to death.
This is just how it was.
Back then he wrote an article.
(42:22):
Somebody was like, oh, he didthis that they sentenced him to
death and they had him with thefiring squad.
They pulled the guns out andthey said, ready, aim psych,
firing squad.
They pulled the guns out andthey said, ready, aim, psych.
And they sentenced him to likefour years in siberia work camp.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
You talk about a mind fuck yeah, yeah, he was ready
to die right.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
And then they said psych at the last minute, you
can research it.
I'm not making this up I don'tknow.
Yeah, I've heard of it, yeah sohe wrote a book called, uh, the
house of the dead, which was asemi-automatic biographical.
Of course he was the hero,because we're always the hero in
our own story, you know that.
But he wrote asemi-autobiographical book about
(43:05):
his time in siberian work camp.
And I'm reading this book andI'm enthralled.
I'm like, oh shit, damn, shit,damn, fuck, wow.
And there's another guy readinglike some James Bond book or
something.
And he's, um, he asked me, he'slike, well, what are you
reading?
Like I said, I wasn't the onlyhuman being in there, we were,
(43:26):
we were few and far between, butthere were others.
And he's like, well, what areyou reading?
And I'm explaining to my momreading this book about the
Siberian prison.
This guy's ready, you know,ready, psych, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like dude, how the fuck areyou eating that You're in jail.
And I explained to him at thetime now it might be different,
because I'm so exhausted of allof that that it might be a
little different.
I might be where he's at nowwhat I mean?
(43:48):
I still have more ahead of methan I do behind me.
So I was preparing for theahead.
And so he said well, why do youask?
I do, I'm on here for a shorttime.
I mean I, they can't keep mehere.
It's jail, it's not prison,it's not like you know.
(44:09):
I can be sentenced.
It's fucking jail.
Even if I max out, I'm doing ayear, you know.
So it is what it is.
And I say you read your book.
Right, we read what?
Two hours a day, most, beforeyour eyes start to hurt.
You can't concentrate.
You know two hours straight onaverage, something like that.
(44:29):
He said yeah, and I said and?
So when you're reading, you'rethe hero.
You got the naked women, yougot the guns, you're jumping off
of rooftops and celebrating,getting celebrated by M17 and
the Queen All these other years,like this Superman.
He said yeah, man, it's fun.
I said what happens if you puta book down and you look around
(44:50):
and you can see.
He thought about that for aminute and I was like what
happens to the other 18 hours?
I guess you're awake for like16 hours a day or something 18
hours.
So what happens to the other 16hours a day?
And I said, dude, when I'mreading about these guys' toes
falling off and them eating onepotato a day, when I put this
(45:11):
book down I'm like fuck, I can'twait till dinner gets here.
You're looking at dinner likethis garbage.
I'm looking at it like fuck,wow, food, thank God.
So for me I was finding a wayto appreciate what I had,
because I knew it was temporary,so the suffering was temporary,
so I could actually look at aworse situation and I could be
like this food now looks good.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Reading about somebody else's horrors,
somebody else's struggles,somebody else's horrors,
somebody else's struggle,somebody else's troubles that
were worse than yours, made youfeel better.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Because I knew mine was temporary.
Now, if they were permanent orif they were longer, then I
couldn't.
Then then you're stacking.
Yeah, it's like you're stacking, but if they're temporary it's
like I can.
I can, I can use this to giveme strength to get through a
temporary burden.
I think the other thing.
(46:01):
So you know, you've got thedeaths, you've got the suicides,
you've got the beatdowns by thejail guards, you've got the
dick show for the female guard.
You've got the guards.
I mean, yeah, they would justpull prisoners to the side and
just let them fight.
You know, you've got the guardleaving letting me fight the guy
(46:22):
I had to stab with my finger.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Was there and I know this is just something everybody
always asks about and thinksabout and it's one of those
things that just kind of bakedinto I guess american jail and
prison culture was there.
Was there rapes in jail?
Speaker 2 (46:41):
this was just jail.
So I don't think anybodybesides the guy who was only
there for one week I don't thinkanyone there was hard up enough
to rape.
That's something that comesafter you haven't had pussy for
15 years.
So on this journey of my timein Philadelphia jail, now I just
want to segue real quick andsay that LA jail was different
(47:03):
because it was run by shellstaff.
They didn't put up with any ofthat nonsense because they
didn't want to lose theircareers.
So it was a lot cleaner, a lotmore controlled, just so it was.
You think you hear of thehorrors of LA jails, but the
reality is, if they do exist,it's when the guards aren't
around.
The guards did not play thatbecause they were deputies who
(47:26):
invest their whole life in beingdeputies, so they weren't
risking it for dumb shit.
Put it off.
The guards didn't care.
It was a job to them.
If they get fired as a guard,they go back to stripping.
The next week they go back toworking at Walmart.
They really didn't give a hell.
But now this is one last.
I want to leave this, one lastimage which really made me
(47:48):
understand where I was Likeeverything I went through this
one simple.
It may not have the same effecton others, but it had the
effect on me and I rememberthinking this is where I am like
, this is it, this is where I am.
There was a white guy whomuscular, guy, strong, um, you
(48:11):
know, you think of like thesedifferent variations of white
people, and he was like thewhite person that was kind of
not trying to be black, but kindof like that same sort of
ghetto, low budget, you know,and I don't know how to explain
it, not redneck, but just thatkind of you could see hanging,
(48:31):
like if you see a bunch of blackguys and there's this one white
guy, a shaved head, the wifebeater, you know, kind of a
Kensington person, if you knowKensington, philadelphia, or
maybe if you see those.
But yeah, just kind of hoodish,but not trying to be black,
just white hood, and he wasmuscular, strong, healthy, and
(48:53):
he was in there for some shorttime and you know he'd been
there before, because he sayslike I've been here before and
you know I've learned my lesson,I'm tired of this routine and
you know he's got the wholestory down pat when I get out.
I don't know if he had a newbaby or not, but I think it's
like I'll be my girl or baby, akid or whatever and get a job.
(49:13):
And he was just for like twoweeks straight telling all the
good things.
And, like I said, he's young,built, strong.
I mean, worst case scenario cango out, work, demolition, make
some money, learn a trade, hangaround a construction site for a
year.
By the time you're done, you'refreaking an apprentice
carpenter.
You know, you don't even haveto go to fucking school, just
(49:36):
hang around a construction sitetaking out the trash and watch
the carpenters.
Hey, can you teach me what you?
Let me watch you for half anhour a day.
You know what I mean.
You can build a life justtaking out trash.
You know, all the opportunitywas there.
So some people started believinghim and when he left, there was
all he was like, like I said,he was ghetto.
(49:57):
So he fit in, he was one of theboys and when he left, there
was a couple people who werelike, yeah, whatever, you know,
we'll see him soon, he'll comeback, blah, blah, blah.
And the other ones like, yeah,it's your chance, bro, we
believe you, we got you back,man, right as when you know,
blah, blah, blah.
(50:17):
And so he left one morning.
Motherfucker came walking backin the door later that night
later that fucking night.
Here he come walking in with asack.
Sack is their bed and thetoiletries.
He come walk in with a sackunder his arm and I just saw
that my heart just I don't knowif I believed him or wanted to.
I was just sort of like a nonemotionally committed observer,
(50:38):
but when he came walking in, itjust dawned like that was the
moment it dawned on me.
This is where I am see.
One thing about jail while it'scomfortable for people, it's
like schrodinger, wow, it reallyis.
Oh fuck, I'm about to dosomething you've never seen,
you've never heard before.
You know what jail is.
No, jail really is for.
Oh fuck, I'm about to dosomething you've never heard
before.
You know what jail is.
You know what jail really isfor a lot of people.
What's that Showed in your box?
(51:00):
For humans, everything ispossible until you actually get
released from jail.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Lots of dreams, lots of plans.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
Everything's possible .
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
And some people actually find more comfort in
jail, because in jaileverything's possible, because
you don't actually have to do it.
The cat is dead and alive atthe same time.
When you're sitting in jailit's a good way to put that.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
It's like Shawshank you get institutionalized.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
But just, I mean, that's part of the
institutionalization that Idon't think, at least I don't
know that.
I've looked at it that waybefore.
Actually I didn't put thecorrelation of Schrodinger, but
I've definitely looked at itbefore that.
While you're in there, thedreaming is the life you look
forward to.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Yeah, that's what keeps you going and then, when
the fucking time comes, nope.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
You don't know what you lost.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
You don't want to or you don't want to do the work,
or, now that it's not a fantasy,it doesn't seem that attractive
, maybe it seems uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
The problem with a lot of humanity, with a lot of
humanity and this is across theboard, and I think a lot of a
lot of people don't really thinkabout this.
All the conversation has beenhad when it comes to love and
marriage.
A lot of people talked aboutthis when it comes to love and
marriage, but they haven'ttalked about it when it comes to
the rest of life, too.
A lot of people want but don'tactually want to have, they want
(52:29):
to chase it.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
You think they?
Speaker 2 (52:31):
the feeling of wanting it, like you think the
feeling of wanting it like?
Give an example.
I talk about a marriage.
People say they look forward tothe wedding but not the
marriage.
They, they, they romanticizelove but not the actual work
that goes into it.
Every other weekend they're inlove with someone new.
Yeah, now put that in the restof life.
I want this, I want the wanting, but I don't want the having.
(52:58):
Is in a lot of parts of life, alot of aspects of life.
I want the wanting.
If we get money, then theyspend it all.
They wanted the money.
Then it's actually morecomfortable being broke because
then they can once again.
They want the job.
They don't want to actually dothe work.
They want the wanting yeah,being hungry, you know that,
that hunger hemingway said thathunger was good discipline you
(53:18):
know, and he was, he was talkingabout actual hunger, he wasn't
even being metaphorical, yeah,but people fool themselves into
believing they actually want tobe full, and so they keep
themselves hungry at all costs,while complaining about how much
they want to be full.
Yeah, I mean, the love is aperfect example.
I want someone to love me.
(53:40):
So bad, so bad.
I want to be in love.
But then when they get it, it'slike oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
Yeah, it's like you finally got that beautiful bird
and you put it in a cage.
Speaker 2 (53:50):
There it is, yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
And it's not so beautiful anymore that it's not
wild, now that you have it.
What do you do now?
Speaker 2 (53:59):
okay, so much of life is actually that yeah people
have conditioned themselves towant the wanting but they don't
actually want the having.
The jail is pretty much amicrocosm of that a whole
society built upon wanting butnot not wanting to have.
Yeah, the man lasted one day.
Two weeks, of all the goonie,goo, goo, beautiful, perfect
(54:23):
shakespearean just soliloquiesof what his life is going to be,
he didn't last one day yeah,it's like.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
What would they do without hope, though you know
because, that that place wouldbe miserable without some kind
of hope, wouldn't it be?
Is it?
Is it really hope though?
Speaker 2 (54:44):
yeah, that's the dream, a fantasy but listen,
hope is based upon the, the, theunderstanding or the
prerequisite of actually wantingto have it Like I hope to find
love means I actually do wantlove, so is it really hope?
Speaker 1 (55:02):
Well is that like we don't know what we got till it's
gone and we don't know what wewant until we have it.
So it's like one of those justhuman nature things.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
I think it's the antithesis of hope.
I think it's just one big emptylie to ourselves.
I'm not really hoping for this,because I don't really want it.
Yeah, I don't really actuallywant it.
So is that hope?
When it's something you don'tactually want?
What would that be then?
Speaker 1 (55:35):
I don't know.
Know, I'm trying to think of a,a word, a common word for that,
a good way to, and I am too,and I'm pretty, I'm pretty, I'm
pretty darn good with my wordageyeah, yeah, I speak pretty
sometimes yeah yeah, how thefuck you actually knew that I do
that to me.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Knew that Me talk pretty one day Me talk pretty
one day.
Speaker 1 (55:58):
That's what he said.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
I do that to you all the time, don't I?
Speaker 1 (56:03):
He's one of my favorites.
I loved him.
He was great.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
I love that.
What the fuck that was likeyour friend with the air traffic
controllers.
How the fuck do you know that?
Speaker 1 (56:18):
You're a bit like me you know a whole lot about
nothing.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
No, but the difference is you're successful.
I'm a pathetic fucking loser.
So you know, you're big, tall,dark, handsome, with the
beautiful life and the beautifulwife and the successful life,
with the beautiful life and thebeautiful wife and the
successful life.
And here I am with a psychoticlandlord and I'm about to move
out of my little trailer thatthey're going to repossess in a
few months because I can'tafford it.
Speaker 1 (56:43):
So yeah, you and I are quite different but probably
a lot more similar than you'dthink it's.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
It's kind of weird, though, sometimes, looking at me
, like I'm that one, thatthere's something missing and
with every gift that god couldgive a man except height, every
gift humanly possible exceptheight, and I'm at the very
bottom of existence.
It's like what piece is missing?
You know, it's too late, I'mnever going to get much more,
(57:17):
but I look at that sometimes andI wonder like what piece was
missing that this man, who wasborn with literally every single
gift a human being can ask forin abundance?
Yeah, except height, and I'mbarely existing?
Speaker 1 (57:39):
On the next episode we finally confront Malachi and
we get to the bottom of thosemysterious accusations that a
listener emailed into our show.
Spoiler alert he's not toohappy about it.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Like you're going to destroy my life on the lie with
a sex charge.
A sex charge Do you know whatthat does to a man?
Like seriously, if I did it,I'd own it.
Fuck that.
This bitch has been stalking meever since.
Speaker 1 (58:06):
You won't want to miss it.
The Redacted Podcast isproduced by myself, matt Bender,
and my wife, pamela Bender.
Make sure to go out there andgive us a like, a share, share
it with your friends, rate us.
Every little bit helps.
Thanks for tuning in.
Thank you.
When our skin gets cut or scraped or injured in
some way and it starts to heal,something strange happens to the
place where that wound occurred.
It's a process At first itbleeds.
A bleeding wound tells us thatthere's something obvious that
happened there and it needs tobe addressed.
Everyone can see it, notice andsympathize with a fresh or
(00:24):
bleeding wound, like man.
How did you do that?
After the bleeding stops andthe blood clots and a scab
starts to form, you're healing.
It's better than it was, butmaybe still a bit painful and
itchy.
At some point, when enough timehas passed and the body has
(00:46):
done its job, the scab falls offand only the scar remains.
That scar is the only witness,and maybe sometimes reminder, of
the trauma that happened there.
That spot on your skin willalways look different the rest
(01:06):
of your life.
The tissue is forever changedand it'll even act differently
than the rest of your body ifyou wound it again.
Maybe that's how our mind andemotions work too.
We get hurt, stop the bleedingand eventually heal, but always
(01:27):
just a little different than wewere before, forever changed
with invisible scars that no oneelse can see.
Sometimes they make us wiserand stronger and sometimes, well
, they make us weaker andsometimes, well, they make us
weaker From the Redacted Podcast.
(01:49):
I'm Matt Bender and this isMurdering Malachi, part 5.
I'm gonna scar you for life.
If you haven't already figuredit out, malachi has been
(02:15):
arrested.
He's also been to jail.
That is, unfortunately, asymptom for many of a life lived
through the illness of abuseand addiction.
I wanted to hear his full rapsheet, so to speak, and about
some of his experiences in jail.
Trigger warning for violence inthis episode.
Also, if you haven't listenedto parts one through four, go
(02:39):
back and check those out.
But without further ado, here'sMalachi.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So what I want to talk about is my time in jail.
The main conversation is goingto be about the year I spent in
Philadelphia, because that is ajourney unto itself.
But to get there, I just wantto give a brief chronology of my
(03:06):
interactions with beingarrested and jail.
Now let's 99.9% of my jailactivity was basically just
possession.
That's pretty much like Iwasn't the criminal type.
Even in my addiction I was a conartist.
You know, you gave me money andyou thanked me for the
opportunity to give me money.
I was that guy.
(03:27):
I had you pretty good after.
You know, you gave me money,but early in, when the addiction
was just starting to take overand I was I think I was still
working as a stripper, but itwas starting to get out of hand
and I really it was new to it.
So I didn't you know when youknew when it you, you, you kind
of fall fast and then you levelout Like what kind of addict am
I going to be?
You know, but in the beginningyou kind of do stupid stuff, and
(03:51):
so I had taken $20 out of thepurse of some girl I was staying
with and she tried to stop me.
She was like no, you're notgoing out, whatever, you know,
give me my money back.
And I pushed her, but not likehard, not not violent, not just
more like get off me, girl, I'mgoing to get you high, kind of
thing.
And she fell into the bed.
I even pushed her because Iknew the bed was there.
(04:11):
It wasn't like let me push you,and wherever you land you land.
It was like oh, there's a bed,let me get her off of me, you
know.
So she, she was upset, calledthe cops and so there was a
warrant for my arrest for likean aggravated assault.
Like I said, I pushed her ontothe bed just to get off me.
(04:32):
I'm not condoning it, I'm notsaying, hey, go around pushing
women to get a call from you.
I'm just saying that's all itwas.
So you can look at that howeveryou want to look at it.
I own up to what I do.
So one day I was getting furtherand further in a mess.
I was at a gay bar and I thinkI pickpocketed some guy who had
a wedding ring on.
I'm not proud of it.
(04:52):
This was the early days of myaddiction, where I was sort of
figuring out.
I don't even know if I wasfiguring out.
I was just kind of crazy.
Maybe it was like a six monthstint where I was like, oh wow,
I really need this drug and Idon't know what to do because I
really really need it.
Let me go out and find a way toget this drug.
And as I left the bar he camerunning.
(05:12):
Oh my God, he's got my walletand my mind is telling me he's
in a gay bar and he's married.
He's not going to press charges.
But he came screaming out andI'm running down the street.
Somebody tried to trip me.
I hurtled over him.
Cops are chasing me.
I'm smoking them.
They're nowhere near me.
I stopped to rest.
I hid somewhere.
(05:32):
They came caught up and Istupidly got up from where I was
hiding, ran some more.
They chased me some more.
Well, I got tired of runningbecause I was drunk as a dog.
Dirt too, that's another partof it.
That's another part of it.
That's another part of it.
It was in that first six monthswhere I drank a lot too.
That drinking ended veryquickly for me because I didn't
like hangovers and I didn't likestumbling and like drinking for
(05:55):
me.
I still drink now, but drinkingnow is more like a glass of
wine with dinner once every fivemonths.
You know, maybe I'll have acocktail at lunch once every
four months and don't evenfinish the cocktail.
But back then that was part ofthe exploration, part of the
sort of like, what's going on,what am I doing?
And I was stone cold drunk.
(06:17):
I finally stopped.
The cops caught me.
I think they put me on theground, but I don't think they
were unduly rough.
And then the guy walked up andhe refused to press charges,
just like I knew he would.
You could see him look at itlike, oh shit, how am I going to
explain this?
But they found some coke in mypocket.
So they arrested me and I gotto the jail and they were like,
(06:42):
hey, have you ever heard of thissuch and such person?
And I was like, oh fuck, nowwhat?
Because she was actually kindof a loon.
And they were like, oh, she'scharging you with ABC and D, are
you fucking kidding me?
So the possession charge.
I would have been released thatnight, but because of her
charge they took me to jail.
I was only in jail for like aweek, if that long.
And then, you know, I had a lotof connections back then,
(07:02):
because, like, I know how tolive in the big city.
I've got an uncle who's a hugelawyer, I've got friends who are
judges, because you work out atthe same gym.
You know, here I am, this kidfrom the ghetto is getting high
and I'm friends with judges, butthat's kind of the nature of my
life.
So you know people making callsand they're calling her.
Basically, she refused, shedidn't press charges because it
(07:24):
was a bullshit case and you knowthe best you could get I don't
even know if you could get acharge out of that I just pushed
her off me.
Maybe a simple robbery for the20 bucks, but all in all it was
like ain't none of this worth it.
But they put me on probation forthe cocaine.
Now I was on probation for ayear but I kept fucking up
(07:47):
Because that's when I was gone.
That's when I was out therejust early in my addiction and I
was stripping, partying,getting high, and I'd get hot
urines.
I wouldn't show up.
And again I had all of thesefriends who would call probation
officers, like, give himanother chance, he's a friend of
ours, we, you know.
Ah, I don't.
You know, we'll call your bossif you don't.
All of that, all of that.
(08:09):
I had three probation officersin one year because they kept
quitting.
They kept being like yeah, I'mnot dealing with this, I can't,
my hands are tied If the kiddoes whatever he wants.
You know four or five something.
(08:30):
And they were just like he doeswhatever he wants, we can't
punish him, I quit.
Finally, two weeks I think itwas two weeks before my
probation was over I had anotherhot urine and I had this short,
four foot tall jewish probationofficer who just was no
nonsense whatsoever, and heactually arrested me and I was
like what I was supposed to do?
A 30-day violation.
They sent me to the jail and Iended up doing a year.
(08:54):
They wouldn't let me outBecause somebody talked to
somebody and was like look, ifwe let this kid out, these are
going to do the same old shit.
Calls are going to be made.
So somehow, some way, 30 daysturned into a year.
They just left me there.
Now, before I talk about thattime, I'm going to say I've had
multiple charges after that,almost all possessions, almost
(09:18):
all.
I was released the same day.
They were like here's yourpossession, here's your ticket
to go to court, you know, andI'd get either another probation
or I'd get a fine.
Nothing ever came of it, exceptwhen I was in LA I got arrested
in a drug sting and I actuallywas with the drug dealer.
So the short version is I wasfacing three years because I got
(09:41):
caught with the drug dealer.
So I didn't know if McCann'svaping and I told him straight
up his drugs.
Don't know him, he's the one.
Blah, blah, blah, because I'mnot doing three years for
getting high.
And so, yeah, I didn't know theguy.
So it wasn't any kind of like oh, you're snitching on your.
I'm like, fuck that, I don'tknow this dude.
All he is is the guy that gaveme crack.
(10:02):
I'm doing three years, uh-uh,him, him, him, him, him.
And I ended up doing like twomonths and I got like three
years probation, whichtechnically I'm kind of still
the one, but that's anotherstory.
It's a weird thing.
I'm in like this limbo stateright now, or if I go to
California I might get introuble, but basically I'm not
(10:25):
allowed in California.
Like I, I can walk into apolice station right now and
tell them my name and they'relike you're not allowed in
California right.
But yeah, I know they get youright.
I know we don't want you, wedon't care, no one does.
But if you go to Californiabecause I never finished the
probation Basically what it is Inever finished the probation
(10:46):
because I was still being a messup, so that's kind of something
that lingers Like I'm notallowed in California but no one
else gives a damn about me andso, yeah, that's pretty much
that, like you know, been a fewyears since I've gotten any
addiction charges.
So that aspect of my life byGod's grace is gone, but I want
(11:10):
to go back.
So all a bunch of possessioncharges.
California was dangerous drugs,so it's kind of like I was with
a drug dealer, so it'sbasically still possession.
When I went to Philadelphiajail I had never been in jail
before I had not yet come intomy manhood, I was a late bloomer
(11:31):
.
because of all the abuse and allthe bullying, I kind of knew I
was strong, I kind of knew I wascapable, but I had no thug in
me.
Even though I grew up in theghetto because I hated the thugs
, I wanted to be everything Icould that wasn't a thug,
because to me they were justthese filthy human beings that I
didn't want anything to do with.
To this day I still hate rapmusic because it represents just
(11:55):
everything that bullied andbeat and raped and hurt me.
So I didn't want to be thuggedand that's kind of the worst way
to go into jail is not wantingto be thug.
So and I was still like kind ofafraid of violence.
Um, I still got sick to mystomach when I saw fights, like
I wouldn't throw up if I sawsomeone fight something.
(12:16):
I used to suffer with a lot,especially growing up in the
hood, where you see a fightevery day and I'm and I'm
getting sick to my stomach, andso I was like this is going to
be a bad situation.
So I was in jail and they putme in a dorm with like 30 guys
in one cell.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And just to, just to paint this.
This is is this the County jail?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
This is County jail in Philadelphia.
There's like four or fiveCounty cells.
I think I was in DCC, thedetention center, okay, I don't
remember all of them, and thisis maybe in the early 90s, late
80s something like that Mid-90s,early 90s, I was like 25, 26,
(13:02):
somewhere around there, so likemid-90s.
Okay, and I was a late bloomer,so like 25, I was just starting
26, somewhere around there, solike mid 90s Okay.
And I was a late bloomer, solike 25, I was just starting to
get into my manhood.
I mean, I was fuckingeverything that walked.
You know your wife wanted memore than she wanted you.
I was the stripper, so sex Iwas basically a porn star.
But violence and thug andmanner and manhood I still
(13:25):
hadn't found yet, which is funnybecause I'm like twice as
strong as men, my size.
I'm twice as strong as men,twice my size.
And come to find out, you knowwell.
No, not come to find out.
I mean, I was a wrestler.
I made a national team in Sambo, so I knew how to fight.
I just didn't know I had theright to fight, because all my
fights growing up I never wasallowed to fight Because it was
(13:46):
either me versus three people orme versus four people.
It was like because no onewants to lose to the white guy.
So the concept of me beingallowed to fight, the concept of
me not getting hurt in a fight,the concept of me having a fair
fight, the whole concept offighting was foreign to me
because it had been put into myhead that you're going to lose
under any.
Whatever circumstances.
You're going to lose.
(14:06):
We can't let you win and thatwas beaten into my head so I was
afraid to fight.
I was 25 years old, strong as afucking ox skilled fighter, and
I was terrified of fightingbecause it was beaten into my
head my whole life.
You're going to lose, no matterwhat we have to do, because we
can't let the white guy win,even though I'm biracial.
(14:27):
But that's just the way it is.
So at 25, I was basically acoward.
You know your wife wanted memore than she wanted you, but
you could be four feet tall andI'm still scared of you Because
I still had this ingrainedlesson in my head that I'm going
to lose way or another.
They're going to make sure Ilose.
So I went to the county jail andlet me paint the picture for
(14:49):
you.
First of all, when I went to LAcounty jail and with most jails
not prison jail, most jails arerun by deputies.
That's like a rotation.
They have to do they get out ofthe whatever police academy,
they have to do like a year injail, or maybe they have to come
back and do I don't know but alot.
(15:10):
They incorporate jail rotationsinto your duty as a deputy.
But the Dallas County Jailsdon't have deputies.
They have strippers and gasstation attendants working as
the prison guards or the jailguards.
I know because one girl theywere saying hey, she's a
stripper, she works on thisplace on the weekends.
Another guy's like hey, that'smy cousin luke.
(15:30):
He worked at the gas stationlast week, now he's a jail guard
.
They go through some like twoweeks of training and they're
jail guards.
So they they're the mostunprofessional, ghetto, broken
human being.
You think prison guards thatyou see in those 1940s movies
that are just like sadistic andevil and they're nothing
(15:51):
compared to Philadelphia jailguards.
They get the absolute worstpieces of human garbage you can
find and they put a badge on.
I was in the jail in a dorm andwith my PTSD I think I couldn't
sleep for like three weeksbecause of the noise.
These 20 year olds, they takeshifts.
(16:12):
I'm going to stay up all nighthollering and screaming.
And then you're going to stayup all night hollering and
screaming.
That's literally what they do.
And I had a psychotic break andI almost cut my leg off with a
razor blade.
Like I cut my leg out fourtimes.
I walked downstairs to thetowel and I showed somebody else
.
I'm like, hey, look what I didLike I literally had a psychotic
break.
Not from fear, it wasn't thecowardice, it wasn't the oh my
(16:35):
God, this is jail.
It was the lack of sleep.
It was literally just the noiseJail.
That's why I'm terrified ofjail now.
Not because of fights, notbecause of stabbings, not
because of violence.
I mean, I don't want that, butI can handle it.
Bring it dog.
It was because of the noise.
(16:58):
It's the non stop 24 7 noise injail and, depending on what
section you are, the lightsdon't ever turn off either.
So it's nonstop lights, nonstopnoise.
Your mind can never shut off.
There was someone with severePTSD.
They ended up strapping me downin a cell in four-point
(17:24):
restraints, legs stitched up, soI'm butt naked in four-point
restraints, legs stitched up, soI'm butt naked.
Four-point restraints in a cell.
Inside a cell.
I was as locked up as a humanbeing could be, with like 100
stitches in my leg.
They sent me to the medicalward where I got a private cell
and the medical ward isbasically all the transgenders,
(17:46):
all the psychopaths, all thesenior citizens and all the
medical issues are all in onebig long room with private cells
.
So you got the youngpsychopaths with the 80 year
olds.
You got the schizophrenics withthe heart conditions all in one
big room and that's where Ispent pretty much the majority
(18:08):
of my time.
Now I want to tell you abouttwo things.
There's a couple things thathappen in jail that are really
odd to me.
One is grown-ass men areaddicted to cartoons.
Don't ever turn off theircartoons.
That's their thing.
Dog-ass motherfuckers lovecartoons.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
I've never heard that one.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
They love their cartoons.
Huh, cartoons and soap operas.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Cartoons and soap operas they're that big and the
weird stuff that they do likeI'm sitting here watching, and
some of this was while I wasstill in the dorm and some of it
if it's specific to the Metunit, I'll say that.
But I remember I was in thedorm and the guys were all
standing around on TV.
Now, fully jailed, you don'thave anything.
(19:02):
This is jail Jail.
The longest you'll stay in jailin Philadelphia is three years.
The average stay is a year.
Jail is basically is eitherholding time for you while
you're in trial and then you getyour sentence, or it's for all
the misdemeanors.
So you'll get like 30 days injail.
You'll get a year in jail.
Anyone who gets more than ayear is probably there because
(19:24):
they're in the middle of a longtrial.
So a year is typically thesentence.
Anything above a year you'rewaiting on trial.
So two or three years are rare.
Those are the people who arefighting, like those are the
murder suspects, or those arepeople who are like fighting for
their life and their trial goeson like they're.
You know.
(19:45):
I mean those are the ones thatare in a long-ass battle for
their life.
The average person in aphiladelphia jail is there for
between a year and 18 months.
I would say the average stays ayear.
You would think that thatwouldn't create certain
behaviors, but they're allstanding around a tv.
You don't get tvs in your cell.
You don't get no amenities, noamenities.
(20:06):
The only thing you get is therewas a catholic guy who'd run
around, would walk around, and Iknow when he met you and he did
this.
I don't know about the dorms,but I know he would go from cell
to cell and ask you what bookyou'd like and he would go out
and they would buy the book foryou.
They bring it in for you.
I mean no Playboy or nothing,but like they would get me, I
would ask for Dostoevsky orsomething like that.
(20:28):
I'll explain that one later.
That was an interesting story.
The guys are standing aroundand they would have two TVs and
they would show two movies a dayand the movies would pretty
much be the most violent,sex-based movies you could
possibly imagine, which was soweird to me.
Like they would get the hoodmovies.
They were like drug dealermovies with titties and shooting
(20:51):
and killing.
These are the movies they wouldshow, which to me was like
you're just feeding the beastand that's what they did.
The guards would arrange fightsbetween inmates, like, like they
would literally lock twoinmates in a dorm, get everyone
out.
Be like if y'all want to dothis, do this.
And the inmates would just beateach other half to death and
the guards would stand therewatching.
The guards would beat you up.
(21:12):
The guards would take inmatesthat did whatever they received
as wrong.
They did it to me once, butthank god it was only a female
guard like I.
I said something to a femaleguard who was just a horrible
gremlin of a human being I mean,just abusive as hell and I made
the mistake of saying somethingbad to her, and so they
escorted me to a cell.
She or I think yeah, they putme in a cell and they had me
(21:35):
stand against the wall.
She came in and she juststarted slapping the shit out.
Now I knew better than to doanything, because I saw the big
manly, big angry gorilla lookingmotherfucker standing behind
her like, yeah, go ahead, trysomething.
And they had this thing calledrotation.
If they this one kid actuallyhit the female guard and they
(21:57):
beat him so bad that he wasbusted open and bleeding.
So they hit him in the system.
They had this thing called Iforget the phrase for a bit they
would hide you, they wouldtransfer you from jail to jail,
to jail to jail, so your familycan't find you until your wounds
heal.
So they bust, they, they like,smash his head into the bar,
(22:18):
split his head open, beat himdown, and then they transferred
him from jail to jail, to jailfor like a few weeks until his
wounds healed enough and heunderstood the assignment, which
is to say that another inmatedid it.
So his family didn't see himfor like a month or two.
And that's what they would doif they beat you too badly.
(22:38):
Some kid stole potato chips.
I remember I was sitting in amedical unit that was a famous
place for them to do it.
That was their hiding spot andyou saw like these three, four
guards just calmly walking downthe aisle.
There was an inmate in betweenthem and he's just calmly
walking.
You know no drama, no, nothing.
He knew the assignment.
(22:59):
He walks into the cell Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat.
He only stole some tater chips,so it wasn't like a deadly
beating, and then they justwalked back and they all just
walked out.
That was a common occurrence tosee the walk.
Now I was in the cell and we hadthis one guy who was this black
guy nicest guy in the world,but he was like 400 pounds of
all muscle.
I mean this dude looked likeBrian Shaw, like one of the
(23:22):
world's strongest men, black guy.
And I remember they did thesame thing to him.
They just walked him into thecell and all you heard sounded
like the guns were going offbecause they got the biggest
guards they could possibly findand they did like no damage to
him because like two minuteslater he's standing at the cell
door hollering yeah, you ain'tdo nothing to me, but the sound
(23:43):
of the blows were like a fuckingnuclear explosion.
They tried their damnedest tohurt this guy and they couldn't.
I mean the guy was aman-mountain, but that's what
they did.
They walked into the cell, beathim up, came out.
That was a common occurrence ina fully jail is is either
you're fighting other prisonersor you know the guards are
beating you up.
(24:04):
I got into a few fights myself.
I was purposely watch fightscause I had to get out my
tolerance, I had to get rid ofthis weakness I had.
And I remember one specificnone of my fights really went
too far.
They were all broken up, exceptfor this one had and I remember
one specific none of my fightsreally went too far.
They were all broken up, exceptfor this one fight.
And and I found out somethingabout myself that I realized I
I've done my whole life therewas this guy who was, who was
(24:27):
about the same size as me,wasn't particularly great
fighter.
I really had no interest infighting him, like I don't even
know how we got to this point.
But he came into my cell andpretty much was like let's fight
, and I don't even, I don't know, just let's fight.
So we started fighting and Igot him on the ground.
(24:48):
His head is stuck under thetoilet and I'm punching away on
his face and I'm yelling for theguards.
I'm like CO his face and I'myelling for the guards.
I'm like CO, co, co because Ihadn't.
I hadn't, like, I had no desireto hurt this kid.
I wasn't angry at him.
I don't even know why I wasfighting him, like why the fuck
are we fighting?
You know, like what is thepoint of all of this?
(25:08):
But I'm pounding away on him,I'm calling for the COs and the.
The COs.
They come to the door, theystart laughing and they walk
away and something in me snappedand I hate that phrase, but it
did and I went back to when Ithe first time I ever fought.
I was a kid and this is one ofthe reasons that I was a coward
(25:29):
for so long.
My very first fight was againstthree kids.
I was like 12 years old, 12 or13 years old.
Very first fight was againstthree kids.
I was like 12 years old, 12 or13 years old.
One of the kids was supposedlymy friend, but he did like I
said.
He joined the group and I hadto fight three kids and I beat
the living hell out of them.
I beat them so bad that I hadone, but two of them ended up
(25:50):
running away.
I had one on the ground nowscraping his arm on the concrete
.
There was something in me andsaid you're making me fight.
I'm gonna scar you for life forthis shit.
As a 12 year old, I was likeyou're making me fight and
there's something about makingme fight when that's the last
(26:12):
thing on this planet I want todo.
You're going to suffer.
And I was scraping his armacross the concrete and his
parents had to pull a bunch ofadults.
They pulled me off because ofcourse I was winning.
You know it was the other wayaround.
We know how that goes, but theguy who looks white was winning
in the hood.
We can't have that.
So back to jail.
(26:35):
When the guards walked away,leaving me in there fighting
this guy, it was the samefeeling.
Everybody is making me fight.
And I just like saying now,when I dug it into his face and
raked down as hard as I could,it's actually so bad that
(26:58):
someone came a couple kids ormen, not kids came to me later
and asked me why I stabbed him.
Like, why'd you stab that guy?
You ain't have to stab him.
I'm like I didn't stab him.
That was me, because, again,everyone made me.
Even the guards made me fight.
You know, I guess they hadnever seen someone winning
(27:18):
calling for help, because intheir world, if you're winning
you don't call for help, you askpeople to go away so you could
finish killing somebody.
I didn't want to hurt him, Ididn't even want to fight him,
but they made me someone had topay.
So yeah, there, yeah, there'sthat.
Now there was a few other fights.
There was just a lot ofviolence.
(27:40):
There's just so much violence.
I mean, there was just so, butthere was no stabbings.
There was only one hit with abroomstick, but there was no
weapons.
I don't know how that managedto happen, but they didn't do
the weapons thing.
It was just a lot of physicalbeatdowns.
There was a lot of one-on-ones.
There wasn't too much jumping,except the guards.
The guards are the only onesthat jump people.
(28:01):
The prisoners actually didmanage to at least do
one-on-ones, I'll give them thatmuch.
There wasn't a lot of jumping.
There was a lot of unfairone-on-ones Like why are you
fighting that dude?
Like dude can't even fight backand you're beating him up.
There was a lot of that, butagain, at least it was only one
guy beating up the dude thatlike dude, what the fuck are you
?
You know he's helpless.
(28:22):
Why are you beating him up?
A lot of that.
A lot of cowards, a lot offucking cowards, a lot of
cowards.
In jail there was a few bigguys, but they typically avoided
fighting each other because noone actually wanted to take a
chance at taking a loss.
There was also, though I'm goingto tell you that I had probably
(28:43):
the funniest I don't even knowwhat it was, but the biggest
laugh I've ever had was in jail.
I was sitting at the table withthe old heads, the guys who
were 60, 70, who you knew spenttheir entire life in and out of
jail.
Like those are who they were.
They didn't know anything elseand so nothing bothered them.
They didn't fuck with the youngboys because they knew young
(29:05):
guys were crazy, trying to provesomething.
They just sat at the tableplaying spades all day, every
day, and coming up with some ofthe funniest jokes.
Coming up with some of thefunniest jokes.
Coming up with some of the.
I remember one time I don'teven know what the joke was, but
we just all we were on thefloor, almost passed out,
stomachs hurting.
There were like bodies ofsenior citizens laying on the
(29:27):
floor gasping for breath becausethat was all they had.
That, that laughter, thatmoment of peace.
It's the only joy they ever had.
The only peace they ever hadwas sitting at a metal table in
a jail playing cards, laughing.
(29:50):
I do remember one.
It's not going to seem thatfunny to you or anyone.
You kind of had to be there,but I remember there was this
one, there were two of them.
There was one guy who had justkind of got dumped by his
boyfriend or whatever in themedical unit and I think he said
(30:12):
to himself he was like howpathetic am I?
I can't even keep a faggot injail.
We all, we all lost it.
On that one, like that's prettyfucking pathetic.
And I think the other one wasthe guy had gotten a blowjob
from one of the trannies andpeople were ribbing on him.
(30:32):
They were like dude, you knowit's a dude, yeah, it looks like
a girl, but it's still a dude.
Blah, blah, blah, everybody'sribbing on him.
They were like dude, you knowit's a dude.
Yeah, it looks like a girl, butit's still a dude.
Blah, blah, blah, blah,everybody's ribbing on him.
And the guy goes you don'tunderstand, man, I've been
locked down.
It's been a minute.
I needed that man.
That ain't you know.
That's jail, which is a wholeother conversation.
That's a whole otherconversation.
(30:54):
That's a whole otherconversation.
But he was like you know, andone dude looked at him.
This might have been the onewhere we fell down, I'm not sure
, but one dude looked at himstone cold, as he's in the
middle of this five-minute rantabout how desperate he is, how
long it's been he's locked down.
It ain't gay, it's jail.
The guy looks at me and says,dude, you've only been here a
week.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Was it true?
It was true, oh shit.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
We all know because we forgot.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
People come in and out, so we forgot, and then it
dawned on us like holy shit, hehasn't even been here a week.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Man.
What's going to happen after amonth and a year?
He's gonna be the one with thelipstick.
You know like, yeah, that shitwas like motherfucker.
He's been here a week and hesaw him out.
It ain't gay, it's chill.
I'm desperate, like okay, it'sa week, dog, uh, I'm going
(31:54):
longer, not jerking off.
I mean, come on now.
You know, speaking of that, sothere was a couple of guards
that were really sexy.
There's one Indian, she'sNative American or something
gorgeous.
There's another guard it's ablack chick.
She was sexy too.
One day she's making rounds,we're on lockdown and I'm I
think I just finished showeringand I'm standing in my towel she
(32:15):
comes to my cell and I hear it.
I kind of turn, I look at her,cause you always got to make eye
contact.
You got to see that like you'realive, even if you're standing.
You got to make eye contact.
So I turned and look at her andthen she's still standing there
and I'm like huh.
And then she looks down in mycrotch area while I'm in my
towel and she's just standingthere.
So I'm like okay.
(32:36):
So I kind of like motion, likeI don't want to get beat up for
this.
So I'm kind of motion, like youwant to see this.
And she's just like so now mytowel is gonna start shaking my
shit and she's just standingthere smiling like okay, and she
walks away.
Um, the next day some male guardcomes to me and he's like uh,
was such and such, was thereguard at your cell last night?
Now, mind you, I'm not sayingshit because obviously here he
(32:58):
heard part of the story.
Obviously she went and told herfriends hey, I got a dick on
you.
But I'm not saying no, I don'tknow what you're talking about.
When I guarded my cell lastnight, because either she's
gonna get her friends to beat myass for telling or he's going
to get his friends to beat myass for being jealous that this
sexy-ass guard wanted to see mydick.
But that's how that went.
(33:20):
So, yeah, I'm giving stripshows.
Now I want to talk about thesuicide.
There was this little and I kindof gave away the ending but
there was this little Irish kidthat came in.
Not kid, he was like my age,20-something, mid twenties,
short, ugly, weird looking dudeand like he was just out of
(33:45):
place, and not that I was MrCool, but I'd been in there for
a minute.
So I kind of you know, learneda thing or two and I kind of
befriended him because I feltsorry for him.
I felt sorry for him the way helooked, like wow, life's so
rough on you as it is.
Then I felt sorry for him forhis size and being in jail and
being white didn't help becausePhiladelphia is a chocolate city
(34:06):
.
So I hate to say this, but anyjail is going to be a chocolate
city, just the reality.
But especially in a chocolatecity, you know the jail is going
to be a chocolate city, justjust the reality.
But especially in a chocolatecity, you know the jail is going
to be a chocolate city.
So being a white guy in jailalready puts you at a
disadvantage.
Um, and being small and ugly, Ijust felt bad for him.
So I befriended him and weplayed cards and one day he got
(34:29):
points on me or something.
I hit him in the leg and Ididn't mean to hit him that hard
but I realized like more cameout of me than it should have
and he was like that really hurtand I was just like fuck and I
like I really felt bad, I reallyfelt like shit.
I didn't mean to hit him thathard, like I could tell there
was more coming out of me thanit should have been, just like,
oh man, you got that point.
(34:59):
You know that really hurt.
And I apologized profusely likeman, I'm so fucking sorry, I
didn't mean to do that, like I,I don't, you know, I think a day
later he came to me with somefresh laundry, which is, you
know a big deal in jail, and Isaid, well, because he's working
in laundry, I was like, well,what's this?
He's like no, all right, man, Ijust like looking out for you.
And of course, you know, I feltlike the size of a tank.
You know what I mean.
(35:20):
Here I am fucking up hittinghim hard and I didn't mean to,
but it just happened.
And he's bringing me laundry,talking, while I just like
looking source of sanity, youknow.
And so I felt like an ant, ofcourse, as any halfway decent
(35:40):
human being would.
But, you know, I thanked himlike you know shit.
And then the next day after that, somebody came to me and was
like yo, you hear about your boy?
And I was like no, so, yeah,killed himself.
Like what?
Yeah, he.
And I was like no, so, yeah,killed himself.
Like what, yeah, he killedhimself.
Then the guy walked away, Ifound out that he had gotten his
(36:02):
verdict it was like three yearsin prison or something because
he like pushed his girlfriend orsomething.
I can see him doing the samething to her.
I did to him, like probably notmeaning to be overly aggressive,
but being it because you'reholding so much shit in and
you've been bullied, you've beenhurt and and you kind of like
don't realize, oh fuck, that wasa little harder than it should
(36:22):
have been, and I think that'swhat happened with him and her.
Like you know, he like oh fuck,I didn't mean to do it.
I think they explained it to metoo, that that it was something
similar to that.
Like I didn't mean you.
And again, I'm not excusing it,I'm just saying that there are
reasons for things where theyaren't always just fuck it.
I did this because it's bad.
Like there are sometimesextenuating circumstances where,
(36:43):
even though you did somethingbad, it wasn't as the intent
wasn't to be as bad as theresult.
That that's a good explanation,doesn't excuse it, but does
make it a little less bad.
You know what I mean.
Like if I push you, you get hitby a car.
I wasn't trying to murder you.
I shouldn't have pushed you.
I'm still liable for that but Ireally wasn't trying to see you
(37:05):
get hit by a car and die, sothat's kind of what I mean.
So he got sentenced and hekilled himself.
He hung himself in the cell, inthe waiting cell at the court
And've always felt bad like thatmade that punch even worse.
Like you know, I tore myself upover that.
I'm just, I'm so grateful togod that I had a chance to
(37:25):
apologize and he forgave me,because if that had been the
last thing that happened andthis poor kid killed himself,
like you, I would have carriedthat like like fuck.
Not long after that I was, I wasin, I was in a medical unit and
there was this old guy, like 80years old, shriveled up, little
black guy, maybe six feet tall,120 pounds.
I mean he's maybe not thatsmall, but close to it.
(37:47):
I mean just bony, looking likea walking skeleton, just old,
wrinkled, tired, and I don'tknow if people did.
I'm sure at least one or twopeople did.
I wasn't the only human beingin there, there weren't a whole
lot, but I wasn't the only one.
There were some human beings inthere.
But I know that I wouldsometimes go down and check on
him.
You know I'm not really acaretaker, that's just not who I
(38:10):
am.
But you know he was on thefirst floor, I was on like the
second and I knew on occasion Iwould go down.
But hey, pops, you're all right, need anything introduce?
You know, I mean just being adecent human being.
And one night I went in and Ichecked on, like hey, we're
about to go, you know we'reabout to go lock down.
You need anything before welock down?
You know, you're all right,just just the basic.
(38:31):
He's like man, I don't feelright, man, I, man, I don't feel
right, man, I need the doctor,something don't feel right.
But I got you, I got you.
I go up to the guards andthey're like we just took him to
the doctor, he's fine, go away.
So I go back down.
I'm like, well, they said theyjust took you to the doctor.
He's like yeah, but somethingain't right, man, something
ain't right, something ain'tright Like, please help me,
(38:53):
please help me.
So I go back up to the guardsand I'm like hey, he said get
the fuck away from here, oryou're just going to be
something, which basically meantleave now, or we're going to
take you in a cell and beat yourass.
That's just the bottom line.
We don't, don't, don't botherus with this shit again.
Or you know, you're going toget a beatdown and you're taking
a risk of getting a broken jaw,a broken arm, a busted head or
(39:15):
just a light beatdown.
But even a light beatdown whowants to get beatdown?
You know, even if it's a lightone?
But yeah, I don't mind a fewpunches to the face, you know,
for no reason at all, becauseit's not going to accomplish
anything.
So I was like, I went down tohim and I was like, I explained
it, like they said like leavenow or it's going to be
something.
And he's like and he's beenaround long enough where he knew
(39:37):
what that meant and he justlooked at me like thank you,
thank you for trying, man, Iunderstand, you know.
It's like don't, don't be upsetat yourself.
I get it.
I woke up the next morning.
He was dead.
What happened he died in, hedied overnight.
Whatever it was that he wassaying wasn't right, actually
wasn't right.
An old man died in a jail cellalone, begging for help.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I carried that one that's such a sad thought I
carried that one.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah, again, this is god's mercy in my life.
I know it's not about me, butI'm living my life.
So god's mercy in my life.
I know it's not about me, butI'm living my life.
So God's mercy in my life thatI at least tried.
I can't force the guards.
I got to the point of almostgetting my ass whipped and the
ass whipping would have stillaccomplished nothing.
I'm not going to get my asswhipped for no purpose.
(40:31):
Let me go get my ass whippedand still accomplish nothing.
You know what I mean.
So I mean if it was like, letme go get my ass whipped and
still accomplish nothing.
You know what I mean yeah so Imean, if it was like, hey, we'll
whip your ass, if you, let uswhip your ass, we'll go get him
help, maybe I might haveconsidered that.
How bad ass whipping are wetalking about?
You know what I mean?
Like, like, I might haveconsidered that.
Like, are we talking likeinjury?
Or we just talking about a sorejaw for a couple days, bruised
(40:53):
ribs, ribs or broken ribs?
There's a big differencebetween bruised and broken.
You know, I might haveconsidered that, I might have
weighed my options.
But if we're talking aboutlet's whip your ass and then
still ignore him sorry, dad, Idid what I could.
But that one I had to staymyself for the day because I was
ready to murder a guard, I wasready.
(41:13):
That hurt that one day becausebecause I was ready to murder a
guard I was, I was ready, I wasthat.
That hurt that.
That.
That one was rough.
So it's a suicide.
The one person I befriendedkilled himself.
The other person I befriendedand tried to look out for died.
So yeah, that wasn't, thatwasn't, that wasn't easy.
So I would share two, two otherquick little stories, one of, I
(41:36):
guess, hope and one of despair.
The Catholic guys would comearound and they would bring
books and I asked for a book ora textbook on microbiology and
he was like, no, that's a bittoo much, which I get now,
because I'm like textbooks arelike 200 fucking dollars.
He's talking about a paperbackfrom Barnes and Noble.
There's a difference here.
I get it now, but back then Iwasn't thinking.
But I ended up on Dostoevskyand I was reading Dostoevsky's
(42:01):
House of the Dead.
Dostoevsky's House of the Deadwas.
I don't know if you know thestory of Fido Dostoevsky.
I'll tell you very, veryquickly.
So he was a writer, a newspaperman or whatever.
He wrote some article thatsomebody didn't like and they
sentenced him to death.
This is just how it was.
Back then he wrote an article.
(42:22):
Somebody was like, oh, he didthis that they sentenced him to
death and they had him with thefiring squad.
They pulled the guns out andthey said, ready, aim psych,
firing squad.
They pulled the guns out andthey said, ready, aim, psych.
And they sentenced him to likefour years in siberia work camp.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
You talk about a mind fuck yeah, yeah, he was ready
to die right.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
And then they said psych at the last minute, you
can research it.
I'm not making this up I don'tknow.
Yeah, I've heard of it, yeah sohe wrote a book called, uh, the
house of the dead, which was asemi-automatic biographical.
Of course he was the hero,because we're always the hero in
our own story, you know that.
But he wrote asemi-autobiographical book about
(43:05):
his time in siberian work camp.
And I'm reading this book andI'm enthralled.
I'm like, oh shit, damn, shit,damn, fuck, wow.
And there's another guy readinglike some James Bond book or
something.
And he's, um, he asked me, he'slike, well, what are you
reading?
Like I said, I wasn't the onlyhuman being in there, we were,
(43:26):
we were few and far between, butthere were others.
And he's like, well, what areyou reading?
And I'm explaining to my momreading this book about the
Siberian prison.
This guy's ready, you know,ready, psych, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like dude, how the fuck areyou eating that You're in jail.
And I explained to him at thetime now it might be different,
because I'm so exhausted of allof that that it might be a
little different.
I might be where he's at nowwhat I mean?
(43:48):
I still have more ahead of methan I do behind me.
So I was preparing for theahead.
And so he said well, why do youask?
I do, I'm on here for a shorttime.
I mean I, they can't keep mehere.
It's jail, it's not prison,it's not like you know.
(44:09):
I can be sentenced.
It's fucking jail.
Even if I max out, I'm doing ayear, you know.
So it is what it is.
And I say you read your book.
Right, we read what?
Two hours a day, most, beforeyour eyes start to hurt.
You can't concentrate.
You know two hours straight onaverage, something like that.
(44:29):
He said yeah, and I said and?
So when you're reading, you'rethe hero.
You got the naked women, yougot the guns, you're jumping off
of rooftops and celebrating,getting celebrated by M17 and
the Queen All these other years,like this Superman.
He said yeah, man, it's fun.
I said what happens if you puta book down and you look around
(44:50):
and you can see.
He thought about that for aminute and I was like what
happens to the other 18 hours?
I guess you're awake for like16 hours a day or something 18
hours.
So what happens to the other 16hours a day?
And I said, dude, when I'mreading about these guys' toes
falling off and them eating onepotato a day, when I put this
(45:11):
book down I'm like fuck, I can'twait till dinner gets here.
You're looking at dinner likethis garbage.
I'm looking at it like fuck,wow, food, thank God.
So for me I was finding a wayto appreciate what I had,
because I knew it was temporary,so the suffering was temporary,
so I could actually look at aworse situation and I could be
like this food now looks good.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Reading about somebody else's horrors,
somebody else's struggles,somebody else's horrors,
somebody else's struggle,somebody else's troubles that
were worse than yours, made youfeel better.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Because I knew mine was temporary.
Now, if they were permanent orif they were longer, then I
couldn't.
Then then you're stacking.
Yeah, it's like you're stacking, but if they're temporary it's
like I can.
I can, I can use this to giveme strength to get through a
temporary burden.
I think the other thing.
(46:01):
So you know, you've got thedeaths, you've got the suicides,
you've got the beatdowns by thejail guards, you've got the
dick show for the female guard.
You've got the guards.
I mean, yeah, they would justpull prisoners to the side and
just let them fight.
You know, you've got the guardleaving letting me fight the guy
(46:22):
I had to stab with my finger.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Was there and I know this is just something everybody
always asks about and thinksabout and it's one of those
things that just kind of bakedinto I guess american jail and
prison culture was there.
Was there rapes in jail?
Speaker 2 (46:41):
this was just jail.
So I don't think anybodybesides the guy who was only
there for one week I don't thinkanyone there was hard up enough
to rape.
That's something that comesafter you haven't had pussy for
15 years.
So on this journey of my timein Philadelphia jail, now I just
want to segue real quick andsay that LA jail was different
(47:03):
because it was run by shellstaff.
They didn't put up with any ofthat nonsense because they
didn't want to lose theircareers.
So it was a lot cleaner, a lotmore controlled, just so it was.
You think you hear of thehorrors of LA jails, but the
reality is, if they do exist,it's when the guards aren't
around.
The guards did not play thatbecause they were deputies who
(47:26):
invest their whole life in beingdeputies, so they weren't
risking it for dumb shit.
Put it off.
The guards didn't care.
It was a job to them.
If they get fired as a guard,they go back to stripping.
The next week they go back toworking at Walmart.
They really didn't give a hell.
But now this is one last.
I want to leave this, one lastimage which really made me
(47:48):
understand where I was Likeeverything I went through this
one simple.
It may not have the same effecton others, but it had the
effect on me and I rememberthinking this is where I am like
, this is it, this is where I am.
There was a white guy whomuscular, guy, strong, um, you
(48:11):
know, you think of like thesedifferent variations of white
people, and he was like thewhite person that was kind of
not trying to be black, but kindof like that same sort of
ghetto, low budget, you know,and I don't know how to explain
it, not redneck, but just thatkind of you could see hanging,
(48:31):
like if you see a bunch of blackguys and there's this one white
guy, a shaved head, the wifebeater, you know, kind of a
Kensington person, if you knowKensington, philadelphia, or
maybe if you see those.
But yeah, just kind of hoodish,but not trying to be black,
just white hood, and he wasmuscular, strong, healthy, and
(48:53):
he was in there for some shorttime and you know he'd been
there before, because he sayslike I've been here before and
you know I've learned my lesson,I'm tired of this routine and
you know he's got the wholestory down pat when I get out.
I don't know if he had a newbaby or not, but I think it's
like I'll be my girl or baby, akid or whatever and get a job.
(49:13):
And he was just for like twoweeks straight telling all the
good things.
And, like I said, he's young,built, strong.
I mean, worst case scenario cango out, work, demolition, make
some money, learn a trade, hangaround a construction site for a
year.
By the time you're done, you'refreaking an apprentice
carpenter.
You know, you don't even haveto go to fucking school, just
(49:36):
hang around a construction sitetaking out the trash and watch
the carpenters.
Hey, can you teach me what you?
Let me watch you for half anhour a day.
You know what I mean.
You can build a life justtaking out trash.
You know, all the opportunitywas there.
So some people started believinghim and when he left, there was
all he was like, like I said,he was ghetto.
(49:57):
So he fit in, he was one of theboys and when he left, there
was a couple people who werelike, yeah, whatever, you know,
we'll see him soon, he'll comeback, blah, blah, blah.
And the other ones like, yeah,it's your chance, bro, we
believe you, we got you back,man, right as when you know,
blah, blah, blah.
(50:17):
And so he left one morning.
Motherfucker came walking backin the door later that night
later that fucking night.
Here he come walking in with asack.
Sack is their bed and thetoiletries.
He come walk in with a sackunder his arm and I just saw
that my heart just I don't knowif I believed him or wanted to.
I was just sort of like a nonemotionally committed observer,
(50:38):
but when he came walking in, itjust dawned like that was the
moment it dawned on me.
This is where I am see.
One thing about jail while it'scomfortable for people, it's
like schrodinger, wow, it reallyis.
Oh fuck, I'm about to dosomething you've never seen,
you've never heard before.
You know what jail is.
No, jail really is for.
Oh fuck, I'm about to dosomething you've never heard
before.
You know what jail is.
You know what jail really isfor a lot of people.
What's that Showed in your box?
(51:00):
For humans, everything ispossible until you actually get
released from jail.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Lots of dreams, lots of plans.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
Everything's possible .
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
And some people actually find more comfort in
jail, because in jaileverything's possible, because
you don't actually have to do it.
The cat is dead and alive atthe same time.
When you're sitting in jailit's a good way to put that.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
It's like Shawshank you get institutionalized.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
But just, I mean, that's part of the
institutionalization that Idon't think, at least I don't
know that.
I've looked at it that waybefore.
Actually I didn't put thecorrelation of Schrodinger, but
I've definitely looked at itbefore that.
While you're in there, thedreaming is the life you look
forward to.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Yeah, that's what keeps you going and then, when
the fucking time comes, nope.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
You don't know what you lost.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
You don't want to or you don't want to do the work,
or, now that it's not a fantasy,it doesn't seem that attractive
, maybe it seems uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
The problem with a lot of humanity, with a lot of
humanity and this is across theboard, and I think a lot of a
lot of people don't really thinkabout this.
All the conversation has beenhad when it comes to love and
marriage.
A lot of people talked aboutthis when it comes to love and
marriage, but they haven'ttalked about it when it comes to
the rest of life, too.
A lot of people want but don'tactually want to have, they want
(52:29):
to chase it.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
You think they?
Speaker 2 (52:31):
the feeling of wanting it, like you think the
feeling of wanting it like?
Give an example.
I talk about a marriage.
People say they look forward tothe wedding but not the
marriage.
They, they, they romanticizelove but not the actual work
that goes into it.
Every other weekend they're inlove with someone new.
Yeah, now put that in the restof life.
I want this, I want the wanting, but I don't want the having.
(52:58):
Is in a lot of parts of life, alot of aspects of life.
I want the wanting.
If we get money, then theyspend it all.
They wanted the money.
Then it's actually morecomfortable being broke because
then they can once again.
They want the job.
They don't want to actually dothe work.
They want the wanting yeah,being hungry, you know that,
that hunger hemingway said thathunger was good discipline you
(53:18):
know, and he was, he was talkingabout actual hunger, he wasn't
even being metaphorical, yeah,but people fool themselves into
believing they actually want tobe full, and so they keep
themselves hungry at all costs,while complaining about how much
they want to be full.
Yeah, I mean, the love is aperfect example.
I want someone to love me.
(53:40):
So bad, so bad.
I want to be in love.
But then when they get it, it'slike oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
Yeah, it's like you finally got that beautiful bird
and you put it in a cage.
Speaker 2 (53:50):
There it is, yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
And it's not so beautiful anymore that it's not
wild, now that you have it.
What do you do now?
Speaker 2 (53:59):
okay, so much of life is actually that yeah people
have conditioned themselves towant the wanting but they don't
actually want the having.
The jail is pretty much amicrocosm of that a whole
society built upon wanting butnot not wanting to have.
Yeah, the man lasted one day.
Two weeks, of all the goonie,goo, goo, beautiful, perfect
(54:23):
shakespearean just soliloquiesof what his life is going to be,
he didn't last one day yeah,it's like.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
What would they do without hope, though you know
because, that that place wouldbe miserable without some kind
of hope, wouldn't it be?
Is it?
Is it really hope though?
Speaker 2 (54:44):
yeah, that's the dream, a fantasy but listen,
hope is based upon the, the, theunderstanding or the
prerequisite of actually wantingto have it Like I hope to find
love means I actually do wantlove, so is it really hope?
Speaker 1 (55:02):
Well is that like we don't know what we got till it's
gone and we don't know what wewant until we have it.
So it's like one of those justhuman nature things.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
I think it's the antithesis of hope.
I think it's just one big emptylie to ourselves.
I'm not really hoping for this,because I don't really want it.
Yeah, I don't really actuallywant it.
So is that hope?
When it's something you don'tactually want?
What would that be then?
Speaker 1 (55:35):
I don't know.
Know, I'm trying to think of a,a word, a common word for that,
a good way to, and I am too,and I'm pretty, I'm pretty, I'm
pretty darn good with my wordageyeah, yeah, I speak pretty
sometimes yeah yeah, how thefuck you actually knew that I do
that to me.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Knew that Me talk pretty one day Me talk pretty
one day.
Speaker 1 (55:58):
That's what he said.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
I do that to you all the time, don't I?
Speaker 1 (56:03):
He's one of my favorites.
I loved him.
He was great.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
I love that.
What the fuck that was likeyour friend with the air traffic
controllers.
How the fuck do you know that?
Speaker 1 (56:18):
You're a bit like me you know a whole lot about
nothing.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
No, but the difference is you're successful.
I'm a pathetic fucking loser.
So you know, you're big, tall,dark, handsome, with the
beautiful life and the beautifulwife and the successful life,
with the beautiful life and thebeautiful wife and the
successful life.
And here I am with a psychoticlandlord and I'm about to move
out of my little trailer thatthey're going to repossess in a
few months because I can'tafford it.
Speaker 1 (56:43):
So yeah, you and I are quite different but probably
a lot more similar than you'dthink it's.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
It's kind of weird, though, sometimes, looking at me
, like I'm that one, thatthere's something missing and
with every gift that god couldgive a man except height, every
gift humanly possible exceptheight, and I'm at the very
bottom of existence.
It's like what piece is missing?
You know, it's too late, I'mnever going to get much more,
(57:17):
but I look at that sometimes andI wonder like what piece was
missing that this man, who wasborn with literally every single
gift a human being can ask forin abundance?
Yeah, except height, and I'mbarely existing?
Speaker 1 (57:39):
On the next episode we finally confront Malachi and
we get to the bottom of thosemysterious accusations that a
listener emailed into our show.
Spoiler alert he's not toohappy about it.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Like you're going to destroy my life on the lie with
a sex charge.
A sex charge Do you know whatthat does to a man?
Like seriously, if I did it,I'd own it.
Fuck that.
This bitch has been stalking meever since.
Speaker 1 (58:06):
You won't want to miss it.
The Redacted Podcast isproduced by myself, matt Bender,
and my wife, pamela Bender.
Make sure to go out there andgive us a like, a share, share
it with your friends, rate us.
Every little bit helps.
Thanks for tuning in.
Thank you.
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