Hancuffed to Freedom

   A TV reporter for KOLD contacted me about doing an interview for Handcuffed to Freedom. She wants to interview me at the Prison Town Hall we're hosting in Phoenix, because she's doing a story about the conditions inside our prisons and she wants a human character to base the story around. A "human character."    I'm wary anytime I talk to a reporter, but even more so when they want to cast me a "human character." That's the problem I've run into when I speak as someone who is formerly incarcerated. I'm either cast as a victim of an unjust system (and while I believe we need a justice system that focuses on accountability rather than punishment, I am by no means a victim) or I'm paraded around like an oddity. Hey, check out the ex-con who's doing well, like I'm a bear that can ride a unicycle. Let me set this straight: I have no idea how to ride a unicycle.   I was about to say no on general principal until she asked if I ...

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. ~Aristotle. I love this quote. It reminds me how important my habits are.   I have made a commitment to update this blog once a week. I’m going to make it a habit, because I learned this secret about myself: when I actively work to change one habit, every aspect of my life improves. Everybody knows that prison doesn't prepare people to succeed when they return to society. In order to succeed a person has to figure it out themselves. For me, the changes in my behavior came from reading self help books, often ones that were considered contraband by the prison. Let me share with you an example of how I prepared myself for success despite the keen eye of the prison overlords. I knew from all the bad habits I had developed in my life, that my habits are my destiny. I knew my destiny didn't look too bright. I had to a lot of bad habits to change. One habit I knew I needed to work on was my financ...

July 17, 2019 I know. I know. I've been slacking when it comes keeping this thing updated. Life comes at you fast. After all the years I spent dreaming of all the the things I wanted to to do, I feel like I'm trying to do everything at once. Between working and exploring and building a videography business, trying to make a documentary is damn near impossible. To be honest, I didn't know how to tackle an endeavor that colossal. But that's about to change. I have been infused with a new sen se of purpose. With the help of an old film school buddy, I reframed how I want to tell the story. I want to follow a handful of people from different backgrounds, with different circumstances, and tell their story from the moment they get out through the first critical weeks. The problem: I would need to dedicate lots of time and money to accomplish that.  The solution: I may have found that money. I was fortunate enough to go to Netroots Nation in Philly- this huge convention...

May 17, 2019 I still have moments when I ask myself, is this real? I was driving down the I-10 this morning feeling bad about a certain difficulty I’m going through in my life right now and it hit me. It was like I was knocked out of my body, looking down on everything. I realized that I was in a car (my car) driving down the freeway to a job (my job) where I work on media projects (my passion) for an organization that works to reduce the size and scope of the criminal punishment system ( my fight).  I remember vividly a moment during my incarceration when I had 4 years of prison behind me and 4 ½ more to go. I was halfway through a journey in the depths of hell. I was in the grip of a heroin addiction, and as I sat in my cell with the lights off, I felt so alone, forgotten. I hated my self. I hated the world. I had no hope for the future. When I thought about what would happen when I was released, there was a blank spot. Critical error. File not found.  At that time I nev...

March 29, 2019 Today I’m going to talk to 900 5th graders about drug and alcohol awareness.

"I didn’t feel like a conqueror. I barely felt like a human being. But Shane stood there, all rugged bravado, master of his world. It made me want to stand up, hammer my fists against my chest, and welcome all challengers." https://www.southwestfolklife.org/the-convict-code/?fbclid=IwAR34lhnDCqjjXN7yXG7N0ANqLldMF8UQ2HTzPBiM31f9Odk8-jWIiOSHjuM

January 15, 2019 On the 22nd a group of us formerly incarcerated will be  headed to the state capitol for ASFC’s  # Reframingjusticeday . We actually have a shot at making some real change in the justice system. I’ve been chosen to tell my story at the press conference and I’ll be introduced by Piper Kerman, who wrote Orange Is The New Black. On top of that, I have an interview with a writer from the Arizona Daily Star on Thursday, about the Reframing Justice Day.  I’m kind of freaking out becau se less than two months ago I was sitting in a cell, hoping I would have enough money to buy a cell phone when I got out. Now I’m practicing a speech that I have to deliver to a group legislators and a phalanx of reporters with news cameras. It’s quite the change, I’ll tell you that. My story, the one I’ll be telling at the press conference, is not one I’m proud of, but its real. The only thing that’s keeping me from shitting in my pants is that we have a real shot at helping a ...

January 5, 2018 I pulled up to Del Taco today and I saw 2 Guys in Prison blues standing out front. Looking closer, I realized one of them was my old workout partner. I knew he was getting out soon, but what are the odds that I would run into him in the middle of the city on the day he was released? Recently my life has been one serendipitous moment after another. My old workout partner still had that feral, just-out-of-the-cage look in his eyes. It tripped me out because I remember how it fe lt that first day, how intense everything was, and even though it has only been a month, it feels like a lifetime ago. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have family out here and he has to stay at a halfway house. He knows about the documentary and I told him that I'd like to interview him about what he's experiencing. Now that things have settled down a little bit I'm going to begin filming later this month. A friend was generous enough to donate lighting equipment for interviews, and now wit...

December 21, 2018 Christmas shopping is hard. I have not had to choose anything in a very long time. Being locked up, I didn’t need to decide much – What should I wear today? Oh, how about the same orange outfit I wear every day? What should I eat for breakfast? Whatever the hell the menu says. What should I do today? The same thing I do everyday, Pinky. Now that I’m a free man I have to make all kinds of decisions, like what do I get my Mom for Christmas? I went to Wal-Mart yesterday and my  head almost exploded. There is so much stuff in Wal-Mart. Vibrating massage chairs, Bluetooth home audio systems, giant fuzzy pandas. And it was all coming at me at warp speed. I felt like sitting down in the middle of the aisle and throwing a fit. I think that 4 year old in the wrapping-paper section was on to something. How does anyone function in the world with all of the choices available? Despite all the fresh, newness of the world around me, I still feel prison following me, stal...

Dec. 3, 2018 I feel like a dog that got let off his leash, all excited, sniffing butts and peeing on stuff. This still doesn’t feel real. The night before I got out everyone told me, “Dude, you’re going to trip out the first time you go to a store.” I’m thinking, Yeah right, they’re just blowing it up, and making it more dramatic than it is.  Then, I walked in to the store. It was an out of body experience. The lights, the colors, the choices, the cashier ringing someone u p—it was so absolutely ordinary, yet completely alien. I hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before so I was running off pure adrenaline. Then I got an energy drink, and the world melted into a surreal puddle of swirling colors. Thanks to some wonderful people (Juliana and Nathan) we were able to film those first moments. We got some good stuff: at one point, as we were walking into Nico’s, a guy pulled up and rolled down his window. He says, “Congratulations, Homie.” I look at him sideways. He’s looking at the bl...

November 4, 2018 I’ve been reading this book called “The Power of Habit.” It’s mind-numbing how much of our behavior is governed by habit. Habits go deep. There was this guy, Eugene, who had part of his brain destroyed by a virus. He wasn’t able to make new memories. After he had moved into a new house, a doctor visited him and ran some tests. The doctor asked Eugene, “When you get out of bed in the morning, how do you leave the room?” Eugene couldn’t answer. He didn’t know.  Then as the doctor wrote his notes, Eugene got up and left the room. He went down the hall to the bathroom. The toilet flushed, the faucet ran, and he came back and sat down. It proves that the routines that guide our memory go deeper than memory, or even conscious thought. So much of our lives are scripts that we act out without even thinking about it. But one thing that we’ve got going for us is that we can consciously write those scripts. It got me thinking about how important it will be to develop good ...

October 23, 2018 This is the story of how cat shit turned my day around. This morning, as I walked to breakfast, I was lost in my thoughts, dreading all the stuff I had to do today. I have to workout and go to work and I don’t want to because I’m tired. And at work, I’m going to end up cleaning the line because everyone else is too lazy . . . As I continued to feel sorry for myself, I was almost too distracted to see the cat shit in the middle of the sidewalk. I barely missed  stepping in it. My thought process went like this: Whoa, I almost stepped in that. Is that cat shit? What’s cat shit doing in the middle of the sidewalk? And what’s a cat doing at a prison in the middle of the desert? I turned and continued on my way to breakfast. Good thing I didn’t step in that. That would have sucked. Someone’s probably going to step in it. Better them than me. I stopped. Maybe I should pick it up. No, why would I? It’s not like anyone would go out of their way to pick up some shit. I s...

October 21, 2018 I’m 31 today. I’ve spent 8 birthdays in prison. Almost one-third of my life. Weird. You don’t celebrate birthdays in here, because when someone finds out it’s your birthday the only party you’re getting is a blanket party — they tie you to your bunk with a blanket and beat the shit out of you. Only recently have I needed to remember how old I am. One time, in the middle years of my prison sentence, someone asked me how old I was. I honestly couldn’t remember.  I had to do the math. What’s strange is that when I was doing time, time ceased to exist, but now that my time is served, it ticks incessantly.

November 22, 2018 I’m thankful that this is my last holiday in this place.

October 18, 2018 They pushed my release date back to November 29th. Central office audited my file and found that they had miscalculated my end date. Apparently this is quite common. It reminds me of that commercial where that old guy in waders has a fishing line with a dollar on it. “Hey there, I gotcha a dollar —Ohp! Too slow.” I flipped out on the COIII. It was pretty out of character for me. I mean, he was totally being a pompous dick about it, but I shouldn’t have lost m y cool like that. It was like all this stress, which I didn’t even know I had bottled up, came to the surface. It was embarrassing especially after I have spent so much time working on self-improvement. I should’ve had more control of myself. I apologized to him afterward, but I could have gotten a write up. That would have pushed my release date even further. I can’t do that sort of thing out there. It just reminds me that self-improvement is a never ending process. And I know better than to put so much ex...

October 5, 2018 I hear about my friends and their lives now. They have kids and houses, and good jobs with 401Ks. I feel so far behind. I’ll be 31 and starting over from the bottom with nothing. In some ways I think it’s a blessing. When you’re starting from the bottom with nothing, life is so full of potential. I have this hunger — for life, for love, for challenge, for redemption, for experience — that burns inside me, not like a fire that flares up and dies, but like coals  that have been stoked for years so they burn hot and steady. I remember when I was “free” before all this, I was in a prison of my own making, ruled by fears, driven by expectations, controlled by addictions, and it took me losing my freedom to know what freedom is. It took me knowing death to understand what life really is. I’ve been thinking about going on a journey when I get off parole. I have this fantasy of drifting around the country for awhile, taking jobs here and there; maybe go work on the oil...

October 31, 2018 Since I wear orange everyday, this Halloween I’m going to be a pumpkin (same as last year).

September 5, 2018 My neighbor explained to me some of the reasons it’s so hard to transition to the real world. He says it’s because you’re going from a controlled environment where you’re told when to wake up, when to go to bed, when to eat, what to eat, where to live, how to live, what to wear, and how to wear it. You have absolutely no responsibilities other than mental and physical survival, and to do that you must develop a new way of being. You become hyper-aware of you r surroundings and potential threats, because there are people poised to take advantage of any sign of weakness. Your ability to project the potential for violence becomes the measure of your value as a man. Social exchanges are calculated. Emotion is weakness, trust a liability. Then they release you into the world with $100 and you’re told to be a responsible, effective member of society. You need to have a job, a place to live, manage your money, pay your bills, your fines, and you’re supposed to just snap o...

September 1, 2018 I’ve been doing an unofficial poll around here, asking people if this is their first time in prison. For roughly 4 out of 5 guys I ask, this is not their first time down. Of course, I then ask, “Why did you come back?” Almost unanimously the story’s the same. It begins with them doing really well al first, and then drinking gets involved. There usually is an unhealthy relationship that develops. The drinking leads to drugs, and that kick starts a vicious whi rlwind tour of crime, sex, and self destruction: The story is so common it has become cliché. I can’t ever drink again. I know that. Drinking opens the door for drugs. It’s just that for most of my teens and all of my adult life when I was out there, I used substances to have fun and escape. Now I’ll be building a life free of that. I don’t even know what a normal life looks like. I’m excited to find out. Now that I’ve been in recovery programs for quite some time now, I know how important it is to set the to...

August 28, 2018 Everyone in prison has tattoos. There are guys with their whole faces tattooed and you don’t even look twice, just part of the landscape. I use to wonder why everyone gets slung down when they get locked up. I told myself I wasn’t going to get any tattoos. Things change, though. I get it now, why tattoos are so big in here. Think about it: When you’re sentenced to prison you’re stripped of your identity; your family, your job, your girlfriend, your dog, everyt hing that made you who you were is taken from you. You’re literally stripped naked and handed a uniform. The uniform is identical to everyone else’s around you. You’re assigned a number. You’re told to shave your beard, tuck in your shirt, and stay in 704 compliance. Everything that made you unique or special is gone, and there’s an existential void inside of you. Who am I, you ask yourself, and as you look around at the cookie cutter world you live in you crave individuality, something to set yourself apart,...

July 23, 2018 When I called my mom yesterday, she answered with, “Congratulations!” “For what?” I said. “Your early release. Online it says your release date is August 17”. “No,” I said, but it sounded like yes. A strange alchemy started happening in my gut. “That’s like 3 weeks away.” “Yeah,” she said. “I called everyone and told them. Sam and Rita are buying plane tickets as we speak.” The alchemy in my stomach suddenly turned sour. It sounded too good to be true, like a dream. This is the place where dreams come to die. “Wait a minute, Mom. I better check with the councilor.” But as I waited to talk to the councilor everything took on a new vividness. Colors were sharper, sounds more pleasing to the ear, even the sweat on my palms was like smooth butter. I couldn’t help but feel giddy at the prospect of getting out in 3 ½ weeks. Time for me had slowed to a crawl and two and a half months might as well been an eternity. But 3 more weeks! My mind tore tread, going a million miles a...

July 18, 2018 A paradox of prison. Even though we’re locked in a cage, crammed together with hundreds of people in a small space, lacking all privacy, never alone, I pass people on the tier and see in their eyes a desolate hollowness. I realize that despite being in constant company, each and every one of us feels hopelessly isolated and desperately alone. Locked away in towers of self-imposed seclusion, we have hardened ourselves to survive, built walls to protect ourselves from our own humanity, for fear it will make us weak, and behind these stout walls we sit, aching in our solitude, yearning for a genuine human connection.

July 17, 2018 Since the monsoons have started, I make it a point in the evenings to sit outside, as far away from buildings and as close to the prison fences as I can get, and watch the clouds roll over the mountains in the distance. It gives me this powerful feeling. The air is cool and playful, whipping impishly one way and then the other, full of that musty earth smell that precedes a rain, and in the distance the thunderheads darken the sky, towering anvils, all bruised p urple and grey except for the tops where the setting sun lights it from behind, a luminous quicksilver outline that hugs the budding curves. Underneath, the mountains stand—stoic silhouettes. I watch this scene and there’s an epic majesty to it. What I imagine is a person who stumbles into a sun-dappled glen and sees a moose might feel. But there’s another quality to it, a feeling that comes from my gut, a calling, a longing, like the mountains in the distance, they’ve always been there, but, now—now that I’m g...

July 16, 2018 This morning I’ve been trying to come up with a list of all the things I need to do when I get out. But I have no idea. The only thing the prison told me is that I need to check in with my parole officer. What about job resources, or substance abuse classes, or financial assistance, or housing? They have no information here about those things. Nothing. So I’ve been asking guys around here what I should do when I get out. Most of them shrug and say something like , “You should go to Taco Bell.” “Yo, pick up an ounce and flip that shit, homie.” Or, most commonly, “Get laid man.” This is the sage advice one departs with from the Department of Corrections. No wonder so many people come back.

July 12, 2018 I signed my release packet yesterday. It finally feels real.

July 7, 2018 Working in the kitchen will really ruin your appetite. Today I made burgers. Directions: 1. Thaw frozen block labeled mechanically separated poultry (not sure what mechanically separated poultry is, but I picture a large grinder and a man standing next to it with a bucket labeled “beaks and buttholes,” a man in overalls, with a mullet and three teeth (his mouth hangs open like that because he can’t breathe through his nose, on account of a gator rasslin’ incident ) and as he pours that bucket into the grinder he lets loose a guffaw, a paroxysm of inbred merriment, a sort of ah-hught- hught, while the grinder “separates” everything in order to combine it into a savory butthole/beak paste. 2. Once thawed into a gelatinous blob the consistency of slimy paste, place in a mixing bowl. 3. Mix T.V.P. (textured vegetable protein) into the “meat.” (At the risk of making an understatement, any “meat” that you must add protein to cannot be of good quality). Scrape excess tendons ...

July 3, 2018 I went to medical, and as I was waiting, I got to talking with this guy. We’ll call him T. I was telling him how I applied for this fellowship on mass incarceration, and how my project was going to be about re-entry barriers and its effect on recidivism. He told me about a proposal he wrote on how to effectively transition prisoners to society. “It’s a four tier approach,” he said with a smile. It was a gentle smile under compassionate eyes. He went on to explain  that the main objective is to “change the mind, change the man.” The program would focus on rehabilitation, instead of just retribution. It would call for mentors on the inside, resource centers on the outside, education, and counseling to give prisoners the tools to turn their lives around. Later, he showed me this proposal, a hefty handwritten tome. He had told me he had sent a photocopied version to the governor some years back. “Did he write you back?” I asked. “Yeah,” he sighed, then smiled to cover h...

June 25, 2018 Is it strange that when I hang out with a convicted murderer we jam to Taylor Swift while we discuss philosophy?

June 19, 2018  The counselor told me to get my release address ready because we’ll be doing my release packet soon. My mom says I can live with her; she insists. However, since she lives in a 5th wheel trailer, it’s going to be a tight fit. While I was in prison, the economy took a shit, and my mom was forced to sell her house. Not to mention she co-signed on my film student loan, so while I’m nice and comfy in here, she’s got creditors hounding her out there. Needless to say  I have a lot of guilt over all of this. Now more than ever I know I must succeed. Not just for me but so I can give her, the person who has never given up on me, the life she deserves. She now lives in a 5th wheel on some trashy tweaker lot. But I’m so lucky to have family support, because compared to a halfway house that 5th wheel might as well be the Ritz-Carlton. It might be tight living, but I’m pretty much an expert on that, with almost a decade living in an 8 x 12 box. My mom offered to sleep on...

May 26, 2018 I’ve been working on this fellowship application for over a month and a half. Almost every free moment I have is spent working on it. When I tell people what I’m working on, a project to bring awareness to the issues of mass incarceration, their eyes glaze over and they nod. Their blank look says everything their mouth won’t. “Why are you wasting your time with that bullshit?” Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m just wasting my time. Maybe none of this will make a difference. But I have to believe that maybe, just maybe, it will. Even if it’s all for nothing, I have to try. Gives me something to focus on, something bigger than myself. And it gives me hope that I can turn this whole experience into something positive. That I can give meaning to it.

May 11, 2018  I got assigned to a new class. I’ve been trying to get into as many classes as I can before I get out. Problem is there are no classes on this yard. Even the A.A. guys gave up on us. The class I was assigned to is called “Cognitive-Behavioral Curriculum/Thinking For A Change.” It’s one of the few classes that D.O.C. requires inmates to take. It’s their shrug and sigh attempt at rehabilitation. At first I was excited about it. I thought maybe we’d go to a classroom where a trained professional would come in with lesson plans and all that. Of course not. Our teacher isn’t a teacher; she’s a corrections officer, our COIII counselor — an overworked, underpaid woman who barely speaks English. And our classroom isn’t a classroom; it’s an old storage room with bare walls and a cement floor. Since the electrical sockets don’t have covers on them, the wires stick out of the wall like dead tarantula legs in festive stockings. During our first class, after we had all taken our...

May 3 2018 It’s amazing how the right sunset — with an electric orange center that fans out in a haze and skips across the bottom of the clouds, going from a dusty peach to deep red, over pools of sharp blue sky that bleed into a royal indigo — can set you free.

May 2 2018 I’ve been in a funk all week. They still haven’t moved me to the three yard. Maybe they forgot about me. Still don’t know where my cellie is. He’s been gone a week and a half. I hope he is alright.

April 12 2018 I’m getting out soon, after doing 8 ½ years. That’s 442 weeks; or 3,100 days; or 74,400 hours; or 4,464,000 minutes. But who’s counting? I don’t know how I feel about getting out. It doesn’t feel real. It’s like how you know that one day you’ll die, but the idea is vague and distant, not really a part of life (Plus, you have that secret belief that you’ll somehow live forever and that keeps the fear of it at bay). It’s something like that. I know I’ll get out soon, but I refuse to buy into the idea too much. A part of me is afraid they’ll decide to keep me here forever. I’ll be at the gate, about to walk out, and they’ll shut it in my face. And then laugh at me, at how stupid I am for ever thinking I would have a life outside these bars. I remember the last time I got excited about getting out and how absolutely soul crushing it can be. It happened about four years ago when my ex-girlfriend wrote me a letter. She wrote to tell me how much she missed me and how she had...

April 29 2018 Now that I know my date’s right around the corner I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I know I need to process what happened but there’s not really anyone to talk to about it. After the accident everything was a blur. They told me a man died, but it didn’t feel like real life. It felt disconnected, like it was something I had watched on T.V. I knew I was supposed to feel something, but I didn’t. Everything was numb. It was as if my brain shut down, a part of it, the feeling part. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t want to think about it. There were indictments, court dates, and constant stress. Everything was falling apart and it was all too much. That is when I embarked on this quest for knowledge. I started reading books. Devouring them. Novels, religious books, books on quantum mechanics, philosophical treaties, conspiracy theories — everything I could get my hands on. I would stay up all night reading different books, underlining important passages. I was a detective...