PRISON PORN

 A unique part of the prison experience is the opportunity to converse with all types of people. Most of these people I would never have come across in my lifetime. To learn about other cultures only makes us better people. 

At the same time when meeting people from outside one's social construct, we quickly learn that tastes, preferences and proclivities are radically different across cultures. This is no way more evident when it comes to our tastes in women. I am a white guy, in case it isn't obvious from my picture. White people, for the most part have the same idea of what constitutes beautiful, attractive or shall we say HOT! Sure, some of us have individual preferences about sizes of certain body parts but in general our definition of beauty is the same.  Now I am not saying this to objectify women in any way; indeed I have two daughters who I would never want objectified. At the same time it is natural for men to be attracted to beautiful women just as it is normal for women to be attracted to good looking men. The fact that I had a lack of success in finding a high school  girlfriend is clearly the exception that makes the rule! 

Now, growing up in my sheltered little world, I had no idea that this definition of beauty is not universally accepted! This became apparent to me as I was reading People Magazine one night in prison (prisoners will read almost anything). There was a picture of Jennifer Aniston lying in a bikini at the beach somewhere. Now any straight male who group up in the 90s  had a celebrity crush on Ms. Aniston, present company included. So as I was reading, or shall I say gazing at the "article" my bunkie Lorenzo said to me "you think she's pretty?". I was like ummm yeah, you don't? Lorenzo then proceeded to tell me that he thinks she is "alright" but for him a real woman has "something you can grab on to, she needs some meat". As I digested this information I was dumbfounded. I simply did not understand. Lorenzo might as well have been speaking Chinese. In case it is not obvious Lorenzo was also night white. It became clear to me that Lorenzo grew up with a radically different version of what beauty is.

So I started to pay a little more attention. To be clear, there is no pornography allowed in prison. Even if someone's girlfriend, wife or baby momma wants to send her man a proactive picture to shall we say make him happy, the picture must cover up certain body parts. Remember they open all of the mail in prison so it isn't like something will get through if it is not permitted. Ladies, take note, when you send a picture to an inmate, the less clothes you are wearing in the picture the higher the likelihood that your man is going to show the picture to all of his friends and hang it where everyone can see it!

The same rules that apply to pictures also apply to magazines. For example, while you cannot get Playboy in prison, you can get the Sport Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, which you are obligated to share. Now one would think that this would be enough for most men who have been away from home for a few years. One would be wrong. As I mentioned I started to pay attention a little more so that I could learn to be more accepting of other cultures. I started to notice magazine pictures hanging inside other inmates' lockers when they were open. These were magazine pictures of women who were not wearing very much. They were also very very large women, hardly my definition of beauty and hardly women who in my sheltered world should be posing for these types of pictures! For all the white folk out there, I will try to give you an example. First, think about the fattest white actress there is. Now, imagine her replacing Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls. 

Naturally, I was curious where these pictures came from. Now I had to be careful, because I did not want anyone to think I was interested in purchasing these types of pictures; I just really wanted to learn. So I approached my good friends in the Black community with who I had a very good relationship. I have always prided myself on being able to get along with all people and I was quickly embraced by the Black community in prison. Also, nearly all of the women in the pictures were black, so it kind of made sense. What I learned was that there are semi porno magazines specifically made for prisoners! The publishers of these magazines, undoubtedly former prisoners, know exactly what can be or cannot be shown in these pictures. Prisoners, or their relatives  pay a monthly subscription fee of around $10 to have these semi-porn magazines delivered directly to the prison. Unbelievable! I was totally floored! Also $10? Seriously?

So for those of you who think you will end up in prison one day and need this type of entertainment, the good news is that there are magazines made specifically for you. On the other hand if you are a run of the mill white dude, you are probably going to have to expand your horizons! 

What Will They Say At Your Funeral?

 I have some bad news. I am dying. It may be morbid, but I am sitting here envisioning my funeral; who will be there an who will not.  I have the vision of my body in a pine box being lowered into a 6 foot grave. and the dirt being thrown on top of my coffin where it will remain forever. I have the vision of my family saying the Kaddish-the Jewish prayer for the dead as they lower my body into the ground. I have the vision of the 7 day mourning period known as Shiva beginning immediately thereafter. I have the vison of meeting God, assuming He or She exists,  and pleading my case for salvation as the heavenly prosecutors detail every bad deed I had transgressed. And finally I envision my existence fading from the memories of my friends and family as they resume their lives in my absence. The thought is sobering. 

When I say I am dying, I do not say it in the sense that I am terminally ill or that my dead is imminent-at least I hope not! There are those who obviously beg to differ. I say it in the sense that we are all dying. With every day, we are one step further from our birth and one step closer to our expiration date. There is no escaping the sad fact that the only thing that is certain in life is that at some point it ends. We all just hope that we make the best of the time we have. In other words, live every day like it's your last because it just might be. Perhaps this is coming to mind as I live less than a mile from the building that collapsed in Surfside where nearly 100 people were killed in one of the greatest tragedies in I have ever witnessed. None of those people went to bed that night thinking they would never see the light of day again. But then again no one ever does. To face our own mortality runs counter to the super ego embedded in the psyche of most living beings. To dwell on it makes it impossible to live. However, to keep it in mind allows us to live life to its fullest and cherish all of the good in our lives. 

It is worth noting that I left out part of  my funeral. I left out the eulogies. There is a Kabbalistic teaching that a person does attend his own funeral and sees the people that attend and hears the words of praise, or lack thereof that are uttered while his body lies in state. As a former felon this is extraordinarily sobering. For me as well as for many who found themselves in prison the last thing we want is to be remembered for the fact that we went to prison. It is hard enough that we have lost months or years of the relatively short amount of time we have  in this world. That however pales in comparison to the thought that the time in prison could be our everlasting legacies. If we committed crimes is that how we would want to be remembered? For those of us who wish to live the answer is no. For those of us who do not wish to live, well you can read this from three years ago http://www.whitecollarguru.com/2018/06/suicide.html

The advantage of having spent time in prison is that when we get out we value the simple things in life. We realize that every day is precious and time is not to be wasted. We realize that we must put every single day to good use and become productive members of society. We also realize that life is too short to be wasted on people who are well, just not good people. Every moment counts. We are on a constant mission to redeem ourselves so that we are not defined or remembered for our time in prison. 

So, how do we do that? Well that is a damn good question. At the end of the day there is no silver bullet to securing a good eulogy. That being said, there is something to be said from being knocked down and getting up; from losing everything and rebuilding; from facing despair and moving on. I think that is the answer. At my funeral, no one is going to speak about how much money I made or didn't make after I was released, even though starting a new career is no easy task. They are not going to care how many boards I sat on. They will certainly not speak about my adherence or lack of adherence to religious doctrine. So what will they care about? I think they will care about the fact that we as former prisoners resumed our normal lives. If we were good people and upstanding members of society after our release then they will speak about that. I'll be happy if someone would just get up and say "he was a good guy who was kind to others and lived life to its fullest". Whether actually does say that remains to be seen. So, to my fellow former inmates, What will they say at your funeral?