"The Best Things In Life Ain't Free"

May 29th, 2026

When I'm wrong I own it. Literally a bitter pill, Pals and Gals. Saying dropping the lost 'War On Drugs' in the hoosegow and doling doses free to inmates fixes yard-crime? Overarching issues proved I haven't earned the nickname "Quitler" (Queer Hitler) exiled ex-pal Adrian* dealt me. Maybe I seem adorably hardcore right wing sometimes but totalitarian master planner? S'pose I blow, Dudenheimmen.

     This yard's littered with trash Landscape cant fix with weekend overtime. Making dope this cheap and plentiful for folks who grew up in desperate digs or came into them so some slob could collect a check was accelerator a flame-job doesn't need. "Batmama - you do them drugs too, right? Ain't you bein' a hypocrite (unreasonably in the voice of Cletus Stuckler from 'The Simpsons')?" you'd say if anybody read this blog. Astute observation, Imaginary Chum.

     Back in '23 after Mom died and the year before it I got punished when "canteen restriction" deprived me dough to blow behind the fence. I hustled for it, washing other guys' shoes, dishes, shirts, icing their coolers, and anything inmates would pay a go-getter to go get after I grabbed up. I became Dorm 5's "Do-Boy" the better part of 2022.

     Eventually I got hollered to help old inmates pack when they split, toted a morbidly obese fellas books back to the library, and then started doing things like writing for illiterates. I offered help to one inmate who looked desperate for some. That became my first essay leading to Simmons College and degrees I and I'm getting not to mention this space physically and metaphorically. Hunger grew me into my niche. Through that period I didn't get high Ill add.

     Lemme explain: Dads mom Juanita, "Mee-Mee", if I'm being delicate was a monstrous pain in the ass. Especially my poor martyred Mom's. Before Dad bumped himself off apropos of nothing he felt a need to say " if anything happens to me, you're not responsible for my mom". During a mental health crisis in '82 he dropped lots of "What If..." scenarios. "Shame Gary didn't leave a note or something" shocked adults said at the funeral. Anyway, Juanita tried lobbing blame on my mom for her only kid's self-extinction. Mom didn't call her per Dad's orders when debilitating depression hit. Refusing to tell her this, she tolerated my grandma's abuses, becoming her "Do-Girl" unlike Dad advised her 'til Juanita exited without thank yous. She died like she lived: bitching.

      Mee-Mee's terrorism was curbed by a prescription for Buspar, a mild sedative to take the edge off. She required the gallon Family Size by her lonesome. Mee-Mee told Mom one day she thought she needed off "them pills". She was afraid of addiction. Mortified picturing a world with this bitch minus her Doggie Downers, Mom assured the lady there's only one problem with being an addict: if a body can't AFFORD it and she had Medicare. Later, Dr. Housman tried to take her off the relaxants and Mom made a visceral visit to his practice getting them refilled stat.

      That's blue-collar drug philosophy I got raised with: "Don't do drugs you can't afford, Todd." Thanks, Betty Jane! Pearls these YAPs** can't fathom. Most were raised believing drugs come sideways to food in household needs. Since the drug-splosion of the New Dark Ages (see last blog: "Being A People Got Hard, Huh?") they know nothing else. Many never saw Granny (chosen child-raiser 6/10 of the time) sober nor Daddy without his jumpsuit.

Breeding isn't the lone divider. If you read that last blog item I talked on the medicating aspect of opioid abuse as ADD/ADHD drug instead of painkilling euphoric. A number of inmates mirror me. Getting my fix gets me to work. Can I write without it? Yeah, I've tested that. Long pieces carved out in the hole prove it. The difference? Special Management's a concrete chamber without a whisper of distraction. Out here with flying monkeys its a beast, the remote changing channels in my cranium surfing endlessly until there's nothing on but Ridiculousness. Whaddya know, I take after my OTHER Mama - Magnavox!

Dealing with recurring dope-pression in the mid 20-teens I sought therapy the first time ever. This gent didn't take my insurance but dropped a "Fantastic 4" comic ref my maiden visit, so I regarded this as kismet. We carved a sliding rate to keep the relationship alive setting the pace for all mine since. He decided my disillusionment resulted from not being able to sustain endeavors. Being creative, intelligent, and ambitious was worthless because I couldn't maintain thought processes or psychic stamina to manifest my goals. This would end with me collapsing, each time shorting out to a near tabula rasa - a depressive blank slate.

     He administered an ADD/ADHD test I passed//failed (?) with flying colors. Recommended was I hit up a prescriber with the results and go from there. My then-boyfriend hippie-shamed me about this choice, likely with his brain altered on weed. The sanctimony of being a half-asser on Goddess-grown grass naturally allowed for 'conspicuously green' arrogance. Shortly after I had the godfather of all breakdowns, lost everything I built for 25 years then three years later came to this prison. Here I learned who I've always been but never met. I've said before if someone in your care orbit says they have ADD/ADHD don't shrug them off as drug-seekers or slackers. Investigate, assist, then respond like a person.

     "Spig returned to Wonderland. If you read Blog #2 "Winter Shipping Spig-Tacular!", you recall I loathe that product. Every time it hits the place it goes upside down immediately. People are reduced to poop-piles in a twinkling. My beloved almost became my aborted over it. A man I love like oatmeal (thats EPIC, Holmes) turned into an unrecognizable crack-head jerk over fake weed. A week after it split? Repentant, kind, sacrificing, and everything I love the redneck of my dreams for. Seriously, these people go junkie about it. They fight, fuck, cheat, check in, extort, steal, and end up filling buses each instance of it on these shores. I find it OK but usually the first 30 minutes is amazing and after that I'm about a) sober and b) broke.

     Last week the interim guy I spent my time with got pink-slipped. He almost eclipsed my primary relationship momentarily. There for two months while me and mine had the ill communication I grew strong feelings. My only reservation was his dope-drenched lifestyle. Too many of my precious seconds left on this dirt-and-water ball of baloney was hearing about, joining his pursuit of, and in the company of devotees to O.J. My needs come through a window (usually - they've not had mine four days now and my stomach, back, and head are feeling it) then I'm straight. Off to greener pastures like writing what you're reading or homework. I want to create, learn, and be entertained.

      Under Stories, the two chapters "All Messed Up With No Place To Go" and "Dude Awakenings" discuss cultural overabundance with drug chatter and my lifelong exhaustion over that topic. Boring as snot, and sole one for the rabidly empty. Any conversation starting "One night I got so..." runs me off the table quick as a "The Connors" marathon.

This furthers my deafening pleas for educational endowments replacing "free" money. Its yet to solve anything but cyclical hunger of individuals only produced for the need to solicit the funds to start with. Ask somebody in captivity with a populace of paycheck people. Cap the number of dependents eligible and reallocate the savings to empowerment of the resulting population. Solving poverty to the extent it can be is paramount. Especially if we pursue making America a global epicenter for evolving culture.

     More real-time attention please from parents, grandparents, and educators on focus-challenged kids. TikTok demonstrates the morays and attention spans of today's Young Americans. This foretells worse than the imaginable. Every season's crop of youthful offenders becomes more horrific. I can't insert humor here. You rescue the world when you save them.

Last week I talked about the unaccountable nature of working in Corrections and "Failing Up". Batmama and Robbers proudly announces the Lifetime Achievement Award, the living embodiment of this politic goes to: Northpoint Aramark Kitchen Manager " Robbie"! This man takes useless slob up to hyper-drive, Kids. Never in my decade here have I heard even the faintest praise for him. His Junior Exec Mizz Connie is loathed by many, but acknowledged by the fair-minded as strict but balanced (I like the dame - she remembers my "blue pack" sweeteners every morning). Lazy, incompetent, rude, stupid, and overpaid are a kid-friendly sampling of the comments-box slips on her superior.

     Only on Thursdays does this disaster schedule pizza or tater tots which conflicts with paid meal handouts ALSO done only on the latter weekdays. This allows him the convenient excuse the handouts can't be done or have to be moved a day, week, or even two. Actually it allows him to procrastinate extra inevitable tasks related to his compensation. When holiday pie orders were taken, loads arrived and vanished under his eye and watch and had to be replaced fucking up Thanksgiving for inmates whose families plopped down payment so their loved ones could eat well that day. Unaccountability exponential. Anywhere else he'd be a distant bad memory like a fart at the dinner table one Christmas.

Luckily this week I was gifted a Chow Hall/kitchen survey. I was balanced because others perform well despite turds rolling downhill. Especially a lady named Missy nobody badmouths. I was denied a piece of chocolate cake last week through no fault of hers. I went to her immediately to try for a fix since it was all I went for. A lady guard I used to like with an hideous neck-beard was an ass about it. Missy, I could tell was about to handle it because she's fair and doesn't take her personal damages out on the inmate population.

     My comments on the survey: "Missy is competent, professional, and courteous with appropriate boundaries. The entire outfit runs better and the product is too when she is present. Robbie the kitchen manager on the other hand is a parasite on the payroll for a decade now. He is lazy, incompetent, and needlessly rude. He should be walked off the premises and not allowed back. FEED THE RABBIT AND STARVE THE TURTLE."

New crop of property at the R and D pickup window! The top item and maybe coolest thing I possess now - The Humanities In Minutes Boxset. Four delicious volumes with 800 entries, a pic on each. Architecture ("Metabolism" style of post-WWII Japan was the baddest-assest new-on-me item), Mythology (the curmudgeon running the joint had me Magic Marker redact the boobs, butts, and baloney-ponies of paintings and statuary - I axed how I'm supposed to masturbate to it now), Psychology, and my joint Philosophy (Ernest Gellner isn't in the index, shaking a mad fist at the sky). Reference for tons of papers without the net and a font of daytime reading!

For the bedtime set, Tom King's "Batman - Brave and the Bold: The Winning Card" was more of the same without a trace of complaint. The prestige-series vibe from "Batman/Catwoman" intact and a scarier POV on Mr. J I cant recall. Everything King touches is "the best I ever read". His elevation of the medium astounds. Life experience in overseas counter-terrorism informs his thorough and habitable universes, and my first encounter with art by Mitch Gerads hopefully starts years more. This is astounding and makes me sick I can't be out there exploding with the like-minded digitally when these things see print. 13 months, Nerds!!

Next "The DC Book" subtitled "A Vast and Vibrant Multiverse Explained" thus far earns the claim. An intro by Grant Morrison succinctly breaks down this Earth's origin story regarding the parallel worlds and their evolution. A hungry passerby with enough comic knowledge to be dangerous got his scope embiggened by taking in the page, happy for it. Entries done a'la the DC/Marvel Encyclopedias explain all cosmic aspects of the Warner property layman style. Recommended fun, informative for any stratification of pop-nerd.

     Also bought but not even cracked yet - "Challenge of the Super-Sons" and "Justice League Incarnate". Old news to yous fellers and fillies I'm sure...

One music track of note. This ain't even brand new, a jewel nonetheless..."To Get Home" - Phony Ppl feat Leon Thomas and The Soul Rebels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pni-LTW9pw

Dear Mr. Ppl, please create an album of collaborations for me to spend all my moneys on. Yours last year with Ms. Thee Stallion is my second favorite of hers beside the one with Renee Rapp, that's not your fault. This track and the ensemble brought together sail seamlessly into the Funkusphere without corruption of any party's mission. Fly that Mothership into these nebulous ears s'more Cap'n...

K, I'm whupped. Midday nap-time for this ol' Bat...xoxoxoxo

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* Adrian was an ideological soulmate who haunted the 3 Honor Dorm. He shot his boyfriend at the kitchen table with his own mama sitting there over the dude saying something stupid. Claiming to loathe Gina, a very neo-liberal yard-girl, they were having a weird clandestine affair with notes and such jazz without contact. Gina claimed to be a lezbo, only digging other trans-wimmins and not hairy bald effeminate men wearing itchy trigger fingers.

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A. got busted by the brass sniffing G.'s dirty drawers and tossed in the hole. He arrived scared to death here in Dorm 5 like it was San Quentin whining to me about accommodations in solitary, where I've got fucking season passes. I turned on him, sickened by this crybaby attitude.

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Notable: he was straight until he got involved with a woman on the street who turned out to have a schlong. Including Lil' Bro Brad I've now met two who've had this happen since being here. Neat, huh?

**Young Ass Punks, if this is your first visit.

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