Free On Amazon This Weekend ONLY!

This is not much of a blog, I just wanted everyone to know that my book, Prison Diary(a): A San 
Quentin Comedy, Kinda is free to download on Amazon.

Here is the Amazon address http://geni.us/32qF

This originally started out as a way to share my San Quentin experience with my wife (after I got home). It was too traumatic and depressing to describe it in letters while I was going through it. With no phone access, all we had were pencils and paper. I didn't want to scare her, let her know I was completely overwhelmed and barely keeping it together. Instead, I channeled everything in to my "dairy." What I started noticing is I was finding a lot of things funny. There was humor in the experience if you looked hard enough. The jokes actually made the situations easier to deal with. I found comedy to be a defense mechanism.

That defense mechanism allowed me to write a book that completely goes against the grain of a typical book about the prison experience. Is it dark too? Absolutely, but it had to be, it's prison. Prison sucks.


Everything in here is 100% true.

It is raw.

It is dirty.

It is real.

The last part of the book is designed to help those who are struggling with themselves. How often do we find the biggest obstacle to success is staring at us in the mirror? I go through my strategies that helped me overcome the greatest mistake of my life. Maybe the greatest mistake of anyone's life that I know. So I know they work, and I am living proof of their power.

I want my experiences, and my perspective to help those out there that are struggling with themselves. You don't have to have gotten in to trouble to gain from this book. You could be on the verge. There could be hints of it. It is never too early or too late to start getting better, being better.

Who are you supposed to be? What were you born to be? What greatness are you holding back? It's time to find out.

I hope you enjoy the book.

Please leave comments on Amazon. I can't wait to hear your reaction.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Joey

www.prisondiarya.com

My First Day In Prison

This WAS my first day in prison. At San Quentin. I pulled this directly from my book, Prison Diary(a): A San Quentin Comedy, Kinda. Enjoy! I didn't!

Day 1

Really long day. Slept on a bench last night in the county jail. Don’t worry, I had a dirty t-shirt for a pillow. Super comfortable. They got us up at 6am (not like any of us were sleeping). We had to strip naked so they could check if we were carrying any paraphernalia under our ball sack or in our buttholes. Just a room full of dudes, naked, bending over and spreading our butt cheeks, totally normal. When I first came in to county and they asked me to lift my balls and spread my butt cheeks, bend over and cough, I asked him if he was serious. How big are your nuts that you can hide anything behind them? Maybe roll something in to them like a tortilla? What the hell is going on down there? And who is going to go through the trouble of shoving something up their butthole and letting a little piece of it stick out so the guards could see? If I am stuffing anything up there, it is going all the way baby! Go big or go home!! Even though you can’t,you are in jail. I had been in court all day, there was no way I was stuffing  a weapon or drugs up my asshole at 8am and then sitting on it all day. Just  for the record, it’s not like I would have brought it in that way no matter what the situation was that day, but you know what I mean. We got dressed up in our transfer gear: orange jumpsuits (just like the movies! Orange Is The New Fucked). They wrapped a chain around our waists,chained our handcuffed wrists to our waist, and attached another chain to our feet which was then connected to our chained up ankles. Basically, we weren’t going anywhere. I mean, we could run, but it would have to be really fast baby steps. Fence climbing is totally out at this point.  They loaded the “dangerous” guys first. I don’t know why I put dangerous in quotes, the dudes in red are dangerous as shit. They had their own separate cages, dressed in red instead of orange. Crips and Nortenos are twice as angry at this point. They are heading to prison AND they have to wear red. Poor guys.

We loaded on, two to a seat even though it was really made for one. Even the big fat guy got stuck next to someone, luckily it was the smallest dude in the group. From what I learned later about the little guy, I don’t think he was too upset about having to snuggle up next to a big ‘ol teddy bear.

You are on the road before the first light, peering through the bars in the bus, trying to catch a glimpse of anything familiar. Keep in mind, I had only been outside once in the last two weeks, and that was basically in a huge concrete box. All I could see was the sky. They had all sorts of fencing and barbed wire at the top of these 35 foot walls. Who the hell could climb up there to even need the fencing? There must be some pretty acrobatic dudes in here, or guys still high on PCP. Those guys are nuts. Don’t mess with someone on PCP, they are like the White Walkers in Game of Thrones. Anyways,we were squinting, looking at “home” through the windows. It felt like a field trip in elementary school (if field trips were years and years long). It was raining so we could barely see anything, but just being out of the cell felt amazing. We are on the road with everyone heading to work, the traffic was pretty bad in a couple spots, but the longer we were in the bus meant the less time we were at San Quentin. We thought the CO was messing with us when he said we were going to SQ.

“Ha Ha. Very funny copper.”

He wasn’t kidding, not that it would have been that funny of a joke anyways.

It takes about an hour and a half to get there. I had never even driven by San Quentin before. The only visual I had was from Metallica’s St. Anger video they had done about a decade earlier.  That was all the visual I needed. This is going to be so fucked. All the guys in county were telling me how everyone goes to Delano for reception, no big deal. Dorm living, people are laid back, blah, blah, blah. No one mentioned SQ. Dickheads.

So we are all breaking our necks trying to catch a glimpse of our new home. It is worse than any of us ever could have imagined. Huge walls,shitty, run down houses surrounding it (I am guessing where COs live?), all gray, dark, ominous, just awful. We pull through the gates. It is still early enough that no one is out at yard yet. We see mostly old buildings but pull up next to a modern one. My thought was, “ok, there are some old parts, but since we are only here for a little while, we must be staying in the new part.” I was totally wrong, but I didn’t know that yet. We get off the bus, check our names against the roll sheet, and strip naked, again. Do a nuts and butts check, again(like we stopped off for some heroin and weed on the way in). Then finally we get our SQ blue uniforms. Keep in mind we are in San Francisco at 730am in February. It is freezing. All the COs are wearing beanies, gloves, and huge jackets. We are standing in front of a wide open door, butt-ass naked. It is coooooooollllldddd! Not the most flattering weather for a gear check either.Just saying, I had to postpone my Playgirl photo shoot that day. I was experiencing Minimus Wienerus. Very humbling experience so far, not expecting it to get much better. 

The hallway is lined with holding cells. Imagine walking through a hospital but instead of rooms there are big steel doors with little windows and a bunch of sad people dressed in orange inside. That’s what this hallway looks like. They put us in to our holding cell: 12x12, maybe 15 ft.ceilings, off white walls, two 4ft. benches, sink/toilet combo thingy, and we wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

Finally they move us to a different holding cell so we can take pictures for our badges, finger printing, and do our check in interview.

This is how the interview went:

(just for the visual, I am in a tiny office and the woman interviewing me is about 6’3,240):

CO: name?

Me: Joey Reghitto

CO: Age?

Me: 34

CO: Height?

Me: Six foot one

CO: Weight?

Me: 210

CO: Highest education level?

Me: Master’s degree

CO: What the fuck? What the hell are you doing here?

Me: Made outwith a senior in high school.

CO: That’s it? 

Me: Yup

CO:Bullshit. You fucked her.

Me: Nope.

CO:Bullshit. She sucked your dick.

Me: Nope.

CO: Hmmm.What’s the deal?

Me:  I was the Assistant Principal.

CO: Oh.Shit. That was dumb.

Me: You think?

CO: Didn’t you have a lawyer?

Me: Yup.

CO: And you still got prison time?

Me: Yup.

CO: Should have gotten a better lawyer.

Me: It’s looking like it. 

CO: Well, I hope it was worth it.

Me: Of course not, (chuckle) are you serious?

CO: Yes I am.Next!

We went back in to the holding cell to wait for everyone to finish, then we headed back to our original holding cell.

We waited.

And waited.

And waited.

They brought us a bag lunch: two pieces of bread wrapped in cellophane, packet of grape jelly, a packet of peanut butter you have to rub together (you look like you are trying to start a fire with sticks) so it will come out, milk, and two squares of a graham cracker. Bon apetite!

There was a clock on the wall in the hallway, so we knew exactly what time it was, and there was room in the cell for some people to spread out on the floor, or on the benches, but not really. It worked great for the 5’0 Pisas (unaffiliated Latinos), but not for me. I was the tallest and subsequently the most uncomfortable. The guards came by and dropped off the sheets and blankets that we will be using (one thin white sheet, one thin wool blanket, and one thick, super itchy wool blanket) and some guys tried to sleep while we waited. Nothing like concrete and wood benches for sleep, but when you are up all night you can pretty much sleep anywhere. Not me. ADHD had my brain spinning out of control. I just sat there, and thought. Blah.

Dinner came by around 630pm. Salisbury steak? I think. Boiled green beans, piece of lemon cake or something, and some milk, all on a maroon cafeteria tray with a spork. After dinner we had medical checks. We had to see a couple different nurses, get some shots, and then talk to a psychiatrist to see if we were nuts, if we were going to commit suicide, stuff like that. My answer to the suicide question may have been different if I had seen where we were going to be living before the interview, but I didn’t, so the answer was “No.”

I came to SQ a few days before the Super Bowl (Seattle v.Denver). There was a TV in county, so I was able to have my heart broken by Seattle a couple weeks earlier. I thought maybe there would be a TV in here too. The building we were in was nice, there was no reason to think the living situation would be much different than county (I was very wrong), so I was shooting the shit with the guard about watching the game. He said there are some TVs in the cell blocks, maybe I would be able to see one from my cell. Cool, I thought. One small victory. Got my blood pressure taken, temperature, flu shot,etc. Then I went in to see the psychiatrist.

This is how that conversation went:

Dr: How are you?

Me: Fine, not great, obviously.

Dr: Are you feeling depressed, sad, anything of the sort (he has a Russian accent also, so add in your head while you read).

Me: How could I not be, look where I am?

Dr: True true, but are you suicidal? How are you coping?

Me: I’m still here

Dr: Ok. Good. I overheard you talking about watching the Super Bowl with the guard out there. Are you a football fan?

Me: Huge. I love it. (I’m thinking we will start talking about the game).

Dr: Have you been so privileged in your life that you have not had to worry about physical harm before?

Me: Wait. What? I guess nothing out of the ordinary. Why?

Dr: Because you are getting ready to go in to a penitentiary,and you are inquiring about a football game.

Me: Yeah?

Dr: What you should be worrying about is being murdered. This is a very dangerous place, with dangerous people. Inmates are stabbed and killed here all the time. But your thoughts are on an American football game?

Me: Well, not any more.

Dr: Keep your eyes and ears open, be safe. Bad things happen all the time. Next!

So, if things weren’t bad enough, they got WAY worse after that conversation. Holy shit. This shit can’t be like the movies, right?

Back to the holding cell, this time only for a little bit. We got pulled out about 8pm. They line us up, hand us a piece of paper with our assignment on it: Alpine 318L. Here we go. My heart is beating out of my chest. My eyes are scanning everything as we walk out of the nice building we have been sitting in all day and head towards what looks like castle walls towering above our heads. They were so close together it felt like they were holding us in(which, I guess, ironically, they were). Bright lights in certain places, pitch black in others. Cold and wet, COs yelling at us to hurry the fuck up, calling us retards and faggots. We pass a handful of other, towering buildings as we are forced to stay on the yellow line. All the nice buildings are where the medical offices and holding cells are, the rest looks like a medieval city. We walk around the corner and see two towering doors wide open, must be home. We walk in, the hallways were damp. Metal staircases, barbed wire, guards lined up. It looks like there are four cell blocks connected on either side of a hallway, stairs towering up the middle to get to the level you need to be. We walk in to the first door on our left. The noise from the different cell blocks was echoing throughout the hallway.  Yelling,chanting, anger, aggression, pouring through the cracks. We walk through the “Alpine”door, and it hits you like a fucking train; ho-ly shit.

If I were going to write down what I thought prison would be like (I mean before I got there, obviously), if I was thinking worst case scenario, this is honestly worse than I could have even imagined, but I can’t say I was shocked. You walk through the door and are looking down a narrow room,five stories high, towering windows on the right wall, bridges, catwalks, barbed wire, and rows of tiers and cells on the left. Arms are hanging out the cells,holding mirrors, middle fingers from others. Trash is flying down from the upper tiers. Yelling and screaming the most horrible things.

“Fuck you guys,”

“Where are you from?”

“I’m going to fucking stab you.”

“Let me see your buttholes.”

“You guys are going to die.”

All kinds of the worst shit you could possibly hear in this given situation. Actually, I can’t think of any situation where you would want to hear the shit they were yelling. We could be at Disneyland, and if someone yelled at me, “I want to see your butthole,” or “I am going to slit your fucking throat,” the day would have just taken a dramatic turn for the worse.

I’m going to die?

Great.

You want to see my butthole?

Splendid.

We are a bunch of faggots and we are going to get fucked like faggots?

Aw, shit. Sign me up!

They line us up on the first tier (where the biggest nut bags are housed) and how do they make the situation even better? You guessed it,they made us strip naked (again) and change in to different blues, right thereon the tier, right in front of everyone.

Voyeur much?

Holy shit.

Naked?

Again?

When  does the fun stop?

So the guys really do get to see our buttholes? Perfect! I hope mine was just dirty and hairy enough to deter any carnal thoughts,actually, deter any thoughts that weren’t, “ew, look at his butthole.”

After we changed, the guards asked if we were retarded and if we were going to stand there all day or get up to our fucking cells. I wanted to be retarded, but that really wasn’t an option. My cell was on the third tier, so I had to walk up the narrow staircase in the middle of the block,everyone asking where we were from, throwing stuff at us, mirrors everywhere,trying to catch a glimpse of the new guys. I get to the third tier, turn to head down to my cell, and all I see are mirrors sticking out of pitch black cells. I am zoned out at this point. In a trance. Fight or flight. My mind was going so fast I could barely processing anything. I must have been in survival mode. I get to my cell, total blackness. Guys on either side asking where I’m from, telling me they are nice, I can talk to them, to help them pass stuff down to other cells. I just stand in front of my cell and wait for the bar to get thrown to get in. The “bar” (literally a bar that goes along the top of all the cells to keep them closed) is on one end of the tier. It allows the guards to control the cells being opened or closed. If the bar is not “thrown” you can’t get in to the cell, even with a key. I walk in, my new bunky turns the fluorescent light on, and I am home.

I didn’t check out any cells as I was walking up. Actually, I wasn’t looking because I didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone. I was terrified, so this was the first I had seen what I was going to be living in. It was TINY! Like, holy shit tiny!Two people? In here? Are you crazy? It was smaller than my bathroom! The foot of the bunk bed basically butted up against the cell doors, the distance from the side of the bunk to the wall was about two feet, and the distance from the back of the bunk to the back wall was just big enough to fit a small toilet with a little leg room. 4x9? 4x10? Holy shit. How long am I here? The crazy thing was I was watching The Rock (great movie) the night I left county and thought,wow, those cells are small. And that was for one person! These are the same damn cells but for two! Shit! How old is this place? (Later found out it was builtin 1852) I am living in a historical landmark, without many updates. I’m surprised we aren’t living by candlelight. I guess they are just keeping it OG. 

Completely overwhelmed, my bunky tells me where my shelves are and which bunk is mine. He is posted on the bottom bunk, and I am in no mood to argue (even though I am “L” for lower bunk), so I hop up on the top one. The shelf is so close to the top of the bed I can’t turn on my side all the way and even have trouble rolling over. It is about a foot off the bed, if that. Man, this is shit. I know I am in prison, but fuckin’ a.

My bunky seems like a cool enough guy, said not to get too overwhelmed (easier said than done my friend). He said he cried the first night he was here (the first time he was in, three times ago), and that it was awful here, but it will be fine, just run a program (have a routine) and it will help. There are some crazy ass people in here (I am sure you are shocked to hear that). I am already feeling lucky that my dude at least seems normal.There are others that couldn’t fake it even if they tried.

He tells me we get out of the cells for about 40 minutes a day. 20 minutes for breakfast and 20 minutes for dinner. We pick up our bag lunch at breakfast on the way out of the chow hall. If my math is right, that means we are in our cells 23 hours and 20 minutes a day. Once or twice a week for yard (1 hour), and a couple times a week for showers (10 minutes) and that’s it. I am in a concrete bathroom nearly 24 hours a day with another human being. I have no idea when I transfer out of here. Could be a month, could be three,some guys have been here nine. Total crap shoot. Actual, total crap in general.All around. Everywhere. Smeared on the walls.

Not much to say or do, so, lights out.

But no sleepy for Joey.

I am sure you are not surprised that I ended up having a hard time falling asleep. This place is so loud. Yelling, screaming, chanting, all kinds of stuff. It sounds like a big angry party. If you didn’t know better you would expect to see people out walking around, but they aren’t, all the conversations are being yelled between guys hanging on the bars of a prison cell. Surreal. My mind is racing, my heart is racing. I am in prison. I fucked up so bad I am now in prison. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck me. I hate my guts. I fucking hate the shit out of myself. I have for the last year and a half. This brings it even more to a head. Fuck. Laying in my bunk, looking through bars at a sign that says: There are no warning shots in this cell block. This is what I have become. What a shitty son I am. Fucked up husband and father, friend, grandson, nephew, everything. I am fucking loser. A piece of shit loser. Fuck myself.

My Worst Day In Prison

Spoiler Alert!!

There is no spoiler alert.

This story isn’t in my book.

If you have read Prison Diary(a): A San Quentin Comedy, Kinda, (please write a review) you know I had some REALLY bad days. REEEAAALLLLY bad. (If you haven’t read it, what are you waiting for? Paperback. Kindle Version) All the fights, murders, threats, screaming, stripping down, and booty hole checking were better than my worst day in prison. That is saying a whole lot by the way (for those who have read the book, you know exactly what I mean).

The Day

Four months after I left San Quentin I was at the beautiful CTF in Soledad, CA. Actually, CTF was not beautiful at all, but the valley was. Soledad is a gorgeous place, but it was very central valley of them to put a prison there. Short-sighted to say the least. It could have been another Napa, or Santa Ynez Valley. It’s that beautiful and they have the second best soil for growing grapes in THE WORLD, but prisons are easy money, and the central valley is all about easy prison money. It was actually “nice” walking back from chow in the mornings on my “weekend” and looking up at the mountains that separated Salinas Valley and Carmel. I was very blessed to be there instead of some place outside of Fresno or Bakersfield, the crown jewels of the California prison system.

It was towards the end of July and I hadn’t talked to my wife or parents in over a week. The phones were down for repair. This was confusing to everyone because we used payphones. I am pretty sure on a scale of 1-10 the level of technology needed for these phones was somewhere around a zero, so I am not sure what needed to be fixed or what took them so long, but who am I going to complain to? Someone who doesn’t give a shit? Exactly.

The phones were finally up that Sunday night. We were finally able to line up and get our loved ones on the phone, connect to the outside world, the real world. Night yard was only an hour, so my time was extremely limited. I got though the line, made it up to the phone, dialed through the operator, beep boop beeped my wife’s number, and I can hear it in her voice as soon as she answers. Something is very wrong.

“Babe, I know there is not much time and I need to tell you something……”

Ok  

“It’s your mom. She’s sick.”

Sick how?

“They found tumors all over her body. It’s in her pelvis, her lungs, her shoulder, and a little spot on her skull.”

*silence

*gut punch

*searching for breath

“Babe? Are you ok?”

*holding back tears, barely.

*Eyes watering,

*lump building rapidly in my throat

Is it, is it, going to be ok? How bad is it? *voice quivering

“They don’t know yet. She has tests this week.”

Fuck.

Ok.

Shit.

Fuck.

*loudspeaker “Yard recall. Yard recall.”

Babe, I gotta go.

“I know. I heard. Are you okay?”

Yeah. I will call you if I can tomorrow.

Please tell my mom I love her.

“I will. I love you. It will be ok.”

I love you too sweet baby. Goodnight.

*click

In a fog I walked across the yard. Everyone streamlining in to the buildings. Program over for the day. I was in a bubble. Eyes down, thoughts lost, body collapsing from the inside out. In to my cell block. Loud, bright, inmates everywhere. Half naked ones that took a shower, blues and beanie caps for the ones that were out on the yard. Bro hugs for friends, kissing for those in relationships. Cleaning up the tattoo guns, wiping the blood from their brand new work, tucking everything away before the guards comedown to lock you up for the night. You better be by your door or you are going to have a long night.

Walking in a fog through the block.

Walking in a fog up the stairs.

Silence.

I can’t speak.

My brain is spinning so bad I can’t even send the signal to my mouth to move.

I am gone.

I am lost. 

Mom.

Fuck, mom.

I am so sorry. I am so sorry you have such a fucking loser as a son. You are wonderful, I am just a piece of shit.

I am so sorry mama.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. I broke down completely. Between tossing and turning, wiping my tears and blowing my nose, time nearly came to a standstill as I waited to talk to my mom or dad or anyone on the phone the next day.

Tumors?

Cancer?

Her hip? Lungs? Shoulder? A spot on her head?

That’s everywhere!

That is her whole fucking body!

My mother has cancer all over her entire body. She is going to die. I have never heard of anyone with cancer all over their body that survived.

My mom? Dead? Fuck.

Lungs?

Head?

Shit.

My family is dealing with cancer out there and I am in here for the next 2 months.

Will she make it 2 months? Will I ever see her again?

How bad is it?

Could she survive this?

What the hell kind of cancer spreads all over your body like that? How is she going to survive? She’s so young.

She has had to deal with her idiot son for 3 years. His embarrassment, his bullshit, his trial, his prison time, and now this.

FUCK ME!!!

FUCK!!!

There is nothing I can do. The one thing I could do, which is be there, is impossible because I am such a piece of shit. I am in fucking prison. Now my mom is going through cancer, my dad is going through my mom’s cancer, my sister is going through my mom’s cancer, and her piece of shit son is in Soledad like a fucking loser. Not like a fucking loser…. A. Fucking. Loser.

FUCK!!!

FUUUUCK!!!!

I hate myself. I could rip my face off right now. I could smash my head in to the wall. I deserve it. Crush my own skull by bashing my head against the concrete over and over again. Let my brains ooze out of my eye sockets. Blood gush out of my ears. Beaten until I wasn’t recognizable anymore. I would be on the outside what I feel on the inside, a disaster. A piece of shit disaster. Mangled. Destroyed.

Staring at a concrete ceiling, in a concrete room, in a concrete building, surrounded by multiple fences and barbed wire, guards with guns ready to shoot without warning, and me. And my thoughts. My poor mother. Fuck. The hell I have put her through. My poor parents. My poor family. I wish they had been abusive. Been shitty parents. I wish I had a shitty wife, shitty kids, but I don’t. Everyone is perfect, and I am fucked. It’s all me. I am sitting here, crying my eyes out, my stomach turning over, stab wounds ripping through my abdomen, a vice around my head, tightening slowly, and it is ALL ON ME. I couldn’t make an excuse if I tried. I couldn’t blame anyone but me. It is all me. I am a sack of shit. FUCK myself.

FUCK ME!

(Video link: F.U. ME).

Longest night of my life. I couldn’t wait until yard the next morning. Hopefully the phones work. Hopefully they answer when I call. Will they know more information? Is my imagination making this worse than it is? Is it worse than I think it is? Could all the stress from the last few years have caused this? All the spikes in cortisol and stress hormones feeding the cancer cells that have exploded all over her body? This is my fault too. Shit. All my bullshit is going to kill my mom. I want to die. Fuck. I hate myself.

All I can do is wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And……

Wait.       

The Following Days

I was able to talk to my parents regularly over the next few weeks. They slowly got more information, and the prognosis was good. It was a very treatable type of Lymphoma. It was everywhere, but it hadn’t invaded the tissue of her lungs, her brain, or her spinal column. She was starting chemo in a few weeks, and with the gaps in-between treatments, I would be out in time for her second appointment.

Exhale.

All the treatments worked. I was able to go with her to some of the appointments (including the one on New Year’s Eve clearing her of all cancer cells). Me and my bald mamma. I could finally be there for her. She could finally stop worrying about me, and give her body a chance to heal. She got that time, and it did heal, miraculously. The doctor told us after that he had never seen someone recover so quickly from such a devastating amount of cancer. He showed us her initial CAT-Scan and it was even worse than I had imagined. It was literally EVERYWHERE. Now it was nowhere. Absolutely amazing.

Days like the one I had back in July of 2014 are brutal. Worse than getting arrested, worse than having my face plastered all over the news for two weeks (that was pretty bad too), worse than getting sentenced in front of a courtroom full of friends and family. (And when I say full, I mean overflowing with supporters.) And worse than my first days in San Quentin (which you can read about in detail in paperback here, and on Kindle here. Remember to rate it when you’re done! Thank you!).

I pray that my stories will hit you in a place that allows you to evaluate where you are. You do not want to be in a position where you are separated from your family in their time of need. You need to be there. Stop all the BS and get your shit straight. Man up (or woman up) and clean your closet. You deserve it and they deserve it. It’s all about choices, it’s all about where you want to be and where you allow yourself to go. Make the right decision. It’s all on you.

Joey

www.PrisonDiarya.com

Amazon Author Page

YouTube

And virtually ALL social media. Come find me!  

Some great books for your journey: The Success Principals, Mindset, Unlimited Power, Radical Acceptance, and of course: Prison Diary(a) – A San Quentin Comedy, Kinda. The last section is all about working through your issues and becoming the best you that you have ever been. 5 Steps To Freedom!

Prison Diary(a) - Part I

Introduction

I can’t sleep.

Inmates are screaming at each other.

They are angry.

The guys from the third tier are threatening to slit the throats of the guys on the fifth tier. It’s supposed

to happen tomorrow morning.

It’s 2am right now.

Or it’s 11pm.

It could be 5am.

There no clocks,

but there are bars.

There are no colors,

but there is concrete.

There is cold air whipping through the cell block, in and out of the cells,

but there are no clocks.

This is my life.

This is what I have done to myself.

I fucking hate myself.

To be honest, it’s worse than that.

I hate the fuck out of myself.

Is that possible?

What does that even mean?

Who gives a shit? You get the point.

Did you know they don’t let you bring weapons to prison?

There are no guns allowed here, I am sure you are shocked.

If there were, I would kill everyone around me,

or I might just kill myself.

How the fuck did I do this?

How is this my life?

Contents

1. The Prison Diary(a)

2. Do You Believe in Second Chances?

3. The Diary

4. Life After Quentin

5. Afterthoughts

6. It’s Your Turn!

7. Becoming The Best You

8. 5 Steps To Freedom:

- Truth

- Health

- Education

- Get Some Balls

- Find Mentors

9. The End

Prison Diary(a)

Everyone has made mistakes.

Some big.

Some small.

Some people cover up their mistakes by twisting and turning the facts to make themselves feel better.

They say, “It’s not a big deal,” or “it’s someone else’s fault.” That way they don’t have to feel so bad, right? If it didn’t hurt anyone, it must not be a big deal. If it’s not a big deal we can just ignore it, right? Having that inner dialogue is a sure sign that you are fucked. Maybe not now, but it will happen. You are a ticking time bomb.  If you tell yourself that story, the mistakes and issues will never get resolved. The same mistakes will be repeated over and over without ever gaining a true understanding, without ever fixing them. You will just say, “it is what it is,” or “you pushed me to do this,” or “this happens all the time, I am just like everyone else.”  

It never starts out that way. When we do bad things we feel bad about them, at least at first. “Why did I do this?” Leads to, “Why do I keep doing this? Leads to, “Well, it’s not hurting anyone,” leads “Maybe it’s not that big of a deal,” and finally, to that “thing” having a place in your life. It is here to stay and you have justified it. Maybe it is so bad that your strategy is to try to ignore it in the hopes it will go away. Maybe it was a one-time thing and it really will never happen again, but you don’t know why it was there in the first place. Because you won’t tell anyone, you may never know why you really did it, and that can make it more dangerous, even catastrophic. 

You never give your secret a chance to see the light. You never admit that it is a problem. You never admit that it could affect (or is affecting) your life and that it can be fixed. Keeping it a secret is just keeping it in the dark, all alone, hidden, hoping never to be found. The funny thing about lying is, when you lie to other people you are really just lying to yourself. You start to believe the bullshit you are telling (or not telling) other people, and it makes the problem seem smaller, more manageable, no big deal. You’ve done it before, lied so you didn’t have to admit something you did wrong. Even if you can’t remember the specifics, you remember walking away going, “Holy shit! They bought it! Whew!” Meanwhile, it is rotting and festering in whatever dark corner you have placed it in. It may not be seen, but it’s still there, eating away at you.  

I’ve made mistakes, some small, some eeeeeeeenormous. Like, Hindenburg enormous. Like ’89 Loma Prieta earthquake enormous. Can’t relate? That’s good. You are either lucky or not an asshole keeping secrets. I’m hoping for the latter.

I have made a big enough mistake that I went prison, and lost my career. Two degrees and ten years of service down the pooper.

The silver lining? With big mistakes come big understandings. With big understandings come big changes. Those understandings, those changes, the realizations, all of it, will guide me and haunt me, push me forward and pull me down the rest of my life. Will I do something great? Or will I fail? Should I even worry about failing? What’s failure to someone like me? I have failed enough for 10 lifetimes. What’s a bump in a road after that? After all this shit I can pretty much handle anything.

I like to look at myself as the Henry Ford of life.  He would say, “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

BOOM!

Maybe Thomas Edison? “I have not failed, I have found 10,000 ways that do not work.” Maybe I haven’t failed 10,000 times, but that one failure felt like 10,000 put together.

My favorite is by Winston Churchill, “Failure isn’t final.”

*choir sings “hallelujah!!!”

There it is.

That’s me.

Do You Believe In Second Chances?

Do you believe that people know who they are?

I mean, really know who they are?

That they can take their mistakes, realize how they got there and correct it?

That they can rise above their errors and live the life they were supposed to be living in the first place?

Do think a good person can do something bad? Does that then make them a bad person?

Maybe you have never had to ask those questions before.

Maybe you have had to ask them too many times.

So what was this huge mistake of mine? A brief relationship with a senior in high school. Not terrible you say? Well, I was the assistant principal at the girl’s high school. Aaahhhh! There it is.  By brief relationship I mean a few weeks of texting back and forth and one night at a park (just to be clear, no sex, no oral, nothing like that). Think of it like in Old School where Mitch hooks up with his boss’s senior in high school daughter, except there was no humping, and we didn’t meet at a fraternity I started in my 30’s. Six months later, two girlfriends get in to a fight, the backstabbing ensues, and one tells of the others’ “relationship” with the assistant principal, and KABLOOEY! My stupid face was on everything in the SF Bay Area for the next two weeks. Charges: Sexual contact with a minor under the age of 18. So not only am I a total dipshit, but the whole world knows it, at least everyone in my world. To make it crystal clear by what I mean when I say my world: I worked at the high school I went to in the city I grew up in. So when I say everyone in my world, I mean EVERYONE. 

Obviously the next 19 months of preparation for a trial and the preliminaries did not go well (at least for me, went great for the prosecution), or this book would have been called Being A Dipshit Sucks, or My

Life As An Asshole. But it is what it is, and here we are.

As devastating as this whole thing was for everyone, this experience has allowed me to dig deep in to myself, and come out with a clear understanding of who I am, and who I allowed myself to be in the past. I have never had more clarity in my life. I am 100% focus from the second I get up until I go to sleep. My routine: sleep, grind, sleep, repeat. My life is full of purpose, preparation and goals. Church, therapy, meditation, and honest reflection have put me in such a special place as an individual, better than I have ever been before in my life. I wouldn’t have gotten there if I hadn’t royally butt f’d myself…… and learned.

Will my past follow me forever?

Will people give me a chance?

Would you give me a chance?

I was able to come through this with my foundation intact, my family. Like in the Western spoofs where the chubby protagonist hides behind a skinny tree while bullets are being hurled at him.

*The bullets stop

Heart? Check.

Arms? Check?

Nuts? Check.

Whew!

I lost everything else, but still had what was most important to get through it, love.

I hope you realize how vital love is to getting through something as devastating as this, having friends and family embrace me. When people mess up, it is not okay. Nothing I did was okay in the least. I am a fucking idiot, but I may not be here if it wasn’t for love and support. The onslaught may have been too much for me to handle. Remember that when someone close to you messes up. All you need to say is, “I love you. We will get through this,” just like my mom did. After the dust settles, then you can get to the, “what were you thinking?” and “let’s go see a therapist and psychologist you dummy.” Maybe even toss in a, “you are a fucking retard.” See how it feels, try on a few insults, they deserve it. They may not want to hear it, but they deserve it. Can’t argue facts. You can be mad at them, but remember you may be all the support they have. Are you mad enough that you are okay with them not being here anymore? That’s the question you have to ask yourself. I am pissed, but do I want them to kill themselves? That’s the choice you have in the reaction you have. And just so you know, if you say, “Yes, I want them to die” you are an asshole, and they may have issues because you are such an asshole. Just putting that on the table. Let it marinate.

If we are being honest, and we are, everything in life is how you react to it.

Can a single event ruin your life?

Can one person ruin your day?

Is your day over because there was traffic?

You can’t go on because the chicken is burnt?

Is your life crumbling around you because someone didn’t “like” your selfie?

Life is your reaction. You make the moments. How are you going to respond to what you are dealing with?

Are you a victim?

Or

Are you a victor?

If you react like it was a moment in time, which is what everything is, you will be able to handle anything life throws at you. If you react like everything is devastating and catastrophic, guess what? You will have a bunch of devastating catastrophes in your life. Think about the people in your life. Who are the victims? Is it you? Do you blame everyone else for what makes you unhappy? Is it their fault? Do you have the worst luck? If you say yes, then you are a victim. Fix it.    

Now that we got all the formalities out of the way we can get to the good stuff, the diary, or diary(a) as I like to call it (pronounced diarrhea in case that was not clear).  This is a day by day, sometimes hour by hour collection of my time and thoughts at the beautiful and luxurious San Quentin State Prison. Fucking horrible place. How did I deal with it? I didn’t really. This diary helped, making jokes about the situation, letters to and from my family, and that’s it. I like to think of this book as a comedy, probably a dark comedy at best. It’s like a Judd Apatow movie, really funny, but some very poignant parts, emotions, real life, etc. Actually, It may not be funny at all, you tell me. All I know is I laughed, but I had to. It’s a laugh or cry kind of situation. I think there is some funny shit, even funnier when I look back as a former resident. Not quite as hilarious from my teeny tiny cell as I was writing it. I hope this gives you some insight to what it is really like in prison (spoiler alert, it sucks). Hopefully you have never been there before, and if you have, only once. If you have been more than once please figure your shit out. Little ridiculous you didn’t learn the first time. There are guys that have been in there 30 years that would kill (pun intended) to have a second chance at life, and they may not ever get it.

Please keep in mind before you read this that the emotions are raw, and the language reflects that. This is not a PG book. I didn’t want to edit the language because it reflects what I was actually feeling at the time. It’s not pleasant, but it is honest.

In the afterword I will give you a step-by-step on how to figure yourself out, clean out all the crap, and

be the best You possible. There will be no excuses for not being great after this, I promise. 

Where do I get off giving life advice you ask? The dipshit that went to prison?

Great question!

The short answer, I have lived it.

I have been up, then way down, then higher than ever (no weed involved, sorry Colorado). I have read the books, studied the experts, experimented, refined, and implemented. I know it is my journey and my strategies, but it can be the start of yours.   

Enjoy my shitty time in prison. I know I didn’t.      

“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” – Oscar Wilde

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