who here is been in jail or prision. What is that like?

Jail is drama city. You've got people coming and going, people in for probation violations, people in and waiting for their court cases to be heard, and it's just a hot mess. You don't dare talk about anything to do with your case if it hasn't been heard yet, because you're surrounded by people who will sell you out to get a better deal.

Prison is a whole other level. There's still the drama, and basically how I would describe it is high school all over again, except that the cool kids have knives. You've got your white supremacist gangs, your Mexican gangs, your black gangs, and the Russian guys nobody dares to mess with. And basically, you've got a couple of choices. You either keep to yourself and interact with nobody, or you find a gang that causes the least amount of drama and join up, if they'll have you. Or you can do what they always tell you to do in the movies, which is fine the biggest guy on the yard and take a swing at him. That will land you in the infirmary, but everybody will assume you're crazy and leave you alone.

I'll tell you the funniest thing I found about prison. Even when you take away money, and leave people without currency to trade for stuff, they will determine that something new is currency. When I was there, it was envelopes, or just lopes for short. Everything people wanted to sell, they wanted a certain number of lopes. You wanted a scoop of coffee mix? That's two lopes. A soup? That's one lope.

I bought a piece of artwork once from Keith Jesperson, the Happy Face Kіӏӏer. He sold it to me in exchange for a box of colored pencils and three Manila envelopes. Two of the envelopes were for him to take apart and put together so that he could fit the art in them and mail them to my house. The third one was as a mailing fee. (I later sold it to one of those weird serial kіӏӏer fans for like $200.)

The dumbest thing I would say I saw in prison is the way different gangs claimed certain cell blocks. Like, how TF are you going to sit there and say you own the cage the state has you locked in? That's just a sad, pathetic attempt to regain control of your life.