The Price Of A Tweet
Sitting here in the day room waiting to use the Jpay I'm doing my best to keep the nonsense being bandied about in here from infiltrating my psyche. Oh god! I wish you could hear this shit—if for no other reason to give me the comfort of knowing there's a fellow witness to the buffoonery unfolding between these four walls.
The TV is unraveling an ever-repetitive, even more predictable, episode of Catfish on MTV. What part of this show is MUSIC will have to be explained to me by Peter at the Pearly Gates if he expects me to go in, otherwise it's to the sulphuric deep south for me. Another show about a never-ending series of suckers duped into thinking they're actually dating Chris Brown, or the late great Aliyah provides this prison peanut gallery a flowing wall to throw their shit at to see what sticks.
None of it sticks.
A rotating cast of about five interchangeable inmates dots the first three rows of bench seating in front of the idiot box hanging on the wall.
At this point, it's not even about the show.
It's about the flying shit.
Greg Giraldo, Louis CK, or Stanhope they are NOT; sadly, these twats spend their time taking turns trying to out do the last inane comment belched forth into the day room ambiance with their own personal brand of idiocy.
As far as I can tell, the success of each comment is based on whether or not it can immediately illicit a follow up comment. As per usual, all of the verbal brain children that have been floated into the ether this morning have been met with just enough silence to to establish that the next social brain fart isn't an affirmation of the last, but a new stinker entirely.
They all fall flat.
As they should.
This is why open mics at comedy clubs are so often painful events. No ones self aware enough anymore to act accordingly. At least at comedy clubs they're working on a craft and the audience is there by their own freewill. I should be getting a time reduction to my sentence for every minute I'm forced to spend guarding myself from the imbecilic ear-worms looking for a host with enough brain cells to quell its hunger pangs.
The prison day room is no fertile feeding ground.
It's the guy in the front row; a wiry guy with glasses too small for his head perched atop a nose that's too aggressive for his face that's shading a mustache that's too invasive for his upper lip, who resumes the festivities. "Her phone's all fucked up.."
Brilliant observation Seinfeld.
It turns out to be a success because an aging piece of chewed bubblegum in the second row, the de-facto coach of my former softball team and also the motivating factor for my early retirement from the sport, adds, "She probably got pissed and threw it. 'I knew you were talking to that bitch!’..."
I had no idea that while waiting for a Jpay kiosk I'd be treated to a one man pantomime show by Daniel Day Lewis method acting as a sexual predator.
Oh JOY!
"That's why you gotta delete that shit," adds yet another champion of modern intelligentsia in the second row.
So now were assuming that the bubblegum's hypothetical reason for the phone mishap actually happened and are now narrating advice to keep this nonexistent affair secret?
OK. Just checking...
"I always delete my shit…" said I don't know and I don't care.
"Chino....Chino!" (that's my prison handle)
"Yo."
"You waiting?"
"You KNOW it…"
And just when you think you can take no more; just as the ear-worms are on the precipice of burrowing irretrievably deep into your grey matter; the Universe stops traffic...
And opens up a Jpay kiosk so you can send out a few tweets.
Thank you...