Latest / Red Onion Randy - Life in a Supermax Prison / Glad to Be Back

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Glad to Be Back · Red Onion Randy - Life in a Supermax Prison

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Hello, this is a prepaid call from Branda and make it the Virginia Department
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of Corrections rent Onion State Prison to accept this call. Chriss zero. This
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is Randall Vaum. I'm currently serving one thousand, two hundred and fourteen years
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in Wallace Ridge State Prison for capital murder in Big Stone Gap, Virginia.
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This is my podcast. We're in on your rand. I hope you enjoyed
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listening to me today. I want to remind you that I have a toll
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free number for you to call and either leave a message, ask questions for
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what have you In the US, it's one eight eight eight five two four
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one nine two and for international, just put a plus in front of the
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one. It's been a while since you've heard from me. It's been a
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couple of months, actually, I'll apologize for that. Due to situations out
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of my hand and my producer's hands, we haven't really been able to record
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or anything on my ends. I got transferred from Red Onion up here to
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Wallace Ridge and we've been on lockdown after lockdown after lockdown. It's been ridiculous.
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It's been uh, it's been fight after fight. It's you know,
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several murders. There's been numerous ods, and quite a few of them resulted
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in death. You know, I apologize for the delay, but we're back.
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Might not be every every week as we have in the past, but
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we'll we'll do it best to do it every few weeks once a month until
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we get back into the swing of things, and then we'll see what happens.
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Either way. I apologize for the delay, and I'm just going to
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give you a little update of what's been going on in my life. As
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I've spoken previously. You know, when I was at Red Onion, I
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put in for a transfer, transfer after transfer after transfer, and no one
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there, counselors, unit managers, blah blah blah. They they basically refused
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to put me in for a transfer. So I had to go outside to
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prison to Kay Gardner, who works for the Interfaith Action for Human Rights out
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of Washington, DC, and she went to David Robinson and Rose Durwin talked
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to them, explain to them the fact that I'd been sixteen and a half
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years. All those seventeen years charge free, I only had eighteen security point,
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which is you know, a level three. You know, I completed
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all of these programs. I have my ged I have my podcast. I've
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been doing good. I was a part of the documentary and I had earned
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and deserved a transfer, you know. So originally they promised me a transfer
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to Keene Mountain in a single cell pard Well, that fell through. Six
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months later they told me, well, you have to do one year in
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a level five population because previously I was in a level six population before I
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went to the level five. I didn't like it, but I sucked it
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up and I did it. I actually gave them eighteen months, not twelve.
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I waited a year and a half before I tried to get transferred again,
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and that failed. Gay Gardner went back to David Robinson and Rose Durbin
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and was pushing for a transfer again and told them, look, y'all said
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a year. He gave y'all eighteen months. A year and a half of
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being in a level five population of red Onion. He's now a special assignment.
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He does all the painting and b building on his side. He does
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the floors, he does the feeding, He basically does every job up there.
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What more do y'all want from transferred this man? You know? And
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at this time I was trying to get sent to Buckingham, which you know
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is only thirty minutes from where I live, so I can actually get some
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contact visits from my brother and my nephew and maybe a few other people you
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know who would be willing to come see me. You know, it would
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be a lot easier. It's much more convenient. They can fly either into
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Richmond Airport or to Charlottesville Airport or what have you, and things are good,
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they can come see me. So like, that's what I wanted.
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And they've got a single cell pod there, and it's a level three slash
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four, so you can't sit there and say we can't send you there because
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it is a level four. Instead of transferring me there, they come and
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packed me up and transfer me to wall was Ridge, which is frid Onion's
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sister prison, another supermax. And as I said previously, when I got
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up here, you know, they tried to put me in the gang part.
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They tried to put me in the cell with a dude from the Arian
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Brotherhood whom I'm known to dislike. And I had to be like, look,
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man, i'm a single cell. I'm not going in the cell with
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nobody. And then the lieutenant wants to get small out of his mouth.
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Well, you can go to seg Brod'd rather be in SEG. Man,
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I've been in long term solitary for seventeen years. Like, man, you
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think I'd give up about going to SIG. So they put me in SIG
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and you know, as I was walking in, I saw the warden he
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put up on me talked to me. I'm like, dude, I know
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about your single cell okated, why didn't you just try to put me in
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a cell with a gang member? But anyway, it worked out. I
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spent the night in SEG and then the very next day they brought me over
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to A four, which is a single cell part And I've been here ever
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since, you know, pretty much on lockdown for most of it. But
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things have kind of calmed down now. And that warden, that assistant warden,
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unit manager rental, the chief of housing, and a couple of captains
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and what a bunch of people up here in the administration all got fired.
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All. I was told that it was over a scandal. I don't know
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the real reason why they got fired, because I don't really know any CEOs
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up here that I can talk to and that I can trust. To tell
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me the truth. So I just kind of let it go. It doesn't
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matter. They got fired. The good thing is they brought up ar Trip,
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who I've known a red onion for years, and they also he's the
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warden up here now, Jeffrey Artrip, and he's the I mean, excuse
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me. The assistant warden is Blevements and I've known Blevans for twenty two some
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years. He I was his houseman when he was just a regular floor officer,
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a regular guard like now he's worked his way all the way up through
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the rings sergeant, lieutenant, captain, major, and now he's the assistant
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warden. So I'm practically grown up with this dude. And uh, you
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know, I talked to him, and I talked to ar Trip and everything,
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and uh, basically, no matter what, I'm not getting transferred off
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of off of Walling's Ridge anytime soon. I did have a really good conversation
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earlier this week with Warden R. Trip, and he actually listened to me,
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Like you know, normally a lot of people like that in his position
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here to go do one in right out to others. You can just look
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at them and tell they're not listening. This dude actually listened to me,
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and he actually because I was talking like, look, dude, if y'all
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don't want to transfer me, that's fine. It sucks, but it is
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what it is. I can suck it up and deal with it because there's
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just no point in crying over it, though I'm still pissed about it.
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So look, man, bring level three to me. I said, I
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know y'all have guys up here and Walling's Ridge and Red Onion where y'all we've
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earned our right to go to Lowlands, but y'all don't want to send us
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to lowlands. And for example, Lowlands, when you hear me say Lowlands,
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Walling's Ridge and Red Onion are built on top of mountains. They actually
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came in with dynamite and bulldozers and blasted at the top of the mountains off
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to build these two prisons. And they're your level sixes and fives. All
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of your level fours and threes and twos and ones and whatnot are not into
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mountains. They're down in lowlands. That's what lowlands means. But I told
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him, look, man, why don't y'all start a pod up here that's
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a single cell pod for guys like me and a couple of other guys that
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y'all don't really want us to go down there for whatever reason. And y'all
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take that part and you make it a level three, so we'll get the
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exact same privileges that the level three into two get. We'll wear their same
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clothes, we'll wear the other we'll get the boots, we'll get the DNIM
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pants, we'll get the DNIM shirts and everything. We'll we get pod wreck
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all day long. We can go in and out the cells. I can
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go in the cell with somebody. If somebody can come in to sell with
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me, we get their commissary. We get to buy what they buy.
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We get real shoes, we get sweatpants and sweatshirts, which we're not allowed
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to have. I can buy shoes, and I was just forced to buy
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a new pair of shoes which didn't rent a white man. I didn't want
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to spend that money on that, but it is what it is. But
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they got velcrow straps on them, you know, because we're not allowed to
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have shoe laces. But like, we get real shoes and everything, and
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I might. I was telling him about that, and he was like,
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you know what he said, that's a damn good idea. He said,
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that's a really good idea, and then I started to talk to him about
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his sentence because I'm like, look, dude, y'all don't have no incentence
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for us to behavior our sales or to stay out of trouble. Because I
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can catch a charge this morning and put in a order for commissary or TV
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or what not tonight. All I have to have is money to buy those
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things. I don't need to be charge free to buy those things. And
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that's really like, that's it. I mean, you can buy a TV
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and commissary like there's no one sent it. So I actually sent him.
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I gave him a couple of ideas, and I told him, look,
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because I'm only allowed to have fifteen phone numbers on my call list. So
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I said, look, if you're two and a half years charge free,
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you get twenty phone numbers on your call list instead of fifteen. If you're
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five years charge free, you get twenty five or thirty phone numbers on your
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call list. If you're over ten years charge free, you get unlimited numbers
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on your call list. You can call whoever you want to, as long
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as you can pay for it. Yourself. You can call as many people
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as you want to. And I was, like another thing, if you're
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charge free, you can buy your own sheets and towels and wash calls.
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Because the stuff we can hear that the state gives us is garbage, Like
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my cow is probably as thick as one of your bit sheets. Like it's
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horribly, horribly bad. So let us buy this. You know what it
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can't be. It can't be white, because all the state stuff is white.
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That way, if you do get locked up or something, or you
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get transferred, they won't take your stuff from me. And it can't be
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gang coach. It can't be red or blue for the crips and bloods.
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It can't be yellow for you know, Latin kings or whatnot. Like it
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has to be like either gray or brown. And the added benefit of this
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is it actually saved the state money because if I'm charged free and I'm buying
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my own sheets and towels and pillow cases and sheets from the street, I
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can get nicer sheets, no silk, no sat and they have to be
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a cotton or cotton blend of course, and everything. So like I just
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I do some of them out at him, and he was like, you
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know what he said, man, right, write some of these down and
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send them to me in the malt and I so that's what I did.
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I came up with I believe fifteen of them, and which I don't have
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them out here, and I don't remember all of them the top of my
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head. Maybe I'll do another podcast and bring it out and actually read all
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of them off to y'all. See, I'm getting better understanding what I'm talking
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about. I just I came out and from this, you know, from
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this point, and like he really liked what I said. So hopefully,
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hopefully I can make some changes here, you know, in the way they're
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running things up here for guys like me that they don't want to send the
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lowlands, then bring the lowlands to us so we can actually have real privileges
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and get the stuff that we've earned. Because in my darker moments, I
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can't really frustrate him, like what's the point in me behaving myself? What's
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the point of me doing good? And and you know, when somebody says
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something slick out of my mouth, I tell myself, you know what,
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man, just walk away, Randy, like it ain't worth it, man,
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Like why And just because dude said something to slick out of his mouth,
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it doesn't mean you have to do something over it. Like why am
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I holding myself back if there's no hope for me and the same thing for
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everybody else, Like hopefully I can make some changes up here at least try
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to make this place run a little bit better. The good thing is,
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it seems like the constant lockdown for weeks on end is over with. The
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new wardens have instituted a plan where, you know, they actually put it
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on paper and send out a memo to every prisoner up here. If one
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pod does something like, they'll lock us down to deal with that situation,
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and if there's enough time left in the day, they'll let everybody else back
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out except the pod that the incident was in, and then that pod would
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be on lockdown for a couple of days, and then they'll let them out,
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like five seals at a time for thirty minutes for a couple of days,
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and then they'll let five sales out for one hour for a couple of
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days, and then they'll let the whole tier out for one hour a day
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for a couple of days, and then if nothing has happened, in that
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time, you'll you know, after about two weeks, you'll go back to
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just full of operations for that pod, Like the Lockdown Pod is dealing with
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that. Everybody else is either come back up that day or if there's not
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time, then you'll just come back up the next morning. And you know,
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the whole compound isn't being punished for what somebody else does. So Ever,
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since that happened a few weeks ago, things have calmed down. And
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because look when I tell you there was murders, I mean there were murders,
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like I'll go into more detail on that in another podcast, because for
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eight days up here it got real, like, I mean there were death,
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there was a murder, there was a ods, there were riots.
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I mean, this place went crazy in an eight day span. That's basically
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what I've been dealing with. You know, I'm just trying to keep my
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mind occupied. You know, I've been reading, I've been you know,
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studying, I've been a writing on some stuff, working out just you know,
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I've been encouraging people, doing what I can to be a posit lighting
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here, talking some dudes off the ledge. I've literally had to talk like
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three people out of stabbing somebody. I don't know why everybody brings their problems
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to me, but they do. You know. I do the best I
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can to help them with and walk them through it and everything. But uh,
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that's about it. I'm just doing what I can to just to just
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to improve, to make the best of my life here. I'm in a
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romantic relationship now, which after Jennifer Us swore that was never gonna happen again
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while I was in prison, I was gonna wait till I get out on
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the street. But yeah, she got me though, and uh, I'm
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damn grateful that she did. So it's uh, it's looking pretty serious for
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me and in that regard, and you know, like me, she's been
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to do some things. But we're helping one another, we're supporting one another.
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I'm talking on the phone. We're doing some video visits. I'm not
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gonna lie. I've been a been getting a couple of video visits from some
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friends of mine and I've been joined and crap out of them. It's it's
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so good. And just go over there to the little video visit and you
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actually have that little call where I can actually see the person. I can
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I can see their mannerisms in the way they move and their you know,
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their facial expressions, and it's just a really fun thing for me be able
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to kind of participate in technology like that, to participate in their lives like
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that. You know, they've actually been able to lift their computer up and
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kind of scan it around their their apartment or their home. And my buddy
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Michael actually took me outside with him one day and showed me his horses,
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you know, so that was really cool to see the dogs and everything.
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So you have one minute remaining. That's basically an update on me home.
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Don't forget to check out my website at right on youranding dot com. Don't
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forget to check me out on Twitter at red Onion Randy. Thank you for
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listening to me, Take care, stay safe, Glad to be back.
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Thank you for using TTL.