Latest / Red Onion Randy - Life in a Supermax Prison / New Pod

Transcript

New Pod · Red Onion Randy - Life in a Supermax Prison

• 0:12
  Hello, this is a pre bid call from and make it a Virginia Department
• 0:17
  of Corrections red Onion State Prison. To accept this call Press zero. My
• 0:24
  name is Randall Vam. I'm currently serving one two hundred and fourteen years in
• 0:30
  Wallace Ridge State Prison for capital murder and dick Stone Gap, Virginia in the
• 0:35
  USA. This is my podcast right on your RAN and I hope you enjoyed
• 0:39
  listening to me today. Today I'm going to talk about the new part I'm
• 0:44
  in, go into a little bit more detail than I have in the last
• 0:49
  couple of episodes, but more specifically, I'm going to talk about back biting.
• 0:58
  This is a terrible, terrible as far as the people goes. Now,
• 1:02
  the way the pod is run, I like the way the pot is
• 1:04
  run. I'm in a single cell part, you know, so every single
• 1:08
  cell in here only has one inmate per sell and not even all the cells
• 1:15
  are filled up. I think there's two cells that are empty. So around
• 1:23
  six o'clock in the morning, they'll pop all the doors and let guys come
• 1:26
  out, and we'll usually stay out till around ten thirty eleven thirty for Podrek
• 1:32
  and you can kind of go in and out the cell. It will.
• 1:34
  So if you don't want to be out here for the whole time, you
• 1:37
  just simply just don't want crunch your door and just turn to the booth and
• 1:40
  go yo man, pop fourteen, and they'll pop fourteen. You go on
• 1:44
  back in the cell, do your thing. You want to come back out
• 1:47
  an hour or two hours later, you just tell somebody on the floor,
• 1:51
  yo man, pull up the books, don't let me out, and they'll
• 1:53
  do that so you can come in and out the sales, which is you
• 1:57
  know, that's the better way to do podrek, you know, instead of
• 1:59
  getting only one hour at a time, you know, and then you've got
• 2:02
  a lockdown. Then the next year come out for one hour at a time.
• 2:07
  You know, you got a microwave from the pad, you got six
• 2:10
  phones, you got a Kiosk, you got two showers. You know,
• 2:15
  it's a small pod. But uh, you know it's not bad, just
• 2:19
  the way it's wrong. Like I said, you know, the microwave was
• 2:21
  really good. As matter of fact, After you know, I record my
• 2:24
  podcast today and everything, I'm gonna go over to the microwave and I'm gonna
• 2:29
  put a muffin in there with some butter on top of it and get it
• 2:31
  nice and hot and make it taste better. So I enjoy those things,
• 2:35
  you know, I enjoy. You know, I've got access to the phone.
• 2:37
  I don't have to fight over the phone. I don't have to throw
• 2:39
  my weight around and intimidate somebody just to get the damn phone. With everybody
• 2:45
  in here, as far as the phone and the kiosk goes, everybody respects
• 2:49
  everyone else, and you know they're willing to work with one another. We
• 2:53
  only get five phone calls a day. That's another difference between here and Red
• 2:55
  Onion. And Red Onion, as long as you had the money to pay
• 2:59
  for the part phone call, you can make as many phone calls to day
• 3:01
  as you want it. If you've got access to the phone up here,
• 3:05
  you get five phone calls and that's it. You don't get no more until
• 3:07
  the next day, which is kind of smart, you know. They I
• 3:12
  understand why they did it, to make sure that guys can call their people.
• 3:15
  But at the same time, make sure that you can't overcall, because,
• 3:19
  like I said, you got a lot of gangs in here to like
• 3:21
  to run that stuff, you know, So he tried us to keep the
• 3:25
  stabbings to a minimum though that doesn't really work up here at Rollin's Bridge,
• 3:30
  but uh, the same. I hate about this damn pod No. I
• 3:36
  mean, I desposit to my core. It's the back body. Yesterday I
• 3:43
  came out and we've been on lockdown for ten days. And then even though
• 3:47
  we came off, we kind of went on like a half lockdown, so
• 3:51
  like they would let us out in the morning, but they wouldn't let us
• 3:53
  out in the afternoons, you know. And they took advantage of the fact
• 3:57
  that the warden, thesistant warden, the chief of housing, the major in
• 4:02
  like two or three captains got fired up here last Friday. I haven't found
• 4:10
  out why they've been fired. I don't know, really, I don't know
• 4:14
  any CEOs up here that I could ask, And then I would even believe
• 4:17
  in trust if they did tell me where they were fired for this reason,
• 4:21
  just because I don't know them and the staff members, they have a really
• 4:27
  bad habit of line to us about anything, even just a little frivolous stupid
• 4:30
  stuff like that. They got a really bad habit of line to us.
• 4:34
  So it's hard to know who to trust is who not to especially when you're
• 4:36
  brand new on a compound, so we was dealing with that. So yesterday
• 4:42
  when came out, we actually got we got morning wreck all morning, we
• 4:45
  got afternoon wreck all afternoon, and we actually got up thirty minutes on ninth
• 4:48
  shift, which was kind of surprising. So I decided I wanted to stay
• 4:54
  out in the pump it a little bit longer. Plus, you know,
• 4:56
  I had a video visit my buddy Michael from Canada, and uh, you
• 5:01
  know, I went over there and I enjoyed that and I had a lot
• 5:03
  of fun with that. But while I was waiting for that and everything,
• 5:08
  and I was to spending a little bit of time like this up this Normally
• 5:11
  I come out, I used the phone, I used the kiows gotta take
• 5:14
  a shower to mic Awave, I go right back in the celling. I
• 5:15
  don't got time for this. And yesterday was a perfect reason for why I
• 5:19
  don't have time for this. I had so many dudes pull up on me,
• 5:27
  yo. Man, this dude's snitching, yo. This dude's saying this
• 5:30
  about you behind your back. Man. Yo, this dude is doing this,
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  he's doing that, like and I don't give a damn what he's doing.
• 5:35
  Man, I don't care what he's saying to me, Like, you
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  know, I had to tell dudes yesterday. Look, man, if this
• 5:43
  dude ain't willing to come up and say it to me, he don't mean
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  it. If he's not willing to put his hands on me and beat my
• 5:50
  ass over what he's saying, he don't believe it, I don't care.
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  Like, stop dragging me into y'all's damn drama. Man, I'm not ten
• 6:00
  year old girl, Like I'm not in high school. I don't care.
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  I mean, I had so many dudes and like, and this isn't dany
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  like he'll do it to their own homeboys had a student named Mobility. This
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  dude, he's old school. He's been down for a long long time.
• 6:15
  He's been down since the eighties. Back in the day, he had a
• 6:19
  reputation. I'll look, I'll give respect word of respect. This dude.
• 6:25
  Dude used to be a Helifi fighter back that he used to be one of
• 6:28
  the better fighters in the prison system back in the day when he was younger.
• 6:31
  But now he's old. Now he's in his late sixties and he's still
• 6:36
  trying to carry it the way he was when he was eighteen nineteen years old,
• 6:41
  like, man, you ain't built like that no more, dude,
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  you know what I'm saying, Like you stop this stuff. So like I
• 6:47
  was sitting at the table and he walked up to me and he's cool with
• 6:51
  somebody in here, and he started talking about oh man, you see them
• 6:57
  right there and cussing him and just you know, man, he's all sucking
• 7:00
  asking him like, dude, seriously, like this is your homeboy dude,
• 7:04
  Like you kick it with this dude all the time. You do business with
• 7:08
  this dude all the time, You hang out with this dude all the time.
• 7:12
  When you're around this dude, you talk about him good. But as
• 7:15
  soon as he's over there, when the phone's talking to somebody and you're over
• 7:16
  here by the tables and he can't hear you, all of a sudden,
• 7:19
  he's all of these things. Okay, man, If he's all of these
• 7:24
  things both, why do you talk to him? Why do you kick it
• 7:28
  with him? And it's the same thing. You know, this dude named
• 7:30
  Scarfs look well, you know he's a couple of years younger than me.
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  White dude who was back when he was a teenager, he was huffing his
• 7:39
  stuff called freon and you know, it almost killed him and it and it
• 7:44
  put a huge scar on his cheek, on the on the right side of
• 7:47
  his cheeks. It's just this huge like burn mark from the freeon. And
• 7:54
  you know, he he does the same thing. Like even though he's I
• 7:58
  think he's maybe these thirty eight, thirty nine, forty somewhere around. He's
• 8:01
  only a few years younger than me, but he's like he has the mentality
• 8:07
  of a twelve year old child, you know, Like, you know,
• 8:09
  I'm trying to help him. You know, I will spend some time talking
• 8:13
  to him from time to time. You know, he's got this older dude
• 8:18
  named Sanchez. Sanchez is a Spanish dude. I'm not sure what actually what
• 8:24
  country he's from, but he's an older guys. He's been through some things
• 8:28
  and he's learned from his experience, and you know, like I actually like
• 8:33
  Sanchez. Sanchez one of the few dudes in his part that I kick it
• 8:35
  with on a regular basis, and I know I can have a decent conversation
• 8:39
  with whim. I'm not going to hear him talk about this person or that
• 8:43
  person behind their back. We're trying to take the duce goarf. He's underwing
• 8:46
  and kind of teach him and educate him a little bit. But even he
• 8:50
  tries to do the same thing, like, Yo, man, this dude's
• 8:52
  knitching. Man. You know, he's always trying to tell me about Yeah,
• 8:54
  man, I got to fighting with these dudes. Man, and you
• 8:58
  know, I got jumped by these three dude in this party red oneon manna
• 9:01
  whoop. They ass man. I was doing good. But you know what
• 9:03
  I'm saying, I'd just come from cancer. And he did have cancer.
• 9:05
  He actually had testicky or cancer. They actually had to you know, amputato
• 9:09
  his testicles from him. But uh, that's the stuff I have to deal
• 9:15
  with, man. Like I'm just I'm so sick and tired of people coming
• 9:18
  up to me and say, Yo, man, this dude right here snitching.
• 9:20
  You know this dude right here, Man, why are you telling me
• 9:24
  he's snitching? Man, why don't you go tell him he's snitching? Like,
• 9:26
  go talk to him about that, man, Go tell him. Yo.
• 9:30
  Man, you shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't be acting like this.
• 9:31
  Man. You shouldn't do the CEO's job for him. I don't care
• 9:37
  who's stitching. Man. If I do something and you snitch, on me.
• 9:41
  It's my fault. It's not your fault. If you stitch on me,
• 9:43
  it's my fault because one I told you I was snitching. Two I
• 9:48
  let you see I was snitching. So that's on me. If I'm in
• 9:52
  here doing dirt, and if somebody tells on me, I'm debunant because let
• 10:00
  them see what I was doing. Like, it's just so damn frustrating that
• 10:05
  you have to deal with a bunch of kids in here who cares. Man,
• 10:09
  You're going to get snitched on in prison, Like that's the game.
• 10:13
  That's what happens. Man. Dude snitch so they can get a job.
• 10:16
  Dude snitch, or they can get out to sell. Dude snitch so they
• 10:20
  can get somebody move out the pot it. They're intimidated to scared body,
• 10:24
  Like, you have to deal with these things no matter where you go,
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  no matter what part you go into, you're gonna have to deal with this
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  stuff. No matter what prison you go to, You're going to have to
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  deal with this stuff. Most of the dudes who do this, most of
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  the dudes who run around and say, Yo, look yo, this dude
• 10:43
  distention that dude dismins. Man, No, they're not Bro, you're the
• 10:46
  one distinching. You're the one you're trying to throw smoke up so that we
• 10:52
  can't see. Do we all know what's going on? Man Ain't nobody in
• 10:56
  here stupid when it comes to this stuff. You know, You've got a
• 11:05
  couple of dudes in here that are pretty cool. You know, you cards
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  to and he's the one that I hang out with the most. You got
• 11:11
  a dude named Sanchez, He's pretty cool. You got a dude named Boss
• 11:15
  Life, he's pretty cool. You got a dude named Yab from Oregon,
• 11:18
  it's pretty cool. You know. I kick it with him every now and
• 11:20
  then. He just gave me a haircut yesterday, and you know, we
• 11:24
  got to talking and everything, and you know, we got to compare in
• 11:26
  different states, and I was telling him, you know, I kind of
• 11:30
  have a feeling that Virginny Department of Correction is the reason they transferred me on
• 11:35
  an emergency transfer from Red Onion to Wallace Ridge. Is to one getting me
• 11:39
  off of Red Onion so that I would stop complaining about getting transferred. And
• 11:43
  they sent me up here just to wait for me to get you know,
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  for another state to accept me so they could send me out of state to
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  another prison system. So we got to you know, kicking about that and
• 11:52
  talking about different states and everything. You know. So, I mean,
• 11:54
  there's a couple of dudes that are cool and here you there's some that I
• 11:58
  don't know and I don't speak to you know what I'm saying back in the
• 12:01
  back corner and everything, and they just I'm just doing what's best for me.
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  I'll come out early in the morning, when the doors pop, I'll
• 12:09
  get on the phone, call some people, you know. I'll get on
• 12:11
  the kiosk, send some emails, get some emails, and uh, you
• 12:15
  know, like I said, man, I'll throw my breakfast into microwave,
• 12:16
  and uh, I'm going right back to the sub. They want to drag
• 12:22
  you down with them. They want you to be miserable and sad like they
• 12:26
  are. Like no, man, I refuse to be sad. I refuse
• 12:31
  to sit there and let my emotions control me. I refuse to be a
• 12:33
  slave to my feelings. Just because you feel a certain way doesn't mean you
• 12:39
  have to allow it to affect you. Most people, they just they don't
• 12:43
  want to listen. They don't want they don't want to be happy, like
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  especially if you're in an environment that deliberately makes you unhappy, that deliberately want
• 12:56
  you to be unhappy. That's why a lot of these CEOs do the stuff
• 13:00
  that they do, because they're miserable and sad in their own damn lives.
• 13:05
  They have nothing. They're never going to beat nothing, because they don't have
• 13:09
  the mental fortitude. It takes the change to their life to actually go out
• 13:13
  there and chase their dreams and to do something worthwhile with their life. Their
• 13:16
  babysitters. That's what a correctional officer is. I don't care whether you're a
• 13:22
  rookie or you're the warping of an institution. You're nothing more than a glorified
• 13:26
  babysitter. So they deliberately keep you on lockdown for stuff they ain't supposed to
• 13:31
  lock you down for. They deliberately come by and push stuff that you you
• 13:35
  know what I'm saying, to piss you off and to get you upset and
• 13:37
  to make you miserable and sad and lonely because they got nothing in their lives
• 13:41
  worthwhile. They've got nothing in their lives meaningful. And yet these dudes and
• 13:46
  these inmates like it doesn't matter how many times you tell them something that you
• 13:50
  open their eyes, you give them the truth of a situation, and they
• 13:54
  see it and they'll be meant like, damn, you know what, bro,
• 14:00
  I never thought about that. I never saw that before. Like,
• 14:01
  man, you're absolutely right, Like, wow, you just blew my mind
• 14:05
  with that right there. Man, you just drop some serious knowledge on me.
• 14:09
  And yet five minutes later, mine, they right back doing the same
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  damn thing over and over and over again. That's the definition of insanity,
• 14:20
  doing the same thing twice, expecting a different result each time. And you
• 14:24
  try to explain that to him. Oh yeah, damn, dude, you
• 14:28
  just drop some serious knowledge on me five minutes later doing the same thing over
• 14:33
  again, Like I mean, dude, are you deliberately being stupid? Like
• 14:37
  how can you not like, how can you not see that? If you
• 14:39
  can see the truth, why can't you make the change? You know?
• 14:43
  Why let somebody drag you down? Why let somebody influence you to be negative?
• 14:50
  Why? Why let somebody destroy your life to make you miserable as sad
• 14:54
  and lonely and pathetic? Like why do this? The good thing is I've
• 15:01
  already had a positive impact on a couple of people in the park, you
• 15:05
  know, and that makes it worthwhile. That that helps me to keep fighting,
• 15:11
  That helps me to keep striving in my own life, that helps me
• 15:13
  to keep coming out, you know, and talking to some dudes from time
• 15:18
  to time. It's like, yo, look, man, this is what
• 15:20
  it is like. I don't think I'm better than other people. I'm not.
• 15:26
  I've already gone on this podcast and said, man, you know y'all
• 15:28
  better than I am. I committed murder for no better reason than the dude
• 15:35
  said I don't think you will. I shot him twice in the back,
• 15:39
  once in the chest, six times in the back of the head, all
• 15:43
  because the man said I don't think you will. So I don't think I'm
• 15:46
  better than no one. The only thing is is I've gone through a lot
• 15:52
  in my life. I've suffered a lot in my life, and I'm tired
• 15:56
  of suffering. So I did something with my suffering. And now I'm going
• 16:00
  a podcast talking to y'all trying to take my suffering and make it work for
• 16:07
  you to kind of maybe open your eyes to some things, you know,
• 16:11
  because you can take these these lessons in even that I've learned about you have
• 16:15
  one minute your meaning and run with them in your own life. You can
• 16:19
  improve your own life, and the fact that you're out there on the street,
• 16:22
  you have a much better opportunity of really truly changing your life for the
• 16:27
  better than I do in here. But unfortunately, our time is a stay
• 16:34
  away from the back biting, stay away from the gossiping. Ain't worth it.
• 16:38
  It's not a good look for you. I'm not saying you do do
• 16:41
  it, but some people do it. You don't have to. But anyway,
• 16:47
  this has been read on your Randy at Wallace Ridge. I hope you
• 16:49
  enjoy listening to me today. Don't forget to check out my website read on
• 16:53
  your Randy dot com. I'm also on Twitter at red Onion Randy. And
• 16:57
  for those in the US would like to call and leave me a question or
• 17:02
  comment, dial one eight eight eight five two four one nine thirty two for
• 17:08
  all international calls outside of the US, and just put a plus in front
• 17:12
  of the one, and it's the same number. I look forward to hearing
• 17:15
  from you. Take care, stay safe. Thank you for using GTL