Ask Tod Anything: Part IV

Welcome to the Roost once again, where my rantings find a place to rest. I am very pleased to say that I just last night received several pages of questions from you all, sent to me by Anna, that you– the readers of my humble blog– have done me the honor of asking. So that is what this post (and perhaps the next post or two, depending on how much I go on with my answers… don’t want to send Anna a novelette to type out) will be about.

And in the interest of keeping this as short as I can, I will jump right in. I have no name or any idea who these questions came from, just the questions in numerical order.

1.) What is the significance of the name of your blog? Who came up with it, you or Anna?

The name was solely my idea and only I can be blamed for it. I have an interest in mythology. I like mythology of all kinds, but am probably best versed in Scandinavian/Germanic mythology and folklore. And that is where Muninn comes from. (It can be spelled Munin as well.)

In Scandinavian teachings, there is a god named Odinn (otherwise known as Woden, Wodan, Wotan, or Woten) and this god, who is the primary godhead, is the original god of consciousness from whom all other gods (and all other conscious beings) is derived, directly or indirectly. In short, he is the god who rules over all others. In folklore, Odinn has two ravens on whom he relies to fly over this world and report back to him to keep him informed of what is going on here. These ravens are Huginn and Muninn. (They are really metaphorical aspects of Odinn’s consciousness.) Scandinavian and Germanic words have more than one meaning depending on how, where, and when they are used, and these two words are no different. In this context, Huginn means thought or he who thinks, and Muninn means memory or he who remembers.

There is a book in Scandinavian folklore called the Elder Edda, or Poetic Edda. (Some consider this to be a holy book.) In this book there is a story: Grimnismál (the lay of Grimnir) in which Odinn is captured by an evil and greedy king. (Germanic gods are often portrayed with human aspects and vulnerabilities… they can age, they can be captured, sometimes on purpose as with this story, and they can even die). Odinn is shown a kindness by the king’s ten-year-old son, whom he rewards (in part) with knowledge, some of which is knowledge of the gods. (Neither the king nor the boy know it is Odinn whom they have captured.) And during that exchange, Odinn tells the boy the following:

Huginn and Muninn fly every day
over the expansive earth;
I am anxious about Huginn, that he will not come back,
Though I fear even more for Muninn.

In this strophe, I believe the importance of memory to the Germanic peoples is being exemplified.

Now, all that said, Muninn’s Roost is where I can put my memories– and yes, thoughts too, but I think memory to be very important, as that is really all I have left in this cage. And although (or, perhaps, because) my consciousness is stifled by the horrific environment that surrounds me, I cling desperately to these thoughts from my past.

I actually put a lot of thought into the name for the blog– and– I was hopeful that someone might ask after the name’s origin so I could show off my Germanic folklore chops…just kidding… maybe…

2.) Beer or wine? Coke or Pepsi? McDonald’s or Burger King?

In my youth I put away my fair share of beer (Budweiser for the most part) but as I got into my mid-twenties I developed a fondness for a Guinness Stout (not technically a beer) but I also kept a couple of bottles of decent wine around as well.

It has been some amount of time (a very long time) but I liked Pepsi as a kid.

I lived in a pretty rural area of Colorado (drove over fifty miles to buy groceries) and in that town there was no Burger King or McDonald’s that I recall…but there was a place called Don’s Drive-In that had a teriyaki mushroom burger on a homemade bun that was like six inches across, and that was unbelievably good! So I guess my answer to that last part is, Don’s Drive-In!

3.) How would you describe your political leanings?

Wow! I could write a novelette on what I think about what is going on in the U.S. government. But in the interest of keeping this as simple and short as I can… both of the parties have some, and I emphasize some good ideas. (I am all for freedom… of all types. I don’t much care for repression of any kind.) However, both parties also have some of what I see as horrifically bad ideas. I was not there of course, but from what I can gather about what is going on in Washington D.C. right now, I don’t think (in my opinion of course) that it is what the founders of this democratic experiment called the United States of America really had in mind. So I guess I could say my “political leanings” are at best disappointment, at worst, disgust. (And these feelings are Pre-Trump if you are interested… but now? I just sit here open-mouthed in total bewilderment.)

4.) Which is better, Star Trek or Star Wars?

I grew up on Star Trek (the original series– yes, I am old) and the swashbuckling Captain Kirk. Cavorting with green slave girls and saving whole planets was every kid’s dream! (I was too young to pick up on the political messages being sneaked in by the studio heads and censors at the time; that came later.) But Star Wars is a much more involved story full of deeply fleshed-out characters people can invest in… so both are good in their own ways. However, that silly Star Trek always had a place in me as part of my childhood– a simple and safe place I can always visit in my mind.

5.) Are you a cat person or a dog person? Do you have a favorite breed?

Do I have to choose? I am a great lover of animals of all sorts. I’ve had both– at the same time, even– and loved them equally. As far as breeds go… I don’t even know what breed she was, but I had a huge white cat I was very fond of. Anna has three cats, and she often sends me pictures and updates, which I enjoy.

Dogs? I had a boxer that was my very best friend as a child. As an adult, I had a black lab/Malamute mix (she looked like a large Labrador) that was one of the smartest dogs I have ever seen, and was a good friend.

I have also had snakes as pets, and a grey tree/house squirrel that seemed to think he was a dog (an exercise in patience I do not recommend… squirrels make horrible pets!) and… are you ready for this? A raven! Who was… truly beyond friendship… more like a sibling, really. And, yes, the other reason for the name of the blog… his name was Muninn. A relationship (he was not a “pet”– when he was grown, he could come and go as he pleased but almost always slept in my room, often standing on the part of my pillow I wasn’t using) that I would also not recommend for most. It’s like having a very precocious two-year-old child that never grows up! A really good alarm clock, though…when Muninn got up, I got up.

6.) If you’ve ever read Harry Potter, what house do you think you’d be in?

If memory serves (and sometimes it doesn’t) the Sorting Hat chooses, does it not? But rather like Harry, I would be hopeful for Gryffindor. They seemed to have the most fun. (Granted, the books mostly centered around characters that belonged to that house.)

7.) How often do you see a doctor, a dentist, a psychiatrist/psychologist, etc.? How does that work? Do you have to be handcuffed while being examined? Do you leave the prison grounds to get medical checkups or do they come to you? What about if there is an emergency? Would you be chained up in the ambulance?

Good questions! You see someone at medical (rarely if ever “a doctor”– usually someone claiming to be a nurse) after you put in a special form to do so (it’s called a Health Needs Request or H.N.R.) after you submit such a form– it has in the past taken months to see someone, and there have been numerous lawsuits– you now go to medical within a couple of weeks to see someone who asks you what is wrong, takes notes, then puts you on a list to see someone, who puts you on a list to see someone… you get the picture… and this can take months. (But, hey, they can claim they saw you within a certain number of weeks, which satisfies the court ruling.)

Yes, we are always handcuffed, chained, something. The medical unit is on prison grounds so unless it is something really major we do not leave the prison. In case of emergency they can (IE, they deem it needful… I have been sewn up and given an antibiotic course right here.) They will take you to an actual hospital (about an hour away) during which you are chained up in the ambulance and chained up in in the ambulance and chained to a hospital in the ambulance and chained to a hospital gurney when you get there. (Or so I understand anyway– I have never left the prison grounds.)

In short, medical issues often go untreated here. If they do receive some sort of treatment, it is usually inadequate. Mental issues are even worse. They just throw pills at someone who has often been misdiagnosed so usually poorly medicated (thorazine used to be big here… I don’t know if that has changed or not.)

The “medical staff” we get here usually are at the “end of the line” for a medical career and are considered unemployable anywhere else, so we get what the state pays for.

8.) To what extent are issues such as vegetarianism and veganism, gluten sensitivity, kosher/halal religious diets, and allergies accommodated on death row?

I do not know anyone on it because it is…well… I hear it’s just about inedible. But the prison has one diet that covers pretty much all of what you mentioned. It has beans, a lot of rice, and some carrot sticks and celery that cannot be sold in a store so the prison gets it for next to nothing. “Special” diets are discouraged here.

9.) What commissary items are most highly sought after, besides stamps and envelopes?

I don’t really know. It has been a long time (five months? maybe six?) since I have personally purchased anything other than stamps, envelopes, paper, soap, or shampoo. (And I am likely going to shave my head so I can eliminate shampoo.) I suppose it’s an individual thing– a matter of personal likes and dislikes. There are a great deal of unhealthy people that gravitate toward the candy bars and potato chips. If I were able I suppose I would likely supplement the poor nutrition of the high carbohydrate and fat diet they give us with things like the fish and other protein items that are available on the commissary list. I would also suppose coffee would be high on the popular lost. But like I said it is pretty individual for likes and dislikes, I suppose.

10. I saw in a documentary once that, when an inmate is taken away to be executed in Oklahoma, all the other inmates on death row refuse their meal on the night of his death as a show of respect and solidarity for their friend. Do the men in Arizona have any rituals or traditions on the day of an execution, or afterwards, to honor someone who has passed or is about to?

This s a question that will take some “creative” answering. On some death rows in the country, a mindset of “all for one and one for all” is prevalent.

This is so because the death row population is separate from the “normal” (a term I use loosely here!) prison population– which is where things like rapists and child molesters and child killers are not tolerated. Out “on a yard” (another term for a prison unit) these individuals would end up in “ad-seg” (administrative segregation– otherwise known as protective custody.)

In Arizona, our death row functions more like a regular prison unit, in which you have a GP (general population) section and a PC (protective custody) section. As GP, we do not associate with protective custody in any way. This of course results in a schism in the Arizona death row population.

(My mindset is simple: I have children, grandchildren, and female friends on the outside and it would be dishonorable– and, to my mind, insulting to them– if I were to associate with the type of low-life that obviously has no respect for them, or even a semblance of an ethical compass of any kind.) So I personally have issues with rapists and people who commit crimes against children, sexual or otherwise.

But to get back to the question: this separation means that there are no organized tributes of any sort. If we know the person we each observe our own way of showing respect for them, and we do so individually.

For me? I have one that I think of every year on his birthday. (I think of him often of course, but his birthday is spent with him in mind all day.) As long as his memory survives, he survives.

(It should be noted that the “close custody experiment” I mentioned in a previous blog post throws this whole separation thing to the wind. No matter how I mentally address it, I can only imagine bad results coming from it.)

11.) What are the guidelines for what you can theoretically order for your last meal? Is there anything specific you are not allowed to request? Would they give you a beer, a cigarette, or a doobie if you asked for it? And if you had, say, a life-threatening peanut allergy, would you be forbidden from ordering a PB&J? Along similar lines, do you know (or know of) anyone who has made a bizarre or interesting last meal request or plans to do so?

The rules have changed for last meals since I got here. It used to be you could request anything as long as it could be obtained locally and could be cooked at the prison. Then it was, you could request anything as long as it could be obtained locally but you had to pay for it yourself. Now my understanding is that it has to be something the prison already makes….but that could be wrong. (It may still be that you have to buy it if you don’t choose something the prison already makes.)

No, no beer, cigarettes, or doobies. (A joint and a glass of single malt scotch would be my request if either of those things were allowed.) And if the prison is aware of any allergies, then nope, they won’t let you have it.

As far as bizarre requests go… Anna has gone online and cannot seem to find a record of this… but there was a guy who told me he was going to ask for five pounds of fried okra, and a guard said that was what he got.

As I have 32 questions here, I will let Anna take a break and give her typing fingers a rest. If your question has not been answered, worry not; I will get to it. But for now I will stop. I will get to answering the rest of this batch of questions very soon, though, so stay tuned, and please don’t forget to thank Anna, without whom you would not be reading this.

Ask Tod Anything: Part II

Greetings again, and welcome to the Roost. I still have a lot of great questions to get to, so that is what this post will be dedicated to doing. (I plan on leaving no question unanswered! If someone has the time to ask, then I certainly must have the time to answer. Time is the one thing I have an abundance of here in my oubliette.)

7.) If you had seventy-two hours of freedom and a modest but reasonable budget, what would you want to do besides seeing your family (assuming you have one). Assume everything you do has to be legal, and can’t be grievously injurious/harmful to yourself and/or others. What would you want to eat, do, see, etc.? (I say “besides spending time with your family for the sake of making the answer more interesting than just “spend time with my family the whole time, the end.”) 

Well, you have taken the fun out of that one! I cannot pay a visit to the lead detective who tampered with witnesses in my case or the judge who used me as a stepping stone in his re-election campaign… Okay, besides those things, then…

First, let me say that Anna has very graciously offered to hang out with me in this hypothetical scenario and I would very much enjoy getting to meet her in person. I am, however, not sure how much she would enjoy at least some aspects of what I would want to do. On the outside, I was a pretty simple person and got enjoyment out of simple things. Ald although I can think of a lot of exciting and wonderful things to do… I have thought a lot about what I miss the most in this cage, and it always seems to be the things I kind of took for granted on the outside. You said no family so that is out. But I am afraid it still may not be interesting for most…

It would start with food. We don’t get much, or very good food at all in this hole. So I would love to meet Anna and her significant other over a meal (dinner perhaps) where the possibilities are endless, but I think I would settle on a porterhouse steak (rare), a baked potato (a big one with sour cream on it), any kind of fresh vegetable (peas with real butter on them would be good), and for dessert… an apple! (We get no fruit here at all.) Or perhaps a pear. And then to top it off, a little bit (would not want to get drunk; I only have seventy-two hours!) of single-malt scotch. I used to drink Glenlivet but any will do. And Anna and I could talk and laugh and enjoy a relaxing meal. Then, (and this is the part I am not sure Anna would enjoy!) there would be a motorcycle involved! I used to build and ride old Harley-Davidsons so ideally it would be one of those. (I know I am on a limited budget here so perhaps I could rent one.) But it would be any motorcycle really. And I would love to find a two-lane mountain highway that twists through an evergreen forest. (I lived in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado before all this.) and enjoy the green, and the smell, and the sunshine.

At some point I would like to find a dirt road off the highway and drive back into the forest…perhaps find a glade with a stream running through it and park the bike and get off and touch the grass and the flowers and trees. (There is no green here…none at all. Just dirt and small rocks and I can’t touch those either.) Then I would like to find a little pool in the water and go swimming. (I have not been submerged in water in a very long time.) Then I would lay in the sun to dry and listen to the birds and wind blow through the trees and likely get a sunburn. (I am pretty pale now. I don’t get much sun.)

At some point I would like to go to a park in a city or town and sit down on a bench or perhaps in the grass under a tree and close my eyes and listen to children laugh and play. Maybe I’d like to throw a tennis ball for a dog. (I had larger ones. I had a labrador retriever named Bubba that I loved dearly…she had died long before all of this happened to me.) Perhaps hear an old gas powered lawn mower and smell fresh cut grass…

I know, this is all so boring, and likely not at all what you were expecting… but in this place I am literally surrounded by people all the time (most of whom I dislike) and there is almost constant noise.  Heavy metal doors slamming, people talking and shouting, the insane ones screaming…and I will spare you the descriptions of the smells… just seventy-two hours of no anger, no violence, just peace and quiet would be worth almost any price to me. It is, for me, the things I never really thought about that I end up closing my eyes and remembering. Sitting on a couch with someone I love with someone I love all curled up by a fire in the wintertime and listen to her tell me all about her day, or just listening to the fire and feeling her pressed close to me. (The only “contact” I have in this place is to be chained by an animal by gloved hands to be removed from my cage.)

So I guess my seventy-two hours would be pretty boring… oh! I would have to sleep in a real bed, too! With soft sheets and a blanket to cover me! Yup, boring. But on the upside, I would likely have change left over from that “modest budget”.

What do you think, Anna? Want to hang out for the whole seventy-two hours?

8.) What was the last election you voted in and for whom did you vote? 

This is an easy and short one. I honestly can’t remember the year. [Anna’s note: I’m guessing it was probably 1992.] I have a problem with keeping track of linear time, which has gotten way worse since I got here. But it was for a guy named Ross Perot for President.

Speaking of voting…what were you people thinking?! Wow!

9.) What historical events have occurred while you’ve been on death row that you wish you’d have been able to witness?

I would not go as far as to use the term “misanthropic,” but I did live way up in the Colorado Rockies, back in a canyon with public land butting up to my proerty lines on three sides, so I was not real keen on crowds…so the most significant events that I would have wished to be in the vicinity of would be the births of my grandchildren. Pretty historic in my book.

10.) The same person asked: What technology has been invented since you’ve been on death row that you are curious about or would be interested to try out?

All technology has been invented while I’ve been locked up. Or at least it seems like it. I had a cell phone when I was out in the world…most of you may not know what I am talking about, but some geezers might. It was made by Motorola and it was “affectionately” referred to as “The Brick” because it was the size and approximate weight of one of those smaller red bricks of the kind used in house construction. It was the smallest and most reliable phone that one could own. (And it dropped calls all the time, not because it didn’t work properly but because there were not that many cell phone towers and there were “dead zones” between them when you were out of range.) The internet itself did exist…but it was in its infancy so I would like to see that.

I also hear a lot about “flat screen television sets” but have never seen one. (My television broke quite a long time ago and I can’t afford to replace it, so I have not seen TV at all in a fair piece.) But from my perspective of living in a cage…I am only allowed to possess ten soft cover books, no more. So I would wish to have one of those “e-readers”, I think they are called, the electronic devices you can download books onto. (And I would have to be able to download books onto it, of course.) to have access to a large supply of books. I don’t think I could even begin to describe my feelings about such a thing. My home (before here) was filled with books (real ones) and reading has always been a very large part of my life.. To have access to the philosophy and poetry and history and fiction again… I better stop; I could go on for pages about this subject alone. I would also like to have access to music. (I have a Walkman-type cassette player– yes, cassette player— of which the cassette player part is broken so I only have the radio left.)

The radio market in Southern Arizona is very limited, so no jazz, no classical, but I do get to hear some metal music on a syndicated shoe called “Into the Pit” that comes on for a couple of hours on Sunday night. But unless I want to listen to country-western, old rock and roll, or an inordinate amount of rap and hip-hop stations for some reason, I am screwed. So an MP3 player (and the ability to load music onto it) would be wonderful. But e-readers and MP3 players are not allowed here. So I guess that is the technology I would like to experience.

11.) If you could choose how you wanted to be executed (hanging, firing squad, gas, electric chair, lethal injection) which would you choose and why? 

What, no guillotine? I think that one would be interesting. It is posited that one may be able to still perceive for a short time afterward. Intriguing, that one.

But you seem to be sticking to the forms of execution used now in the United States. Dead is dead and how you get there does not really matter. In Arizona, lethal injection is used.

I have maintained for years that I would like to forego the two or three drug “protocol” that is now used, and just have them pump potassium chloride (the final part of the “protocol”: the caustic cocktail that actually kills you) through my veins– the only stipulation being that the execution must be televised on broadcast TV so that the public could witness what their tax dollars pay for, on top of the millions it takes to actually get someone to the execution chamber. I figure I can put up with anything for ten or fifteen minutes, and I doubt I will be screaming for that long before I die.

But since that will never happen (not gonna show the public the truth), I guess I would choose firing squad if I could. Seems to be more honor in it, a “live by the sword, die by the sword” kind of thing.

Just F.Y.I.: the other two drugs of the “protocol” are a paralytic and an anesthetic, so all screaming is internalized and people don’t have to watch that.

And on that happy note, I will stop, so as to give Anna’s poor fingers a rest. (Again, my friend, I appreciate this opportunity so very much. Thank you deeply from the core of my being.)

As for the rest of you.. more answers coming! Great questions! Thank you!

 

A Day in the Oubliette

Greetings and welcome to the Roost. This is my first “official” posting after the setup of the site. To be honest I am not real sure what blogging is or how to go about it really. I have a real concern about my being repetitive as my world is so limited here. Let me begin with how a day usually passes for me.

I arise at about four AM. I throw some water on my face and then clean my floor. (This place is so filthy so every day is a must.) My cage is only 7×10 so this does not take too long. Then, at around four-thirty, a guard brings me a small brown lunch-sized paper bag. This is my breakfast and lunch. (No lunch on Saturday and Sunday, just breakfast) and it is to last me until about five or so in the afternoon. (Today it consisted of a half-pint of 2% milk, a plastic sandwich bag with half a bowl of cold cereal, another sandwich bag with some peanut butter that had been mixed with…something… yet another bag of some sort of highly processed sandwich meat (two slices), and six slices of bread. (Two sandwiches and six slices of bread!) After making sure everything that is supposed to be in the bag is (which is not always the case) I throw that on my table and begin my workout. I won’t bore you with the details but this takes about an hour and a half to two hours. (There is never darkness in my cage. There is always a light on. The guards claim they must be able to see us.) If it is not a shower day, I bathe in my small metal sink. (Speaking of showers… I get twelve a month by law.) If it is a shower day then I just clean up a bit and wait for someone to put me in the shower.

I never leave my cage unchained. Always, I am chained like an animal. Even to walk about thirty feet to the shower. The shower is a six-by-six-foot cage with a shower head in it. I am allowed to take a towel, a washcloth, and soap. The shower has a button on a timer. It is supposed to be fifteen minutes. The timer in the shower I use is set to about four minutes. Once it goes off, it takes it takes fifteen to twenty minutes, to come back on. After your shower, you stand in the small cage until a guard comes to chain you up and take you back to your cage. It usually takes about an hour.

Once back in my cage, I wash my laundry in my sink. This is not allowed and one can get into trouble for it. I don’t care because sending my laundry in for them to do it is unacceptable. It comes back smelling bad and has more dirt (other people’s dirt!) in it than when I sent it in. Anyone that has sense, (and can buy soap), washes their own laundry.

After this, I may read (I read voraciously, anything I can get my hands on. Books are scarce, however, I can only get one per week from the library. I can read a book in a day if I do not pace myself. I am currently re-reading some poetry by Charles Baudelaire. Les Fleurs du Mal translated by George Dillon and Edna St. Vincent Millay. As am I, he too was a fan of Edgar Allan Poe’s work. I more “digest’ Baudelaire’s work than read it. I will read again and again his poems until they are almost a part of me.

I also will usually listen to my little radio at some point during the day as well. This is my only source of news as I do not have a television set. (It stopped working about… eight or nine months ago.) I also enjoy music. Several types. Classical, jazz, old rock and roll, metal…most types of music I find enjoyable on some level.

After my laundry is dry, I may try to use up some time by cleaning my whole cage (ceiling, walls, floor) or I may try meditation. (That can be difficult as the day wears on… a lot of noise in here) Morning is usually best for meditation.

If I am lucky I can fill my time until five or six in the afternoon in the afternoon/evening when my “dinner tray” comes. Today that should be some sort of ground meat product mixed heavily soy and formed into a hamburger-sized plop, instant mashed potatoes mixed with way too much water to save money. (I call it potato soup), some sort of beans (brown or white), and two inch square of very dry cake just to bump up the calories. (Perhaps that is what the extra two slices of bread in the paper sack are for? The soy-meat plop?)

Then after I eat and write some (compose prose or poetry, answer a letter if I am lucky enough to have gotten one) or I may listen to more news and music until I go to bed at about nine PM. Then I get up at four and do it all again. There are small variations here and there but my existence is one of living in a cage, and waiting…always waiting.

Well, that is a typical day in my oubliette, so I suppose I have nothing else to rave on about for now.