tv Lockup San Quentin MSNBC October 22, 2011 4:00pm-5:00pm PDT
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due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. america's prisons, dangerous, often deadly. there are 2 million people doing time. every day is a battle to survive and to maintain order. >> down on your feet, down! >> among the nation's most notorious institutions, san quentin state prison. our cameras spent months documenting life on the inside where gangs, drugs, and sheer boredom make up a violent mix. this is "lockup: san quentin -- extended stay." as the oldest prison in
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california, san quentin is steeped in a violent history. >> out in the yard. take a hole. >> taking in and distributing inmates from 17 counties, its criminal population changes almost every day. >> just keeping this place functional is an enormous effort. >> the prison uses a set of regulations and procedures to maintain order. but inmates often operate under a different code of conduct. >> nothing happened so one day goes into another and next thing you know, weeks go by and years go by.
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>> a new day begins at san quentin. >> good morning, gentlemen. >> california's oldest and most notorious prison. with its own zip code, almost 6,000 inmates and more than 1,500 staff members who walk through its gates every morning, a typical day at san quentin is, more often than not, just like hundreds, even thousands, of other days. for 19-year-old troy kamisky, the best part of his morning is a cell-made cup of joe. >> sleep all day, drink coffee, read a book. this is your good class "a" folger's. if it ain't folger's it ain't nothing, you know what i'm saying? my hot water is broken thanks to this wonderful place. i get it from my next door neighbor, nick. you probably don't want to talk to him, he's probably talking to his demons right now. hey nick, hey, i need some hot water from you, homey. thank you.
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thank god he's got long arms, huh? we got some hot water. we make do. you know, we do what we got to do to live and survive in this nice little space of ours. i smoke cigarettes. but i can't get a cigarette here anymore. so i cut myself. then they think that i'm trying to kill myself. they put me in a butt naked room which is bull [ bleep ]. because i'm not trying to kill myself. if i was going to kill myself i'd slice up or hang myself, know what i'm saying? i carved c-14 in my arm, a jail gang i was in. i did it with my fingernails. i liked the feeling of the pain. it relieves stress. the walls started talking to me. you know, when you got a thick slab of cement and you can't talk to the next person, you ain't got nobody to talk to the whole day, you kind of lose it, you know? what else are you supposed to do? ♪
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♪ you know my name name >> do me a favor, don't come back, man. this ain't no playground, man. >> even for the "lockup" production crew, who spent three months inside san quentin, one day can look a lot like the next. back in ad seg, inmates are locked up 23 hours a day and are confined to tiny, windowless cells. >> all right, let's do this. let's do this blue eye. ♪ she a little tea cup short and stout ♪ ♪ you can tell what this chick is all about ♪ ♪ cool to the touch cool to the touch ♪ ♪ cool to the touch cool to the touch ♪ ♪ she's a little tea cup short and stout ♪
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you can tell what this chick is all about ♪ ♪ she's cool to the touch cool to the touch ♪ >> nice. nice, nice. >> yeah! >> i've never, ever captivated anybody like i've captivated these people. because the way i sing, they love it. i love it. it took me coming to prison to realize how much i enjoy doing this. >> while demetrius jefferson finds solace in music to drown out the deafening noise, across the tier, angel rodriguez begins his day painting a mural that represents a personal transformation. >> i'm trying to get spiritual now. god has a plan for you, whatever. that's how i'm seeing it now. might be some reality to it. might not be, i don't know. >> start with the hearts because that represents me for my girl. and the hearts coming over the bars, like she'll be with me
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throughout this time. right now, it's the grim reaper, that's overall what's running this earth. you can see it if you look around you, death, death and then deception, trickery, how we do each other wrong. that's what that represents. hourglasses represent the world's going to change. it's biblical stuff. people out there will see i believe in god also and maybe give the youngsters a different perspective. i've been in the lockup now i'm trying to change my ways. the judge could have gave me a misdemeanor but she said because of my past i'm violent, all the violence i got in my past, she said something could have happened. i could have hurt my girl, she said. so that's why she didn't keep a misdemeanor, she elevated to felonies. i was on drugs so my mind wasn't even focused. i was thinking about me and being selfish. i wasn't thinking about her nor my son, nothing like that. i promised her i wouldn't bring that into our lives. i used to sneak it and it started pushing her away and i didn't realize it. that's where it started. it got worse and worse. >> when you're locked inside the
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walls of san quentin, the nearest art supply store may as well be a million miles away. jailhouse artists like angel have to use their ingenuity to create the right tools to get the job done. >> regular ink from the pen, i take off the tip, blow it out in a little container, i mix a drop of shampoo, use white toothpaste because clear don't work. i stir it. and then i cut my hair, i make paint brushes. wrap it with paper and string. make two paint brushes. this one right here says my son and wife, i was thinking about putting a scene here. where they're behind a fence. i want a little boy crying. know what i mean? so it shows that even though he's young, that he's aware of the sadness, you know what i mean? he sees me getting locked up, he comes to visit me, he sees my girl, sees the tears in her eyes. even though he's 3 he's sharp, know what i mean, smart. i want to put that in there, that will depict he's aware of what's happening. not fully aware of why i'm being
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locked up but he knows something bad is happening, you know what i mean? if you believe in god you have to say forgiven. i never went to school for it, just on my own, i learned. if i didn't have that, i'd be mad. i'm going to be mad at the judicial system, mad at being here, mad at the inmates in here. right now i'm not. i'm at peace right now. coming up on "lockup: extended stay." >> nobody wants to go down in that shower with all kinds of freaks. >> when inmates refuse to shower with the group, it's the officers who wind up all wet. applications up. check my email and text messages. hands in position. airbags. ten of 'em. perfect. add blind spot monitor. 43 mpg, nice.
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it's late morning on west block and inmates are released tier by tier to the showers, where they're given an extremely brief opportunity to wash up before lunch. >> when you shower, you shower with a whole bunch of other men that's not fully clothed, that's naked. you know? where's the privacy at? >> you only get to shower every other day here.
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nobody wants to go down into that shower with all kinds of freaks. you're in the shower, you have, what, 12 showerheads and you've got 50 dudes down there all wanting to shower in five minutes. you've got people bumping into each other, you know? [ bleep ] that. >> okay, wash up, get out of here. >> hey, hey! all right.
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i'm going back to my cell. hate my life. >> you're live on tape. >> how's it going? san quentin showers. >> this is my shower. i plug this into my sink. this right here plugs right into the hole in the sink. i designed this. i ought to market [ bleep ]. i'm actually kind of lucky in a sense because i don't have a celly. i can't have a celly. i've had cell violence. i had incidents inside my cell with me and the person i'm living with. >> damn. what you're looking at now, people would say it's flooding but i guarantee you have a guy in the cell taking a birdbath. that's something we get all the time. >> one time we had 50 cells here at one time, like niagara falls.
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>> why you hollering now? >> give me two. >> more than 3,000 inmates eat their meals in the same dining hall, which can only hold up to 400 at a time. the groups are released by tier to ensure everyone gets a chance to eat. >> i'm the eyes and ears of this south block rotunda. it's the eye of the storm. everyone's relying on me if we have an incident in the kitchen or in the -- inside the unit,
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sometimes, but mainly the landing areas. let's go! my main job is to make sure the inmates come from their housing unit, into the chow hall, sit down, come back out. i also have other officers that are inside. at the same time i'm watching my officers inside, watching their backs, because who's watching their backs? you kind of see what i'm saying? you've got two officers in the chow hall, i try to keep traffic where i can control it on the steps and have a gap here, so if something were to kick off from there, from this point where we're talking i can have a visual. you've got five landings up
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here. as you can see i can't see what's going on there, there, i can barely see what's going on here. so i'm relying on body language on the inmates and also my officers. this is where it becomes tricky, up inside of here. >> stand by. stand by. >> this is my house. this is my home. this is what i do every day, eight hours a day. >> look at this food right here. look at this food. >> what is this? >> despite having four meal options prepared by inmates, many prisoners attend chow for the social benefits but refuse to eat there. >> supposed to be spaghetti, broccoli -- and i don't know what this look like, shampoo. i don't know who made this. do i know it's safe for my body? i don't know. would you eat it if you didn't
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know who dished it? i don't think so. that's all i got to say. i cook my own food in my own cell. >> know what i mean? you want to be eating out of trays? go ahead. bring it here. >> inmates like david monroe have found a more creative albeit more expensive option in cell cooking. >> i am making roast beef and corned beef tacos and in here, in prison, we have to cook in bags. we get this off the canned goods, take the top off so you can cut. other than that you don't have much to cut with. it's a whole lot harder than having a knife. as long as you ain't using it as a knife the officers ain't -- they understand that you have to cut your meat. i haven't eaten anything in the chow hall in a really long time. i'd say a good year or so. i can cook pretty good. it tastes very well.
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i can definitely hide the fact that it's coming from an inmate. you wouldn't know the difference. you just mix it up like that in a bag, then you put it in here and it will cook itself and give it like 10, 15 minutes. i grew up with all girls. so i learned from them. and then most of the times i was by myself because i was always skipping school so i had to cook for myself. i was basically the same as the kids i associated with, troubled youth. bad family, you know. father was alcoholic. used to beat my mom. he ran out on us. i grew up around a lot of gangs. it was just a 15-year-old kid trying to find an identity. didn't have one. i got caught up doing that stuff. skipping school. hanging out. doing stuff like that that gang members do, thugs do, whatever you want to call it. i ended up killing somebody. i was at some girl's house and i seen somebody walking by. we had a confrontation. and it resulted in me shooting him. i was 15 when i committed the crime. at 16 i pled guilty to second degree murder for 15 to life plea bargain.
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that day just changed my whole life. celly! >> you've got to have the hot sauce. this is the best part of the day. coming home to a hot cooked meal. can't beat it. >> i was scared to come to prison. doing a life sentence in prison with adult men, that has its own fear and its own just knowing that you're going to do a life sentence with a bunch of adult men but you're still a kid. now we have to eat together. i'm a 15-year-old kid. i'm 24 now, almost 25. i'm absolutely nowhere near that person anymore. coming up on "lockup: extended stay." >> this is a very important tool for us. that's how easy it would show up. >> even the laundry isn't exempt from random searches. they simply assign you a number. aviva is here to change all that. we're bringing humanity back to insurance and putting people before policies. aviva life insurance and annuities. we are building insurance around you. yeah, maybe not.
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>> get started right now. put your shirt on, do all that back there. >> pull your pants up, you're still in prison, all right? all right, all right. walk around with your ass hanging out, it don't work. keep your pants pulled up. >> i have little tolerance for [ bleep ]. if the inmates don't know me they'll get my attention and i'll straighten them out. i demand respect off the top. >> are you paroling? >> i came up through a time in the early '80s when it was really violent. we had officers killed, a lot of staff hurt. a lot of inmates killed. savagely beaten. to this day officers get hurt and beat up quite a bit and a lot of people don't know about
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this. straight ahead all the way from the back to your left. i don't want to cut that because i don't want to nip your ear by accident. because it's your ear. it's got to come off. i always have my -- i call it spider senses. kind of up in case something happens. i put on a different -- just a higher -- higher level of security. i'm in the walls. anything with stone on it is considered contraband, so you mail it home or donate it. you got a lot of room to cut that off. good job. you'll be all right. what about them gold teeth? just wondering, just asking, man. gold teeth, that's a hot commodity, too. >> hey, hey. >> nice of you to show up. nice, nice job. >> when he is not processing the 350 incoming inmates each week, he's talking game strategy on a basketball court. >> are you going to bomb threes on us? >> no. >> what are you going to do? what do we say? >> drive. >> drive to the hoop. i'm assistant coach of the windsor girls varsity high school basketball team. >> stop the ball, stop the ball! all the way! there you go. i have the hardest time with tattoos and stuff. parents look at me like, who's
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the felon on the bench with the coach? >> the ball, the ball, the ball. >> good job. good job, ladies. >> officer thompson is one of 35 correctional officers working in ad seg. >> so we have weekly laundry exchange in the ad seg. we're setting up two sheets, a pair of socks and a towel right now. >> while sorting laundry may seem mundane, it's critical to both the officer's and the inmate's safety. >> we don't wash it here anymore. it comes back in locked carts and we run it through the rapid scan machine, check it for contraband. the last thing we'd need to do is have a piece of metal or
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something inside these sheets. that's a real potential hazard for staff in here. that's plastic. so it's really -- it's a very important tool for us. that's how easy it would show up. it picks up the smallest things. >> but when his shift ends, he trades in his uniform for a pair of jeans and hits the open road. >> i'm off work. i'm me. this is how we get down. yeah, this is -- cutting loose. >> in the early afternoon, officer grant begins his shift in one of the ten towers surrounding the prison. >> how you doing, bird? >> i'm doing okay, how you doing? >> you're looking pretty good for a young kid. i'm 79 right now, i'll be 80 august 7th. and i am the oldest correctional officer here at san quentin. i first came to san quentin when
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i was 60 years old. i just wasn't ready to retire yet. >> your impact rounds are over there. >> primarily my job is to prevent escapes. this is a mini 14. it's a high-powered rifle. we use these as a last resort to stop a situation that could be lethal. >> they say "you're too old to be working here, grant." i just laugh it off. >> for officer grant time off brings him outside the walls into the bay surrounding the prison where he swims a mile and a half in a little more than an hour. >> i never, ever felt like quitting because i always kept myself in good health. coming up on "lockup: extended stay." the yard can be a dangerous
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there is a potential lead in the case of missing missouri baby lisa irwin. a cadaver dog reakted to a scent of decomposition. the parents insist they had nothing to do with their daughter's disappearance. and singer loretta lynn has been hospitalized for pneumonia. she was touring to celebrate her 5 50 years in the music business. now back to "lockup." due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised.
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protect them from people like me. because they know that i'm not going to no longer do anything. because i can't, unless i go back to the shu. >> nine serving six. come on, womack. >> last time we were out on yard was probably about a week and a half ago. yeah. >> treating you bad? i'm not treating you bad. >> you always treat me bad. >> [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. >> i always treat you good. >> [ bleep ]. >> you got a problem? you got a problem? >> come on. what the [ bleep ]. how many times have i been served the ball? >> [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. >> oh, man, come on, man. pick somebody else, man. god. >> that's game. >> good game. >> i'm the king of the court. i run that court. that court was mine for about an hour. >> since weights have been banned from san quentin, inmates
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like speedy have found other ways to keep in shape. that's our weights. that's how we work out. we make water bags. we don't get weights no more. arnold schwarzenegger took those away from us. >> why is everybody looking at us, man? find you some business. >> while recreational options are limited on the sensitive needs yard, back in ad seg they're even more restricted. angel gets his first real human contact for the day when an officer escorts him out for his one hour yard time. >> i thought you was coming with me. >> you got one open?
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>> like a dog pound. get an hour out here. it's better than nothing. they put this because three people get stabbed. now what am i supposed to do? i don't need to work out in the yard. you don't work out because you don't want no one to see what you can do. you keep the secret, whether you're in shape or not in shape. you know what i mean? usually don't work out so the next man don't know what you're capable of. because then you expose your hand. like when you're playing cards. keep everything so no one knows what you have. your abilities or whatever. know what i mean? >> blinky was a paid hit! >> angel spends most of his time
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talking with other inmates. rather than engaging in any sort of physical activity. >> are you validated or what? >> yeah, they got me validated. validated me in '91. since then i ain't been out. since '91. they validated me in solitary. i been debriefing. know what i mean? they tried to come up when i was in pelican bay, wanted me to go back to the main line. asked me to debrief. i said, i don't know nothing. keep your head up, man. >> once back in the privacy of his own cell, angel begins his daily workout. >> it's easy to do like this. you don't work out, you go crazy in here, you know what i mean? >> how long do you work out? >> maybe two hours. i start with 1,000 push-ups,
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right? after i do that, i come and do these. >> fights inside the prison can initiate a lockdown at any time. revoking yard privileges for all inmates. making the in-cell workout their only option. >> they call it burpees workout. we do different kind of stuff. we do burpees. we do abdominals. we do arms. tomorrow we get yard. we get yard two times a week. that's our routine every day. we get bored. we don't know what to do. so working out is wasting the mind out, you know what i mean? my english is not too perfect. after that, we wait for chow.
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it's just wasting time. we got a long time to go. coming up on "lockup: extended stay," it's the bottom of the ninth. and for these inmates there's more on the line than just a game. airbags. ten of 'em. perfect. add blind spot monitor. 43 mpg, nice. dependability. yeah. activate dog. a bigger dog. [ male announcer ] introducing the reinvented 2012 toyota camry. it's ready. are you? ♪
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within the walls of san quentin prison, each inmate has to find his own way to get through his time. for nghiep key lam, america's favorite pastime is his way to escape the realities of prison life. >> for now i'm going down to the baseball field, see what's going on. this year, i'll be playing for the san quentin giants. and i'll be a starting left fielder. >> hey, guys, listen, breathe. make him throw strikes to you. here we go. san quentin giants baseball. come on. >> let's go, let's go. >> let's go now.
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>> one for a single. one for a home run. >> when i first got in in 2003, there was the giants and the pirates. i went out there for the pirates. >> he don't even want to throw a strike, curtis. he don't even want to throw a strike. >> first day, i suit up in pirates uniform. i felt like i was a kid again. >> let's go. stay focused. >> attack mode, baby, attack mode. >> being familiar with something i grew up with, playing baseball. i felt alive at that point. baseball, no matter where you are, in prison or on the street, it's baseball. >> go, go! get him, get him! he's out of there. whoo-hoo! >> my year, i hope to hit over .400. and still be the leading base stealer on the team.
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>> go, go, go! go, go! >> in prison, you know, base stealing, that's not a good term to use, but baseball-wise, that's the best term to use. stealing bases. throwing people out. now i know why baseball is america's pastime in sports. you know? >> key is serving a 25 year to life sentence that began when he was 17 years old. >> at 17, i was just confused. i didn't know who i was. i wanted to play sports. because i wanted to go to college, you know. play baseball. you know. but then -- somewhere down that line i just -- i kind of gave up hope. i was a kid and looking for -- looking for companionship. looking for a place to fit in.
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the point of joining a gang was for the value of being connected with somebody. being accepted. being, you could say, loved. i was 17 years old. and i got in a gang fight with somebody. and i ended up stabbing them. stabbing that person to death. when i reflect back, when i was stabbing him, i wasn't stabbing just him. but it was -- i was stabbing my -- everybody that i had anger against. i went back to my buddy's house. and i just told him, man, i did something bad. you know. i did something bad. i was shaking. i didn't know what to do. next day i went to school, you know. like trying to make everything normal again. in reality, it wasn't normal. i took somebody's life. somebody's son. somebody's brother. you know. and thinking back on it, it's sad. because -- because that didn't have to happen. you know, that didn't have to happen at all. but it did. and now i got to deal with it. in the process of this, i want to try to help somebody else,
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that is going -- like a guy that might have three years, make sure he don't come back as a murderer. that's my new life now. >> all inmates down in the prone position. >> but no matter what's at stake in the game, the all too familiar sound of an alarm reminds the inmates whose yard this is. >> why is everybody down? >> there's an alarm. that's just -- anytime you hear an alarm, all inmates. everybody has to get down, all inmates. sometimes there might be a fight, might be somebody hurt. so they have to press the alarm. make sure the cos know what's going on. most of the time you get a lot
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of false alarms. we don't know whether it's real or it's false. >> alarm clear. >> it's off now so everybody can get up. that's a precaution. >> nobody rises, nobody moves. >> business as usual. >> if we don't get down, then somebody might get shot. >> good throw, thank you. >> good job, old man. >> nice beating you, home boy. >> underneath the towers surrounded by razor wire, level 2 inmates from north block and h unit get in one last game of tennis before the end of the day. >> just a little long. >> mohammad is the captain of the san quentin tennis team. >> i started playing in the '70s on the street.
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when we first came to prison, a few places don't have tennis courts. when i first saw this, it just kind of like touched my heart. my release date is 20 years from now, if they don't fix the law. and they better fix it. no, just kidding. 20 years from now, that's the release date they gave me. 2027. i had a drug -- drug problem. drugs became a big picture. and not just being under the influence. just being in part of drugs, period. will get you involved in doing different things. what happened, cocaine makes you feel like you're on the top of the world. you saw the movie "scarface." what can i say, i wanted to be scarface. the real special thing -- really it takes you away from here, if
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you want to know the truth. it kind of takes you to where you've been before on the extended stay" -- >> 32 checkmate. >> when boredom sets in, these inmates get inventive with household items. >> this is a castle. that's some strawberry kool-aid and a piece of toilet paper. >> yeah, i make roses for mother's day and all that stuff. this is made out of toilet paper, right? see this? i mean, anybody that would like art would never think that was made out of soap and paper. rem? there are more people taking more medication, so we see people suffering from dry mouth more so. we may see more cavities, bad breath, oral irritation. a dry mouth sufferer doesn't have to suffer. i would recommend biotene. the enzymes in biotene products help supplement enzymes that are naturally in saliva. biotene helps moisten those areas that have become dry.
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as the hour grows later in san quentin, all inmates are required to remain in their cells until lights out. >> 13 and 64. >> 19 and 61. >> 32 checkmate. >> 19 to 31 check. >> 22 to 29. i'll have to move a pawn. i'll show you how to play chess. >> it's fun, you know what i mean? you see how we work. this is all made out of toilet paper right here. this is a castle. that's some strawberry kool-aid and a piece of toilet paper. dyed with kool-aid. that's where you get the color at. that's the bishop. he got flavor. we got to work with what we can. this is a king for you.
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>> that's a queen right here. >> that's the queen right here. she has a little "v" indention. this toilet paper and this kool-aid is our entertainment. see his numbers are exactly the same as our numbers. i make a move, he can put it on his board too. if he doesn't do it right it's going to mess the whole game up. >> 39 to 46 check. my pawn takes your pawn. >> your game's weak, man. >> you took my queen, man. >> with nothing but time, inmates are able to turn the most basic household items into pieces of art. >> there it is. that's a tread of a tire. made out of soap. once i paint it with black marker, which i put in toothpaste to mix it, use pastel as color, i put foil inside to make it shine. on the other side i'll carve the v twin, the motor, out of the soap. i'll indent lines into it so the motor will look like a motor. takes a long time.
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so i like motorcycles. i been doing it for like six years. and i mean, anybody that would -- likes art would never think that was made out of soap and paper. you know. i like doing it. it keeps me out of trouble. that's a whole other friend right here. that's what keeps me from being depressed and angry and everything else. this has been my life for 22 years, prison. ♪ >> while these hobbies simply kill time for some inmates, for joe aske, it's a source of income. >> yeah, i make roses. for mother's day and all that stuff. these guys -- i sell them. this is made out of toilet paper, right? see this? it says -- the poem, here's a special flower to say i love and
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miss you. made from 14 little squares of prison toilet tissue. finding new and different ways to make you laugh or smile makes running out of toilet paper almost seem worthwhile. and people, they actually put them in the letter, send it home. but i make -- i should make two bucks off this tonight so i can smoke a cigarette later. that's what it's all about. >> cigarettes are expensive? >> $2 a cigarette, wow. >> in our three months inside san quentin, our production crew barely found a quiet moment. the noise on the cell block can be deafening. and now at nearly 10:00 p.m., most inmates are about to call it a night before a new day of the same old routine starts all over again.
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>> shutdown is at 9:30, 10:00, everybody goes quiet. everybody says good night. respectfully, hey, you hear it say our respects. we can have peace and harmony amongst everybody. everybody says good night, buenos noches, whatever, right? >> it's like a shout, everybody will say it at one time. one person will direct it, to all my northerners, whatever, all my hispanics, all my africans, good night.
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everybody will shout, hey, good night. to each race. >> in the morning it's good morning, too. they do that at like 5:30, 6:00 in the morning. hey, and start shouting out, right? then seal will come in and clown too. he'll say, to all my cambodians, good morning! everybody will go, hey, good morning. he gets a kick out of it. you know what i mean? you got humorous times in here too, you know what i mean? this is our life. we got to laugh. you know? can't be always mad. >> all the time! >> god it good. >> all the time! >> good night. ♪
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