With the holidays coming up, I am sure the hustle and bustle is about to begin. Tomorrow is black Friday. Some people do all their holiday shopping in one trip that day. I’ve never been so lucky finically to do that, but they sure have incredible deals. What do you want for Christmas this year? Have you been a good little boy/girl? For the women, I’m sure Tripper would love to arrange a little spankin’! *winks*  And for the men, I’m sure Nic could figure something out…tehehe

Seriously though, from about November through February, it’s a more tough than usual for Tripper. The holiday season. They call this Friday “black Friday”, but for Tripper it’s more like “Black November, December, January, and February”, and it’s not in a good way by any means. I wanted to make a play on the “black” thing since it’s such a huge deal everywhere. And then I started to think about Tripper and what I wanted this whole blog to mean. I thought of his family, his loved ones, the people here on MySpace that have become an integral part of his life now,  and all the people that would give up damn near everything just to give him a hug, real friends, real people who care about Tripper, not his money, not his bag of dope, not what he can do for them.

Tripper’s Parents and Sister, last picture taken, I believe 5 years ago.

 To hear his laugh on Christmas morning, to sit around and have a beer with him on Christmas Eve.  To hold his hand and tell him that everything is going to be alright, and really mean it. Tripper owns up to what he did. He is serving his time, albeit entirely too much time for the crime. He does his own time, and makes it through every single day, ending with a sort of peace in his heart.  Every year though, during the holiday season, he loses all hope. As big and bad as Tripper is, this time of year seriously knocks him on his ass, and every year I am more afraid he will not get back up. He loses the ability to dream, wonder, and know he can make it out here again. He takes himself to a place within that is incredibly dark and lonely. He loses his will and his ability to hope.

 Many of us do that out here as well around the holidays. Some have suffered endless tragic things during the holidays, and even if it’s not the holiday, it’s the person or place that takes you to that dark place within yourself.  Out here at least that person has options. Such as the ability to go to a church service without assholes having sex in the pew behind you or fear that if you do go to the church inside that some horrible act of violence will happen, as the church is an easy place to do almost anything. There is no respect for any higher power.  You can have a holiday drink, or 5, to ease that pain or go to your doctor and ask for some sedatives to help make it through.  You can go see your family or to their gravestones, you have the ability to communicate with your body, your hands, fingertips, lips and heart. You have the ability to move, to do something, anything, even if it is to only run away. Tripper has no option like that.

His family will not be able to make a trip to see him, it’s just simply too far, and his elderly folks are not in good health, another thing Tripper relishes on and worries endlessly about. He would trade 3 life sentences just to be with them and take care of them while they age. And they miss him terribly as well. It’s not only Tripper that does the time ladies and gentlemen. Everyone who loves him does the time as well. 15 years, we are incarcerating people for 15 years on non-violent drug charges with quantities that you and I piss in one trip to the bathroom. It’s insane, not right, and something that makes me ashamed to say I live in America. But Tripper does his time.

I am calling you all out again to please help make the holidays a little more bearable for Tripper. I’d like us to give him the best Christmas he can have inside. We can do it, but it’s going to take all of us. Pulling together on his birthday was in-fucking-credible!  You guys shocked the hell out of me, there seriously are people out there who love, care, and are committed to seeing Tripper succeed. The word to describe that is simply good will. Good hearts, people who understand, people who never want to understand but care, people who will walk the extra mile to make sure somebody has a good holiday. People who pay it forward.

Please, send Christmas cards!! I am going to be packaging them up and mailing them to Tripper on December 20^th.  Every single card is a HUGE deal to Tripper. Something maybe you and I take for granted. And as Lisa said in the birthday blog, I’m passing a hat around. I am putting up $50 again. He can’t have SO many things it’s easier to list the things he can have.

Tripper’s Christmas Wish List via the Representative

Magazine Subscriptions, no nudity or violence, mailed from the manufacturer directly to him

He really would love the Fort Smith newspaper, a little piece of home (it’s really expensive though, and I haven’t been able to come up with the cash for that.If this is something that you are interested in doing, please shoot me a message and I’ll tell you how to send it! Stamps and ribbons take priority)

Soft Cover books, again, no nudity or violence

Cards of all kinds! No stickers, no musical cards, no voice record cards, and no over-sized cards. (Bummer isn’t it, *sighs*)

Money (he can use this to go to the inmate store to buy foods, he can order clothes ex. Sweat pants, tennis shoes, socks, underwear, tee shirts (the real world kind, prices jacked high as hell of course). He can get his ribbons for the type writer and his correction tapes. He can also buy stamps! Plus he has to pay a co-pay to see the inmate doctor and dentist. Common things are not given to them, Band-Aids, ibuprofen, cortisone cream, things we just need from time to time. Him not having an income, it’s really tough sometimes. Well hell, all the time, but he survives. I would just like to make it a little bit better for him. I just can’t do it alone.

 This can work, but I need all of you. Tripper will be happy with my card and gift, but he will be floored to get a card package and money order like he did for his birthday. He was very emotional when he got the packages that day, and couldn’t believe so many of you out there cared.  And seriously you guys, MySpace has renewed his faith in people. If you could’ve seen him before he started blogging, you would’ve seen a very bitter, angry man. You all make a difference in his life. An incredible difference.

The address to mail the cards to me for processing is:

Tales From The Cells

P.O. BOX 430

O’Neill, NE  68763

By December 20th, 2008

Please message me with any questions, concerns, or ideas. As I said in the birthday blog, if you want to send a monetary gift, NOTHING is too small. It is easier for me to process and get into a money order if you send cash. If you are not comfortable with that, let me know, and will let you know how to address it to me personally to add it on to the money order. There is also a calendar in the making especially for Tripper.  I will give details on that in another blog coming up very soon, but to give you an idea, we would like any photos you want in his calendar, and also your town’s “special days”, your birthdays, anything to fill up the calendar and make it bad ass. Gypsy Adair and  Road ~ Trip ~ Junkie are the ladies doing this, so speak with them directly, or hang tight for further instruction here.

                                        Tripper at 6 y/o

I will be pimping this out, I ask that you too please pimp it out. I am going to get a banner put up as well.  BUT if you talk to Tripper directly, LET’S KEEP THIS A SUPRISE. There are so few good surprises in his life, we have the possibility of doing it big!! I hate to ask this all of you. The economy is tough right now. People are suffering. People are going without. A  gift is nice, but let’s try to get as many cards as we possibly can gathered up!! Your well wishes and thoughts to him are worth a pot of gold, seriously. Sometimes it’s hard for people to understand how something so simple can end up being such a big thing. When everything is taken from you, the things you do get that are good, are the most important things in the world. I speak from my own personal experience, and understand where Tripper is coming from. Again, this is a big surprise, so let’s try to make it BANG ladies and gentlemen!

Be Good and Be Well…..

Tripper’s Representative, Nic

Tripper’s Representative Nic and her son

Does anyone believe in karma? I’m talking about the consequences of a person’s actions that determine their specific destiny. Sometimes, I think about karma and wonder if it had anything to do with why I’m here. Why I’m serving this assload of time in federal prison and why all this is happening to me. Then, I think about what I might have done. Surely I didn’t do anything too awfully bad. Surely I haven’t hurt or harmed anyone so bad that I deserve this much mental and physical torture. Have I? Yet if someone believes in the laws of karma, I did something somewhere along the line that caused this to happen to me. And let me tell you folks, whatever it was, I sure wish I hadn’t done it. It had to be something to do with me selling drugs. That’s all I can think of. That’s all I can figure out. Because that’s all I’ve ever done. Sold dope to friends and acquaintances.

I didn’t sell marijuana, cocaine or speed to little kids. I sold it to my buddies. Grown adults who were capable of making their own decisions. Individuals just like me who simply wanted to alter reality a little and have a good time. Despite what society and law enforcement want you to believe, I wasn’t the guy in the dark trench coat hanging around schoolyards forcing drugs on small children. Yet that’s the way the legal system paints guys like me to be. The decision to use and purchase drugs is a conscious one. And to me, buying and selling dope is a consensual crime. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t used or sold. I wish I would have went to college and become a lawyer or doctor. Wait, not a lawyer. Changed my mind on that. They’re just as crooked as any criminal there is, doing time right, here sitting next to me in federal prison.

Anyway, back to karma. Some dealers have sold dope to individuals who overdosed and died. Not me. I’ve never done that. No one ever kicked the bucket as a result of doing any of my party material. In drug rehab at the prison my 2nd or 3rd go round it was offered in prison, I’ve watched films showing the most strung out, fucked up, totally wasted out of their minds junkies in the world! But truthfully everyone. I’ve never even met anyone like that! All the people I sold to and partied with were average folks. So, why is karma kicking my ass? Can anyone explain that to me? Or, is it karma at all? They say hindsight is 20/20. Wish I knew why this is happening to me. Maybe one day, after I finally leave this world, and my entire life is played back for me on a big movie screen, I’ll know. I’ll have found out what it was I done that was so fucking bad. Think that’ll happen? I doubt it. But you know what I mean.

My friend Robert T. was an asshole of a drunk. He hung around all the meanest bars in Fort Smith mouthing off and running his head to those he shouldn’t have. He fought all the time and probably hurt some people too. I know he at least stabbed one or two. Yet they didn’t die. Sure, they went to the emergency room with a couple of puncture wounds but they didn’t bite the big one. But one day something happened to old Robert. Was it karma that fucked Robert off? Drunk as a dog, he said something stupid to the wrong guy. Finally went and done it. He got stabbed and killed at Abe’s Oasis on Midland Boulevard. Was it Robert’s specific destiny to die at the hand of another wielding a knife? Or, was it simply coincidence? I don’t know. Even as ignorant as Robert acted sometimes, I don’t think he deserved to go out like that. If it was karma, then karma is a mother fucker. A stone cold mother fucker that I detest and abhor.

In closing, was it the laws of nature that put me here? And, will my good or evil ways have a bearing on me being reincarnated into someone decent or something bad? Or, is there really such a thing as karma and reincarnation at all? I honestly don’t think I’ve done anything that horrific in life. And if there is a heaven, I’ll go there because I’m not a bad person. My nature, disposition and character are that of a happy individual who never once meant to hurt or harm another living soul or creature. Yes, I broke society’s laws. I sold speed and weed to people and I’m doing time for it. But did I really deserve all this? I know some of you self righteous do-gooders out there will say I did. And others who have been in my shoes will say just the opposite. If anyone has any mind boggling insight on karma they’d like to share with me, I’d like to hear about it. Because right now I’m sitting here in prison kicking myself in the ass constantly wondering if it was karma that fucked me off, took 17 years of my life, and put a black label on me stating I am a no good rotten asshole. I’m Tripper. Better Days to all of you readers! Thank you for hanging out, it’s been rough here lately.