Open Thank You to Author-Historian, Mike Davis

September 7, 2022 by J. Nelson

Dear Mike,

I moped for a minute when I learned of your esophageal cancer and transition to quality of life care, then swiveled from the keyboard to my view of downtown Los Angeles. It’s a romantic, rent controlled, southeast panorama you might appreciate, stretching from Griffith Park all the way to wonderful, ill-favored Vernon. As the street elevation rises, this 96-year-old brownstone is a last stop before the Tesla Hills, allowing me to joke about living “at the feet of the snobs.”

*Mike Davis at the Los Angeles Sixth Street Viaduct Entrance*

It seems fitting writing you on a 104° day, but despite my window capturing so much of LA’s heat dome, it isn’t big enough to hold my gratitude for raising your critical theorist’s fist high in the air.

Thank you, Mike, for City of Quartz, a treasure of tormented topographies and asshole suits. That book warned me of “lurking cyber-fascism” at a time when “cyber” seemed strictly limited to William Gibson. While I admittedly struggled to understand some of it, it still felt like holding a road flare.

My dawning awareness of the “spatial apartheid” of private and pseudo-public spaces through the lens of LA redevelopment –Bunker Hill and Century City most alarmingly– was as perception-altering as any figurative burning bush I’ve encountered. Although to me, your work is more akin to witnessing a burning bank.

And thank you for that Ecology of Fear chapter, “Beyond Blade Runner.” What a fun and horrifying read! There’s no better narration of the ominous social organization of urban environments. Your all-too brief look at Columbia Savings and Loan CEO Thomas Spiegel’s office-turned-Alamo-war-bunker alone was worth the 1998 dollars I spent to own a copy. I imagine you smiling as you wrote it, so here’s where I’ll also thank you for your humor. It runs rampant through your darkest of examinations of anti-utopia. No, you’re not exactly known for Chavez Ravine zingers, but to those who say Mike Davis isn’t funny I ask, uh, “In Praise of Barbarians,” anyone? Also, I call you oppressors.

6th St. Viaduct pre-2016 Demolition • Author Photo

Speaking of oppression, thank you, Mike, for affirming that my indignant rejection of bread and circuses is neither sick nor wrong. I’ve faced the fallout from questioning mass consumption since my fellow sixth graders were writhing and squealing over Rod Stewart’s 1978 radio hit, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” (gross, no).

Further, thank you for corroborating –in spirit at least– that it isn’t mentally deranged to envision oneself dying a worthy death at the hands of the state. Try explaining that one to the nuns (and then family therapists).

Thank you, Mike Davis, for wondering aloud why the American working class has no political party of its own.

Thank you for inspiring me to graduate from my post-punk, Generation X naiveté by revealing enemies far more insidious than Daryl F. Gates, Tipper Gore, and Pete Wilson.

Finally, thank you for whatever input you had in choosing LA’s Metropolitan Detention Center as the City of Quartz cover photo: I read a copy machine bundle of the LA Weekly’s lengthy excerpt of the book during my stay at MDC, as well as while confined to the modules of Men’s Central Jail. You connected me to resistance, yes, and to municipal and policy wrongdoing, which were helpful to my understanding of the city I love. You insisted I learn civic responsibility, too. But finding MDC on that cover just as I was learning the value of human endorsement no less than anointed my own pencil-on-yellow-legal-pad observations. As a pretrial prisoner facing the wake-up call of a lifetime, your work made me feel recognized. What I and those around me endured at the hands of our LA Sheriff’s jailers was authenticated by the presence of that image.

Goodbye and thank you Mike Davis, Urban Theorist–Activist–Scholar, for this lump in my throat.
Mine is just one of the many Los Angeles minds you’ve enlivened.

John

Mike Davis Bio
(marcuse.org)

^UPDATE: ^10/26/2022

Mike Davis • March 10, 1946 – October 25, 2022

Mike Davis, ‘City of Quartz’ author who
chronicled the forces that shaped L.A., dies

The L.A.County Men’s Central Jail: Day Zero

January 31, 2021 by J. Nelson

The on again, off again initiative toward bulldozing this municipal black site might finally be realized.

In 2014, when the LA County Board of Supervisors turned their attention back to the city’s contemptible Men’s Central Jail (MCJ), demolishing it was a given. A civic corner had been turned, taking all plans to update and expand the existing structure off the table. There could be no escaping the curse of a bloodthirsty culture of deputy-on-inmate violence that lived deep in the building’s bones: the miserable concrete labyrinth had to come down.

Yawn.
The lockup built in 1962, and often referred to as “the old side,” continues to rot in place. Former Sheriff Lee Baca has since been convicted, but the facility itself is still overseen by the Custody Operations Division as atrociously as ever. Equally troubled Alex Villanueva likely runs it with as much “Us vs. Them” spite than during my own 10-month stay as a pre-trial prisoner under then-Sheriff Sherman Block (at the time America’s highest paid public official).

But as Americans rethink their positions on criminal justice, LA’s Men’s Central Jail should be seen as both worst-case and day zero.

First, the worst.
Secrecy has long permeated the ranks of LA Sheriff’s Brass and enshrouds MCJ. It’s such an organizationally controlled fortress, only touring an aircraft carrier can compare. Murals, tributes, trophy cases, banners, badges, and memorials force feed visitors law enforcement martyrdom to the point where one can’t sense how much it’s all spinning until reunited with fresh air and sunlight.

The Department has managed for decades a kind of denial sleight-of-hand involving its budgets, bad apples, excessive force settlements, corruption scandals, secret deputy gangs, and a conveyor belt of civil rights violations and allegations of misconduct. There’s always an excuse as to why it’s “not the right time” to close MCJ’s old side, hold the LASD accountable, or discuss ways to reduce corruption, even as 539 of 606 lawsuits against the city in fiscal year 2018-19 were filed against the Sheriff’s Department alone. (And to the tune of $81.5 million). In the end, this shell game of postures and pushback has prolonged the life of their beloved Men’s Central Fight Club.

• Department Leaders had a lax attitude towards deputy aggression and discouraged deputy discipline
• Department was aware of deputy cliques present at MCJ and known to high level management as far back as 2004
• The Sheriff allowed his Undersheriff and Assistant Sheriff to run the Custody Division without effective oversight
• Deputies Have Enabled Inmates to Use Force Against Other Inmates
• Witnesses have told the Commission that deputies enabled inmates to attack other rival inmates by opening the doors to several cells at once, which inmates refer to as “racking the gates.”
• The Commission also heard about deputies who have intentionally placed inmates in dangerous situations, such as placing high-security inmates in the general population and announcing their crimes to the other inmates.

In the current climate, the future for reform looks a bit brighter. Still, it’s unclear what will actually become of MCJ. Zócalo’s Joe Matthews makes a case for keeping the old dungeon around, perhaps as a museum of mass incarceration or a center for democratic principles in action. “To tear down Men’s Central Jail would be to risk forgetting what the place has meant, and to miss a historic opportunity to turn this torture chamber into a vital center for California’s future,” he writes. Conversely, there is an optimistic view among many Angelenos that the very act of destroying MCJ could usher in a new era of transparency for the historically corrupt Sheriff’s Department. Perhaps by reclaiming the vital downtown real estate MCJ occupies, the thinking goes, the LASD can be shaken of its worst impulses and elements, allowing its more reform-hungry and youthful professionals to elbow their way to the fore.

At minimum, the County Supervisors voted last year to cancel a $1.7 billion expansion of the facility into a Supermax on steroids. That little project–– now thankfully also off the table–– was being referred to as the “mental health jail” (talk about a jinx). Sights are now set on a sprawling campus of support housing, drug diversion and reentry programing, and the critical mental health and addiction recovery services that would comprise a true Restorative Justice Village.

Phase One was approved in September and includes the Vignes Project, aka “Hope Village,” a predominantly CARES Act-funded $48-million bridge housing facility artfully made of shipping containers. Planned for rapid construction in MCJ’s industrial backyard, the idea is to begin diverting the city’s growing homeless population away from incarceration, where it’s 60-100% more expensive to detain those with mental health or substance use disorders. A second Chinatown property once intended for MCJ parking is also slated for an affordable or supportive housing development. As part of the LA Board of Supervisors’ new “care first, jail last” policy, Hope Village may someday swallow the LASD complex altogether.

So could MCJ, the “The Abu Ghraib of Los Angeles,” home of the heroin burrito, be swapped out for a recovery university and support shelter?

Ha! It’s better than the idea I had back in 2014, when I proposed that the whole karmic Superfund site be turned into a mall. Hey, I’m optimistic too, but with how little we thought of criminal justice reform, disenfranchised and forgotten citizens, immigrants, and any further legwork to achieve racial justice, a custody-themed Cellblock Shopping Town is what I thought we deserved.

It still will be if we ––and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors–– let this chance to turn a corner pass us by.

For a historical perspective on the LASD’s excessive use-of-force in its jails and failure to discipline rogue officers, check out: L.A. County Sheriff’s Department: A Report by Special Counsel James G. Kolts & staff, 1992 –– and this Los Angeles Times Story Gallery

A Felon, Just Like Me

February 13, 2016 by J. Nelson

Having written fundraiser remarks for disgraced LA County Sheriff Lee Baca, and having been big-bro bear-hugged by him after confessing to teleprompter typos, it’s hard to hate the man who ran a law enforcement mafia.

He hugged me because he was relieved to be offstage. Fifty-cent words weren’t easy for Baca, I’d been warned, and this was a big night. Just before he’d taken the podium, I realized I’d failed to yank one word in particular, and sure enough he flubbed it. Regardless of how I felt about his Men’s Central Jail deputies — or anything else related to that American flag-wrapped night at the Beverly Hilton — I was the show writer. I had to tell him it was my mistake, not his. Read more

Prisoner Re-Entry Schools

November 10, 2015 by J. Nelson

The time is right for Prisoner Re-Entry Schools.

Offenders must be redirected, not simply recycled, ideally through public-private partnerships. People who have earned a second chance need places to go where stock phrases like “new beginnings” aren’t made into nonsense through endless repetition.

In Boston, Massachusetts, inmates will soon have the option of applying for enrollment in a new prisoner re-entry school inside the 45-year old Boston Pre-Release Center. In addition to a long list of programs that began in 1972, the new Re-entry School will help connect parolees with individual and community leaders confirmed to support them and, ultimately, to help reduce recidivism and crime. Read more

Apocalypse Hoosegow 9

August 6, 2015 by J. Nelson

A newly-appointed federal monitor will now oversee the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail and the wider LA jail system. Finally, movie nights –and maybe even civil rights– are back.

Changes are afoot, and prisoners housed at 441 Bauchet St., LA’s notorious Men’s Central Jail, may soon be eligible for social skill-strengthening activities and other privileges that have been forbidden since…who knows? 1965? The year after the facility opened? Well, decades, at least.

And that makes me wonder:

Might newly elected Sheriff Jim McDonnell do away with the Fight Club free-for-all day rooms, with their non-running water, backed up toilets, and rodent infestations?
Will rampant abuse and neglect in this, the nation’s “largest care-taking facility” for the mentally ill, finally start to slow?
Will the Sheriff’s Deputies and civilian jailers stop tossing decks of cards through the bars as a substitute for rehabilitation?
Or will those same individuals continue to celebrate excessive force and use it with enthusiastic prejudice?
Will the screams of men being sexually assaulted at MCJ no longer stomp bootprints of bad memories into the heads of those fortunate enough to only be plugging their ears?
Will Badges finally start assigning chores or handing out mops and brooms to inmates other than those willing do “torpedo runs” and other scheming favors?
Will visitors to the facility at last see an end to beat downs while handcuffed to a bench?

Plain ‘ol Prison Survival

February 25, 2015 by J. Nelson

Prison Survival Literature: where’s the chapter on being hustled?

“Two men enter – one man leaves!”
It’s all you need to know, right?
Okay technically, sometimes, sure.

My cellmate wanted to order a copy of Put ‘Em Down, Take ‘Em Out! Knife Fighting Techniques From Folsom Prison, but I was able to talk him out of it. Good thing, too, because the publisher’s catalog through which the order would’ve been placed belonged to me, and it was high contraband. Back then I was in possession of several such catalogs, which offered titles on everything from document falsification to improvised explosives; from contingency cannibalism (my favorite) to how to dispose of a dead body. I got the sense I’d exceeded the natural encyclopedia of criminal knowledge around me as a result, and that was nothing short of cross-eyed fabulous.

Each catalog entry was accompanied by a book-jacket photo and lengthy summary. Where Excuses Go to Die’s chapter, “High Weirdness by Mail,” describes how reading snippets of these out loud to certain trusted inmates caused laughter so physically enfeebling that only a death rattle was left in the human body’s big bag of tricks.

It seems crazy to recall being rendered sightless by tears of joy in the company of murderers, shot-callers, and stonehearted life-termers. But these “moments of genuine whimsy,” as I refer to ‘em in Where Excuses Go to Die, were what my own prison survival was made of. Sure, I’d read the titles and descriptions in a funny voice, but I allowed the absurdity of it all to do the heavy lifting. We didn’t actually need to possess the instructions for do-it-yourself blowguns; picturing blowgun wars in the chow hall was priceless enough. We’d really lose it when some badass piped up to correct, clarify, or corroborate. Such sessions turned tall tales into skyscrapers.

New Prison Reality

June 26, 2014 by J. Nelson

Heart and humanity must now evolve into the new prison reality….

Just yesterday, a stranger told me he’d heard the words “prison rehabilitation” more times in the last two months than ever before in his life. My first reaction was that sentiments like his will only become more common as Americans adapt to new representations of incarceration and the incarcerated, and as the dialogue on prison reform becomes an increasingly pressing topic in Washington, at the state level, and in so many of our social and cultural realms.

At the same time, the implication that criminal offenders are (usually) people too causes friction as it rubs up against the manner in which we’ve been trained to recognize prison — narrowly, dismissively, and neglectfully.

I began this blog in 2010, when Where Excuses Go to Die was still a manuscript. I intended to blog about excuses made daily by celebrities, politicians, and whoever else was unlucky enough to publicly display poor coping skills. I’ve had a lot of fun with the sarcasm, not to mention with challenging people’s comfort zones and entitlements. Read more

LA County Sheriff’s “CRRC”

May 26, 2014 by J. Nelson 1 Comment

And it begins – the rehabilitation of the LA Sheriff’s Department…

Interim LA County Sheriff John Scott’s news conference last week announced the opening of the Sheriff’s Department’s Community Reentry and Resource Center (CRRC). It’s a new component of the department’s Education Based Incarceration/Merit Program.

As he has several times before, Scott stood in contrast to the Department’s typically defensive posture, indifference toward matters of prisoner reentry, and former Sheriff Lee Baca’s endless insistence that only more money can resolve overcrowding and the problems faced in running the nation’s largest jail.

In terms of my love-hate relationship with the LASD, some of these men are cops this former criminal happens to be rooting for. I’ll set aside my cynicism and suspicions to appreciate Scott’s effort to repair the damages wrought by corrupt, Nazi-gang-affiliated, vengeful Department brass (and –as described by insiders– its cult-like following).

It’s no small thing that this first high profile attempt to reverse the Men’s Central Jail’s inhumane and festering image addresses the causes of recidivism rather than demonstrating a tougher resolve or blaming budget woes. Scott is clearly borrowing a page from the national dialog on prison reform, and yes, it’s a little Simpsons-esque to watch this particular department pitch their newfound forbearance to the public. But folks, this is how it’s gonna be for a while. Luckily, I’ve spoken with several respected officers in the department who have an impressive sense of humor about their profession and their beleaguered employer.

And what is the LA County Sheriff’s Community Reentry and Resource Center?

Through the CRRC, return-to-the-community services such as drug and alcohol treatment, job placement assistance, temporary shelter, tattoo removal, family reintegration, and mental health counseling will be made available to anyone emerging from the building that’s been making headlines as “one of the worst jails in America.” Its offices have been set up right across the street from the ‘ol dungeon itself (the one the county might either expand, tear down or, if there is a God, turn into a mall).

So what’s it like to walk out of Men’s Central Jail, anyway?

This might be difficult to imagine if you’ve never experienced it, so I’ll start by describing release from MCJ this way: it’s like being kicked out of your own failure, especially if you don’t have someone ready and waiting to get you out of the area. Read more

The Mall at Men’s Central Jail

May 5, 2014 by J. Nelson 2 Comments

The LA County Jail doesn’t need tearing down, it needs Rick Caruso.

The Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail is an overcrowded dungeon, a house of horrors for pre-trial prisoners, the physically disabled, the mentally ill, and even jail visitors. An ongoing federal investigation into allegations of brutality at MCJ has exposed ghastly conditions, corruption, excessive force, free roaming retaliation, and secretive factions of Sheriff’s deputies and jailers.

Well is there a better location for a mixed-use mega-mall? Nope. Shake off your handcuffs and imagine Neiman Marcus, Blaze Pizza, Crate & Barrel, Abercrombie Kids, and Apple all competing for a share of this exciting retail market.

With the fate of Men’s Central uncertain, why not take a page from the old-timey tours and gift shops currently operated at Folsom and Alcatraz? Or from Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, fresh from its annual reunion of former guards and inmates? Even better, why not go further upscale and consider something along the lines of Boston’s quaint Liberty Hotel, formerly known as the infamous Charles Street Jail? All are popular tourist attractions that generate big bucks. They serve as walkable warnings to the mentally-ill and socially wayward, and provide the public with glimpses into America’s penal history – and future.

Too soon for a custody-themed Cellblock Shopping Town? Too “insensitive” of an idea? What’s stopping us, bad taste? Ha! Prison ideation saturates media and advertising anyway, so why not give the secret “crimeshopper” in all of us a little fun?

Let’s go from jail rats to mall rats and rake in the tax revenue!

Why not plan a “Shopping Daycation” around a jail-themed Apple Store or J.Crew? Men’s Central will forever be remembered as O.J. Simpson’s courtroom hotel and where lady-puncher Chris Brown will spend his 25^th birthday: why shouldn’t the city cash in? Yet turning a civil rights cesspool like LA’s Men’s Central Jail into one of SoCal’s hippest destinations for designer handbags and iPhones is the one idea no one has proposed.

Until now. Welcome to The Fashion Industrial Complex – the Mall at Men’s Central Jail. Read more

Chris Brown at the Men’s Central Jail

April 4, 2014 by J. Nelson

It’s hard not to mock Chris Brown’s stay at LA’s Men’s Central Jail

It’s also really hard not to mock Chris Brown.

To paraphrase a web commentator: No one suffers like Chris Brown, just ask Chris Brown.

But Chris Brown at the Men’s Central Jail reminds me of election campaign rallies where attendees are pre-screened for cross-eyed party loyalty regardless of candidate, and at the same time showcased to media as “a diverse array of everyday voters.” Or of how Dick Cheney used to make those surprise visits to Iraq: no way in hell was that man gonna subject himself to real Iraqis or suffering, but gosh those visits were all hearts and minds nonetheless, weren’t they? The parallel in Brown’s case is that the court never intended for him to see the particular Men’s Central Jail he’ll no doubt brag of surviving. I’ll get there.

First, since the LA-leg of the girl-punching celebrity inmate’s tour of custody is over, let’s consider a few of the realities he’s facing that he’s probably been able to sidestep so far. Number one having been diagnosed with PTSD and bipolar disorder, as apparently Brown has. It’s no excuse for beating the crap out of a 90-pound woman – period. Read more