Final Meal Requests from Death Row Prisoners in Texas

Final Meal Requests from Death Row Prisoners in Texas
Below is an array of food like full stops as chosen by prisoners in Death Row. Follow the links to each prisoner for further information. I am no way responsible for how you use this information. The empirical summary of what you eat before execution still surprises me in that it seems to say so much and so little at the same time about our perception of the prisoner

 

Link	Last Name	First Name	TDCJ Number	Date	Final Meal Request
Offender Information	Alexander	Caruthers	704	01/29/2001	No final meal requested
Offender Information	Goodwin	Alvin	879	01/18/2001	Chicken fried steak, baked potato stuffed with ground meat, cheese, jalapenos, large order of french fries with ketchup, 10 Cheesesticks, pitcher of grape juice, and cheesecake with cherry topping
Offender Information	Clark	Jack	994	01/09/2001	Jar of polish pickles, small wedge of cheese, tossed salad with Italian dressing, cheeseburger with mayo (all the way), large order of french fries with ketchup, relish tray, and a pitcher of grape juice
Offender Information	Jones	Claude	980	12/07/2000	8 soft fried eggs, bacon, sausage, 1 t-bone steak (well-done), 6 slices of buttered toast with strawberry jelly, and a pitcher of cold milk
Offender Information	Hittle	Daniel	981	12/06/2000	Relish tray (green olives, cheese, pickles, celery), french fries (with ketchup), 2 grilled cheese sandwiches, 2 cinnamon rolls, and a pitch of milk
Offender Information	Miller	Garry	947	12/05/2000	2 grilled cheese sandwiches, french fries, ketchup, 2 boiled eggs, 2 cinnamon rolls with icing, 2 cans of grape juice, and coffee
Offender Information	Chambers	Tony	999009	11/15/2000	5 chicken patties, 10 slices of cheese, 5 hamburger buns (mustard on each side), 2 sliced pickles (whole), 2 bags of Doritos, 2 cokes, and 1 pint of tin roof ice cream
Offender Information	Lawton	Stacey	999066	11/14/2000	1 jar of dill pickles
Offender Information	Flores	Miguel	983	11/09/2000	3 beef enchiladas with onions, 3 cheese enchiladas with onions, spanish rice, bowl of jalapenos, french fries, cheeseburger all the way, bowl of mayonnaise, bowl of ketchup, bowl of pico de gallo, 3 Dr. Peppers, pitcher of ice, banana split ice cream, and 4 quesadillas
Offender Information	Dillingham	Jeffery	999071	11/01/2000	1 Cheeseburger with American, Cheddar and Mozzerella Cheese, without out mayonaise, mustard or onions; Large French Fries; Bowl of Macaroni and Cheese; Lasagna with 2 slices of Garlic Bread; 4 oz. of Nacho Cheese; 3 Large Cinnamon Rolls; 5 Scrambled Eggs; 8 pints of Chocolate Milk
Offender Information	McGinn	Ricky	999150	09/27/2000	Chicken fried steak with white gravy, french fries with white gravy, lots of salt and pepper, and sweet ice tea
Offender Information	Caldwell	Jeffery	938	08/30/2000	None requested
Offender Information	Gibbs	David	825	08/23/2000	Chef salad (any dressing except oil and vinegar), two bacon cheeseburgers all the way (cut the onions), deep fried home fries (with chili powder on top), pitcher of fruit flavored milkshake, two scotch eggs (boiled and packed in a sausage roll, battered and deep-fried and served with syrup), slice of pie
Offender Information	Jones	Richard	882	08/22/2000	Two bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches with cheese and mayonaise, three deep-fried chicken breasts, french fries with ketchup, and a pitcher of strawberry milkshake
Offender Information	Satterwhite	John	651	08/16/2000	Double meat cheeseburger (all the way, with mayonaise and mustard), french fries, 3 scrambled eggs, and a vanilla shake
Offender Information	Cruz	Oliver	954	08/09/2000	Beef fajitas (spicy), beans, rice, flour tortillas, onions, tomatoes, avocado, banana split, orange juice
Offender Information	Roberson	Brian	886	08/09/2000	2 double meat cheeseburgers (all the way with mayo and mustard), fries, fried chicken (well done), chocolate cake, onion rings, a pint of vanilla ice cream, and a six pack of Sprite
Offender Information	Soria	Juan	837	07/26/2000	Chicken, three pieces of fish, burgers, pizza, fruit (grapes, plums, peaches, apples, tangerines), doughnuts, walnuts, chocolate candy bar, plain potato chips, picante sauce, hot sauce, salad with ranch dressing, Coke, and Sprite
Offender Information	Joiner	Orien	902	07/12/2000	1/2 lb. Hamburger steak (well done), brown gravy and grilled onions, large order of deep french-fried fries with ketchup, five pieces of buttered grilled Texas toast, iced tea with real sugar, hot honey buns with melted butter on the side
Offender Information	San Miguel	Jessy	999008	06/29/2000	Pizza (beef, bacon bits, and multiple types of cheese), 10 quesadillas (5 mozzarella cheese, 5 cheddar cheese), 5 strips of open-flame grilled beef, 5 strips of stir-fried beef, chocolate peanut butter ice cream, sweet tea, double fudge chocolate cake, broccoli, and grapes
Offender Information	Graham	Gary	696	06/22/2000	None
Offender Information	Nuncio	Paul	999158	06/15/2000	Enchiladas, burritos, chocolate ice cream, cantalope (whole, split in half)
Offender Information	Burks	John	949	06/14/2000	Fried chicken (2 thighs and wings), one pound of bacon, 16 ounce t-bone steak, Big Red, coffee
Offender Information	Mason	Thomas	999035	06/12/2000	None
Offender Information	Carter	Robert	999091	05/31/2000	Double meat cheeseburger (all the way), fries
Offender Information	Clayton	James	921	05/25/2000	Three chicken breasts (fried), fresh lettuce and cucumber salad with light vinegar salad dressing on the side, a large pitcher of ice water
Offender Information	Foster	Richard	815	05/24/2000	Beef fajita, blooming onion, fried chicken (white meat), jalapeno peppers, large Caesar salad with blue cheese dressing, bread rolls with butter, vanilla ice cream, 3 bananas, 1 Coke, a pot of coffee, a pack of cigarettes (prohibited by TDCJ regulations).
Offender Information	Richardson	James	867	05/23/2000	Fresh fried chicken (no skin, 5 breasts and 20 wings), carrot cake, white coconut cake, cheesecake with cherry topping
Offender Information	McBride	Michael	903	05/11/2000	Two chicken patties with Swiss cheese, stuffed baked potato with jalapeno peppers and sour cream, milk
Offender Information	Kitchens	William	840	05/09/2000	1/2 dozen sunny side up fried eggs 8 pieces of pan sausage 6 slices of toast with butter and grape jelly crispy hashbrowns milk and orange juice
Offender Information	Jackson	Tommy	821	05/04/2000	None
Offender Information	Gribble	Timothy	929	03/15/2000	None
Offender Information	Wilkerson	Ponchai	999011	03/14/2000	None
Offender Information	Barnes, Jr.	Odell	998	03/01/2000	Justice, Equality, World Peace
Offender Information	Beets	Betty	810	02/24/2000	None requested
Offender Information	Goss	Cornelius	912	02/23/2000	1 apple, 1 orange, 1 banana, coconut, and peaches
Offender Information	Moreland	James	741	01/27/2000	Three fried eggs over easy, hash browns, several strips of bacon, toast (white bread), and orange juice
Offender Information	McGinnis	Glen	999039	01/25/2000	Cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, bacon, onion rings, and ketchup
Offender Information	Hughes, Jr.	Billy	556	01/24/2000	Two chicken fried steak with white gravy, french fries, 4 pieces of white bread, peaches, two Cokes.
Offender Information	Robison	Larry	748	01/21/2000	No meal requested.
Offender Information	Hicks	David	930	01/20/2000	Fish, fries, soda
Offender Information	Goodman	Spencer	999031	01/18/2000	Double cheeseburger, french fries topped with onions and cheese, baked potato topped with sour cream, cheese and butter, 2 fried pork chops, 3 beef enchiladas, and chocolate cake
Offender Information	Heiselbetz, Jr.	Earl	999014	01/12/2000	2 breaded pork chops, 3 scrambled eggs, french fries, and milk
Offender Information	Felder, Jr.	Sammie	550	12/15/1999	1/2 pound of chitterlings, fried chicken (dark meat), 10 slices of bacon, 1 raw onion, fried shrimp, peach cobbler, 1 pitcher of whole milk
Offender Information	Atworth	Robert	999199	12/14/1999	Grilled chicken salad with ranch dressing, nachos and cheese with picante, cookies and cream ice cream, and 2 root beers
Offender Information	Beathard	James	785	12/09/1999	Fried catfish, fried chicken, french fries, onion rings, green salad, fresh carrots, and Coke
Offender Information	Long	David	862	12/08/1999	4 bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches, iced tea, and potato chips
Offender Information	Gutierrez	Jose	970	11/18/1999	2 double meat cheeseburgers with all vegetables and bacon, french fries, 2 cans of Coke, 5 jalapeno peppers, 5 pieces of fried chicken (white/dark meat), 3 buttermilk biscuits, and a steak
Offender Information	Lamb	John	734	11/17/1999	10 pieces of large deep fried jumbo shrimp, 2 pieces of garlic bread, 2 pieces of fried chicken (dark meat), 1 tossed salad with thousand island dressing, 1 chocolate milk shake
Offender Information	Jennings	Desmond	999161	11/16/1999	None
Offender Information	Cantu, Jr.	Domingo	924	10/28/1999	Fried chicken (12 pc white/dark meat) mashed potatoes With gravy, 14 jalapenos, orange juice, chocolate cake, Buttermilk biscuits and strawberry ice cream
Offender Information	McFadden	Jerry	875	10/14/1999	B L T with pickles and onions, french fries, one pint of Butter Pecan ice cream and a coke
Offender Information	Crane	Alvin	888	10/12/1999	Fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn on the cob, cauliflower, and chocolate cake.
Offender Information	Smith	Richard	999116	09/21/1999	Three bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwiches, french fries, one small bowl of pickles, one half onion and one cup of iced tea.
Offender Information	Davis	William	614	09/14/1999	Chicken fried drumsticks, one bowl of chili, one bowl of Cheese, five rolls, two bags of barbeque chips, six pack of Coke, one pack of Palmar cigarettes (prohibited by TDCJ regulations) one lighter (prohibited by TDCJ regulations)
Offender Information	Barnes	Willis	935	09/10/1999	Three fried chicken breasts, three jalapeno peppers, five Rolls and one soda.
	Jones	Raymond	959	09/01/1999	Doublemeat cheeseburger, french fries, ice cream, and a soda.
Offender Information	Trevino, Jr.	Joe	767	08/18/1999	Fried chicken, watermelon, salad with Italian dressing, raw carrots, raw cucumbers and a strawberry shake.
Offender Information	Earhart	James	905	08/11/1999	Steak, french fries and one vanilla shake.
Offender Information	Dunn	Kenneth	675	08/10/1999	Beef fajitas, stir-fry beef, six cinnamon rolls, one pecan pie, one cherry pie, one diet cream soda and three eggs.
Offender Information	Boyd	Charles	891	08/05/1999	None.
Offender Information	Blackmon	Ricky	893	08/04/1999	No last meal request, only requested something to drink.
Offender Information	Fuller	Tyrone	934	07/07/1999	One bacon, ham & cheese omelet with diced onion & peppers, one cinnamon roll, three slices of toast, three milks, two orange juices, hot sauce, grape jelly, butter, salt & pepper & fruit.
Offender Information	Tuttle	Charles	999183	07/01/1999	Four fried eggs sunny side up, four sausage patties, one chicken fried steak patty, one bowl of white country gravy, five pieces of white toast, five tacos with meat and cheese only, four Dr. Peppers with ice one the side & five mint sticks.
Offender Information	Faulder	Joseph	580	06/17/1999	None
Offender Information	Little	William	788	06/01/1999	Fifteen slices of cheese, three fried eggs, three buttered toasts, two hamburger patties with cheese, 2 tomato sliced, one sliced onion, french fries with salad dressing, 2 lb. of crispy fried bacon, one quart chocolate milk and one pint of fresh strawberries
Offender Information	Coleman	Clydell	968	05/05/1999	Salmon Croquettes, scrambled eggs, french fries & biscuits
Offender Information	De La Cruz	Jose	908	05/04/1999	None
Offender Information	Foust	Aaron	999268	04/28/1999	Cheeseburger, french fries & one Coke
Offender Information	White	Excell	511	03/30/1999	Two hamburgers, double order of french fries & fried onion rings
Offender Information	Rector	Charles	721	03/26/1999	Three beef enchiladas, three tacos, french fries & one strawberry shake
Offender Information	Green	Norman	805	02/24/1999	Barbeque ribs, pork chops, salad w/ French dressing, baked potato, Texas toast & a Coke
Offender Information	Cantu	Andrew	999	02/16/1999	Pork baby back ribs, hard shell tacos, corn tortillas, french fries, salad w/ Ranch dressing, red & green chili sauce, jalapenos & tomatoes boiled w/ garlic & cumin, Root Beer and chocolate ice cream
Offender Information	Barber	Danny	673	02/11/1999	Two steaks, baked potato, chef salad, tea & chocolate ice cream
Offender Information	Cordova	George	706	02/10/1999	None
Offender Information	Vega	Martin	932	01/26/1999	T-bone steak, shrimp and a Coke
Offender Information	Farris	Troy	831	01/13/1999	None
Offender Information	Moody	John	933	01/05/1999	Two T-bone steaks, salad w/ French Onion dressing, rolls, french fries w/ ketchup, five soft tacos, Angel food cake, one pint white chocolate almond ice cream and a six pack of Pepsi
Offender Information	Meanes	James	689	12/15/1998	One bacon-double cheeseburger, golden french fries, one tall strawberry milkshake and six chocolate cookies
Offender Information	Emery	Jeff	830	12/08/1998	Two T-bone steaks, french fries, salad, cake, chocolate ice cream, coffee and Coke
Offender Information	Corwin	Daniel	969	12/07/1998	Steak, potatoes, peas, cake & Root Beer
Offender Information	McDuff	Kenneth	999055	11/17/1998	Two 16 – ounce T-bone steaks, five fried eggs, vegetables, french fries, coconut pie and one Coke.
Offender Information	Nobles	Jonathan	885	10/07/1998	Eucharist – Sacrament.
Offender Information	Cruz	Javier	999061	10/01/1998	Venison steak, baked potato, Lite beer & Camel cigarettes (Alcohol & tobacco prohibited by TDCJ policy)
Offender Information	Castillo	David	770	08/23/1998	Twenty-four soft shell tacos, six enchiladas, six tostados, two whole onions, five jalapenos, two cheeseburgers, one chocolate shake, one quart of milk and one package of Marlboro cigarettes. (Prohibited by TDCJ policy)
Offender Information	Teague, Jr.	Delbert	849	09/09/1998	None. Last minute he decided to eat a hamburger at his Mother’s request.
Offender Information	Camacho, Jr.	Genaro	972	08/26/1998	Steak, baked potato, salad, and strawberry ice cream.
Offender Information	Narvaiz	Leopoldo	923	06/26/1998	None
Offender Information	Pyles	Johnny	724	06/15/1998	Chicken fried steak w/gravy, potatoes, pineapple pie and a Coke.
Offender Information	Boggess	Clifford	887	06/11/1998	Two double-meat cheeseburgers, salad, french fries w/ salt and ketchup, chocolate fudge brownies, cherry cake, a Pepsi and iced tea.
Offender Information	Muniz	Pedro	575	05/19/1998	Shrimp and salad. Shrimp not available. Served cheeseburger, french fries and cola.
Offender Information	Carter	Robert	708	05/18/1998	Fried fish fillet, french fries, orange juice, German chocolate cake
Offender Information	McFarland	Frank	963	04/29/1998	Heaping portion of lettuce, a sliced tomato, a sliced cucumber, four celery stalks, four sticks of American or Cheddar cheese, two bananas and two cold half pints of milk. Asked that all vegetables be washed prior to serving. Also asked that the cheese sticks be clean.
Offender Information	Gosch	Lesley	842	04/24/1998	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Cannon	Joseph	634	04/22/1998	Fried chicken, barbecue ribs, baked potato, green salad w/Italian dressing, chocolate cake or chocolate ice cream or both, a thick chocolate shake or malt and iced tea.
Offender Information	Hogue	Jerry	660	03/11/1998	Old fashioned cheeseburger, french fries w/ ketchup, chocolate cake and two cans of coke
Offender Information	Renfro	Steven	999229	02/09/1998	Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich (BLT) with extra bacon, cherry pie, vanilla ice cream and two cans of Dr. Pepper
Offender Information	Tucker	Karla	777	02/03/1998	Banana, Peach and Garden Salad with Ranch Dressing
Offender Information	Lockhart	Michael	917	12/09/1997	Double-meat cheeseburger, french fries, Coke
Offender Information	Livingston	Charlie	802	11/21/1997	Ribs smothered in onions and gravy, rice with butter, ice water and Dr. Pepper
Offender Information	Sharp	Michael	740	11/19/1997	Small pizza, dish of Italian spaghetti, marble cake, punch
Offender Information	Fuller	Aaron	964	11/06/1997	None
Offender Information	Lauti	Aua	843	11/04/1997	Double meat cheeseburger, french fries, soft drink
Offender Information	Ransom	Kenneth	772	10/28/1997	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Green	Ricky	984	10/08/1997	Five scrambled eggs, four sausage patties, eight slices of toast, six slices of bacon, and four pints of milk
Offender Information	Adanandus	Dwight	940	10/01/1997	Cheeseburger, french fries, iced tea
Offender Information	Cockrum	John	854	09/30/1997	Cheeseburger, onion rings, banana pudding, iced tea
Offender Information	Stone	Benjamin	999187	09/25/1997	Coke
Offender Information	Turner	Jessel	895	09/22/1997	None
Offender Information	Davis	James	786	09/09/1997	Steak and eggs (eggs over easy), toast, punch and package of Marlboro cigarettes (cigarettes prohibited by policy).
Offender Information	West, Jr.	Robert	731	07/29/1997	Cheeseburger, french fries, Coke, Camel cigarettes (cigarettes prohibited by policy)
Offender Information	Montoya	Irineo	847	06/18/1997	Fish, french fries, jalapenos, carrots and ice cream
Offender Information	Johnson	Eddie	898	06/17/1997	Double meat cheese-burger, french fries, broccoli w/cheese
Offender Information	Stoker	David	892	06/16/1997	Two double-meat cheeseburgers, french fries, ice cream and cigarettes (cigarettes prohibited by policy)
Offender Information	Behringer	Earl	914	06/11/1997	Large portion of scrambled eggs, two tablespoons of picante sauce on side, hash browns, two pieces of toast, gravy, two pieces of sausage, and grape juice
Offender Information	Losada	Davis	798	06/04/1997	Declined last meal
	Johnson, Jr.	Dorsie	850	06/04/1997	Fried chicken, french fries, chocolate cake, Coke
Offender Information	Harris	Kenneth	901	06/03/1997	Barbecue, french fries, ice cream, punch, cigarettes (cigarettes prohibited by policy)
Offender Information	Rogers	Patrick	816	06/02/1997	A coke
Offender Information	Madden	Robert	822	05/28/1997	Asked that final meal be provided to a homeless person
Offender Information	White	Larry	640	05/22/1997	Liver & onions, cottage cheese, red tomatoes, and a single cigarette (cigarette prohibited by policy)
Offender Information	Callins	Bruce	717	05/21/1997	Steak, french fries, salsa, pecan pie and pack of cigarettes (cigarettes prohibited by policy)
Offender Information	Lackey	Clarence	591	05/20/1997	T-bone steak, large salad, french fries, chocolate ice cream, pack of Camel cigarettes (cigarettes prohibited by policy)
Offender Information	Drinkard	Richard	846	05/19/1997	Double cheeseburger, french fries, Coke, strawberry ice cream
Offender Information	Belyeu	Clifton	841	05/16/1997	Cheeseburger, french fries, Coke & pack of cigarettes, (prohibited by policy)
Offender Information	Westley	Anthony	797	05/13/1997	Fried Chicken, french fires, bread, cigarettes (prohibited by policy)
Offender Information	Washington	Terry	884	05/06/1997	Steak, mash potatoes, green beans, buttered rolls, chocolate ice cream, punch
Offender Information	Baldree	Ernest	855	04/29/1997	Doublemeat cheeseburger, french fries, pack of cigarettes (not permitted by policy)
Offender Information	Boyle	Benjamin	853	04/21/1997	Doublemeat cheeseburger, french fries with ketchup and coke
Offender Information	Gentry	Kenneth	760	04/16/1997	Bowl of butterbeans, mashed potatoes, onions. Tomatoes, biscuits, chocolate cake and Dr. Pepper with ice
Offender Information	Woods	Billy	552	04/14/1997	Hamburger, french fries, banana pudding and coffee
Offender Information	Spence	David	773	04/03/1997	Fried chicken, french fries, chocolate ice cream, Coke, tea and coffee
Offender Information	Herman	David	999003	04/02/1997	Hamburger, pizza, root beer, and vanilla ice cream,
Offender Information	Barefield	John	844	03/12/1997	Double meat cheese burger, french fries
Offender Information	Brimage, Jr.	Richard	899	02/10/1997	Pepperoni pizza (med), Dr. Pepper
Offender Information	Gonzales, Jr.	Joe	999177	09/18/1996	Strawberry shake and cheesecake
Offender Information	Granviel	Kenneth	533	02/27/1996	Double meat cheeseburger, french fries, chocolate cake and punch
Offender Information	Jenkins	Leo	967	02/09/1996	Two bacon cheeseburgers, french fries and Coke
Offender Information	Briddle	James	711	12/12/1995	T-bone steak (rare), six fried eggs, hash browns, buttered toast, milk and orange juice
Offender Information	Banda	Esequel	863	12/11/1995	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Vuong	Hai	904	12/07/1995	Steak, french fries, beans and water
Offender Information	Amos	Bernard	926	12/06/1995	Two turkey sandwiches
Offender Information	Lane	Harold	745	10/04/1995	Two double meat cheeseburgers, french fries and strawberry shake
Offender Information	Johnson	Carl	633	09/19/1995	T-bone steak, green salad, baked potato, banana nut ice cream and Coke
Offender Information	Sattiewhite	Vernon	857	08/15/1995	Six scrambled eggs with cheese, seven pieces of buttered white toast, fifteen pieces of bacon, three hash browns, a bowl of grits with butter, jelly and orange juice
Offender Information	Hammond	Karl	865	06/21/1995	Double meat cheeseburger, french fries, chocolate milk and cake or pie
Offender Information	Fearance	John	626	06/20/1995	Double meat cheeseburger, french fries, vanilla ice cream and milk
Offender Information	Allridge	Ronald	818	06/08/1995	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Mann	Fletcher	705	06/01/1995	Two hamburger steaks, sliced onions, four pieces of toast, french fries, mustard and catsup, fruit cocktail and Coke
Offender Information	Mays	Noble	674	04/06/1995	Four to five fried eggs (sunny side up), three sausage links, three biscuits and coffee
Offender Information	Hawkins	Samuel	590	02/21/1995	Double meat cheeseburger, french fries and tea
Offender Information	Gardner	Billy	751	02/16/1995	Hamburger, French fries, tea and any dessert (no preference)
Offender Information	Motley	Jeffery	789	02/07/1995	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Williams	Willie	677	01/31/1995	Two double meat cheeseburger, onion rings, cheesecake and root beer
Offender Information	Russell, Jr.	Clifton	658	01/31/1995	No preference. Asked for whatever was on the menu (chili dogs, baked beans, corn and peanut butter cookies)
Offender Information	Marquez	Mario	776	01/17/1995	Fried chicken, baked potato, cinnamon roll
Offender Information	Jacobs	Jesse	872	01/04/1995	T-bone steak, french fries, catsup and tea
Offender Information	Kinnamon	Raymond	808	12/11/1994	Fish, salad, vanilla ice cream and tea
Offender Information	Clark, Jr.	Herman	715	12/06/1994	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Bridge	Warren	668	11/22/1994	Double meat cheeseburger
Offender Information	Williams	Walter	722	10/05/1994	Hamburger (double meat, double cheese), chocolate cake, peas and corn mixed and tea
Offender Information	Lott	George	999058	09/20/1994	Three pieces of french toast with syrup, baked sweet potato with butter, two sausage patties, and one fried egg
Offender Information	Gutierrez	Jessie	971	09/16/1994	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Drew	Robert	755	08/02/1994	Steak (cooked rare), ham, two hamburgers, two pieces of fish and chocolate milk shake
Offender Information	Crank	Denton	803	06/14/1994	Cheeseburger (double meat, double cheese), with lettuce, pickles, tomato, onions and mayonnaise, onion rings and two chocolate shakes
Offender Information	Nethery	Stephen	698	05/27/1994	Two cheeseburgers with lettuce, tomato and onion, french fries and milk
Offender Information	Rougeau	Paul	603	05/03/1994	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Anderson	Larry	733	04/26/1994	Barbecued ribs, chefs salad, baked potato, peach cobble and tea
Offender Information	Beavers	Richard	916	04/04/1994	Six pieces of french toast with syrup, jelly, butter, six barbecued spare ribs, six pieces of well burned bacon, four scrambled eggs, five well cooked sausage patties, french fries with catsup, three slices of cheese, two pieces of yellow cake with chocolate fudge icing, and four cartons of milk
Offender Information	Webb	Freddie	848	03/31/1994	Decline last meal
Offender Information	Barnard	Harold	683	02/02/1994	Steak, french fries and wine (water was substituted)
Offender Information	Phillips	Clifford	723	12/15/1993	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Cook	Anthony	918	11/10/1993	Double meat bacon cheeseburger and strawberry shake
Offender Information	Bonham	Antonio	700	09/28/1993	Hamburgers, french fries and water
Offender Information	James	Johnny	839	09/03/1993	Double meat cheeseburgers, double order of french fries, Dr. Pepper and a pint of banana nut ice cream
Offender Information	Wilkerson	Richard	756	08/31/1993	Two double meat cheeseburgers, french fries, and ice cream (chocolate or chocolate chip)
Offender Information	Cantu	Ruben	804	08/24/1993	Barbecue chicken, refried beans, brown rice, sweet tea and bubble gum (bubble gum is not permitted under TDCJ regulations)
Offender Information	Kelly	Carl	688	08/20/1993	Wild game or whatever is on the menu and cold lemonade. Served cheeseburger and french fries, declined last meal
Offender Information	Holland	David	820	08/12/1993	Cheeseburger, french fries and coffee
Offender Information	Jernigan	Joseph	699	08/05/1993	Two cheeseburgers, french fries, tossed salad with 1,000 island dressing and iced tea (refused last meal)
Offender Information	Harris	Danny	649	07/30/1993	God’s saving grace, love, truth, peace and freedom
Offender Information	Harris	Curtis	637	07/01/1993	Cheeseburger, ice cream and water
Offender Information	Duff-Smith	Markum	694	06/29/1993	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Sawyers	John	742	05/18/1993	Cheeseburger, french fries and strawberry shake
Offender Information	Herrera	Leonel	702	05/12/1993	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Stewart	Darryl	664	05/04/1993	Steak, baked potato, garden salad and tea
Offender Information	Montoya	Ramon	737	03/25/1993	Cheeseburger, french fries, ice cream and coke
Offender Information	Santana	Carlos	695	03/23/1993	Justice, Temperance, with Mercy
	Lincecum	Kavin	832	12/10/1992	Declined last meal
	Griffin	Jeffery	647	11/19/1992	T-bone steak, catsup and iced tea
Offender Information	Demouchette	James	572	09/22/1992	Grilled steak, baked potato, any vegetable except squash or okra, any dessert and anything to drink except punch or milk
	Johnson	Curtis	761	08/11/1992	Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, jelly, butter and strawberry milkshake
	Black, Jr.	Robert	819	05/22/1992	T-bone steak, baked potato, bowl of lettuce, corn, roll, chocolate milk shake and tea
Offender Information	Romero, Jr.	Jesus	801	05/20/1992	T-bone steak, baked potato, salad, vanilla shake and chocolate ice cream
Offender Information	May	Justin	783	05/07/1992	Cheeseburger, catsup, french fries and shake
Offender Information	White	Billy	585	04/23/1992	T-bone steak, french fries and ice cream
Offender Information	Ellis	Edward	749	03/03/1992	Steak, baked potato with butter, salad, biscuits, pineapple pie and iced tea
Offender Information	Clark	David	874	02/28/1992	Told officials he wanted to fast
Offender Information	Garrett	Johnny	729	02/11/1992	Ice cream
	Cordova	Joe	730	01/22/1992	Fried chicken, french fries, hot sauce, rolls, salad w/ 1,000 island dressing and ice cream
Offender Information	Green	G	576	11/12/1991	Pizza, coffee and tea
Offender Information	Russell	James	579	09/19/1991	Apple
	Bird	Jerry	512	06/17/1991	Double cheeseburger with mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, onions, tomatoes and iced tea
Offender Information	Cuevas	Ignacio	526	05/23/1991	Chicken dumplings, steamed rice, black-eyed peas, sliced bread and iced tea
Offender Information	Buxton	Lawrence	743	02/26/1991	Steak (filet mignon), pineapple upside down cake, tea, punch and coffee
Offender Information	Derrick	Mikel	701	07/18/1990	Ribeye steak, tossed green salad with blue cheese dressing, baked potato with sour cream (refused last meal)
Offender Information	Smith	James	763	06/26/1990	Yogurt
Offender Information	Anderson	Johnny	732	05/17/1990	Three hamburgers, french fries, chocolate ice cream with nuts and iced tea
Offender Information	Butler	Jerome	852	04/21/1990	T-bone steak, four pieces of chicken (two breast and two legs), fresh corn and iced tea
Offender Information	De Luna	Carlos	744	12/07/1989	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Paster	James	752	09/20/1989	Declined last meal
Offender Information	McCoy	Stephen	769	05/24/1989	Cheeseburger, french fries and strawberry milk shake
Offender Information	King	Leon	624	03/22/1989	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Landry, Sr.	Raymond	738	12/13/1988	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Franklin	Donald	546	11/03/1988	Hamburger, french fries and catsup
Offender Information	Streetman	Robert	746	01/07/1988	2 dozen scrambled eggs, flour tortillas, french fries and catsup
Offender Information	Starvaggi	Joseph	586	09/10/1987	Declined last meal
Offender Information	Thompson	John	610	07/08/1987	Freshly squeezed orange juice
	Johnson	Elliot	739	06/24/1987	Cheeseburger and fries
Offender Information	Williams	Anthony	619	05/28/1987	Fish tartar sauce, french fries, catsup, white bread and milk
Offender Information	Moreno	Eliseo	759	03/04/1987	Four cheese enchiladas, two fish patties, french fries, milk catsup and lemon pie
	Hernandez	Ramon	667	01/30/1987	Beef tacos, beef enchiladas, jalapeno peppers, salad onion, hot sauce, shredded cheese and coffee
	Andrade	Richard	774	12/18/1986	Pizza, pinto beans, Spanish rice and cake
Offender Information	Evans	Michael	608	12/04/1986	Declined last meal
	Wicker	Chester	678	08/26/1986	Lettuce and tomatoes
Offender Information	Smith	Larry	643	08/22/1986	Smothered steak and gravy, french fries, lemon pie and Coke
Offender Information	Woolls	Randy	646	08/20/1986	Cheeseburger, french fries, chocolate cake and iced tea
	Brock	Kenneth	522	06/19/1986	Large double-meat cheese burger with mustard, and Dr. Pepper
	Esquivel	Rudy	606	06/09/1986	Fried breast of chicken, corn on the cob, french fries, jalapeno pepper, and pecan pie
Offender Information	Pinkerton	Jay	686	05/15/1986	Fish sandwich, french fries, and milk
Offender Information	Barney	Jeffery	714	04/16/1986	Two boxes of frosted flakes and a pint of milk
Offender Information	Bass	Charles	662	03/12/1986	Plain cheese sandwich
Offender Information	Rumbaugh	Charles	555	09/11/1985	One flour tortilla and water
Offender Information	Porter	Henry	551	07/09/1985	Flour tortillas, T-bone steak, refried beans, tossed salad, jalapeno peppers, ice cream and chocolate cake
Offender Information	Milton	Charles	628	06/25/1985	T-bone steak, french fries, tossed salad with french dressing, catsup, hot rolls, and chocolate cake
Offender Information	De La Rosa	Jesse	713	05/15/1985	Spanish rice, refried beans, flour tortillas, T-bone steak, tea, chocolate cake, and jalapeno peppers
Offender Information	Morin	Stephen	712	03/13/1985	T-bone steak, baked potato, butter, sweet green peas, rolls, banana pudding, coffee
Offender Information	Skillern	Doyle	518	01/16/1985	T-bone steak, baked potato, butter, sweet green peas, rolls, banana pudding, coffee
Offender Information	Barefoot	Thomas	621	10/30/1984	Chef soup with crackers, chili with beans, steamed rice, seasoned pinto beans, corn, seasoned mustard greens, hot spiced beets, and iced tea
Offender Information	O’Bryan	Ronald	529	03/31/1984	T-bone steak (med. to well done), french fries and catsup, whole kernel corn, sweet peas, lettuce and tomato salad with egg and french dressing, iced tea, sweetener, saltines, Boston cream pie, and rolls
Offender Information	Autry	James	670	03/14/1984	Hamburger, french fries, Dr. Pepper
Offender Information	Brooks, Jr.	Charlie	592	12/07/1982	T-bone steak, french fries, catsup, Worcestershire sauce, rolls, peach cobbler, and ice tea

Planet of the Apes 4Brains

Recently I undertook a one-off concert with my band The Good Hurt where we themed the visual side of the show on the movie The Planet of the Apes. By that I mean we dressed up in white boiler suits and had a French VJ (Emmanuelle) broadcast and remix the original movie onto our clothes and faces while we performed. We had a few guests that day (Brother Ghazi, The What Supreme, Annette) and luckily they all came along and wore white too. I also played acoustic guitar rather than electric to give it that final postnuclear back to the basics feel;)

The concert was held in a little cafe place called the Koffee Pot in Manchester (just off Oldham Road) with a bring your own booze policy. The event was part of the Futuresonic 2007 festival and as the festival has a big emphasis on context, technology and video it became the excuse I needed to finally ‘get down’ with my obsession with Planet of the Apes’ or more specifically – the thread between ape and man. I only need the slightest of pushes in this direction to get momentum and have often thought about the social truisms that might have sprung up round a shared fire by ‘primitives’ that went later with recorded records to become species behaviours and societies. Those bonobos bang the bongos too you know…..

In the film three astronauts survive a crash landing on an earth-like planet. Their last chance of contacting home disappearing under the waves. The first and last scenes bookend the film brilliantly and both, in essence, have a very similar theme of the frailty of man and his technology. The opening showing a wonderful piece of technology, a spaceship, sinking into an ocean while the last scene shows something of a similar nature – one of the most iconic statues made by man (Venus de Milo aside) shown half buried in the sand and revealing to the astronauts that they are in fact on planet earth albeit 2000 years into the future. It’s a hell of an ending. The movie was adapted by Michael wilson and Rod Seling from the novel La Planete des singes. Rod Serling is better known for his work on the TV shorts The Twilight Zone and it was his genius in adding the last scene which did not exist in the book – eventually envied by the original novelist for the weight it adds to the story. Those two scenes are very powerful and encapsulate the film in a simple arc. The rise and fall of man and the cyclic nature of technology and more primatively….dominance.

MOVIECLIP HORSEBACK MANHUNT

I love this clip of the gorillas hunting down the primitive mute humans and the accidentally stranded astronauts horribly caught up with the hunt. The use of the camera by the gorillas in the scene after the hunt is priceless too as they stand with their feet on the human spoils and laugh. It’s proper chilling. The Gorillas clad in leather military outfits on horseback hunt down humans using tools such as nets and guns to a soundtrack of alarmed brass instruments and strings. 2000 years in the future and apes have domesticated the horse and replicated one of man greatest achievements, along with guns and cameras.

The ‘mastering’ of the horse was so fundamental in getting the really ‘big wheels’ of our recent globalism started. Historians and archaelogists have suggested the domestication of horses by humans first took place in the Ukraine at approximately 4000BC. The use of horses by this early Indo-European culture shows in the rapid spread of the Kurgan culture and the ease with which it dominated over Pre Indo European cultures. Communications, speed and force were all on the side of cultures who had dominated the horse. Persian Emperors commanded their empire more coherently than their earlier counterparts of Assyrian and earlier still Mesopotamian cultures. Responding to an uprising or a rebellion was much easier with the use of horses to firstly hear about the uprising and secondly to send troops on horseback to quell it.

The humans on this future version of earth are dumb creatures and easily dominated by the apes – used for sport and labour. They are taken back to ape city and they are subjected to experiments. Charlton Heston, who plays the lead man, is subjected to court rulings by the variety of lead monkeys and women. The logic against man and his barbarity, or apparent barbarity as the humans see it, is argued over by the chimps, organutans and gorillas in a complex social discourse not too unsimilar to our own.

In a Science article, Carel van Schaik reports observing geographic variations in orang-utan behaviour that could be considered culture. In her study, van Schaik outlined the characteristics of culture into four sub-sections:

• 1. labels, “where food preferences or predator recognition are socially induced,”
• 2. signals, socially transmitted vocalizations or displays,
• 3. skills, innovations like tool use that are learned by the group, and
• 4. symbols, “probably derived from signal variants that became membership badges of the social unit or population.”

Not all anthropologists agree with this but I do as a punter. Whales haven’t been rearranging sea algae in to multiple alphabets and concocting large dialogues between them selves about the existential sense of whale and monkeys are still primitive and habitat focussed in their signage to one another. Today, for the most part, only humans have all four elements of ‘culture’, but chimpanzees and, now, orangutans have been observed to exhibit the first three.

“The presence in orangutans of humanlike skill (material) culture pushes back its origin in the hominoid lineage to about 14 million years ago, when the orangutan and African ape clades last shared a common ancestor, rather than to the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans,” says van Schaik.

In the flip world of planet of the Apes there is a fully developed set of symbols that operate among the chimps, orang-utans and gorillas. Symbols on archtiecture, on clothing and externalisation of self is everywhere. Not only do apes rule and act in a rich manner they have a class system encompassing the main families of ape.

The gorilla police, military, and labourers;
The orang-utan administrators, theologians, and politicians;
The chimpanzee scientists, intellectuals and workers.

Each of the ape groups has a wonderful style of clothing that identifies them and their social place/rank. I’ve even checked out the possibility of getting clothing as used in the movie but it’s limited to ex Hollywood stock at very high prices on E-bay and crap generic monkey masks masquerading as legitimate film related merchandise. It’s a blend of leather and cloth and the colours are so deliciously 1960’s that any one of the outfits are on my top 10 bits of clothing to get. Chimps are green, Orang-utans are orange and the Gorillas are purple.

Humans, who cannot talk, are considered to be “less than ape” and as such are treated like cattle for sport and experimentation. The arrival of the astronauts who can talk throws ape society into disarray and the majority of the apes, especially the gorilla’s, want to eradicate the humans…some chimps however take pity on the humans and seek to know more about the phenomenon and to know more fully where and ‘when’ they came from.

Many animals have been observed using tools: Dolphins use sponges when fishing, crows use sticks to forage for insects in dead wood, capuchin monkeys use stones to break open nuts.Researchers can learn about chimpanzee “culture” by tracking nut-cracking behavior. Cracking nuts is no easy feat, and it can take a chimpanzee up to seven years to learn how to do it correctly. The technology is passed from generation to generation and diffuses across populations. Knowledge is a virus, language is a virus as real as any forest fire or ocean swelling.

Zaius, the Orang-utan and eminent scientist soon discovers Taylor’s ability to talk and puts him on trial when he tries to escape. After the trial, he is taken to see Dr. Zaius, who threatens to emasculate and lobotomize him if he doesn’t tell the “truth” about where he came from. But Cornelius and Zira (the leading chimp synpathisers) execute a plan to free Taylor.

They flee to the Forbidden Zone – not a million miles away from the idea of a Twilight Zone – a place where anything could happen and you must expect the unexpected. As a destination – you know that the Forbidden Zone is going to be the shiz – the name makes it such desirable as location. The forbidden zones of our own society can often educate and not always for the good. Apes of today have a sense of the forbidden in social protocol with regards food, shelter, and reproduction rights but they are more really rules – no great lore and story associated with it. In the movie Cornelius, the chimpanzee, aracheologist and historian had a year ago visited the Forbidden Zone and found human artifacts there and they return to find out the series of events that led to man losing earth through nuclear war. The story of mans fall and apes rise is played out to them in the forbidden zone and the final sign shown that he has travelled to the future and witness to a horrible fate. That statue of liberty covered up to her chest in sand.

The concepts in the film aren’t exactly that oblique and the apes become surrogates for examining human behaviour – not only the treatment of animals by humans but the dynamic between humans themselves. The backdrop for the movie being made in the 1968 was the cold war as examined by the long haired hippies.

The dramatic climax near the end of the movie when Cornelius reads directly from the Sacred Scrolls at the now-captured Dr. Zaius’ request : Beware the beast man, for he is the Devil’s pawn. Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.

MOVIECLIP of DR ZAIUS SPEECH

The advent of tool making has always been a double edged sword as far as ‘progress’ goes. It is thought that shards or flakes from the use of stones to crack open nuts were the first flints or knives and knives can be used for cutting food or taking out your neighbour. Nuclear power has this duality too – cheap and simple power production intertwined with the horrible bomb.

The movie was recently ‘re imagined’ by Tim Burton however it just doesn’t’ seem to hold the same gravitas with me. The original with it’s stark sets and simplistic approach is much more Shakespearian (helped by Roddy McDowall – arguably the lead chimp). The production in it’s limited budget and techniques is almosyt theatre-like and emphasises the drama and the philosophical questions at stake much better than the overblown remake.

The original reminds me of a great book I read by James Morrow called ‘This Is the Way The World Ends‘ where the dead hold a trial in the Antarctic of the six remaining living and those directly and indirectly responsible for the nuclear war that ravaged the earth.

You have been warmed….

Drongomala

Newspaper Article: When Hoodies Attack (ElectroRaga)

southmancreporter-electroraga attack
Originally uploaded by drongomala.

One of the local newspapers caught on to our little drama at the ElectroRaga dawn gig in Chorlton, Manchester.

Feel free to leave comments on their site….already the rights and wrongs of what we did is being debated….

The article is replete with misquotes and made up bits – I’m not complaining though as the hit count for the clip has went from 200 to 2000…I love the press – has Indian classical music ever been so rock and roll?!

FRESH NEWS : watch out for a video report of the hiphop gig with HLI in Birmingham this weekend – coming soon – yes it rocked hard.

Drongomala
www.flyingmountainrecords.com

Hip Hop (Part 1 of X) : A Miner 7th Revelation

Okay – so I’ve got to thinking about hiphop. What is the nature of the art form and what are the fundamental differences between how it’s done in the US vs. the UK. What’s real what’s hype.

I’ve decided that this is a multi parter…..so this is one of X.

I got to thinking about all of this because hip-hop in the UK for me has been a circle leading back to the beginning. Music and culture styles and ideologies are a right old mix of things………

I got into hiphop in the early 80’s while a nipper growing up in Cowdenbeath. Cowdenbeath is a little place just outside Fife, Scotland and probably not even known about beyond the Scottish borders except for terrible football results. It appeared on government charts and was only ever statistical fodder on a spreadsheet to the powers that held sway over the loosely United Kingdom. Life was hard but regular and the work was predominantly mining and factory work.

Cowdenbeath back then even had enough work to spare and over the years Polish emigrants fleeing oppression began to arrive and pepper the towns surnames with things like Groncowski and Lesnik. Life was happy. Eventually a killer blow was dealt by the evil witch of the South when Maggie Thatcher swept down on her broomstick in the 80’s, hovering above the town square and put the ‘shut the industry down’ spell on everyone. Those get rich quick short terming bastards really put the boot into the old town. You see, those filofaxes only planned in terms of a year or so. These types never really thought 20 years down the line. ‘I want mine now and fuck the future’ would have been a good t-shirt to get printed up in those days. My dad became very politicised during this period and attended strikes, rallies and many running battles with the police. He’d relay the collective despair back to my mum while we listened and knew to shut our whining gobs.

The town was smirched as being communists by the ministers in the pockets of London when they desperately tried to band together and get some radical changes made. It wasn’t hard to brand them all dangerous lefties with all the Polish contingent in town. It wasn’t about politics for the town it was survival and the problems the town was having were in much quicker bursts than the slow and lethargic place of the ‘man’ in London. There were soup kitchens aplenty in the town. Cowdenbeath flailed like a stuck bull and nobody it seemed gave a shit. This wasn’t exclusive to Fife or even Scotland – the North of England got it in the neck too. I’m only telling what I saw.

Cowdenbeath began to look like those Cowboy towns that I had seen in the American movies. Tumbleweed blowing through the main street, pawn shops, lone men mumbling in anguish and pubs with regular fights outside them.

My mate Brian was the son of a pub owner and he lived along with me in Cowdenbeath or ‘Cowden’ as we called it. When the locals couldn’t get into The New Goth to drink on a Sunday afternoon we were allowed to have the keys to play pool and listen to the jukebox. The jukebox had all kinds of things on it and when I think of it that old jukebox really was my blinking tardis into a world into the different flavours of music. From Queen’s kickass rock of “Seven Seas of Rye” to New Editions electropop “Candy Girl”. Classic rock, reggae crossovers, folk and punk.

Brian never knew this but I used to nick records from that jukebox – it’s how I got my collection started. and I figured then, as I do now, that his dad could afford it … plus his dad used to make comments like “are we feeding the whole street?” whenever Brian and me were eating something in his kitchen. That just panders to my DickTurpin instinct….anyways alot of the singles in my collection had that telltale massive hole in the middle meaning it’d been punched out to fit in a jukebox.

If I hadn’t liberated those records then I never would have been able to obsess over one of the records that became my door into the world of America outside of Elvis and the movies. It was ‘The Message’ by Grandmaster Flash. I listened to it over and over again until I knew all the words and not only that – the growls, roars and inflections.

Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs,
you know they just Don’t care
I can’t take the smell,
I can’t take the noise
Got no money to move out,
I guess I got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkie’s in the alley with a baseball bat
I tried to get away, but I couldn’t get far
Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car
Don’t push me, cause I’m close to the edge
I’m trying not to loose my head

As the record was nicked there was no sleeve so I had to make one myself and before you knew it the pens were out and my first attempts at graffiti kickstarted and all my graphic design drive. The graffitti never went much further than nicking some gold spreay paint from Halfords and trying to do our ‘piece’ a bus stop in the dark. I did the whole bit and got the cardboard out – I had flipped over into obsession. Years later and I have jammed and recorded with countless DJ’s, electronics freaks, rappers, verbalists, MC’s and the like…. and recently did a record in Oakland, California with some mates called Elemental. Yes that is a plug.

I’ve been checking out DJ’s and rappers at some live shows in Manchester so my head is on all this stuff. When hiphop first hit in the UK in the early 80’s it took years for anything to transpire in terms of home-grown performers and culture – we were all punters. Everybody was too scared to rap and because ecstacy hadn’t ‘transformed’ the twitchy British youth people weren’t yet funky enough – the kinetic energy of punk was still buzzing in their body shapes. It’s the weather as well of course. In the early 80’s people in the UK got their underground vibes through mods and punks.

HipHop in the UK got better and better though in the 90’s after some daliances with DrumNBass (me included) and now I’m looking at it again in 2006 with Roots Manuva, Dizzy Rascal and The Dirty Diggers and it looks as healthy as it’s ever been and in no danger of stopping. UK oiky technology based music I think is fresher than the Americans – they’re jaded now that their icons that kicked it off have fallen so far like IceCube and Missy Elliot etc – serious lack of content in their products these days . In the UK people have reconciled that they can rap in their own accents and are revelling in it….admittedly the South London thing is bit literally hackneyed but the stuff up north is poetic. If John Lennon was around today he’d probably be rapping in the North of England somewhere.

All kickstarted by inspiration from the children of the children of those Africans……

Now I don’t mean the rich Africans in Africa that originally sold their kinsmen on for gold to the slave traders. I mean the poor ones that were sold. This terrible collusion of the African chiefs and the slave traders is one of the sharp points between powerful Africans in Africa and educated African Americans today – no bloody wonder. The whole how dark or white is your skin thing rages between Africans and Indians aswell – battling for either side as being the most righteous is again madness to me and just for the record I’m peach in colour.

In fact in 2006 the African lineage that was sold into America has a lot more in common socially with their similarly shat on brethren around the world than they do with the same lineage back in Africa. So I’m thinking that being African isn’t really the sole genesis of this whole hiphop gig. It can’t be cos ‘Africans’ got separated not just by geography but by class when those ships disappeared off into the terrible horizon.

The British government outsourced most of the slavery to the colonies so the UK is nowhere near as ‘blended’ as the US. All the slave labour was kept in their native country and managed by a blend of locals and Brits. The geographic size of Britain was always smaller than it’s colonial and ‘staffing’ ambitions and this is a HUGE difference in context between the UK and the US.

Then you look to the UK and you see that the hiphop that is really happening is happening in the North of England and Scotland. The divisions here are tribal enough but the only colour difference is that they people get a blueish white the further you go north. London, the epicentre, of the UK’s traffic has always had hiphop action of a sort and today the powers that be are all centred there. Dancehall offshoots and garage rhythms are a London thing but lyrically I’m finding myself responding to the folks up North. It might be grim but it’s real up north.

Do I have white guilt? Do I fuck. Does anyone have Irish Guilt or Indian guilt? What about Iraqui guilt? The list of who got fucked since time began is long and bloody – me and my people didn’t do it so I’m don’t feel on trial and would take particular umbridge at anyone trying to have that pop. For me it’s got to be a person to person thing and an event to event thing. Ask my my mum about equal rights and she’ll tell you about the signs in England and Scotland in the 60’s that said “No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs”. They weren’t just making that shit up you know.

I empathise with poor people getting shafted and managed like livestock. I empathise with powerless victims of the violent PR techniques employed by right wing states. I empathise with creating something from nothing and rising out of your situation. Don’t play the black and white game like chess. We think we are playing the game and moving the pieces but in fact we are the pieces.…..

The truth of it as Melle Mel simply puts

It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder How I keep from going under….

It’s all shades of green in the jungle and it aint just the red things that are dangerous…

I might not have understood all the references at that age but Cowdenbeath was definitely a fine context to hear hiphop.

So I break it down like this for those that have skipped to the summary

1. It doesn’t come with colour it comes with your story. That means you can only deal with ‘hiphop’ ideologies on a person-to-person basis – otherwise you are a lunatic.
2. Stations or product streams called Black Music this or that are mentalists. How can a music wave or particle have a colour? Was Jimi Hendrix’s band one third black? Will these stations hive off into Beige Music and Dark Chocolate music in order to further differentiate the coloured demographic. Where’s my Peach Channel? A record made by Snoop Doggy Dog talking about cars and bitches…that’s isn’t African music.
3. ‘Urban’ as a term increasingly means fuck all – half the world is full of concrete and computers and khaki green is all the high street stores – posh and otherwise. The grit-E urban reaLITee is in all modern composers work – it’s just different instrumentation and a cognisance of the role that it plays that differs. Urban is the term they use to give street cred to some bollocks normally.

That’s it – hiphop is contextual – that means “it depends” on who/where/when and it certainly doesn’t have a template or way of automatically being born into it.

Part Two next titled ‘Subverting Tools is Cool’.

Check out this great summary page of UK hip hop

Branding

A quick post …. I dislike the word branding as it pertains to companies trying to get you to buy their product or religion or whatever….

Branding, before marketeer muppets hi-jacked it, used to mean burning your logo into the ass of a animal with hot steel so that everybody knew who owned it.

It’s not like they even changed the name when they began to apply the principal to people. If you hear people talk about you or your brand…you can bet they are probably cowboys at heart.

How to Brand a Cow Correctly
All livestock must be branded clearly, using proper branding methods so brands are visible under all weather conditions. Branding improperly is a waste of time and money. Producers brand livestock to prove ownership and protect themselves when livestock stray or are stolen. Some common factors that can contribute to poor or faulty branding are:

• irons that are not constructed properly • irons that are too narrow on the face • irons that are improperly heated • irons that are too small • branding a wet animal

Genres and the new Meta Data

Here’s the thing that is really getting my goat. Genres.It’s a hot topic for me as very recently I have had to enter into this little world of partitioning where you have to describe you and your whole body of current and future work under a genre….

Am I folk, pop, world, electronic, punk, or alternative? a mixture?

I started to think that it was maybe Alternative World Fusion (not that this exists in any music search engines) but then I thought that sounded w*nk and didn’t allow me to do a 30 second punk track with guitars or did it?

The genres thing just doesn’t work for me in the same way that I’m not always in one mood. Imagine signing up to a personal site and it asked you to classify yourself as happy OR sad OR agressive OR optomistic OR quirky and that description stuck with you and was pushed as your ‘flavour’. Madness huh? You feel differently depending on the day and who you are with. It’s the same with music…it’s a moving target and like you – not easily pigeonholed.

Most bands choose a genre like a gang or a badge….even bands that reject the whole genre thing are hoovered up into an industry obsessed with and built on it. There are conversations in backrooms on how to spend the bands money on them becoming the next X or how the new album the band have released is a different genre and therefore a commerical risk….(btw those record company contracts all have the clause “the band must deliver commercially acceptable masters”and that really means the record company can reject or change your music as it isn’t sellable under their interpratation of the market….they can do what they want.)

Sonia Livingstone argues that “Different genres specify different ‘contracts’ to be negotiated between the text and the reader… which set up expectations on each side for the form of the communication”. The only expectation I have of my listeners is that they will just listen to the sound coming out of the speakers and let the music take them …I don’t want them psychologically ‘prepped’ or expecting something specific….

Okay – so how to fix this polava or at least get some changes?

Songs have Genres artists don’t
I think that it’s the songs that should have the genre applied if anything not the artist. I’d be a little happpier to classify a song as having a certain mood rather than myself. That said, some artists do the same stuff all the time so this wouldn’t matter to them….yes I am being bitchy on that..

A different entry point to music other than ‘Genre’
Freak the metadata and allow people to access the music through different ‘angles’….instead of punters identifying their ‘consumer type’ from the familiar pick-list of genres such as rock, country etc.. Meta-data is data about data. So if my song is the data then all the keywords and descrptions associated with it are meta-data. Anything can be metadata. The instruments used, the location recorded, the tempo, a mood, the colour of shoes the singer was wearing when they did the song etc..

My imagined searches for new music might include :
All tracks that use harp and electric guitar together.
Songs that have movie dialogue samples.
All tracks made in someones bedroom.
All the tracks that have the word ‘cider’ in it.
Tracks that are under 30 seconds long.
Artists who don’t have any songs with the word ‘love’ in it.
Acoustic instruments only
Songs by their key
…
…

If we are going to label and categorise things more intelligently then let’s make sure we have lots of good data provided by the artists and not the middle men slapping a single descriptor on us. The technology is there for this to happen – Google/AI/fuzzy logic/automated song entry systems in the music industry….the reason the will is lacking is because the record companies use this framework of genres to ‘manage’ not only artists but consumers.

The genre thing is the big record labels speak. It’s the analysts. It’s the marketeers. It’s not the musicians. They say it’s there to help you – I say it hinders you boxes you in and propogates a ‘copying culture’.

History although you can’t stick petrol in it or a saddle on it is an efficient beast none the less. History does not ‘store’ copies very well in it’s books and indexes. The alphabet doesn’t have two letter f’s – it’s just inefficient and would be a duplicate. I think the genre thing at root is based on the concept of copying and reusing templates and my point is this – copies don’t survive history very well. Just be careful what game your playing . . .

Drongomala
p.s. my most disliked category is Ethnic…

New Year New Militancy

Ladies, gentlemen and all those inbetween … Chronia Pola and happy new year to y’all – i hope you get your full bicep pumping this year. We have the power we just haven’t stepped up to take it yet….Much love and thanks to all those that helped me and that I worked with in 2006 – I appreciate it – if I can start the motor on that golden boat you’ve got a ticket.

I’m in Naxos, Greece at the moment and came here for Crimbo and the New Year. The gaff here is a little spot up on the hill with an outside toilet, hardly any space and loads of cats….a new addition of a rabbit has turned up and because it hangs around so many cats it now thinks it’s a cat which is very funny…we’ve called it Hendrix Alexander (as in Jimi and ‘the great’) because it keeps trying to shag all the cats – specifically the male ones. Unfortunately Albainian workers (the cheap work slaves of Greece akin to the Mexicans of the US) have been doing work continually for the landlord which means the place is a building site…it’s been this way for a while now. This has really been getting my goat wot with the noise and the lack of privacy….

I don’t have a dog but I have an acoustic guitar and it’s companionship is never regretted. I didn’t have it from Aug-Dec and missed it terribly – I was gagging to spend some time with it over the new year period however an sleepy early morning incident with a knife and coffee packet meant I sliced the top of my finger on my left hand meaning I have a three week minimum recovery period until it’s strong enough to fret strings – bollocks…..hence the reason I’m writing lyrics and playing my melodia. I’ve been writing ALOT and I have three notepads full of new songs and lyrics. It’s time to work with other singers……

2006 eh?…. I never used to think of the future as something that you would ever arrive at and in a way we never do…. Stanley Kubrick’s movies 2001 and 2010 seemed so distant and those years seemed only like distant roadsigns – i never imagined that they would become destinations. Some people say we are beyond history now and into some new phase where it’s ‘all live and no archive’….this is shit of course.

Soon I will step to Manchester and set up a studio base there. Someone said to me aren’t your worried about moving to Manchester and “is the revolution there?” I said the revolution is wherever I’m at baby….What did I learn in 2005 and how am I going to play it in 2006?

Well the main thing is that I managed to finish three records and have demos for another three which are waiting in the wings. Doing your first record on your todd is a great learning experience and I’ve went on about this alot so I’ wont beat that drum too much. I’m a happy camper wot with finishing stuff…

Resolutions and grandiose statements….
* No shit from anyone ever again. I’m a nice guy but now I have a corona less angelic and blue and more fiery red these days. Those that say they will do something for me and don’t will get fucked up. I think that’s fair – stay away if you are hot air – i’ll pop your thin rubbery skin.
* Studio is being set up in Manchester…this will be Motown II. I’m excited about this – so far my studio has been halfway round the globe and I’m done with that for a while.
* I’m training/mentauring no other young people for free – they are not worth it. They are vain and have an inflated sense of their own ability based on their imagination rather than reality. Too much TV and not enough sweat. Irrespective of the time and the gold you give them they imagine themselves to be a peer. I know that the final meal of the student is to eat the teacher in one gulp but all the nibbling on the ankles prior to that is driving me crazy. Good luck on your own. I’m sure there are worthy ones out there it’s just that at the moment I’m not looking for them.
* Half of the people involved in the music industry should get the fuck out and get into the film business where they can preen on the screen if you know what I mean. DVD sales (for #1’s) outstrip record sales by a margin of 10 to 1 . It’s a sign of how deep the slavery and passivity has went 😉 – they had better get Virtual Reality up and running to the masses quickly or we’ll all become meat machines with big thumbs looking for the ‘exciting extras’ on DVD discs.
* I’m in charge – it’s the only way it works. Great art isn’t made by committie and if Michael Angelo could steal from the Pope then I can do what the fuck I want. I know best.
* I bought a cheap video camera to get into the whole podcast thing for 2006 but someone nicked it on my train journey up from Manchester to Edinburgh the day after I bought it. Even though I got Sherlock holmes and pressurised the guard to run back the security camera footage on the train to the time of theft I didn’t manage to spot them mainly because the guard didn’t know how to use the system and was looking in the wrong cabin. Ouch.
* Paying to sleep on someones couch – that’s finished. I’d rather sleep in a van or a park bench.
* I’m gonna take Indian music overground. I’m sick of Punjabi MC being the only thing that folks can grab onto out of the culture. It’s a sign of how lazy people have become. Unless it’s simple punjabi style ‘rock’ drumming blended with a house or hip hop beat people can’t get onto it. Get off the 3 minute 4/4 teat you mupppets – it’s like eating Fish and Chips every night – your soul will have a coronary.
* Lots of new artists to work with this year – projects in the pipleline include the wilfully avante garde Hobo Heist from Wales, Louis Anderson a singer songwriter from the South of England, Si Haydn (progressive classical guitar)….and more I’m sure.
* I’m going to get into boxing again. I miss my punchbag that I had in India.
* I’m done with Greece for the time being (except for Athens which is great). Greece had a great 200 year period thousands of years of ago. The problem is that the young folks, specifically men, seem to imagine those laurels carry forward to the present time. They don’t – today is today. I’m not saying everyone – just the majority 😉 No doubt as a result of this dissapointment me and my girl did an artpiece which was a female tailors dummy and a megaphone as the head – we spray painted the whole thing red and will unveil it at the important archaelogical site on the island in the next few days where I will give a speech to the air and birds. I called it Greek male. We’ll video it for the crack and I’ll post it up here.
* Fuck the whole left-right, black-white mentality.
* If I don’t practice what I preach then it’s because I’m not the kind of person that I’m preaching to.

Do I sound militant and angry? Yes I do but I’m ok with it. Anger isn’t a bad thing – it can be great petrol for your motor. Tupac Shakur said that ” fear is stronger than love” and I hate to admit that he is right. People fold real easy when they get the fear and all the love you put into them counts for shit. I don’t see the dopey eyed people as cows anymore I see them as steaks. Do I feel positive about 2006? – of course I do – I’m only ever pessimistic around 5percent of the time. It must be the time of the year….here’s a poem I wrote around this time a couple of years ago

One Day the Dogs Will Come For You

——————————————
Some poets fill their wordage with Keats and Joyce
Others sycophants on the peripherary of a pub conversation they had no drink at.
Crock flowerings of prose copied like old embroidery in a dim light
Scratching shapes with a stick
These are nothing but rhymes from children that are sick
No father wants his son to be a copy or less
The son must eat his history up as his first plate of nourishment in the dinner called man
Fuck the fake artisan
They are no better than children repeating lines of punishement on a blackboard

Throw away your books of The Great
Erase their rhythms and develop your own
Listen down deep into your bone

I impost a fine or tax in the names of Shelly, Byron and others of fame
Copyists and limp wrested gestures of expression be warned
I will send unfed dogs to your door
They will surely see the plate and the meat
The dogs want no hot air for their bellies

Varkala 02-01-04

That’s it – if you got this far then well done….I wish you all well for the future…but it’s not all about luck as you know….it’s how much you give a fuck

Drongomala

p.s. I feel much better getting that lot of my chest

Manchester Central + Counting Feathers

i was born in Manchester and somehow over the past few years I keep returning to it.

It made no great impact on me when I was young as I left when I was 6 years old for Scotland – I even had an Irish accent up until the age of 6 as a result of my mother hammering words and books in – it still influences my rrrrolll and curved delivery today…..baby.

Anyways – Manchester seems to be the midpoint between the ‘known’ and sometimes ‘dour’ Scotland and the knob-end’ishness of London. Liverpool is another one of these halfway houses too but the PR for that place is even worse. There is a cultivated stigma of the North by the power structures that be – it’s mostly around the Northerners (Northern England and Scotland) being : drunken/violent/uncouth and general theiving scallywags …..neighbours are always the same with the bullshit they get up to – take the greeks and the turks…..ANY PAIR OF NEIGHBOURS of course….it’s a truism …

The thing with Northern England is that they spirutally made a bargin with the Scots and the Irish…..the irish and Scots were in the port towns and Liverpool was as Irish as it was English for a while…..records came in from the US and John Lennon heard the blues players that changed his life…..it’s like the Manchesters, Liverpools and laterally the Newcastles have secretly shifted who they really hold alliance with…..it pisses off Parliament no end…there is a real overlap with the Celts and those in Northern England….it’s funny is all I’m saying…

..ok – enough – i’m just breakin it down for my imagined international readers….

So I’m in the UK again…..like i San Fran I am not outdoors much – I’ve got super functional with spare time now…. been working on the website for Flying Mountain….I insist you check the splendour of it :

http://www.flyingmountainrecords.com
OR another door in
http://www.drongomala.com

There’s even a Flash remix tool that I’ve been fucking about with – it will let you ‘remix’ When I was Young…..follow the Picasso that has fallen down the stairs to use it.

Our artist that we commissioned to do some work for the Elemental side of things today (1 week late) said that “shit has turned out good and he wants twice as much”……It annoys rather than surprises and I’..m shocked that a hand-shake and the money up front doesn’t cut shit the way it has since the dawn of commerical barganing…….these little annoyances make me want to learn the lot of it and do it myself but that’s the wrong impetus – we need to collaborate and mix it up – we need to put those chemicals together and see if it fizzes…..if bitches are mumbling and standing over the DNA spread out on A4 and wondering which bit is theirs then things never get up and walk….

Argh….people….

The guys great though so we’ll see…

anyway – weather is crap now – it’s raining and cold….bollocks – the winter is here and I spent all my summer indoors making records!!!…the agony, the pain and the general unhealthy palour…..

Peace-out
Drongmala

I left my pimped USB game controller in SanFrancisco

I’m serious. I had it all ready to use as a lightsabre cum play start stop trigger augmentary physical groove device…..anyways I digresss…

San Francisco you big whore…i love ya.

Before my recent visit I was looking in on America from the eye of the teleivison and I see how dangerous that can be – in all kinds of ways….it’s better to consume actual Americans to get an idea of America.

I came over and I got the idea all right….there’s intelligence, fire, anger, passion, LOADS OF ISMS, fear, sub-sub-subugenres, ….people talk of their futures now more solidly than ever before…..the landscape has popped into view with recent events and I hear tales of escape, tales of empire building, the coming social winters and mostly tales of a hunger for change…

It’s like all the movies going at once sometimes.

I used to think of Americans as little children but it’s not the case at all . . . . the genesis of their country has spawned a country where you can’t really describe how an american looks, it has no common ancestory, the native peoples misnamed by Columbus – it’s like an Eden experiment and the bio devices are being pulled out of the wonder phase and into the mire….I love them and my heart bleeds for them now I’ve been so close to them…

I believe in the Americans I met. As Bill Hicks said – if we could get past shit, feed people, and unite we could explore space together in freedom and forever…..that;’s the scale of the shit and we need to work backwards from it.

Americans are driven crazy with race like no othe place I’ve been in. It’s simple – everyone has got to love every other race even if it takes free inter-racial porn to be secretly given out to spotty teenagers….their dicks know in their mini-hearts that all kinds are wired to work out just fine in our bones…

I’d also like to use this point in wandering blog to suggest once more the map of redemption idea I have which involves me, a massive swimming pool with a floating world map full of girls….I know I could help fix things with three days of that……

Words and the dance you get up to – I like the funky, dirty slide of SanFranciscan patter. I dig the cats and I love it when shit is hittin and spittin….I don’t dig Motherfucker as a word at all but I can’t stop using it – we should all agree to change that motherfucker..oops…bollocks…iscratch that word….editS£@$

Right – I’m falling around mad. i love you and this SanFrancisco thing isn’t a fad. Listen up I was serious about that gamepad thing and all the boogaloo I’ve yet to do with you. I am me, She is She and You are You – I’m all about the voodoo..

Peace but agression where needed
Schmwoah xxxx

Milkshakes, Apple Pie and Japanese Prison Camps

Today I felt splendid. I just finished the last mixes of my record ‘Scale’. Most of the morning and afternoon were spent getting things ready to crank the handle for duplication……along with sessions by Rashinal for another project called ‘The Elements’. I’ve been walking around breaking into smiles and feeling moderately euphoric. I’m sure it must be pissing people off.

Before you know it time had rolled around to 1:30am and I decided to get my any-reason-to-celebrate ‘sweet attack’ at a local 24hr cafe. I sweep in – my favourite crazy waitress is on with her flirty banter that revolves around ‘why are you giving me such trouble’ and then slipping you a cheeky smile. There is another waitress in the cafe, and older oriental woman that I really like too but she has a more Zen like glide and harmony to her than tonights girl who is sassy and loud.

I get a chocolate milk shake and apple pie. Godammit. I dig the American thing where they give you the metal container along with the glass. It’s so ‘Back to the Future’ish to me.

anyway – I’m having my sweet overdose and listening to the conversations going on. There’s a looney tune woman listening to the drunk at the counter. The drunk is proclaiming to be an intellectual and he keeps asking people, very loudly, if they have read some book or other. He then starts hassling a Japanese girl with Japanese and English questions. The girl is studying for her exams and she looks visibly shaken. He sees me staring at him with my best ‘I’ll kick yer ass’ expression and then luckily turns his attention towards me. You’re a jew aren’t you? he says. I smile at him for a bit – he thinks I’m American (whatever that looks like??) and bumbles over and says he was in a japanese camp and that I look like Bob Dylan now that he gets close up. I had to amit his patter was flowing.

He asks me if I’ve read some book or other as part of his mantra for the night and then I speak for the first time to him asking him, in an accentuated Scottish accent, ‘How many books do you think have been written. I’ve swallowed thousands of books and it still doesn’t leave a mark on the total count. Don’t you know the futility of this comparison bullshit?’. I could see my waitress was digging it and she was peering up under her cap slightly to look. Like most drunks revved up to monologue he wasn’t really listening.

I’ve been in Japanese prison camps you know he said. I said to him that that girl is no more responsible for the lineage that put you in gaol than I am for the devil seed of a president you have. Leave her alone. I was feeling fucking invincible today and I was all for a malted showdown with the fella and his sweaty brow.

My waitress choked.

Luckily the guy left and I wondered about my little saloon show down with the drunk. I think this country is obsessed with race and religion. Grudges from fathers and grandfathers are handed out across the generational mix and people are abstracted into a convienient ‘type’ so that they can more easily be poked at with a sharp stick. It just happens more in the US cos there are more variables in the mix……more gas molecules bouncing off one another and creating friction….

Maybe successive generations will wipe it out but until everyone gets laid with everyone else and there are only medium coffee coloured babies then I’m not sure when the pressure will die down.

I like San Francisco – it’s like one of those pyschological experiments where everything is really interesting and then you get an electric shock out of the blue.

My waitress said that I could stand guard for her anytime as I left.

Today was a good day.