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By Boston Woodard
Boston Woodard
If someone told me I would someday be in a rock ’n’ roll band playing bass with “Superman” on drums, in prison, I would have suggested that they get their head examined. Just so happens, I did indeed play with Superman—a Superman drummer, that is.
James Beck Gordon is that drummer. Gordon, Grammy Award winner, was one of the most sought-out tour and session drummers in the late 1960s and 1970s, recording records with the top musicians of that era. Gordon’s discography is extensive. He worked with such top names …[Read the details]
By Pam Whalen
David Moss will perform at Fresno State on April 18 at 6:30 p.m. in IT Building 290, at UC Merced on April 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the Classroom & Office Building Room 272 and in Fresno on April 20 at 7 p.m. at the Big Red Church, 2132 N. Van Ness Blvd. For more information, call Pam Whalen at 559-994-9390.
David Moss was arrested 14 times but never treated for his drug addiction. He has since rehabilitated himself and created a one-man play that highlights his experiences in the broken …[Read the details]
Boston Woodard
By Boston Woodard
Christian Brando—the son of one of the most important actors in modern American cinema, Marlon Brando—did his prison time just like any other California state prisoner, serving his debt to society for the crime he committed.
On May 16, 1990, Christian shot and killed Dag Drollet. Drollet, the boyfriend of Christian’s half-sister Cheyenne Brando, had been physically abusive toward her. According to Christian, Drollet on numerous occasions had “smacked her around” and “hit her often.” Cheyenne was eight months pregnant with Drollet’s son, now known as Tuki Brando and a …[Read the details]
By Boston Woodard
I live in a prison dormitory (one of 29) on the “Sierra” yard at the California Correctional Center (CCC) in Susanville. It is a Level II prison with Level I being the lowest custody level and Level IV being the highest.
I was told by a 20-year-plus employee (at this prison) that the dormitory size was originally designed for approximately 10 prisoners when CCC opened in 1963. Today, 30‒32 prisoners are crammed into the small dorms. Way too many people stuffed in much too little space. There is one small section of a …[Read the details]
By Maria Telesco
Book Review: Inside the Broken California Prison System by Boston Woodard, B-88207
Boston Woodard’s book is available from www.amazon.com. For more information about this book, see www.brokencaliforniaprison.com.
It’s been a while since I’ve heard California prisons referred to as “country clubs,” an absurdly outrageous politically generated misnomer. When “free people” learn of prisoners, handcuffed and shackled at the ankles, beaten with metal batons by rampaging guards; forced to stand naked, outdoors, in broiling sun or polar cold, for hours on end, for no particular reason; dying in their …[Read the details]
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