Seinfeld

The tears of a clown

My wife love's the sitcom 'Seinfeld' which was on from '89 to '98, as well as 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' starring the co-creator of Seinfeld, Larry David. She wants me to write about it.

Jerry Seinfeld anagrams to 'friendly jeers.' His show is a self-described show about "nothing." It has a laugh track. I hate laugh tracks. No one should ever tell you when you should laugh. Especially a machine that generates different levels of laughter. Cheers had a live studio audience. Ugh. I occasionally laugh, but I feel like I've been manipulated, and I know it's not really that funny. Apparently, tv people think we're all sheep.

As for Larry David, my dad's name is Larry, and Lawrence is my middle name. My dad is the director of the Burlingame Adult School. King David was the son of Jesse in the bible, and David is also the voice in my head who I'm struggling to expel.

This voice is from David, a man I thought was a friend, the guy who said he and I were vampires, the highly intelligent homosexual african-american attorney mathematician who I attribute my headshocks, chestpains, and voice to, who seems to be looking through my eyes and listening to my thoughts and "getting in my face," who is basically nothing but an irritant and an annoyance, and can even make me feel "possessed" at times. He used to be a friend, but now I hate him. All I ever do is tell him in my head (with my subvocalization) to shut up, leave me alone, stop talking to me, go away, get out of my head, get out of my life, stop bothering me, and f- you, a-hole. You get the picture.

So Larry and David are big men in my world. My dad, Mr. T, prefers not to be mentioned in my blog, so I'll leave it at that.

I graduated from highschool in '89, and my brother from the same highschool in '98. I'm not sure that means anything, actually.

I'm into seeing how names might relate to identity/personality, so here goes:
On an episode of The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart remarked on the fact that Seinfeld did not change his name for the purpose of show business but then went on to ask what he would call himself if he did change it. Jerry then jokingly said, "Well, I would keep my last name, so as not to offend my parents and I would have to go with Jesus."

I anagrammed his name, and Jerome A. Seinfeld could be 'Jeremiad oneself' or 'mad felonies jeer.' A jeremiad is a prolonged lament or mournful complaint. It can also be a literary work or speech expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom. The tears of a clown.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus anagrams to 'Jail usuriously fed'. Michael Richards is 'Shh! Direr acclaim'. And Jason Alexander is 'Relaxed as Joann'. Larry David is 'rival dryad.' A dryad is a deity from classical mythology; namely, a wood nymph; i.e. a nymph whose life was bound up with that of her tree. Usurious means charging illegal or exorbitant rates of interest for the use of money.

Jail IS usuriously fed, with an opportunity cost toward society. Read:
http://www.urbanstrategies.org/programs/csj/documents/CostsofIncarcerationFlyer_08.06.07_BH.pdf
Some JL trivia. I'm a JL, too. The 2008-9 California Budget lays out the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) budget of $10,669,413 (7.6%). There's supposed to be 177,021 inmates in '08-'09. So that's, let's see, around 60 bucks an inmate? I don't think so. Well, they don't get all their money from the state.. For Fiscal Year 2007-2008, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) was allocated a total of $9,776,618,000. That's more like it. That's 55k an inmate/yr.

The department operates 33 adult prisons, including 11 reception centers, a central medical facility, a treatment center for narcotic addicts under civil commitment, and a substance abuse facility for incarcerated felons. The CDCR also operates eight juvenile correctional facilities, including three reception centers. In addition, CDCR manages 13 Community Correctional Facilities, 44 adult and juvenile conservation camps, the Richard A. McGee Correctional Training Center, and 202 adult and juvenile parole offices. "Over 70 percent of this agency’s budget costs come from the salaries of over 60,000 employees, most of whom are custody staff that supervise inmates and parolees" -head of the CDCR, John Tilton. (So actually, that's an average of $114,060 per employee/yr., and 16,568.57 per inmate/yr.). That's $45.40 an inmate per day.

One source says California's prison system is operating at about double capacity, with inmates having a statistical 90% chance of getting raped.
http://www.concretemagazine.com/09_05/features/prison_reform.htm

The view from the CDCR employees is that the problems are "racial tension, violence, and walking dead" and "excessive overtime pay" (You may want to mail Judge Henderson):

RE: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation concerns. Dear Judge Henderson,I am writing this letter out of concern for the appalling conditions of the CDCR and the recent placement of its medical care under Federal Receivership. Since the receivership was ordered, nothing has changed for the inmates. We are still losing inmates the same as before and there are several hundred who are literally walking dead due to the lack of proper medical diagnosis and treatment. Now the entire CDCR system is plagued with racial tension and is on the verge of collapse. The CCPOA Union is responsible for all of this and continually makes and enforces decisions to create chaos, turmoil, and violence to assure their staff receives optimum benefits and nearly impossible overtime pay. Recently there has been uproar about placing violent offenders in general population which disrupts the rehabilitative efforts of the inmates. The action of placing violent offenders in population is simply a tool by the CCPOA to create and maintain their hold on the CDCR system through violence which in turn guarantees union employee benefits and excessive overtime pay to the tune of more than $100,000.00 per year for several hundred CDCR employees.Further, the CDCR budget is clearly open to abuse by the CCPOA to such an extent that it is out of control. The Special Interest Groups are blatantly in control of the system and are abusing it. Numerous investigative reporters have documented these abuses and no one, including Governor Schwarzenegger or the interim Secretary, will listen and correct them. The CCPOA publicly displays its abuses on a website (--) which includes derogatory references to you and the federal judiciary about placing the medical problem in receivership. The CDCR system has collapsed and is not about corrections or rehabilitation. The only viable option is to take the steps to place the entire system under receivership and bring in federal authority to recoup the system before a total breakdown occurs and countless inmates are allowed to die from medical neglect or murder in a hostile environment meant to rehabilitate them.There are hundreds of thousands of family members, friends, and concerned citizens who urge prison reform on the failed CDCR system. Please consider all of our pleas to correct this system by placing the CDCR under complete federal receivership before it is too late.

Also, there's this article that talks about Alabama inmates getting fed on $1.75 a day.

There's definitely something to this Julia Louis-Dreyfus thing.

Seriously, every dollar needs to be spent wisely and well. We need volunteers in our jails and prisons, teaching people to read, and making books available, for starters. Please, stop watching your Seinfeld so much.

About the audit of the Ca prison healthcare system: http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2006/08/state_controlle.html