Peace Out, My N–rs

Pruno, a prison wine created from fruit, sugar and ketchup, is such a vile and despicable beast in the California state penal system that prisoners can't eat fresh fruit at lunch.

Back in December 2002, the warden at Lancaster prison in Los Angeles County removed fresh fruit from box lunches in the maximum-security lockup, as an effort to reduce violence. Apparently, sober, scurvy-addled felons are much easier to control than drunken, violent convicts.…

In the first 270 days of 2002, staff at Lancaster prison were assaulted 102 times—about once every three days.

By most accounts, pruno isn't something a normal human would want to drink, so potent that two gallons is said to be “a virtual liquor store,” enough to get a dozen people mindblowingly wasted. And while it tastes so putrid that even hardened prisoners gulp it down while holding their noses, they'll go to incredible lengths to make it, whipping up batches from frosting, yams, raisins and damn near everything.

What's all this fuss about? The Black Table decided to investigate.


My favorite lines come from Step One—Peel, Mash, and Heat:

In a San Francisco Chronicle article from 1990 called “The Games Guards Play,” author Dannie Martin describes how prison guards—or hacks—would search prison cells for any sign of pruno. But instead of taking it away, the hacks who were really hell-bent on getting even would piss in it. As Martin quips, “Wine that has been urinated in several times is far too presumptuous, even for a convict's palate.”

Why am I posting this? Well, I know from reviewing my logs that this blog is really big among the incarcerated. (Let me give a big shout out to Double D, Straight Razor, Tiny T Psycho, and Peaches. I know in my heart you're all innocent, and that if you just keep taking it to the Man, the truth shall set you free. Except for Straight Razor. I think we all know you did that shit. Okay, and you, too, Peaches: point of information, no one commits suicide with a hammer—and if someone were to commit suicide with a hammer, he wouldn't commit suicide by hitting themselves 13 times. In the head. So, no, I won't write a letter to your parole board. But I digress.) And, two, occasionally, you, the un-incarcerated, find yourself in that pre-date predicament where you're too busy to shop for wine for that dinner for two you've got planned, but not so busy that you can't scrape a few minutes up to ferment prison wine. This blog's for you.

It's just another public service message from Biff Loman and The Truth* Network.