It was the first weekend in June, and I was sitting on a bench in the yard with Robert Lee Williams, who has long dreadlocks and a face with sharp features, almost too pretty for prison. He used to be a Blood, now he's looking to be a freelance prison journalist like me. He had recently published his first piece, about losing his friend in prison to a drug overdose, in the Prison Journalism Project. He hung his head, gloomy about the news of the new directive: the New York state prison system, with one stroke of a bureaucratic pen, had instituted an approvals process for creative work — paintings, poetry, feature journalism — so laborious that it would deter the most creative minds in New York prisons. It had been about a month since, in May 2023, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision surfaced this oddly titled "Creative Arts Projects" directive. When a New York Focus reporter asked me about it, I hadn't seen the directive, hadn't known it existed. But apparently, we were now required to send officials our work for approval before submitting it to editors, and even publications were required to ask permission to publish us. There were restrictions, too: no sexual or gang-related materials; any proceeds had to go to a nonprofit for victims; no negative portrayals of "law enforcement officers or DOCCS in a manner which could jeopardize safety or security" allowed; and no depictions of our crimes. |
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| The Raw Honesty of Eric Church |
Eric Church is in a New Jersey parking lot with his nose inside a glass of bourbon. Before that image sparks any unseemly rumors, let's look a little closer. The parking lot is about a hundred feet directly behind the stage of the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, where in a few hours the country music star will be playing a sold-out show on his Outsiders Revival tour. We're standing on a sectioned-off platform with a super-cool custom bar built inside a rolling road case. Playing quietly behind us is Outsiders Radio, the SiriusXM channel Church says he programs himself. We just heard one of Church's own songs, in between a Whitney Houston deep cut and the Cars' "Since You're Gone." As for the bourbon, it's Church's newly launched brand, Whiskey JYPSI, and his master distiller and blender Ari Sussman is explaining how to appreciate the spirit's scent without the alcohol numbing your nasal passages—breathe through your mouth with your snoot inside the glass. "I thought it sounded like bullshit, but it works," says a grinning Church. |
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When I used to think of my boarding-school classmate Leon Jacob—before I knew about his convictions, before I learned he was serving a life sentence in a Texas prison—I'd picture him standing in the sunshine outside my dormitory. He was wearing a white polo, so he must've been on his way to golf practice. The sun tinged his dark-blond curls. He looked golden, all swagger and confidence as he shouted up for his sister, who lived in my dorm. Because it was the nineties, and no one had cell phones to communicate, visitors would usually walk into the dorm and ask a resident to go fetch someone. Leon, however, didn't bother. He just yelled from the path outside instead, sure that someone would hear him and do what he wanted. Then, in 2018, I heard a piece of news so unbelievable I thought at first that I'd dreamed it. Leon, golden Leon, had been convicted of hiring a hit man to carry out the double murder of his ex-girlfriend and his new partner's ex-husband and had been sentenced to life in prison. (The murders weren't carried out.) I initially assumed something had gone drastically wrong in his life—that he'd had a psychotic break preceding the crime. And although mental illness did play a significant role in his story, as I began to dig into the records and wreckage of Leon's life, a very different picture emerged that was far more complex—and deeply disturbing. |
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As long as I can remember, I've wondered what it would be like. To be one of those people. The winners. The people who hit the jackpot, who go from normal life to that other kind, where your name is in headlines and your face is on TV, where you get recognized on the street, have your own fan club and Wikipedia page. How would that feel? No, but really, how would it actually feel? And so I want to warn you right away: I still don't have an answer to that question. I've gotten a lot closer, but this is all still so new. It has only been a year since I found myself living my fantasy, a year that passed like a whirlwind, a whirlwind that picked me up and carried me along with it, twisting and tumbling. And I've fucking loved it! |
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Taylor Swift at Sunday Night Football Will Break Our Mortal Universe |
I'll cut right to it, because images of Taylor Swift emoting and eating a chicken tender is the only thing you've seen this week: the Kansas City Chiefs play the New York Jets this Sunday night. In New York City. (Er, New Jersey, but if you mention the M*ad*wl*nds by name, a swamp monster will haunt you at night.) On Wednesday night, Front Office Sports reported that Swift will once again participate in some suite-side support of Travis Kelce—and, as I'm writing this, I'm wondering one thing: Will this be the most-watched regular season NFL game of all time? I'm serious. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this past Sunday's Bears-Chiefs stinker was the most-watched telecast of the entire week—and number-one among women of all ages. |
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Five Fits With: Retro Rocker (and Dresser) Stephen Sanchez |
This week's subject is Stephen Sanchez, who happens to be this column's first and only brush with Elton John. The young rising star performed his single, "Until I Found You"— three-times platinum, with two billion streams, by the way—on stage at Glastonbury earlier this year with the music legend. Coming off a summer of songwriting, touring, and playing Sofia Richie and Elliot Grainge's wedding in the South of France, Sanchez has just released his anticipated debut album, Angel Face, last Friday. I was particularly curious to discuss style with someone whose music is such an homage to a bygone era; I wondered to what degree he was, for lack of a better phrase, about that life. Over a slice of pizza from his new favorite neighborhood spot, Best Pizza, Stephen and I discussed how his upbringing, church, and his grandathers influenced his music career, releasing a debut album at 20 years old, the role style plays for him on and off the stage, and plenty more. |
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