08.05.2002

Monday Night 08.05.02 — Prison Series — Tommy Trantino Discussion

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Reading Group 08.05.02 — Prison Series — Tommy Trantino Discussion
Contents:
1. About this Monday
2. Texts and Links related to Tommy Trantino
3. Ayreen — Journalisms — 06.18.02 — UK Diaries: Tommy Trantino
4. About Prison Series
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1. About this Monday
When: 7pm
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 5th Floor
Who: Open to all
This series and evening have been in the works for some months.
We are pleased to invite all who are interested to attend.
Born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1938. Tommy Trantino is an
artist and poet of a forgotten and voiceless generation.
Accused and convicted of killing two police officers, Tommy was on
death row for nearly nine years. In 1972, his sentence was changed to
life in prison as the death penalty in New Jersey was temporarily
abolished.
Tommy was released to a half way house in 2001 after 11 attempts at
parole and 37 years of prison time (making him the longest serving
inmate in the state of New Jersey).
While on death row, Tommy turned to writing and his book “Lock the Lock”
was published in the early 70’s. The book of prose, letters, dialogues,
and poems earned him wide acclaim among critics and writers, inspiring
a generation of supporters seeking clemency on his behalf.
We invite everyone for what will be a very interesting discussion.
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2. Texts and Links related to Tommy Trantino
a. Howard Zinn — Obedience and Disobedience
b. Roger Lowenstein — TT’s attorney — Rehabilitation
c. Henry Miller — on Trantino’s book “Lock the Lock”
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a. Howard Zinn
Obedience and Disobedience
from Howard Zinn’s Declarations of Independence
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“Obey the law.” That is a powerful teaching, often powerful enough to
overcome deep feelings of right and wrong, even to override the
fundamental instinct for personal survival. We learn very early (it’s
not in our genes) that we must obey “the law of the land.” Tommy
Trantino, a poet and artist, sitting on death row in Trenton State
Prison, wrote (in his book Lock the Lock ) a short piece called “The
Lore of the Lamb”:
i was in prison long ago and it was the first grade and i have to take a
shit and . . . the law says you must first raise your hand and ask the
teacher for permission so i obeyer of the lore of the lamb am therefore
busy raising my hand to the fuhrer who says yes thomas what is it? and i
thomas say I have to take a i mean may i go to the bathroom please?
didn’t you go to the bathroom yesterday thomas she says and i say yes
ma’am mrs parsley sir but i have to go again today but she says NO . . .
And I say eh . . . I GOTTA TAKE A SHIT DAMMIT and again she says NO but
I go anyway except that it was not out but in my pants that is to say
right in my corduroy knickers goddamm. . .
i was about six years old at the time and yet i guess that even then i
knew without cerebration that if one obeys and follows orders and
adheres to all the rules and regulations of the lore of the lamb one is
going to shit in one’s pants and one’s mother is going to have to clean
up afterwards ya see?’
Surely not all rules and regulations are wrong. One must have
complicated feelings about the obligation to obey the law. Obeying the
law when it sends you to war seems wrong. Obeying the law against murder
seems absolutely right. To really obey that law, you should refuse to
obey the law that sends you to war.
But the dominant ideology leaves no room for making intelligent and
humane distinctions about the obligation to obey the law. It is stern
and absolute. It is the unbending rule of every government, whether
Fascist, Communist, or liberal capitalist. Gertrude Scholtz-Klink, chief
of the Women’s Bureau under Hitler, explained to an interviewer after
the war the Jewish policy of the Nazis, “We always obeyed the law. Isn’t
that what you do in America? Even if you don’t agree with a law
personally, you still obey it. Otherwise life would be chaos.”‘
“Life would be chaos.” If we allow disobedience to law we will have
anarchy. That idea is inculcated in the population of every country. The
accepted phrase is “law and order.” It is a phrase that sends police and
the military to break up demonstrations everywhere, whether in Moscow or
Chicago. It was behind the killing of four students at Kent State
University in I970 by National Guardsmen. It was the reason given by
Chinese authorities in 1989 when they killed hundreds of demonstrating
students in Beijing.
to continue reading visit:
http://www.ecn.cz/temelin/textonly/obed_zin.htm
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b. Rehabilitation by Roger Lowenstein (TT’s attorney)
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Rehabilitation?
Fighting to free ‘the poster boy for punishment’
by Roger Lowenstein
It is late August of 1963 and John F. Kennedy is in the White House. I’m
a 19-year-old college student working as an intern on Capitol
Hill in the office of a liberal Jersey City congressman, and helping to
organize Capitol Hill employees to join the March on Washington
for Jobs and Freedom and shut down the Hill. I’ve been to Europe twice,
but I’ve never met a convicted criminal. I venerate the working
class but don’t know any “workers.” I’m naïve and idealistic and think
the only real political organizing that needs to be done is to push
Kennedy to the left. Why won’t he fully embrace the Civil Rights
movement?
Back in my home state of New Jersey some lowlife thugs are celebrating
an armed robbery in Brooklyn by drinking and carousing
with various girlfriends in a roadside dive in Lodi. One of the thugs,
Frankie Falco, is wanted for murder. Another, Tommy Trantino,
sits at the bar drinking himself into oblivion. He’s had two dexedrine
tablets and 20 double shots of whiskey. A police sergeant and an
unarmed probationary policeman respond to a noise complaint at 2:30 in
the morning. They enter the bar. The sergeant finds a gun
wrapped in a towel on the bar. Trantino jumps him and disarms him,
giving his service revolver to Falco. The cops are told to strip.
They begin to comply. Trantino hits the sergeant with his gun, then both
cops are shot to death. The next day the cops catch up to
Frankie Falco in a New York City hotel room and execute him. Trantino
turns himself in, is tried and sentenced to death in New
Jersey’s electric chair. Our lives will soon cross.
to continue reading, please visit:
http://thewitness.org/archive/march2001/lowenstein.html
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c. Henry Miller on Trantino’s book “Lock the Lock”
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About “Lock the Lock”
An excerpt from: AN OPEN LETTER TO STROKER!
by Henry Miller
“WHOEVER would have thought that the venerable Alfred Knopf & Co. have
the courage and foresight to publish Tommy Trantino’s “Lock the Lock”
Hosanno!!! Salut!!!Merci mille fois! Banzai! This marvelous book of the
century could just as well have been taken for a lump of shit, horse
shit what i mean. And it is a huge, Gargantuan piece of shit coming
straight from a genius, from his mouth and from his ass-hole. It is the
embalmed shit of the last days of Western civilization. This is it —
Und nichts mehr! this takes Homer, Dante, Goethe, and Fra Angelico to
the dawn of a new world. Something not to be called by that shitty name
civilization!!! This is Dostoievsky writing our death knell in the
lingo of a junkie.”
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3. Ayreen — Journalisms — 06.18.02 — Useful Knowledge Diaries:
Tommy Trantino
12.00 midnight. Yoyo on the phone “we are going to see Tommy tomorrow if
you want to come.”
12:00 noon the next day ….New Jersey Turnpike. Navigating the
instructions that Chika had printed out. It was the way to Camden as
Tommy’s brother had recommended. Camden has a lot of social cases,
people who have no work or involved in drugs. Explained Vladimir.
And what is Tommy doing? He is organizing or coordinating a program for
re-habilitation. Of people who are addicted to drugs.
I never met him before, only from yoyo…she told me about the book he
wrote that was called “lock the lock”. Also about his life. The first
time I met her.
He was accused of killing two policemen or he killed two policemen. It
was not clear to me. There is a blackout in the story. Nobody knows. And
so probably not even Tommy himself. But is that so important? For me not
really.
This happened in the year 1963 in New Jersey, in a bar. Since then Tommy
has been in Prison….38 years.
Turnpike finished….Suburban landscape ahead…dunken donuts…mcdonalds and
so on….Streets are getting narrower…people sitting outside their
houses…here is Tommy that’s him.
First a warm welcome to all. Inside the house a lot of his drawings on
the walls. If there would be a show of Tommy’s work it would never be as
good as the way it is in his house. All those drawings were with Charlee
his previous wife. She sent them after she had expressed a difficulty
to find them in the attic and send them…luckily she sent them… she
changed a lot …he said…he showed us a lot of the photos. The people’s
magazine did an article on them. At the beginning of the 80s. she was a
very politically engaged person. Although in prison the photos looked
like stills from a film. Two beautiful people hugging or walking hand in
hand in the woods. He said they wanted to make a film about us. But they
needed the happy ending. Which Was not the case…Tommy was still in
prison…
The first thing I remember Tommy telling me on the table, was’ I am a
political person’ we were having the sushi Yoyo and Chicka had made in
the morning. I love sushi…said Tommy. In prison they gave us garbage.
Rotten and dirty food. The least you can say about it is garbage.
The death house. A small room, Tommy describes the size in relation to
his bedroom now. It is basically not more than 6×9 feet (my
approximations) with the toilet inside and a small hole for food. No
light. So they slide the food under the door. It was hard to sleep
there…as soon as you slept, roaches and mouses would come out of the
toilet and crawl on you. He made the gesture on his chest. At some point
Tommy put the bed near the hole to be able to read, from the light of
the 60 watt lamp in the corridor.
I had basically one question to Tommy. I wanted to know what happened.
And I asked him. Tommy, what happened? He answered….it took him the
whole day to do so and I do not think that he finished.
What happened?
Tommy was born in South Williamsburg. In a tenement on south 4th
street. His father was Italian and his mother Jewish. So that was it…for
him. He was an angry person he resented his parents bringing him up in
that poverty. In a small room he his brother and his sister were
staying. The Italians spoke about Jews like dogs and the Jews spoke
about Italians like dogs. So I was a big dog. Tommy said.
At a very young age I was a gangster …. but at the time we called it a
social club ‘so and so’. And so we were together in a social club. The
guys could share girls but not the contrary. It was a kind of a family.
And Tommy had a prominent place in the social club. He was a handsome
young man, married but cheated on his wife all the time.
The Italians had values. Inherited from father to son. You never show
sadness or weakness. You also learn how to defend yourself with your
hands. I never carried guns. I used to fight only with my hands. The
women where supposed to clean the house and carry guns. It’s ok if they
were scared. Those were those days.and they were like that.
Tommy is not a macho and he is not a gangster and he is not a criminal.
This is what I saw and heard and read. Tommy is a sensitive incredibly
kind artist. For me his art does not only consist of his drawings and
book and what can be shown in a gallery. His whole life is a complete
artwork for me. and this for me is the highest form of art. The
resistance no matter what.
Police tried to demonize him, at some point, in police schools they had
my picture on the shooting ring. Tommy knows policemen and he knows that
they did that.
Well I read the article in the New York Times last week and I did not
like it. He said but it was fine because it was humanizing me. A lot of
times in the past the press and media made a monster out of me. But the
media goes with the wind. A lot of celebrities in the sixties were
trying to help …Tommy mentioned many names…john Lennon one of them…but
also Henry Miller wrote about Tommy.
The only photographs I see are of Tommy’s mother and father together and
his mother with Irving Stettner. A writer friend of Tommy the editor of
Stroker Magazine. Tommy was often published in Stroker.
His father is 89 and lives on Staten Island. He wanted to live with him
but the landlord refused and fussed about it. It was a touching moment
when he described how he visited his mother’s grave along with his
brother. He was in prison so he did not get to see her before she died.
Tommy’s brother said, see ma I told you I would bring him to see you! .
A tear dropped of Tommy’s eyes and of Vladimirs at this moment.
Vladimir asked Tommy if he would come to New York to talk. I said yes a
good idea maybe at the beaver. But then we will have to write him a
letter of invitation since he is on parole. Also Yoyo wants to organize
an exhibition with him in Soho. Tommy said he wants to be near artists
because that is his life.
There is still a lot more to say. I will stop here because I would like
to quote ‘ Lock the Lock’ Tommy’s book that was published in 1973. P
126.
GOD BLESS AMERICA OR ELSE
I WISH YOU THE HAPPIEST AND MOST MEANINGFUL OF
FLAG DAYS IN THE
HISTORY OF FLAG DAYS IN HISTORY OF FLAG DAYS IN
THE INTERESTS
OF FLAG DAYS IN THE WHIRL
GENERAL HENRY FLUKE MADE A SPEECH TODAY
ALL ABOUT THE FLAG AND GOD AND THE COUNTRY
IT WAS A HIGHLY UNUSUAL SPEECH
HE ONLY MENTIONED HIS GOD FLAG AND HIS COUNTRY
EIGHT MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND FOUR
HUNDRED AND SEVEN TIMES
THE GENERAL SAID THUS OF HIS FLAG HIS GOD HIS
COUNTRY
THE INTERNAL ENEMIES OF THIS GREAT NATION AH SAY
THEY SHALL
BE SMITTEN THOUGH SILENT IT SPEAKS TO US
THE GENERAL LOOKED OUT OVER THE CROWED OF FOUR
OR FIVE
YELLOWTOOTHED BROWNSHIRTED OLD LADIES WEARING
KILL THE GOOKS
EMBLEMS ON THEIR WHITE SNEAKERS AND SAID
THIS GREAT AGGREGATION OF PEOPLE IS QUITE A GROUP
THEREFORE WE HAVE A REAL PURPOSE IN LIFE
AND THAT IS TO HOLD THE FLAG HIGH AND BELIEVE IN
ALMIGHTY GOD AND LOVE
THIS GREAT NATION OF MINE WITH ALL OUR HEART AND
ALL OUR
SOUL AMEN
THAT’S WHAT MAKES AMERICA GREAT LADIES AND
GENTLEMEN
TO KNOW THAT WE CAN HAVE THE FREEDOM TO ASSEMBLE
TO WAVE
THE FLAG IN THE BREEZE
EVEN WHEN THERE AINT NO BREEZE
AND TO KNOW WE HAVE FREE SPEECH TO SAY HOW GREAT
IT IS TO
WAVE THE FLAG IN THE BREEZE
EVEN WHEN THERE AINT NO FREE SPEECH
AND TO KNOW WE CAN ASSEMBLE AND SAY WE HAVE THE
FREE
SPEECH TO ASSEMBLE
EVEN THOUGH THERE AINT NO FREEDOM
OF ASSEMBLY EITHER
GOD BLESS AMERICA
OR ELSE
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4. About Prison Series
The Prison Series is a loosely based set of evenings
that will focus on different aspects of prisons,
incarceration, and “security”. We will be inviting
a variety of cultural workers and activists to discuss
their ideas and efforts.
Coming Later in August: Mark Dow with a discussion based
around his recently published book on the death penalty.