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Robin Henkel

Home
About
Shows
Solo Blues
RH Band w/ Horns
Music
Photos
Contact
Lessons
Life & Career History

Life & Career History

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Jail Guitar Doors: East Mesa Reentry Center

My friend Robert Bird asked me if I would like to accompany him to a songwriting workshop with the inmates at East Mesa Reentry Center. The program was sponsored by Jail Guitar Doors which was a project initiated by Wayne Kramer who is in the proto punk band MC5 back in the 60s. I had purchased one of their albums back in the day. MC5 was one of the first bands to use the F word on an album. Their band saying was “Kick Out The Jams Motherf#cker!” back then it was kind of a big deal. Apparently Wayne had done time himself and had a special interest in connecting with and making prison less harsh for the inmates.

Having gone through the necessary security check and receiving a visitor badge we walked down the hallway with a gated door and then bar wire fence. From the inside it looks somewhat like a high school campus except for the razor wire. As a guard walked us down to the meeting room for our music session I noticed a little bunny rabbit hanging out near the fence. The bunny could get in and out and that triggered a thoughtful moment realizing the inmates could not leave. The guard unlocked and let us in the room where there were about 20 chairs and cabinets where they stored the guitars which had been donated to the project. The inmates all came in together. They we're wearing a tan outfit looking like a hospital smock. Most of them wore fluorescent orange shoes kind of like a flip-flop. I would usually play a few blues tunes, pass the guitar around the circle so they could inspect a 1930s resonator up close. Then we got down to teaching basic chords. Some of them did not speak English. I felt a warm and satisfying feeling asking one of the bilingual inmates to help the Spanish speaker understand what I was saying. Somehow that moment felt very rewarding.

After the session Rob Bird and I were escorted through a couple of gates and then sounded a buzzer. The security doors opened to a lobby where we turn in our visitor badges and are given back or driver's IDs. When a session is over an energetic charge lingers. Under the lights of the parking lot we wind up talking about the response of the inmates and ideas for our next session. It's hard to not be emotionally moved by the faces, the enthusiasm and acceptance of the prisoners. We just left a room where about twelve guys were banging away at various songs and strums all at once in a musical chaos which is kind of hilarious. Now it's silent and the sun is setting through a dirty orange haze. Silhouetted against this serene backdrop are circular coils of razor wire adorning the top of chain link fences near the prison buildings. Marked and unmarked police vehicles occasionally roll through the parking lot as Rob and I chat. Leaving the center, it's kind of strange and surreal driving through the blighted landscape and open space of Otay Mesa passing by fenced truck storage facilities and large nondescript industrial buildings. Through the haze you can see a cluster of houses on a hillside in Mexico about a mile or two in the distance. It really causes one to slow down and think about things.

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