John Hinckley, Jr. & That Sweet Prison Life

The John Hinckley article in this Sunday’s New York Times – or, as I call it, “The Sunday Times” – is a little weird in that there’s a “oh yeah, and he also shot a president” feel amidst all the chatting about his various creative endeavors he's now enjoying. After spending 40 years in prison he's free, and he basically spends his days screwing around recording what I’m sure is terrible music and dipping himself in & out of the pop culture zeitgeist when or if he feels like it. So after committing a heinous act which wasn’t AS heinous as it coulda been, he got to live scot-free for 40 years, with 3 hots & a cot provided for him every day, do all the painting/reading/whatever et al he wanted to do in prison, all while presumably being separated from any type of dangerous prison Oz situation, and now he kinda has a free-floating responsibility-free life outside of prison. I mean, there’s worse ways to get through life without being totally miserable, amirite?

I know exactly what you're thinking: "surely you’re being ridiculous Xmastime, SURELY there’s no precedent for such a thing, and could you please post more nude pics of yourself here?”

While you jerkoffs were sitting around the dorm halls listening to Bowie and asking “do you see the same blue as I do?” I was reading The Lucky Queen: The Eight Assassination Attempts on Queen Victoria, which details the NINE assassination attempts on Queen Victoria. However, it’s not quite as bloody as you’d think: the first guy who took a pop at her was declared mentally insane, so instead of chopping his head in front of everybody at lunchtime they squirreled him away in some white collar prison where he spent his days painting and musing and being delightful. Of course when word about his leisurely prison stay got out, everybody else wanted the same so 7 more dudes – generally with tiny guns that barely worked if they did at all – over the course of a year or two took a half-hearted shot at the Queen, knowing they’d miss and hoping for a nice prison hookup like the first guy.

This is a little like my future non-selling novel in which a guy pretends to witness a crime just so he can get whisked away into the Federal Protection program so he can be taken care of for the rest of his life without having to worry about money (“the United States Federal Witness Protection Program (WWP) provides participants with payments to cover basic living expenses, on average around $60,000”) and hijinks ensue!