Ben Prince’s comedy roast of defending champion Huggie’s standup comedy act took first place at the annual San Quentin talent show in the Garden Chapel.
Although this was Prince’s first appearance in the SQ talent show, he has had some experience with stand up comedy. Prince was an amateur performer at the comedy club in Long Beach, “I’ve been a class clown all my life.”
Second place went to Angel Alvarez for his lip-sync of Night Time is the Right Time, by Ray Charles and James Brown’s classic, Please, Please, Please, which included back-up singers, John Vaden, Julian Glenn Padgett, and Terrell Merritt.
Alvarez said, “I’ve always wished for the ability to make people laugh and thanks to my brothers (the back-up singers) my dream of entertaining an audience came true.”
Third place honors went to Keshun “Daleadamown” Tate’s spoken word performance of a chapter from his autobiography, self-criticizing his trials and tribulations with crack addiction.
Mother Earline and San Quentin drama team members, Kevin Carr and James Cabot organized the show for an audience of about 100 prisoners. Carr said, “The talent show is for everyone to have fun, regardless of faith.”
Robert “Bishop” Butler and James Cabot announced the 13 scheduled performances that included music, dance, poetry, rap, and spoken word.
Judges: Mother Earline, Danny Cox, and “Pete” selected the top five acts for the audience, by applause to choose first, second, and third place. Pete said, “The best act definitely won.
Mother Earline, a supporter of Christian values, has been involved with the Garden Chapel for more than 25 years. She told the performers, “I’ll be playing the role of Simon. If you don’t get picked, take it like a man and move on….this is for laughter and fun.”
Curt, a prisoner was asked if he would boo an act. He said, “Talent is relative – I wouldn’t easily boo an act because it takes a lot of courage to get up there.” But, Black, another prisoner said, “Oh yeah, I’d boo. People come in here thinking that they have talent, but everybody in San Quentin knows they don’t.”
The audience was vicious. Most acts didn’t last the one minute allotted before booing was allowed – sort of like the gong show with an Apollo twist. Sandman, played by Mike Beard, had plenty of work as he swept booed acts stage left. Shakespeare was brutally booed off the stage. Another prisoner who lamented over the two years he spent composing a song was initially booed until the song took hold to the finicky audience. He made it to the final five.
Afterwards, Prince said, “It was all in fun. I didn’t mean any harm to my friend, Huggie.”
Prisoners housed in “H” Unit were not included in the talent show because of administrative reasons, but the organizers said they look forward to including them next time.
— Samuel Hearnes contributed to this story.
