When I was still working at the California Men's Colony, preparing to leave my position of artist/facilitator to start Poetic Justice Project, several inmates told me I had to meet Bull Chaney, a man who came into the institution to lead 12-step groups and Native American sweat lodge ceremonies.
My "retirement" lasted a weekend and my first phone call that Monday morning in January 2009 was to Fredrick "Bull" Chaney. I couldn't get him on the phone. (I learned quickly not to call him, but text him.)
Bull Chaney
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A few months after I tried to reach him, Bull came to a rehearsal of Poetic Justice Project's first play, Blue Train, at the urging of two actors. Upon meeting him, I instantly saw how he came by his nickname. He's a big bull of a man, dangerous in a china shop.
It took me a while longer to learn this extraordinary man's story. He paroled from prison in 1996, with $200 of "gate money" in his pocket and a dream: After a lifetime of the repeating cycle of drugs, crime and incarceration, Bull wanted to stop the revolving door and stay out for good.
He met several times a week with other guys who wanted the same thing. Maybe if they all got clean and stayed sober, they wouldn't commit crimes and go to prison.
In 2000, Bull and his colleagues formed the non-profit Gryphon Society – Gate Help, Inc. The next year, they opened the first Gryphon House in San Luis Obispo, a sober living home for men coming out of prison.
Now there are eight Gryphon Houses, for men and women, stretching from Atascadero to Santa Maria. Bull and his partners — wife Marie, sister-in-law Becky Brown, and Jimmy Desatoff — have helped countless men and women begin the journey back to themselves and their communities through sobriety and community service.
"Bull is one of my heroes," says Roger Brown, who lives in a Gryphon House after his recent release from prison. "I heard about him before I met him . . . a person who had substance abuse issues, who did time and changed his life by being of service to others. He's living the principles of restorative justice."
Bull's wife, Marie, Roger says, is the quiet strength behind him. "She'll whisper in his ear . . . he listens to her." To the men and women Bull helps, he says, "Marie's the mom."
Bull ended up in our first play, and then the second, Off The Hook, which we took on a ten-city Prison Town Tour in 2010. In 2011, he appeared in Poetic Justice Project's production of Women Behind the Walls. He didn't want to be an actor, he said. He was going onstage because it scared him. "I've found that when I get scared to do something it's probably going to be something cool," Bull explains.
Another motivation was to encourage other ex-cons to try something new, something so . . . out of their realm. "Somebody has to go first."
Maux Samuel, who has known Bull since the early days, calls him a friend and a mentor who leads by example. Could you call him in the middle of the night, in the teeth of despair and hopelessness? I asked Maux.
"I have . . . " Maux replied. ". . . in the last month. But you don't call him. You text him."
Bull might be right — acting is not his primary art form. In his art, Bull has created a huge canvas with his vision of sobriety and service for ex-cons. Each day, he adds more color and detail. And people.
