Ear Hustle · Ear Hustle & Radiotopia

My Favorite Color

April 1, 2026·42 min·3 clips

DeMonica discovers her dad feared she'd get a life sentence, not glorified her crimes.

The call begins as a maybe. Sergeant Graves emails with a sliver of opening: if CIW approves it, San Quentin may go along. Then the process gets very prison, very fast. Ulla and DeMonaco have to submit separate formal requests before they can even talk across prison walls. The family connection helps less than it should. Their shared gang history outside prison weighs heavier than kinship, and heavier than the fact that both are incarcerated. For a while, the emails make it feel possible. Then comes one blunt reversal: the call is off, and nobody gets much of a reason. The hosts sit in that whiplash. Erlon names how hard the stop-start waiting can get, while the guest admits everyone eventually gave up. Then Sergeant Graves turns up again. A chance run-in at San Quentin sends the guest back to email, because maybe the call is not dead after all. The request has gone high by then, all the way to the warden level at both prisons. Policy says Ulla and DeMonaco should not talk. The wardens decide it is still worth doing. After eight months, the long no finally becomes yes. Nigel ties the story back to Ear Hustle's own start, where the right people mattered as much as the idea. Erlon gives the method its plain little shape: patience, politeness, and persistence.

As heard by us

Two relatives, two prisons, one shared gang connection, and eight months of bureaucracy for a single video call.

The episode is essentially a bureaucracy story, and that is the point. Ulla and DeMonaco, relatives with a shared gang history, are trying to get a single video call approved across two California prisons.

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Why you'd press play

If you've ever waited on an institution to let you reach someone, you'll feel every month of this.

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