I Swear I Thought It Was A Plant-Based Nose

I just heard Carin mention Beyond Meat during a phone call and it reminded me that for some reason I never got around to letting you all know that a couple of years ago the company’s chief operating officer tried to bite a guy’s nose off during a road rage incident. I apologize for my negligence. It’ll probably happen again.

According to a police report, Ramsey was angered when another driver inched in front of him in a traffic lane and made contact with the front passenger wheel on Ramsey’s Ford Bronco SUV.

The police report alleges that Ramsey got out of his vehicle and punched through the back windshield of the other driver’s car. The driver told police he got out of his car and Ramsey pulled him close and began punching him. Ramsey also bit the tip of the other driver’s nose, ripping the flesh, according to the police report.
The driver and witnesses told police that Ramsey threatened to kill the other man. Occupants of both vehicles got out and separated the two men.

In his defence, he did spend years working at Tyson Foods before joining Beyond Meat, so perhaps he forgot whether or not he was a meat eater that day. That can happen when you’re upset.

Cancel Culture Is Real

The ghouls at Fox News have ruined it, but I’m going to go ahead and use the phrase fair and balanced to describe this Jon Stewart Daily Show segment on cancel culture.

He is, as is often the case, absolutely right. Most of the people who yell the loudest about a lack of free speech have no idea how free speech works. Many of those who yell the loudest about being silenced yell it from the biggest platforms and see no irony in that whatsoever. Our modern world absolutely does incentivize outrage for everyone, and that sucks an awful lot. And if there is really a cancel culture, the ones most in danger of running up against it are the ones who complain the most that they are, but not for the reasons they think.

It’s been great having Jon Stewart back on TV. Actually this is Canada, so back on YouTube, I guess. Count dropping the Daily Show as another of Bell Media’s great decisions. They have absolutely ruined the Comedy Network. Ruined it to the point where if I could cancel it as a standalone service, I absolutely would.

I Want To Get Convicted Again

Point: Someone with 11 felonies on his record should know how to commit a proper robbery by now.
Counterpoint: You don’t end up with 11 felonies on your record by being good at crime.

You would not, for instance, threaten a clerk who just caught you trying to shoplift, go outside, put on a hood and a mask, then come back and bang on a locked door until the cops come to take you home.

Mugshot of a man with light skin, short brown hair, and blue eyes. He is wearing an orange prison jumpsuit over a white shirt. His expression is neutral, and he is looking directly at the camera. The background is a plain, light-colored wall.
Austin Michael Croy

The clerk told him he had to pay for them, and Croy allegedly put the items down, walked back toward the clerk, and lifted his shirt, displaying a gun (the arrest report calls it a “gun/stun gun”) on his hip. He then reportedly left the store and went to his vehicle, where he reportedly put on a hooded jacket and tied a bandanna on his face to hide his identity, and tried to re-enter the store. However, while he was outside, the clerk and some customers had locked the front door and hidden at the back of the store.
Croy then allegedly started beating on the glass front door and was still pounding on the door when officers arrived and arrested him.

The story I linked doesn’t mention it, but I’ve seen more than one that add the detail that when he flashed the gun, he also said to the clerk that he does what he wants. Hopefully one day he figures out what that is, because it sure as shit can’t be this…can it?

Dog, God, Everybody Got A Little That Day

Lots going on here. Or maybe it’s just your average Florida Sunday.

According to Mason’s arrest affidavit, he knew the owner of the dog and was taking the goldendoodle out for a walk in the apartment complex. Then, he started having sex with the dog in front of witnesses, including adults and a juvenile who was less than 16 years old, police said.
When Mason was confronted by one of the adults, he fled and “began to wreak havoc in the surrounding areas,” his affidavit read in part.

Police said Mason ran to the Northwood Presbyterian Church, where he knocked over a nativity display, broke potted plants, and tossed children’s toys from the playground area. Officials estimated about $400 in damages to the church.
After leaving the church, police said he damaged a mailbox in the adjacent neighborhood and tried to steal a car before he was taken into custody.

Police charged him with several things, among them sexual activity with an animal, exposing sexual organs, and criminal mischief to a place of worship.

This Joke Kills Every Time

Remember the time when that gun shop owner shot his buddy’s face off for giggles? This is that, but with cops. I guess all that highly trained to make good, split second decisions stuff doesn’t apply when you’re off duty.

A 23-year-old Florida sheriff’s deputy was fatally shot by his fellow deputy roommate over the weekend, in what the sheriff described as a “clearly dumb and avoidable accident.”
Brevard County Sheriff’s Office deputy Austin Walsh was killed Saturday morning in Palm Bay by his roommate Andrew Lawson, Sheriff Wayne Ivey said in a Sunday news conference. 
The two were taking a break from playing online games with friends and were standing and talking together when Lawson, who believed he had unloaded his gun, “jokingly” pointed the weapon at Walsh and pulled the trigger, Ivey said, citing the probe by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Palm Bay Police Department. 
A single bullet was fired, struck Walsh, and killed him, officials said.

The sheriff said in his news conference that both were good kids, and that he prays there’s a lesson that can be learned from the tragedy.

I’m not an American, but having watched you guys closely for a good many years, the one lesson I’ve learned is that America doesn’t learn lessons about guns. Until that changes, I guess we’ll have to settle for remember to stand well out of range on open mic night.

You’d Better Not Make Him Number Forty-Seven

And now, it’s time for Carin and Steve have mind beams part…um…I suppose “FORTY-FIVE!”

I was just out in the kitchen washing dishes and listening to a podcast completely unrelated to music or politics or anything that would make me think about Donald Trump or Randy Rainbow when I suddenly thought to myself, I wonder what Randy Rainbow’s been up to lately. I’m surprised he’s not having a field day with all of Trump’s legal problems like everyone else has been.

A few minutes later I finish up, walk back in here, check my email, and Carin has sent me this.

Here and there somebody will try to explain it and now and then one of them is even half way coherent, but the whole Trump thing has been beyond me since it started, and I don’t even know what I’ll do if come next year he’s in the White House instead of the big house. In all seriousness, if I am ever so unhappy with the state of my life that a person as slimy, dumb, and generally off-putting as Donald Trump seems to me like a legitimate way out of that hole, please, get me help.

Hotel Little Wing

Another YouTube suggestion.

Laszlo Buring, who brought us Dire Straits doing Riders on the Storm, plays “Hotel California” if it had been covered by Stevie Ray Vaughan.

So there’s a couple of influences here, the most obvious one being SRV’s version of Little Wing. Then there’s some parts that a reminiscent of Riviera Paradise, and a little bit of Tin Pan Alley.

SRV’s version of Little Wing did not contain any vocals and that’s the way I decided to go with this one aswell. The chord progression of each verse is quite longs which gives you a lot of time to build towards that chorus and then back down to a verse, where it goes so quiet you can hear the hum of the guitar through the mix.

Hope you like it!

Indeed I do.

The Best Blind Joke I’ve Ever Heard

There’s a guy who, when we see each other, will sometimes try to hit me with a blind joke I haven’t heard yet. As any blind person who has ever had a conversation will tell you, however, this isn’t the easiest thing to do. After a certain point we’ve just heard everything, some of it thousands of times.

But the other day, buddy got me. And I’m not sure it’ll ever be topped.

Him: “I meant to tell you. I volunteered to help blind kids a couple weeks ago.”
Me: “Oh yeah? Where abouts?”
Him: “Never mind. It was a nightmare and I’m never doing it again.”
Me (surprised): “Oh. Shit. What happened?”
Him: “I guess I misunderstood the invitation. Turned out blind wasn’t an adjective. It was a verb.”

Well done, sir.

Stop And Bust A Move

I was rather amused by this when YouTube threw it at me over the weekend. Since it still sounds pretty good after 0 beers on a normal day, here you go.

If there’s a mashup artist out there as consistently good as Bill McClintock, I don’t know who it is.

Music used in this mashup:

Buffalo Springfield – For What it’s Worth
Young MC – Bust a Move
Def Leppard – Rock of Ages
Guns N’ Roses – Welcome to the Jungle
Van Halen – Jamie’s Cryin’