Lovely Stuff

I know we’re all supposed to act our age, but this is just priceless:

A Massachusetts woman was arrested and charged after the Townsend Police Department said she crashed into a building and then left while driving under the influence of drugs.

Deborah Gyles, 61, was charged with operating under the influence of drugs, leaving the scene of a property damage accident and unregistered motor vehicle.

Sixty-one?  And massively stoned?

It’s a kind of reverse precociousness.  Wonderful.

I was having a bad day until I read the article (courtesy of Reader Mike L., who should know better than to send me stuff like that).

I just want to know what drugs they were.

Time For An Update

This is one of my favorite Reader games, and I can’t believe I haven’t run this in so long.

Here’s the setup.  It’s called HANG THE SOCIALIST, and starts with the well-known Hanging Tree:

Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to put a name to each number.  Your list ought to be in order of preference.  (I know, only 15?  Deal.)

Have at it in Comments.

Slim Pickings

I have to say that for an armchair commentator and pundit like me, there’s not much to write about at the moment — I’m really bored with politics — which is why the posts on this here back porch have recently been mostly about cars, boobs, guns and a little bit of art.

Not, as one Reader told me, that this is necessarily A Bad Thing, especially when it comes to the classics:

1935 SS (later Jaguar) 90 Airline

Yvonne Furneaux

And just for the hell of it, a different take on the venerable Ruger 10/22:  a twin-gun mount with a Gatling-style actuator and two 25-round mags:

John Atkinson Grimshaw — Boar Lane, Leeds

I would respectfully suggest that all the above are desirable, for different reasons.

So Much For The “Working Class Hero”

How are the mighty fallen:

A leading Bruce Springsteen fanzine has announced it will cease publication after 43 years because the artist’s fanbase became disillusioned by unaffordable concert tickets.

Backstreets magazine said both its editorial staff and fans had become ‘dispirited’ and ‘downhearted’ after prices for some tickets to the artist’s 2023 arena tour reached $4,000 each last year.

‘These are concerts that we can hardly afford; that many of our readers cannot afford; and that a good portion of our readership has lost interest in as a result.’

And:

Springsteen’s humble beginnings in New Jersey and the relatability of his music once earned him the reputation of being ‘the voice of the working man’.

In his early years, Springsteen played at any bar in which he could make money. He earned the nickname the Boss because he would collect and distribute gig money among band members, Andrew Delahunty, the author of the Oxford Dictionary of Nicknames, told the BBC in 2009.

Mark Kemp of Rolling Stone magazine once described Springsteen as ‘a working-class hero: a plainspoken visionary and a sincere romantic whose insights into everyday lives – especially in America’s small-town heartland – have earned comparisons to John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie.’

Yeah, well now he’s just a woke dollar-chasing asshole, like so many of his ilk.

I never cared for his tuneless bellow anyway, so I have no dog in this fight.  But these people need to be brought back down to earth by the people who were actually responsible for their success.  Nowadays, their success seems to be driven by those bloodless fucks at TicketMaster, and a pox on them too.

Manufacturing

Am I the last man to discover the excellent War Factories series on the Eeeewww Choob?

If you haven’t watched it, kiss your weekend goodbye, as I did last weekend.

You can thank me later.

There’s also the sulky-looking and acerbic Alexandra Churchill to be seen occasionally.  She really, really hates the Nazis from the 1940s — and who can blame her?

Oh, and she’s definitely not related to WSC:

 

If this is the New Breed of Lady Historians, bring it on.