A family affair
Just a quick one, but had to share this.
Local habitual criminal — the only time he is not drunk is when he is smoking crack — gets popped in front of his house. Like our missing person yesterday, the suspect is found to be in possession of a crack pipe.
So he gets put in the back of the patrol car.
But wait, there’s more …
His wife and daughter immediately come running out of the house to rescue the suspect and begin giving the police all sorts of grief.
Sooo. They get arrested for obstruction or police interference and get hauled off too. Now the entire family is in the city jail.
What’s more, with everyone in custody, there is nobody here to bond them out. Small Southern towns are, for the most part, great places. Their jails usually are not. In fact, I have seen ours (during a tour of city hall, not the other way), and I have to say, if I had the choice between being held there for any length of time and stapling my lower lip to my neck, I would probably take the staples.
Brilliant … reporter closes case for city
Things are finally settling down at the office in our new building and are almost back up to full staff after some of our young tallent went off to other jobs … always the bane of small papers (Though we also take pride we are one of the few newspapers willing to give journalists a chance right out of school. We have had some amazing talent walk through our doors that way).
So, at last we have time to really get caught up on our police reports. This one does not so much fall into the category of stupid criminal — though that, as usual, plays a part in it.
One of our city beat reporters was working on a pile of incident and offense reports this morning and came across one where the suspect was nabbed with drug paraphernalia — in this case a crack pipe. A seemingly minor report.
Later today, the reporter was in the police chief’s office going over anything of interest. The chief said things had mostly been quiet, but they were working a missing person case. The individual in question was the same guy busted Sunday with the pipe. The reporter pointed out to the chief that the suspect/missing dipshit, might have not wanted to share with his family he had been busted with a crack pipe and, therefore, would not have been able to make bond.
Reporter: So, he may still be downstairs in the jail.
Chief: Surely the investigators would have checked that.
But … no. The guy was still in jail. Our reporter not only closed the case, he got to sit in on the conversation between the chief and the investigator.
Chief to investigator: You still working that missing person case?
Investigator: Yeah.
Chief: Getting anywhere with it?
Investigator: Not much so far. We have some pictures and are going to go around town and see if anyone has seen this guy. His family has not seen him since Sunday.
Chief: Well, before you do that, you probably want to walk across the hall. In the jail. I think you will probably find him there.
Small-town journalism does have its perks.
On the Art Life Collective, www.artlifecollective.com, front we have several new t-shirt designers. Our list of contributors is slowly creeping towards 100. Jules has some fantastic new designs of a darkly humorous nature. And, amazingly, the Juggernaut, Bitch shirts continue to sell well. Got to love underground Internet fads. So, check out the site … Do it, do it.
This ink infusion press is making all the difference for us. It uses technology similar to an ink jet printer. This lets us do single or multiple runs. Having worked with this and systems using seperations (like printing a newspaper or screen printing), I highly recommend these new printers for anyone looking to do any sort of fabric printing. As far as the Art Life Collective crew can tell, the printing is just as durable as screen methods, though there is something of a learning curve with the technology.
As for Freebording … or anything else, thanks to a nasty fall I’m off the boards for a bit. X-rays came back clean, but I have one hell of a sprain on my foot — it looks like I have been playing soccer with bowling balls. After breaking my wrist into very small pieces earlier this year, I’m running kind of low on working appendages.
Though it’s probably kind of karmic, since, if I had not screwed up my foot Friday, I probably would have tried some of the bigger hills this weekend. That’s great, except the trees have covered the roads with acorns and other fall plant crud, greatly increasing my chances of becoming a quivering mound of red paste and exposed bone in the gutter, and I have so had my fill of that for the year.
I’ll give it a week to let myself heal. Once my foot looks a little less leprous and can take my weight better I need to practice riding switch. Still don’t have it down very well. Can 180 into it, and occassionally spin back out, but usually end up bailing. It just feels wrong. I may have to make myself content with just doing beautiful soul carves on long hills.
For all you artists out there (t-shirt designers and otherwise)
For all shirt designers at Art Life Collective and any other artists listening out there, take heed (credit for this goes to Jules from the Art Life Collective forum … sounds like a great thing to be a part of. Won’t be taking part myself, living in Alabama, plus, new boarding injury.)
An unprecedented joint effort by twenty-three European countries brings the first annual European Dream Festival to New York City September 20-October 31, allowing thousands of New Yorkers to enjoy leading creative voices and cutting-edge artistic visions in performing arts, literature, and film from across a culturally expanding Europe.
Criminal likes pepper spray
This is one for the books. Police responding to a simple disturbance call arrest one suspect. Normally this would be the end of things. But not for our dude, who is apparently missing most of his front lobes.
After his arrest, the suspect was placed in the rear of a patrol car. He then proceeded to kick out the car’s rear door window.
So, the officers at the scene hit him with pepper spray … twice. The suspect then responded, “That spray aint sh*t. Spray me again, mother f**ker.”
So the officers oblidged.
Dumbass.
Riding switch on the Freebord
Hah…. hah, hah.
Managed to ride into — and back out of switch on the Freebord today. Always been able to ride into switch before, but then, thanks to coordination skills that must harken to a severly damaged hind brain, it was always time to catch an edge.
So, like the guys at www.freebord.com’s forum suggested, practice riding switch on an easy hill, over and over and over and over and over and over again. Of course, one dude advocates the baptisms by fire method — find a huge hill and ride into switch about half way down, then let the reality of the situation force you to master switch or die. Makes about as much sense as teaching people to learn how to fly by throwing them out of planes.
Took the first route. And again, they were right — practice. The Freebord is one of the safest boards to ride once you master it because speed control and the ability to stop, not to mention make sick turns give riders a huge advantage over other boards. But, and any potential riders take note — especially anyone who does snowboard or wake skate or some similar edge driven board sport — mastering this thing take time and common sense. Also highly recommend talking to more experienced riders on the Freebord forums on the company site under the Community section.
I will probably never be insanely comfortable riding switch, but I am getting more comfortable with it. Besides, riding in and out of switch looks cool and it’s something most other boards don’t do easily or at all.
All is well at Art Life Collective. We are up to about 91 artists now and selling a fair amount of shirts. I have come to the conclusion that promoting individual artists seperately — especially with some of our standouts like olive47, Edward Ferrusqui, Jamie Weare and others — is essential to the success of such a cooperative effort. It seems to be working. Since the artists, with a little help from ALC, started promoting their work, we have seen more of them moving their custom T-shirts.
As for stupid criminals: Nothing terribly remarkable to note, except that we have one guy who is up on charges again. This is nothing of its self, except that the last time he was in court, after pleading guilty, the gravity of some prison time hit him during sentencing. He freaked out, ran across the courtroom and did a front flip into the jury box, breaking several chairs off their floor mounts. The assistant DA said that, if someone had given him a football “there was not a defensive line in the country that could have stopped him.” Be curious to see if we get a repeat performance.
Uh … duh
Why should something this self evident be a headline?
“Former teacher: Sex with pupil really bad choice”
You know, there are a couple of wars on and a bunch of other things that should be grabbing our attention. So, why is this headline on CNN.com.
And, again, Duh. The statement is so obvious, it’s like saying “Snorting a rail of drain cleaner not a good idea.”
No boarding, but stupid criminal of the day a beaut
Ok, so we go for most of the summer dry as a bone, with the occassional thunderstorm on the weekend … usually right when I am grabbing my board or the tools to go work on the VW … and especially if there is no rain forecast.
So drout conditions across most of our areas … at least until this week when I am back on a semi-normal work schedule and just might have some afternoon time to Freeboard, Flowboard, longboard or cut a new hole for the stereo in the Westy. So it rains for a day and a half. Not just kind of rains, but flash-flood-fun kind of rains.
Pisser.
Still, could be doing it on a Saturday afternoon. I am hoping for some clear sky tomorrow afternoon.
Big news on the Art Life Collective, www.artlifecollective.com, front. We finally have the site searchable by shirt designer and are working on getting keyword searches in place. Coders working over time.
Stupid criminal of the day: This one is another that falls into that category of special kind of stupid. The, well not a suspect, since he was conviceted today … the criminal was convicted of possession of crack cocaine and, as an added bonus, paraphernalia. That’s not all that funny, except for the fact that he was busted because he called 911, saying, “You need to go down and bust J——, she sold me bad crack. She selling bad crack,” or something along those lines. So, police had no trouble busting dipshit criminal of the day.
The grand jury is still pending on the lady selling the “bad crack.” Fun for everyone
Freebord vs. Flowboard … both have their place
Not much to report on the Art Life Collective t-shirt design front — been too busy moving the newspaper into our new building, a real contemporary/deco facility: It makes me so proud.
Also, continue to nail the slopes on the Freebord. I may never go back to traditional longboarding again. Naw, there are still some places my Sector 9 works better than the Freebord, but still, when it comes to carving long hills and controlling speed, being able to link slides and ride into switch is the best way to go. For someone who has a buch of experience on things like wake boards and an early verison of wakeskates — standing on a hydroslide — but no experience snowboarding, learning to Freebord is a ton of work.
Until you master it — and the guys at Freebord.com are right, it takes loads of practice — it is much more dangerous than a regular long board. But, once you get it down, being able to stop and control speed makes it a much safer way to carve up a hill — that’s especially true since I shattered my arm in a fall four months ago and there is no way in hell my hand will ever take enough weight again to slow my longboard with slide gloves.
That being said, we also got our Flowboard last week, a 36-incher, so my kids could do some serious carving. They want to ride the hills with me but don’t have the experience or the weight to manage a Freebord or safely carve on the Sector 9. Because of the Deep Carve System is based on the angle of the board and does not need weight to push the bushings to one side or the other, even my 6-year-old can carve the steepest hills with me. Lots of fun. The board turns on a dime but because of the multi-wheel design, it keeps speeds reasonable and carving easy.
Also of note, the Flowboard is much easier to ride — almost like a regular skateboard — than some of the other hybrids like the Freebord. I still prefer the Freebord ride, but having both boards in our quiver is a blast.
No stupid criminals to report — I have been way too busy to go through the police reports the reporters bring in.
Victim twice
This one does not so much involve a dumb criminal; it does not even involve a dumb victim. Simple assault case: Guy got beat up by his neighbor wielding a wooden pole. What is surprising is that he was not the suspect under arrest for taking a baseball bat to his parents — they named him Devious. Poor bastard.
Though, it seems a lot of people involved in the police reports have seriously screwed names — like the guys said in Feakanomics, goofy names tend to be a fairly solid indicator of social status and, I suspect, future involvement in criminal activity. So far to date, the winner for the worst name is some poor tool whose folks named him, no lie, Fartavious. Runner up is a lady named Neutrogenia. Mom and Dad would be taking a dirt nap if I was dealing with that. Oh, and we also had one named Placentia. WTF
Finally get Freebording, more dumb criminals, Juggernaut, Bitch shirt making waves
Finally nailed the Freebord this weekend. The guys on the Freebord site and forum are right, it’s all about practice and getting a feel for the board.
It all came together Monday. I have been carving a gentle hill by my house for a few weeks whenever time allows, which has been damn little lately. Have been linking slides for a couple of weeks — learned how to do that at one of the smooth paths outside the Alabaster skate park. At the bottom of the gentle hill there is one of those Jesus-factor hills, meaning that you find religion about half way down — especially since it leads into a busy intersection and there is no way to stop. On my Sector 9 with Randal trucks and Abec11 70 flashbacks, I hit about 25-30 mph on that stretch and then find God, praying that no car will be in the intersection at the same time I am.
For added kicks, the cross street road surface totally sucks — it looks like cottage cheese that has hardened into concrete, plus lots of gravel, holes and wheel-eating cracks.
Finally managed to carve the entire thing on the Freebord without a pavement blood bath and link slides to a stop before the intersection. Learning to ride one of these things is just about the most difficult board sport I have ever tried. Once you get it down, though, I think it is much safer than longboarding, at least on long, steep hills. Speed control is everything.
Now, for the stupid criminal award: Generally, when making arrangements with your wife to sneak drugs into jail, it’s a good idea not to do it on the phones in the prison with the big sign that says all conversations are monitored and recorded. DA figures there will be no trouble prosecuting this one, since they knew the date and time, and drugs and quantities, that were being brought in. Oh, yeah, and the recording of the conversation between stupid convict and even dumber wife.
On the Art Life Collective custom t-shirt front, we still are seeing record sales of the Juggernaut, Bitch shirts. Watched the video the other day. That thing looks like it was more work than the Barney singing Tupac clip. Props to whoever put that thing together. Dolomite would be proud.
Peace,
yall
