Pribek

A Connecticut man was arrested for breaking in to a Church to play the drums. The headline for this story is “Drummer snared after alleged church break-in”. Get it; snared? A little percussion humor there. Those AP headline writers are pulling out all the stops after a week in which the new service is being dropped left and right by major papers but, that’s beside the point.

Bridgeport police said they snared a 47-year-old man who broke into a local church to play the drums. Police said Michael Smith, of Weston, was driving by the Holy Ghost Deliverance Church on Monday afternoon when he spotted a drum set through its window.
He was charged with criminal trespass and breach of peace after allegedly breaking into the church, where officers found him in a spirited solo after the church’s alarm system went off.

Spirited solo!!?? That’s too funny. This kind of stuff is just more of what happens when you move the rock bands out of the garages and in to the place of worship.

Today’s episode takes us to the wide open and open all night town of Elko, Nevada. Where gambling and prostitution are legal but, sadly for one former pizza delivery guy, extortion is not.

From Breitbart/AP

A man accused of trying to extort $500 from a Pizza Hut in Elko was foiled by his own cell phone camera. Police said a former employee of the restaurant allegedly called the manager on Friday and told him he had five Pizza Hut signs that are used on the roofs of vehicles and wouldn’t return them unless he was paid $500.

Police said the manager wanted proof that Long had the signs. So the 23-year-old man sent him a cell phone picture that proved to be his undoing.

Officers were able to zoom in on license plate numbers of two vehicles in the background that are registered to the man.

He’s been charged with extortion, possession of stolen property and grand larceny. Bail is set at $15,000.

Now, I ask you, ain’t that a yob?

John Lennon once said…

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

Maybe, JL saw the handwriting on the wall. That being said, I believe that John Lennon did it for the love but, he wasn’t against making a buck either. He also understood the value, even if the value was imaginary, of what he was doing. A generous guy too, from Reuters.

John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics for the hit song “Give Peace a Chance” will go under the hammer at auction in July and are expected to fetch 200-300,000 pounds ($400-600,000), Christie’s said on Tuesday.

The lyrics are being sold by comedy writer and presenter Gail Renard, who was 16 when Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their famous “Bed-In” at a hotel in Montreal in 1969.

Renard and a friend sneaked into the Queen Elizabeth Hotel where the recently married Lennon and Ono were holding a protest for peace and became friendly with the couple.

According to Christie’s, Lennon gave Renard some mementos, including the lyrics, telling her: “One day they will be worth something.”

600 grrr, that’s a goodly chunk of dough for some scribbled words.

It makes me think about taking another look at Eric Idle’s brainchild, “The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash”.
Pacifism as capitalism, or baby boomer cashing in a lottery ticket, however it susses out is OK by me. I don’t have anything against any of it. Hell, I once pitched the idea of a mail order, gift, pizza delivery franchise called “Pizza Chance”. You know, “all we are saying is give Pizza Chance”. Looking back, maybe I should have taken the whole idea more seriously. My motive was closer to Johnny Rotten than John Lennon, see if I could get this guy with the money to actually go for the idea and then, see if it would would raise enough sand to draw Yoko’s lawyers out.

I suppose it’s the natural order for punk to develop in the wake of Woodstock, for cynicism to follow optimism. And, like John Lee Hooker said, “It’s in him and it’s got to come out”. The punk cynic is inside me the same way that the starry eyed optimist resides in the soul of the Hippie Artisan friends that built their nest eggs hawking wares at craft shows. The cynic is there but, I try to not let it drive the tractor. I try to see the good. Sometimes, can’t see through the surreal layer of ground fog.

$600,000 for some words scribbled at a contrived, if well meaning photo-op. $600,000 for, “Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism, This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism”.