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A Penske rental truck - later stolen - pulled up to the front of Calvary Episcopal Church in downtown Memphis and loaded all the pipes out of that organ, which (wa)s one of the finest organs in town. I remember when the true organ virtuoso, John Hooker, served as organist at that church. Somebody got the license number of the truck and shared the picture of the thieves loading the pipes on Facebook.
I'm sure those pipes have already been crushed up.
I sort of like it back when they were civilization. Now that there's no longer civilization, people really can't afford to hire musicians or risk having get togethers of any sort that include live music.

Oof. Sorry to hear about that. It looks like the pipes had already been loaded onto the truck, which was bound for Boston for restoration, and they were left on the truck overnight when it was stolen. Let's hope that whoever stole the truck doesn't know what the hell to do with the stuff in the back and the pipes are eventually recovered.

That sucks.

Although I also don't understand why the loaded-in-plain-sight truck was (seemingly) left unattended overnight and in the same place it was loaded. Having lived in Baltimore for a long time, you just don't do stuff like that. Move the truck, get security, whatever... But if you're loading it, expect that you're being watched by the person who wants to steal it from you.

Every time I moved (or helped people move) when I lived there, it was someone's job to "stay with the stuff." Nobody was gonna shoot you for it, but if it was unattended, you could count on it getting stolen.

A friend of mine had her suitcase stolen from our front of her house once .. got out of a taxi with 2 bags. Left one outside while she took the other in. A minute later, she returned to find that other bag was gone. Never saw it again.

I hope the local scrapyards see the news and know to not trash those organ pipes.

People suck

The truck and organ pipes were miraculously recovered.
I guess all the scrap places were alerted too quickly.
(Otherwise, sometime next year, I might have ended up buying some of them - converted to solder. )
That stuff (a couple thousand pipes) would have probably cost about a million bucks to duplicate.

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In the meantime (reported by a friend, who lives out here near blokeplace, remodels houses in Memphis, had all of his tools stolen out of a locked house over the weekend - along with graffiti inside the house, and has wisely decided that this will be the very last house in Memphis they will ever remodel (or even show up for a minor repair)...

...They (same home remodeler) witnessed this at an intersection, today:

...Memphis, today: middle of the afternoon
at intersection of Park Avenue and Perkins Road
(Audubon Park, Memphis Botanical Gardens, Dixon Gallery & Gardens, fancy private schools, etc.)
a black Infiniti SUV ran the light with several people hanging out the windows brandishing firearms.

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Also noticed:
out here "in the middle of nowhere" the traffic on my little road has probably quadrupled over the last year...
...refugees from there - who sold their houses for the artificially-high/panic prices and have moved out here (living in campers, while they're building or having houses built...)

Pretty soon, bloke will probably need to relocate blokeplace.
(Though none of them are even within a thousand feet, most of the dozen-or-so properties adjacent to this one now have houses on them.)

Last week, I was driving down the "main" road in my neighborhood, which is still just a regular smallish 20 mph road. I was about halfway to the nearest stop sign ahead of me.

A car coming towards me speeds around the cars stopped at the stop sign, and at full speed is heading straight towards me, and with a few seconds to spare, veers back into his lane and keeps going. He must have been going close to 100mph (scary) and was cruising (not accelerating or braking... Just a constant speed).

Scared the absolute Shirt out of me, and I froze at the side of the street for a good few minutes... All of the people with kids in strollers on the sidewalk, dog walkers, and other random homeowners all felt the same. One tiny slip of anything could have ended everything for any of us.

A few hours later I saw on the news that the car had crashed over in St Paul, just outside of a childcare center, but only the two occupants of the car were injured.

The only thing I heard after that was that it was a stolen car (I was shocked) and that drugs/weapons were recovered from it (I was shocked).

My first thought after the car sped past me -- thank God I'm okay.
Second thought -- thank God everyone around me was okay
Third thought -- "hello 911, stolen car driving extreme rate of speed going north on... "
Fourth though -- Fork this, I gotta get out of here

Those of you who are determined to remain in cities (even though most of what you do - reportedly - is online), should take courses in (nope, not just "defensive", but) EVASIVE driving, and (nope, not just "how to handle a weapon", but) in GUN-FIGHTING.

Yes, courses are offered in both of these disciplines.

Finally, if you don't have a gun because of your local laws claim that you (non-felon/law-abiding) aren't entitled to have/carry one, those laws are flat-out illegal...so - by following those laws - you're only following illegal laws.

Otherwise, consider purchasing blinders - so you can't see the gangsters (until you're surrounded) - and earplugs - so you can't hear them shooting at you.

protecting gangsters from the law-abiding:

https://wreg.com/news/local/gun-safe-me ... ncil-vote/

"I was shocked"

Agreed that laws are being passed to protect criminals. Night before last, our shed was broken into. Was trying to look up rights of homeowners against burglary; everything i found was about the rights of those that commit burglary. In fact, if a homeowner injures a person who is trespassing/burgaling, the homeowner is liable... our legal system is backwards.....

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Tennessee has much more favorable laws regarding property owners and trespassing which got fixed quite a few years ago. I'm suspect that you live in a yankee state. I think if someone wanders on my property out here and they step in a coyote trap, I'm not liable at all.
Memphis, though, just arrested someone who shot somebody who was trying to steal their car. That's wrong to arrest the car owner for trying to protect the only way he has to get to work, earn money and feed his family... but you already know what Memphis is like from the previous posts above.
Out here in the country, some of the bad players - so-called - just seem to mysteriously disappear sometimes, and I guess that's okay.

Some of you may react to this stuff as "bloke is just going over the same old crap" or "this is just politics", (etc.)

- As bad as it HAS been in Memphis, it's getting MUCH WORSE and REALLY FAST.
- The new D.A. (former - guess what? - "fesser") is letting murderers out on bond or out on NO bond.
- If your city is not already like this (ok: yeah..."politics") it's coming really soon to your city.

WITHOUT CIVILIZATION, NONE OF US CAN PLAY GIGS - WHETHER "FOR THE LOVE OF IT", FOR REMUNERATION, OR FOR A COMBINATION OF THE TWO.

4500 feet from my childhood (through age 20) home, "as the crow flies":


https://wreg.com/news/local/man-known-f ... d-robbery/


music related:

I'm not confident that the Melon Man Robbers were the owners of the Lexus they were driving with "Retired" vanity plates.

Just a hunch...

When the media talks about DA prosecutors, their listed "Accomplishments" are the criminals they let go. That's right, the prosecutors. Praised for not doing their job.

This is one of those (hundreds of D.A. campaigns, across the country) whose campaign and disinformation ads were funded by _ _ _ _ _.

The previous/lost-reelection D.A. was *milquetoast (mostly likely, fearing gangland retribution for more serious prosecutions), but this one is actually releasing criminals, and arresting those who defend themselves and their property.

Again...The point is this is that the daily violence/chaos/robberies/murders MIGHT AS WELL be a full-blown riot, because the people (without the foresight or wherewithal to have moved away from there long ago) stuck there are mostly staying in their homes, and the live music industry is D-E-A-D. (ex: "Oh goodie...'covid' is over, and we're finally going to have the Beale Street Music Festival, again...A TRICKLE of people attended...and the Memphis Barbecue Festival..."Dear musician-ensemble peeps, one of our benefactors ended up with a bunch of extra tickets, so if any of you or your family would like to attend, let us know...etc., etc., etc...)



_____________________________________________
* https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... st+meaning

The r e t i r e d license plate turned out to be a paper fake temporary plate. There is an epidemic of fake paper temporary plates in Memphis.

When I left there 17 or 18 years ago, I was cautious when I would move about town.
Today when I enter into that town - even into that county, I can't help it have feelings of fear and trepidation begin to overtake me, and I don't believe they are due to any unjustified paranoia.

Gunning down the CEO of the city's Chamber of Commerce right outside his own home makes a pretty strong statement, and when fifteen people are shot inside the so-called safest suburb's supermarket, and their solution is to put up a sign that says "[NAME OF SUBURB] STRONG", it's pretty clear that it's every man for himself.

Wonder who MDOT will start mailing my tolls to when I slap one of those babies on my car?

bloke wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 4:42 pm This is one of those (hundreds of D.A. campaigns, across the country) whose campaign and disinformation ads were funded by _ _ _ _ _…

We have one in San Antonio. His name is Joe Gonzalez, and his nickname is Let ‘Em Go Joe.