Paul Wesley

Sounds like a singer.

That band I mentioned was the "what might have been" band for me. The drummer was super talented... he plays in a band that still routinely sells out at pretty big venues (House of Blues, etc.) all over the country. Our lead guitar player was a young wizard with great tone and feel. I could sing, write, and play guitar and a little keys. Trouble was, we couldn't reliably fill the bass player's spot. The guy who was playing bass when I showed up was a few years older than us, and had a new wife and a career as an engineer, and he was sort of "over it" as far as grinding out the commitment needed to be a serious band. So he nicely told us we should find another bass player. In the 90's, there was no internet, and you had to find a bass player by hanging messages at music stores and advertising in the local alternative paper. So we auditioned 4 different players in consecutive weeks, and my drummer friend and I still marvel at the parade of incompetence that followed. One bassist was under the impression that "band practice" meant that everyone was gonna get obliterated on weed and alcohol. He showed up with a bottle of whiskey, drank the entire thing over an hour or so, and could hardly stand up by the end of the evening, much less play. I'm sure he's dead now. Another kid was just out of high school, told us he was just kind of an intermediate level player. But seemed like a nice kid (we were only a few years older) and told us about his influences, which seemed to demonstrate good musical sensibilities. So he shows up, sits down.... and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that he couldn't fucking play **at all.** Had no idea which was the A string, had no idea what "keys" meant... nothing. I think back about the disconnect between being so utterly clueless and yet having enough self confidence to answer an ad and then show up to audition for a band. He's probably a congressman now. I think it would make a really great premise for a 6-episode Netflix or HBO comedy.... a bunch of 20-somethings in the 90's trying to fill an empty chair in their band. At one point, the three of us begged the old bass player to just come back for a single night so we could at least run through 15 or 20 songs with a credible low end. Eventually, with no bass player, 3 busy schedules, and a couple of personal tragedies (divorce, shocking death in a family), it all just fizzled away.

This made me smile. One of my later garage bands - I was in my 20's - was with a bunch of guys who I first met when one of them invited me to sit in and just sort of jam and play guitar at their rehearsal. Until the evening was over, I had no idea how much antipathy there was among the other guys toward the singer. So when I was leaving and loading out my gear, the drummer followed me to my car and asked me if I could sing. I told him yes, and he wanted to make sure I could be there for the next week's rehearsal. So that week, the drummer called the singer and told him that everybody was super busy, they all had a lot of commitments, etc., and so the band was breaking up. Except they didn't break up, they just had a new singer (me). Anyway, that became a running joke. "We quit" was a code for "We're replacing you." That was a couple decades ago. The drummer and I still keep in touch even though we live in different cities. Every year or so, one of us will leave the other a voicemail that says, "Man, I'm really sorry, but we're just super busy and we're not gonna practice for a few weeks..."

Of course Cornyn is incapable of recognizing satire. He is both tone deaf and really fucking stupid. People would notice more, except that the other senator from his state is one of the most widely disliked people in DC. edit: yeah, I know it's the Cotton thread, and Cotton might have been a more contentious asshole at this hearing, but Cornyn was dumber.

Do elections being under foreign attack count as a real-world threat to freedom?

Yeah, there are a lot of jobs where de-escalation is an essential tool to have in your emotional tool belt, and law enforcement is #1 on that list. The tension and anxiety of that otherwise-routine traffic stop was 100% created by the police, and 0% by the lieutenant sitting inside his vehicle with his hands out the driver's window. If a cop is going to point his weapon, give conflicting commands, scream with a shaky, adrenaline-affected voice... and he's doing all this simply because a car pulled to a well-lit area at night, then he is 100% unfit for that profession. ... and I'd also point out that all that unnecessary escalation happened *before* it was compounded by the cowardly sarcastic comments intended to belittle the subject ("I know how to obey an order," etc.), the pepper spray(!!), and the totally unnecessary take-down after the lieutenant got out of his car.

Page won four league MVP awards?

Yeah, I was being generous. I think they'd have killed him.

I mean, two overly excited, trigger-happy yokels screaming like lunatics with fingers on the trigger? If he *had* reached for the seatbelt, there's a fair chance those two would have killed him and played the "reaching for a weapon" and "feared for my life" cards.

That is fucking obscene.

This is what I picture when Scooter gives Les Paul advice:

Wow. Four 4x12 cabinets? Is your buddy Ritchie Blackmore?

You obviously know a lot more about the details than I do. I'm just surprised and annoyed by the LAZY journalism that can't write a fucking GAME SUMMARY six games into 2021 without three or four references to a four-years-ago scandal that involved a lot of teams, and had nothing to do with more than half the roster.

I don't follow this thread too much, and I'm sure it's been discussed to death, but I'm surprised at the 2021 coverage of "boo the Astros." I mean, we seemed to move right on past all the roided-up A's and Yankee teams that won titles. Barry Bonds and all his * records. The ridiculously uneven $$$$$$ playing field for two or three decades, where clubs with the biggest payrolls are de facto all-star teams from siphoning up the best free agents year after year. And not once in the coverage of a pennant game do the announcers say, "Here we are once again where the big spenders are in an LCS!" And yet all the sports writers can't even do a fucking 2021 REGULAR SEASON GAME RECAP article without indignantly dwelling on the unfairness 4-year old sign stealing caper from a club that has turned over probably more than half the roster since then? And the Astros are the 2021 poster children of cheating? GTFO. Might have to go buy an Astros cap... because fuck that.

looks fun

Man, I just totally disagree with that. I mean, they can be pissed off in general, but personally attacking the guy who took the program from also-ran to consistent contender... because he went home to his alma mater? I mean, it's not like he was drawing a top-5-in-the-country type salary while going half a decade without a single tourney win. Or despite a roster peppered with NBA-level talent, he lost to a tiny private college that almost no one outside the state has ever heard of.

I like the look of it. Not sure that any of the tones in the video are very flattering. The intro piece has some weird synth pedal on it, which strikes me as a terrible way to show it off... and the dirty tones sound really harsh. I don’t like crazy hot pickups. I seem to be in the minority there. I’d love to hear this guitar with something less aggressive.

I'm guessing that's a sell-your-soul reference? Giving it rep, you know... because.

Mitchell is kind of a bad ass. I don't know what NBA player is a good comparison for him. He plays big and physical, but he's got a ridiculous first step to get past almost anyone. Always has his head up. Rarely turns it over. He's special.

Ha ha. After our first-round debacle, I was trying to explain to my wife what a colossal humiliation of a loss that was. "We got 3 or 4 guys who are going to get looks in the NBA, and they lost to a bunch of future youth pastors and mattress salesmen." My wife: "Well, that's great for that team, right? I mean, just think about how great that is for those play..." Me: "Just fucking stop. Just stop."

Tired of hearing about this UCLA hangover bullshit. Gonzaga played a hot 11-seed and got taken to the wire. Baylor played a hot 2-seed and ran them out of the fucking gym before halftime.

This is about the 4th Gonzaga game I've watched, and no fucking way they go 30-0 in a real conference

I cannot take the sound of Joan Baez's voice for more than about 30 seconds. It's unbearable.