A Case Of Gray

The Trayvon Martin shooting is a case that you just can not simplify in to talking points. I am researching this and am finding it  hard to get factual information as opposed to commentary but the more I find out, the more my opinion has shifted. MSNBC (especially Al Sharpton) has already convicted Zimmerman and Fox has already exonerated him and they are doing it by selective reporting of facts. To their credit, some commentators on both channels have condemned the trial by media. 

Neither Zimmerman nor Martin were choirboys and both made several STUPID decisions that resulted in the tragedy.  Martin has publicly referred to himself as a gangsta. He was into mixed martial arts and has been in trouble for fighting. He has cell phone and Facebook photos of himself holding a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic hand gun, which is illegal due to his age. Characterizing him as just a teenage boy walking home with tea and skittles, while factually correct, is a little misleading. Zimmerman also had a past conviction for assault on an undercover policeman in a bar during a sting op for underage drinking. All of that information has been disallowed by the judge, and for some reason not being reported all that much in the mainstream media. 

Regardless of how it is reported on any given outlet, there are some indisputable (or at least nearly indisputable) facts to be considered.

As a Concealed Carry Permit holder, Zimmerman had an ethical (but not legal) duty to avoid putting himself in a situation where he may need to use his weapon. He pursued Martin, even after being told by the 911 operator "We don't need you to do that". Zimmerman's actions were absolutely stupid and reckless. HOWEVER, when adding up all of the witness accounts, 911 calls, autopsy results and physical evidence so far, I have come to a few logical conclusions. Most importantly, that Trayvon Martin physically attacked Zimmerman and he did not do it because he was scared. He did it because he was mad and considers himself a badass. It makes no logical sense that Zimmerman started the fight because no one in their right mind that carries a gun would instigate a physical fight with another person and risk loss of weapon retention.

Zimmerman clearly did not track Martin down to shoot him in cold blood because he was the one who called the police. A shallow case could be made that he was trying to fake an alibi with the call but I'm going with Occam's Razor here. Martin had a phone but did not attempt to call for help. He was on the phone with his girlfriend. She says he stated to her that he was being followed and was scared, however there is no confirmation of that and it seems to go against what is known of Trayvon's personality prior to the shooting.

Zimmerman had not presented his weapon before the attack. Regardless of what anyone thinks of smoking pot, it is illegal in Florida and the autopsy showed that Martin had smoked it recently but I don't think anyone, high or not, is crazy enough to start a physical attack on a person that has a gun pointed at them. There is no question that the scuffle began a good 30 seconds before the gun was fired. 

Martin had only two injuries, the fatal gunshot wound and an abrasion on his finger consistent with a closed-fist punch. Most eyewitnesses put Martin on top of, and beating Zimmerman, not the other way around. Zimmerman had a broken nose, facial fracture, cuts to the back of his head and his shirt was grass-stained on the back. 

No one can really tell who's voice is screaming or if it is indeed calling for help. The screaming stops at the point of the gunshot so it is consistent with either Martin stopping the screaming because he was mortally wounded or Zimmerman stopping the screaming because he no longer feared Martin. It makes more sense to me that it is Zimmerman yelling because he is being beaten and is sure that if Martin gets his firearm then he's toast.  If it is Martin screaming I suppose it's possible that he realized Zimmerman was armed and then feared for his life, knowing then that if Zimmerman got control of that firearm then he would likely be shot - which is exactly what happened. 

From a legal standpoint, I believe the prosecution has overcharged Zimmerman. He had a permit to carry the gun. While inadvisable, it is not illegal to follow someone that you believe to be engaged in nefarious activity even if that suspicion is erroneous and born of some level of racism. It is not illegal to ask a stranger what they are doing. The first illegal action in this event was Trayvon Martin physically attacking Zimmerman. IF at that point, Zimmerman feared for his life, he was entirely within his right to defend himself with his firearm.

Both of these men could have prevented this tragedy. While he had no legal obligation to do so, Zimmerman could and should  have stayed in his car and waited for the police. And while Martin was doing nothing illegal at that time, and had a perfect right to be where he was, he could have simply told Zimmerman where he lived and that he was just walking home OR simply ignored him and continued home. I believe that if he had done so, Zimmerman would not have drawn nor fired his weapon and Martin would be alive today.

I think a more appropriate charge would have been 3rd degree voluntary manslaughter or maybe even involuntary manslaughter. I'm not sure if the jury can reduce charges but if they can't, I do not believe they will convict Zimmerman on 2nd degree murder. I could be wrong, I famously and embarrassingly blew it when I predicted the 1st degree murder conviction of OJ Simpson on the silly assumption that the jury was intelligent and impartial. I also lost 5 bucks on that one so I'm not betting this time.

In any case, it is fruitless to try and define this as a black and white case. It is very, very gray.

Off the Waterfront

In the early 1990s George Herbert Walker Bush was President, “Roseanne” was the number one comedy on television and my band SingSing was still a starving cover band playing on the bar circuit across the Midwest. Our first show was at a fine drinking establishment called The Waterfront in the Southeastern Iowa town of Ottumwa. The place was a bit dusty and set up in a rather awkward way with the bar about eight feet from the front of the stage but having been in the bar band business since I was sixteen years old, I had seen a lot worse. We always seemed to pull in a good crowd there and they seemed more than satisfied with the setlist of Zeppelin, Van Halen and Rush tunes so the Waterfront became a regular rotation for us.

There are a lot of memories attached to that venue and that city that should probably remain untold until certain statutes of limitation expire but the following is one that stands out and is almost fit to print.

Our favorite hotel in Ottumwa was a fairly nice historic place downtown. Our limited budget required us to stack three or four potential rock stars into each room. I’m not sure everyone is aware of this but rock bands have a reputation for crazy antics like nailing furniture to the ceilings of hotel rooms or throwing the TV out the window. OK you’re right everyone is aware of that.... or has at least been exposed to the stereotype. I can tell you this, no television ever plummeted to it’s death at the hands of myself or any of my droogs but your average hotel guest with a normal sleep schedule probably would not have wanted to be our neighbor. I do recall driving remote control cars, playing hacky-sack and chipping golf balls in the hallways during the witching hours. As a result the management, not having evidence of crimes rising to the level of eviction decided to simply move us to an “annex” of sorts. It was a building behind the one next door that instead of carpeted indoor corridors was essentially a motel type structure with doors that opened directly to the parking lot. Beyond the parking lot was a nice little grassy park.

This may also come as a shock but working rock musicians tend to have a schedule that encourages them to sleep until noon. One morning, (OK noon) in the motel we awoke to a commotion outside. After some yawning, stretching and eye-rubbing we opened the door to a very crowded motel parking lot.

There were some trucks, some police cars and what appeared to be some movie cameras with crews running around. One of my band mates said ‘Hey, isn’t that Sally Kellerman, the actress?”. The name sounded familiar but I had no idea what she looked like so I just shrugged. My guitarist and lead singer smacked me on the arm as he pointed out actor Bill Bixby and said, “There’s Eddie’s Father”. Then we noticed a couple standing there, arm in arm, dressed in denim. It was Roseanne and Tom Arnold.

Some may not remember but Roseanne had married Tom Arnold and awkwardly worked him into her extremely popular sitcom. At the time they were two of the biggest TV stars in the country. Bill Bixby had been known for his roles on “My Favorite Martian” in the 60s, “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” in the 70s and as David Banner on “The Incredible Hulk” program in the 80s. At the time, he was the director for the sitcom “Blossom”.

As it turned out they were filming a movie originally entitled “Gracedland” about a woman obsessed with Elvis Presley. Bill Bixby was the director. Tom Arnold was a native of Ottumwa so they decided to shoot the film there. Roseanne was playing the Elvis obsessed woman and Tom, her on again, off again husband.

After we had gotten our fill of gawking around at the circus and the celebrities we sort of withdrew back into the room to go about our business but left the door open. Now, think about what a room looks like after three or four musicians live in it for a week, throwing their dirty clothes everywhere, piles of guitars stacked around, wardrobe trunks, empty soda cans, our remote control cars, dumbbell weights, golf clubs and all the other assorted crap we carried with us on the road. It looked like an episode of “Hoarders” and I’m not so sure it smelled like Spring flowers either.

At some point Bixby walks up to the sidewalk along the front of the motel and stops at the open door of our room. “Oh this is perfect!” he shouts and motions to Tom, Roseanne and some of the camera crew. Can we use your room for some shots?” he asks. We were happy to oblige and told him to give us a few minutes to clean it up. “No, No, No” he says, “It’s perfect just like this. So we file out of our room and in goes Tom and Roseanne. followed by a cameraman with a smaller camera. Apparently they just wanted some still shots to be photos in the background of the set inside the character’s house.

After that, the crew started wrapping things up and clearing out. Tom was very personable and asked about our band, where we were playing and so on. Roseanne piped up and volunteered him to bring his harmonica down to the Waterfront and jam with us at the show that night. This was after the incident where Roseanne butchered the National Anthem at a Padres/Reds baseball game so I mentioned that and asked if she might want to get up and sing a tune. I chatted with Bixby for a few seconds and he seemed like a kind and humble guy. As he walked away I asked if he was coming too and he said, something like it was a long day and he was going to retire to his room for the night. He did look and act totally worn out by then.

Johnny, our guitarist said, “Hey I’m gonna ask her for an autograph” I think myself and several of the other guys were standing there and begged him not to but he did it anyway as she was walking away. “Roseanne, can I get your autograph?” Without missing a beat she turned her head only about halfway and yelled FUCK NO!” We all died laughing, including Johnny.

Alas, Neither Tom or his harmonica or any of the celebs showed up at our gig that night. We got over it.

I’m not exactly sure why but ultimately the movie title was changed to “The Woman Who Loved Elvis”. My guess is that it was to get around a trademark scrap with Priscilla Presely who was running the Graceland Mansion for profit. The movie aired on TV on one of the major networks. I didn’t see it when it aired. I did finally watch it about 4 years go when I found a DVD of it in a pawn shop. I expected it to be a comedy but instead it attempted to be a drama. Tom and Roseanne really did a nice job with the acting but the story was a complete bore. Hopefully this story was not.

Six months later on the set of “Blossom”, Bill Bixby collapsed. He died a few days later. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and knew he was going to die on that day when we met him though he kept it a secret for months after that.

It’s a Mad Mad Mad Small World

In 1992 I lived with my then girlfriend Melinda in Ruskin Heights, a lower middle class neighborhood of crackerbox houses in SouthEast Kansas City. It was during the runup toward the zenith of my hair-band heyday and I was in the middle of producing the first and unfortunately only, release by my band SingSing.

Having returned from Hollywood several months earlier and without a record deal, despite some serious help from the notoriously eccentric music mogul, Kim Fowley, the band decided to simply do it ourselves. We formed an independent label and set up an office in my house to be the headquarters and which would mainly be manned by myself, my girlfriend and sometimes her friend Karen.

At this point you might be thinking this is a story about the music business. Nope - This story is about a phone number. It’s a phone number I remember well, but not one I’ll print here out of courtesy for whomever owns the number now.

The newly formed vanity record label needed a phone of course and the Southwestern Bell man came and hooked us up. As I was arranging some things on the desk after the phone technician left the new phone rang. My excitement that our new record label phone was ringing nose-dived a split second later when I realized that no one relevant to the music business could possibly know this number yet. I figured I could use the practice so I answered professionally anyway “Lexic Recording and Distribution Company, how may I direct your call?” Sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t it?

The voice on the other end was woman. “May I speak to Delesha Williams Please?” I told her there was no Delesha Williams here and she must have the wrong number. “Is this 765-XXXX?” I confirmed that it was the correct number and reiterated that I knew no one by that name. She thanked me and hung up.

Unfortunately, that was only the first of over one hundred phone calls we received on the record label phone line for Ms. Delesha Williams. It was a name I would hear over and over again for the next few years. Most of the calls were from retail establishments. Best Buy, Sears, Dollar General Store, but mostly clothing stores. Some of the callers were clearly angry. Many accused me of lying to protect this woman. Apparently the woman ( or possibly someone using her name) was passing bad checks as fast as she could write ‘em & rip ‘em and she had imprinted OUR phone number on the check. My guess is that she perhaps owned the number prior to it being assigned to our line.

The calls became more frequent as time went on and more annoying after the release of the SingSing album as the line became extremely important to our career. I had nailed down a distribution deal with Relativity Records. Our first single was getting a modest amount of airplay coast to coast in medium and small markets. I had calls coming in and going out to and from radio promoters and a new deal with Infinity Records in Great Britain for distribution in Europe and Asia. There was just no way we could be letting any call go to the answering machine so every time that line rang, somebody, usually myself or Melinda had to make a dash for it and answer sounding like a professional. It seemed like every third call was from a retail store calling the number on Delesha Williams’ bounced check. It was too late to try to change the number lest we miss a life changing business call.

At some point I began asking more detailed questions of each new call. I got a vague description of the woman as an early twenties African-American woman, usually alone, sometimes accompanied by an African-American man. I got the address from the check. At the time, there was no Google but being something of a computer geek I got a copy of a street mapping software and a complete listing of US phone numbers on CD.

I tracked the listed address but found it to be bogus as well. I searched the phone database but found no Delesha Williams. So I started searching for any WIlliams in Kansas City with the same exchange. Then I spotted it. A “D Williams” with a phone number almost identical to ours with only the last two digits transposed. I called the number, a woman answered and I asked for Delesha Williams. She hesitated and then asked who I was. I simply said “my name is Bryan” and she hung up. I was pretty certain I had found the real Ms. Williams. With a little more detective work I got a real address. The calls for her to my phone line continued so I gave each bad check victim a short explanation of the situation and the real phone number and address of who I believed to be the perpetrator.

I also called the Kansas City Missouri Police Department. They told me that since I was not actually a recipient of a bad check and that the calls were coming from stores who were legitimately trying to collect on a bad check, there was nothing they could do for me but would pass the address and phone number I gave them to the check fraud unit.

I made one more call to the real phone number and I believe it was the same young woman answered. I said “If you are Delesha Williams, would you please get new bogus checks with a different bogus phone number imprinted on it because I’ve been dealing with phone calls from irate retailers looking for you for over a year”. At some point during that sentence the woman had hung up the phone.

SIngSing’s near stardom burned out shortly thereafter. A deal with Atlantic Records fell through. Tensions escalated between members and after being forced back to playing cover songs in smokey bars we disbanded in April 1995. I kept the phone number on and used it for my own short lived record label, BPM. I released two records by artists Motherlode and London Drive. Those records sold pretty well but after little airplay in the US and losing a lot of money I retired completely from the music business in 1996. The calls about Ms. Williams bad checks continued, although with less regularity on the record company line until it was disconnected. Melinda and I split in 1997.

Jump ahead five years. It's June 2001. The music business was a distant memory and the name Delesha Williams had not popped into my head for years. I’m married to a different woman and living in Blue Springs Missouri. I had done fairly well after starting my own Apple Computer consulting company. As I’m sitting in my recliner, writing some database software and listening to the local news on television something caught my ear. There had been a brutal murder in Kansas City. The police spokesman said it was one of the most brutal murders he had ever investigated. The victim?.... a Miss Delesha Williams of South Kansas City.

The murderers were apprehended and went to prison. News of the legal proceedings were all but buried following the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. I believe this murder likely would have gained national attention otherwise because of the sheer heinousness of the crime. As it turns out, the murderers were either friends or acquaintances of hers that she had actually invited into her home. She was kidnapped, bludgeoned with a hammer and stabbed. The men who attacked her then tried to strangle her with a lamp cord, inject her by hypodermic with cleaning fluid and when she still wouldn't die, they ran over her multiple times with the U-Haul truck they used to load up the television and furniture that they had stolen from her home.

I can only assume this is the same Delesha Williams. I suppose it’s possible that she was simply a victim of identity theft by some other person. After all, the phone number and address were bogus. Her demise did seem to be a direct result of the company that she kept. Either way, for all of the aggravation this woman caused by transposing two digits of her phone number on her bogus checks, she didn’t deserve what happened to her in her last hour on Earth.

The following is the only information about the murder I could find currently online. It is a document for an unsuccessful appeal for one of the murderers.

http://www.kscourts.org/cases-and-opinions/opinions/supct/2005/20050909/89706.htm

A blog about nothing

It's been nearly a year since I made the first and so far, only post to my blog. Finding the time has been somewhat difficult. It's been a big year. I've gotten involved in a relationship that actually seems to be working. In my work, I've upgraded to a larger High Performance aircraft and taken on an even more active role in the company operations. But the main reason for the temporary abandonment of the blog is that I've been debating what the direction and focus of it should be. Do I focus on my current life as a pilot? Or my former career in the entertainment biz? Maybe I go totally political. How about religion, or my complete lack thereof. Whatever I do it must be able to maintain the interest of at least a few readers.

I was a huge fan of the situation comedy Seinfeld in the 1990s. The tagline was, "It's a show about nothing". Every episode was clearly about something but defining the show as being "undefinable" gave it endless possibilities. The writers were not constrained to any baseline theme and could get as bizarre as they wanted in order to remain interesting(and funny).

So that's what I'll attempt to do with this blog. It's a blog about nothing... well nothing in particular. That's not to say I won't touch on some very serious or sensitive subjects but I won't write until I think I have something interesting to say. And remember - it's free so if you are not entertained then I'll refund your money.

Stay tuned.

Finding the courage to be interesting

When I decided to do this I started browsing random blogs. I started to wonder who on Earth could possible give a shit that this person just went grocery shopping or that person has 2.4 "amazing" kids that just did the cutest thing. Everyone thinks their own kids are amazing and most everyone shops for groceries. Then I found someone who had won the lottery. OK, now that could be interesting. How has their sudden millionaire status affected their life and relationships? The most intriguing blogs however were from people who seemed to be entirely uninhibited about telling the truth, no matter how dark or personal or embarrassing it might be. Sure, to some extent it's a car wreck that I had to slow down and take a look at, but mostly I was just impressed and a little jealous of that kind of courage. My hope is that maybe I clock in somewhere between grocery shopping and winning the PowerBall on the wow meter. But here's the thing - it ain't costing either of us a dime. If I'm boring, stop reading. It won't hurt my feelings, I swear.

I have had a colorful career. Currently I am a commercial pilot working for an aerial mapping company. I'm originally from the Kansas City area but I travel the United States in a single engine Cessna doing all that nifty "satellite" photography you see when you try to find your house in one of those online map applications. Actually, I am not a photographer at all. I fly the airplane. There is an on-board computer that tells me where to fly and controls a pretty high-tech camera array. I do get the chance to snap some cool pics with my own digital camera.

I spent many years in the music business. Drummer, then bassist, songwriter, recording artist, engineer, producer. The whole time, convinced I'd be a rock star. I have played in arenas, in cities where I had sold a significant number of records, where the radio stations were spinning our single and the crowd was singing my lyrics back to me. Not everyone that dreams of being a rock star is able to experience that and I wouldn't trade it for the world. But, as it turns out I'd have to settle for being a semi-success (or a semi-failure). Selling 30,000 copies of a release in pre-iTunes 1994, while nothing to sneeze at, was not nearly enough to make a dent in the industry. Still, there are stories to be told from that era. The question is, Do I have the courage to be interesting? How much can I tell from those days without hurting feelings, wrecking relationships, embarrassing myself and alienating myself from people in the music biz. I may have to change names to protect the innocent and the guilty.

I am also politically outspoken and that presents a danger as well. I recently lost a friend to a political disagreement, although I suppose one could look at that as Darwinistic, inevitable, necessary.

I guess we'll see how this experiment works. If you are still with me, THANK YOU. I'll try not to waste your time.

Bryan