The Mid Missouri Drug Task Force had received information that 45-year-old Kevin Jones, appropriately nicknamed “Bluntman,” was planning to sell marijuana during the Gathering of the Juggalos. This tip was confirmed on the festival’s website, where a listing for Bluntman’s One Stop Shop said it had been supplying everything from “blunt wraps to bongs, papers, pipes and lighter fluid” for over 20 years.
I grew up like two miles down the road from Legend Valley, where the Grateful Dead played regularly for years, where Lost Lands is hosted every year and also where the Gathering of the Juggalos has been hosted most of the time for the last two decades. I have definitely bought weed off this guy. It's not in Ohio this year, but needless to say, I've Gathered a lot in my day and it's always a great fucking time.
Obviously in order to be a real music festival, there HAS to be a few sketchy guys advertising various drugs for sale on crusty old cardboard signs. But cruising around in a beat up pickup truck and breaking a bunch of traffic laws all willy nilly is probably not the best way to keep a low profile while you attempt to smuggle in over 100lbs of weed and mushrooms.
The ancient, world renowned philosophers known as Twiztid put it best when they said, "Gimme gimme green leafs laced up with hashish,
When your ridin' dirty, watch for police."
Japanese nature photographer Pendora shared footage of tiny pink globular springtails launching themselves so quickly that they seem to teleport. These Sminthurides springtails use a forked, tail-like appendage known as a furcula, which snaps against the surface to propel them away.
Honestly I couldn't care less about the teleporting thing; this is the cutest bug I've ever seen in my life 🥰
CHP used the traffic stop as an opportunity to remind motorists that driving too slowly can be just as hazardous as speeding. “Remaining in the passing lane while traveling significantly below the flow of traffic can create congestion, frustration, and increase the risk of unsafe lane changes and possibly crashes,” CHP stated.
If you're going 50-something in the left lane when the speed limit is 65 or 70mph, I'm going to ride your ass so hard we both might die. And as soon as I get an opportunity to pass you in the right lane, I'm going to cut you off so close we both might die. I'm pretty fucking laid back about literally everything else in life but this.
Tech will also have to face a growing disdain among young people toward anything AI-coded. Nearly half of US adults aged 18 to 29 now believe the tech does more harm than good, up from 27% in 2024, a recent Gallup poll showed, even as AI usage among young people has ticked up. Luddite clubs are popping up on college campuses. And it’s not just Americans putting a premium on authenticity: An animated movie is taking off in China this week in part because it’s not made by AI, and instead was done with old-school, amateur 3D modeling by a mother-son duo.
I don't totally hate AI but it does always bring a single tear of joy to my eye seeing kids go full Luddite. I've said it before and I'll say it again: we got way too much tech way too fast. I am all about stopping and poking our heads up for a breath of air; simply living in the moment every once in a while instead of going all in on a world of unlimited growth and never leaving well enough alone. The kids are alright.
Be authentic. Make shitty art. Write bad blog posts. That's my whole schtick lately and it works out alright. There is no replacement for human-made and low-tech things and I'm glad a lot of that is coming back. Zines, blogs, dumb phones, regular old wristwatches, Polaroids, vinyl, even cassettes and CDs. You don't have to be a hipster, but it's fun to check out some of the old stuff we traded away for an always-online 6" rectangle in our pockets.
Man, our fucking basement flooded last night. A lot of places in central Ohio got a ton of rain in a short amount of time last night. I've already been through all the stages of grief and a fifth of Irish whiskey by now. After everything is said and done, I:
- 1.
Know how to spell 'squeegee' correctly now
- 2.
own a pretty nice 10-gallon DeWalt shop vac
- 3.
am actually pretty fucking proficient with a squeegee
- 4.
understand the mechanics of a sump pump
Life is fucking stupid sometimes. We at least got some quality time with the kids and gave the basement a much needed deep cleaning. Come at me bro; I faced a million spiders and a little bit of water in a dank spooky basement today.